Between Husbands and Friends by Thayer Nancy

Author:Thayer, Nancy [Thayer, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553391107
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

That weekend, Chip came down to visit his family and I went back to Sussex. Max had called to say he was so busy that he couldn’t come to Nantucket; he would try to come the next weekend. His voice on the phone had been dull, preoccupied, listless.

My own week had been lonely. Kate and Abby and Matthew and Margaret had coalesced into a kind of hive with the baby at the center. Twice I’d taken the M&Ms to the beach while Kate and Abby napped, but when we returned home they flew from my side to find the baby.

I know there is something mysterious and desirous about a nursing mother. There is something primitive and erotic and compelling about a woman with an infant, and Margaret was caught in the spell. At the back of my mind, I was glad. I wanted Margaret to see—to feel—the primal satisfaction of motherhood, so that she would want to have children, so that she would be a good, involved mother. It was possible she would not have the chance to observe this with me. I might never have another child. Certainly not if Max continued to be sexually numb.

Perhaps it was the unusual heat of that summer, or the humidity that lay over the island like a press, or perhaps it was the spell of a baby, but the six-year-olds were oddly indolent, happy to lie on the floor staring at Abby, or gazing at picture books, or pretending to be babies themselves. I had nothing they wanted. So when I suggested that I go to Sussex to visit Max for the weekend and leave Margaret with Chip and Kate, Kate agreed happily.

And so did Margaret.

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