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Lucy had already got both hands on Jennifer’s face by the time Michelle discovered her hair. There’d been no orderly arrangement to it, no sensible allocation of one baby to each adult arm and a third waiting patiently elsewhere. Somehow all three girls had ended up across Jennifer at once, four months old and warm from sleep, their little bodies propped against her in a sprawling arrangement that seemed to have been designed by the triplets themselves.
Jennifer sat well back in the wide chair, one slippered foot planted firmly on the rug and the other tucked a little underneath, making every available inch of her compact frame useful. Lucy occupied the highest position, nestled against the left side of Jennifer’s chest with her round head almost level with Jennifer’s chin. Michelle had settled across the middle, her back supported by Jennifer’s right forearm and her legs lying diagonally over Jennifer’s lap. Orlaith, who’d begun the afternoon farther out on Jennifer’s knee, had somehow migrated inward until her shoulder rested against Michelle and her head fitted beneath Jennifer’s other arm. Jennifer, barely visible beneath three small girls, appeared entirely content with the occupation.
Lucy had been staring at her for some time. The stare had the peculiar seriousness of a baby who hadn’t yet learned that looking openly at somebody might one day be considered impolite. Her eyes moved over Jennifer’s forehead, glasses, cheeks, nose and mouth with unabashed concentration, following every movement as Jennifer spoke to her. Jennifer had long ago learned that babies were some of the finest listeners in the world provided nobody confused listening with comprehension.
Smiling down at her, Jennifer murmured, “You’ve been looking at me for quite a while. I’m beginning to think there’s something on my face.” Lucy’s mouth opened and produced a soft, bubbling vowel, and Jennifer nodded gravely before adding, “That serious, is it?”
Lucy answered with another coo and abruptly lifted her right hand. It missed Jennifer’s cheek entirely on the first attempt and landed somewhere beneath her chin. Lucy frowned, drew the hand back with enormous concentration and tried again. This time her palm flattened squarely against Jennifer’s cheek. Jennifer immediately went still, and Lucy did too. For several seconds they regarded one another with Lucy’s hand spread over Jennifer’s skin, all five tiny fingers splayed as though she’d finally reached a landmark she’d been trying to locate. Then Lucy flexed her fingers, pressing the pads into Jennifer’s cheek. Jennifer turned her face just slightly into the touch and Lucy’s expression changed, surprise becoming fascination. “There you are,” Jennifer said softly. “You found me.”
Lucy rubbed. The motion dragged Jennifer’s cheek gently toward her mouth, distorting one corner of her smile, and Jennifer let her do it. The skin beneath Lucy’s palm was soft but no longer smooth, marked by the ordinary fine lines and deeper creases of nearly seventy-five years of living. Lucy knew nothing of age. She knew only that the surface beneath her fingers moved when she pushed it and grew warmer when Jennifer smiled. Her thumb wandered toward Jennifer’s nose, and Jennifer saw it coming but did nothing. The thumb pressed firmly, making Jennifer’s nose wrinkle. Lucy froze. Jennifer’s expression relaxed. Lucy pushed again and Jennifer’s nose wrinkled again. A little breath escaped Lucy, almost a laugh but not quite there yet, and Jennifer’s eyes brightened. “Oh, you like that.”
Lucy pressed Jennifer’s nose for a third time, and Jennifer scrunched it obediently. “You’ve found a button. Well done.” The words meant nothing to Lucy, but Jennifer’s mouth was moving, her face was changing and the voice she’d already learned to recognize carried amusement through every syllable. Lucy answered by patting Jennifer’s nose with the whole flat of her hand, lost her balance slightly in the enthusiasm of it and tipped forward. Jennifer’s hand was already behind her shoulders. She caught her without interruption, eased her upright again and rubbed once between her shoulder blades. “Easy, easy.”
That was when Michelle found the hair. She’d been quiet by comparison, lying across Jennifer’s lap and watching the room with the solemnity that seemed to belong to her more naturally than to either sister. Every now and then she’d turned her head toward Lucy’s noises, then toward Jennifer’s voice, but neither held her attention for long.
What finally did was a loose length of pale blonde hair that had worked free near Jennifer’s shoulder. Jennifer hadn’t dressed for ceremony. Her hair was loosely gathered back, but the warm afternoon and the general activity of three babies had already dismantled some of the effort. Fine strands had slipped loose around her temples and ears, and one longer section had fallen forward over her shoulder. When Jennifer bent her head toward Lucy, the lock moved through a narrow strip of sunlight and briefly shone.
Michelle saw it. Her eyes followed the hair upward, then Jennifer turned her head and the hair moved again. Michelle’s right hand rose slowly, fingers opening. She missed by several inches and her hand descended onto Jennifer’s blouse. Michelle stared at the blouse, apparently dissatisfied with this result, then raised her hand again. This time her fingertips brushed the hair. Jennifer felt the contact but didn’t look down immediately. Michelle’s fingers opened and closed around empty air twice before catching several strands between them. Once she had them, she became completely absorbed. The hair slipped through her fist. Michelle stared at her empty palm. She reached again.
