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  I called Joe on the way, Joe called both of our moms. My mom hopped on a plane from Atlanta and brought Georgia to the hospital. Cassius stayed behind with our new nanny. They hooked me up to an IV and started pumping me with Pitocin to induce labor.

  Three intense touch-and-go hours later, our baby girl arrived. If we hadn’t responded quickly, she would have died inside me.

  “Whoa!” Joe said when he finally saw her face squeeze out from between my legs, wide, open eyes and big, flaring nostrils. “You’re definitely not a pretty girl!” He laughed clumsily. Everyone in the room turned to Joe in disbelief—were those really his first words to his kid, whose life had just been saved? Hadn’t he any empathy? I looked down at my chest where our baby lay, exhausted from the birth, barely alive, apparently not that pretty, looking more like a wild fighter on the winning side of a boxing match than a cuddly, sweet baby. For a second I felt sorry for her. What would she become?

  Feeling the tension, Joe filled in the awkward silence: “But that’s okay, Daddy will always love you.” His smile, broad across his entire face, was genuine, and we laughed then, all of us in the room—partly as a much-needed release. Partly for the strange love of a parent. And partly, too, because of the absurdity of the statement in the moment—Joe remarking on our daughter’s beauty when just moments before, we’d thought we’d lose her. I thought, Thank God we’re not meant to be pretty. We’re meant to be alive.

  The birth put things in perspective, serving as a reminder of just how fragile these situations are, how precious we are to each other. Holding our daughter between us, Joe and I both felt we needed to stick closer, to be nearer, as a family. She was tiny, just under seven pounds, and she was our precious, fragile gem.

  I slept in the hospital room that night holding her in my arms, keeping one eye on her at all times to make sure she was okay. And when Joe returned early the next morning, he did the same. Even through our exhaustion, we never let her out of our sight or our reach—or alone with the hospital staff, not even to bathe. “No, thank you,” I’d say to the nurse, who popped in every hour or so. “She’s fine. I’ll wash her when we get home tomorrow…Really, no, thank you.”

  If I could have looked into the future and seen whom I was holding, seen how strong this child was, how formidably strong, I would have understood that the one in my arms was the one who would push us, and break us, and reshape us. This baby would remake our entire universe. And for me, she would change my very purpose in life.

  “Hello, Penelope,” I whispered, watching her wiggle and kick, her big bright eyes on me. “Welcome to the world.”

  TEN

  Tunnel Vision

  IN THE BEGINNING, things are simple. Tiring, but running on a predictable schedule. You leave the hospital on a Wednesday with Penelope in your arms and go back to work at the boutique on Monday, carrying her with you still. Sometimes you feel like a workhorse. That you can do anything—with new babies strapped to your chest, babies you birthed, with muscles still sore, with blood still pouring out of your body. Moving a little slower, maybe, but regardless of the obstacles or how physically grueling each day is, you just keep going and doing it all—one task at a time. You put in twelve-hour shifts while Penelope’s happily snuggled close, nursing her in a chair near the front door of the store, greeting customers as they walk in.

  At home, you make knee pads out of cloth and tape for her. Since she’s learned to crawl, she’s become an explorer—moving constantly and getting into things. You find her sitting on top of the open dishwasher hood, looking up at you with her big, gummy smile. You and Joe nickname her Baby. You watch her splashing around in the tub with her brother, making waves with the bathwater. You watch her at night, going down easily, sleeping soundly. You think, I can do this. You feel relief. Being Mom to four humans may not be as hard as they said it would be.

  PENELOPE: YEAR 1

  Don’t stop, don’t slow down. Keep going. Keep pushing. Push a little more.

  She can’t run the show, Jodie. You hear your mother’s advice replaying in your head as you attempt to change Baby. You grit your teeth and power through another diaper, and another and another and another. Sing a song this time to make it easier for her, make a funny face while you pry her legs apart. Try trickery, sorcery, alchemy, comedy—but every time, every single time, it’s the same. She’s sweating, screaming. Bearing down, lashing out, kicking hard, pushing back, turning red. You’re sweating, insisting. Grabbing a foot, avoiding a kick. Calling for backup: “Joe! Help, please!” You hold down an arm, hold up a bottom, rush forward with the baby wipe. It’s a frantic, frenzied dance—a battle of wills between you and your one-year-old. And the one-year-old is unbending, unbreakable. Her will is strong—so strong that it feels wrong for you to fight it.

  Baby can’t talk yet but her body language says it all. She frowns and pokes out her lips, she stiffens her back and makes it impossible to get a good snuggle in, she balls up her fist and swings at everything—at you, her dad, and sometimes even at her big brother Cassius while they sit on the floor playing. Cassius with his trucks neatly lined up in size order, and she with her dolls—paying no attention to them at all. She swings, knocking down Cassius’s assembly of toys, and then she swings again, whomping him in the face. Baby is conveying, in every way possible, “No!” But you haven’t a clue what she’s refusing. Not a clue. You stay up for hours, thinking.

  Don’t stop, don’t slow down. Keep going. Keep pushing. Push a little more.

