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By the time Glenda gave in and stretched herself along the couch, the house had reached that peculiar part of the afternoon when everything looked finished without actually being finished. A basket of laundry sat on the chair with half the towels folded and half still slumped together in warm, clean confusion. Two mugs stood upside down on the draining board. A grocery list had been started on the pad beside the telephone and abandoned after milk, onions, and detergent, as though nobody in the house had ever needed anything beyond those three things. Sunlight lay broad and pale across the living-room rug, catching the worn nap of it in one direction and making it look almost new in another. Glenda had intended to sit for a minute. Sitting had turned into taking off her shoes. Taking off her shoes had turned into putting one calf along the cushions. By the time she admitted what she was doing, one arm was behind her head, the other rested loose across her middle, and the old couch had accepted her with the smug sag of furniture that had been waiting all day to be proved right.
She was tired in the plainest possible way. Nothing hurt badly enough to deserve attention; nothing had happened that required sympathy. Her shoulders had simply collected the day, and her feet had reached the end of their argument with the floor. There had been a point an hour earlier when she had opened the refrigerator, stared at a bowl of cut fruit she herself had put there that morning, and forgotten why she was looking at it. She had shut the door, remembered, opened it again, taken out the pitcher of tea instead, and laughed at herself because there was no use making fatigue into a tragedy when it was only fatigue. Now she could hear the refrigerator humming through the kitchen, steady and mildly officious, and somewhere farther back the house gave one of its dry little settling clicks. Glenda closed her eyes. She was not going to sleep. She told herself this without conviction and shifted her head until the cushion stopped pressing against the arm of her glasses.
The glasses came off next. She folded them and placed them on the end table by touch, careful not to knock the lamp or the saucer that had somehow become home to three safety pins, a peppermint wrapper, and a button no one had claimed. The room softened immediately. Without her lenses, the far wall became a wash of familiar shapes: framed photographs, the dark rectangle of the television, the bookcase with its crowded top shelf. Glenda liked the blur for exactly ten seconds before the practical part of her objected. She opened one eye, reached for the glasses again, and left them folded where they were. Nothing in the room needed reading. The front door was locked. The stove was off. The laundry could sit there until it learned patience. She let her hand fall back onto her stomach and listened to the house breathe around her.
For a little while, nothing asked anything of her. That was rare enough to feel luxurious. The ceiling fan turned at its lowest speed, each blade passing through the same stripe of sunlight and darkening it for an instant. Outside, a car went along the narrow road too quickly, tires making that brief sandy hiss against the edge before the sound thinned away. Somewhere a dog barked twice and reconsidered. Glenda breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, not as an exercise, not because anybody had told her to, but because the exhale felt good. Her fingers loosened where they lay over the soft cotton of her shirt. She thought, distantly, that she ought to put the towels away before evening, then decided evening had not yet earned that kind of loyalty from her. Something touched the bottom edge of her awareness. Not a sound, exactly. A change in the room, perhaps, or the sense that the strip of light at the foot of the couch had acquired a shape. Glenda kept her eyes closed for another breath. Then she opened them and looked down past her socked feet.
There was hair at the far end of the couch. Not much of it. Just a dark little curve showing beyond the cushion, low enough that for a second Glenda wondered whether one of the dolls had fallen behind the arm. The curve rose slowly. A smooth forehead followed, then two painted eyes, then the round, permanently surprised face of Baby June, advancing upward by fractions as though the doll had spent the afternoon learning how furniture worked and had finally achieved the climb. The old sleeper was visible next, pale from years of washing, its duckies reduced to yellow ghosts except for one stubborn bird near the ribs that still had both an eye and something resembling a beak. Baby June stopped when her chin cleared the cushion. She stayed there, facing Glenda. Glenda’s mouth tried to smile. She pressed her lips together and made them behave.