Jennifer finally looked down and smiled. “And what have you found?” Michelle caught another small handful, this time more securely. She didn’t pull. She rubbed the strands between her fingers, turned her wrist, released them and gathered them again. The action was clumsy and repetitive and deeply satisfying to her. “My hair,” Jennifer said. “That’s all right. You can feel it.” Michelle stroked downward and the fine strands slid across her palm. Her mouth rounded, while Jennifer tipped her head slightly closer without thinking about it. It made the hair easier for Michelle to reach and made Jennifer’s own posture more awkward, but there was no reason for the baby to stretch when Jennifer could simply move.
Lucy, meanwhile, had advanced from Jennifer’s nose to her mouth. Her hand came across Jennifer’s lips in the middle of a sentence, and Jennifer stopped speaking. Lucy stared. Jennifer’s mouth had been making sounds, but now Lucy’s palm was covering it and the sounds had vanished. Lucy leaned closer while Jennifer watched her through lowered lashes. Then, without removing Lucy’s hand, Jennifer hummed. The note was low and soft, barely louder than the distant traffic through the New York windows, but Lucy felt it immediately. The vibration passed through Jennifer’s lips into the centre of her palm.
Lucy jerked her hand back and her eyes widened. Jennifer waited. Lucy stared at Jennifer’s mouth, then the hand came back, this time deliberately. Jennifer hummed again and Lucy became perfectly still. The vibration continued under her palm, warm and faint, then faded. Lucy looked at her own hand as if it had performed the trick. Jennifer smiled against it and hummed a second note. Lucy made a sound in answer, an airy little ahhh, and Jennifer answered with the same pitch. Lucy tried again. Jennifer matched her.
For a few moments the two of them conducted a conversation that required no shared vocabulary. Lucy produced vowels and breathy squeaks; Jennifer returned them gently, sometimes exactly, sometimes allowing the note to wander into the beginning of a melody. Lucy’s hand remained pressed against Jennifer’s mouth whenever she hummed, then shifted to her chin whenever she wanted to watch the lips move. Michelle continued stroking the hair while Orlaith barely moved at all, and eventually it was that stillness which drew Jennifer’s attention toward her.
Lucy was impossible to overlook. Michelle’s small fingers had become a steady presence in Jennifer’s hair. Orlaith, by contrast, had gone very quiet. Her head was nestled low enough against Jennifer’s chest that Jennifer could see only the curve of one cheek and her wide, fixed eyes. Jennifer followed the direction of the stare and found the silver wolf pendant lying against her blouse. It moved every time Jennifer breathed. Orlaith watched it rise and fall. Lucy pressed Jennifer’s cheek, Jennifer turned slightly and the pendant swung. Michelle gave Jennifer’s hair a small tug, Jennifer tilted her head and the pendant caught the sunlight. Orlaith’s fingers twitched.
Jennifer understood. Smiling down at her, she murmured, “Oh. That’s what you’ve been watching.” Orlaith didn’t look at Jennifer. The wolf had all of her. Jennifer placed one finger behind the pendant and moved it gently sideways. The little wolf swung perhaps an inch and Orlaith’s eyes tracked it. Jennifer moved it back, Orlaith followed, and then Jennifer let it hang still again. Orlaith raised a hand. Her fingers opened in the vague direction of the wolf and closed several inches short. She tried again and the hand struck Jennifer’s chest instead. Orlaith frowned. Jennifer waited. A third attempt came, determined but no more accurate than the first two.
Only then did Jennifer bring the pendant a little closer. Orlaith’s fingertips brushed silver and her hand recoiled. Jennifer didn’t laugh. She simply held the wolf steady between two fingers and turned the smoother side toward the baby. “Cold, isn’t she?” Orlaith reached again. One fingertip touched the pendant, then another, and finally her palm flattened against it. The tiny hand closed. Jennifer immediately gathered a little slack into the chain so that Orlaith could grip the wolf without pulling it taut against Jennifer’s neck. “There,” Jennifer said. “That’s better.”
Orlaith squeezed the pendant and the silver disappeared inside her fist. Jennifer’s thumb rested lightly against the outside of Orlaith’s hand, not taking the object from her but merely controlling the chain. Orlaith stared at her own closed fingers, then opened them. The wolf appeared again. Her eyes widened. She closed her hand, opened it and found the wolf returned. Jennifer’s smile deepened. “Yes. She’s still there.”
