At eleven p.m. I fed Mikhail his warm bottle of Esbilac, rocked him and put him to bed in his car basket in my bedroom. I shut the bedroom door in case he woke up while we were gone and decided to go exploring. Mikhail was tiny but he was already climbing the walls, the shelves and anything else handy at Shirley's loft. That was why she had brought him along in the first place; she didn't have any rooms with doors she could shut except the bathroom, which was dangerous for other reasons. And besides, he still had to eat every three or four hours.

    I liked having him around too. Martha wasn't quite as crazy about him as I was, but she found him interesting to watch -- from a distance. She was asleep on the couch and would take care of herself, as usual, while we were...

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