Mother Knows Best

by Kira Peikoff

  In the foyer, I find Rob asking a teenage student to borrow her phone. I intercept them and pull him outside, as Charlie continues to whine and hit my chest and my mother screams at us to wait. She follows us outside, so I break into a run, dragging Rob along by the elbow.

  “I’m sorry!” I call to her. Then I lower my voice to Rob. “Hurry, or she might recognize you. She still blames you for everything that happened to me.”

  With a groan, he sprints alongside me down the hill, past the field, toward the parking lot. Then, when we’re far enough away that she’s given up trailing us, he stops and flashes me a smile—the first I’ve seen.

  “Hey,” he says, like a brilliant idea has just occurred to him, “what if you publish the study by yourself? You don’t need me! Just take full credit!”

  I sigh as we pass Harold at the gate. “Don’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “We’re meant to be a family.”

  Charlie, who’s still been wriggling in my arms, abruptly goes limp. “Wait, is he … are you my dad?”

  Rob flinches. “Um, I think so?”

  Needless to say, it’s not the tender moment I was envisioning.

  But there’s no time to finesse it, because a silver Honda Accord rolls into the parking lot. It has a slight dent on the front bumper, just like the one I’ve been tracking on GPS for weeks.

  Claire’s car.

  CLAIRE

  What I see on the curb is not possible. My first thought is to curse myself for leaving the hospital, because I have officially lost my mind. If I was in denial before, now I’m ready to surrender.

  About twenty feet away, Rob appears to be standing on the sidewalk chatting with Jillian. I don’t know whether to feel relief that he’s alive, or skeptical of the entire mirage, because in her arms is the fantasy version of Colton.

  I blink several times. The boy’s golden hair shines in the sun and he’s perched on her hip with one arm around her neck, like he belongs there. Rob’s got a bandage on his ear and looks haggard, but otherwise seems unharmed. As our car approaches, we capture Jillian’s attention first. She looks at me through the windshield with unmitigated horror, her mouth forming a silent O.

  Abby rolls down her window with a shriek. “Dad!”

  The second Ethan parks, she jumps out and makes a beeline for him. Never have I seen an expression of such elation on his face. Laughing, he scoops her up high. So he is real. He’s alive. Thank God. He spots me in the car and grins in surprise.

  Jillian shifts the boy to her other hip, or so it appears. I fixate on his plump cheeks, reveling in my familiar hallucination while also willing it to pass. But no matter how much I rub my eyes, he remains.

  “Is it just me,” Ethan says, “or is that kid the spitting image of our son?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, it’s uncanny, right?”

  Something clicks internally that compels me to rip off my seat belt and scramble out of the car. I’m overwhelmed by the desire to touch this bizarre doppelgänger, to verify his existence and my own sanity, even if it means coming face-to-face with the woman I’ve avoided for a decade.

  “Back off!” she screams as I run toward them, but her voice sounds hollow and small. With my family safe, I have nothing left to fear.

  The moment I make eye contact with the boy, I instantaneously realize two things: he is not Colton—his blue eyes are lighter, like Abby’s—and he doesn’t know me at all. As I reach the sidewalk, he flinches, and Jillian leaps back like I might try to snatch him.

  She yells at me, but I barely hear her over my own pulse. How do I make sense of this new reality in which such a child exists? Seeing his face up close is like coming home—and I don’t even know his name.

  I turn to Rob in speechless confusion.

  He nods, tight-lipped—an apology. I’m not crazy after all. But there’s something else in his expression that I don’t understand. A hesitation, some unspoken distress.

  With Abby still clinging to him, he pulls me into a hug.

  “My God,” he mutters. “I thought I might never see you guys again.”

  Over his shoulder, I notice Jillian sneering at us. The boy asks to be put down, but instead she breaks into a sprint across the parking lot.

  “Wait!” I cry, extricating myself from Rob and running after them. For some reason, I can’t bear to let him slip away again.

  “Harold!” she screams, waving one arm. “Help!” She motions frantically at me. “Hurry!”

  I look around, unsure what’s happening. A weathered security guard comes lumbering toward me from his post at the front gate. “Stop right there!” he shouts to me.

