It was during a morning brunch—as she spoke to a small group of educators about the importance of teaching cursive in schools—that Alix felt such an urgent wave in her gut that she thought to herself, I better not be pregnant. She was, and two weeks later, Peter cried on the corner of University and 13th when she confirmed the news. He immediately asked, “Should we move?” Moving back to Philadelphia, Alix’s hometown, had been a distant plan since they’d met four years prior. She’d wanted a backyard and children to put inside it; she’d wanted them to one day ride their bikes in a familiar cul-de-sac, or a street where no one was selling counterfeit purses or pulling down a large grate as they locked up a bodega. But at the height of her new career, one that she never knew was possible, Alix backed away from Peter. “No no,” she said, “not yet, not yet.”
Briar Louise was born. Alix’s world became a place defined by Pack-’n-Plays, white noise machines, chafed areolas, and grapes cut in half. Her days were suddenly marked with third-person speech (“That’s Mama’s earring.” “Mama’s on the phone.”), referring to ages in months rather than years, putting the term big girl in front of everything to spark domestic excitement (big-girl naps, big-girl spoons, big-girl jeans), and accepting openmouthed, wet kisses from a tiny drooling person who only recently existed outside her body.
By then, Alix had a team consisting of one editorial assistant, two interns, and an “office space” that overflowed into the kitchen in their Upper West Side apartment. Peter wanted to move. His vision of becoming a news anchor in New York City had been hit by reality: he appeared on television five nights a week to a Riverdale audience of no more than eight thousand, doing stories of charity dog marriages, toys being recalled, and Times Square tourists completing obstacle courses for the chance to win Best Buy gift cards. Several seasoned journalists in Philadelphia would be retiring soon, and their salaries matched Peter’s in Riverdale. There were also rumors of their current apartment potentially going co-op. Philadelphia had always been the plan, but Alix Chamberlain was just getting started.
Alix’s revamped blog, detailing the success of other letter-writing promotion-receiving getting-what-they-want women, had six thousand hits a day. She was partnering with a hospital for a weeklong charity with a love-letter-themed fund-raiser. And in long dark gowns and caps, Alix spoke at two all-girls high school graduations to rows of keen, eager faces. In addition to her career, for the first time since college, Alix had a group of girlfriends. Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra were bright, sarcastic women with careers and young children of their own, and having a baby never seemed too scary with a group text of women who were doing it, too.
But then, seemingly all at once, Briar started talking.
Funneled by two massive front teeth, Briar’s voice consumed everything in its path. It was loud and hoarse and never stopped. When Briar slept, it was as if a fire alarm had finally been turned off, and Alix’s head throbbed with what she remembered was peace and quiet. Alix’s girlfriends assured her that their toddlers had done the same thing, that they were just excited to be able to communicate. Still, this seemed extreme. Briar was constantly asking, singing, rambling, humming, explaining that she liked hot dogs, that she once saw a turtle, that she wanted a high five, that she was not tired at all. When Alix picked Briar up from Peter’s mother’s apartment in Midtown, the woman opened the door with a desperate velocity Alix had come to know well. She could always hear her daughter’s voice from the elevator, even before she reached the proper floor. Alix was managing her business, savoring pockets of silence, and pitching book proposals to literary agents, when one day, as she picked up Briar’s rocking chair, she realized she was, once again, pregnant. Peter’s reaction, in the kitchen of their home, was filled with more confusion than joy.
“I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen while you’re breast-feeding.”
Alix pursed her lips with a face that said, So did I. “It’s rare, but it’s not impossible.”
“Alix . . . We can’t do this.” Peter referred to the kitchen table turned receptacle for a current LetHer Speak project including Polaroid pictures and bulky brown craft paper. Sippy cups were drying on paper towels lined against the windowsill, and casserole dishes held extra recycling. That morning, Peter had come downstairs to an intern who hung her head upside down to put her hair into a ponytail. He then made his coffee as she and another intern put on white event polos with LetHer Speak embroidered on the pockets. “We don’t have enough pots to put a second child in,” he said. And two days later, after a letter arrived from the corporation that would be purchasing their apartment complex, Peter announced, “I’m calling a broker in Philadelphia.”
What was she supposed to do, say no? There was a gap in New York housing so large that it would have been insane to suggest buying their place or renting a bigger one. Yes, she now made more money than she ever had, but no, it wasn’t enough to comfortably house two children in their current West Side neighborhood. And sure, she could look into Queens or New Jersey, but then she might as well just move to Philadelphia. Alix did work from home. Philadelphia wasn’t that far away. And more than anything, this was the person Alix had framed herself to be when she met Peter in that bar. “I think I’ve got like three years left in me for this city,” she’d told him. “Every time I sit in someone else’s butt sweat on the train, it goes down by about two weeks.” This was one of the things Peter had liked most about Alix: that she didn’t need to be at every event, that she liked getting out of the city, that she was an excellent driver, and that she wanted her children to trick-or-treat at houses, rather than apartment lobbies and Duane Reade.
So she had to move. Alix and her family would be moving out of New York City. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. Alix had been busy writing a very important letter of her own to the campaign team of Secretary Hillary Clinton, who had just announced her run for the presidency. This was a cause that mattered to her, Hillary’s feminist platform completely matched her brand, and a link to Hillary could keep Alix relevant even when she wasn’t living in the most relevant city in the country. Luckily, Alix’s dear friend Tamra knew a woman who knew one of Secretary Clinton’s campaign advisors. After four drafts and constant switches from Always, Alix to All My Best, Alix, she pressed Send on a volunteer proposal that she hoped would become a paying gig. Weeks went by and she heard nothing back from the campaign advisor or the agents she’d queried.
Abruptly, everything was packed, but Alix hadn’t allowed the tempo of her calendar to decline. She loved all of it: sitting on panels and listening to brilliant women in oversized shift dresses and dramatic lipstick, teens emailing her success stories of entry-level job offers they had accepted. But there was still no word from the Clinton campaign, or the six agents who received her book proposal. In the middle of fund-raisers and brunches, as she shook hands with earnest high schoolers, Alix thought, Is this it? Is this as far as I’ll ever go?