by Diana Orgain
“Mom,” I called. “You’re supposed to be watching Laurie!”
“I am watching her.”
“You’re doing dishes,” I called from my room.
“She’s asleep.”
“You have to watch her. Make sure she’s breathing.”
“Of course she’s breathing.”
“I can’t sleep unless I know you’re watching her.”
Mother peeked through the bedroom door. “Okay, Katie, I’ll watch Laurie every minute. Just rest, for God’s sake. You’re turning a little nutty.” She shut the door tightly behind her.
I tried to will myself to sleep. I couldn’t have been more exhausted, and yet sleep eluded me.
The phone rang. I picked it up.
“Mrs. Connolly? This is Nick Dowling from the medical examiner’s office.”
My blood surged to my toes, leaving me light-headed. “Yes?”
“Is Mr. Connolly available?”
“No. He’s at work. Did you get our message? About George’s scars.”
“Yes, ma’am, I sure did. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back sooner. The victim’s family had to be notified. Now I can confirm that the body we recovered was definitely not George Connolly.”
Air rushed back into my lungs. “Thank God!”
Not George! Not George!
“Will someone be able to pick up Mr. Connolly’s bags? We don’t need them any longer and we haven’t been able to reach him.”
Maybe a little excursion was what I needed. Nothing too strenuous, just something to get my mind off milk and diapers.
“I can get them.”
After I hung up with Dowling, I immediately dialed Jim’s work number. I got his voice mail and left a message with the good news. The body was most definitely not George. What a relief. I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my heart. George and I had never been close, and Jim and George’s relationship was tenuous at best, but an untimely death would have been staggering.
I made my way to the living room and peeked in on Mom and Laurie. The baby was still sound asleep in her bassinet. “I’m going to make coffee. Want some?”
Mom barely looked up from her knitting. She was making something out of hideous green yarn. “I thought you were going to get some rest?”
“I can’t sleep. I talked to the medical examiner. The body they recovered was not George.”
Mom’s head jerked up and she peered at me over her reading glasses. “Thank goodness. Jim will be very relieved to hear that.” She lowered her gaze to her knitting, and almost on automatic pilot her hands continued their work.
“What are you knitting?”
“Booties for Laurie.”
Great.
“Green?”
She glanced up at me. “Well, she has so much pink already. Are you allowed to have coffee when you’re breastfeeding?”
“A little. Will you watch Laurie, Mom? I need to shower and get dressed.”
“I am watching Laurie, dear. Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m going to get George’s bags from the medical examiner’s office. They can’t locate him.”
Mom tsked. “What do you suppose his bags were doing on that pier?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I could go for you,” she offered.
“I’d like to get some fresh air.”
“Don’t overdo it. You’re up and around much sooner than I was after I had your brother, Andrew.”
Mom prattled on about her childbirth experience as I prepared for my first solo outing since Laurie’s birth.
I trudged up the steps to the medical examiner’s office and asked the receptionist, a girl with bleached blond hair pulled taut into a ponytail making her look no older than seventeen, if I could speak with Nick Dowling. I braced myself against the reception counter, out of breath and feeling a little light-headed from my walk. I had finally parked about three city blocks away at a thirty-minute meter. The receptionist gave me a sympathetic smile, dazzling me with teeth that must have been as bleached as her hair and indicated the waiting area. I sat, exhausted, as she went to get Dowling,
My jeans were straining at the seams. I had gambled on wearing a pair of nonmaternity jeans. No elastic waistband! I reasoned that the pair I had selected were stretch jeans and should fit fine. However, they were too binding, making me feel more bloated than ever. When was I supposed to get my figure back?
I glanced down at my protruding tummy, then worried that milk might leak through my blouse. I realized I hadn’t thought of Laurie in a few minutes, and my mind flashed on her little face. I felt ridiculous in the waiting room.
What was I doing here?
I should be home with Laurie.
I remembered when Jim and I first met and fell in love, five years ago. I would think about him night and day, and when I caught myself thinking of anything other than him, I was surprised by the feeling of guilt that flickered through me. Now, I felt the same way about Laurie.
Before I could turn around and leave, the door opened and in walked a tall, bearded man.
“Mrs. Connolly, I’m Nick Dowling,” he said, extending his hand.
His face was kind, with bright blue eyes that peered at me through dark lashes. I shook his hand.
“Follow me,” he said.
For an instant I hesitated, thinking he was going to bring me back into the morgue. I didn’t have the stomach to see any cadavers. Instead, he led me to his office.
A huge desk covered with scattered papers dominated the room. A phone, hidden under a stack of papers, rang. He ignored it as he crossed the office toward a box in the corner.
“Can you tell me who the body was?” I asked.
He scratched his head. “It was in the papers. Didn’t you read about it?”
“I just had a baby. I haven’t been doing a lot of reading lately.”
“Congratulations! This business must have come at an inopportune time. I’m glad it wasn’t your brother-in-law,” he said, his kind eyes shining. “Fellow by the name of Brad Avery. We were able to positively identify the body using dental records.” He opened the box and pulled out two duffel bags and a sleeping bag.
Was it true, then? Was he homeless? Where was he sleeping now?