Lucy chose that moment to press her thumb directly beneath Jennifer’s eye. Jennifer closed her eye immediately. Lucy withdrew, Jennifer reopened it and Lucy tried again. The eye closed. Lucy made a delighted squeal, Jennifer laughed, and the laugh moved through all three babies at once. Lucy felt Jennifer’s cheek shift beneath her palm. Michelle’s fist moved because Jennifer’s hair moved with her head. Orlaith’s little hand rose and fell where it rested against the pendant.
The three girls reacted almost together. Lucy squealed again because Jennifer had. Michelle made a soft, startled noise and tightened her fingers. Orlaith gave a sudden coo and kicked one leg. Jennifer looked down over the improbable collection of infants spread across her and laughed harder. “Well, I see what’s happened here.” Lucy patted her cheek and Jennifer looked at her. “You’ve taken my face.” Michelle continued rubbing the blonde strands, so Jennifer glanced down at her and said, “Michelle has my hair.” Orlaith gripped the silver wolf. “And Orlaith has taken my necklace. Teamwork.”
Lucy supplied an emphatic little sound and Jennifer raised her eyebrows. “Oh, there’s more? There doesn’t seem to be much of me left.” Another coo came from Lucy, and Jennifer nodded as though she’d received a perfectly coherent response. “Plenty? I’m glad to hear it.”
The room had settled into the comfortable disorder produced by very small children. A folded blanket had slipped partly to the floor beside the chair. A cloth lay over Jennifer’s shoulder though nobody had remembered why it had been put there. One of the girls had shed a sock at some point, and the tiny pink thing sat upside down beneath the edge of the coffee table. Sunlight came through the window in a broad warm patch that stopped just short of Jennifer’s feet. Beyond it, New York went on being New York, indifferent to three babies conducting a detailed investigation of an elderly woman in an armchair. Jennifer barely noticed the city.
Lucy had moved on to her chin. She pinched it between her thumb and two fingers with all the delicacy of somebody testing fruit, and Jennifer made an amused sound. “That’s attached too.” Lucy squeezed again, so Jennifer lowered her head and brought her face slightly closer. Lucy’s palm slid along the line of her jaw. Jennifer turned into it instinctively and pressed the faintest kiss against the centre of Lucy’s hand. Lucy pulled away. Jennifer stopped.
The baby stared at her palm, and Jennifer waited, giving her time to decide what she thought of this new development. Lucy looked at Jennifer and slowly the hand came back. Jennifer didn’t move until Lucy placed it against her mouth. Then she kissed the palm again. Lucy withdrew, her mouth opened and the hand returned. Another kiss followed. Lucy made a pleased little sound and Jennifer’s eyes crinkled. “All right. That one’s a game now, is it?” Lucy offered her fingers, Jennifer kissed them, and the baby snatched them back before returning them almost immediately.
Michelle, who’d been treating Jennifer’s hair with comparative gentleness, finally discovered the principle of leverage. Her fist closed around a larger handful and she pulled. Jennifer’s scalp tightened and her eyebrows rose. Michelle pulled again. Jennifer brought her free hand over and gently enclosed Michelle’s fist. “Oh, what a strong grip. Gentle, gentle now. ” Michelle stared up at her while Jennifer carefully worked one tiny finger loose, then another.
Michelle’s fist opened. Jennifer didn’t remove the hair beyond reach. Instead she let a smaller section fall across Michelle’s palm and stroked one finger along it, showing rather than scolding. “You can touch. Just gently.” Michelle’s fingers closed again, this time without pulling, and Jennifer smiled. “That’s it” The lesson lasted perhaps twenty seconds before Michelle forgot it and grabbed again, but Jennifer was no more troubled by that than she would’ve been by a baby forgetting arithmetic she’d never learned. She loosened the fist again and Michelle returned to stroking.
Orlaith, meanwhile, had decided that the wolf ought to be brought closer for further inspection. Her fist lifted and the chain shortened. Jennifer immediately followed the movement with her hand, preventing the pendant from jerking at her throat. Orlaith drew it toward her mouth and Jennifer intercepted gently. “Not for chewing, sweetheart.” Orlaith tried again. Jennifer turned the pendant outward and lowered it back toward her palm. “You can hold her. She’s not lunch.” Orlaith stared at the wolf, then at Jennifer’s fingers, then back at the wolf. Her lower lip moved, and Jennifer brushed her thumb once over Orlaith’s knuckles. “I know. Very disappointing.”
There was no edge of mockery in the words. Orlaith settled for patting the wolf, and the metal had begun to warm in her hand.
For a while there was no progression at all, only repetition. Lucy touched Jennifer’s face because she liked touching it. Michelle stroked Jennifer’s hair because she liked the way it passed over her fingers. Orlaith opened and closed her hand around the wolf because it disappeared and returned and remained inexplicably interesting every time.
Jennifer allowed the repetitions to be enough. Adults were forever searching for novelty on behalf of children. Jennifer had never understood the need. A child could spend ten minutes opening and closing the same cupboard door because the cupboard door was still extraordinary. A baby could touch the same cheek twenty times because the cheek remained worth discovering. There was no requirement that the afternoon move forward efficiently.
