“Hey,” I said. “You’re up early.”

She tilted her head. “I like it when it’s quiet.”

I nodded, knowing what she meant.

“You want to go get coffee?”

Curling my arm around my bucket, I said, “I’ve actually got an appointment.”

“So early,” Kimmie mused. “Bootie call?”

I shook my head, still startled and charmed by this new sense of humor, a raunchiness I’d never suspected when we were filing applications or sharing snacks in the student center. “No bootie for me.”

“So, what?” She gave me an assessing look. “Not a class.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not the only senior in the world dumb enough to take a nine o’clock. It’s a. .” I struggled for a moment. “A doctor’s appointment.”

I expected more questions, but Kimmie just nodded. “You want company?”

“Oh, I…” I opened my mouth to tell her no thanks, but somehow, what came out was “That would be great.”

Twenty minutes later, Kimmie and I had liberated a pair of bicycles and were pedaling through Princeton’s quiet streets, on our way to the clinic. “Are you sick?” she asked.

“I’m not sick,” I said. “I’m selling my eggs.”

She nodded. The wind blew her long hair back from her forehead. The bike that she’d taken had a metal carrier over the back wheels, and she’d stowed her violin and her backpack in there.

“I need the money,” I continued. I wasn’t sure if it was the hormones or the impending procedure, which would mark the end of my time at Princeton, but I suddenly needed to tell somebody my story.

“Loans?” Kimmie asked when we’d pulled up to a stop sign. If you needed financial aid, the university’s endowment would cover your tuition, but plenty of students — me included — took out loans for living expenses, books and travel and meal plans.

“Well, yeah. And my dad’s sick. I’m trying to get money to help him.”

“What’s wrong with your father?” Before I could say anything, she turned, flicking one pigtail over her shoulder, and said, “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No. It’s okay. He’s…” I paused. I’d never said this out loud before, not to a stranger. “He’s an addict. I’m trying to get money so he can get into treatment.”

Kimmie nodded. She’d pulled ahead of me on her bike, so I couldn’t see her face. I wondered if she was shocked, or if somehow she’d guessed this about me.

Leslie, the clinic director, was waiting just behind the desk. “I’m glad you brought a friend,” she said. “You might be a little sore when it’s over.”

Kimmie frowned at this news, her thin eyebrows drawing together. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” She squeezed my hand with her small one, picked up a copy of Town & Country, and sat with her legs crossed like she was prepared to wait for hours — all day, if that’s what it took. I went to the cubicle, where I hung my jeans and T-shirt, folded my panties and socks, and changed into my gown. Ten minutes later I was on the table, a needle in my arm, chatting with the anesthesiologist about Princeton’s basketball team while a doctor in a surgical mask and magnifying glasses threaded a catheter through my fallopian tubes.

“A little pinch now,” the nurse murmured. “Gorgeous,” said the doctor, and tilted the screen to show me the eggs, a cluster of grapes. I watched as he plucked them, two, four, six, eight, ten.


ANNIE

Now that the boys were older, if I planned it right, I could have a little time every afternoon to myself. Spencer took a nap after lunch. He’d stay down for at least an hour, more if I was lucky, longer, if he’d had school that morning, and Frank Junior could be counted on to entertain himself with Legos for a while, playing some complicated game he’d made up involving soldiers and rocket ships and Woody from Toy Story as either the captain or the king. One sunny Tuesday afternoon in June, with Frank at work and Spencer in his crib, and Frank Junior with his soldiers lined up on the empty living room’s floor, I pulled a pound of ground beef out of the freezer, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped down the kitchen counters, which were so constantly sticky that I sometimes wondered if the tiles oozed sap. A peek at the clock showed that I still had a half hour. I could sneak into the shower, maybe even blow my hair dry. I’d seen myself in the mirror that morning and my heart had sunk as I’d pictured my sister, ironed and combed and perfectly put together.

“Mommy?”

I turned around to see Frank Junior looking at me. “Hello, little man.”

“Snack?”

I cut up an apple and poured goldfish crackers into a blue plastic bowl. He pouted. “Cookie?”

“Growing foods first.” I made myself a cup of tea and sat down across from him as he picked up his goldfish one at a time and sent them swimming into his mouth. Watching him, I wondered: How would my sons feel, watching my belly get bigger, watching me go off to the hospital and then come home empty-handed? Spencer wouldn’t notice — Spencer didn’t notice much of anything except Elmo and his big brother — but Frank Junior would have questions, and I’d have to figure out how to answer them.