Dowling helped me load the duffel bags one on each shoulder and then handed me the smelly sleeping bag.
I returned to the lobby, looking for the receptionist, hoping she might be able to help me carry George’s things. No receptionist in sight, just an elegantly dressed woman waiting at the desk. She glanced up at me lugging George’s bags.
I froze. It was Michelle Dupree, an old friend from high school, who had also been my rival in theater. I hadn’t seen her in ages.
She was dressed in gray gabardine pants with a button-down, pinstriped blouse. For as long as I had known her, she had always been fashionable, even in high school. We went to an all-girls private high school where we had to wear uniforms. Somehow, Michelle always looked better than the rest of us in them. She would wear the navy sweater around her neck, like Jackie O, or she would wear red shoes, which would have looked just plain silly on anyone else, but on her managed to be striking.
I glanced down at her feet. Some things don’t change. She wore bright purple suede boots. They looked fabulous. Me? Squeezed into jeans and tennis shoes, lugging George’s stinky stuff. Figures, I’d run into the fashion queen.
“Michelle Dupree?” I asked.
“Katie Donovan?” She matched my astonished tone. Then she grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me to her. George’s bags shuffled to the floor. She squeezed me a little too tightly, almost knocking the wind out of me.
“It’s Connolly now.” I hugged her back for a second, then tried to extract myself from her viselike grip.
“Right. Of course. You would be married, of course.” Michelle smiled somewhat sadly and released me. “With a ton of kids, I’m sure.”
“Actually, only one. She’s all of
eight days old.”
Before Michelle could react, we were interrupted by the receptionist. “Thank you for waiting, Mrs. Avery. I need your signature here.” She handed Michelle paperwork to sign.
My breath caught. Mrs. Avery? Michelle signed, then handed the forms back to the receptionist who said, “I’ll be right back with your copies.”
Michelle put her hand to her temple and stared out the windows for a long moment. She took a deep breath. “I found out that. . my husband. .” Her mouth twitched. “They recovered his body in the bay.” She covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed.
“Oh, Michelle!” I put my arms around her. “How awful, awful, awful.”
“I came here so that they can release his remains to me. Can you imagine, Kate? He was only thirty-five.” Michelle wiped at her eyes with her fingertips.
I tsked. “So young.”
It could have been George.
It could have been any number of people I knew. I felt a sadness pull at me.
She gripped me, whispering, “Brad was murdered, Kate. He was shot and his body was discarded into the bay.” Her eyes darted back and forth across the lobby. “The police aren’t telling me much. I suppose they always suspect the wife but. .”
The receptionist returned. Michelle became silent, composed herself, then took the forms from the girl.
“Let me help you with your things,” Michelle said, grabbing one of George’s bags and heading toward the door.
From her tone, I understood she wanted to speak to me in private, and hey, I needed help with the bags, so how could I refuse?
We walked in silence toward my car. The wind had picked up, and despite the fact we were enjoying Indian summer, the best time of year in San Francisco, it was starting to get chilly.
I tried to process what Michelle had said. Her husband had been murdered? What were George’s things doing on that pier? Was he connected to the Averys?
At my car, Michelle dumped George’s bag into the trunk. One bag caught on the trunk latch, toppling over. A few T-shirts spilled out onto the street. Michelle and I bent to pick them up.
I had to lean on the car in order to get up. Maybe leaving the house hadn’t been such a good idea. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.
“What were you doing at the medical examiner’s office?” she asked.
I stuffed the T-shirts into the bag.
What could I say? If Michelle was a suspect in her husband’s murder, wouldn’t George be a suspect also?
I slammed my trunk shut. “My brother-in-law’s bags were found on the pier where-”
“Brad was found. Yes, the police mentioned something about that,” she said, trying to keep her hair from flying into her face. “They think it’s totally unrelated and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What?”
“The cops think it’s unrelated because George’s bags were found last week and Brad’s been missing since June.” She handed me a silver bracelet. “Here, this fell, too.”
Too tired to open the trunk again, I stuffed it into my pocket. “Do you know George? Did Brad?”
Michelle hesitated and looked around. The receptionist from the medical examiner’s office walked toward us, then past us, presumably on her way to lunch since it was almost noon. I needed to get back and feed Laurie, not to mention myself.
My stomach growled. I placed a hand over it, trying to suppress it. “Do you know where George is? Is he all right?”
Michelle’s eyes lingered on the receptionist as she clicked away from us in her fake Jimmy Choos.
She put a hand on my forearm and pulled me close to her. “Listen, Kate, will you come to my place tomorrow?” Her face looked drawn and she seemed tired. What did my face look like with all of the two hours’ sleep I’d gotten since Laurie was born?
“I’d love to talk to you. . catch up and stuff. . well, and I’d like to talk to you”-Michelle looked up and down the block again-“about Brad.”
I nodded. “I’ll bring Laurie over so you can meet her.”
Michelle’s face brightened. “Would you? Oh, Kate.” She grabbed me again in another bear hug. “Oh! That would mean so much. Come over, what? Around noon? I’ll have lunch ready for us.”
