I WAS STILL trying to sort everything out when I met my friend Janet Wood for drinks that night. About Marty. But about something else going on in my life right now, too. I had a lot on my mind at the moment.
“Let me ask you a hypothetical question,” I said to Janet.
“Sure.”
“What kind of a mother do you think I’d make?”
She stared at me.
“Are you pregnant, Clare?”
“God, no.”
“Thinking about adopting?”
“Not really.”
“Then why ask me a question like that?”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable question. You’re a mother. You’re raising two beautiful daughters. You have a successful career as a lawyer. And, as far as I can tell, you have a happy marriage, too. I’m asking if you think I could ever balance my career and motherhood the way you do. Would I be a good or rotten mother, Janet?”
“But you don’t have a child and, from what you say, no plans to do so.”
“Hence, my use of the word hypothetical to describe the question.”
Janet and I were sitting at the outside bar of a restaurant on East 29th Street, above the East River Drive and the East River running alongside that. It was a beautiful summer night, and we could see all the cars on the highway along with boats making their way up and down the river. Across the water on the other side were the lights of Brooklyn and Queens; north and south was the splendor of Manhattan.
Janet was drinking a daiquiri, which she always did when we went out. She was drinking it very slowly the way she always did. Janet always drank two daiquiris. Never more, never less. She was a very precise person. I couldn’t imagine her ever being drunk or out of control in any way.
Me, I was starting on my third Corona of the night. I did think about ordering something a bit more exotic or special to go with the terrific view. I’d even asked our waiter for the special drink menu to peruse. But, in the end, I went for the beer. I like beer. I took a slice of lime off the top of the bottle, squeezed it into the beer, and took a big gulp.
“What’s going on with you anyway?” Janet asked me now.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem different lately.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know, different. Quieter. More subdued. Not so many wisecracks as usual from you tonight.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I am working on some new material.”
“It’s like you’re preoccupied with something. And now you hit me out of the blue with this motherhood stuff.”
“I simply asked you a question about being a mother, Janet. That’s all. Don’t make a big deal out of it.
Janet sighed and took a drink of her daiquiri. She knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t telling her everything. But she also knew me well enough to know not to push me for more at that moment. We’d been friends for a long time, me and Janet. It’s hard to fool people like that.
“Look, Clare, you’ve never lived successfully with anyone else in your life. You’ve been married three times, but none of them lasted long. You’ve always been totally preoccupied with your job to the exclusion of nearly everything else in your life. You’re kind of selfish, I suppose, never caring about anyone but you and your own life. As for a child, I’ve never seen you relate outwardly to children or show any apparent interest in ever raising one.”
“I get it. You think I’d make a lousy mother.”
“Not so fast. No one is truly qualified to be a mother, no one knows how it’s going to turn out. Not at the beginning anyway. I certainly didn’t with Karen and Kim. You learn about yourself along the way in motherhood. It just happens. That’s what would happen to you, if you ever take that step. You’re a good person, Clare. You’d make a good mother in the end, no matter what you think. If that’s what you ever decide you want to do. Did I answer your question?”
I finished my Corona and ordered another. Then I looked out at the boats passing by us on the East River. I thought about how nice it would be to be on one of them right now. Maybe sailing out of New York Harbor all the way up the New England coast. Cape Cod. Maine. Maybe all the way to Canada. Some place where I could forget about everything for a while. It was a nice dream. But that’s all it was, a dream. I’d probably get seasick out there.
I told Janet at some point about Marty Barlow. About the questions I had over his death. About the strange connection between Terri Hartwell and his son-in-law. About how he’d come to me for help on a story he was working on and I never got back to him. About how badly I felt about that.
“I remember you telling me about him,” Janet said. “He was important in helping you start your career.”
“Maybe the most important influence I ever had as a young journalist. I owed everything to him.”
“So it makes sense that his murder would shake you up so badly.”
“I suppose.”
“Maybe that’s why you’ve seemed so different, so preoccupied. It’s because of Marty Barlow’s death. It was such a shock—and you have so many regrets about that last meeting you had with him—that it’s on your mind all the time.”
Except it wasn’t Marty Barlow I was thinking about right now.
It was the conversation we’d just had about motherhood.
That was the most important thing on my mind—even more than Marty Barlow. You see, I’d been a mother once, a long time ago. I had a beautiful daughter. Then I lost her. Now I’d found her again. I even met her. So I have a daughter, but I don’t have a daughter. I realize that probably doesn’t make sense to anyone, but then, it doesn’t make much sense to me, either.
Which is why I couldn’t tell the truth about my daughter to anyone—even my best friend, Janet.
“You’re right, it’s Marty Barlow’s death,” I told Janet. “That’s what’s been bothering me so much.”