Suzanne’s last appointment had left minutes ago. Otis was still sleeping and she was sweeping up the last of the hair, contemplating a quick bath, when the doorbell rang.
Suzanne wiped her hands along her smock and grabbed for the door handle. She bet it was a walk-in, or the postman with a package, or Gary, who forgot something, who maybe she could convince into staying in the same room with her long enough to have a simple conversation, a talk, which was a long time coming. She couldn’t bear the way he looked past her as if she wasn’t even there.
The bell rang again. “Hold your horses,” she called. She opened the door, and there, like a dream, was Ivan.
She couldn’t move. Her hands flew to her hair, which was bunched into a sloppy tail, to her jeans, speckled with color. In all the times she had fantasized running into Ivan, it had always been when she was prepared for it, when she had been dressed in something tight and shiny and low-cut, with high heels and her hair gleaming like a mirror. Perfume on every pulse point. She had imagined him spotting her on the arm of a gorgeous, adoring guy, a big shimmery ring on her finger, and Ivan staring at her with all the regret and desire she had felt for him these five years since he had walked out on her. But she had never once imagined this.
“So, can I come in?” Ivan said.
She had forgotten his voice, how even his speech could sound musical. But she could never forget his eerie blue eyes, his long, beautiful black hair. He looked as if no time had passed, as if nothing had ever happened to him. She nodded and stepped aside.
The air in the room changed as soon as he was inside. Her knees were collapsing, changing to gum. “What are you doing here?”
He sat down, not taking his eyes from her. “Something I should have done a long time ago. Looking for you.”
“How did you find me?”
“Followed your trail. One phone number led to another and when I finally got to the end of the line, I remembered your sister. You told me she taught, and I even remembered where, so I called the school, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. Just like a school, right? Still got to show you who’s in control. Anyway, I had to practically beg just to find the town she lived in. I figured your sister would know where you were.” He shook his head, looking curiously around the house. “But God, Suzanne, of all the places you could go to, I never thought you’d come back here. It really surprised me.”
“Molly’s sick in the hospital. I’m helping out. Taking care of the baby.”
Ivan shook his head. He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “I knew if I could just see you—if we could just see each other.”
Suzanne shut her eyes for a moment. Her throat was dry. “How could you have left me like that?” she said finally.
He frowned. “Suzanne. I was a kid. I didn’t know anything. Not until I didn’t have you.”
“So all this time you’ve been alone thinking about life,” she said bitterly.
“Suzanne.” He wavered. Then he said, low and quick, “I got married. I had a kid.”
“What?” Suzanne felt something rupturing inside of her. Married. How could he be married to someone who wasn’t her? She tried to frame a picture, but the only face beside Ivan’s that she could see was her own. The only baby was Otis. Suzanne’s breath narrowed in her
chest. Her heart felt tight and small. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “How could you be married? You never wanted that. If I even mentioned it, you were out the door—”
“Was married,” Ivan interrupted. “Patty and I got divorced about six months ago.”
Suzanne swallowed. Patty. He had married someone named Patty. Had divorced her, too, but that didn’t make her feel one single bit better because divorce still meant that you had cared enough about someone to marry them in the first place. Cared enough to have a kid. And cared more than he had about her. She felt suddenly shamed and angry. It was hard to look at him. Hard not to.
“Suzanne,” he said, his voice pleading. “Listen to me. When I quit on you, everything turned right to shit. All my dreams. Everything. I tried to make it in music, Suzanne. For the longest time, I really tried. All these new bands I put together. All these crappy gigs. But nothing took. And then by the time I met Patty, I was doing nothing but being a mechanic. She had this old Datsun that nobody could fix right. But I did, and she looked at me like I had just about cured cancer. When I was playing music, I got that kind of feeling all the time. It was like it came with the territory or something. And even a mechanic’s got to have things to make him feel like his life’s worth something. Like it’s special. So I married her. And a year and a half later, we had Ann.”
Suzanne flinched. Ann. She looked away from him. She wouldn’t let him see how much he had hurt her—was hurting her, still.
“Suzanne. You’re not saying anything.”
“What do you want me to say? That you should have married me?”
“You’re not listening to me. You knew me as this rock star. Patty knew me only as a mechanic. I knew you’d end up hating me. Like I hated myself. And I couldn’t stand that.”
“You’re stupid,” she said quietly. “You think I gave a shit about any of that? You could have been a goddamn busboy and I would have loved you. You could never have sung another note your whole long life and I would have loved you. Do you know what it was like for me? How I suffered? I couldn’t even look at anyone else, that was
how nuts I was about you. How pathetic. I used to cross the street just hoping a truck would run me over because then I wouldn’t have to think about you anymore. You left me alone in the world and I still loved you. But you—you went ahead and loved someone else.”
“You got it all wrong, Suzanne.” His voice rushed past her. “Patty was white noise. She kept this buzz going so I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t think what was really important to me. She blocked it all out just by being around. And I didn’t see it until after I quit her.”
Ivan took Suzanne’s hands.
“Fuck you,” Suzanne said, breaking his grip. She didn’t want him touching her. She couldn’t stand it another minute. “Fuck you.”
“Suzanne, listen to me. My marriage didn’t work out because I never loved Patty. I loved you.”
Suzanne looked at him. “Stop. Don’t you dare say things you don’t mean.”
“Remember when I first met you, when I said it was fate—you and me?”
“Ivan, don’t—”
“I thought about you night and day, Suzanne. I wanted to call you a million times. I tried to forget you. I know I was a shit the way I left you. I was a cruel bastard. I took it out on you because I couldn’t face that maybe I didn’t have what it took to make it in music. I couldn’t handle it. And I couldn’t stand it that you knew it.” He sighed. “You were the thing that made my life work, Suzanne. I couldn’t even get close to Ann because it reminded me how far away from you I’d come. How I’d probably fucked up any chance to ever have you again.”
Ivan’s words were like a reel pulling Suzanne out of herself, toward him. She felt as if she were losing her own thoughts. She couldn’t even remember what her own thoughts were anymore.
“I thought you’d come back to California,” Ivan said. “I kept looking for you everywhere. I’d see someone with long black hair, and zoom—I was off on their trail, just hoping it was you. How could you stay away from me? Why didn’t you come back?”
“I told you. I’m helping out here.”
He looked at her, nodded, but she got the feeling that he wasn’t even listening to her, he was just drinking her in.
He leaned forward and touched her knee, jolting her. As soon as he took his hand away, God help her, but she wanted it back.
“Remember the way we used to stay up all night just talking?” he asked. “Sometimes I wouldn’t even have to say a single word and you’d know what I was feeling, you’d understand. You just knew me, Suzanne.”
He stared at her so hard that even if she tried, she couldn’t have looked away from him. “After the divorce, I had a lot of time to think, and what I thought about was you. And I don’t know, it unlocked something in me. I hadn’t touched my guitar in years, but I thought of you and suddenly I picked it up again, and just as suddenly, the songs just started coming again. Some of them are pretty good. That’s your doing, whether you know it or not.” He tilted his head back. “Su-zanne of my heart,” he sang.
“You sound just the same,” she said, pained.
“No, no, I got this new raw quality now.” He fanned his fingers over his chest. “From the heart, Suzanne. The broken heart.”
Suzanne swallowed. “You never told me why you’re here,” she interrupted.
“I thought I was telling you. I came back for you.”
“Ivan.”
“You used to tell me you love someone once, you always love them. That’s how you tell real love. You told me and you were right.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a key on a green plastic tab and handed it to her, smiling hopefully. “I got us a suite at the Ramada Inn. Room service. Champagne. A great big bed with clean sheets every day. I can sing you those songs there, Suzanne. All those songs about you. We can leave here together. Rent a little beach house in California.”
“I can’t just leave,” she blurted. “I take care of Otis while Gary’s at the hospital. I help them out.”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah. The baby. So when, then?”
She folded her hand around the key and then he folded his hand around hers, so for a moment, she couldn’t think straight. “I don’t know when. Or if.”
“When can I at least see you?”
“Tomorrow.” She thought about Gary’s schedule. “At three.”
He was suddenly happier. He bounced up. “Jesus, look at me. I’m shaking. I haven’t felt like this since I was fifteen. Since I first saw you. I’m like a little kid, I’m so excited. I can’t believe I get a chance to make everything right.”
Suzanne stood up. His walk to the door was like a dance. He pulled it open and then stepped back and kissed her, hard on the mouth, so that when he pulled away, she felt a little breathless. “Three,” he repeated, and whistling, walked down to his car. She watched him leaving, and for a moment she wanted to run out after him and grab him around the legs and stop him. She pressed her hands to her mouth, as if she was holding his kiss in. She was afraid he’d leave her forever this time, but just as much she wanted to lock herself in, to forget that he had ever come back for her. She couldn’t let go of the bad times. It was too dangerous. Something so terrible could happen all over again.
All that day, she felt on fire. She felt his hands on her. His eyes. His breath at the back of her neck. She heard his whisper against her ears.
She couldn’t stay in the house another second. She looked at her watch. Gary would be home soon. Then it would be time to go see Molly.
Suzanne kept busy so she wouldn’t think. She was hoping Otis might wake, but even when she crept into his room, he was sleeping so soundly for a moment she got worried. She placed one hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall. His eyes were rolling in dreams. He made a low, soft moan. There was a bubble of saliva on his mouth and she daubed gently at it with a finger until it was gone. Then she left his
room and started to clean. She got on her hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. She cleaned both bathrooms and did a wash. She wouldn’t allow herself to stop for a minute, because then she would think. Then Ivan would flood her like a tidal wave, drowning her in minutes, not giving her a second to catch her breath. She was just about to scrub the burners on the stove when Gary walked in.
