Ryan’s spare set of keys in my tote may as well have been a brick, given how aware of them I was. Had those really been his shoes on the gurney? I called him four more times, but each time it went straight to voicemail.
“Ryan, it’s Maeve. Call me when you get this, okay? I need to know you’re all right.” Each message a more frantic and pleading variation on the last. It occurred to me to ask the driver to go to the bar where Ryan worked, but I couldn’t even do that. It didn’t open until four, and it was before two.
“This okay?”
“What? Oh.” The taxi was stopped in front of my apartment building. We’d gone all the way back into Brooklyn without me even noticing the bridge. I fumbled for my wallet.
“This one’s on me,” the driver said.
“Thanks.” It was only when I climbed out, looked up at my unit, and saw the curtains flutter that I remembered: I couldn’t go back inside. My renters were already there. I checked the lockbox I kept fastened to the gate outside, and sure enough, the spare keys had been retrieved. So I walked. I dimly realized at some point that I’d left my suitcases in the trunk of the cab.
I wandered on foot for what seemed like—and may have been—miles, calling Ryan’s phone enough times to be sure that, yes, he was the man on the stretcher. No, it wasn’t a sick joke or a parallel universe. The sun was bright, the pavement stank of piss, and every single New Yorker was bustling somewhere important—tripping over one another in their hurry to get wherever they were convinced they had to be.
I was the only one who had nowhere to be. My temp interview felt like a plan from another lifetime. That feeling I’d had since I was a kid—that my past was following me—had settled like a stone in my stomach. I thought about my adoptive parents: Patty, who now had severe Alzheimer’s and lived in an assisted care facility. And Tom, who passed away when I was in college, from lung cancer. I thought of the people who’d loved me—Andrea, Patty, Tom, maybe even Ryan, in his way—and the people I loved, and their impermanence. I thought that this was why people made babies. Why Patty and Tom had taken me in to begin with. The cycle. The need for love, like some sort of emotional insurance policy. One I’d never quite managed to lock down. An outsider in the cycles of humanity.
Eventually it was dusk, and my feet hurt. I had nothing but the contents of my tote bag: my wallet, phone, computer, and a lip balm. My shoulder ached under the bag’s weight. I felt so profoundly exhausted that I wondered how it was possible for normal people to make decisions that catapulted them forward. Ryan had a family in L.A., but I’d never met any of them. I didn’t have their numbers, or the numbers of any of Ryan’s friends, and he hadn’t been on social media.
Once again I had the feeling of being nonexistent, of the things and people around me being imaginary. I stood over the subway grates and let the foul air of an oncoming train blow up, swirling around my legs. I thought about the ways things started and stopped. Then stopped for good. I went to the bodega and bought a water, guzzling it down. I felt very, very thirsty. When I went to pay, the cashier had fires in his eyes. When he thanked me, smoke came from his mouth like a dragon.
Eventually I made my way back out on the street. I had my tote over my shoulder, my keys in my back pocket, Ryan’s keys in my palm, my phone in my other palm. I found another subway grate and dropped Ryan’s keys through it. I didn’t like to be too close to death, and yet I had found myself there again. I sank down to the sidewalk and remembered Ryan’s Jolly Ranchers. Finally, I began to cry.
In New York you can cry a surprising length of time before someone asks if you’re okay. But it’s not infinite. Eventually someone will care. It was an older person—man or woman, I couldn’t say anymore—who walked me to the nearest urgent care facility, putting me carefully in a chair in the waiting room. A nurse eyed me skeptically from behind the registration desk at the clinic.
“Water’s over there,” she said, inclining her head. Her lips thinned, but she reserved for herself whatever she was thinking.
This must be the place for people like me, I thought.
When the door to the clinic creaked open, I jerked upright—I’d nodded off. A tall woman in a yellow sundress approached, her shoes clacking against the tiled floor. My eyes were having trouble focusing, but I’d have known her form anywhere. The ease with which she walked. The snarl of long, blond hair. My heart stood still.
“Mother?” I whispered. “How did you find me?”
“Maeve,” she said.
“No. No,” I whispered. I tried to rise from my chair, but I was weak from emotional exhaustion and fear, and my legs gave out. Mother’s slender arms caught me, wrapped around me, held me tight as she sank into the chair next to mine.
I caught a whiff of vanilla on her neck. I breathed it in. The smell centered me.
“Maeve, sweetheart,” the woman said. “It’s okay. It’s only me. You’re okay.”