“You want to go to the sprayground?”

He chewed, frowning. “Do we have to bring baby Spencer?”

“Yes, we have to bring Spencer. I can’t leave him home by himself. You know why.”

He nodded, reciting the words that I’d taught him. “The authorities would frown.”

“Right you are. And you should be nice to Spencer. You were a baby once, too.”

He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth. “Tell me the story.”

“Once upon a time,” I began. Frank Junior hopped out of his chair, circled the table, and hoisted himself into my lap. I snuggled him close, cupping my hand over the less scabbed of his knees, inhaling his little-boy scent, graham crackers and salt and baby shampoo. “Once upon a time you were a tiny seed in my belly. And you grew and grew and grew and grew, until you were…”

He joined in, smiling. He knew what came next, because I’d told this story so often. “Ripe like a plum!”

“Ripe like a plum. I went to the hospital, and out you came. You had no teeth. .” Frank Junior leaned his head against my chest, his knees digging into my thigh, holding still for what I thought might be the first time all day. I closed my eyes, loving the feeling of his body against mine, the rapid beat of his heart. Our days for cuddling were numbered. Soon he’d be too big to sit on his mama’s lap. “And you had a tiny little cloud of fuzzy black hair, and you cried. .” I stretched my mouth wide and did my best imitation of his peeps, “. . like you wanted to go back in.”

He smiled, holding my hand, counting the fingers — one, two, three, four, five. “I liked it in there.”

“You remember it?”

He nodded. “It was dark, except when you were talking. Then I could see the light.” He tilted his head, regarding me seriously. “You talk a lot, Mama.”

“Huh.” I wondered whether this could possibly be true, whether he actually could remember being inside of me.

“Tell the rest,” Frank prompted, twining his fingers through mine.

“Well, I bundled you up in a blue-and-pink-striped blankie, and I gave you a little snack…”

His mouth curved up at the corners. “Goldfishie crackers?”

“Not goldfishie crackers!” I said, making an indignant face. “You had no teeth! What kind of mommy would give crackers to a boy with no teeth?”

He nodded — this, too, was part of the story.

“And I looked at you all over,” I said, my eyes filling with tears, back in the moment again, the hospital smells, the bright morning light through the windows, Frank looking so puffed-up and proud as he held the baby for the first time. “From your toes to your knees to your sweet little belly to your neck to your chin to your forehead, and I gave you a kiss and I said to your daddy, ‘I guess we’ll bring him home, and name him. .’”

“Frank Junior!” With that, he was up and out of my lap, dashing toward the door for his scooter and the helmet I insisted on, for the park and the sprayground and the promise of a warm afternoon with maybe even an ice-cream sandwich on the way home. “Wake up, baby!” he hollered, his footsteps shaking the floor, and, on cue, I heard Spencer whimpering from the second floor. So much for my shower, I thought, but I didn’t mind much as I went up the stairs and scooped Spencer’s warm, sleepy, soggy-bottomed weight into my arms.

“Wet,” Spencer informed me, then plugged his thumb back into his mouth. I laid him on the changing table, pulled down his miniature khakis (copies of his brother’s, which were themselves copies of his dad’s pants), and unfastened his soaked diaper.

“We have to start talking seriously about that potty,” I said, wiping his bottom and the creases of his thighs. He nodded, the way he’d been nodding for months every time I brought up the topic of toilet training. I thought, again, of my sons as infants, as newborns. I’d loved being in the hospital: the nurses fussing around me, bringing me meals that I didn’t have to prepare, on dishes I wouldn’t have to wash; having someone make my bed and mop the floor and clean the bathroom every day. I didn’t even mind being woken up every three hours to have my temperature and blood pressure taken. It had been so long since I’d been the center of attention that way, since people were taking care of me instead of the other way around. When Spencer had arrived, after a brief but grueling labor, and they’d handed him to me after his bath, I’d seriously considered asking the nurses to keep him for an hour or two so I could grab a nap and eat my lunch. It had horrified me then, but it comforted me now. Maybe I’d feel nothing but relief at the chance to pass a new baby into the eager arms of another woman. . but would it really be that easy? Would I let go without a second thought, or would I hold the baby close, turning my face away, thinking, or even saying, No! Mine! Mine!