“There now,” my mother said, taking the empty glass back immediately. “That was not so difficult, was it?”
She walked to the sink to rinse the glass, her back turned to us, her shoulders relaxed and victorious.
Clara leaned her head back against the kitchen chair, her eyelids already fluttering as if a heavy weight were pulling them closed from the inside.
By six in the evening, the house had grown quiet again, the low light of dusk filtering through the dining room windows. My mother and I were setting the table for dinner, placing the heavy ceramic plates on the linen runner.
“Daniel,” my mother said, keeping her voice low so it would not carry down the hall toward the master bedroom. “We need to discuss a more permanent arrangement for the night feedings.”
“Clara wants to handle them,” I said, adjusting the fork beside my plate. “She says it helps her bond with him.”
“Clara is asleep on the sofa right now, and she did not even hear the baby when he woke up twenty minutes ago,” my mother said.