  But I can’t. I won’t, because a short distance ahead, Jillian reaches her car and opens the passenger door. Let the guard shoot if he dares. I charge after her. She puts the boy in and fastens his belt, but before she can slam the door, I sidestep her and throw myself at his side.

  She seizes a fistful of my hair and jerks my head back—hard.

  “Get away from him!”

  My neck cramps in pain. I teeter off-balance as two much larger hands grab me under the armpits and drag me away. I try to struggle and kick, but it’s no use; the guard’s strength dwarfs mine. He pins my arms and pushes me down to my knees. Cold metal handcuffs clamp down on my wrists. I feel them clicking into place when Rob’s booming voice rises above the chaos: “Let her go!”

  I see him rushing toward us with his hands up.

  “No!” Jillian screams. “She’s harassing my son!”

  “He’s my son,” Rob says, incredibly. Then he points at Jillian. “And that’s not his real mother.”

  The guard freezes, bewildered. “Then who is?”

  Rob’s eyes meet mine. “You are.”

  JILLIAN

  I look over my shoulder as Claire wobbles on her knees. Behind her, Harold hesitates over the cuffs. “Uh, this doesn’t sound like my business.”

  “Harold!” My heart is beating wildly. “You know me!”

  Rob kneels in front of Claire. “He’s yours. That’s why he looks so much like Colton.”

  “I don’t understand.” She struggles against the cuffs, and Harold idiotically unlocks them. Rob helps her to her feet. Dazed, she staggers toward me. “You have to let me see him.”

  My first instinct is to take off, but when I turn my attention back to the car, Charlie is crawling across the driver’s seat to escape out the other side.

  “Get back here!” I grab his ankle as he grabs my door handle.

  “I don’t wanna go!” he cries, petrified.

  Claire is encroaching, and this time, no one is stopping her. I tug him back by the leg, and that’s when I notice a silver handle poking out the door’s side pocket. My gun. I’d almost forgotten about it.

  I lunge over Charlie to snatch it, then slide out, plant my feet, and turn it on her.

  Several things happen at once. About ten feet away, she stutters to a stop, raising her hands. Protests erupt at different pitches: her yelp of surprise, Rob’s shout, Abby’s cry.

  “Drop the weapon!” Harold yells, raising his own black revolver at me.

  We make eye contact over the barrel. No one moves.

  I lower my gun, letting him think I’m surrendering. Then I reach for Charlie, who’s cowering against the seat, and scoop him up into my arms. He lets out a frightened cry and pushes me away. “Hold me,” I say sternly. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Whimpering, he wraps his legs around my hips and lays his head on my shoulder. “Good boy,” I mutter. Against my chest, I feel him quivering like a hummingbird. But Harold wouldn’t dare shoot a child. Poor old Harold. In his two decades with River Road, he’s never faced a hostage crisis.

  He bares his teeth in distress. Sweat drips down his temples. But he lowers his gun halfway. And I raise mine again at Claire.

  I expect her to drop to her knees and beg. Instead, as if to provoke me, she stands taller. When she opens her mouth,
her voice drips with scorn: “And you call yourself a mother.”

  Right as my finger curls around the trigger, Rob bursts into a run, raising his arms, heading straight for me. “Wait!” he yells. “I’ll come with you!”

  I keep the gun steady as he approaches.

  “Let’s go to Canada,” he gasps. “Let’s start over together.”

  “Fuck you.” I tighten my arm around Charlie. “You’re just protecting her.”

  He opens the back door of my car and sticks one leg inside. “This is how it was supposed to be. Our family”—he points at me and Charlie—“and their family.” He nods toward Claire, who’s still rooted to her spot on the asphalt, and Abby and Ethan, who are further away, huddled near their car in alarm.

  “You don’t mean that,” I snap.

  Charlie shudders with a quiet sob. My shoulder is wet with his tears.

  “Give him to me,” Rob demands. “Don’t you see he’s terrified?”

  He reaches over the open back seat door, and Charlie, despite not knowing him, eagerly extends his hands to his father. The sight of them trying to embrace stirs a deep longing within me, and my grip on Charlie relaxes. In that second, he launches himself into Rob’s open arms.

