Closing the sketchbook on a mental catharsis, she did pushups and situps beside her director's chair and then aerobics to the televised instructors who glowed in a little box in front of her. It all helped to extract her from malaise. She really needed the physical exertion of games like racket ball, and in a very self-centered way Betty began to permeate her thoughts. The idea of her friendship became more palatable to reminisce over. Then she fell asleep with the ideas of Antarctica in her mind. When she woke, her thoughts were disconcerted and there was a forlorn neediness sticky as the baby's vomit. She needed a break from solitude and an exit away from the obligations of motherhood that tyrannized over her. For the first time in her months of doing this she needed an adult presence in her life and she yearned for the appearance of this Rita/Lily person who lived somewhat nearby and was adult in the sense that she could be spoken to. Lily (she was mostly that and preferred this label although she was really Rita) was supposed to have come earlier and Gabriele wondered where this Rita/Lily person was. She heard the baby crying. Maybe too much light in the trailer was irritating his eyes. A silver light from the glare of the snow with its power to make objects (even the baby) seem blindingly unreal was bleeding throughout the whole trailer. It captivated her and made her think that the baby and its needs were nothing short of a dream. She stared out of the window to confirm that an outside world did indeed exist. She saw a neighbor's car pull out of a rocky driveway and one young boy unsuccessfully trying to pull his brother on a sled in the superficial layer of snow and left over hail. Too many weeds were blocking their progress. Too many diapers were blocking her own. She packed some baby food and disposable diapers in a bag. Imitating the witch's dogma of the sanctity of the earth, for a few months after Nathaniel's birth she had been adamant that she wouldn't use disposable diapers even though she had yearned for their ease. Back then she saw mothers with money and impunity buying boxes of them at the supermarket and she loathed these vile mothers who degraded the environment. Once, however, when she had a migraine headache while experiencing some asthma problems and he was suffering from diarrhea she had trudged over to the store with him in her arms and bought a box of diapers. From that point forward it became part of her habits. To not do so now would only inconvenience her. Not even if thousands of mothers went back to cloth diapers and their plastic over-panty counterparts would such thoughtfulness save the environment. It would merely postpone the inevitable. A slight postponement could not be achieved by one alone and, even if it could, she didn't see that it would merit her discomfort.