Jennifer gave them time. Lucy’s fingers wandered over the fine lines near Jennifer’s mouth and Jennifer smiled, making the lines deepen. Lucy stopped. Her index finger pressed into one crease. Jennifer relaxed her mouth and the line softened. Lucy rubbed at it. Jennifer smiled again and the crease returned. Lucy made an astonished little sound. Jennifer smiled wider. Lucy stared, then touched another line beside Jennifer’s eye. “There’s a lot happening up here,” Jennifer told her. “You’ll be busy.”
Lucy placed her entire palm over Jennifer’s cheek once more and Jennifer leaned into it. There was something astonishingly tender in the absence of recognition. Lucy didn’t know that Jennifer was old. She didn’t know that the skin beneath her hand had been touched by decades of weather, laughter, sorrow, applause, lake wind, desert heat, political campaigns, hospital rooms, gardens, pets, guitars, husband, lovers, children, friends and strangers. She didn’t know that those lines belonged to somebody whose life stretched backward farther than Lucy could ever imagine. Lucy knew a warm face. It was enough.
Michelle had reached a similar conclusion regarding the hair. The earlier active stroking had become slower. She gathered a few strands, drew them against her palm and then lifted them toward her cheek. The hair brushed the soft roundness beside her mouth and Michelle went still. Jennifer looked down. “Oh. That’s nice, is it?” Michelle rubbed the hair against her cheek again. Jennifer carefully moved another loose section away from Michelle’s eye, but Michelle immediately reached for it, so Jennifer let the strand fall back. “Very well. Apparently I was mistaken.”
Michelle caught it and resumed rubbing. The baby’s eyelids had begun to droop almost imperceptibly. Jennifer saw it but didn’t announce it. Adults announcing a baby’s sleepiness seemed to Jennifer very nearly guaranteed to wake the baby fully. Instead she shifted Michelle closer by degrees, lifting her slightly with the forearm already beneath her and allowing the little body to settle more securely against Jennifer’s middle. Her fingertips began tracing small circles over Michelle’s back.
Michelle held the hair. Her eyes closed, opened and closed again. Lucy cooed loudly and Michelle’s eyes reopened in indignation. Jennifer smiled down at her. “Yes. You’ve got sisters.” Michelle stared solemnly at Lucy and Lucy stared back. For one long second the two girls seemed surprised to find one another present. Then Lucy returned to Jennifer’s face, Michelle returned to the hair, and Orlaith remained loyal to the wolf.
Jennifer began to hum again without consciously deciding to. It wasn’t a song anyone would’ve known. Perhaps it wasn’t a song at all yet. A few notes appeared beneath her breath as her hand continued rubbing Michelle’s back. The melody had no words and no obvious destination. Jennifer allowed it to wander.
Lucy felt it first. Her hand, which had been resting against Jennifer’s jaw, moved toward the source. Jennifer hummed another note and Lucy touched her mouth. The vibration returned. Lucy cooed and Jennifer hummed the same interval back. Michelle’s fingers slowed further in Jennifer’s hair. Orlaith’s reaction was subtler. The pendant rested against Jennifer’s upper chest beneath her hand. When Jennifer hummed, the vibration travelled faintly through bone, fabric and metal. The wolf trembled almost imperceptibly against Orlaith’s palm.
Orlaith stopped moving. Jennifer noticed and sustained the note. Orlaith stared downward. Jennifer let the note end, and Orlaith looked up toward Jennifer’s throat. Jennifer hummed again. The tiny hand flattened more firmly over the pendant. The wolf moved beneath it and Orlaith’s eyes widened. Jennifer’s smile became almost luminous. There was no need to explain what the baby had discovered. Explanation would only diminish it. Orlaith had found that the shiny thing against Jennifer’s chest changed when Jennifer made that low sound.
Jennifer hummed again. Orlaith cooed. Lucy answered because Lucy answered almost everything. Jennifer let the melody broaden by a few notes and Michelle’s eyes closed. The room grew quieter. Outside, a truck changed gear somewhere in the street below. A horn sounded and disappeared. Somewhere in another apartment something heavy was dropped, followed by the muffled thump of footsteps. None of it disturbed the little island around Jennifer’s chair.
The melody continued. Jennifer didn’t perform. There was no projection in her voice, no concern for how it carried, no shaping of the room into an audience. She sang because three babies were on her lap and singing belonged there. She’d spent a lifetime resisting the idea that music mattered most when captured, sold, preserved, catalogued or replayed. Music could be given once. It could exist for the length of an afternoon and then vanish except for whatever it had done to the people who heard it.