  And I find myself unprotected. Harold springs into firing position. “Drop the gun!”

  Watching him, I lower it to my side.

  “All the way to the ground!” he commands.

  I hesitate. What if, the instant I cede power, Rob delivers Charlie straight into Claire’s waiting arms?

  As though reading my mind, Rob puts him in the back seat and fastens his belt. “Let’s go,” he says to me, then climbs inside next to Charlie and shuts the door.

  “No!” Over by the curb, Abby struggles against Ethan’s efforts to restrain her. “Don’t go!”

  “Drop the weapon!” Harold shouts at me again. “You have five seconds!”

  But Claire’s not running or screaming. She’s studying my license plate.

  “Five—” Harold begins in desperation.

  And that’s when it dawns on me. If I get in the car and drive away, she’ll call the cops, and they’ll track us down. She’ll claim I kidnapped her son, and a DNA test will give her more maternal credibility than me. The authorities will remove Charlie, and I’ll be left with nothing.

  “Four—”

  No family, no comeback. Rob’s surrender is a decoy. He must be willing to turn himself in if it means saving her.

  “Three—” Harold gazes at me imploringly.

  But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  “Two—”

  Before I raise my gun for the last time, a sense of pure freedom washes over me: I have nothing left to fight for, nothing left to fear. I’ve been released from the prison of ambition, and all that remains is the will to destroy.

  Claire cries out when my bullet flies.

  * * *

  CLAIRE

  The shot discharges with a terrifying crack. I launch myself to the ground, but the shot burns my right hip. My breath catches in agony as I skid onto the asphalt. At almost the same moment, another blast goes off, but I barely notice, because the sting that explodes in my side is deeper than muscle, deeper than bone. The pain is gnawing me apart. When I clutch at the wound, my fingers sink into a gushing hole of raw nerves. Blood is pouring out. My shirt is already soaked, and a warm puddle is forming beneath me.

  That’s when I realize the second bullet never hit me. My ears are ringing; my eyelids are closing, but I don’t want to let go. I struggle to focus through the black tunnel engulfing my vision, and in the last sliver of light, I glimpse Jillian crumpled on the pavement—facedown, limbs askew, and very, very still.

  * * *

  ABBY

  “Mom!” I sprint to where she’s collapsed. “Mom!”

  I run as fast as I can, but in the time it takes me to reach her, she’s already passed out—or worse, I don’t know. The security guard, Ethan, and my dad all run over to her, too. The blood is terrifying; it’s so dark red, it’s almost black. But I can’t look away. I want to touch her, but I’m afraid of what I might find out. Her cheek is pressed against the ground, her eyes are closed, and her lips are parted.

  Dad touches a spot under her jaw. “She’s alive. Call nine one one!”

  The guard whips out his walkie-talkie and radios for help.

  The next minutes are the longest of my life. Dad tries to stop the bleeding by ripping off his shirt and tying it around her waist, while Ethan strokes her forehead and I hold her limp hand. When the ambulance finally comes shrieking into the lot, the only thing I can do is stand out of the way while they load her onto a stretcher and carry her inside. As Dad starts to follow her, I grab his sleeve.

  “Is she going to die?”

  “No,” he says firmly. “Not on my watch.” Then he kisses the top of my head and hurries into the ambulance.

  Ethan motions to me. “Come on, we’ll follow to the hospital.”

  I’m about to go with him when I pass by Jillian’s car and see the dark outline of the boy still hiding in the back seat. An older woman who ran down from the school building after the gunshots is now begging him to come out.

  “Hang on,” I tell Ethan.

  As I make my way over to Jillian’s car, I shield my face from her body on the ground. The guard’s bullet went straight to her head, a clean single shot, and the last thing I can handle right now is seeing her brains all over the street.

  Now the older woman is half inside the car, pleading with the boy. I tap her leg and she scoots out. Her face is covered in tears that she wipes with her sleeve. “He’s too scared to move.”

  “Let me try.”

  I crawl inside. The boy is rocking back and forth next to the window hugging his knees. He looks at me with scared blue eyes, the same exact shade as mine.

