by Kira Peikoff
“So we’re going to keep pretending, then?”
“Not pretending, just being discreet.”
I purse my lips, all too aware of what his reluctance implies. The question is why. Why won’t he call me his girlfriend? Why won’t he say I love you? Why won’t he show me off to the world? We’re obviously the best part of each other’s lives.
But he is not a man who bows to pressure. It’s one of his traits I most admire—and loathe. Patience is my only strategy.
“Okay, boss. Whatever you say.” The intercom buzzes. “You expecting someone?”
He shakes his head and crosses the room to answer the call. “Yes?”
“A woman’s here to see you,” the doorman’s voice announces. “Claire Glasser?”
Nash meets my gaze in surprise. “Thanks, John; send her up.”
I slide off my stool. “What’s she doing here?”
“Who knows?”
We rush to the door. A minute later, the elevator deposits a very pregnant Claire in the hallway. Her eyes are puffy, her hair a frizzy mess, her face wet with tears. A large duffel bag is slung over one shoulder and she’s straining to carry it along with all her extra weight. He reaches out to take her bag.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“I couldn’t stop him.” She wipes her eyes. “He called the FDA director himself.”
I gasp. She notices me for the first time, and her face darkens. I don’t bother to hide what I’m sure is my own hostile expression. Instead I slip my arm through Nash’s, in case there’s any doubt about his loyalties.
“What do we do now?” I ask him, pointedly shutting her out of the we.
“I was thinking we could leave together,” she announces, also to Nash. “Get out of town, lie low somewhere the police can’t find us.” After a reluctant pause, she includes me in her gaze. “All of us.”
“No,” he says firmly. “We are not running.”
“But the police are already on their way!” she cries.
“Right now?”
“Literally any minute. I had to come warn you in person because my phone broke.” She glances between us with increasing panic. “Seriously, we should go …”
“How could they be so fast?”
“Trust me, when my husband calls, they don’t mess around.” She looks nervously at the elevator bank. “We could already be too late.”
“We’re fucked,” I mutter. “Way to go.”
Nash is indignant. “I don’t understand. You said it was a false alarm!”
“I thought so, but …” Her cheeks flush. “He thinks we’re having an affair.”
I snort in disgust. “Why the hell would he think that?”
“We had a bad misunderstanding,” she admits. “He actually kicked me out.”
“Where are you going to go?” Nash asks. “What about the baby?”
“I don’t know. I guess Grand Central. And then …” She trails off. “I’ll get on a train.”
“Isn’t that kind of drastic?” I say. “Where will you end up?”
“I’ll figure something out. The last thing I need is to get caught up in some media freak show.”
I notice Nash eyeing her enormous belly with a weird combination of compassion and anger. “You should go,” he instructs her. “Go to some quiet town where you can rest until the birth. It’s dangerous for the baby if your blood pressure gets too high …”
The intercom buzzes again. He pounces on it.
“Yes?”
“Couple of cops here to see you,” the doorman announces. “Sorry, I gotta send them up.”
Shit. Nash’s finger hovers over the button. “Thank you.”
He turns to us with the steely gaze of a boxer before a match.
“Looks like our visitors have arrived.”
I’m awed by his composure, which contrasts with my own hammering pulse. Now that the moment is upon us, our trouble no longer seems romantic, just terrifying. But what can I do? Leave him? Leave everything? It’s already too late anyway.
“I have to go,” Claire says, squatting to pick up her duffel bag.
Nash lifts it onto her shoulder. “How will we know where you are? You said your phone was broken?”
She retreats down the hall. “I still have your number.”
“So that’s it?” I yell. “What if we can’t find you?” And our baby?
She steps into the elevator. “I guess you have to trust me.” She ignores me, watching Nash with a sadness that borders on longing.
“Wait!” I shout.
But the doors close and she’s gone. I open my palms in frustration. “We can’t just let her disappear!”
