Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman

mouth on the breast that she considered her own personal property.
    There are two photographs of Isabel being weighed, on one of which you can read the digital scale—seven pounds, nine ounces. A nice, solid weight. Average. Perfect. There is a photograph of Dr. Brewster holding her, and another of her in the arms of one of the nurses. There is one of her with Felicia. There is one blurry photograph of Jack and a second nurse giving Isabel her first bath, an hour or so after she was born. There is a clearer photograph of Jack holding her in the hospital room. His smile is so broad that his cheekbones are pushed far up to the corners of his face. One of Isabel's eyes is open and the other closed, and you can just barely see my swollen foot in its pale green, acrylic hospital sock in the right-hand corner of the frame. This is the only photograph we have of the three of us together.
    There are three photographs of Isabel and me in my hospital bed. My hair is lank and unwashed, pressed flat against my head. My face is round and my skin is puffed taut. My whole body looks pneumatic, like it was attached to a compressed-air tank and pumped until it was quite near to bursting. Isabel, on the other hand, is pretty cute, for a newborn. Her cheeks are plump and her head is covered by a fuzz of soft dark hair that curls over the tops of her ears. Jack tells me that William had exactly this kind of hair, and that it all fell out by the time he was two months old.
    Isabel has Jack's mouth, exactly, a tiny plum-colored kiss of a mouth. Her eyes are round, not lashless slits like those of some babies. They are navy blue. I know they are. Jack and Felicia said it was hard to tell, that babies eyes change, but I would know that color anywhere.
    The rest of the photographs are of Isabel on her first and only day at home. Isabel in her Moses basket, asleep. Isabel propped on an upholstered pillow on the couch. Isabel on her changing table without a diaper, her bare rear end covered in black, sticky goo that I am wiping away while making a disgusted face, my tongue stuck out, my eyes crossed. Isabel on her changing table with a new diaper, clean and fresh and wearing a too-big onesie. Isabel on the sheepskin mat someone gave us at my baby shower. Isabel lying on our bed, a tiny form on a vast white expanse, looking, premonitorily, like a negligible dot, too small to last very long in such an empty space.
    I am staring at this photograph, feeling my throat constrict and the tears gather, when I realize that Jack is no longer asleep. He lies still, but I can feel a pulse of energy coming from him. I slide my eyes to his face. His eyes are open, and watching me. The photographs spill from my hand onto the coverlet, the one of Isabel, lost in our bed, landing on top of the pile.
    â€œI hate that one,” Jack says. “I can't even bear to look at it.”
    He reaches across and sifts through the pile of photographs. He pulls out one of the hospital pictures of Isabel and me. We are in profile, looking into each other's faces. I am holding her with my thumbs under her arms, her head supported by the four fingers of each of my hands and her bottom resting in the crooks of my elbows. We have identical double chins. “This is my favorite,” Jack says. “And the one with you changing her diaper. I have both of those framed on my desk at work.”
    â€œYou have pictures at work of Isabel?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI didn't know that. You didn't tell me that.”
    â€œYou didn't ask.”
    I take the photograph back from him and look at it again. “I look fat.”
    â€œYou look like you just had a baby.”
    That, of course, makes me cry. I am not trying to force Jack to spring into action, but he does. He sits up and hugs me, nestles my head against his chest.
    â€œWhy aren't you mad at me?” I blubber. His pajama top is unbuttoned and I wipe my nose on the hairs on his chest.
    â€œFor what?”
    I