These three wouldn’t remember, and Jennifer didn’t mind. Lucy wouldn’t remember the vibration beneath her palm. Michelle wouldn’t remember falling half asleep with Jennifer’s hair against her cheek. Orlaith wouldn’t remember the silver wolf trembling beneath her hand. The absence of memory didn’t make the experience less real.
Michelle’s fist slackened. A few blonde strands remained trapped between her fingers and Jennifer let them remain. Lucy’s hand slipped from Jennifer’s mouth to her cheek. Orlaith’s fingers opened over the wolf. Jennifer sang another phrase, and then all three babies moved at once.
Orlaith kicked, her foot struck Michelle’s leg, and Michelle startled and tightened her fist reflexively in Jennifer’s hair. The sharp tug made Jennifer turn her head. Lucy, whose hand had been resting against Jennifer’s cheek, lost her support and pitched sideways. Jennifer caught Lucy against her shoulder with one hand while simultaneously bracing Orlaith with her elbow. Michelle, disturbed by the sudden movement, made an outraged sound. Orlaith responded with a squeak of her own. Lucy began protesting because everybody else was.
For approximately five seconds Jennifer possessed three offended infants and only two hands. She didn’t panic. Securing Lucy first, she said calmly, “Right. One crisis at a time.” Lucy was brought upright against Jennifer’s chest, her head settling safely near Jennifer’s collarbone. Jennifer then loosened Michelle’s fist from her hair finger by finger. “Yes, sweetheart, I know. I know. Terrible business.”
Orlaith attempted to roll farther sideways and Jennifer caught her around the middle with her forearm. “Aunt Jennifer’s only got the two hands, girls.” Lucy made a plaintive sound and Jennifer kissed the top of her head while shifting Michelle slightly lower and Orlaith slightly inward. “No, I haven’t forgotten you.” Michelle’s lip trembled, so Jennifer resumed rubbing her back. “There.” Orlaith’s hand searched immediately for the wolf and Jennifer guided it back toward her. “And there.” Lucy pressed her face into Jennifer’s upper chest, Jennifer’s palm cupped the back of her head and she finished, “And there.”
The crisis ended almost as quickly as it had begun. Jennifer looked down at them and said, “All solved.” Lucy sniffed, Michelle blinked, Orlaith reclaimed the pendant and Jennifer gave a tiny nod of satisfaction. “Excellent.”
The rearrangement had changed the entire geography of the lap. Lucy now sat higher, almost tucked beneath Jennifer’s chin, one cheek against Jennifer’s collarbone. Michelle had been drawn closer into the centre of Jennifer’s body, where she could rest more securely without working so hard to support herself. Orlaith lay at a slight diagonal across Jennifer’s other thigh, one hand still resting over the wolf. Jennifer’s arms tightened around all three and the girls settled.
There was a moment when Jennifer looked down and saw not triplets as an idea, not three matching infants offered for comparison, but Lucy, Michelle and Orlaith with astonishing clarity. Lucy’s hand was already moving again. Michelle had reclaimed the same section of hair. Orlaith had returned instantly to the wolf. Three babies born minutes apart, inhabiting the same room, held by the same woman, and yet each had chosen something different.
Jennifer liked that. She’d never believed children came into the world blank. Unformed, yes. Unfinished beyond imagining. But never empty. Even now there were differences. Not destinies. Jennifer would never have insulted them by pretending a four-month-old preference foretold an adult life. Lucy’s fascination with faces didn’t mean she’d become anything in particular. Michelle’s devotion to texture didn’t contain a prophecy. Orlaith’s attention to the wolf didn’t mean the pendant had selected her for some future role. They were simply themselves already. That was enough.
Jennifer lowered her face toward Lucy. “Lucy.” The baby stirred, and Jennifer brushed her nose lightly against the fine hair at Lucy’s temple. “There you are.” She looked down at Michelle and said her name as gently. Michelle’s fingers tightened once around the hair. Jennifer smiled. “Yes. You’re still holding on.” Then she turned toward Orlaith. “Orlaith.” The baby stared at the pendant. Jennifer touched the silver with one finger. “Still watching.” Orlaith cooed, and Jennifer’s expression softened further.
Names mattered to her. Children deserved the dignity of being addressed as themselves, even before they could understand that the sound belonged to them. Jennifer had never liked the way adults sometimes reduced twins, triplets, siblings or groups of children into a collective convenience. These girls had arrived together. They’d spend years being compared by strangers who believed resemblance entitled them to treat three people as a puzzle. Jennifer had no intention of beginning that habit. Lucy had her name, Michelle had hers and Orlaith had hers. Jennifer spoke each one with the same tenderness and a slightly different rhythm.
Lucy began touching her face again, but this time the movement had lost some of its investigative urgency. Her palm came to rest against Jennifer’s cheek and remained there. Her fingers moved lazily, tracing nothing in particular. Jennifer turned her head and kissed the palm. Lucy didn’t withdraw, so Jennifer kissed it again and the hand relaxed. Michelle’s stroking had slowed until several seconds passed between each movement. The blonde hair lay partly across her cheek and partly inside her fist. Jennifer continued the little circles against her back.
