Her Daughter's Mother

by Daniela Petrova

  There had to be a way to track her down. Maybe I could unearth a clue on her Instagram. But if she didn’t want to be found, did I have the right to search for her?

  I’d crossed so many lines already, one more wouldn’t make a difference, I thought as I left the coffee shop.

  When I finally made it to my office, I had five new e-mails from my boss, the latest one just three minutes ago, asking if I was coming in late again. It was 9:28 a.m. Not really “late” by most standards. In the other Met departments, people trickled in between nine and nine thirty, even ten. But my boss, senior art curator and head of the Drawings and Prints Department, Mr. Alistair Bramley—fancy British accent, kerchief in the pocket—was a stickler for rules and punctuality.

  To hell with him, I thought, and replied that I was here already if he needed me. Then I opened my Internet browser and pulled up Katya’s Instagram account.

  23.

  KATYA

  THEN

  I was leaving the cafeteria when I caught a glimpse of the pink sheet of paper pinned to the bulletin board. It was a gray day in January nearing the end of the break. The city was in a panic, bracing for a blizzard, but the campus was quiet with only a few of us having stayed during the holidays. I’d hardly seen my country mentioned anywhere so I had to stop, find out what the notice was all about. I couldn’t believe it. A couple was looking for an egg donor from Bulgaria, of all places. Little tiny Bulgaria, barely seven million people. I called right away. I didn’t know if that would be something I’d want to do but I had to at least find out about the Bulgarian connection. The guy on the other end sounded nice, excited to hear from me. We arranged to meet the next day. I was a bit apprehensive at first—what if he was some weirdo?—but he turned out to be pretty cool. A professor at the university. Teaches philosophy, of all things. I started laughing when he told me. I mean, I’d guessed him to be an ex–basketball player or maybe a tennis player. Anything but an academic with his nose buried in books all day.

  It was one of those still winter mornings that followed a snowstorm. There were hardly any cars on the streets, and I was excited to have a reason to go out and brave the cold before the white blanket covering the sidewalks had turned into gray slush. We met at the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam, across from the cathedral. He said it was a Columbia classic. Students and professors have been going there for decades. It looked a little shabby to me—old wooden chairs and tables, framed book covers hanging on the walls, an AC unit by the window—but it had a certain charm. Like a worn-out sweater that’s cozy for the memories, not so much for its look. Anyway, it was warm inside and the coffee was good, so I wasn’t going to complain.

  His name was Tyler. Tyler Jones. I liked it. I hadn’t met any Tylers before.

  “My partner and I really want a baby,” he said, and gave me a brief overview of their struggles to conceive. His eyes were deep blue and sad like the ocean on a clear winter day. At first, I thought he was gay. I mean, what would you think when a guy talks about his partner? Either he’s referring to his boyfriend or someone he has business with. And I told him so. He laughed. Some men roar like predators, hyenas on the prowl (though I’m sure they’re picturing themselves as lions). But Tyler’s laugh was soft, boyish somehow, even though he was a tall, big man.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I should have made it clear. We’re not married but we’ve been living together for eight years and have been trying for a baby for nearly as long. So girlfriend/boyfriend just doesn’t do it justice. The relationship, that is.”

  “Why haven’t you gotten married, then?” I asked. A fair question, right?

  He rubbed his chin. “It’s complicated.”

  “Why? You come from feuding families? Like Romeo and Juliet?”

  That got him laughing again. I cracked up, too. Just watching the serious philosophy professor laugh was hilarious. His whole face lit up, like a kid.

  “She’s a feminist,” he explained, “and doesn’t like the patriarchal connotations of ‘wife’ as a husband’s property. ‘Partner’ implies equality.”

  I liked her already, that partner of his. Tyler told me she wanted her baby to have the genes of her people. I was stunned. I’d never been the patriotic type but admired those who were. I would have gone for a pretty girl, myself, if I were looking for a donor. Pretty and smart. Ideally, a girl who looked somewhat like me. So that it wouldn’t be obvious, you know, that the child wasn’t mine. Who cared where the genes came from? It wasn’t like you could put it on your job application: BA, Harvard College, summa cum laude, Bulgarian genes. Or on your Tinder account, for that matter. Guys don’t favor particular genes the way they dig big tits and blond hair.

  I asked Tyler why she hadn’t joined us. I was curious about the woman who didn’t want to be called a wife and who so cherished her lineage.

  Tyler leaned closer and told me in a hushed voice, as if divulging top national secrets, that she didn’t know he had put up a flyer.

  “Oh,” I said. “It’s a surprise?”

  He shook his head. He seemed sad, hurt by it somehow. “Actually, I don’t plan on telling her.”

  Which made no sense to me—how could they use my eggs without her knowing about it? Until he explained that I needed to register with the donor agency they were using. That way they could “select” me from the inventory of donors. The problem, he told me, was that his partner wanted to do an anonymous cycle. “You see,” he said, lowering his voice again, “she’s scared of complications in the future. You know, that the donor might come back and claim the baby.”