Nash shuttles me back inside the apartment. “She won’t. She’ll be back.”
Shortly, we hear the ding of the elevator and heavy steps out in the hall. My knees buckle. I slide down the wall, but Nash yanks me up, his voice harder than concrete.
“Stand up. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
The knock comes hard and fast.
We stare at each other.
“Taller,” he commands. I square my shoulders.
Then he grabs my hand and opens the door.
ABBY: NOW
“Mom!” I shout, opening her car door.
Dad frantically reaches inside for her. “Honey, are you okay?”
She winces, sticking out her left foot. Her ankle is hugely puffy and turning purple. “I-I think it’s broken.”
“Oh my God! What happened?”
“I was at the park, and—” She sniffles, wiping her face, which only smears the dirt around. “I slipped down the hill and lost my phone. I managed to drive home, but it’s killing me.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dad scoops her into his arms and carries her inside. I follow behind them. “How’d you slip?” I ask.
“It was an accident.”
“An accident?” Dad sets her on the living room couch and props some pillows underneath her left leg. “How do you just fall down a hill?”
“I told you, I slipped.”
His voice goes from worried to irritated. “Why were you even there when you were supposed to be picking Abby up? I had to piss off a customer to go get her.”
“Just to get some fresh air, okay?” She puffs out an annoyed sigh. “Do you really have to interrogate me right now?”
“Fine. I’m going to find some ice.” As he stomps off, I put a blanket over her legs. She lies back without meeting my eyes. I can tell she’s holding back tears, maybe more. Something doesn’t feel right; she’s frowning at the blank wall behind my head.
“Hi.” I give a little wave. “You okay?”
Unexpectedly, her lips tighten into a self-conscious smile, as though I’ve caught her. Doing what? But I don’t ask, and she doesn’t explain. Instead she lifts her arm, and I crawl into the warm nook against her chest, not caring about her dirty face and rain-soaked clothes. “I’ll be fine,” she whispers. “Don’t worry.”
I want to believe her, but I can’t ignore the way she keeps glancing around, blinking, like she’s looking for something that’s not there.
When Dad returns with a cold pack, a towel, and a bottle of Advil, he asks me to go to my room to start my homework.
“Your mom and I need a few minutes.”
“Why?” she demands, as I hop off the couch. “We were cozy.”
“Honey,” he says, in a warning tone.
“I have a science test anyway,” I tell them. Upstairs, I loudly shut my door, then press my ear against it. When I pick up the faint noise of their voices, I crack it open.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she’s saying.
“Well, I do. What were you doing there?”
“Can I not just visit a park?”
“In a fucking thunderstorm?”
“I didn’t check the weather!”
“Is this about her?”
“No!” Mom yells.
“Okay, but this isn’t like you.”
&n
bsp; “It was a stupid accident. I’m fine.”
“I just want you to be open with me …”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“You’re not …” His voice drops, and I can’t hear a thing. After a few more seconds, she says, “No,” very clearly. “I’m done with this conversation.”
“All right,” he says at normal volume, sounding disappointed. “I’ll take care of dinner.”
I hear him walk into the kitchen and start pulling out pots and pans. I tiptoe out of my room and peek over the railing to spy on the living room. Mom’s stretched out on the couch with her left leg elevated. The squishy blue gel pack is wrapped around her ankle, and her eyes are closed.
Could the mysterious “her” be my cousin? Was she who came to the house?
And why won’t they discuss it in front of me?
CLAIRE: BEFORE
At rush hour, no one in Grand Central Station stands still. The place is a madhouse of harried commuters and tourists, all darting in every direction to the various tunnels that stretch underneath the cavernous dome.