  Wake up, take Georgia and Cassius to school. Work till late, make your way home. Kiss the kids, kiss Joe. Work some more from your desk. Go to bed at three, set the alarm for six. Turn off the lights. Breathe deep. Get up and do it again.

  You try your best not to be late. Georgia, especially, needs you to be on time. She stands out like a sore thumb at school, one of only three non-Chinese kids in her Gifted and Talented program. You walk to her third grade classroom each morning, holding her hand, and most parents avoid you both like the plague—staring suspiciously at you, two of only a scattered few Black people walking down the hallways. You raise your head higher and keep walking. You demonstrate resilience. But Georgia comes home each day with pee-soaked pants and tears in her eyes. You promise her you’ll walk with her each and every morning until things get better. You fall asleep at night swearing never to be late again. You promise to do better, to be on time, the next morning.

  PENELOPE: YEAR 2

  Baby tells you about her wants, her likes. She likes olives and Brussels sprouts. She likes blocks and trains. She wants more juice, please. She likes her brother’s T-shirts and jeans. His sneakers and boots. She wants to sleep on his pillow, use his toothbrush. “That one, over there.” She points at the red-and-blue Spider-Man brush. She makes a face when you hand over her toothbrush instead, the pink-and-purple one covered in silver sparkles. “No,” she whines. “That one. There.” She reaches out to take the Spider-Man toothbrush out of her brother’s hand; he slaps her away, she slaps back. Crying and yelling ensue. You pull them apart: “All right, you two. Calm down.” You put Baby’s brush in her hand, put your hand over hers, and move it up and down together, brushing top and bottom teeth, tears still wet on her cheeks. She’s not supposed to want those things, to wear what’s not hers. Her brother doesn’t like it, either. You determine that she must be confused.

  The next day, you go to the store and buy pink and blue hangers. That weekend, you put Baby’s clothes on the pink hangers and Cassius’s on the blue ones. “The pink hangers are yours,” you say to Baby, emphasizing the words “pink” and “yours.” You reorganize their closet, separating out her clothes from his, putting hers on lower shelves so she can see them better. “These are your dresses, these are your shirts, these are your pants,” you say, holding up pretty hand-me-down dresses, patterned shirts and pants.

  It seemed only right to dress Penelope in head-to-to
e pink.

  You suggest trying something on: “How about the rainbow-striped dress? The one with the cute face of the brown girl with the Afro?” Georgia loved that one. But no, Baby doesn’t want the rainbow-striped dress. She pushes it away. She wants her brother’s bulky jeans. She wants his black-and-white Adidas T-shirt. She wants it so much that she starts to cry. Here we go. You pivot, picking up another shirt, another dress, another pair of socks, another pair of pants. She continues to cry; it’s getting louder, fiercer.

  Finally, you relent, letting her put on the bulky jeans and her brother’s shirt. It’s way too big in the shoulders and falls almost to her knees. The outfit is hideous, but she looks at you and beams—her once gummy grin now full of tiny teeth. No more tears. She struts around the house as if she’s drenched in diamonds. You joke with friends about your kid’s funny-horrible fashion sense, thinking about what kind of girl she’ll turn out to be.

  Maybe she’s just jealous. Yes, probably jealous! That makes sense. Cassius is pretty amazing, the way he learns things with speed and does almost everything, big-boy things, with ease. Of course, that’s it. She looks up to him, and wants to be him.

  * * *

  —

  You watch your daughter watch your son. Baby observes her brother as though she’s his understudy. It’s like witnessing an intense game of Monkey See, Monkey Do. Cassius hurt his leg at the park one afternoon, and Baby limped around the entire day in phantom pain. “My leg hurt, Mama! My leg hurt, Mama!” she repeated, pointing to the same spot on her shin where her brother’s bruise bloomed.

  You see how Cassius and Penelope walk through life shoulder to shoulder. How she glances down at his footing to make sure she’s got it right. How she watches you when you’re disciplining him, reacting to his punishment as if it were her own. How she seems to look at the world through his eyes. Cassius sees it. He notices his sister watching his every move. Most of the time he’s fine with her adoration. Until it becomes too much, until she smothers him with her presence—sometimes tripping over him to get as close to him as physically possible. “Give me space,” Cassius says, placing a hand on Baby’s chest, moving her back an inch.

  “I am space,” Penelope replies, leaning back in.

  You try your best to be Penelope’s everything, the way you were for Georgia. You look for the thing that maybe you haven’t done enough of, and then try to do more of that thing. Have you read enough books? Maybe she needs another story. Have you held her today? Touched her and showed her love? Have we sung songs like Mama did with you and Ramona? What’s that song you used to sing, Sippin’ cider from a straw?

  “Baby, let’s have some fun together. Just you and me.” You try to lure her away from Cassius with the promise of some Mama and Penelope time.

  “I not calking to you!” is her only response. You touch her shoulder but she brushes you away. She laughs when her brother hands her his Lego to play with.

  PENELOPE: YEAR 3

  Don’t stop, don’t slow down. Keep going. Keep pushing. Push a little more.

