Excerpt from A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Wonderful," I replied quickly, adding an overly emphatic nod of the head.

"You can rid yourself of a husband, or friends, and your parents die, but as long as you live, your children will always be tethered to you. The rope may get longer, but it never breaks."

"Never," I repeated, digging my nails into the bench's wooden slats.

"I wasn't expecting a revelatory moment at the opera," Carrie went on, patting baby Peter, still sleeping soundly between us. "Frankly, I was a bit unnerved to be pulled to the theater in my eighth month of pregnancy, but the Maximillian Millses had invited us and we couldn't say no to that, could we?"

"Absolutely not," I replied. My own husband would have made me accept an invitation from the Maximillian Millses even if I had been in active labor, the baby coming into the world as everyone howled at their jokes and nodded yes, please, for more canapés. No one ever declined an invitation from the Millses.

"But that woman's words made me feel … I don't know, exactly." Carrie looked up at the gray sky as if waiting for God to deliver the right adjective. "Peaceful. More peaceful than I had felt my whole pregnancy. It was a beautiful, comforting thing to think about. Never alone again."

She eyed me to make sure I was still listening.

"I've thought about it every day since, and Alice is two already," she said, giving a wave to her daughter, her diamond tennis bracelets clinking. Alice's flaxen hair was in her eyes, but she didn't seem to notice, too busy playing in the dirt that stuck to her as if she were made of flypaper.

"I never quite thought about motherhood that way." I loosened the gray silk scarf around my neck, one of the last presents I remembered receiving from my own mother. After I married, she told me I had enough money to buy my own scarves.

"That woman was my own angel Gabriel of sorts. It was the best moment of my pregnancy."

"Lovely," I muttered again. My own pregnancies had only been heaven-sent during conception. The rest had been highlighted by vomiting, tears, and an excessive consumption of desserts from Glaser's Bake Shop.

I continued to pull at my scarf, suddenly conscious of feeling rather like Nathan Hale on the gallows as the executioner tightened his noose. "It is all such a blessing, isn't it?" I said brightly, glancing over to see my older son poke himself in the face with a stick. As I watched, he stopped, pulled up his coat sleeve, held the stick out in front of him, and then turned to Alice. With a single precise movement, he jabbed her right in the eye. She screamed and fell backward, her little legs straight up in the air like a tipped calf's. "A gift," I added before we both jumped up.

I sprang forward ahead of Carrie, since my child was the offender, but remembered I had a sleeping baby on the bench and went back to pick him up before I scolded Gerrit. My motions were jerky, and Peter woke up abruptly. He blinked in surprise a few times, then howled. I left the toddlers to Carrie, who gently took the stick away from Gerrit while trying not to let her daughter bite his face in retaliation. I attempted to comfort Peter, holding him as tightly as I could manage, and took off my scarf with my other hand. It would be better off in my purse than around my neck.

I hoisted the baby up, then went to yell at my other son as etiquette required when one two-year-old tried to maim another. I bent down to get closer to him.

"Gerrit! No hitting! No poking! No sticks!" I shouted. "No violence!" What else could I add to make Carrie think I was the right kind of mother? "No mischief! No roughhousing! No moving at all!"

Gerrit looked up at me, his face pink from the cold and the excitement of trying to murder his playmate, and said, "No." He picked up another stick before I could lunge at him, and poked me hard in the leg, ripping my stocking.

I clutched Peter even tighter, glad that I hadn't ended up like a tipped calf myself.

Excerpted from A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe. Copyright © 2021 by Karin Tanabe. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.