Usually, just the sight of him would charge her. Her breath would clip. Her heart would feel stapled. But after seeing Ivan, Gary suddenly looked faded. Like he belonged to a whole other world that she no longer inhabited.
Gary squinted at her. “Everything okay?” he said. “You look kind of frazzled.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Otis is really napping.” Her hands were so sweaty, she wiped them on her jeans. The back of her neck prickled and she lifted up her hair to cool it.
“You want to order a pizza?”
She studied him, surprised. She wasn’t sure why he was being so friendly. Just a while ago, she would have killed for an offer like that from him. But now all she could think about was Ivan. And in any case, Suzanne could no more eat than she could breathe underwater. “I just want to get going to see Molly.”
Gary looked at her curiously. She felt nervous, as if he could tell something might be going on. Something she didn’t want to tell him about yet. She didn’t want to hear his opinion until she was sure of her own. And she certainly didn’t want to hear Molly’s. For a second, she almost felt like she was sneaking around, the same way she had been when she was a kid. All that dangerous living, when you felt like you were standing on the edge of a volcano, and all you had to do was shift your weight and you might topple right in. Well, this was different. She was being careful this time, really careful. She was going to wait, to be sure what she wanted to do before getting Gary and Molly all upset. They’d probably think she was going to leave them in the lurch.
“You sure you’re all right?” Gary said.
“What could be wrong?” she said, more sharply than she had intended.
Suzanne pointed the car in the direction of the hospital, but it was as if the car had a mind of its own. She started to turn left, and then she missed the light and turned right instead, thinking she’d back around. She started to go east and ended up west. Every light, every turn, led her to Ivan.
The Ramada Inn was off the highway, tucked beside a bowling alley and a diner. She parked the car, her heart hammering, staring at it. I should visit Molly, she told herself, even as she got out of the car, as she walked to the Ramada and pushed through the revolving glass doors, even as she headed straight for the elevators and rode to his floor.
The elevator doors whooshed open. She stepped out, walked to his door, and stood in front of it, waiting, unable to move. She couldn’t hear anything from outside. No TV. No music. She sucked in a breath and then she knocked on the door.
“Hang on!” she heard, and then Ivan, in jeans and a black T-shirt and bare feet, his black hair wet from the shower, making pinpoints on his shirt, opened the door. As soon as he saw it was her, he grabbed her, tugging her in, tumbling her to the floor. He kicked the door shut with his boot, kissing her so hard she almost stopped breathing.
She couldn’t keep her hands off him. She grabbed his shirt and tore it open, popping the buttons. She slid her hands deep into his pants. She wanted to put her whole self inside of him and never come out, never be free. He moaned and bit her shoulder and she shut her eyes, and then he slowly began taking her clothes off, unwrapping her like a treasure.
Suzanne began spending every spare moment she could with Ivan. He was a fever in her blood. As soon as Gary got home, she was out the
door. All she could see, all she could think about, was Ivan. She breezed in to see Molly and then as soon as she was in her sister’s room, she felt Ivan’s hands on her, she smelled the woodsy soap he liked to use, and it drove her crazy. She had just gotten here, but she was dying to leave again. She shifted in her seat. She stood up and sat down again. “So, how you doing today?” she blurted and Molly looked at her curiously.
“Something’s different about you,” Molly said.
“What? What’s different?”
Molly shrugged. “You just seem different, is all.”
Suzanne shifted in her seat, got up and sat down.
“You don’t have to stay,” Molly said.
“No, no, I want to see you.” Suzanne couldn’t meet Molly’s eyes.
“It’s okay. I’m feeling a little tired anyway.”
“You sure?”
Molly yawned. “Go. You’re keeping me awake.”
“Nap,” Suzanne urged. “I’ll sit right here and watch you. Go ahead.”
She waited for Molly to sleep. She watched her sister’s eyes fluttering, then shutting. Her chest rising and falling with breath, slowing down. Come on, come on, Suzanne thought. Sleep, sleep. She thought it like a hypnotist. Sleep. And then, Molly stilled. “Molly?” Suzanne said softly. No response. “Molly?” Suzanne said again, gently tapping her shoulder. Molly didn’t move. Suzanne bolted up. Let Molly think she had been here for three hours instead of ten minutes. Let her tell Gary tomorrow what a shame it was that she had slept through Suzanne’s visit. Suzanne grabbed her purse and her jacket and was gone before anyone could stop her.
She knew she was leaving with Ivan before she even dared to say it out loud. Before she even told him. It felt as if an old skin had been peeled from her, as if she could suddenly breathe. What a fool she had been to think she could stop loving him. She felt dizzy with excitement, with things she had to take care of. Otis, for one. “Know any good sitters? Any good, cheap live-in help?” she kept asking her clients. “My friend is looking,” she lied.
Nobody knew anything. “I’ve got expensive, bad live-in help,” one client joked.
“I’ve got an apartment I need to sublet,” another said.
Suzanne looked through the ads in the newspaper. She was going to be responsible about this. She was going to do it right. As soon as she had someone good lined up for Otis, she’d tell Gary she was leaving. She’d go and explain it to Molly herself.
The next day, Suzanne was folding Otis’s laundry when Ivan showed up. She flung down the laundry and wrapped herself about him, kissing his neck, his shoulder, the side of his face. “Hey! Ow!” he said. “You’re attacking my face!”
“Let’s go for a drive,” she said.
“Let’s go to the motel.” He kissed her neck.
“No, no-I can’t go to the motel now. I’ve got Otis, remember? I told you that.”
He sighed theatrically. “Yeah. You told me.”
She pulled back. “I’ll just get him ready. We’ll take my car because it has the baby seat. We can drive to New York. Maybe go to Central Park. How about that?”
He nodded. She went to get Otis, bundling him into his blue coat, packing his bag, and then she brought him out, presenting him. “Daduh,” she said.
Ivan and Otis blinked at each other. There was something strange in Ivan’s smile. “Well, what have we here,” he said. He didn’t ask to hold Otis. He didn’t reach out one hand to touch him. And he quickly looked away. Well, Suzanne thought, maybe it reminded Ivan of his own daughter. Maybe it was painful to see another child when you weren’t there with your own.
It took Suzanne a while to put Otis in the car seat. Ivan tapped his finger on the glove compartment, singing a little. “Oh, I was drowning in ree-gret His voice looped up.”And you showed up, my safe shore—” He stopped, considering. “You like that line, my safe shore, Suzanne, or do you think I should say something about the rocky shore instead? Maybe rocky is more traumatic-sounding. What
do you think?” He paused. “You showed up, my rock-ee shore,” he sang. “Which do you like better?”
Suzanne struggled to tighten the buckle. It was stuck and she tugged harder.
“Suzanne?”
“Oh, um, the safe, I guess—” Suzanne said, concentrating on Otis.
“The safe shore? Really? Personally, I think rocky is better.”
She nudged at the car seat. “Yeah. Rocky.” She was preoccupied with the buckle. She hated that the car seat had to face back. All that drive and she wouldn’t even be able to see Otis’s pretty face in the rearview mirror. She’d have to rely on any sounds he might make to know how he was doing. It killed her, but at least it was safe.
She took her time driving. She stopped at every intersection, even the ones without stop signs, without a car in sight, because you never knew.
“Anytime you’re ready,” Ivan kept saying mildly, but she ignored him. She wasn’t going to drive crazy. Not with all the kids who were around. She waved other cars in front of her. She let everyone pass her, and every once in a while, even though there was nothing to see, she still looked in the rearview mirror at the back of the car seat. “How you doin’, sugar?” she said.
“I’m hungry,” he sulked.
She laughed. “Not you. Otis.”
“Oh, ex-cuze me.”
Once they were in the city, Otis began crying. “Oh, sweetie,” Suzanne said, waggling her fingers at him. She dug in his baby bag for a pacifier. “Oh, don’t tell me I forgot—” she said. She lifted up on one hip so she could check her pockets.
“I’ll do that—” Ivan teased, trying to wedge his fingers in her pocket. She brushed him away.
“We have to stop so I can get him a pacifier.”
Ivan sighed and fumbled in his pocket. “I’m out of cigarettes. Can I burn one off you?”
“No way. Not with Otis in the car. And anyway I quit. It’s bad for Otis.”
Ivan gave her a cool stare that she did her best to ignore. She drove to a Rite Aid and parked on the street. “A parking space! That’s a small miracle!” she said.
“He’s not the only one who needs a pacifier,” Ivan said. “Can you pick me up some Luckies?”
“You’re not going to smoke around him.”
He rolled his eyes. “Suzanne, you’re killing me.”
“Leave the radio on, he likes it,” Suzanne said. “And there’s an extra bottle in his bag if he wants it. And a clean burp cloth if you need it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her.
She wanted to tell him the songs Otis liked, the ones that always calmed him down, especially if you sang them in a silly voice. She wanted to tell him that Otis liked to be tickled, that he liked to hear a voice talking to him, but she stopped herself from saying more. Ivan had a kid. He probably had his own things that he liked to do. So instead, she turned to Otis. “Be a good boy, now. I’ll be back in a flash. I’ll give both you boys time to get to know each other. Just don’t talk about me when I’m not here to defend myself.”
“Hurry back,” Ivan said.
Suzanne leaped out of the car, running into the store. She ran to the baby aisles like a pro. She knew just what to get. Big white and purple can of Alimentum. She’d better get two cans while she was here. A bright blue pacifier. Maybe two of those, too, because you couldn’t have too many the way Otis liked to hurl them into space. It made her smile, just thinking about it. She hightailed it to the checkout, just in time to see the cashier, a young girl with bad skin and a frizzy blond perm, getting all flustered. The cashier held up her hands apologetically. “The machine’s jammed,” she said in a tight chirpy voice, and Suzanne looked at her watch. Great. She hoped Otis wasn’t fussing. She hoped Ivan had pulled out that extra bottle. “Where’s the other register?” Suzanne asked.
