The Objects of Her Affection Read Online Free PDF

filled her with eagerness to reclaim her career—to push it to new heights, to pursue new satisfactions. She looked over at Brian, who was examining a brown stain on the ceiling. She knew he was thinking like a curator, cataloging condition problems and losses. It was, after all, his job to look to the past, to understand what something once had been, to lament what it had become. But when it came to real life outside the museum, this struck Sophie as a waste of time. It was more realistic—more inspiring—to look forward, to the attractively hazy possibility of what could be.
    ***
    “Don’t leave me,” Sophie whispered as Brian draped his jacket over his arm. She was lying on her side within a complicated arrangement of pillows, Elliot propped against her breast.
    “Sorry,” Brian said, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead. His tie brushed Elliot’s cheek, but Elliot kept his eyes closed, comfortably suspended between sleep and milk. “Milan awaits.”
    “To hell with Milan. I want to stay in bed.”
    “I know. But just wait till you see this vase in person…”
    “I don’t need to. I know it’s spectacular. Go. You’ll be amazing.”
    “Thanks,” Brian whispered. “Do you need anything? Want me to put out Lucy’s cereal?”
    “You’re sweet. We’re fine. I hope you get your vase.”
    “I hope you get your mortgage. Sorry I couldn’t be there.”
    Sophie closed her eyes. Steve had set up the meeting with his buddy Ron at AmeriLoan a week ago, and now Brian couldn’t come. One of his committee members had come through with purchase funds at the last possible minute, and now he had to spend his morning on the phone, waiting to bid on the majolica vase that would fill an “egregious gap” in the museum’s collection.
    Sophie propped herself on one elbow and carefully eased herself over Elliot’s body to the other side, rearranging pillows and lifting his head to her other breast. She should probably reschedule the AmeriLoan meeting. Brian had urged her not to, but now she wondered if she was just reinforcing his financial helplessness—his inability to remember passwords, his refusal to figure out online banking. She also suspected that he was further distancing himself from the matter of the house. Which was fine; the truth was that Sophie didn’t want him anywhere near their finances, with his shoe box filing system, his dresser drawer full of receipts and crumpled paycheck stubs. It was probably safer to just add the mortgage to her neatly arranged bin of responsibilities, and let Brian focus on what he did best: curating ceramics.
    Sophie lowered Elliot into his crib, then shuffled into Lucy’s room to usher her through her morning routine. She was actually looking forward to the meeting at AmeriLoan. The sitter was coming in an hour, which would give her some time to shower and dress. Maybe she’d even blow-dry her hair for a change. Then, after the meeting, there was always the possibility of lunch. Out. Alone.
    But nine o’clock came, and the sitter, a Penn sophomore on summer vacation, did not. Sophie tried to rouse her by phone, by text. She left a voice mail, trying to walk the line between stern employer and sympathetic friend, but just ended up sounding frantic. Finally she had to make a choice: take the kids to her meeting, or cancel the meeting and take them to the playground.
    “Put on your shoes,” she told Lucy. “We’re going to buy a house.”
    ***
    The meeting went as poorly as possible by parenting standards, and surprisingly well by any other measure. Elliot was awake and angry the whole time, refusing the car seat, straining against the baby carrier, consenting only to be bounced, at a precise angle and rhythm, in Sophie’s arms while she paced in front of Ron’s desk. Meanwhile, Lucy cheerfully raised and lowered the venetian blinds in the front window while singing a tuneless, syncopated dirge.
    “The bottom line,” explained Sophie, raising her voice over