Orlaith opened her hand over the pendant and the wolf lay flat against her palm. Jennifer relaxed her own grip on the chain slightly, though she kept enough control to prevent a sudden pull. She looked down at the hand over the silver. The contrast held her attention. Orlaith’s palm was impossibly small and new, the faint lines not yet deepened by work or weather or years. Jennifer’s own fingers around the chain were narrow, lightly knotted with age, the skin thinner than it once had been. Between them rested the wolf, polished smooth in places by decades of contact.
Jennifer had carried it through more life than Orlaith could’ve imagined even with language. The pendant had meant belonging. It had meant memory. It had meant a name offered to Jennifer in love and accepted with humility. It had meant carrying people with her even when they weren’t physically beside her. Now a baby lay with one hand over it. Jennifer felt no instinct to pull it away. If anything, the image pleased her. Sacred things didn’t become less sacred when children touched them. Often they became more comprehensible.
Orlaith’s fingers closed loosely around the wolf. Jennifer touched her knuckles and murmured, “You like her.” Orlaith cooed, and Jennifer smiled. “I do too. She’s been with me a long time.” Orlaith didn’t understand long. She didn’t understand time beyond hunger, tiredness, warmth and the delay between wanting something and receiving it. Jennifer still said it. Some words were worth placing into the world even when nobody present could yet carry them.
Lucy’s fingers had reached Jennifer’s spectacles. Jennifer felt the touch against the frame and looked sideways. “Oh.” Lucy hooked one finger around the edge. Jennifer caught her wrist gently. “We’ll leave those.” Lucy pulled and Jennifer held the glasses in place. “I need those more than you do.” Lucy stared at the shining frame, so Jennifer redirected the hand toward her cheek. “Here. This is much less expensive.” Lucy accepted the cheek without protest.
Michelle opened her eyes and Jennifer looked down. For several seconds Michelle seemed not to know why she’d done so. Her gaze drifted across Jennifer’s blouse, up toward Jennifer’s face and then sideways toward Lucy. Lucy cooed, Michelle answered with a quieter sound, and Jennifer smiled at both. “There. You’ve found each other again.” The sisters stared. Orlaith continued studying the wolf, apparently uninterested in the reunion, and Jennifer’s shoulders shook with a silent laugh.
For the first time in several minutes Michelle released the hair entirely. The strands fell loose over Jennifer’s shoulder and Jennifer straightened slightly. Michelle saw the movement and her hand immediately rose. Jennifer laughed softly. “I knew that was too easy.” Michelle caught the hair again, and Jennifer surrendered it.
The afternoon had the strange elasticity that came with babies. Ten minutes could feel crowded with incident. Half an hour could disappear into watching one small hand open and close. Jennifer had never needed children to entertain her. Their existence was enough. She looked at Lucy’s lashes as the baby blinked, at the tiny shell of Michelle’s ear, at the curve of Orlaith’s thumb against silver. She’d known adults who seemed incapable of being with children unless there was an activity to supervise, a lesson to teach, a photograph to arrange or a future memory to manufacture. Jennifer needed none of that.
There was no lesson here. No developmental milestone required celebration. No camera was necessary. Nobody needed to produce evidence later that the afternoon had happened. It had happened because they were here. That certainty had shaped so much of Jennifer’s life. Music didn’t need a recording to have existed. Love didn’t need witnesses to become valid. A child didn’t need to remember being held for the holding to matter.
The thought came and went without becoming melancholy because Lucy interrupted it by placing her thumb directly into the corner of Jennifer’s mouth. Jennifer gently removed it. “No.” Lucy tried again and Jennifer caught it. “Still no.” Lucy made a protesting noise, so Jennifer kissed the thumb. “That’s what you can have.” Lucy stared at her. Jennifer kissed it again, and Lucy accepted the compromise.
Michelle’s head had begun to lean into Jennifer’s chest, so Jennifer adjusted her carefully. Orlaith stretched one leg and Jennifer rubbed the baby’s shin with two fingers. Three bodies, three temperatures, three sets of needs, and Jennifer kept track without counting. Her hand moved from Lucy’s back to Michelle’s shoulder. Her thumb checked the slack in Orlaith’s chain. Her elbow supported Michelle. Her chin rested briefly against Lucy’s hair. There was nothing hurried about her.
Age had slowed some things in Jennifer’s body, but not her attentiveness. If anything, she’d become better at refusing hurry. She knew how quickly infancy disappeared, not because she feared the future but because she’d watched enough children become adolescents and adults to understand there was no need to push any stage out of the way. Four months old wasn’t preparation for something better. It was four months old. Lucy deserved to be four months old completely. So did Michelle. So did Orlaith.