“What other register?”
Suzanne sighed and looked at her watch again.
The register pinged. The drawer slid open. “Fixed it!” said the
cashier, slamming it shut with the flat of her hand. “Next!” Suzanne stepped forward and someone gave her a smart tap on the shoulder. “I was here first,” a man said, plunking down a red basket on the counter. He was in an expensive business suit and had on shades inside, which always irritated Suzanne. “I had to exchange a damaged can and I came right back. She knows.”
“Like fun you were—” Suzanne said, but the cashier was picking items out of the man’s basket, ringing them up. The man gave Suzanne a smug smile that irritated her so much she could have hauled off and whammed him. “Excuse me—” Suzanne said crossly.
“Oh, sorry. I already started the ring-up.”
Suzanne waved her hand. Fine. Fine. What did it matter now? But although she knew it was impossible, this girl seemed to be going to slower and slower, taking her sweet time counting out the money twice, just to be sure, stapling the receipt to the man’s bag slowly, once, twice, three frigging times.
“Okay, now your turn.” Unapologetically, the cashier looked at her. Suzanne would have snapped something at her, but she knew how that worked. You made a dig at someone and they took it out on you. You got punished but good. She could be waiting here all day to get the things she needed. She pushed the formula and the pacifiers toward the cashier. She tried to smile pleasantly, while inside she was thinking daggers.
“No bag—” Suzanne reached to stay the cashier’s hand.
The cashier looked confused. “But I have to staple the receipt to something—”
“No, no you don’t.” Suzanne grabbed the cans, the pacifiers, and the receipt.
The cashier blinked at her. “You have a nice day,” she said finally.
You eat dirt, thought Suzanne.
She ran out of the store and there was the car, all four doors wide open, just like a mouth telling her something. There were two cops, one of them holding Otis who was screaming, his little face bright red. There was a purple mark on his forehead, like an exotic blooming flower, which made Suzanne stop short. There was glass sparkled all
over the street. The side of the car was bashed in. And Ivan was nowhere in sight.
Suzanne looked at Otis in horror. “Oh, my God, is he all right?” Panicked, she reached for Otis and the cop pointedly stepped back from her. Otis screamed louder. “What happened? Who hit the car?” She looked around. “Where’s Ivan—the man in the car?”
She tried to reach for Otis and again the cop stepped back. She felt her panic accelerating. “What are you doing! I need to look at him!” She looked wildly around. “What is going on here? Why won’t you let me take him?”
“Is this car yours?”
“No, my brother-in-law’s, but I—”
“And is the baby yours?” the cop interrupted.
“Yes. No. I’m his aunt. I take care of him.” Something cold and damp prickled along Suzanne’s spine.
“Where’s his parents?”
“His mother’s sick in the hospital. His father’s visiting her. What’s going on here? What’s happened?”
He looked at her with disgust, like she was the gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe. “Maybe you should tell me. You leave an infant alone in a locked car with the motor running?”
“What? I didn’t do that—he wasn’t alone—”
“You got a little sideswiped. Hit and run. Nobody saw anything. You’re lucky there wasn’t more damage. Even luckier this baby wasn’t hurt seriously.”
Suzanne’s heart jumped. “I want to take Otis to a doctor. Right now.” Suzanne tried to sound firm.
“Doesn’t look like this car is going anywhere. We can call an ambulance, get the paramedic to take a look at him, but once we do that, you got to take him to a Pediatric ER. Let the doctors there check him out, too.”
“Call.”
One of the cops went back to the police car. She watched him and then there at the end of the street, she saw Ivan walking toward
her, smoking a cigarette. “There!” she said to the cop. “I left Otis with him!”
“Jesus Christ, what’s this?” Ivan said when he got there. He frowned, taking another drag before tossing the cigarette. “Who the hell did this?”
“You left him!” Suzanne cried. “There was a car accident! They’re calling an ambulance! You left the baby!”
His face changed, working itself into something she didn’t recognize. He glared at her. He acted like it was her fault. Otis screamed louder. She looked at the car and then back at him. She tried to imagine such a thing, and then, she felt herself turning desperate. She waited for him to tell her that of course he hadn’t done such a thing, he was a father, too, for God’s sake, he was responsible. She waited for him to deny it, to make an excuse at least. She looked helplessly at Ivan again and he looked away.
“Endangering the life of a child,” the cop said flatly.
Ivan shook his head. “I ran to get cigarettes—I was gone for all of two minutes.”
“Ten from when we got here,” said one of the cops. “Who knows how long before that.”
“Ten?” Suzanne looked at Ivan in astonishment. “Ten minutes?”
Ivan glowered at Suzanne. “For Christ sake, everybody is acting like it’s World War III here—look, the kid looks all right.” He stayed back. He didn’t touch Otis. He didn’t even look at him, the same way he hadn’t back at the house, and suddenly Suzanne felt something uncoiling in her, springing up, sharp as a wire.
She shoved Ivan, so roughly he stumbled. “A car banged into him! They’re calling an ambulance!” she screamed.
Ivan stepped away from her. “You”—he angrily pointed at her—“are nuts.”
The cop wrote up something on a pad. “What are you doing?” Suzanne said, panicked.
“This goes to Child Protection. They’ll be paying you a nice little home visit. Checking for neglect.”
“Child Protection! You can’t be serious!”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” the cop said. “Could I have your license?”
Suzanne fumbled in her purse and handed it to him. It unnerved her the way the cop wasn’t looking at her, the way he kept writing. She knew what he must think. That she was disgusting. That she didn’t care. When the truth was, she cared more than anything. She couldn’t swallow. Her breath seemed stuck in her throat.
“When will they come?” Suzanne asked, and the cop shrugged.
“They come unannounced. That’s the whole point. And they could keep coming that way for oh—three months, I think it is. Right?” He looked at the other cop.
“Three. Or maybe four,” the other cop said.
“No, you’re wrong,” Suzanne whispered.
“I’ve seen cases where they even take the kid away.” He gave Suzanne her license back. “If there’s neglect.”
“Give me Otis,” Suzanne said. The cop holding Otis looked at her. “Give me the baby.” She was practically in tears now, about to hurl herself at his feet and beg him. “Please.” Her voice sounded strangled.
He handed her Otis, who burrowed against her. “You be careful,” the cop said.
She cradled Otis, talking to him in a low, soothing voice, checking his bruise, his limbs. “It’s all right now,” she said. “I’m here. We’re going to a nice hospital, see a nice doctor, make sure you’re okay.” She kept talking, repeating the same things over and over, not taking her eyes from him, and when she finally looked up, the ambulance had arrived, and two paramedics jumped out, staring at the car and her and the cops.
Ivan was leaning along the building, his hands in his pockets, staring at her. The paramedics took the baby from Suzanne and opened up the back of the ambulance. “Step on up, ma’am,” one said. He held out his hand. He was so sweetly polite to her she felt like crying. The other started talking to the cops, nodding his head, looking right at Suzanne in a way that made her feel shamed. Ivan took a step toward her.
“Don’t,” she said. Her voice was steel. He stopped. “Don’t you come near me.” He leaned against a storefront, watching her, his eyes hooded.
She got into the ambulance. She looked straight ahead at Otis, who was screaming, sitting up. His small face was terrified. The paramedics were busy tying him to a small padded chair with bands of white cloth. One across his small chest. One across his legs. One across his feet. “What are you doing?” she said, alarmed. “Don’t tie him!”
The paramedic took a strip of white cloth and wrapped it about Otis’s head. Otis screamed and looked at Suzanne. “Don’t!” Suzanne cried.
“It’s for his own good. Keeps his head steady. Just in case. It’s not hurting him.”
Suzanne leaped up, and the paramedic held up a hand. “Ma’am. We need you to stay in that seat over here. Buckle yourself in. He’s not being hurt.”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Mt. Sinai.”
One of the cops jumped into the ambulance. “We have to come, too,” he said.
Mt. Sinai. The same hospital as Molly.
There were three mothers with kids in the Emergency Room, but she was the only woman with a baby who also had a cop beside her. Doctors swirled around her. Any minute she expected one of Molly’s doctors to appear, to frown at her and Otis in sudden recognition, to see the cop and then ask pointedly, “What’s going on here, exactly?” and she gripped Otis tightly to her. He had stopped crying finally, but his small shoulders shuddered. He sucked in snot. She patted his back, making small constellations with her hand. “You’re okay,” she promised, but she couldn’t help being afraid. Couldn’t help wondering, what if he wasn’t? What would she do then? She held him tighter to her. She felt her heart beating up against his.
A female doctor in a white lab coat walked toward her and as
soon as she saw the cop, she looked at Suzanne differently. “He ever have bruises like this before?” the doctor asked Suzanne pointedly. There was something in the tone of her voice Suzanne couldn’t bare.
“It was a car accident,” Suzanne said. She tried to make her voice sound firm, controlled.
“I’ll take care of the paperwork,” the cop said, and left her side, and as soon as he did, Suzanne felt more vulnerable than before.
“He ever have bruises like this?” the doctor repeated. She looked at Otis’s eyes.
“No. Of course not.”