Baby June remained perfectly still. Glenda looked at her. The doll looked back with the democratic blankness of a face that could be made worried, pleased, sleepy, furious, or hungry depending entirely on who held her. There was no hand visible, no wrist, no little fingers curled around the faded cloth body. Glenda lowered her eyes deliberately to the spot beneath the couch arm, then raised them again before whoever was hiding there could catch the betrayal. She let one eyebrow move. “Well,” she said, her voice still thick with rest, “hello.” Baby June sank half an inch. There was a pause so serious that Glenda could almost hear thinking happening below the cushion. Then the doll rose again. Her head tilted left, corrected too far to the right, and settled somewhere in between. From behind the couch came a tiny voice forced into a register so high and breathy that it seemed to have to squeeze through a keyhole before reaching the room. “H’lo, G’en-da.”
Glenda bit the inside of her cheek. The doll nodded once, several seconds after the greeting, as though pleased with its own timing. The movement had the unmistakable carefulness of someone controlling an object while crouched in an inconvenient position. Glenda could see the faintest tremor in Baby June’s shoulder. She could also see, now that she knew where to look, three small fingers briefly appearing around the doll’s side before vanishing into the sleeper again. “Didn’t know you were down there,” Glenda said. Baby June turned her face toward the floor. The voice came back, a little muffled by fabric or carpet. “I come by m’self.” “That so?” A pause. The doll’s head rose with grave certainty. “Yes.” Glenda had heard Miracle do exactly that pause, though Miracle’s dolls tended to use it when they were considering moral questions, snack negotiations, or whether a princess was allowed to move somebody else’s chair. Lily had taken the pause and made it longer, perhaps believing length was what gave it authority. Glenda kept her face steady and shifted her legs a little, partly for comfort and partly because the movement gave her somewhere to put the laugh trying to climb into her throat. “Long trip?”
Baby June vanished. Glenda stared at the empty space. There was a soft scuff on the rug, then a whisper that was not meant to be part of the performance. “No, you gotta stay.” The doll reappeared at once, rising faster this time, one arm crooked oddly above her head. Lily corrected it with an invisible hand. “I had a long twip,” Baby June announced. “Mm.” Glenda nodded as if receiving a medical history. “You look like you handled it pretty well.” The doll nodded too, but the head went forward so sharply that it nearly folded onto the chest. Another private whisper came from below. “Not so much.” Baby June straightened. The tiny voice returned, more controlled. “I am okay.” “That’s good to hear.” Glenda could see nothing of Lily except, for one blink, the top of a curl when she leaned too far. It disappeared before Glenda let her gaze land on it. Baby June climbed another inch until most of her torso was above the couch arm. The effect was less a doll standing at the foot of the couch than a doll slowly being born from upholstery. One leg snagged on something unseen. Baby June jerked sideways, disappeared to the shoulders, and returned. The voice said, after a moment, “I don’t like pants.”
That did it nearly as badly as anything could have. Glenda’s chest tightened with the effort of not laughing. She turned her head toward the back of the couch and coughed once into her fist, an act so transparent that she was glad Lily could not see her face clearly from below. When she looked back, Baby June was waiting. “No pants,” Glenda repeated solemnly. “I remember.” Baby June’s head gave a pleased little bob. “They itchy.” “Terrible thing, itchy pants.” “Very turrble.” The words were better formed than they had been two years ago, but Lily’s concentration pulled some of them sideways. When she tried to hold the doll steady, hold the high voice, and keep herself hidden all at once, consonants went missing. She made up for them with conviction. Baby June lifted one hand toward Glenda. The hand stayed extended for too long, then dropped. “You tired?”
The smile stopped being a thing Glenda was fighting and became something quieter, deeper in her face. She looked at the doll’s painted eyes, then at the place where Lily was not visible, and answered the question as offered. “Little bit.” Baby June turned her head as if listening to somebody beside her. The voice went silent. One of the doll’s arms twitched twice. Then came a very faint murmur from beneath the cushion, Lily apparently rehearsing. Glenda caught only, “Mir’cle says…” before the whisper disappeared. Baby June faced her again. “You need cozy.” Glenda let out a breath through her nose. “I might.” The doll sank. There was rustling. For several seconds Glenda saw nothing at all, and she had just begun to wonder whether the performance had ended when Baby June came up again with a washcloth draped over her head. The cloth had once been white and was now the indeterminate cream of things that had survived many washings. It covered one eye and hung down over the duckie sleeper like a veil. Baby June spoke through it. “Blankie.”
