Left Neglected Read Free

on his knees and gathering beads. “Why don’t you pick out one of your already-made necklaces for today? Then you can come downstairs with me and Linus.”
    “Charlie hasn’t dressed or eaten yet,” I say, agreeing to the routine, passing the parenting baton over to Bob.
    A FTER A QUICK SHOWER , I stand naked in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom and assess myself as I slather Lubriderm over my arms and legs.
    N, Needs improvement.
    I’m still about fifteen pounds over my pre-Linus weight, which was, if I have to be honest, ten pounds over my pre-Charlie weight. I grab a handful of the loose and puckered bread dough that used to be my taut belly and trace the rust-colored line that runs unfaded from a few inches above my belly button down to my pubic hair. I continue down to the pads of flesh cushioning my hip bones, which migrated sideways to make room for Linus, my biggest baby, leaving me with wider hips and a drawer full of pants that won’t button.
    The gym I belong to could more accurately be called my favorite charity. I never go. I really should cancel my membership instead of essentially donating a hundred dollars to them every month. There’s also the gym equipment in the basement, positioned like statues, collecting dust: the elliptical machine, the Bowflex, and the rower Bob bought me for Christmas when I was eight months pregnant (was he insane?). I pass these hulking pieces of equipment every time I do the laundry, which with three kids, is often. I always walk by them at a quick clip, without looking at them, as if we’ve had some sort of emotionally charged fight, and I’m giving them the cold shoulder. It works. They never bother me.
    I rub the remaining Lubriderm into my hands.
    Don’t be too hard on yourself,
I think, knowing that is my tendency.
    Linus is only nine months old. The phrase “nine months up, nine months down” from
The Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Your Groove Back
pops into my head. The author assumes I have time for things like manicures and shopping and trunk shows and that I have made my groove a priority. It’s not that I don’t want my groove back. It’s on my list. It’s just unfortunately way at the bottom where I can barely see it.
    Before I get dressed, I pause for one last appraisal. My fair skin is covered with freckles, courtesy of my Scottish mother. When I was a girl, I used to connect the dots with a pen to create constellations and tattoos. My favorite used to be the perfect five-point star my freckles outline on my left thigh. But that was back in the ’80s, before I knew about sunscreen, back when I and all of my friends toted bottles of baby oil with us to the beach, quite literally sautéing ourselves in the sun. Now every doctor and the media are all saying that my freckles are age spots and signs of sun damage.
    I hide most of the damage with a white camisole and my black Elie Tahari power suit. In all the right ways, I feel like a man in this suit. Perfect for the kind of day I’m facing. I towel dry my hair and work an emulsified gob of Shine-and-Hold into it. Auburn and thick and wavy to my shoulders, there is nothing masculine about my hair. I may be fat and freckled and dressed like a man, but I love my pretty hair.
    After a perfunctory application of foundation, blush, eye-liner, and mascara, I head downstairs and reenter the fray. Lucy is now planted in one of the beanbag chairs singing along with Dora the Explorer, and Linus is penned in the Pack ’n Play next to her, sucking on the head of a plastic school bus driver. In the kitchen, Bob sits alone at the table, drinking coffee from his Harvard mug and reading the
Wall Street Journal.
    “Where’s Charlie?” I ask.
    “Getting dressed.”
    “Did he eat?”
    “Cereal and juice.”
    How does he do it? Bob in charge of All Three Kids is an entirely different show than Sarah in Charge of All Three Kids. With Bob, they’re happily willing to be independent little task-masters,