  Work is difficult. You’ve fallen short every month on rent for the boutique. No matter how you rearrange the shelves with product, or how many hours you put in greeting customers, what comes out is always less than enough. “We just need a little more investment money and I’m sure we can make it work, babe.” You’ve asked Joe to bail out the store more times than you’re comfortable with. He’s starting to doubt the business, maybe even doubt your abilities. So are you. After months of back-and-forth, you and Joe agree to close the shop, and if you’re lucky, perhaps reopen it online. You admit to being afraid. “I don’t have a clue how to run a digital company.”

  “Well, you’ll have to learn,” Joe commands. On the hottest day in August, you bring down the gate on the Georgia boutique for good—and on your current Manhattan hustle. Both have become too much.

  WELCOME TO BROOKLYN the faded green sign reads as you drive your U-Haul down the freeway.

  Another year, another move. There is another pregnancy, too. This time, a boy: Othello, who was in such a rush to come that you practically deliver him in the hallway of the hospital. You are now seven: Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and four little (and one not-so-little) cubs: girl, boy, girl, boy, boy. Oh my God, you think, panicking. Five kids? When did that happen? How? You and Joe move the crib out of storage and back into your bedroom—again.

  Everything must have a schedule. Go to the park for thirty minutes. Toys for an hour. Bath time at six. Dinner at seven. Story time at eight. Children asleep by eight thirty. You fantasize about ways to streamline and professionalize the parenting process into an efficient system with the least effort and highest return on investment. If you can’t get your business to be profitable, you damn sure won’t screw up the family, too. Everyone needs to be on time and in their place, bathed and groomed, wearing the right clothes and the right attitude. Because late has become your new normal. Chaos constantly creeps into the routine.

  It’s Penelope. This three-year-old terror, breaking down your best-laid plans with all of her “no’s.” “No!” to certain colors (all the pinks and purples, too-light shades of blue); “No!” to the shape of her jeans. “No!” to the stitching on that button, “No, no, no!” to baths, to changing, to combing her hair. Since she’s learned to talk, her favorite form of speech is protest.

  You try your best. You know how important being on time is—Joe reminds you every day. Georgia in particular can’t be late. She’s the new girl at a fancy, highly competitive private school, and one of only a few Black girls in her class—again.

  But there are twenty-four hours in a day, and you need twenty-five. You have lunches to make and hair to do, and new teachers to meet, and new house rules to establish for Nain, like no drinking directly from the containers of juice or devouring all the cereal late at night while stretched out on the couch. You have an eleven-year old, and a five-year-old, and a three-year-old, and baby Othello—and a young man who’s come to you with his own undocumented peculiarities and habits. You have zero time for Penelope’s antics. Her “no’s” take you further and further away from routine, further from a schedule that’s already this close to falling apart. There is an agitator in your midst, and her name is Penelope. She is the disrupter. A constant item on your list of to-dos.

  * * *

  —

  Tonight’s task: hide the stitching.

  You hunch over a pile of clothes on your knees with a permanent marker, blacking out the pink stitching on a pair of Penelope’s corduroys. She’s boycotted all pink in any of her clothes. Although you’ve tried to duplicate her brother’s wardrobe as best you can from the girls’ section, she’s spotted pink on the inside label of one of her shirts, and now she refuses to wear anything in her wardrobe. But you refuse to throw it all away. You look over at Joe, who’s chuckling at the absurdity of the situation. “No one ever sees the stitching anyway,” he says into a pair of khakis. “Why does she care so much?”

  “I don’t freakin’ know, just do it!” you snap. Pause. Breathe. “Please.” You can hear how mean you sound. Your nerves are shot. You’re scared Penelope will walk in and discover the two of you trying to pacify her with a Magic Marker.

  Joe somehow feels it’s your fault, that perhaps you’ve indulged the kids too much and allowed them to express themselves too freely. Maybe they’re feeling in control, and you need to take back the reins.

  “You do too much talking, Jodie. You need to—”

  “What, Joe? What haven’t I done? What should I do more of? Tell me and I’ll do it. I tried spanking for a month straight, but it didn’t solve a thing.” Silence. You shake your head. “Just color over the damn pink stitching, please.”

  Heads down, for hours the two of you go through Penelope’s clothes, piece by piece, pulling everything out for examination with a ruthlessness that verge
s on maniacal. Hunting for suspect stitching, for that offending color. Running the ink over every single stitch, every single label, until all traces of pink are blotted out. Handled, you think.

  You do this because you know what will happen if you don’t. The tantrums that will rattle the whole house. You do this to make Penelope happy. And mostly, you do this just so you can make it out the damn door the next morning.

  * * *

  —

  Today, after a week of begging us to “cut it into a Mohawk, like Papa’s!” Joe takes clippers to Penelope’s halo of blond curls.

  Six months ago, Joe decided to leave his job—the office politics he’d been navigating had become ridiculous at best, insurmountable at worst. Plus, he now has other things on his mind. He’s vowed to run a marathon, master woodworking, and get to know the philosophy of Eckhart Tolle. He moved all of his blue suits into an infrequently used closet, replaced them with jeans and T-shirts, and cut his hair into a drastic and defiant Mohawk. This is the Mohawk that Penelope wants, too.