Glenda stared. “For me?” A pause. “For June.” “Ah.” The doll disappeared again. A muffled argument occurred behind the couch, all one-sided and nearly inaudible. Something about “supposed to,” then “no, I do it.” Glenda’s lips pressed tight. When Baby June rose for the third time, the washcloth had been removed and placed over one shoulder like a shawl. The doll leaned forward. “You got a couch blankie,” she said. Glenda glanced down. A thin knitted throw lay folded at the back of the couch near her hip, close enough to reach if she wanted it and apparently close enough for Lily to have noticed from her hiding place. “I do.” “Use it.” Glenda reached behind her, caught the throw by its edge, and dragged it over her legs. “Yes, ma’am.”
Baby June’s head jerked up. “I a baby.” “Sorry. Yes, baby.” The doll looked satisfied. Glenda tucked the throw over her knees, making more of a ceremony of it than she ordinarily would, because the person behind the couch was plainly measuring results. When the blanket lay right, Baby June gave a little bounce. “Cozy?” “Cozy.” Another bounce. “Good.” By then Baby June had advanced. The doll was now sitting on the couch arm, though not securely. One of Lily’s hands had finally become visible at the waist, fingers gripping the cloth body. The other hand remained hidden, likely braced against the furniture. Glenda looked directly at June’s face and nowhere else. “You staying awhile?” Baby June nodded. “Maybe.” “That’s fine.” “I need to see your eyes.” Glenda blinked. “My eyes?” “Yes.” The doll leaned so close to the cushion edge that Glenda could see a tiny old scuff near one painted cheek. “Mir’cle does.”
Glenda’s smile escaped at last, small but complete. “Alright. What are you checking?” The question caused trouble. Baby June froze. The doll looked down, then up, then down again. Beneath the couch came a little huff of breath. After several seconds the high voice returned. “If you got sleepy eyes.” “And?” Baby June leaned nearer. “You do.” “I suspected as much.” “You got…” The doll tipped again. “You got tired mouth too.” “My mouth’s tired?” “Yes.” Glenda moved her lips experimentally. “What does a tired mouth look like?” The doll considered this. Lily’s fingers shifted at the waist, tightening and loosening. “Like not smilin’.” Glenda went still. Baby June’s head bobbed, encouraged by the silence. “Not mad. Just…” The voice slipped out of its doll pitch for one word, Lily’s natural voice showing through. “Flat.” Then she caught herself, rose higher behind the doll, and forced the breathy register back into place. “June sees.” Glenda ran her thumb along the edge of the blanket. “June’s observant.” “Very.” The doll dropped out of sight with a soft bump. Knees brushed the rug; something wooden nudged against something else. A small hand appeared long enough to place a pink plastic cup on the cushion, then vanished. Baby June rose beside it.
“Tea.” Glenda looked at the cup. It was pink, no handle, one of the old doll dishes that had belonged to more than one child and had tooth marks near the rim from some long-forgotten experiment. “Thank you.” “Hot.” “I’ll be careful.” “Not real hot.” “Even better.” Baby June watched as Glenda lifted the cup between finger and thumb. The opening was barely wide enough for the tip of her nose. She pretended to sip. “That’s excellent.” The doll bounced with delight and immediately lost balance. Baby June pitched forward onto the couch cushion, arms spread. The high voice vanished. “Oh!” Glenda covered her mouth. Lily’s head appeared for the first time. She came up fast from behind the couch, curls loose around her face, eyes fixed on Baby June with genuine concern, all secrecy forgotten. “You okay?” she whispered to the doll. She scooped June up with both hands, checked the head and arms, patted the sleeper flat, and only then remembered Glenda existed. Her eyes lifted.