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m Abby.”

  He stares at me silently.

  “It’s safe to come out now.” I stretch out a hand. “Will you come with me?”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “You will soon,” I promise. “Turns out I’m your big sister.”

  CLAIRE

  When I open my eyes, three shadows surround me.

  I blink as their figures come into focus. There’s my darling girl—pale but smiling. There’s Rob, who’s almost unrecognizable with a half-grown beard and puffy eyes. And standing further back, behind them, is Ethan, who’s chewing his lip in his habitual way.

  Abby picks up my hand, which is stuck with an IV. There’s another needle inside my elbow, and several white bands around both wrists. A low beeping noise is coming from somewhere above my head, and a sheet is draped over my body. Everything feels heavy and stiff, like my body is made of tree stumps.

  “Mom?” Abby says, a little too loudly. “Can you hear me?”

  I realize that my throat is horribly dry, so I only nod. Something important is nagging at me, a thought I can’t quite grasp.

  “Hi, honey,” Rob says, stroking my other hand. “You pulled through.”

  “What—happened?” My voice startles me; it’s low and scratchy, like a first-thing-in-the-morning voice, but much worse.

  “You had to have surgery,” Abby blurts out.

  Panic thumps in my chest, but Rob’s expression is calm. “The bullet fractured your pelvis and perforated your small bowel,” he explains matter-of-factly. “You had emergency surgery, which was successful, and two blood transfusions, but you’re stable now. You’re going to be just fine.”

  His words glide into my ears, but I don’t really hear them. I still feel weak and foggy, unclear how I got here. The last thing I remember is—I’m not sure … we got to the school, and then Jillian was there with—

  “Where’s my son?” I search behind them for a blond head. He’s what I’m missing.

  “He’s at home with Jillian’s mother,” Rob says. “While we sort out what to do.”

  “Jillia
n’s dead,” Abby announces. “The guard guy shot her.”

  Rob purses his lips. “We’ll never have to think about her again.”

  A vivid image flashes into my memory: my boy being held hostage, like a human shield. The fear on his face—and my inability to rescue him—will forever haunt me.

  “But he’s okay?” I ask anxiously. “He’s safe?”

  “He’s fine. His grandmother pretty much raised him, so he’s in good hands.”

  “I still don’t even know his name.”

  “Charlie,” Rob says. “He’s seven years old.”

  There’s only one way he could be mine. “The leftover embryo?”

  “Yep. She kept it in storage.”

  The implications of this bizarre situation slowly dawn on me. I lock eyes with Ethan. “So then he’s also … yours?”

  Ethan glances at Rob. “Um … do you want to …?”

  “Well.” My husband clears his throat. “The day we created the embryos, we hit a bump in the road. And it turns out Jillian did something extremely manipulative to fix it, something I had no idea about until a few days ago.” He draws a breath and addresses Abby. “I might very well be your father after all. It’s not clear.”

  A gasp escapes me; I instantly piece together what must have happened. Long ago, I privately worried about Ethan’s low sperm count due to his brief bout with prostatitis, so if that did prove to be a problem, Jillian must have schemed her way around it. In the midst of her affair with Rob, and devoid of a moral compass, she would have stopped at nothing to create viable embryos.

  But Abby is frowning in confusion. Such adult machinations are way over her head. “I don’t get it.”

  Rob’s face is getting pinker by the minute. “Suffice it to say, she went behind my back during a very important time … so either of us”—he tilts his head at Ethan—“could be your father, and same for Charlie. The only way to know for sure is if we all take a test.”

  “I’m all for it,” Ethan volunteers. “Why not?”

  “Sweetie,” Rob says to Abby, “are you comfortable with that?”

  She nods. “I want to know the truth.”

  I say nothing, but the puzzle pieces fall into shocking place for me; Abby’s mysterious red hair must have come from Rob’s Irish ancestry, not from Jillian’s tiny fraction of DNA. It’s so obvious, seeing Abby beside her two possible dads, that she looks nothing like Ethan; that her fair complexion and high cheekbones in fact resemble the man who raised her as his own, not knowing that she really was.