The doctor looked up at Suzanne with a measured gaze that made Suzanne want to disappear. The doctor checked Otis’s signs. She felt his belly, and then she turned to Suzanne. “He looks okay. Just watch him for a few days. Any unusual things, like vomiting or grogginess, you get him back here.” Then the doctor dismissed Suzanne, turning from her with a kind of disgust. The doctor looked to another woman holding a child. “Hello,” the doctor said, and her voice was so suddenly warm, so richly sympathetic that Suzanne wanted to run over there and start pounding at the doctor’s back screaming, How dare you. How dare you. How dare you.
She had to call a cab to get home. Had to sit in the backseat with her arms locked about Otis because the seat belts were broken, terrified that any second another accident might happen. She had to call Triple A to tow the car. And then she had to wait for Gary.
All that afternoon, she cried. She sat by Otis’s crib while he slept, unable to move. Endangering the life of a child. They were right. It was her fault. Her fault for trusting Ivan. The phone rang and she jumped. She’d have to tell Gary. She’d have to tell Molly. They’d never speak to her again. And the horrible thing was she couldn’t blame them. She deserved this, leaving Otis with Ivan.
She cried a little more and then she gave Otis a bath, cried again, stopping only when she thought Otis looked a little sorrowful himself,
and then she put him to sleep. The phone rang four times but she didn’t pick it up once. She turned off the answering machine. If it was Ivan, he could rot. And if it was Gary, well, she wanted to tell him in person. She didn’t deserve the kind of distance the phone could provide. She didn’t deserve to hide.
At six, when Gary was due home, she was sitting on the front porch, and when Gary came up the walk, she stood. Her eyes were puffy. Her nose was red.
“What’s wrong?” Gary tilted his head and looked at her. “Where’s the car?”
“I have something I have to tell you,” she said.
For a long while, he didn’t say anything, and to Suzanne that was scarier than if he had screamed at her or struck her or hurled her suitcase out the door. Instead, he simply waited until she was finished, and then he slowly stood up. He looked a hundred years old suddenly. He looked at Suzanne as if he didn’t know her, as if she were a stranger who had just come into his house and now he didn’t want her to touch anything. “I want you out,” he said. “I don’t care where you go, where you stay. Get a motel room. Stay on the street for all I care. Go with your Ivan. You just get out.”
Gary sat in Molly’s room. He had cabbed to the hospital. The whole way in he had debated with himself whether or not he should tell her. Would it make her worse? He hadn’t been sure what he was going to do, even when he took Otis over to Emma’s and begged her to watch him, so upset that Emma didn’t say anything, but just took the baby. He hadn’t been sure driving to the hospital. Not until he stepped into Molly’s room and saw her face and knew that he couldn’t lie to her, he couldn’t keep secrets anymore.
The whole time he had told Molly, she had stared at him, and by the time Gary finished talking Molly was so furious she swept one arm
across her dresser, crashing books to the floor. “You get her out of our house.”
“She’s gone,” Gary said.
That evening, when Gary came back to the house, Otis in his arms, the house was empty. There was no sign of Suzanne. He wandered the rooms. Where were the long black hairs in the tub, the mascara in his office, the glass half filled with now flat soda making rings on the counter? Where was that funny hair color smell, the citrusy perfume of the shampoo she sometimes used? He walked toward Otis’s room to get a few things for him. Emma had offered to sit again tonight. “No problem,” she said. He wasn’t even in the room when he saw it. A clean sheet spread on the floor. Every one of Otis’s toys were damp, drying on the sheet. His blankets and drool cloths were neatly folded on his changing table, and a tiny blue pillow that he had never seen before was propped in Otis’s crib. Gary sat down with Otis in the rocker and rocked him. He kept his arms tight about him. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he promised. Otis began to rustle in Gary’s arms. “I know,” Gary said to him. “And I’m so sorry.”
Suzanne had no place to go. Not yet. But that didn’t mean she was going to stay with Ivan. She had packed all her stuff and left it with a client. There wasn’t much. Just a suitcase. Much less than when she’d arrived. She’d left a few things with Ivan in the motel room—things she couldn’t afford to just let go. She looked at her watch. Would he be there or not, and what did that matter to her now? She could whisk in and whisk out, and that would be that. She remembered her one client who had the sublet. Suzanne could move in tonight. She had some money saved now. She had work.
She let herself into the motel room. Ivan was sitting on the bed watching an old black-and-white movie on TV. He snapped it off as soon as he saw her. He sprang to his feet. “I’ve been going crazy waiting for you.” He stood up, awkwardly smiling, and for a moment,
she felt the old pull. All she’d have to do is let him touch her and she’d be lost. She’d believe anything.
“Feels like Alaska in here all of a sudden. You still pissed at me?” he said.
Suzanne ignored him. She opened a drawer and pulled out her sweater, her good sunglasses, her good wool pants. He cocked his head, watching her quizzically. “What are you doing?”
Suzanne turned to look at him. At one time, it used to almost hurt her to look at him. She had fallen in love with him the first second she had laid eyes on him and he was still the handsomest man she had ever seen in her life. “I’m not going away with you.”
“Don’t be like that. Don’t keep punishing me. I can only take so long off from work.”
“I’m not punishing you. And I didn’t mean I wanted you to stay with me.” Suzanne was exhausted. “I want you to go back to California or wherever else you’re going. Without me.”
Ivan tried to touch her, but Suzanne pulled back. “No,” she said.
Ivan blew out a breath. He leaned against the bureau, watching her. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Don’t do this. Is it the kid? You want me to apologize about the kid again, I’ll apologize. But he’s fine. You want to get mad at someone, go get mad at the son of a bitch who rammed your car, who hit and run and didn’t look back. That’s whose fault this really is. That’s who’s the terrible person. You scared about those cops? They were just blowing smoke at you. They walk away from robberies, you think they’re going to go after this? You think they’re really going to call that agency? Believe me. I dealt with an ex-wife. I know how these things work and it’s all smoke screens and mumbo jumbo to get you good and scared so you’ll toe the line.”
“I am scared.” Suzanne bent down to make sure she hadn’t left anything under the bed. She found a pair of shoes and pulled them out, and then stood up again. “You didn’t even ask how he made out at the hospital. If he’s all right.”
Ivan looked impatient. “Okay. How did he make out?”
She shook her head. “He’s fine,” she said curtly.
“How long are you going to hang me out to dry over this, Suzanne?
You want me to admit I fucked up? Okay, I fucked up. Now can we just get past this? The kid is fine. You just told me so. God, you didn’t used to hold a grudge like this. It’s not good for you, Suzanne. It’s not good for us.”
Suzanne got on her jacket from the closet. “His name is Otis,” she said. “And it’s not just him.” She slung her bag over one shoulder. She looked at him. “What’s Ann’s favorite toy? What’s her favorite bedtime story?”
Ivan stared at her. “What is this? Why are we talking about Ann?”
“I’m talking about her. Your daughter. You never do. Do you have a picture of Ann? What’s her favorite food? What’s her favorite TV show? You don’t know, do you?”
“I know you.” Ivan’s voice was quieter than she had ever heard it. “And I know you don’t really want to do this. You and me. We’re the same person. All these years. You couldn’t stop loving me now. No matter what I did. What you think I did.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Oh, no?” He got a strange smile on his face. “Aren’t you the woman I’m going to marry—the woman I should have married back when we were seventeen? Aren’t you my muse?”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“You want to live in Jersey? Hell, I don’t care. We’ll live in stinking Jersey. You want to have a kid? Okay, we’ll have a kid.”
“I don’t want a kid with you. You don’t even carry a picture of your own daughter. You never talk about her. At first I thought it was because it hurt you not to be with her, but now I think it’s because you don’t care. I bet you don’t call her, either. You don’t know the first thing about her, and she’s your own flesh and blood.”
He reached for her and she shoved him away.
“I’m so stupid,” Suzanne said. “Screw me for not paying attention to how you treat the people who love you. Screw me for not seeing how you don’t love anyone back, except maybe yourself. Screw me and screw you.”
“What is with you? What is it you want?” he said.
Suzanne put her hand on the doorknob, turning it. “I know what it is about you, now. You’re right. I do know you. I know you can’t stand to be alone. You never could. I had to come with you to every gig. You couldn’t go to sleep unless I was there in the bed with you. We were always together, but it had nothing to do with love. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now. You have to have an audience. That’s why you married Patty, I bet. And that’s why you went to find me. You don’t really see people, do you? You don’t really care.”
“Suzanne, it worries me when you talk crazy like this. Maybe you should just calm down a bit. You want me to go out and get you something? Hot tea? A drink of something?”
“You don’t know the first thing about me. I only thought you did.” Suzanne opened the door.
“No, it’s not good-bye.” Ivan’s voice got quieter and quieter. “You’ll call me. You always do. I know you’ll call me. You could never stop loving me, no matter what I did,” and then Suzanne walked out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Suzanne stopped at the pay phone to call her client who had said she had an apartment to unload. She was so drained, she leaned her head against the phone. She shut her eyes. “If you like it, you can take over the lease,” her client told her.
Suzanne saw the apartment a half hour later. It was the worst apartment she had ever seen, maybe even worse than ones she had had in California. One big dark and musty room with a slanted floor. The one window in it was small and it looked out on a parking lot. She heard a sneeze, as loudly as if it were right in front of her.
“Tissue-paper walls,” her client said apologetically. “The neighbor had allergies, but the bright side is they’re seasonal.”
Suzanne looked around. She didn’t have much choice, or much time. There was enough space for a small single bed, a table, a chair for her work. Well, what else did she need? It was available immediately and it was so cheap even she could afford it.
“I’ll take it,” Suzanne said. “I’m moving in right now.”
The woman gave her an odd look. “Well, I guess you can do that. It’s your place,” she said cheerfully and handed Suzanne the key.