“Andrea?” I pulled back from her embrace. Not Mother.
“Yes.” She ran a hand through the back of my hair. “You’re safe now, Mae. My poor, poor Mae. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“But how did you know I was here?” My pulse was slowly returning to normal.
Andrea’s eyes narrowed. She gave me a worried look. “You don’t remember calling me?”
“What? No.”
“You called me in a panic. You told me all about Ryan. There was a woman with you, helping you, and I asked her to bring you here.”
“I don’t remember,” I said faintly.
“Here, let me see your phone.” I handed it to Andrea. The battery was low from all the calls I’d placed to Ryan. Andrea clicked on my call log.
“See?” she said, indicating an outgoing call from a couple of hours ago. “That’s when you called me.”
I sighed, sinking back in the narrow, upholstered chair.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You were probably in shock,” she told me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Still are, if I had to guess. What happened is awful, Maeve. Nothing I can say is going to make it better. But you aren’t alone, okay?”
“I’ve got nowhere to go,” I said. “And Ryan is gone.” The reality of it, acknowledged aloud, was crushing.
“You’ve got me,” she said, drawing me closer, the armrests between our chairs our only separation. “I’m your family. You don’t have to be alone ever again. I’m going to take you home with me. You can rest there and not worry about a thing.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
Andrea shushed me. “I won’t take no for an answer. You need a support system right now. Anyone would.”
I hesitated, then nodded. It would be okay for a while, I thought, not to have to worry.
It had occurred to Andrea to bring a blanket. I was intensely grateful, climbing into that car, for the people who were willing to take care of me. “Here,” she said, handing me a warm travel mug. “It’s soup, not coffee.” She gave me a concerned look before starting the car.
“Thank you.” I meant it. Suddenly I was ravenous—I realized I hadn’t eaten since early that morning, and it was nearly seven o’clock. Andrea had driven three hours to retrieve me from the city.
I leaned my head back against the new-smelling leather of her SUV as she began to navigate traffic on the way back to the bridge. I took a long, slow pull from the mug. The broth was rich and salty, and I let out an involuntary hum of enjoyment. Andrea glanced over and smiled, looking pleased.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
I lowered the mug to my lap. “You know, someone told me once that I was born under a bad sign,” I said.
“Who would say something like that?”
I shrugged, looking at her, and she bit her lip. She knew who I meant. “Maybe it’s the truth.” I wrapped the red wool blanket more tightly around my legs. I hesitated, then pressed on. “Mother was the one who said it.”
“Maeve, I really don’t like to talk about those days.” Andrea’s voice was soft. Vulnerable. “Can we not?”
“Sure,” I said. “It was just a memory.”
“Well, I don’t believe in signs,” she told me. “You shouldn’t either.”
“You don’t think it means something that we came back into each other’s lives?”
“It means what we make of it.” Andrea pulled onto the highway, merging smoothly. “We’re all more in control of our destinies than you seem to think. You’re in control. There are very few things we don’t have any say over. This thing with Ryan, unfortunately, it’s one of them.”
“It doesn’t feel like I have control,” I replied. “Do you think it’s my fault?”
Andrea looked shocked. “With Ryan? Of course not!” But she couldn’t know what I was referring to. I didn’t mean the fire. I meant our shared past—the night that destroyed us. It was the sort of horror you put out of your mind, if you wanted to move on and build a life as a passable human.
“Sometimes things just happen,” she said. “I’m really sorry about your friend. It was a horrible accident.” She reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly in her own.
When we entered the house, I stopped in my tracks. Babies were everywhere. In piles in the foyer, slung over the stairs, one even hanging from the banister by the crook of its arm, like a little monkey. Some were in motion—writhing and reaching toward the air for the hug of an invisible parent. Others were crying, their mewls piercing and angry.
I shuddered. Dolls; they were only dolls. My stomach sank at the sight of Emily, who was tending to them—rocking some, burping others. They were so lifelike, it frightened me.
“We’re preparing to debut them wider,” Andrea explained, her tone apologetic. “Emily’s sorting through them and doing some quality assurance.”
“How are you, Maeve?” asked Emily.
“Maeve needs rest,” Andrea cut in, before I could respond. “Here, sweetie. Let me show you to your new room. The old one is being used for storage. It has a bunch of product boxes in it.”
She didn’t walk me up the front stairs toward the corridor where my old room had been; rather, she led me through the kitchen and up a smaller, spiral staircase. Its railing was coated in dust. I ran my finger along it as I walked, creating a slender trail. The landing was separated from the staircase by a door. Andrea pushed it open to reveal a long, dimly lit hallway.
