by Aimee Molloy
Yes, three minutes: the amount of time it took to wind the pregnancy test in toilet paper, stow it in my purse, wash my hands, and go outside. Three minutes, and I was someone else entirely.
A mom.
How did I know? Because I stood at the corner, no cars in sight, and I waited for the walk light. I’ve never done that before in my life. I can still see myself. A crowd of people hurrying past me, into the empty street, on their way to the gym, to brunch, their to-go coffees slip-sloshing onto their workout clothes, while I stood there, motionless, my palms against my belly, convinced that the moment I stepped off the sidewalk a car was going to barrel down the street out of nowhere, turn the corner, flattening the baby (and me, along with him) against the windshield.
And I never went back. All of a sudden, that’s who I was. It was like an escalator materialized under me, lifting me against my will, carrying me to this place where—poof!—everything was something to fear: microwave ovens, manhole covers, dust from the renovation next door. It was all a cause for concern, things I couldn’t ignore, lest I risk losing the baby. Have him stolen away.
I tried my best to protect him.
I failed.
It’s later now. I’ve just woken from a fitful nap, hoping a little sleep might make me feel better, clear my head. Give me the courage to be more honest.
I’m starting to regret my decision.
There, I said it. It’s about time I had the guts to get this all out. Here’s more:
This isn’t working, this thing between us. I fear that no matter what I do, Joshua will never be happy with me. Our days have been difficult. He’s sullen, ignoring me, pushing me away.
He tunes me out, like I’m not even there. Like my feelings don’t matter. (I would never say this to him, but I swear, he is just like his father.)
This morning I reminded him that this was something we both wanted. And then I said a few things I wish I hadn’t. Telling him that maybe I made a mistake. That maybe I was better off before. That I’d have to live with what I did for the rest of my life, and I no longer believed it was worth it. I can be so mean sometimes. I shouldn’t have said any of that.
I’ve been trying to see his side of the story. How annoying my constant need to talk about things must be, especially now that they’ve let Bodhi go. How I haven’t figured everything out yet. I’ve told him all my stories, of course—how clever I’ve always been, testing off the charts as a child, a natural-born problem-solver, as my mother said. And now I think he’s waiting for me to be the one to solve this predicament, figure out the right strategy. To make sure we’re protected.
But know what else it’s time to admit? I’m not clever at all. I am, in fact, a moron.
We can’t go to Indonesia. Joshua can’t get a passport, obviously. I should have realized this from the beginning—it’s exactly the type of thing Dr. H would have helped me with in the past. Seeing the holes in my logic, my inability to make sense of even simple things. So we’re back in Brooklyn, back in the bubble, figuring out a new plan, laying low, getting things in order to get out of here.
The May Mothers are everywhere. Sometimes I stand at the window, peering out from behind the curtain, trying to get a bit of sunlight on my face, and I see them. A few hours ago it was Yuko, walking on the shady side of the street, a yoga mat under her arm, earbuds in her ears. Then, not twenty minutes later, Colette. She was with a guy I assumed to be Charlie. Big-time writer Charlie. Poppy was strapped to his chest and he and Colette were holding hands, laughing about something, passing an iced coffee back and forth, her arms heavy with flowers from the farmers’ market. The ideal Brooklyn family. So good at making perfect look easy.
What people like them don’t get is what seeing scenes like that does to people like me. To people who don’t have what she does. Joshua and I went for a drive yesterday, and I was looking out the window at a stoplight. I watched this mom in the next car. She was in the front seat, facing forward, her arm reaching into the back seat, holding hands with a little girl strapped into her car seat. It was so simple and beautiful. Little did she know she was breaking my heart. In the city you can feel it, the rhythm of children. The burst of yells and laughter early in the morning, little bodies gathered, running in sprinklers in backyards invisible from the street, arguing over the swings at the playground. Then the lull around noon, when they return home to wash their hands, eat their lunch, and then sleep, quietly, peacefully, slack-jawed and wheezy until they wake a few hours later, springing to life again.