After the woman left, Suzanne sat on her floor and tried to think what to do next. She couldn’t stop thinking about Otis, about Molly. Already she missed Otis so much she thought she was going through withdrawal. What could she have been thinking to think she could leave with Ivan and not look back? She kept thinking she heard Otis crying. She kept feeling Otis’s breath, warm and sweet and soft as a cat’s. Who was watching him? Who knew him better than she did? Who spent more time with him? Did they know what songs he liked to hear? Did they know he liked to be burped on the left shoulder and not the right, that he didn’t like strained peaches, but apricots were okay? She had been thrown out of Gary’s and Molly’s lives for jeopardizing Otis, and maybe she could understand that, maybe she would have flown off the handle the same way, but the bottom line was she loved that kid. He loved her. And she couldn’t do without him.
She looked at the corner of the room. The Portacrib might fit there. She looked at the tiny kitchen, with the tiny stove. It still could boil Otis’s bottles. No matter where she looked, she thought of Otis. She swore she heard him in the room.
Suzanne stood up heavily. She couldn’t stand it. She didn’t have a phone yet, so she walked outside, two blocks to the pay phone. She rested her head against the silver phone and dialed.
The line rang three times. She tried to slow her breathing, to ease up her grip on the phone. Please, she thought. Just let me get a word in edgewise.
“Hello?” said Gary. His voice sounded tense, exhausted. In the background, she heard Otis crying, which made her grip the receiver tighter.
“Please. I told him to go, to never come back. Can I just come over and explain? Can I just see Otis?”
Gary hung up the phone. Static popped and fizzed in her ear.
She knew Gary wouldn’t let her see Otis, but he couldn’t keep her from walking in the neighborhood, from seeing the baby by accident. Accident, she thought. Accident.
Accident. It hummed in her mind. Every day, she took her time. Every time she saw a blue stroller, she dashed over, checking to see if Otis was inside it, but it was always a baby she didn’t know at all. A mother who would look at her curiously, and then Suzanne would have to retreat. She kept thinking maybe she could run into him and his new caretaker, she could explain and the woman would let her just hold him. “It’ll be our little secret,” she might say.
She was even desperate enough to think she might appeal to Molly. They were sisters, after all. They would always be sisters, no matter what. You couldn’t change that. She used to be able to talk Molly into anything-even forgiveness. But as soon as she got to Molly’s floor, she felt a chill. She got halfway into the door when Molly rang for the nurse. “Get out,” Molly said.
“If you want to see me, I’ll be in the solarium.” Suzanne’s voice seemed a wisp. “Every day. From ten to two. Just so you know.”
“With Ivan.”
“I’m not with Ivan anymore.”
“Until when?” Molly asked wearily. “Why did you even come here in the first place? What was it? Money? A place to live? To hide out? It wasn’t for me, was it.” She lay back on the pillow.
“It was for you,” Suzanne whispered.
Molly shook her head. “Just go already. I’m tired.”
A nurse came in. “Something you need?” she said.
“This visitor’s disturbing me,” Molly said. “Don’t let her in here again—”
The nurse put one hand on Suzanne’s back. “Please,” she said, and Suzanne turned around. “Ten to two—” Suzanne said quietly. “And I did come for you.”
Suzanne sat in the solarium for hours at a time, nursing hot tea, reading magazines, waiting. Every time a nurse came in, she felt a spark of
hope, but the nurse never came for her. She didn’t dare go back to Molly’s room, but some days she simply stood out in the hall by the elevators waiting for Gary. When he saw her, his face set. “She doesn’t want you here. She told you that. I’m telling you that. We don’t want to see you. Just go back to California. Go back to Ivan.”
“Ivan’s gone. I told him to go.”
“Good. You go, too.” He turned away from her.
“I’m not going anywhere!” Suzanne screamed after him. “I’m here every day!” She shouted so loudly a nurse came over to shush her.
It made Suzanne crazy not to see the baby. She kept walking Molly’s neighborhood trying to catch a glimpse of him. She walked and she walked until her feet hurt, but she never once saw anyone. She never even saw a curtain flutter.
Not seeing Ivan was a different matter. For a while, she braced herself every time the phone or the doorbell rang. She half expected to see him following her. And it was strange. She expected to feel more wrung-out about all of it, but instead what she felt was this odd kind of relief, almost like closing a book she had loved and read and now was finished with. Ivan didn’t really love anyone. He ran out on her. He ran out on his wife. And he ran out on his little girl.
It was only sometimes, late at night, when she did think about him, and then it hurt. But the Ivan she thought about then was the boy she had fallen in love with at fifteen, the rocker who held her in his arms and made her feel like she was worth something, like she was special. The boy who sang to her and told her she was his only one forever. And that Ivan had been gone a long time ago. And so had that Suzanne.
She began coming to the hospital at different times, hoping to catch Otis there.
She had no pride. She didn’t care that the nurses saw her sitting in the solarium every day, not moving, completely alone.
Gary was trying to stop Otis from crying. Otis was shrieking and carrying on, flailing his arms and legs, and nothing Gary was doing seemed to help. Gary tried the bottle and Otis batted it away. He checked the baby’s diaper and gave him a bath and even put on music, and still Otis wailed. “What’s wrong?” he kept asking, and Otis kept crying. “Think of how I feel,” Gary coaxed.
Gary had a lot to do today, too. He had the names of three women who might work as baby nurses, though Emma, thank God, had told him not to worry, that she would be more than happy to watch Otis. Theresa had piped in, saying she’d be happy to help out, too. “Just ask,” she said. He had to go food shopping and do a wash and clean the house a bit, it was such a pigsty. He looked like hell himself. He was wearing the same flannel shirt and jeans he had been wearing for two days. He hadn’t even taken a shower, let alone shaved, and he knew without even looking in the mirror that there were big dark circles under his eyes, like bruises. How had Suzanne managed? How did anyone? The doorbell rang, and Otis screamed louder and Gary cursed, peeking out the window. No one was there. Already this morning, a messenger had come by, carrying a small red thermos. “What’s this?” Gary said, looking at the thermos.
He opened the note. I got you Holy Water! Don’t even ask how I did it! Love and kisses, Ada. Gary sighed and rolled his eyes. Ada. She meant well but this was too much. He had taken the thermos and tossed it right in the trash, and then two minutes later, he fished it out again. Well. You never knew. He was just about to try to figure out some lunch when the phone rang. “You got it?” Ada said.
“Thanks.” He was too exhausted to explain.
“Listen, Gary. I have something else to tell you but I have to whisper because I don’t want to get caught—”
“Ada, I’m really busy—”
Her voice singsonged. “Guess who’s getting fired because he sent his girlfriend a top-of-the-line computer setup that belonged to the company? Guess who racked up a long-distance phone bill so high he was hauled into the head honcho’s office and dragged over the coals for it? And guess whose girlfriend, when asked if he could come out
there and live with her while he tried to start fresh, said thanks but no thanks, she liked things the way they were?”
Gary was surprised how blank he felt. He didn’t care anymore about what Brian had or hadn’t done to him. It didn’t matter anymore.
“And guess who management’s talking about taking his job? Go on, guess.”
“Ada, I don’t know—”
“You—” Ada said breathlessly. “They’re talking about you!”
“Me? They fired me!”
“No, they didn’t fire you, Gary. Brian did. I didn’t want to tell you, you had so much on your plate, but you wouldn’t believe the things he was saying about you. That all your ideas were his. That you were lazy. That they were better off without you. Ha. Things have been hitting the fan since you left. He hasn’t been able to produce a thing and everyone knows it’s because you’re gone and he can’t steal your ideas anymore.”
“What?” Gary felt amazed.
“His job, Gary. I bet you can have his job.”
Gary tried to think straight. “No. That can’t be right. And anyway, how can I work now?”
Ada’s voice turned even more conspiratorial. “Gary, I’m like this little fly on the wall. No one notices me half the time because I’m a secretary, but I see things. I hear things. You don’t know what they’re willing to do to get you back. You could tell them three days a week to start and they’d go for it, I bet. Things are shit here! Everything’s crazy. Brian really fucked up but good. They’re going to call you. I heard them talking. And you take the job and then get me as your secretary and give me a nice raise. Now how about that?”
Gary felt suddenly light-headed. Brian’s job. They could have money in the bank. Paid health insurance, not that COBRA shit. And even if he only had the job for half a year, it would be impressive enough so he could quit and freelance anywhere he wanted. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I just will take it.”
“Atta boy,” Ada cheered.
He hung up. He felt better. Now he’d take his shower. Maybe he’d make some lunch. Call Molly. Maybe things were turning around.
The doorbell rang again. It had better not be Suzanne.
He pulled open the door. A prim-faced young woman in a nondescript blue dress, carrying a clipboard, nodded at him. He was used to this. People canvassing for city council or school board or God knows what else. People wanting you to contribute money to causes he had never heard of. He’d cut her off before she could even open her mouth. “This is a bad time—” he said curtly, but the woman shook her head.
“Gary Breyer?” she said, and he nodded. How’d she know who he was?
“I’m Tonette Thomson, the caseworker assigned to your file and this is an unannounced home visit. As you probably know, a complaint has been filed against you and I’m here to speak with you and visit with Otis in his home.” Her voice was formal, stiff.
Gary felt as if he had been struck. His case. A complaint. He couldn’t move. He was suddenly super aware of his dirty clothes, his matted hair; his growth of beard suddenly itched. And, of course, Otis was wailing.
“State law requires that you have to let me in to check Otis’s safety,” Tonette said quietly.
Gary abruptly stepped back, trying to soothe Otis. He saw suddenly the way Tonette was looking at him, taking him in, narrowing, as if she were looking for fault. She stared at Otis so long, and with such concern, that Gary felt suddenly scared. “He isn’t usually like this—” Gary said quickly.