Glenda had one hand over her mouth and no hope at all of looking neutral. Lily froze. For a heartbeat neither of them moved. Then Lily’s face changed—not into embarrassment, exactly, but into the startled calculation of a child discovering that a wall in her game had turned out to be glass. Her gaze went to Baby June, then Glenda, then the couch arm she had been hiding behind. She lowered herself by an inch as though perhaps the performance could be recovered if she simply reversed the reveal. Glenda dropped her hand and rescued her. “June took a tumble.” Lily looked at the doll. “She did,” Glenda continued gravely. “Lucky somebody was nearby.” The relief was immediate and almost comical. Lily’s shoulders softened. She ducked down again until only her eyes showed over the couch arm. Then those disappeared too. Baby June rose in their place, carefully this time.
“I okay,” the doll announced. “Glad to hear it.” “I got a helper.” “I figured.” The doll tipped toward the floor. “She’s real good.” “I bet she is.” There was a tiny pleased noise that did not belong to Baby June at all. Glenda settled deeper into the couch, cup still pinched between her fingers. “This tea’s helping.” Baby June nodded. “More?” “Maybe in a minute.” “Later,” June agreed. Baby June began another conversation. She asked whether Glenda’s feet were sleepy, and when Glenda said yes, June advised them not to walk. She asked whether Glenda’s hair was sleepy. Glenda said she had never known hair to sleep but was willing to learn. June decided hair probably slept “all little at a time.” She asked whether Glenda wanted a song and then, before receiving an answer, whispered sharply toward the floor, “No, not loud,” apparently correcting herself. The song that followed consisted of three hummed notes, repeated with minor variations, Baby June swaying in time. Lily attempted to keep the hum in June’s voice and keep her own lips still, though only the top half of her face was visible and Glenda could see the cheeks moving anyway. The tune bore some resemblance to one Miracle had used for nap games, though Lily kept losing it and starting over from the second note.
Glenda listened as though it were music worth listening to. The first verse, if it could be called a verse, ended when Baby June’s head rotated almost backward. Lily stopped humming. “No.” The doll was corrected. “Head goes front.” “Generally a good rule,” Glenda murmured. Baby June faced her again. “She learning.” “June?” A dangerous pause. “My helper.” “Ah.” “June already knows.” “Of course.” After a while the humming stopped. Glenda kept her eyes closed. The room waited. “G’en-da?” “Mmm?” “You sleeping?” “Not quite.” “Okay.” Silence again. Then, softer, Baby June said, “You can.” Glenda opened her eyes. The doll was very near now, perched on the couch arm with both hands folded awkwardly together. Lily had managed to position them in something like a lap. June’s painted mouth had no expression, yet Glenda could feel the tenderness being aimed through it. “I can what?”
“Sleep. I watch.” Glenda looked at June for a long moment. “That’s a big job.” “I good at watch.” “I know.” “Mir’cle says babies need watch when they sleep.” The voice wobbled, Lily’s own tone coming through. “But grown-ups can sleep by theyself. Still can watch.” There was no reason for the sentence to land as warmly as it did. Perhaps it was because the logic had clearly been assembled from fragments Lily had carried around for years: babies need watching, grown-ups can manage themselves, tired people deserve company, looking after someone did not always mean touching them. Glenda shifted her hand beneath her head and said, “Alright. You and your helper can keep an eye on things.” Baby June nodded once. “We got it.” Glenda closed her eyes. For perhaps thirty seconds, Lily succeeded completely. There was no movement, no whispering, no doll voice. Then the couch arm creaked. A tiny footstep moved along the rug. Another. The rustle came around the end of the couch instead of behind it. Glenda kept her eyes shut, sensing the performance migrating. A small hand touched the edge of the blanket near her ankle, not her body. Baby June’s voice whispered from much closer, “Blankie okay.”