I can’t bear to stay inside for much longer, but nor can I bear the idea of running into one of them on the street, of having to make conversation about how I am, where I’ve been. Having to hear the inevitable question: My god, what happened to Midas?
Oh no. Joshua is up. I must go. He really hates to see me cry.
Chapter Sixteen
Day Nine
To: May Mothers
From: Your friends at The Village
Date: July 13
Subject: Today’s advice
Your baby: Day 60
Let’s talk about . . . sex. Chances are, you’ve been too tired these last few weeks to give the topic much thought. While it’s common to have a low libido after giving birth, there’s a good chance things are beginning to feel back to normal in that department. And it’s important us new moms don’t forget we’re also wives. So, it might be time to break open a bottle of wine, turn on some music, and see what happens. (But remember, ladies: BIRTH CONTROL IS YOUR BFF.)
Francie sits on the hot, rough stoop of a brownstone, sucking on a chocolate-covered pretzel, pressing the soft rise of a blister on her heel, her camera resting on her lap.
It makes so much sense, she thinks, once again.
The way he looked at Winnie during the meetings, whispering in her ear, saving her a seat beside him on his blanket. It was like he was obsessed with her. And where did he go, after disappearing so abruptly from the Jolly Llama? Francie should have been focused on this from the beginning, not getting derailed by false leads. Archie Andersen, who somehow seemed to vanish into thin air. Fake Archie Andersen. The thought of that guy repulsed her—his hands on her body, the stench of his breath. She’s felt disgusted ever since she excused herself from that couch, telling him she had to use the bathroom and then hightailing it out of the bar.
She hadn’t told Nell or Colette she’d met him, or the things he’d said. There was no need to. The guy was a liar. She could tell, the minute she saw him. Maybe he was telling the truth about some of it. Maybe they had hooked up. And so what? Winnie was single, she could do whatever she wanted. Francie had never slept with anyone other than Lowell (the science teacher didn’t count), but she’s aware of how things work in the real world. Especially these days, especially in New York, and most certainly for a woman as beautiful as Winnie. But say those things about Midas? About not wanting her own child?
No.
Francie knew women who didn’t like their own kids. She grew up with one of them. Winnie was nothing like that.
A door slams across the street. She picks up her camera, zooming in on a woman in yoga pants and a tank top skipping down the stairs of No. 584, the address Nell copied from Token’s profile at May Mothers. The woman stops to stretch her hamstrings on the steps and then turns toward the park, breaking into a jog a few buildings down. Francie is growing impatient. She’s been sitting on this stoop for more than an hour, and people are beginning to arrive for appointments at the chiropractor’s office on the ground floor. Lowell’s mother, Barbara, made a hair appointment for noon, and Francie said she’d be back to take the baby long before then. She picks up the camera, promising herself she’ll stay just ten more minutes, scrolling through the photos stored on her camera—the babies from the May Mothers get-together five days earlier she still hasn’t done anything with, the images of Hector Quimby, wearing the light-yellow golf shirt, standing outside Winnie’s building.
Francie closes her eyes, seeing Hect
or as she watched him from her spot on the bench, his hands clasped behind his back, pacing slowly in front of Winnie’s building. Who was he? According to Patricia Faith, Hector’s body was discovered after his wife called the local police, saying her husband had gone to take care of a few things at the Ross property and hadn’t come home. They had been married for fifty-two years. Ten grandkids. A volunteer driver for Meals on Wheels. He’d been working for the Ross family for nearly thirty years, thought of Winnie like a daughter. The forensic evidence suggests he was killed and then his body dragged to the woods, that it had been doused in gasoline and lit on fire.
Francie stands up, returning the camera to her bag, knowing it’s time to call it a day and go home. It’s too hot to sit here any longer. One good thing about Barbara visiting is that Lowell came home last night with a brand-new air conditioner, after his mother complained about the used one. Francie will go home and turn it on and play with Will for a few hours in the cool apartment. Her stomach rumbles as she trudges down the stairs and turns to walk down the hill back to her apartment, but then she hears something: the door of Token’s building closing once again.
