Here She Lies

branches.
    “What’s with all the caterpillars?” I asked Julie.
    “What caterpillars?” She pushed Lexy, who laughed in delight.
    “There are hundreds of them. It’s disgusting.”
    “It’s the country, is what it is. We’ve got bugs.”
    “That’s why there’s no one else here,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    “But she’s having so much fun. And honestly, A, do you really want to go back to the house already?” The house. The way she said it, I knew what she meant. Going back to the house meant going back to Zara’s murder, going back to Bobby-not-being-there.
    “Not really,” I answered. But just then a caterpillar landed on my shoulder and I whacked it off with my bare hand, feeling the recoil of its furry body. Without thinking, I grabbed Lexy when her swing hurtled toward me, stopping her in midflight. She protested with an angry squeal, twisting to look back at Julie, but I pulled her out of the swing, letting it fall backward through the air.
    Julie followed me as I walked toward the gate through a web of sticky caterpillar threads, previously invisible and revolting now that I was aware of them. On the sidewalk outside the park I saw caterpillars creeping in every direction.
    “You’re overreacting,” Julie said.
    “No, I’m not. Look at this.” I stood impatiently next to her car. “Open it, Julie, please.”
    She opened the doors remotely and we got in.
    “You’re silly,” she said, starting the engine.
    “What is that?”
    “Gypsy moths, probably. They come in cycles.”
    “It’s horrible. Didn’t you notice?”
    “You’re really sensitive, Annie. Do you know that? It’s been a crappy couple of days, but that doesn’t mean there’s a dark side to everything.”
    We drove in silence for a few minutes until I realizedwe weren’t heading back to Great Barrington. I looked at her, wondering where she was taking us; she glanced back at me, grinned and said, “Lemons into lemonade?” It was what our mother used to say to convince us to turn around a bad situation.
    “Okay,” I said, “but please admit that was gross.”
    “It was gross.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Good,” Julie said. “Now I’m taking you out to dinner.”
    I twisted toward her, about to protest — In what we’re wearing? With a baby? When we’re too tired to enjoy it? — but she stopped me before I could utter a word.
    “We’re not cooking tonight. They’re great with kids. And it’s casual.”
    A few minutes later we pulled into the tiny village of West Stockbridge and parked across the street from a gray clapboard house that had been turned into a restaurant called Rouge. A waitress seated us in a small front room that was both cheerful and elegant, with sponge-painted yellow walls, purple tulips lilting out of glass vases suspended on the wall and strands of colorful glass discs that hung in a large bay window overlooking the quiet street. Before long, we were laughing over “the caterpillar incident.” I had to admit it was a little silly. We ordered delicate organic salads, which we ate with warm bread, trout and asparagus. Julie had a glass of wine. Lexy nursed on my lap. Outside it was a bright spring late afternoon in a world filled with caterpillar infestations and marketing infiltrations and police interrogations, but inside, in here, we relaxed in a moment of unexpected ease. She had brought me to the perfect place to get my “sensitive” mind off stuff.
    Over a plate of pistachio biscotti and dime-sized chocolate cookies, we decided things. I would buy a short-term membership at the local gym to help shed stress and a few leftover maternity pounds, and Julie would babysit, getting Lexy used to being without me in the house. We figured that with planning we could manage the transition to my two-night absence next week, when I went to New York for the job orientation, so as to cause everyone the least inconvenience and distress. Leaving your baby, for however brief a time, felt like arranging a trip to the moon; there was no end to the potential complications. We would have to find a local pediatrician, but Julie assured me there were plenty.
    “I guess we should start getting her in the habit of taking bottles from you,” I said. “I brought my pump and all the bottle gear.”
    “I thought you hated pumping.”
    She was right: I did. During our phone calls between Lexington and Great Barrington, I had frequently moaned about the discomforts of pumping breast milk while at