Jennifer began humming again. This time the melody was even simpler. Lucy’s hand found her cheek, Michelle’s fist loosened around the hair and Orlaith’s palm flattened over the wolf. Jennifer held the same note for several seconds, allowing it to settle through her chest. Orlaith felt it and her eyes opened wider. Jennifer shifted the pitch slightly. The pendant trembled. Orlaith stared. Jennifer smiled down at her and changed the note once more. Orlaith cooed, Jennifer answered, Lucy joined with a small vowel and Michelle, barely awake, made a breathy noise without opening her eyes.
Jennifer’s melody folded around all three sounds. For a few moments it ceased to be possible to say whether Jennifer was singing to the girls or with them. She didn’t invent lyrics. Words would’ve made the thing too definite. The melody belonged to their breathing, Lucy’s higher little noises, Orlaith’s deeper coos and Michelle’s sleepy hums. Jennifer moved among them, changing key whenever the babies unintentionally did. The result wasn’t conventionally beautiful. Jennifer thought it was perfect.
Lucy’s eyes stayed fixed on Jennifer’s mouth. Jennifer hummed and Lucy’s palm pressed there. The baby felt the vibration. Jennifer stopped. Lucy waited. Jennifer hummed again and Lucy’s mouth opened in delight. Michelle rubbed Jennifer’s hair once, twice, then stopped. Orlaith’s grip on the wolf weakened. Jennifer lowered the pendant carefully until it rested flat against her chest again beneath the baby’s open hand.
The silver was warm now. Jennifer felt that through her blouse more than through her fingers. Warm from herself, warm from Orlaith. Her eyes lingered on it, but then Lucy pinched her chin again and whatever reflective thought might’ve developed dissolved instantly. Jennifer looked at her. “You’re very committed to that chin.” Lucy squeezed. Jennifer nodded. “Yes. Still there.” Lucy squeezed again. “Excellent work.”
Michelle made a sleepy snuffling sound and Jennifer glanced down. Her eyes were closed. The fist containing Jennifer’s hair remained loosely curled beneath her chin. Jennifer could easily have freed the strands. She didn’t. Her scalp might complain later. It could complain. Michelle was comfortable.
Lucy gradually abandoned Jennifer’s chin and rested her hand against the side of Jennifer’s neck. Her fingers found the pulse there. Jennifer didn’t know whether Lucy felt it distinctly, but the baby became very still. Jennifer watched her face while Lucy’s fingers stayed over the beat. For Jennifer, the moment struck deeper than she’d expected. Not sadly. Simply deeply. This little girl had no idea what a pulse was. She couldn’t know she’d found the quiet mechanical evidence that the woman holding her was alive.
Jennifer lowered her cheek against Lucy’s forehead. Lucy’s hand remained there. “Hello, sweetheart,” Jennifer whispered. Lucy sighed. Jennifer closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again Orlaith was staring at her. Jennifer smiled. Orlaith looked back down at the wolf. “I see where I rank.” There was nothing but affection in the words. Orlaith’s hand moved over the pendant, Jennifer laughed under her breath and added, “You’re right. She is prettier.”
Lucy made a sound and Jennifer glanced toward her. “You disagree?” Lucy’s eyes were drifting. Jennifer kissed her forehead. Michelle was already almost asleep. Orlaith, inexplicably, remained alert. Jennifer knew babies who could stay awake through anything if the world continued offering them something to inspect.
She stroked Orlaith’s cheek with one fingertip. The baby turned toward the touch, briefly abandoning the wolf. Jennifer traced the curve from cheekbone to jaw. Orlaith’s lips parted. Jennifer did it again and Orlaith followed her finger with her eyes. For the first time that afternoon Jennifer became the object of Orlaith’s fascination rather than merely the structure from which the pendant hung. Jennifer smiled. “There you are.”
Orlaith stared into her face. Jennifer didn’t crowd her with expression. She simply looked back. The baby’s gaze moved over Jennifer’s spectacles, her nose and her mouth, then drifted down again. The wolf won. Jennifer accepted defeat graciously. “I understand.”
The triplets had become heavier, not literally but in the way sleeping or nearly sleeping babies seemed to surrender their weight all at once. Michelle had gone almost completely limp against Jennifer’s middle. Lucy was still awake but no longer supporting herself with any enthusiasm. Orlaith had begun blinking slowly. Jennifer shifted her shoulders against the chair. One foot had gone numb. Her left arm ached. There was a faint pull at her scalp where Michelle still held several strands of hair.
She considered none of these reasons to move. The girls had finally arranged themselves. Jennifer wasn’t about to renegotiate the treaty.
