Thisbe West

Thisbe West is the baby Auden calls Isby, a small but consequential presence whose ordinary gestures become a focus for Auden’s reflections on care, identity, and the future. She is introduced in a moment of family crisis, yet the scene turns not on distress but on her quiet attention and first smile. Later, Auden’s affectionate name for her opens into a larger hope: that Thisbe might grow up without needing the do-overs that have shaped the lives around her.

Identity and Introduction

Thisbe appears as an infant in a bassinette, with a mobile above her. When Auden enters her room after Robert has left the house, she first mistakes the sounds for crying. Listening more carefully, she realizes that Thisbe is only making small baby noises. The difference matters: the household is facing a painful separation, but the baby is not wailing or shrieking. She is alert, moving her arms, and absorbed by the mobile.

Auden approaches the bassinette, and Thisbe initially remains intent on the ceiling, kicking as she watches above her. Then she looks directly at Auden. Her face changes, relaxing into a smile. This brief exchange gives her an unmistakable presence in the scene: she is not merely the source of the household’s demands or a symbol of its difficulties, but a child capable of attention and response. The narration records her through Auden’s close observation, while leaving the meaning of the smile open beyond its effect on her.

A Baby in a Moment of Family Strain

Thisbe’s earliest appearances in this material are set against tension between Heidi and Robert. After Robert has driven away, Auden finds Heidi’s door closed and goes into the baby’s room. The contrast is carefully contained in physical details: a closed door, the bassinette, the mobile, and the sounds Auden first takes for a cry. Thisbe’s calm murmuring and smile do not resolve the adults’ conflict, but they interrupt its immediate atmosphere.

In another brief interaction, Thisbe gives a little squawk and buries her face in Heidi’s chest, closing her eyes rather than beginning to cry. The gesture places her in Heidi’s arms and shows the mother and baby together in a moment of physical closeness. The scene does not claim that the family’s difficulties have passed; instead, it presents care as something continuing amid uncertainty. Thisbe’s changing sounds and responses—murmuring, squawking, and settling against Heidi—make her an active presence in those fragile domestic moments.

The Name Auden Gives Her

Later, a simple black dress, decorated with tiny beads, brings Auden to an answer about whom she has been thinking of. She answers, “Isby,” and then explains that this is what she calls the baby and who the baby is to her. The exchange makes the nickname a marker of their particular relationship. Auden’s name for her does not replace the name used by her father: Robert repeats “Isby?” to confirm that Auden means the baby, then says that he loves Thisbe and would do anything for her or Auden. The passage holds the two names together without turning them into a disagreement. Auden’s nickname expresses personal closeness; Robert’s words affirm his love for his daughter.

Auden’s answer also connects Thisbe to the summer’s accumulated concerns. Thinking of her, Auden imagines the range of states that make up a young life: squawking, cooing, wailing, drooling, sleeping, wakefulness, fussiness, and contentment. She recalls both seeing Thisbe asleep in Heidi’s arms and watching her eyes follow Auden as she left the room. These concrete, shifting details lead Auden to understand the baby as someone only beginning to become herself, with an open future rather than a finished identity.

Separation, Memory, and Significance

At the end of the summer, Auden is surprised by how difficult it is to leave Thisbe. On Auden’s last day, they spend more than an hour together while Thisbe sleeps on Auden’s shoulder and Auden rocks with her in the chair in the baby’s room. Auden remembers the child through bodily impressions—the warmth of her skin, her damp weight, and the smell of milk and baby—and through the things Auden whispered to her about the two of them and the world of girls and boys to which they both belong. The passage makes their bond intimate without suggesting that the infant can yet answer in words; Auden looks forward to a time when she will be able to share what she knows.

After leaving for school, Auden keeps a picture of Thisbe close and wants her face to be the first one seen on waking. This choice gives the separation a continuing form: the baby remains present in Auden’s daily life through memory and the photograph. In the final reflection, Thisbe’s future becomes the measure of Auden’s hope. Auden wishes that she will not need many second chances and may find a way to get things right the first time. Thisbe cannot yet choose how her life will unfold, and the narrative does not promise that it will be free of difficulty. Her significance lies instead in the possibility Auden sees in her: a life still beginning, not yet fixed by the regrets and missed experiences that make second chances necessary.