I plant my feet in the center of the crowd with my elbows out to protect my belly, studying the train schedule up on the giant board. Every few minutes, another train gets called over the loudspeaker for towns upstate and down south, far-flung and close by. Boston, Peekskill, Dobbs Ferry …
It doesn’t matter where I go, as long as it’s somewhere Ethan and the media and the cops won’t think to search. Once Nash and Jillian’s arrests hit the newswire, the tabloids won’t be far behind. I’ve worked in journalism long enough to recognize a scandalous story when I see one—a Frankenbaby created amid a purported love triangle. All it needs to blow up is the perfect twisted headline.
It’s only a matter of time now until my most shameful secret gets dug up and printed in black and white for the world to see.
“All aboard the five fifty-seven Metro North train to Poughkeepsie on track fifteen,” booms a voice overhead, “making stops at Tarrytown, Ossining, Croton-Harmon …”
A mass of people swells together like a single organism and moves in lockstep toward track fifteen. I tuck my chin and shuffle forward in the sea of bodies, holding my duffel tight under my arm. The cash I withdrew on my way to the station—four thousand dollars, the bank max—lines the bag in stuffed envelopes. I descend a long staircase, walk along the concrete platform, and climb through the first open door onto the waiting train.
Even if cameras in the terminal later spot my face, there’s no telling where I got off later. I’m as good as lost.
A few minutes later, the engine groans and the train jumps ahead. The movement startles me even though I’m expecting it. We pick up speed, barreling through the pitch-black tunnel.
So, this is it. This is good-bye.
No more going home to Riverside Park and our apartment, the bittersweet place where Colton lived and died. No more hovering near his elementary school, pretending he’s about to run out with the other kids, or sitting on the bench next to the flower garden where he loved to watch dogs walk by.
Soon the train bursts out of the tunnel into the dreary twilight. The lights of midtown recede in the distance, already miles away, and my heart ices over. Letting go of New York means letting go of the last tangible connection to my son.
I silently vow that no matter what, I will visit his favorite place on his birthday every year—the Natural History Museum. I’ll visit with my daughter as a new tradition to honor his memory. Inside my womb, the baby signals her approval with an emphatic punch.
Everything is going to be fine, even if I’m alone and poor, a stranger in a strange town. I don’t need Ethan or Nash or a fancy brownstone or a fancy writing career to keep the only thing I still care about on this earth, something no one can steal from me.
In six weeks, I’m going to be a mother again.
* * *
There’s no reason I get off at Garrison except that nothing distinguishes it from any other stop along the Hudson line. It’s heavily wooded, with single-lane roads winding deep into the hills. The contrast with the city could not be starker. New York’s quietest streets still radiate light and life—bright apartment windows, trolling cabs, people riding bikes.
Here on the windy train platform, as commuters hurry to their cars, I feel utterly alone. For once in my life, I’m without a plan.
Am I crazy? Should I turn around and get right back on the next train to New York, back to Ethan?
No. Even before he turned our baby into a crime scene, it was too late. I can’t shake his fundamental beliefs.
Nash and Jillian must be in handcuffs by now, being questioned at the station.
Before long, everyone will want to know where I am.
I shiver in the darkness and tighten my coat over my belly.
Headlights flash in my direction. A blue sedan is idling a few yards away. The driver rolls down his window.
“Need help?” calls an older man with a neat white beard. “You look lost.”
In the city, I would decline on the spot and call a taxi. But my cell is in pieces on a floor seventy miles south.
“Sure,” I say, hesitantly. “Thanks; I lost my phone.”
He pulls up, and I climb into the passenger seat. The car smells faintly like cigarettes, but his gentle smile eases my discomfort.
“I was about to head home when I noticed you freezing there. Where do you need to go?”
“I—I’m looking for a hotel. The closest one will do.”
He laughs, not unkindly. “Not from around here, are you?”
“No.”
“Town’s too small for a hotel. I think there’s a motel about fifteen miles away, though, near Cold Spring.”
“Oh. That’s pretty far.”
“I’ll call you a cab,” he offers. “You can wait here in the meantime.”
