Chapter 2: The Bodega

You run out of diapers at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday. This should not be a crisis but you have learned that everything is a crisis now.

Amanda is in the shower. This is the first shower she has taken in three days. You will defend this shower with your life if necessary.

Claire is asleep in the swing. The swing cost two hundred dollars and plays fourteen different songs and was recommended by a website that Amanda trusts more than she trusts you. The swing works. You do not question the swing.

The bodega is three blocks away on Fifth Avenue. You have walked past it a thousand times on your way to the coffee shop that serves a decent cortado. You have never needed to go inside because you are not the kind of person who shops at bodegas.

You are now the kind of person who shops at bodegas.

You put Claire in the stroller. This takes seven minutes because the straps have a configuration that makes no sense. The manual is in Korean and English but both versions seem to describe a different stroller.

The October air is cold and clear. You walk fast. Claire likes motion. She stops crying when you move and starts again when you stop. You have become someone who never stops moving.

The bodega smells like cat litter and produce going soft. A man behind the counter nods at you. He is watching soccer on a small TV. You do not recognize the teams.

The diapers are in the back next to the beer you used to drink. Stella Artois in the green bottle. You bought cases of it when you first moved to New York because you thought it made you seem European. You were twenty-three and insufferable.

You are thirty-six now and pushing a stroller through a bodega at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday and you cannot remember the last time you had a beer.

The diapers cost eighteen dollars. You have a twenty. The man behind the counter makes change and glances at Claire.

First one, he says.

You nod.

It gets easier, he says. Then harder. Then easier again.

You want to ask him to elaborate but Claire starts crying. You thank him and push the stroller back onto Fifth Avenue.

The coffee shop is next door. Through the window you can see people your age sitting at small tables with laptops and headphones. They are working on screenplays or novels or startup pitch decks. They have time to work on things. They have coffee that is still hot.

One of them looks up and sees you with the stroller. He is wearing a Radiohead t-shirt and has the kind of beard that requires maintenance. He looks at you the way you used to look at parents. With pity and relief that it is not him.

You keep walking.

At home Amanda is out of the shower and dressed in clean clothes. She looks almost human. She sees the diapers and kisses you like you have returned from war.

Thank you, she says.

It was three blocks, you say.

Still, she says.

Claire is screaming again. Amanda picks her up and the screaming stops. You have noticed this pattern. Amanda touches the baby and the baby calms. You touch the baby and the baby seems uncertain about the arrangement.

I'm going to the office tomorrow, Amanda says. Just for a few hours.

You nod. You knew this was coming. Amanda works in publishing. She took six weeks leave but six weeks is apparently a long time in publishing. Things happen. Deals collapse. Auctions begin. You need to be present or you disappear.

You'll be fine, she says.

This is what people say when they are not sure you will be fine.

After she goes to the bedroom to feed Claire you stand in the kitchen and look at the eighteen-dollar diapers. You think about the man in the bodega and his certainty that things get easier then harder then easier again.

You wonder which phase you are in now.

The coffee shop next door will still be full of people who have time to think about things other than diapers and sleep and whether they are doing any of this correctly.

You do not miss them as much as you thought you would.

Outside the window the afternoon light hits the brownstones across the street and for a moment everything looks like a photograph. Something you might want to remember. You pick up your phone to capture it and Claire starts crying again.

By the time you reach the bedroom the light has changed.