We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and I climbed into my car, trying to make a getaway before she squeezed me again. I didn’t make it. She leaned in through the car window and placed her skinny arms around my neck. “See you tomorrow!”
•CHAPTER FIVE•
The Second Week-Bonding
I sped home. I missed Laurie so much, it hurt. I parked my car and transferred George’s bags from the trunk to a shelf in the garage. They seemed too heavy to lug upstairs. Or was I too weak? Either way, I’d ask Jim to bring them up when he got home.
I hobbled up the stairs, clinging to the banister. The ligaments in my pelvis felt sore and tight. This was normal for me when I started up my running routine after having a long break, but a three-block walk was hardly the equivalent of a three-mile run, right? Maybe an outing so soon after having a baby hadn’t been such a good idea.
Once upstairs, I barely looked at Mom. I scooped Laurie from the bassinet. “Did she miss me?”
Mom laughed. “No. She didn’t even wake up.”
Mom made her way toward the kitchen. I limped after her and saw pots boiling on the stove.
“I made us lunch.” She handed me a plate with a ham and provolone cheese sandwich, my favorite. The table was set with a pitcher of homemade iced tea.
“Thanks, Mom. What’s on the stove?”
“Your dinner.”
I smiled. Mom winked and put two tablets of Motrin in my hand, then poured me a glass of tea. Nothing like a mommy. I gazed down at Laurie, in her new bright green booties, and eagerly swallowed the pills.
After Mom left, I nursed Laurie and tried to rest. I thought about bringing George’s bags up from the garage, but that would mean, of course, getting up and going downstairs. I shifted my position on the couch; Laurie snuggled close to me.
I’d get them in a minute. .
I looked at Laurie dozing in my arms. I stared and stared at her, her perfect little round face, rosy cheeks, and tiny chin. When I glanced at the clock, I was shocked to see that an hour had gone by. I nestled her closer and closed my eyes.
I woke to a ringing phone.
Oh my God! I had fallen asleep next to Laurie on the couch! I could have rolled over and squished her. And I hadn’t actually checked to see if she was breathing in-how long?
What time was it?
I put my hand to her tummy; it rose up and down.
I grabbed the cordless and Jim’s voice filled the line. “Definitely not George Connolly! What a relief!”
“You obviously got my message.”
“Yes. Thank God! Listen, honey, a client called last minute, wants to do dinner and drinks, is that okay with you? This is a big account for me. I should go.”
I yawned. “No problem. I’ll just be hanging out here enjoying my new favorite pastime.”
“What’s that?”
“Staring at my beautiful daughter.”
The next morning I fed Laurie and got dressed, two activities that are mind-numbingly simple but took over an hour.
How could one little infant be so much work? It took almost forty minutes to feed her. Oh, well, I could take comfort in the fact that we were getting better. We were twenty minutes faster than last week.
Before heading to Michelle’s, I reviewed my to-do list.
To Do:
1. Get better at breastfeeding.
2. Lose weight.
3. ✓
4. Call work and let them know about Laurie and plan a return date-yuk!
5. George? Where is he? What’s happened to him? Check out his bags today, see what I can find.
6. Visit Michelle.
7. Return well-wishers’ phone calls (Paula, Andrew, etc.).
8. Make dinner.
I parked outside the
Averys’ refurbished Victorian house on Noe Street. It was dark green with white trim and there were delicate potted yellow flowers on each step. I couldn’t wait to get a peek inside.
I hopped out of the car with a little too much gusto. My body immediately complained. I fished for the Motrin in my purse.
I pulled a screaming Laurie out of the car. Well, not entirely screaming. Newborns are funny that way. They try to scream, but only a pitiful little cry comes out.
Poor thing. Can’t even cry properly yet.
I hiked up the front walk toward the Avery home, rang the bell, and rocked Laurie back and forth, hoping she would quiet down before Michelle answered.
The door swung open, revealing Michelle clad in a silk dress and stockinged feet. Laurie wailed at the top of her little lungs.
Michelle ushered me into her living room. “Come in, come in.” She peered over the blanket at Laurie. “Oh! She’s too cute! What can I get you? I have a wonderful chardonnay.”
I settled onto the sofa. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m breastfeeding. I’ll have some water.”
Michelle was eagerly cooing at Laurie, ignoring me. “She’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful. She looks nothing like you.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
“Oh my God, I didn’t mean that. You’re beautiful, you know that, Katie. I just meant. . well, she’s so fair, so blond, so delicate.”
“Don’t worry, I know what you meant,” I said, self-consciously running my hand through my dark curls. Had I even brushed my hair today?
Michelle extracted herself from Laurie and disappeared down the hall. I glanced at myself in the mirror above her fireplace. I relaxed. My locks were in place. Somehow, I’d managed to whip a comb through my hair. And Jim’s red flannel shirt, the only thing I could find that I fit into, actually added some color to my face. I may not have been dressed as stylishly as Michelle, but at least I was keeping up with general hygiene and good grooming.
On her mantel I noticed photos of Michelle and a man I assumed was Brad. There was a picture of them swimming with a dolphin, one of them on their wedding day, and another standing next to Michelle’s mother, who was in a wheelchair.