Glenda did not answer. The blanket was pulled an inch higher over her feet. It was not done smoothly. The knit caught on her sock, stretched, released, and landed crooked. Lily adjusted it with two pats. “Cozy,” Baby June whispered. Glenda’s throat tightened around another smile. Glenda nearly slept. She drifted into that shallow place where every sound was still recognizable but none of it required response. The refrigerator hum became part of the ceiling fan, the road outside folded into the room, and Lily’s occasional whisper slipped between them. She did not know how long she stayed there. It could have been three minutes or fifteen. What brought her back was not noise but the absence of it. The house had become too still. Glenda opened one eye. Lily sat cross-legged on the rug beside the coffee table, fully visible now, Baby June propped in her lap. She was staring at Glenda with such solemn concentration that Glenda closed the eye again before being caught. Lily lifted June, tucked the doll against her own shoulder, and whispered something into the faded plastic ear. Then June was turned outward.
“She still tired,” Lily said in the doll voice. Glenda kept still. Baby June leaned toward her. “But she smiling now.” There was a quiet satisfaction in it, not triumph. Lily had noticed what she wanted to notice and filed it away. Glenda let the smile stay. The doll came closer. A small hand hovered over Glenda’s arm and stopped before touching. Lily, forgetting the voice, whispered, “Ask hands.” Then June asked, “Can I pat?” Glenda opened her eyes properly. Lily did not look caught this time. She looked expectant, Baby June held out between them. “You may,” Glenda said. Baby June’s cloth hand came down on Glenda’s forearm three times. Pat. Pat. Pat. The pressure was almost nothing. Lily counted under her breath, then lifted the doll away exactly when the third pat ended. “Thank you,” June said. “You’re welcome.”
Lily’s mouth moved visibly now, and she knew it. She pursed her lips, tried again, and made Baby June say, “You’w welcome,” while her own mouth twisted sideways with the effort of not moving. Glenda watched this new phase of the performance with interest. Hiding had made the illusion easier; being seen made Lily determined to prove the trick could survive scrutiny. Baby June sat on Lily’s knee. “I can talk,” she announced. “So I’ve noticed.” Lily pressed her lips together until they nearly disappeared. Baby June turned to look at her. “Lily can’t.” The words came out as a nasal little murmur because Lily had tried to speak without opening her mouth at all. Glenda stared at the doll, then at Lily’s enormous, serious eyes. “Well,” Glenda said, “that’s unfortunate.” Lily’s cheeks puffed. A laugh escaped through her nose. She clapped one hand over her mouth, which made the next line even more muffled. “She’s hiding.”
“Who is?” “Lily.” Glenda looked around the room. “Haven’t seen her.” The child’s eyes widened with delight. She slid down from her cross-legged seat until the coffee table blocked most of her body, leaving Baby June sitting on the edge above her like a small sentry. “She went…” Lily’s mouth twitched. She corrected herself into June’s voice. “She went away.” “Did she?” “Yes.” “Hope she comes back. I’m supposed to be looking after her.” There was a pause beneath the table. Baby June tipped forward. “She good.” “I know she’s good. Still like to know where she is.” Another pause. Lily evidently had not expected the responsibilities of childcare to enter the game. Baby June looked down toward the floor, then back at Glenda. “She is…” The doll turned to inspect the space under the coffee table. “Close.” “That narrows it down.”
“She very close.” “Good.” The doll seemed to relax. “You don’t gotta get up.” Glenda felt the sentence before she answered it. Lily had understood the joke and the problem at once: Glenda might have to rise and search, which would ruin the entire purpose of the game. “Alright,” Glenda said. “If June says she’s close, I trust June.” Baby June sat taller. “I a good watcher.” “You are.” From below the table came another quiet, pleased sound. Baby June slid down from the coffee table and vanished. Lily’s knees bumped lightly against the underside. “Ow,” came the natural voice. Glenda lifted her head. “You alright?” A beat. Baby June rose from the far side. “Yes.” “That wasn’t June I heard.” The doll looked toward the floor. “No.” “Sounded like somebody bumped a knee.” Long pause. “Maybe Lily.” “Maybe.” “She okay.”
