Jean invited us over, to meet the baby, M said. We’ll swing by his apartment this weekend, it’s right on the lake! You’ll love it. But we need a gift. You should get to know Polina, he said, dipping his head into the kitchen, coming for a second close to me. He smelled like soap and toothpaste. He smelled so good. You guys could get together, hang out, he said. You must need someone to talk to, he said, cooped up here alone all day.

I need you, I need you here to help me, I said. I need you here with me in this apartment, I need you here at night. But he couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear me because I didn’t want him to hear me and I was saying all that into the empty coffee cup, muttering. M wasn’t speaking quietly, his words swarmed up the walls and over me, charging, and taking charge. Black ink and capital letters. Sorry, what’s that? he said, but his phone rang and he had to go. I had to go too. B was crying. I’d left him alone in his crib by the sofa in my hurry to make M coffee. E had hurt her toe pulling out a chair at the table. She was pulling on my shirt, needed ice, needed looking after.

Talking on the phone, M kissed me on the cheek and left, see you tonight, he said. I’ll probably be back late. Love you guys.

I knew that he felt lucky that he had me to watch over E, to take care of B. I knew that he felt that what I was doing was difficult and important. Indispensable.

The door closed behind him. I dumped the boiling coffee down the sink and the pipe steamed and gurgled and belched out a rotting smell and for a moment I just stood there by the sink, breathing in that smell and feeling something turning over inside me.

More February

Three children sliding on the ice

upon a summer’s day -

it so fell out, they all fell in.

The rest they ran away.

Now, had these children been at home

or sliding on dry ground,

ten thousand pounds to one,

they had not all been drowned.

You parents that have children dear,

pray keep them safe at home.

What a terrible song! I’m sorry I just can’t help it, singing it I mean, it’s stuck right in my head and I can’t get it out. Who sings that sort of thing to a child I can’t imagine. I only thought that maybe if I sang it just now it would help. Isn’t it true that sometimes, saying a thing is helpful when we’re trying to get it to leave us alone? Honestly though, it must have been written by a mother, that song I mean, who else imagines her children drowning under the ice in the middle of summer?

You know the woman who sleeps here? In the bed under the window? She’s getting her teeth cleaned right now. Or fixed maybe. They took her out this morning. They said maybe there’s a problem with her jaw and that’s why she won’t talk. Or maybe a problem with her teeth and that’s why she keeps her mouth closed all the time except when she’s asleep.