  I had to laugh. Not because it was a ridiculous fear. I got it. I’d seen a movie where a couple had adopted a child but the mother who had given it up at birth came looking for it years later. No, I laughed because I didn’t want to have children. And I told him so.

  “Anyway, it’s much easier to use the agency,” he said. “The staff will handle all the formalities.” Apparently, there were tons of legal documents to sign, medical exams and consultations to deal with. “Let me tell you a bit about the process,” he said, and gave me a brief overview.

  I’d already done some research online. It wasn’t like donating a kidney or anything that we have a limited number of. I wouldn’t have fewer eggs myself to use in the future if I gave some away. Each month a woman loses a bunch of her eggs. Only one of them matures and can be fertilized. More rarely two—which is how fraternal twins are conceived. Doctors use hormones to stimulate a lot more eggs from that monthly set into maturity in order to collect them. It seemed to me it was really a lot more like donating your old coats instead of dumping them into the garbage, or in this case flushing them down the toilet.

  * * *

  “You won’t believe this,” I told Josh first thing as I walked into his office two days later, my gloves and hat still on.

  He smiled. “I’m all ears.”

  I pulled out the pink sheet of paper from my coat pocket and handed it to him. “How lucky is that?” I said, and as he unfolded the paper and read it, I took my gloves and hat off and sat down on the couch. “If this doesn’t help me turn my life around, I don’t know what will.”

  He gave me back the flyer. “Why do you think so?”

  “Don’t you see? This is my chance for redemption.”

  He furrowed his brow. “How so?”

  “I can’t bring Alex back. Obviously. But I can give what I took—a life. I can give the gift of a baby to a hopeless couple.”

  Josh did a string of slow nods, like he was finally starting to get what I was talking about. “And it’s not like I got pregnant and will have a baby I’d like to get rid of. No. It will be quite an ordeal injecting myself with hormones and undergoing procedures, including a minor surgery to retrieve the eggs. It will be painful, as a proper penance should be. But in the end, I will have made one unlucky couple happy and helped bring a new life to this world.
” I looked at Josh. “It will be my atonement for Alex.”

  Josh’s eyes softened. The radiator was blasting in his office and I was starting to sweat. I remembered I still had my coat on and took it off.

  “The kicker is I’d get paid ten thousand dollars.” We’d already talked about how even if I started a job the day after commencement, it would take time to get my first paycheck. With the money from the donation, I’d be able to pay first month’s rent and a security deposit, buy office clothes and all that. Now I only needed to find a job that would give me a work visa.

  “How about Damian?” Josh asked. “What does he think about you becoming an egg donor?”

  “Seriously?” I looked at Josh with my eyebrows hiked up on my forehead. “You can’t possibly be suggesting that I need to talk to Damian about it? This has nothing to do with him. It’s not like I’ll be taking a job as a hooker.”

  Josh laughed. “But I imagine it might affect your ‘hooking up’ with him—or anyone else for that matter—during that month. Something to think about if you plan on keeping that relationship.”

  “Relationship?” I rolled my eyes just in case stressing the word wasn’t enough. “Please.” But Josh had a point. “I guess I do need to figure out a way to keep him at bay for a few weeks. Though I imagine I’ll be hooking up with somebody else by then. From what I read online, it takes months to get it all going. All the tests and paperwork and then the medications to prep both women for it. Either way, I’m not worried. I’ll think of something when the time comes.”

  Josh didn’t even ask what was wrong with just telling the guy—whoever he was—the truth. He’d learned by now when to push me and when to let it go.

  “Anyway. Doing this . . .” I pointed to the flyer. “This will finally set me free!”

  24.

  LANA

  NOW

  Katya’s Instagram feed was composed of moody shots of coffee cups, candy and chocolate bars, fire hydrants, buildings leaning to the side, hands holding drinks, and selfies in different but mostly unrecognizable locations. She hadn’t bothered to tag people and places. I stared at the quilt of colorful images on my screen, my hand on the mouse, ready to click to a different window should Alistair walk into my office.

  Some of Katya’s selfies featured other people, like the one she’d taken with me at the club. Strangely, as I scrolled through, I couldn’t find a single photo with—or of—anyone who even remotely resembled Tom Cruise. In fact, the only guy who appeared repeatedly in her feed was the heavily tattooed bartender who’d gotten us the table outside at the Irish pub in Washington Heights.

  Then it hit me. Hadn’t she told me she lived around there? That she’d found a cheap room to rent in a friend’s apartment instead of moving in with her possessive boyfriend? Robertson said she’d emptied out her dorm room. Her new place, then, the place where she was living her new life under a new identity, must be in Washington Heights. I was willing to bet that the bartender knew something about it.

  * * *

  I told Alistair I wasn’t feeling well and left the office early. He was clearly unhappy about it and pointedly asked about my presentation for the Visiting Committee meeting on Monday. It was already Wednesday and I’d barely completed the outline. Still, I reassured him that it was coming along well and promised to have it done by end of day Friday. That gave me two full days to finish it.