“Are you sure?” I look at the glowing clock on his dashboard, wondering if some sweet lady is cooking dinner for him at home. The thought makes me teary. “I don’t want to hold you up.”
“No prob,” he says, glancing at my stomach. “Who would leave a pregnant lady out in the cold?”
I shake my head. You’d be surprised.
* * *
The next afternoon, after a restless night in the nondescript Countryside Motel, I’m ninety-five dollars poorer and in need of more permanent digs. It takes an hour of scouring the Internet on my laptop over the free WiFi to locate a cheap short-term rental within twenty miles. GREAT DEAL AVAILABLE NOW! reads the ad next to a low-res picture of an outdated kitchen with floral wallpaper and a hideous tiled floor. INTERNET, LANDLINE, HEAT & HOT WATER INCL. Apparently, demand isn’t too strong in the winter for an old house in a remote stretch of the woods. In the cab on the way there, I wrap my scarf several times around my face to cover my nose and mouth.
The house is one story on a dirt lane, with navy siding and peeling white shutters. Thickets of pines rise all around it, blotting out the weak January sun. Beyond the cliff in the distance, the Hudson River winds between the hills like a glistening snake. There are no other houses in sight.
The gray-haired woman who opens the door makes no attempt to hide her skepticism.
“You’re the lady who called?”
“Yes.” I smile. “I’m Anne.” My middle name. “Thanks for showing it last minute.”
The woman clutches her satin housecoat. “No one’s called for weeks.”
Her unasked question hovers in the air like a test.
I rack my brain. “I’m a writer on deadline and had to get away from the city to finish my novel.” I motion to my belly. “Before the baby comes.”
“Oh.” A smidge of friendliness creeps onto her lips. “You ever read Agatha Christie?”
“I adore her,” I say truthfully. “And I still can’t figure out how she pulled off Ten Little Indians. Total genius.”
“I know!” The woman grins. “Well, Anne, come on in. It’s very old, but the heat works, and the views
aren’t half bad.”
I follow my hostess on a quick tour, not that there is much to see. A living room with a wood-burning fireplace and a sagging olive couch, an ancient kitchen and modest bathroom, and two bedrooms that smell like an old folks’ home but feature giant windows looking west over the vast river. The place shows its age, but it’s clean—and private.
“It’s perfect. I can pay all cash up front. When can I move in?”
“Saturday? I’m leaving for Florida this weekend and was thinking I’d have to lock it up for the winter. I’ll be back in May.”
That gives me four months and about two thousand dollars to figure out the rest of my life.
“Great,” I tell her. “I’ll take it.”
* * *
Moving in is the least difficult part of the weekend. Unpacking takes about fifteen minutes of folding and putting away the loose maternity tees and lounge pants I stuffed into my bag. I stow my remaining cash in the back of a drawer underneath some of the owner’s cashmere sweaters.
Then I plop cross-legged on the bed. The house is strangely silent. No cars rumble by this isolated corner of the woods, and my ears are humming as if to supply the constant white noise I’m accustomed to in the city.
My laptop lies before me like Pandora’s box. For five days, I’ve avoided going online—a record streak in my adult lifetime. In this other universe, my only social contact consists of taking cabs to the supermarket after bundling my face up to my eyes. Nash and Jillian and Ethan might as well have ceased to exist. Without any Internet or phone, my sense of disconnection is profound. I can almost pretend I really am on a writing retreat until I return home to my real life, to Ethan.
But dread is a powerful antidote to fantasy.
I open my laptop and log on. Then type my name into Google News.
The headlines show up fast and furious:
So-Called “Frankenbaby” Heralds Brave New World of Reproductive Gene Editing
Doctors Behind Frankenbaby Post Bail; Trial Set for February
Frankenmom Still at Large, Charged With Criminal Conspiracy
The Evolution of Frankenmom: 5 Things You Don’t Know About Claire Abrams
I click the last link, my heart racing.