“I’m sure he’s not,” Tonette said, but she looked at him and frowned. She came into the house, looking around. “You understand the seriousness of the allegation? Leaving a child unattended in a locked car? And then with the accident? He suffered—” She flipped through some paper on her clipboard and then frowned. “Contusions,” she said finally. “Head abrasions.” She shook her head, scolding him. “Tsk,” she said.
“My sister-in-law was caring for him that day. She’s not caring for him anymore.”
Tonette nodded, but she didn’t look less disturbed. “And who is caring for Otis while you’re at work? Who do you leave him with?”
“Next door. A neighbor. She’s raised a daughter.”
Tonette seemed to shift gears. “Let’s start in the kitchen,” she said pleasantly. Otis snuffled and cried louder. Tonette opened the refrigerator and peered in.
“I was just about to go shopping today,” Gary said desperately.
She checked the sides of every carton of yogurt. “Expiration dates,” she said. She opened the covered bowls and sniffed. She opened cabinets and looked in the dishwasher and held up the cans of formula and then she took out her notebook and wrote something.
“What did you write?” Gary said, terrified. “Is something wrong?”
She looked around. Her mouth pursed into a line. “And the child’s bedroom is where?” she said.
Gary led her into Otis’s room. He couldn’t stand the way she opened Otis’s drawers, making them squeak, the way she lifted up his tiny jerseys and studied them, and he couldn’t figure out why. He hated when she looked into the crib, when she even checked the wastebasket full of dirty diapers Gary hadn’t had time to toss out. “I’m on my own here,” he blurted.
Tonette kept moving about the room. She looked at the shelf of baby books and CDs, at the toys, and then she looked at Gary. “I’ll take him,” she said, and he tightened his grip. “No,” he said.
“I just want to take a look at him.”
“He’ll cry more,” Gary said, desperately, but Tonette came toward him and as soon as she reached for Otis, to Gary’s shock, Otis stopped crying altogether. The baby blinked and stared gravely at Tonette. Otis let her pick him up.
Tonette lay Otis on the changing table. It bothered Gary the way Tonette didn’t even talk to Otis, the way Otis was so suddenly silent. She unsnapped his duck-printed coverall. She opened his diaper and studied him, for what seemed to Gary to be an eternity.
“Is that necessary?” Gary asked, pained.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.” Tonette studied Otis’s arms and legs. She turned him on his belly and checked his back and then turned him over again.
“Everything looks fine, right?” said Gary.
Tonette began dressing Otis up again, putting his diaper back on, snapping up the coverall, and handing the baby back to Gary.
“Will there be another visit?” Gary asked.
“I can’t tell you that. And if there is, it’s unannounced. Just as this one was. I can tell you that we leave your file open for three months.”
My file. Gary couldn’t stand it.
“My wife is ill in the hospital. I hope you’re not planning on talking to her.”
“Well, I’ll have to at some point.”
“Please. She needs to stay calm. She’s just starting to get better—”
Tonette wrote something on a new piece of paper. “You might want to consider taking a parenting class,” she said. She handed him the paper. “This one is very good.” She put the cap on her pen and tucked it away in her purse.
Gary was so upset, he could barely speak. A parenting class. Just as if he was the one who had left Otis alone in the car, who had let something bad happen to him. And in a way he had. He had left him with Suzanne.
Gary showed Tonette to the door. She held out her hand to him. “This has been most informative,” she said. He wanted to kill Tonette. He could have put both his hands about her neck and snapped it in two. Instead, he shook her hand. He opened the door, he let her out, but he couldn’t bring himself to say good-bye, to show the least courtesy to a woman who was barging into his home like this, looking at him as if he had committed murder and she would like to be the one to pull the switch on his electric chair. He double-locked the door.
Gary took Otis and sat in the chair, away from the window. He was lost. He couldn’t protect his wife. And now he couldn’t protect his son. And he would have to live with both those unlivable things.
That evening at work, Gary couldn’t concentrate. He sat at the desk and stared at the four walls and if someone had broken in, he would have let them take everything, and welcome to it. He didn’t even bother to turn on the radio.
Marty came around the corner, leaning on the electric broom, a Danish in one hand. He looked as terrible as Gary did. Unshaven. His hair matted. His face glum.
“You look like shit,” Gary said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, well.”
Marty turned off the broom and sat beside Gary. “I feel like shit.” He waved the Danish in the air. “It came today. My rejection from film school. No explanation, no try again, no we think you’re talented anyway. A fucking form letter.” He sighed. “I’m getting so tired of all this. It’s like you work and work and hope for something. You do everything you can and it all just doesn’t happen. Making films is what I’ve wanted all my life. It is my life. I do everything I can to have it and I can’t figure out why I can’t have it. I can’t figure out what I’m going to do now.”
Gary looked at Marty. “Sometimes it’s really tough,” Gary said, his voice so swallowed, Marty looked up.
“What did you say?” Marty asked. He studied Gary. “Hey, what is it? You don’t look so hot yourself.”
“My wife is in the hospital. My baby was in an accident. A social worker came by today to see if there were grounds to take my baby away from me.”
Marty leaped up. “Oh, fuck me. Jesus, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? Here I am going on and on like some moron—”
“I know film’s your life,” Gary said, “My family was my life. Now I can barely get myself up in the morning.”
Marty blinked and was silent. And then he suddenly held out the Danish to Gary. “It’s cherry. My favorite,” he said. “Go ahead. Take it. Please. I want you to.”
Gary wasn’t hungry but he took the pastry. “Take a bite,” Marty urged. Gary bit into it. It was sweet and sugary and delicious. He chewed and then Marty awkwardly put one hand on his shoulder.
“You need anything, you let me know,” Marty said.
Molly was watching an old movie on the television when Gary came in for his visit the next day. She clicked off the TV, smiling faintly at him, waiting for his kiss.
“She’s not here today, is she?” Molly asked. She couldn’t bring herself to even say Suzanne’s name.
“I told her to leave. I tell her that every day.”
Molly lay still. Suzanne was right outside, staying for hours even when no one would see her or even talk to her.
Gary took Molly’s hand. “The case worker showed up yesterday. It was awful, Molly.”
“They came to the house?”
“She looked at all the rooms. She went through the kitchen. She even looked at expiration dates on the cans. And she looked at Otis.” He swallowed. “She took off his diaper.”
Molly shut her eyes for a moment. “What did she say?”
“That’s the whole thing. She said nothing. She might come back or she might not. I couldn’t tell anything. She said she has to talk with you.”
“I could murder Suzanne,” Molly said.
“The house was a wreck, Molly. I wasn’t even really dressed. There wasn’t all that much food in the house. I hadn’t time. I wasn’t prepared.” He looked helplessly at her. “I’m so sorry.”
Molly shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Maybe it won’t be a problem. Maybe this is it.”
They sat silently for a while. “Is anyone lined up to take care of Otis?” Molly asked.
“I’m working on it. Emma and Theresa offered. Even Belle, though I don’t know if I trust her.” Gary shrugged. “Maybe I can afford a cheap nurse.”
Gary stood up. “Hey,” he said cheerfully. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be home soon and we won’t have to worry about it at all. Right?”
Molly tried to smile. He bent and kissed her. “Come on, chin up,” he coaxed.
“Right,” she said, smiling, struggling to look optimistic.
As soon as Gary was gone, Molly sank, terrified, into the bed. She looked at the hospital walls, at the brown-and-orange-striped curtain surrounding her bed. It was all sickeningly familiar. Sickeningly safe. Sickeningly known right down to the whole horrible routine. Outside suddenly seemed more dangerous than anything inside. What would she do if they took Otis away? It didn’t seem likely but unlikely things happened all the time. Hadn’t she read about birth mothers who came back to claim their kids from adoptive families four years after the adoption, and they won? Who would ever think that was reasonable? What would she do then? And even if that didn’t happen, there was still another problem: Who would take care of Otis? She couldn’t stand it. She tried to sit up and felt instantly woozy. She lay back on the pillow and her IV machine beeped and then was silent. Even with the neighbor’s help, there were bound to be times when no one was available, when Gary had to work. And even if she ever did get home, she didn’t have a clue how to care for Otis herself. She could barely lift her water pitcher, let alone a baby.
Molly and Gary and Otis were in the solarium. Mornings almost no one was ever there. Suzanne never came until the afternoon, and they had the whole place to themselves. Molly held Otis gently on her lap. He stared up at her, batting at the tag ends of her hair with his fingers.
“Look how he can’t take his eyes off you,” Gary said.
“I think he likes me.”
“Come on, what are you saying! Of course he does!”
Molly was tickling Otis’s chin when he suddenly began babbling and kicking his legs. She looked up and there was Suzanne, in an awful red coat and sneakers, standing in the doorway, waiting, like a specter that wouldn’t go away.
Gary stood up.
“Please,” Suzanne said. “Just let me see Otis. Just for a minute.”
“Just go,” Molly said wearily, and then Otis suddenly began babbling. Molly looked down at him. Otis smiled and waved his hands;
he kicked out his legs. He was looking right at Suzanne. Molly took a second look, too. She saw Suzanne’s red-rimmed eyes, the circles under them like stains. She saw how Suzanne had even misbuttoned her blouse.
“Please.” Suzanne started to cry, swiping at her eyes. “I love him.”
Molly studied her sister’s face. She always knew when Suzanne was lying, which was nine times out of ten, but this time, she wasn’t.
“I can’t stand not seeing him,” Suzanne wept. “Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. I’ll apologize five hundred times. If I could take back that day and do it differently, I swear to God, I would. I don’t know what else to do.”