  I reached Coogan’s shortly before five p.m. For all I knew, Katya’s friend wasn’t even working today, but I had to take my chances. It was a cold spring day, the threat of rain lingering in the air since morning, and the outdoor café was closed. Inside, the sour smell of beer turned my stomach. A sure sign of pregnancy that I found comforting. As I’d hoped, the place was still pretty empty except for a few guys at the bar. An old Sinéad O’Connor song played softly over the sound system. I couldn’t remember the title but the voice was unmistakable.

  Katya’s friend stood at the back end of the bar, slouched over his phone. Or at least I thought it was him because of the shaved head and tattooed biceps showing under his black T-shirt. I walked straight there and slid onto a stool in front of him.

  He looked up—yes, it was him—his expression loud and clear: What the fuck did you sit all the way over here for? He was younger than I’d thought, twenty-five at most. I wondered if he was the friend she’d moved in with.

  “Hi,” I said before he’d had a chance to make his escape, leaving the other bartender to deal with me. “You remember me?”

  He squinted at me questioningly.

  “I was here with Katya a couple of weeks ago.”

  At the mention of Katya he seemed to flinch. Or was I imagining it? He squinted at me as if trying to place me. “Oh yeah,” he said, but I could tell he had no clue.

  I leaned in. “How is she?”

  “Fuck if I know.” He clicked his phone off and put it in his back pocket. “Can I get you something?”

  I asked for club soda. He arched an eyebrow but poured me a glass and put it in front of me without a comment. I said, bluffing, “I thought you guys lived together.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Katya told me.” I lowered my voice.

  “Ha. And did she tell you that she stood me up yesterday?”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yup.” He leaned on the bar. A wolf’s face poked through the dense veins on his forearm. “If you see her, tell her that Nick’s fucking pissed. All right? She’s not answering her phone.”

  “Do you have her new number?”

  He pulled back. “She changed her number?”

  Either this guy was a great actor or he had no clue about Katya starting a new life.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “A week ago.” He rubbed his chin. “No, wait. More than that. Maybe two weeks. Why did she change her number?” Another Sinéad O’Connor song came on. This one I remembered well: “Nothing Compares 2 U.” I wondered if this guy was even born when that album came out.

  “When did you schedule yesterday’s date?” I asked.

  “That’s been in the works for some time. She even made me set up a reminder on my phone with an alarm. Then she fucking doesn’t show up.”

  “So she doesn’t live with you?”

  He rested his elbows on the bar and locked me in his gaze. “She was supposed to move in yesterday,” he finally said. “Officially, anyway. She’d already brought all her shit.”

  I felt a tightening in my stomach. “She did? When?”

  “Why are you asking me all this?”

  I sighed. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Katya’s missing.”

  He blinked at me, seemingly confused. I took my phone out and opened the Columbia Daily Spectator article before handing it to him.

  “Fuck me!” he said, and let go of the phone. He poured himself a shot of tequila and downed it before turning back. “I had no fucking idea. Haven’t opened Facebook in ages.”

  “The police think she meant to disappear,” I said. “Because she emptied out her dorm room. But you’re saying . . .”

  “We were supposed to . . . shit. You think she’s okay?”

  “I was hoping that you’d know. But if you haven’t seen her . . .” I bit my lip.

  He looked at his empty shot glass, then back at me. “We were supposed to get married yesterday,” he said, and went to the other end of the bar.

  I stared after him as Sinéad O’Connor cried from the speakers: Nothing compares to you.

  * * *

  “Nick, you have to go to the police,” I said slowly, trying not to sound panicked.

  “Like fuck I will.” He took a gulp of his whiskey. He’d poured us each a glass. Mine sat untouched; his had two fingers left when he put it back down.

 
I looked up to the ceiling as I always did when I felt exasperated. It was too much to process. Katya was planning to marry this guy? What happened to the Tom-Cruise-look-alike banker? Wouldn’t she have told me she couldn’t move in with him because she was getting married to this other guy? Instead of this whole thing about how she didn’t want to be “tied up” or however she’d put it. Meanwhile she’d transported her things from the dorm to this guy’s apartment? It made no sense. But why would he lie about it?

  The important thing was that he had her stuff. Marriage or no marriage, she’d planned to live with him and that meant she hadn’t intended to “disappear.”

  “Don’t you get it?” I said, raising my voice. “The cops need to start searching for her.”

  He swirled the whiskey in his glass, looking at it intensely, as if along with the ice cubes he could rearrange his thoughts.

  I shrugged and stood up. “You’re leaving me no choice but to go and tell them myself. I’m sure they’d love to know how come you hadn’t reported—”

  “Fine,” Nick said, and gulped the last of his whiskey. “I’ll go to the station when the other bartender shows up at six. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.” And with that he walked to the other end of the bar and started pulling glasses out of the dishwasher.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said, following him, “but how long have you two dated?”

  Without looking up, his attention on the glasses he was lining up on the counter, he muttered, “Lady, that’s none of your business.”

  Something about the way he said it, under his breath and pausing after each word, made it sound more like a threat than frustration.