“I’d still like to check.” This produced a visible debate. Baby June sank. Lily rose in her place, rubbing one knee through her leggings, expression resigned but not upset. Glenda held out a hand without sitting all the way up. Lily came around the table and stopped close enough for inspection. Glenda touched the knee lightly, feeling no swelling, then looked at Lily’s face. “Move it for me.” Lily bent and straightened her leg. “Hurts?” “Only little.” “Want ice?” Lily considered with the seriousness she gave every offer that might interrupt a game. “No. It gone mostly.” “Okay. If it comes back, tell me.” “I will.” Glenda gave the knee one small pat and let her hand fall away. Lily lingered. Baby June hung upside down from one of her hands, sleeper riding toward the doll’s shoulders. Glenda looked from Lily to the doll and asked, “Where’d June go?”
Lily’s face lit with renewed purpose. She ducked instantly behind the couch arm. Baby June appeared upside down. Glenda stared. The doll vanished. A frantic whisper followed: “No, no, feet down.” Then Baby June rose correctly, dignity restored. “Hello.” Glenda laughed. She could not help it this time. The sound came out low and warm and went on longer than she expected, shaking her shoulders and pulling at the tired muscles in her stomach. Baby June froze. Lily’s eyes appeared just beneath the doll, checking. Glenda laughed harder at the sight of them stacked there, doll above, child below, both wearing different versions of the same earnest stare. Lily’s mouth began to grin despite her attempt to keep it hidden. June’s voice emerged through the grin. “What?” “Nothing,” Glenda managed. Baby June leaned closer. “You laughing.” “I am.” “Why?” Glenda wiped beneath one eye with a fingertip. “Because June came up upside down.”
The doll looked offended. “No.” “She absolutely did.” “No, she was…” Lily began in her own voice, then stopped. Her eyes narrowed with the need to preserve the case. Baby June answered, “She was doing a trick.” “Ah. Well, it was a very good trick.” June considered whether this saved sufficient face. Apparently it did. “Yes.” Glenda’s laughter settled into a smile. “Nearly fooled me.” Baby June nodded, gracious in victory. Lily stayed where she was this time, eyes and forehead visible under the doll. The hiding had become symbolic. Glenda could see her and Lily knew she could see her, but the couch arm remained the stage line and that was enough. She tried another ventriloquist sentence, lips barely moving. “June says you look more awake.” “June’s right.” “June says…” Lily paused. Her eyes went sideways as she built the sentence. “June says maybe tired is still there but not so much on your face.”
Glenda did not answer immediately. Lily’s brows drew together. Baby June tilted uncertainly. Glenda reached down and touched the doll’s cloth foot. “June’s right about that too.” The child relaxed. There was room on the couch beside Glenda’s knees if somebody wanted it, though Lily had not asked. Glenda pulled her legs in a little and patted the open cushion once. “Does June want to sit up here?” Baby June looked at Lily. Lily looked at Baby June. The doll’s voice said, “Maybe Lily too.” “Could probably fit both.” Lily came around the couch slowly, no longer hiding, carrying June with both hands. She stopped beside the open cushion and glanced at Glenda’s blanket. “I won’t squish your feet.” “Appreciated.” She climbed up carefully, one knee and then the other, turned herself around, and settled against the far cushion with Baby June in her lap. She did not lean on Glenda at first. The space between them was only a few inches, enough to be company without becoming weight. Lily rearranged June’s sleeper, pulling it down over the doll’s soft middle, then smoothed the one remaining clear duckie with her thumb.
For a minute neither of them spoke. Glenda let the quiet return on different terms. Lily looked around the room as if seeing it from the couch changed its jurisdiction. The laundry basket was still on the chair. The sunlight had moved off the rug and reached the bottom shelf of the bookcase. The toy cup sat safely in the middle of the coffee table. Lily noticed it and pointed. Baby June’s voice said, “Tea later.” “Later,” Glenda agreed. Lily leaned back a little. Her shoulder touched Glenda’s shin through the blanket and stayed there. Baby June sat between her hands, facing outward. “Miracle does it better,” Lily said. Glenda turned her head. Lily was not fishing for reassurance. She stated it with the calm accuracy of somebody noting that another child could skip rope faster or draw horses more convincingly. She pressed her lips together and made June say, “I do it good,” then broke into a grin at her own contradiction.