Otis made a burbling noise. He kept looking at Suzanne, veering his body toward her. “All right,” Molly said finally. “You can see him.”
Suzanne came into the room. The closer she got to Otis, the more he squealed with delight. She bent and crouched down beside Otis. She tapped Otis’s nose, making him laugh. “How you doing, champ,” she cried. “You okay? I missed you so much.” Otis grabbed for her finger and popped it into his mouth. He sighed and shut his eyes.
Molly watched her sister and Otis together. Otis didn’t act like that with her. He didn’t strain to reach her; he didn’t light up like that.
Suzanne bent and showered Otis’s whole face with little nipping kisses. Otis laughed.
“Well, maybe you can hold him.”
“Really?” Suzanne carefully picked up Otis. She cuddled him and rocked him and kissed his hands and face.
“Give him back now,” Molly said, and Suzanne settled Otis into Molly’s lap.
“Thank you,” Suzanne whispered. “Thank you, thank you.”
Molly tickled Otis’s stomach.
“I’m staying. I got an apartment.”
“For how long?” Molly finally said.
“I want to be near you and Otis. Like family.”
Molly was silent for a minute, considering. She suddenly felt more tired than she ever had before. She could barely move her mouth to
say anything, even if she knew what to say. She couldn’t think anymore , what was the right thing and what wasn’t.
“You look exhausted,” Gary said to Molly. “Let’s get you back to bed.” He looked around. “I’ll get a nurse.”
Molly shook her head. She looked at Suzanne again, standing there, waiting. “Suzanne can take me. I need to talk to her, anyway.”
Gary gently lifted up Otis. He kissed Molly. “I think that’s a good idea,” he said.
Molly tried to get comfortable in bed and then gave up. She bunched a pillow by her back. She kicked at the sheets. Suzanne pulled a chair close and sat down.
“You’ve been coming every day,” Molly said.
Suzanne nodded.
“Ivan really left?”
Suzanne made a zipping sound. “Gone. I threw him out this time.” She leaned closer to Molly. “Molly, I know I fucked up.”
“Otis was in your care. Not Ivan’s.”
“I know. Don’t you think I think about that all the time? You can’t say anything to me that I don’t say to myself. But, Molly, I love you. I love Otis. And I’m not running away.”
“You hate New Jersey.”
“I hated it when I was unhappy. When I felt like I had nothing here.”
Molly was silent for a moment. Suzanne picked up the ends of Molly’s hair and started smoothing them with her fingers. Molly recoiled.
“Oh, don’t—” Molly said, trying to move away. Threads of hair drifted onto Suzanne’s hands. Suzanne stared down at them and then looked back quizzically at Molly.
“My hair is falling out!” Molly cried. “It’s all the drugs. I just touch it and handfuls come out.” She rubbed at her eyes.
“I can fix it, Molly. I can cut it a little, make it look fuller.”
“You can?”
“Sure I can. That’s what I do for a living. You sleep and when you wake up, we’ll make you gorgeous. They must have a scissors in this joint.”
Molly slid down in the bed. “These beds. I think their motto is if we’re comfortable they must be doing something wrong.” Her eyes dropped shut, she yawned. Through half-closed lids, she saw Suzanne starting to stand, to gather her things.
“Don’t go, Suzanne.”
Suzanne sat back down. She leaned in toward Molly. Molly touched Suzanne’s hair. She began combing it out with her fingers, the way she used to when she was a little girl, when she had to stand on a kitchen stool just to reach.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Suzanne said.
Suzanne, in overalls and T-shirt, her hair in a scarf, was perched on a ladder, roller in hand, finishing painting the walls of her apartment. Pale, creamy peach. Soft and refreshing. She had paint all over her overalls and all over the newspaper she had spread on the floor. Peach color speckled on her hands like freckles. Next door, the man with allergies was sneezing, but she didn’t really mind. There was almost something companionable about it.
She surveyed the studio. There was still lots she wanted to do. She wanted to sand down the floor, give it a sheen. Those ugly brown cabinets in the kitchen would have to go. Maybe she could paint them. Or strip them down, give them some kind of finish. And photos. She wanted to hang photos. Sort of like Molly’s photo gallery, but her own. A big picture of Otis would look great right over there by the window.
She ran the roller up the wall again. She felt content and happy, and she started to sing. “You Shoot Me Down,” she sang, and then she realized, with a start, it was Ivan’s song. The first song he had ever sung for her, a song he said he had made up for her. Well. So what? It was pretty. It was just a song now. It didn’t have to mean
a damn thing. She could put her own meaning into it. She eased the roller over the last bare spot on the south wall when the doorbell rang.
Suzanne hopped off the ladder. She hoped it was the super come to fix her leaky toilet. She wiped her hands on her jeans and there was Bob Tillman, a potted green plant in his hand, smiling at her. “Heard you had moved. Brought you a homecoming gift.”
She took the plant, pleased.
Bob Tillman cleared his throat. She noticed suddenly he had on a shirt instead of his usual T-shirt, that even his jeans looked pressed. “Come in.” She swept her hand. “So, what do you think?”
“The peach is peachy.”
She laughed.
Bob smiled at her. “You need any shelving, or a table. You come see me. I’ll give you a nice discount.” He waited and then put his hands awkwardly in his pockets. “Can I take you to dinner?” he said abruptly. The way he was looking at her made her suddenly selfconscious. Her mind hadn’t been on anything but getting her apartment in shape.
“I guess that’s a no—” Bob Tillman shrugged matter-of-factly.
“No—no—” Suzanne lifted up her hands. “It’s just—it’s just that I haven’t been thinking about that.” She looked around the apartment. “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever lived alone and wanted to. I kind of want to see what that’s like.” She hesitated. “You’re a nice man.”
Bob Tillman winced. “The kiss of death! Nice!”
“Well, you are.”
“Well, at least you didn’t say no. At least it sounds like maybe there’s hope.”
Suzanne smiled at him.
“So can we go out to dinner once in a while? See a movie?”
“I don’t know. Maybe as friends, we can.”
“As friends.”
“Call me and we’ll see.”
He stood up. “I like the way you look now.”
She looked down at herself, surprised. “Like this? I have paint on my clothes, I haven’t washed my hair, and I don’t have makeup on.”
“I like it.”
Suzanne showed Bob to the door. “So, I’ll see you,” he said cheerfully. “Friend.”
She shut the door and turned back to look at the paint job. There, over on the far wall, was a tiny spot she had missed. Humming, she got back on the ladders and carefully filled it in.
Molly lay in bed fiddling with her lunch. She had asked for fish, and here was baked macaroni and cheese and Jell-O. She was just about to call Gary, to ask him if he could bring her something from the Kiev, when Dr. Price came in. He frowned.
Molly slid lower onto the bed.
“Well,” he said heavily. “You still are not well. Not by a long shot.”
Molly braced herself.
His face seemed to grow darker. “The clotting inhibitor is still in your blood. We’ll up the steroids you’re getting. We’ll watch the inhibitor levels even more closely. If they don’t keep going down, we might want to try chemo again.”
At the word chemo, Molly sank lower in the bed. She pulled the sheets up to her chin.
“I didn’t say we’d do the chemo now. For now, you need a great deal of rest.”
Molly shut her eyes. Still the hospital.
“But perhaps you can do your resting at home.”
Molly opened her eyes. She looked up at him, stunned. He gave her a faint smile. Molly swallowed. She found her voice. “Are you serious?” she said.
“You have to stay in bed. You have to take your meds. You have to get a home nurse for yourself to come in and check on you every single day, twice a day, without fail. And you have to come in and see me three times a week for blood tests. In a wheelchair. No walking. No real
movements. Nothing that could cause an accident. No lifting. No cutting with knives. Nothing that could make you bleed. And you must promise to call if you feel anything unusual. Immediately.”
“Am I getting cured?”
He was silent for a moment. “Let’s just leave it up to rest and luck, shall we?”
Luck. Molly hesitated. “Am I getting cured?” she repeated.
He shrugged. He waited a moment. “We don’t know,” he said finally.
Molly swallowed. She couldn’t let it go. “But wait, wait, if I am getting better, then is that it for the inhibitor? Does it mean that once it’s out of my system, my blood is normal again, does it mean I can never get the inhibitor again?”
Dr. Price put his hands in his pockets. He studied her for a moment. “We don’t know,” he said finally. “We don’t really know what causes it, and we don’t really know what makes it leave. Only that it sometimes does.”
After Dr. Price left, she couldn’t move. Molly looked at the walls of the hospital room. We don’t know. Could she live with that? We don’t know. She thought of going home. She thought of all those months she had been at the hospital, nearly as helpless as a newborn. Then she thought of what it would be like when she was home with the baby. Suddenly, she was terrified. Her body felt like a tire with the wrong amount of air filled into it. If she even pricked her finger, she could be in danger. She could die. Nowhere felt safe to her. No one knew what was going to happen. Except that she was going home.
She thought suddenly of all those people she had read about who had supposedly had near-death experiences, who had seen white lights, long tunnels, been transformed. Molly didn’t remember seeing anything. The memory blockers had taken care of that. Had she been transformed? Did she have a new insight? Only her body felt different. The rest she’d have to live to find out. And then she reached for the phone to call Gary.
Gary hung up the phone with Molly. He went into Otis’s room, even though he had just put Otis down for a nap, and picked him up and held him while he cried and cried and cried.
