AP Success - AP English Literature: Sleeping

She would not have to change a diaper, they said. In fact, she would

not have to do anything at all. Mrs.Winter said that Charles would

not wake while she and Mr. Winter were out at the movies. He was a

very sound sleeper, she said. No need to have a bottle for him or

5

anything. Before the Winters left they said absolutely please not to

look in on the sleeping baby because the door squeaked too loudly.

Harriet had never held a baby, except for one brief moment, when she was about six, when

Mrs. Antler next door had surprisingly bestowed on her the tight little bundle that was their

10

new baby, Andrea. Harriet had sat very still and her arms had begun to ache from the tension

by the time Mrs. Antler took back her baby. Andy was now a plump seven-year-old, older than

Harriet had been when she held her that day.

After two hours of reading all of the boring mail piled neatly on a desk in the bedroom and

15

looking through a depressing wedding album filled with photographs of dressed-up people in

desperate need of orthodonture (Harriet had just ended two years in braces and was very

conscious of malocclusion issues) while flipping channels on their television, Harriet turned the

knob on the baby's door very tentatively, but it seemed locked. She didn’t dare turn the knob

with more pressure because what if she made a noise and woke him and he started to cry?

20

She stood outside the door and tried to hear the sound of a baby breathing but she couldn’t

hear anything through the door but the sound of the occasional car that passed by on the street

outside. She wondered what Charles looked like. She wasn’t even sure how old he was. Why

had she agreed to baby-sit when Mr. Winter approached her at the swim club? She had never

25

seen him before, and it was flattering that he took her for being capable, as if just being a girl

her age automatically qualified her as a baby-sitter.

By the time the Winters came home, Harriet had eaten most of the M & M's in the glass bowl

on their coffee table: first all the blue ones, then the red ones, then all the green ones, and so

30

on, leaving, in the end, only the yellow.

They gave her too much money and didn’t ask her about anything. Mrs. Winter seemed to be

waiting for her to leave before checking on the baby. Mr. Winter drove her home in silence.

When they reached her house he said, My wife. He hesitated, then he said, You understand,

35

don’t you? and Harriet answered Yes without looking at him or being sure what they were

talking about although she did really know what he was telling her and then she got out of his

car and watched him drive away.