Lucy’s hand returned to Jennifer’s cheek, not patting now, not squeezing, just resting. Michelle’s fingers remained threaded through the pale hair. Orlaith’s palm lay open over the wolf. Jennifer looked down, and the pattern was so complete that she almost laughed. Each girl still possessed the same piece of her she’d chosen at the beginning. Only the curiosity had softened into familiarity. Lucy no longer needed to prove Jennifer’s face would react. Michelle no longer needed to test the hair’s texture. Orlaith no longer needed to catch the moving silver. They simply held what they’d found.
Jennifer rested her head back against the chair and whispered, “Well, I suppose I live here now.” Lucy’s eyelids fluttered. Jennifer smiled. “There are worse places.”
She hummed again, a single phrase and then another. The melody bore no name. Jennifer had likely never sung it before and would likely never sing it exactly this way again. That was all right. Michelle’s breathing evened out. Lucy’s hand slipped lower from Jennifer’s cheek to her jaw. Orlaith’s eyes remained open through one more phrase.
Jennifer continued. Orlaith blinked slowly, then again. The wolf rose and fell beneath her hand with Jennifer’s breathing. Orlaith watched the movement. Her eyelids lowered, opened and lowered again. Jennifer let the melody descend. Lucy made one tiny sound against her collarbone and Jennifer answered it with a note. Michelle didn’t stir. Orlaith’s eyes closed.
Jennifer stopped singing. The silence that followed didn’t feel empty. She could still hear the city distantly: a car, a voice somewhere beyond the apartment walls, the building settling. But nearest of all were three breaths. Lucy, Michelle and Orlaith. Not perfectly synchronized. Never meant to be. Three separate rhythms against her.
Jennifer looked at them one after another. Lucy’s hand remained warm against her jaw. Michelle held her hair. Orlaith covered the wolf. Jennifer couldn’t have moved easily if she’d wanted to. She didn’t want to. Her right hand passed slowly over Michelle’s back, then Orlaith’s, then Lucy’s. One by one. Not counting. Simply touching.
There was something almost circular about the sensation, though Jennifer didn’t consciously name it. She’d once been this small. Not remembered-small, because nobody remembered four months old, but held-small, fed-small, carried-small, loved through acts she could never retrieve as scenes. April’s hands had known her weight. Brandon’s chest had known the feel of her sleeping against him. Neither had needed Jennifer to remember in order for their care to shape her.
Now Jennifer held three girls who’d forget this afternoon entirely. That knowledge didn’t diminish the tenderness. It made tenderness freer. Nothing had to be earned back later through gratitude. The girls owed her no memory. They didn’t need to grow up and tell her they remembered her humming. They didn’t need to see a photograph and be instructed to cherish it. Jennifer could give them the afternoon without taking anything in return.
Lucy shifted and her hand slid partly off Jennifer’s face. Jennifer caught it gently and laid it against her chest. Lucy settled. Michelle loosened her fist and the trapped blonde strands slipped almost free, though one remained curled around her finger. Jennifer left it. Orlaith’s palm had moved from the wolf to the fabric beside it, but two fingers still touched the silver. Jennifer touched the pendant briefly.
Warm.
She smiled.
Her own eyes closed for a moment. She didn’t sleep. She simply sat. The chair supported Jennifer. Jennifer supported the girls. The girls, in some impossible emotional sense, supported something in her too, though she’d have resisted making poetry from what required none.
They were babies. Her great-great-nieces. They smelled faintly of milk, clean cotton and that indefinable sweetness babies carried around their heads. They had soft hair and blunt little fingernails and knees still round with infancy. They’d each chosen something about her and spent an afternoon discovering it.
That was enough.
After a while Lucy stirred again. Her eyes opened only halfway and Jennifer looked down. “Hello.” Lucy stared vaguely upward, her hand lifted and Jennifer waited. The palm found Jennifer’s cheek almost by habit. Jennifer smiled. Lucy’s eyes closed again, the hand stayed and Jennifer bent to kiss the fingers.
Michelle stirred at the movement but didn’t wake. Orlaith’s hand tightened slightly around the edge of the pendant. Jennifer became still once more and whispered, “There you are, my girls. Plenty to go around.”
She resumed humming so quietly that the sound might’ve been mistaken for the vibration of the room itself. Lucy’s warm palm rested against Jennifer’s lined cheek. Michelle’s fingers remained loosely tangled in Jennifer’s blonde hair. Orlaith’s small hand lay over the old silver wolf. The pendant rose with Jennifer’s breath and Orlaith’s hand rose with it, then both descended together.
Jennifer hummed the unfinished melody once more and allowed its final note to fade without forcing it toward resolution. No one reached for a camera. No one asked Jennifer to sing louder. No one disturbed the girls so the moment could be arranged more beautifully. It was already complete.
Lucy’s fingers twitched against Jennifer’s face. Michelle’s hand slid a fraction farther down the pale strands and stopped. Orlaith’s thumb shifted over the warm silver. Jennifer looked down at all three of them, unable to move without waking somebody and perfectly willing to remain exactly where she was.
And so she did. She simply held them.