Eventually India found something Jack and Fig liked: a tiny kitchen with faucet knobs that turned and an oven door that opened and closed. They liked India to sit at the miniature café table and chairs so that her knees were level with her head. They liked to make menus by covering sheets of construction paper in scribbles then taking her order. They liked to dice the velcroed carrots and bring her plates of a slab of wooden steak, a whole plastic chicken, a stick of neon-yellow butter, an unpeelable banana.
And so, one evening, India announced they were going out for dinner.
She made a reservation, but they still had to wait. The kitchen was backed up but annoyed anyway when they went through four baskets of rolls. Jack’s spaghetti came with green stuff on it and Fig’s french fries with aioli, so India had to trust in the talents of her dry cleaner and pocket the side of white sauce then pick each fleck of basil off with the precision and patience of a bomb disposal unit. But they had left the house. She was eating something she hadn’t prepared herself somewhere other than her kitchen. The risk of public meltdown—and the ways the public led to meltdown—had been hazarded and vanquished.
The table next to theirs ordered bananas Foster, and while India finished her own ice cream and watched the kids take polite turns sticking their fingers into the pitcher of hot fudge, she tried to remember whether bananas Foster was essentially a snooty banana split or what the difference was. Ice cream, bananas. Was there caramel? Was it wrapped in a crepe? Were ladyfingers involved?
The waiter wheeled out a cart, poured rum then liqueur over sliced bananas in a silver pan, and lit the whole thing on fire. There were delighted gasps around the room, applause from their neighbors, and then, of course, it burned itself out moments later. It happened so quickly it took India a breath or two to notice that Fig was shrieking underneath the table.
She was not crying, she was howling, a sound India had never heard a human make before. She was drenched. Blood? That would explain the sound she was making, but it wasn’t red, and a rough check revealed nothing cut or broken. A spark of banana on a bare arm frantically doused with a glass of water? But no, it wasn’t blood or soggy ash, just ordinary wet—sweat, tears—and by then India’s brain had caught up and understood what was happening here, what was happening again as far as Fig’s mind could tell. The whole restaurant was horrified, assuming, as India had, that Fig had been burned somehow. But when it became clear it was just a tantrum from a child who should have been left home with a babysitter, everyone fell silent or to piqued whispers, appalled and disapproving. India crawled all the way under the table on her hands and knees to comfort her daughter, but Fig couldn’t hear her, not over her own shrieks, not over the inside of her head. Eventually, India pried her from the furniture, hoisted her limp and raging body, grabbed Jack’s hand, and fled.
It wasn’t just flambé desserts. Fig was anxious anywhere enclosed with lots of people or lots of noise or spaces she couldn’t see all of at once. She didn’t trust mirrors or other reflective surfaces because it was scary to look around a crowded room and catch a glimpse of someone familiar who turned out to be you, and it was scary to sit across from someone and be able to see their face and the back of their head at the same time. India could scan menus for wood-fired ovens and flaming dishes, could avoid restaurants with a reputation for overbooking or cramming in, but there were a lot of reflective surfaces in LA, so they mostly ate at home.
Jack was fine with flames, crowds, loud noises, large rooms, mirrors, and windows. But his first encounter with the paparazzi ended with the arrival of the police. Hype for Val Halla had barely begun, so they were all three surprised when a photographer jumped out from behind a trash can in the park and started snapping pictures. India put a hand to her hammering heart, and Fig hid behind her leg, but Jack bent to the gravel of the path they were on and started throwing it by the handful in all directions. The photographer fled, which convinced Jack only that it was working—he was protecting his family and should not stop—until someone called 911, which only made it worse. They were both afraid of police and police cars, the red-blue lights, the sirens.
“It’s over now,” India assured him, assured the cops, assured everyone gathered around. But, of course, it was just beginning.
“Maybe I was wrong.” Even at night she spoke to her mother only in whispers. At least one child was usually awake, and she didn’t want them to overhear. “It turns out love is not all you need. It turns out love is not what makes a family.”
“That didn’t turn out to be the case,” her mother corrected. “That was never the case. It was never that simple, and you never thought it was. You’re not a greeting card. You’re not an after-school special.”
“Maybe your blood-related-to-you kids have problems you’re genetically set up to handle. Like if your kids inherited pyromania, your ancestors knew how to handle that so your genes are naturally selected to know what to do.”
“By definition, I don’t think pyromania is hereditary.”
“Or maybe not genetically set up to handle. Maybe genetically set up to recognize, to find familiar, a mark of belonging, and therefore not mind so much.”
“Even if it ran in your family,” her mother said, “I think you’d still mind pyromania.”
“But maybe not night terrors.”
“This is what parenting is, India. Solving impossible-to-solve problems while also experiencing deep crises of faith while also being kind of annoyed while also never getting enough rest. These problems only ever go away by changing into different equally impossible problems. This is how it always is for all parents, no matter how you came by your children.”
“No, everyone says motherhood is natural and beautiful and magical and life-altering.”
“The life-altering part is true.”
“And effortless,” India added. “They say effortless love.”
“They mean you don’t have to work hard to love them.” Her mother was whispering now too. “They don’t mean loving them isn’t extremely hard work.”
Principal photography—and kindergarten—started in one month and twelve days.