“This is the east side of the house,” she said. “Former maid’s quarters. Access to the kitchen and all that. It was empty before, but the furniture came in yesterday. I’ll lend you a sleep mask; your room gets great light, but it might be too bright in the morning.” She stopped in front of a wooden door with a cut glass knob. “Here it is,” she said. “I hope you like it.”
The bed—a four-poster queen—was much bigger than the last. I sank into it right away.
“Here, let me help you,” Andrea said. She removed my shoes for me, placing them carefully next to the door. This small act of kindness nearly brought tears to my eyes.
“Andrea, I don’t know how to thank you,” I told her. “I know how busy you are right now. The last thing I want is to be a burden.”
“You aren’t, Maeve! Not even close. I love having you around. And besides, you’re family. This is just what family does.”
I nodded. “I won’t impose on you for long. A couple of weeks to get my life together and—” I felt the sobs forming in the back of my throat, but it was too late to stop them. I had been so close to getting my life back on track. Now here I was, at thirty-three, broke, without prospects, and a guest in my cousin’s home. How had she gotten it so right and I’d gotten it so wrong? But at least I had my life. Poor Ryan.
Andrea sat next to me on the bed and drew me close.
“I know it’s not what you envisioned,” she said. “But you can stay as long as you want. And I’ll help you job hunt. We can update your résumé and make sure you’re showcasing your skills. I’m good at that; I can help. When you’re ready, I mean. For now, relax. I’ll bring you some tea and a spare set of pajamas.”
A breakup is like a death, someone told me once. You lose the person abruptly, entirely, just the same way. At the time I thought that sounded right, but in fact it wasn’t. With a breakup, there existed a parallel dimension in which that relationship continued to thrive if you wanted it to, preserved for eternity whenever you looked back on it. There were the generous parts of a person that could feel happy at the thought of their partner moving on, finding new love, even indulging in occasional nostalgia over the past.
If Ryan and I had simply stopped fucking, he would have been fucking someone else eternally in a parallel universe—leaving someone else a Jolly Rancher in the morning, a Peter Pan. Never aging, a constant, forever frozen at forty-two. Delusions like that weren’t possible with death. Now Ryan was nowhere. He was gone forever. And when the people for whom he had been real stopped existing … well, there would be no one left to remember him. He may as well have never existed at all. When I thought about it that way, it was almost as if I’d made him up.
The following days were a blur. I slept the way newborns sleep: deeply, waking only for food, and then tumbling back to oblivion when sated. I dreamed of Olivia dolls surrounding me in the bed, sucking and yawning. Another figment of my imagination, but one that was understandable. Ever since they’d begun popping up around the house, it seemed as if they were everywhere. Everyone wanted a piece of them, Andrea said at one point. Everyone, who? I’d wondered. But I didn’t have time to wonder much, because sleep was always beckoning.
One morning, I woke at dawn, desperately needing to pee. I opened my door, noticing absently that it had no lock. I stumbled down the hallway, the soles of my feet gripping the wooden floorboards. Barely lifting in their shuffle. I wasn’t surprised when a sliver of wood embedded itself in the tender part of my sole. I kept going. I felt disoriented, light-headed from not having eaten much.
The hallway was unfamiliar and grimy, as though no one had thought to clean way back here. My new room was in a completely different part of the house from the old one. This realization was even more disorienting. How had I found the bathroom? The rest of the house was still asleep.
I walked farther down the hall, raising a self-conscious hand to the back of my matted scalp. The hair was significantly thinner from stress. I stopped in front of one door. Tried the knob. It stuck. I made my way to another door. There was a slender bar of light, just barely visible where it made a seam with the floor. I pressed my palm to the knob, which felt warm, as though it had recently been touched. I let my eyes rove up and down the hallway—empty. I turned the knob, heedless of whether someone was inside.
For a brief moment, my breath caught in my throat. I wondered what I might find. Somewhere in my distant consciousness, in a more primitive place, I wished for a puppy. A moment of innocence lost that I could never reclaim.
The door swung open.
It wasn’t a puppy that met my gaze. It wasn’t even a toilet, a vanity, or the creature comfort of scented lotion.
It was a pile of wriggling, discarded babies. Dozens. A mound of them, as if the room were a mass grave. My eyes fixed on one, missing a leg. Its eyes blinked rapidly. Another, partially buried underneath it, had a split in its earlobe. It resembled a cloven hoof.
