The Great Man by Kate Christensen

made it this far; she was as tough as a weed.
    The buzzer rang. She got up and went to her front door and pushed the button to open the door downstairs without bothering to ask who it was over the intercom, then went back to the table and slumped in her chair and fell into a momentary waking nap. She heard the elevator doors clang open and shut, but she didn’t move until she heard Henry’s irritatingly soft knock on her door.
    To her consternation, he was carrying a backpack that contained a baby. Even worse, it had a pinched-looking face, whose expression suggested that he either had a foul-smelling diaper or was about to launch into a two-hour squall. How rude, to bring a baby!
    â€œCome in,” she said through clenched teeth.
    â€œSorry about the kid,” said Henry, who was red-faced and a little sweaty. “It couldn’t be helped; it was either this or wreck my marriage.”
    â€œI’ve made hot tea,” said Maxine crabbily.
    Henry took the backpack off and scooped the baby from it and cradled him in one arm. With his free hand, he extricated a notebook and pen from his shoulder bag. It was almost feminine, his way with the baby. And why did so many younger men wear shoulder bags now? Men were turning themselves into women now, the way women had turned themselves into men during the feminist heyday. Maxine, despite the fact that she was a rather mannish-looking lesbian who’d always lived her life on her own terms, nurtured a great fondness for the 1950s, the era of cartoonish sexual display, glossy painted lips and pointed breasts and full skirts on women, men in squared-off suits and hats shaped like circumcised penis heads…. “People knew who you were then; girls were girls and men were men….” She was with Archie Bunker all the way, in that at least.
    â€œHave a seat,” said Maxine, setting out two cups and sugar. “I’m out of milk.”
    â€œI don’t need it,” said Henry in a reassuring tone, which made Maxine suspect he did indeed take milk but was assuaging what he incorrectly took to be hostessy anxiety.
    Henry unwrapped the baby from his gummy-looking swaddling blanket and spread it on the industrial-linoleum floor of Maxine’s kitchen, then set the baby down on his back. The baby, to his credit, appeared to take this indignity in stride. Frago, under the table, growled in the back of his throat but didn’t pounce.
    â€œChester likes to be on the floor, for some reason,” said Henry.
    â€œBodes well for his future,” said Maxine.
    â€œDoes your dog do all right with babies?” Henry asked.
    â€œHe doesn’t know any,” said Maxine. “But he’s harmless in general. All right, let’s cut to the chase. What did you come to ask me?”
    Henry opened his notebook and consulted what Maxine took, upside down, to be a nearly illegible list of jotted questions. “I’ve been wondering about what you were saying about Abigail and Claire—or rather, Teddy, if you don’t mind my calling her that.”
    â€œYou can call her a two-headed hyena for all I care,” said Maxine, pouring tea.
    â€œAbout Abigail, too, and the dynamics of their triangle,” he added, pressing on. “Do you think Oscar stayed with Abigail all those years out of guilt?”
    â€œI see you’ve met Teddy and succumbed to her ‘charms,’” said Maxine, hoping the quotation marks were audible.
    â€œWhat I’m trying to understand is why he kept two households going. I have one, and frankly, that’s more than enough. Why would a man want two? Why not divorce Abigail and move in with Teddy?”
    Damn it, Maxine thought. She didn’t have it in her to be cooperative and cheerful and opaque today. She shouldn’t have let him come. “This biography mongering is just an excuse to stick your nose into Oscar’s private business, isn’t it?” she said.