It’s him.
Autumn is in the sling, and he’s putting on a pair of sunglasses, walking down the stairs, turning west toward the park. Francie drapes her bag across her chest and follows him up the hill, trying to ignore the painful rub of the blister, careful to keep a half block behind him. He turns north on Eighth Avenue and walks two blocks, into the Spot. She crosses the street and crouches behind a Volvo station wagon, peeping through the car’s windows. When he takes a seat on a bar stool at the window, Francie lifts her camera and watches through the viewfinder as he pages through a newspaper left behind on the counter and stirs his coffee—the double shot of espresso with a touch of steamed milk that he used to bring with him to every meeting.
He drinks his coffee in three smooth sips, makes a phone call, and then heads toward the door. Francie steps behind another car and holds her phone to her ear, pretending to speak to someone. She turns cautiously, seeing him walking up the hill, and follows from the opposite side of the street, trying to remain out of view behind the parked cars between them. It appears he’s going to make a right, to head away from his apartment, and Francie begins to cross the street. But suddenly he stops and turns around. She’s in the middle of the street, in his line of sight. She pivots and runs back to the sidewalk, but she trips on the curb, trying to protect her camera, feeling the sting on the heels of both hands and a pain in her knee where she hit the pavement.
“Oh dear. Are you okay?” An older woman is standing above her, a small dog wearing slippers on a leash at her heels. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’m fine,” Francie says, standing. There’s a large gash in her knee, and a trail of blood runs down her shin.
“Are you sure? Let me get you a tissue.”
“I’m fine,” Francie says, waving the woman away. She picks up her bag and turns, spinning straight into Token.
Token walks out of the galley kitchen just off the living room, holding an ice pack in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other. “Shit,” he says, placing the mugs on the coffee table. “I forgot that unlike me, who lives on the stuff, you’re off caffeine.”
“Not anymore.” Francie takes the mug and ice pack.
“Hang on. Let me get something for that cut. It’s pretty bad.”
He walks through the French doors at the other end of the room, disappearing into a bedroom. A large-screen television set inside a built-in bookcase is tuned in to The Faith Hour, showing the scene of Winnie’s property upstate, shot from a helicopter, where more than one hundred people have come to help search the area. Patricia Faith, filming live all week from the ballroom of a Ramada hotel, which has been designated the headquarters of the search, sits at a banquet table talking to the pastor of a nearby church. Patricia seems particularly concerned today.
“The way I see this,” she says, “is, there are two options.” She holds up one perfectly manicured finger. “Hector Quimby was involved in the disappearance of Baby Midas. Maybe he was paid by someone—let’s not speculate who just yet—to take Midas and then dispose of him. And maybe that plan went awry.” She holds up another finger. “Or, he’s another tragic victim in this already tragic story. Maybe he knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. Maybe he had to be silenced.”
The pastor shakes his head. “All due respect, Miss Faith, but I’ve known Hector and Shelly Quimby for nearly forty years. I baptized their children, and their grandchildren. And I will swear on my grandfather’s Bible that there is no way that good, warmhearted, Christian man had anything to do with the abduction or murder of any baby.”
“And what can you tell me about Winnie Ross?” Patricia says, squinting at the pastor. “Her family has owned that house for decades. Did you know any of them?”
The man wipes his mouth with a cotton handkerchief. “No, ma’am, I can’t say I did. As far as I know, not one member of the Ross family has ever darkened the door of any local church.”