Glenda smiled. “You’re learning.” “She can make Rosie talk and her mouth don’t move much.” Lily demonstrated by clamping her jaw and producing an indistinct hum. She frowned. “Mine moves.” “Hard not to.” “She does it from here.” Lily touched the side of her throat, then her chest, uncertain where the trick lived. “Like the voice goes around her mouth.” Glenda considered correcting the mechanics and decided she knew almost nothing useful about ventriloquism. “Sounds like you’ve been studying.” Lily nodded. “She said don’t look at her. Look at the doll.” “That helps.” “An’ the doll gotta look at you.” “Also helps.” “An’ you wait first.” Lily lifted June, turned the doll’s face toward Glenda, and became very still. Three seconds passed. Four. Five. June said, “Hi.” Glenda smiled. “There it is.” Lily beamed, then immediately tried to put the expression onto June instead. The doll bobbed. “See?”
“I see.” “G’en-da,” June said after a while. “Mmm?” “Can I ask you something?” “You can.” “Do grown-ups get tired even if they don’t do running?” “All the time.” Lily’s lips moved before she remembered. “Why?” Glenda looked at her. The question had come out as Lily, not June, and neither of them bothered correcting it. “Lots of ways to get tired. Thinking can do it. Working can do it. Worry can do it. Being busy can do it. Sometimes you just didn’t sleep enough.” “Were you worried?” “No.” “Busy?” “Some.” “Didn’t sleep?” “Probably some of that too.” Lily nodded as though taking inventory. “So not sick.” “No, honey.” “Not sad.” “No.” Lily accepted this without needing a hidden answer. “Just tired.” “Just tired.” Baby June was raised again. “That’s okay.” Glenda’s eyes softened. “Yeah. It is.” Lily rested June against her chest. After a moment she scooted half an inch closer until her shoulder was properly against Glenda’s leg. She did not ask whether Glenda felt better. She had already checked. Instead she began telling Baby June, in a whisper meant for Glenda to overhear, that tired people were allowed to lie down and that towels could wait. The towels, apparently, had acquired moral significance during the inspection. “They not going nowhere,” June said. “They can stay.”
Glenda looked at the laundry basket. “That’s what I said.” Lily grinned. “June smart.” “Very.” “And Lily.” “Also very.” The child ducked her head, pleased but not wanting the praise held up too high. She made June examine one of her own feet, then announced that babies got tired too. Glenda offered the open section of cushion near her hip. Lily laid June there, tucking the folded washcloth over the doll’s middle. The sleeper’s faded duckie remained visible above it. “Nap,” Lily whispered. Glenda lowered her voice automatically. “Think she’ll sleep?” “She always sleeps.” “Good talent.” “Miracle says she’s nap baby.” Lily stroked the blanket once and withdrew her hand. “Rosie don’t sleep so much. Rosie watches. Bella talks too much.” Glenda’s mouth curved. “That sounds about right.” “Lulu rings.” “Mm-hm.” “Zinnia swims. Sophie checks cozy.” Glenda glanced at her. “And Lily?”
The child looked surprised by being placed in the list. She thought for a moment, eyes dropping to June. “Lily…” Her finger touched the washcloth edge. “Lily can help June talk.” “That sounds like a job.” “An’ I can watch too.” “That does too.” She considered this, then leaned her head lightly against the back cushion. “Miracle lets me borrow voices.” The phrase was so purely hers that Glenda did not improve it. “That’s nice of her.” “I give ’em back.” “I’d hope so.” Lily giggled, catching the joke. “You can’t keep a voice.” “Probably shouldn’t.” “No. Then Miracle got no talking.” “That’d be a problem.” Lily’s eyes went bright. “But Rosie can still.” Glenda lifted an eyebrow. “’Cause Rosie whispers.” “Ah.” “In your head.” “Different system.” Lily nodded firmly. “Different.” Baby June slept between them. The room settled again, but Lily had used up whatever reserve of stillness had powered the performance. Her feet began to move under her. She flexed them, tucked them beneath herself, untucked them, crossed her ankles, then sat straighter as if remembering she had promised not to disturb Glenda. Glenda noticed and moved the blanket aside from the open space near her waist. “You can come here if you want.”
