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I laughed brokenly. “Just getting some food,” I lied, picking up a pig-in-a-blanket. Trying to change the subject, I asked Lennox, “You go into the closet to think?”
“What?” Lennox poured herself pink lemonade from a glass pitcher. “Oh, yeah, that. Probably think I’m a weirdo.” Lennox smiled at me, taking a sip of the lemonade.
I shook my head. “No.” And honestly, I didn’t. I was just curious. Why did going into a closet help her think? As if she could read my mind, Lennox spoke.
“Sometimes my mind gets too loud. Everything from the walls to the lights exacerbates it and I just need…” She looked ahead of me, as if seeing something I couldn’t. “Quiet. The silence and darkness in the closet calms me down.” Lennox shrugged. “I stopped questioning it a while ago. There’s so much weirdness in my head that sometimes I just have to go with it, ya know?”
I nodded. I got it. Well, I didn’t totally get it. Locking myself in a closet would freak me out more than help me, but I understood just going with it. I understood feeling so overwhelmed that you stopped questioning what helped you. When things pile on faster than a Louisiana flood, you don’t question the lifeboat. You just get on and hope that it takes you someplace better.
“Oh my god!” Both Lennox and I turned our heads to see Lissie standing up, a half-opened present on the ground. Her face was a mixture of fear and excitement as she stared wide-eyed at her phone.
“What? What is it?” Zoe jumped up with her.
“Margaret is going into labor!” Lissie squealed.
“What? Right now?” Zoe stood in front of Lissie, hands on both of her arms, trying to get her attention.
“Yes right now!” Lissie looked around her, the excitement too much to process. “She just texted me. She’s on her way to the hospital!” Excited murmuring broke out among the crowd.
“I’ll get you a cab,” Lennox said, stepping away from me.
“Our overnight bag…” Zoe trailed off, looking a little lost.
“We’re having a baby! Oh my god we’re having a baby! It’s going to be here, it’s going to be alive and in our arms. Oh my god! Oh my god!” Lissie fell back on to the couch, her chest rising and falling fast.
“I’ll walk you out and grab your overnight bag on the way.” Lennox took both Zoe and Lissie by the arms, leading them out of the apartment.
“We’re having a baby,” Zoe said as they walked through the door.
“You’re having a baby,” Lennox repeated. I closed my eyes at their happiness, willing my memories to stay buried.
“How many does Vic want?” I asked, throwing away the trays of unfinished food. Lennox was back but the party had cleared out. I stayed behind to help her clean and our conversation turned to babies—the baby shower, the baby decorations, and the baby probably had something to do with it.
“Jesus, like five. And I’m like five? One tops.” Lennox paused, a piece of torn wrapping paper in her hand, and laughed. “No not even one. Half of one is all I could manage.”
I laughed. “Half? What’s half a child?”
“I’d imagine a boarding school child,” Lennox said, shrugging. “I’d send it away from my crazy and see it on the holidays.”
“You’re crazy?” The question fell out of my mouth before I realized how intrusive it was.
“I’m bipolar,” Lennox explained. “Most days it’s a win for me to just get out of the fucking bed. It’s a home run if I put on any decent clothing at all.”
I gawked at her. “That’s ridiculous. Look at you! You’re gorgeous and all done up.”
Lennox laughed. “You say the nicest things. Look closely. My nails are a mess, bitten unevenly with the paint torn off. I’m only wearing a little lip gloss. Why? Because I was too depressed to put on makeup today. I’m wearing a dress because I was too tired to put on underwear.” Lennox paused, looking around at the mess of wrapping paper and balloons before continuing. “My point is, Grace, you see what you want to see. You’re comparing yourself to a version of me that doesn’t add up to reality. That’s okay, though, because…” Lennox laughed softly. “Shit, what even is reality? I’m taking pills that are supposed to give me the answer and even I can’t tell you.”
“You own your business, though.” I’d overheard her talking with Zoe and Lissie. They owned some kind of event planning business. I hadn’t gotten the specifics, but I’d heard enough to know that Lissie and Zoe’s maternity leave was causing Lennox stress. “You’re successful with great friends and a great life.”
Lennox choked on her spit. “I wouldn’t say it like that, but I’m not completely hopeless. It took me a long while to get to this point. A long while. With a lot—and I mean a metric fuck ton—of missteps and mistakes along the way. My deepest fear, dear Grace, is that I’ll impart my crazy to my child.”
I thought back to Daddy. “Like your genetics?”
Lennox
laughed. “No. I could handle a crazy child. I fear that I’ll, I don’t know, go crazy and hurt my child. Not like drown it in the bathtub crazy; I don’t think I could ever do that. Something more subversive, more insidious. I fear that I’ll just mentally mess up my child. I don’t think I’ll ever be a fit mom.”
I nodded, still thinking about Daddy. “Vic doesn’t agree?”