Francie turns away from the television, feeling unsteady. Token checked her skull, running his fingers through her hair, softly pressing every inch of her head. There was no sign of a bump and yet her head is pounding. She takes in his apartment, which is small and neat. The linen love seat on which she sits flanks a vintage mahogany coffee table, and small framed photographs of city street life hang over a dining table, set with a vase of fresh-cut spray roses. She stands and tiptoes toward the bookshelf, her knee throbbing, and examines a few framed photos of Autumn and Token, Autumn and some woman. The bathroom is just off the living room, and she peeks inside, finding bottles of face cleanser and hair gel lined neatly on a windowsill overlooking a light shaft.
She hears his footsteps shuffling toward her from the bedroom, and she closes the bathroom door. “It was under the changing table,” he says, holding up the small tube of Neosporin. “Because where else would it be?” He ushers Francie back toward the couch. “Sit. Let me put some of this on your knee.”
“I can do it,” she says, taking the tube.
He sits on the chair across from her. “Where were you running to so quick?”
“You know. Getting some exercise.” She points down at the soft pooch of her belly. “They say the baby weight melts off with breastfeeding. They lie.”
“With your camera bag?”
“Yeah. Trying to start that portrait business. Never know when you’re going to run into a potential client.”
He nods and glances at the television set. “I don’t know why I have this horrible woman on. She’s having a field day with the news of Hector’s death.”
“Hector?”
“Yeah. Hector Quimby. The guy—”
“I know who you’re talking about,” Francie says. “But you said that like you know him.”
Token looks at her. “Did I?”
Francie shifts her gaze. The ice pack stings her knee. “This is a nice apartment,” she manages to say, and then sees, through the French doors to the bedroom, three guitars resting on stands. “You play the guitar?”
He shrugs. “Not as much as I used to.”
“Um-hmmm.” She sips her coffee. “So, tell me about Lou.”
An alarm beeps in the kitchen. “Be right back.” He returns wearing pot holders and carrying a loaf cake, which he sets on a trivet on the table.
“I went out for a walk, forgetting this was in the oven. Thank god I remembered before I burned down the entire block.” He cuts into the cake with a long, thin knife. “To be honest, I’m a shitty baker. But whatever. I’m trying.”
“Just a small piece,” she says. “Trying to cut down on carbs and sugar.”
Token extends a piece to her on a napkin, and they eat in silence for a few moments. Francie notices how his leg twitches, the way he keeps clearing his throat, his eyes flitting to the television screen behind her.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Franc
ie says. “You never got to tell your birth story.”
“My birth story, huh? Didn’t expect I’d get a turn.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t the one who did the work.”
“You mean the mom?”
“Yeah.” Token laughs and crumbles the napkin in his hands. “The mom.”
“Did you adopt?”
“Adopt? No.”
“Then how’d you get the baby?”
“How’d I get her.” He squints at Francie. “Well, you see, Francie, when two people love each other—”
“No, I mean—”
Token laughs. “I’m kidding. Lucille had her.”
“Lucille?” She struggles to swallow the cake. “Wait. Lou is Lucille?”
“Yeah. My wife.”
“But you’re gay.”
He sits back in his chair and raises his eyebrows. “I am?”
She chuckles nervously. “You’re not?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, how come I never heard you talk about a wife? And the mom group thing. It’s not really something—”
He’s nodding. “I had a feeling you all thought that. Nope. Straight as can be, and no adoption. We had her the old-fashioned way. Scheduled C-section.” He smirks. “That was the plan, at least. Autumn had her own idea. Came a few weeks early, and on the one night I was out of town, playing a gig. Pretty sure Lou’s still annoyed at both Autumn and me about that. It was not an easy birth.”
“You guys doing okay?”
“Me and Lou? No. Not really.” He stands and takes the cake to the dining table, his back to Francie. “You know how it is after you have a kid. You gotta adjust.” He turns to face her. “I will say this, if it weren’t for May Mothers, I’d be pretty lost. It’s isolating, doing this as a guy. But you’ve all been great. I wasn’t sure, you know. A dad, showing up to a mom’s group. Let’s just say I was a little nervous about it. It’s been harder this past week, without the meetings to look forward to. I miss seeing everyone.”
