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Ruben’s house, they turned again and walked to Deborah’s house. Squirrel was asleep. Outside Deborah’s house he cried again. Ruben picked him up and rocked him in her arms. The little girls climbed out of their stroller and ran up on the porch in the dark. Ruben’s knees hurt with cold and tiredness. Her breasts hurt. Can I nurse him in the street, standing up?
    â€”Doctor, doctor, I have frostbitten nipples! Come inside.
    â€”I’d never get going again. She nursed him, standing, in the street.
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    â€”When is the test? Emma asked, at every class. When will I get my equivalency?
    The others were afraid of the test and shushed Emma.
    â€”I keep coming, said Emma. I’ve come every time. Now I want to take the test.
    Ruben kept changing the subject. When she talked on the phone to Deborah, she told her about Emma.
    â€”So?
    â€”So what?
    â€”So schedule her for the test.
    â€”How can she? None of the others are taking it yet. She couldn’t possibly pass it.
    â€”So?
    â€”What do you mean, so? It would be irresponsible.
    â€”Do what she wants, said Deborah.
    It was a way of looking at things, it had nothing to do with Emma. It made Ruben angry. She’ll fail, said Ruben. Everybody will think I’m a bad teacher.
    â€”Oh, is that it?
    â€”No, said Ruben. She’ll be unhappy when she fails it. She’ll blame me.
    â€”Toby, I can’t think about that. I’m four centimeters dilated. I haven’t slept in a week.
    â€”Maybe you should stop teaching.
    â€”Oh, I bring magazines and read to them.
    â€”Not really, said Ruben, who spent hours late at night planning lessons.
    â€”Somewhat really, said Deborah.
    â€”What do you think Deborah meant? she said to Harry, but Harry didn’t care. They were in bed. He’d learned not to touch her breasts, which were just kitchen appliances these days, so he ran his fingers through her pubic hair and began to touch her inside. What did Deborah mean? she said again, but for the first time since she’d had Squirrel, she liked the feeling, she wasn’t just giving herself lectures about it.
    When Deborah had to go have her baby, Jeremiah showed up on Ruben’s porch with the little girls. She had seen him only once before.
    â€”Do we have one of those friendships with husbands? she and Deborah had said to each other. But Jeremiah was nice, and Harry was nice, and once they had all stood on a corner in the wind—strollers, husbands—and talked. Now Jeremiah, a short man, glittery-eyed from fucking to work songs or for some other reason, stood and laughed on the porch because his wife was having a baby quite soon, two weeks early, and Ruben gathered the little girls into her house and talked to him shyly through the partly opened door. It was windy.
    â€”Quick or slow? Ruben asked, through the doorway. What do you think?
    â€”Quick or slow what? said Jeremiah, and she felt herself blush as if he’d caught her in a double entendre, when all she meant was labor. The birth.
    â€”Oh, quick, surely.
    â€”Better hurry then, which was also embarrassing, as if she was throwing him out.
    This strange husband smiled and stood. Jill had breakfast, he said, but Rose wouldn’t. It was early in the morning. Harry was still asleep.
    â€”I’ll feed her.
    â€”She likes—
    â€”I know what she likes. Grilled cheese sandwich. Butter on the outside. Cut into strips. Handled till it’s gray. She wanted him to know that she knew.
    Harry met her, carrying Squirrel. Didn’t Deborah have friends before you?
    â€”I don’t mind! Ruben was proud to be the one.
    â€”I didn’t mean it that way. I was curious.
    â€”Her other friends are boring.
    She baby-sat perfectly. Harry left, Squirrel napped, and she made cookies with the little girls, letting the rug stay dirty. She lifted the heavy daughters onto her kitchen chairs, saying in a perfectly casual, adult