[23] Unity, visible or not

Before I left for the studio this morning, she called me into the bedroom. She was with her pants around her ankles. ‘I need those,’ she declared, and pointed to her pants drawer. I helped her step out of the old ones and into new ones, then drew them up her legs until she could reach them. Nod thanks from her. No problem, dear, and kicked the old ones under the bed. The Aaronsons’ maid must have helped her before this.

Now you see what I mean about pride – about how much of a weight it can be when you have to push it ahead of you instead of dragging it behind you. It’s going to be for a long time much harder to be Emma than to be me. It would have been hard enough being a mother without all the rest – living with the body the doctors left her and with whatever the Rosemeyrs’ workshop was about. At least her breakdown night has stopped deafening us both, and the world is starting to sound again like the day we’re in. Now she’s carried Johnny into the kitchen basket and lowered him gently into his bassinette with a sad look into herself and put a bottle in the pan on the stove to feed him in the studio. She’s stepping out of a funk the night left her this morning – what did she dream? – and now I can see her straightening up as if she’s tilting a load from her back, forcing a moment of the day to bend to her will, her will to stare down at her child. Just from the way she holds herself, we’re okay.