Lily looked at the place. “Doesn’t bother me.” She hesitated only a second, then shifted closer and curled sideways, not fully lying down, her back against Glenda’s bent knees. Glenda let one hand rest on the child’s shoulder. Lily sighed, a sound much older than her body, and watched Baby June. “Your knee alright?” Lily bent it experimentally. “Yep.” “Good.” “Your mouth still tired?” Glenda smiled. “Not as much.” Lily twisted enough to see her face. “It smiling.” “Seems to be.” That satisfied her more than any thank-you would have. She faced forward again and laid one hand on the cushion beside June, not touching the doll. Glenda’s palm remained at her shoulder, warm and still. The child’s breathing slowed by degrees. The afternoon did not need a climax beyond that. Glenda had known enough loud houses and loud feelings to appreciate the small victories that did not announce themselves. The laundry remained unfinished. The grocery list remained ridiculous. Nobody rang the telephone. Baby June slept under a washcloth with one faded duck staring at the ceiling. Lily rested against Glenda’s legs, awake but quiet, occasionally lifting her head as though another line might come to her and then deciding it could wait.
After several minutes, she whispered, “G’en-da?” “Yes, baby?” Lily did not lift June. The doll voice was gone. “When Miracle comes back, can I show her?” “Course.” “She might say I did it wrong.” “She might show you how she does it.” Lily considered the distinction. “That’s not same.” “No.” “She don’t say wrong much.” “No, she doesn’t.” “She says try like this.” Glenda’s fingers gave one slow stroke over Lily’s shoulder. “Sounds like her.” Lily smiled into the cushion. “I can make June surprise her.” “I think June might enjoy that.” “Behind the couch.” “That was effective.” “You didn’t know.” Glenda looked down at the top of Lily’s head. “Not a clue.” Lily turned enough to catch her expression. Glenda kept it straight for perhaps half a second. The child’s eyes narrowed. “You did.” “Did what?” “You knew.” “Knew what?”
“That I was there.” Glenda let the question hang, because Lily had learned the long pause from somebody and deserved to have it used against her once. Then she said, “I knew June was there.” Lily tried not to smile. “And June told me she had a helper.” “She did.” “So I figured I was covered.” Lily turned back around, accepting this legal settlement. “You were.” “Good.” Another quiet minute passed. Then Lily whispered, “I wanted you to laugh.” Glenda’s hand stilled. The words were not sad. They were not asking to be praised for kindness. Lily said them the way she might say she had wanted the blue cup instead of the green one: simple purpose, now disclosed because the result had already been achieved. Glenda looked toward the end of the couch where Baby June had first risen, remembering the doll’s forehead inching into view, the strained little “H’lo, G’en-da,” the solemn claim of itchy pants. She felt another smile moving over her face.
“You got me,” she said. Lily nodded against her knee. “June did.” “June did.” “She was funny.” “She was.” “I did the voice.” Glenda let her hand move again, one gentle pass over the child’s hair. “I had a suspicion.” Lily laughed into the cushion, small enough not to wake the doll. They stayed there until the light began to thin. At some point Glenda reached for her glasses and put them back on, bringing the room into edges again: the weave of the blanket, the tiny worn places on June’s sleeper, the lint caught on Lily’s leggings, the fold of concentration still lingering between the child’s brows even at rest. Nothing had changed enough to call the afternoon different. Glenda was still tired. The towels were still waiting. There would be things to do when the front door opened again, voices arriving with shoes and bags and whatever the rest of the day had collected.
For now there was only the couch. Lily lifted Baby June once more, barely moving from where she leaned against Glenda. She pressed her lips together, concentrated until her nose wrinkled, and brought the doll’s face close to Glenda’s. The voice came out thin, crooked, and determined. “You cozy?” Glenda looked at June, then at Lily, then down at the small body settled safely against her legs. She did not explain anything. She did not tell Lily what she had noticed or what it meant or why the afternoon felt lighter than it had before a doll began climbing out of nowhere. She only answered the question. “Yeah,” she said, and let her eyes close again. “I am.”