Later, Audrey tells me that Olivia has been waking up every twenty minutes with Zoe and when Zoe wakes up, Chloe wakes up, and even Olivia—the Stanford-educated corporate lawyer on the partner track with the closetful of power suits that she’ll fit right back into when her leave is over—is sloppy and dizzy with sleeplessness. Only worse, because Olivia has the type of immigrant mother who calls every day and asks what Olivia has done to make her proud. She must project that she has it together. Audrey, meanwhile, looks like an unmade bed lately. Sloane is always throwing a tantrum. I ask Audrey if it’s colic. “No, the doctor said she’s too old to be colicky,” she says. No one can figure out if Sloane is tired or hungry or gassy or just an asshole.
Audrey parks the UppaBaby in the corner where they keep the deflated exercise balls and takes a bottle of lactose-free milk out, peeling the tinfoil lid off with her teeth. She pours it into a bottle and sticks it in Sloane’s mouth. Sloane stops crying for fifteen minutes, while Audrey feeds her with one hand and plays Wordle with the other.
Marcela arrives with Noah. She is serious, speaking Spanish into an earpiece. (“¿Cuánto están pagando? ¿Quantos los niños?”) I wave her over to sit by me. Brit is singing “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” as she tries to calm a restless Quinn on the Pop ’N Go Baby Playmat. “Allegorical cats, metaphorical cats…” What Brit doesn’t say is that last week Quinn crawled off and she found her chewing on the end of a pediatric rectal thermometer; luckily it was the right end. Brit doesn’t like it here either. She just hides it under show tunes. “Cynical cats, rabbinical cats…”
I pounce. “Did y’all sign up for 527 Park?”
“I was wait-listed,” Olivia says.
“Same,” Audrey says, still trying to find a five-letter word that starts withM.
Olivia looks at me. “Can you help?”
Olivia needed my help? Olivia, of matching sports bra sets and a jogging stroller and two kids under two, needed my help? “I’ll see what I can do,” I say.
“Do you know if I can leave Quinn? Is it like a drop-off thing or we have to stay there?” Brit asks.
Audrey declares, “MAMBO,” to no one in particular.
“I think it’s whatever you need, honestly? If you have something to do, leave the kid,” I tell them.
“Leave my angel? Never. Not even for a second,” Audrey says, deadpan.
I pick up a tambourine and jiggle it at Holden. “Hey, Mr. Tambourine man. I actually have a place to go. I have a Park Avenue apartment and free air-conditioning…”He coos, filling me with hope that he will have exceptional musical taste and never go to a music festival just to hang in the desert.
—
I started to feel exhilarated by the recruitment process. Now I understood all of those MLM moms in Midwestern suburbs. I had my eye on Diamond Ambassador status. I skip physical therapy and hit up the Bugaboo moms at Mandarin story time. I make my way around the circle in the little park on Elizabeth Street with “We’re headed to 527 Park after this…” and “Oh? You haven’t signed up yet?” “Yeaaaaahhh, I think there’s a long wait list.” I’ve perfected the sales pitch. It rolls off my tongue.
The Caribbean nannies aren’t onJuju Bean, so I printed flyers. “The space isn’t just for moms,” I tell them. They raise their eyebrows and give one another looks, skeptical. Priscilla, who is the grand nanny of the Trinidadian caregivers, takes the flyer and reads the address. “Upper East Side, huh?” she says.
“It’s more like the Middle East Side, in the fifties.”
“Too far,” Priscilla declares, using a single hand to toss a baby girl out of the stroller and over her shoulder to burp, second nature.
Because I speak some Spanish and eat Marcela’s pupusas, she is more receptive. “Pero…” I knew there was a “but” coming…She’s taking another job. Noah will be in preschool soon, and she worries his parents will cut her hours. She’s about to get a newborn. “But you love Noah,” I say. Of course, Marcela does not love Noah. She mightlikeNoah. She might find him adorable and squeezable. As far as babies go, Noah is admittedly cute. But Marcela loves her own children and grandchildren. The ones she put through college and medical school by caring for other women’s children. The ones whose photos she shows me each week. The ones Noah is inadvertently supporting.
I park Holden’s stroller next to Noah’s and sit down with Marcela. She offers me jicama with chili powder and lime. It feels good to crunch down hard on the papery sticks. Being with Marcela puts going back to work in perspective. I know that behind every sad story of a caregiver who leaves her own family to take care of someone else’s family, there is an even sadder story back home. “I’ll miss you. Where’s the new baby?” I ask.
“Brooklyn Heights,” Marcela says. It will be a longer commute from Corona (“three trains”) but it’s more money.
“More money is good.” I tell Marcela that I have to go back to work soon. Kathy in HR approved my request for medical disability, giving me an extra two months of unpaid leave, but even that would be up soon. I can’t tell anyone how terrified I am about going back. Not Daisy, who would think my job is lame and beneath me. Not Roman, who worries about our 401(k) and is stressed about his own job. Not Penelope, who would just tell me to quit. But I tell Marcela. I tell her how much I wish I could never go back.
“It’ll be okay, mami,” she says. She asks if I found a nanny.
“Kind of? My best friend, Daisy, is going to help me out, just untilI can find something more permanent. You met her? At Mandarin story time?”
Marcela’s distracted now, with Noah crying for his pacifier. “¡No más chupete!” Marcela says, grabbing it away as he bawls. “You’re too old, papi. It will rot your dientes. ¿Entiendes? ¿Sí o no? ¿Sí o no?”
I get up to leave, but before I do, I give Marcela a hug. “Thank you,” I say, and she knows I am not talking about the jicama or the pupusas.
“Para nada,” Marcela says, pushing Noah over the gravel. “Cuídate mucho.” Take good care of yourself.
“Igualmente,” I say, walking in the other direction.
I briefly glance back at Marcela. I’ve never had to leave my baby to take care of someone else’s. Never had to miss my own child’s birthday to clean purple icing from someone else’s toddler’s face. Never had to spend weekends in line at Western Union. Love in the form of a cash remittance. I try to remind myself of Marcela’s sacrifices as I prepare to go back to work in the cubicle in Midtown East so that I can afford to pay a caregiver to spend afternoons at the park with my baby, which is what I will wish I were doing. But what if I didn’t? What if there was another way?
Chapter Twenty-One