That evening, Gary walked around the neighborhood, Otis strapped against his chest. This was family, an extra heartbeat strapped against him. Lights began going on in the neighborhood. Doors began slapping open, cars came home. Otis yawned and snuggled deeper against him. He thought about Molly coming home. Ada would have said it was destiny. That it was fate. But to him, it seemed that Molly’s coming home was as much a fluke as her getting sick. As mysterious and openended. She still had the inhibitor. She still was in danger. He could make himself crazy thinking about it. He didn’t really believe that things were meant to be, that fate might come through for you. Events didn’t turn out the way you always hoped they would. But the thing was that sometimes people came through. The most unexpected people in the most unexpected ways.
It was fall again in the neighborhood. A clear and cold Halloween. Paper ghosts flung themselves off the rooftops. Pumpkins grinned from porches. The streets were crowded with kids and parents, and everyone was dressed up in shiny store-bought costumes, in elaborate handmade outfits. Ghost and goblins, pizzas and refrigerators all wound their way in the annual Halloween parade. Girls in skimpy red uniforms high-kicked their way down the street. The mayor waved ferociously from a car.
Right in the thick of the parade, Molly clung to Gary’s arm. She took baby steps down the street, stopping to rest every few minutes, bracing her hands against Otis’s stroller. Each step felt awkward, like she had doll feet that any moment might not support her.
This walking business was still new to her. This was the first time she could walk more than a block, and already she felt drained. Her doctors wanted her to walk a little more now, but they still cautioned
her, a catch-22. Too little activity, and her muscles would atrophy. Too much and she could tear a muscle. A tear could bleed. A bleed could hemorrhage. She had to think about how she moved, find the happy medium. One foot lifted, planted down and lifted again. But she was determined. Danger or not, she was going to walk this parade with her family. “You want to sit?” Gary asked. He had painted blue stars on his face and Molly’s. Otis, in the stroller, had on a mini Harley jacket and shades. Her weight on the stroller knocked it a little and Otis cried. She reached to soothe him and he twisted, ignoring her, looking for Gary, not calming until he saw him. “All right, all right,” Gary said. Stung, Molly retracted her hand.
Gary looked at her and ruffled her hair, which had started to grow back in curly tufts. Just last week, when the tufts were poking through her old ruined hair, Suzanne had talked her into a short, wild cut, a boost of color. “Live a little,” she said. Molly had never had short hair in her life, had always hated it, and the whole time Suzanne cut it, she had kept her eyes squinched shut. Suzanne worked quickly and efficiently. She kept up a patter of talk. She put on music. But Molly cried as if even the sound and slide of the scissors hurt her. But now, all she knew was she could tilt her head and not feel like people were staring at her hair. Her head felt impossibly light. She could feel almost normal. Gary toyed with her earrings, big complicated tin pieces Suzanne had surprised her with, so she wouldn’t feel so shorn. “Want to keep going?”
All Molly wanted to do was go home. “Sure I do,” she lied, trying to sound jubilant. “This is great!” She didn’t tell him she felt more than a little lost. There were too many people here, and she didn’t know any of them. She didn’t recognize a few of the stores on the street, either. Had things changed so fast? When had that Italian restaurant opened up? Where was the pastry shop she used to buy their breakfast Danish from? There was new red brick lining the sidewalks. New bright red benches. She stumbled on a stone, but caught herself, trying to cover it up so Gary wouldn’t worry. She quickly looked down to make sure she wasn’t bleeding.
“Am I going too fast for you?” Gary asked.
“I’m fine,” she lied. Neither one of them ever mentioned she was still sick.
Three times a week, Gary and Molly and Otis trooped back to the hospital. Every time Molly saw the hospital, she burst into tears. “Don’t make me go back there,” she begged. “We can turn around now. We can go to the movies. We can go to a restaurant. Come on. My treat.”
Molly hated going back inside the hospital. She felt as if any moment the door would slam shut and they would never let her back out again. As soon as she was inside, a man she had never seen before said, “Molly, you’re looking better.”
“Who was that?” she asked but Gary just shrugged.
A doctor passed by and said, “Molly, how nice to see you up and about! And what a big boy Otis is.” Molly smiled weakly as the doctor passed.
“I don’t have a clue who he is, either,” Gary said. “Come on, let’s get your blood drawn and get out of here.” The last time she had gone for her blood test, they had sat her in a little room, papered with signs. Plant Ps. Peace. Prosperity. Prayer. There was a poster of an alarmed kitten hanging on to a high branch by its claws. Lord, with your help, I can hang on. There were two fluffy puppies sitting in a vat of mud. Some days, Lord, we need a little help. If she were well, she would have laughed and made fun. Now, she just quietly studied the posters. “Everyone loves those,” the person taking her blood told her.
It took ten minutes to get the results, ten god-awful minutes that felt like ten years, while she sat in the waiting room with Gary and Otis, pretending to relax, stiffening every time someone came out with the reports and mispronounced someone’s name. “Molly Goodman!” someone shouted, “Molly Guttman!” and Molly waved her hand. Who else would it be? She didn’t even bother to correct his pronunciation. She didn’t relax until she saw the numbers on her report, which she could read like a pro. Some days, she had a reprieve. Some days, when the numbers were bad, when her hematocrits hovered dangerously low, she knew the doctor would start talking to her about chemo again. “You can feel fine and still be sick,” he told her.
She saw the surgeon and the hematologist and neither one of them
made predictions for her. The surgical wounds had healed into angry red scars, raised across her torso like Braille. Sometimes, at night, she woke to find Gary awake, sitting up, looking sorrowfully at her, and when she sat up, his face suddenly changed. He got cheerful. He pretended he was up for some other reason. “Had to pee,” he said, but she hadn’t heard the toilet flush.
The band perked up. And out-of-tune rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching In.” She took Gary’s hand and held it. The high-stepping girls pranced backward and forward. Her legs didn’t feel like they belonged to her. She had this funny, weird walk, as if everything were off-kilter. Her lungs didn’t feel big enough for the breath she needed. And everything seemed too bright, too noisy.
Gary coughed. He bopped his fist against his chest and coughed some more. “Get something to drink,” Molly said. Gary looked around. A bench near them was covered in kids. “Go,” Molly ordered. “I’ll wait right here. I’ll lean on the stroller and be just fine.”
He hesitated.
“I can do this,” she said quietly.
“I’ll be two seconds,” he promised.
She watched him disappearing in the crowd. She leaned on the stroller. Otis sputtered crankily. Lately when she and Gary talked about the future, she had begun to mention that maybe they could adopt a child. A newborn. She knew that in the shape she was in, no one would even think of giving them a child, it was purely a dream, but it made her feel good to think about it. To have those months back that she had missed with Otis, to start from scratch with a new baby who might love and need her right away. To have a future.
“Otis!” someone called, and she craned her neck, but she didn’t see anyone. But Otis cocked his head and burst into tears. He kicked his legs.
“Oh, don’t,” Molly pleaded. “Please, please, please. Can’t you wait until your daddy gets here?” She looked wildly around, but Gary was gone. A little kid in a green dragon suit zipped by, nearly toppling her, jostling the carriage so Otis screamed louder.
“Hungry?” Molly tried. She bent and got his bottle. She tried to pop it in his mouth but he batted it angrily out of her hand, so it rolled under some feet. She grabbed for the pacifier clipped to his sweater and tried to get him to take it, but he spat it out, wailing at her. His lovely little face was turning a violent crimson. His eyes were slits. She felt herself getting desperate. Two women walked by and gave her pointed stares, and Molly flushed, hot with shame. They probably thought she was a terrible mother.
She couldn’t just stand here and let him cry.
She still wasn’t supposed to lift. She didn’t know what else to do. She bent and unbuckled Otis. She put both arms around him. And then she started lifting him up. He kicked against her, and every muscle in her began to scream. “I won’t drop you, I promise,” she said, but the truth was, she wasn’t so sure. Her hands felt like claws gripping him. His weight loosened her fingers. Her breath came in gasps, and then she hoisted him up, so he was resting against her shoulder. She hadn’t known anything so small could feel so heavy. She waited in sudden terror for pain. For any sign that meant bleeding, that meant she had to go back into the hospital. But nothing happened. Not this time. Not yet. She waited for Otis to scream even louder. She didn’t think she had even a chance of lowering him back into the stroller. If he kicked and thrashed against her, she didn’t know how long she could even hold him. “Okay, is that better?” she said, almost pleading, and abruptly, to her astonishment, Otis stopped crying. His face was inches from hers and she locked eyes with him. He stared at her gravely for a moment, unsure. He opened his mouth and she braced herself for his screams. She looked wildly around for Gary again, and then Otis grabbed at her collar and began sucking on the edge of it, all the while carefully watching her. Molly felt a strange new exhilaration. She held on tight to Otis, she swayed a little to keep her balance, to keep him close. She looked down at Otis again, and this time, his eyes were closing. He lifted one hand drowsily and rested it against her cheek.
And then she saw Gary winding his way through the crowd toward
her, holding two sodas, flagged with straws, aloft. And then she saw Emma, leaning toward Gary, patting him on the shoulder, and then they both looked up and saw her holding the baby, and Gary suddenly looked struck. Molly, determined, gently hoisted Otis higher. The pain was less this time, or maybe just more familiar. She shifted Otis so that he was nuzzling her shoulder now. She saw Theresa, calling, “Molly! Otis!” She saw Suzanne, in a French maid’s costume, winding her way through the crowd, looking around until she suddenly spotted Molly. Otis yawned and burrowed deeper against her.
Molly felt a rush. She rubbed the baby’s back. She was like any mother holding her baby, being out in the world. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her, but did anybody? Gary, Theresa, and Emma were almost to her. Suzanne was halfway there. Otis yawned and snuggled deeper against her. Right now, right this minute, Molly didn’t feel so terrified. She felt like she really belonged in this sea of people, like she was a part of them. Right now, she lived here in this neighborhood. Right now, she lived.