I heard a crackling noise from within the pile. The sound of static. I stepped into the room, my body seeking the source of the sound of its own accord. I had to find it. I had to make it stop.
There was a string attached to a bulb overhead. I gave it a yank, and light flooded the room, illuminating the babies. Their expressions looked menacing in the light’s harsh glare. The crackling noise came from the back of the room. I moved some of the dolls aside and waded through the rest, picking my way carefully over the piles until I reached the source of the noise.
It was coming from underneath three babies. I reached my hand into the pile of dolls, feeling around on the floor until my hand collided with a hard plastic object. I retrieved it, shuddering as my wrist connected with the dolls’ lifelike casings. One doll moved, letting out a cry. I jumped back—startled—and lost my balance, landing among the rest. The dolls’ arms poked into my body as if they were grabbing for me, trying to keep me there.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart thudding, and looked down at the object in my hand. It was a baby monitor. That was all. An older model. I was about to press Off when I heard a voice slice through the interference.
“You want a baby sister?” the voice crooned, then cut out. But I recognized it. It was Emily. I held the machine aloft, and the static lessened. “You do?” Emily’s voice continued. It was sweet and high-pitched; she was talking to Henry. I could hear him murmuring in the background, though I couldn’t make out his words.
“Well, Henry…” Emily’s voice had turned cold and guttural—an abrupt shift from her baby talk. “I don’t want a little girl at all. In fact, that’s the last thing in the world Mommy wants.” Goose bumps began to rise on my flesh.
“These are the dolls with defects.” Andrea’s voice came from behind me. I jumped. “Emily’s found one or two in every box that arrives from the warehouse. It’s maddening.” She was cradling two of the imperfect babies in her arms. She tossed them onto the pile. “I see you found the baby monitor. Emily was looking for that. She must have left it in here when she dropped off the dolls.”
I handed my cousin the monitor. “It’s such an old one,” I said, struggling for something to say. “With all this technology, you’d think you’d have better monitors.”
“It was Olivia’s.” Andrea shrugged. “Henry probably doesn’t even need one at his age. Emily’s just paranoid.”
“God, I have to pee,” I said, by way of explanation. I was looking for the bathroom reached my brain in a fragmented way a few seconds later. “I was looking for the bathroom,” I repeated, aloud. “Did you know my bedroom door doesn’t have a lock?”
Andrea looked at me with unmistakable pity. “We don’t have locks on any of the doors,” she informed me. “It’s something we’ve been meaning to take care of. Do you want a lock on your bedroom? Would it make you feel safer, Mae?”
I nodded, shivering. Were there really no locks on the doors? None of them? I became aware of my thin tank top and the way it exposed my nipples. The odor emitting from my armpits. The thick layer of buildup on my teeth. I hadn’t cared for myself in a while. I looked again at the discarded dolls.
“We didn’t have anywhere to put them.” Andrea followed my gaze. “We’re keeping them for parts.”
“A lot of them are boys,” I noticed, looking around.
“Really?” She shrugged. “How can you tell, in that pile? Come on, let’s get you to the bathroom.”
I allowed myself to be led down the hall. I looked behind me, noticing the way our heels dragged moats in the dust coating the floor. We took a sharp turn to the left, then down a half-flight of stairs I didn’t remember climbing, then another left, and then the corridor stretching in front of us was shinier, with fresh paint on its walls. It appeared I had been in the wrong wing entirely. Part of the house wasn’t finished, I remembered then.
“Here you go,” Andrea said, motioning me to a toilet in a room covered with daisies. It was familiar, somehow, triggering a memory I couldn’t place. Someone had placed my toiletry and makeup bags next to the sink.
I closed the door, unzipped the toiletry case, and fumbled for my medicine; maybe if I took it, I’d feel more clearheaded. I came up empty. I tried my makeup bag next, but that was all mascara and blush and eyebrow gel. It was likely in the guest room somewhere, possibly on the nightstand at my bedside.
I breathed in the scent of freesia as I scrubbed my hands raw. Something in me was reacting to it, the same way I had reacted to the wallpaper. As if I was in a time warp. Some past bathroom in some past life I could no longer remember.
“Are you okay in there?” Andrea called. “Do you need help?” Again, as if I were a child.
I dried my hands and opened the door. “I need to go home,” I told her. “I feel weird. I need to snap out of it and get back to my normal life.”
Andrea tilted her head, bemused. “This is home.”