The Arrivals: A Novel

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  “Have you felt it moving?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “I don’t know. One? Seven? I didn’t count.”

  “But you definitely felt something.”

  “I definitely felt something.”

  “Well… that’s great! I should let you get back to work.” He continued to sit on the bed. Studiously, she ignored him.

  He sat there for another moment until she said, “Stephen. You don’t need to babysit me. I’m okay.”

  “I like being here with you.”

  “But maybe I don’t like it.” She turned slightly away from him, bringing the laptop with her.

  “Oh—”

  “Maybe I want to be left alone.” She said this softly.

  You’ll need all of your patience, one of the websites had said. You’ll need more patience than you’ve ever needed before.

  So summoning that patience, and summoning all the good will and good cheer he could locate in every corner of his body, he got carefully up from the bed, leaned slowly over her, and ever so tenderly, ever so delicately, planted a kiss in the center of her sweaty forehead. Then he left the room and closed the door, as quietly as he imagined you would close the door in a house where a baby was sleeping.

  JULY

  The phone rang: Rachel’s mother. Rachel considered not answering, then she did, then just as quickly she wished she hadn’t. Her mother’s energy frightened her. She ran her fingers over the dusty top of her bookcase and let her mother talk: Olivia was keeping them all hopping. The other day she had brought home the neighbor’s cat and tried to dress it in one of her doll’s dresses.

  “Really?” said Rachel. “That sounds like something out of a sitcom.”

  “It was,” said Ginny. “Except for the scratches all up and down her arm. The cat didn’t care for it.” Jane was settled into Lillian’s old bedroom, poor thing. Hanging in there.

  “That’s awful,” said Rachel. “That’s completely awful. I hope everyone is being nice to her. Mom? Are they?”

  “Of course,” said Ginny. “Of course, we’re all being very nice. And the bed rest may not last for the entire pregnancy. It’s a wait-and-see, for now. I can’t remember all the details.”

  “Are you sure you’re being extra nice? Because with Jane you aren’t always—”

  “Oh, stop it, Rachel. That’s unfair.” Ginny continued her litany. Philip was still up several times a night. Father Michael, their parish priest, had taken ill. The flu, they thought it was at first, but it turned into pneumonia, and there was someone new there to fill in for him, a wonderful young priest from Boston, just full of energy. So refreshing! Youth behind the pulpit! And how was Rachel?

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m doing some reading for work.” She was at it again: the brothers with the alcoholic father. Casting was due to start within the month. She rose from the bed and crossed the room to the window. She could see, on the sidewalk beneath, a young boy, maybe eleven or twelve, zipping along the sidewalk in those sneakers with wheels on the bottom. Rachel found it disconcerting, this boy’s ability to go from walking to rolling to walking again. She didn’t know how he transitioned so easily without falling on his face. She supposed that with the shoes, as with many things, there was not as much to it as it seemed to an observer.

  “I thought I had something else,” said Ginny. “Now, let’s see, what could I have forgotten?”

  “Mom?”

  “No,” said her mother. “I’ve lost it again. Let’s see, I was standing right here when I thought of it earlier—”

  “Mom?” Rachel said. “Mom? It’s okay. You can call me back if you think of it.”

  “But I think it’s right—”

  “No,” said Rachel firmly. “I have to go. You can call me later. Or I’ll call you.”

  Since taking the pregnancy test she’d allowed herself to sustain a little fantasy life. In this fantasy, she told Marcus about the pregnancy, he moved back in, they prepared for a life of domestic bliss. Meanwhile, Tess would fall gravely ill and ask Rachel to take over the majority of the agency’s work, a task that Rachel, in her glowing, pregnant state, would perform fabulously and that would catapult her to the very zenith of the casting world.

  She crossed the apartment to the kitchen, and then opened one cupboard after another until she found a chocolate bar she had hidden from herself several weeks ago.

  She took out the chocolate. She would have just a tiny piece, just a square or two. She opened it carefully, avoiding a peek at the food label. White chocolate, she reasoned, must be slightly lower in sugar and calories than dark. Right? But, just in case, she wouldn’t confirm it by looking.

  Her stomach felt strange, a not-quite-right sensation that could have been nerves or indigestion.

  She left the chocolate on the counter, grabbed her purse, and stepped out of the apartment. She walked down the stairs and out of the building. She looked up and down. The kid with the wheel shoes had gone.

  She realized that she did not, after all, have anywhere to go. The entire city was at her disposal, and she had nowhere to go. She was reminded of the feeling that came upon her sometimes in a store, where all the clothes were arranged so meticulously and lavishly that she became too paralyzed to buy anything.

  She would not think about the test. Or maybe she would! Maybe she would call Marcus now and tell him about it. Maybe she could turn the fantasy into reality at that moment.

  But she couldn’t. If he rejected her, if he rejected the fantasy, she didn’t think she could bear it. Instead she called Whitney, who answered on the first ring.

  “Rach?” said Whitney.

  “Yes.”

  “Rach, you okay?” Rachel’s position in the center of the sidewalk, where people were passing her on both sides, gave her the unmistakable sensation of the rest of the world moving ahead of her while she stayed immobile.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Something about work?”

  She thought about that. “No,” she said. “I’m fine.” But there was something, of course. She tried to say the words. She tried to say, I’m pregnant, but she couldn’t.

  “Okay,” said Whitney doubtfully. “What are you doing now?”

  “Going for a walk.”

  “A walk? Where?”

  “Nowhere. Just a walk.”

  “Want me to come?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure. Well, I don’t know. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Just—” Rachel heard a snippet of conversation, then Whitney’s voice returned in full force. “Just sorting out something with this registry. Rob’s off today, so it’s our only chance. He’s working nights all next week.”

  “Oh.”

  “But, Rach? It doesn’t matter. I can totally blow this off. If you want me to come with you.”

  “No,” said Rachel. “Really, no. I’m not going far. I’m practically done already. I’m heading back.”

  “Okay. But call if you need me.”

  “I will.”

  But Rachel was not done. She was just beginning. She walked. She walked all the way to the park but did not enter; instead, she turned and walked the fifteen blocks back home. She didn’t look in any shop windows. She didn’t meet the eyes of anybody she passed. She just walked. And while she walked she thought of something her mother had said to her the day she’d graduated from college.

  “You lucky thing, you,” Ginny had said. “Your whole life ahead of you. You have no idea what a gift that is.”

  She would have walked more, but she needed the bathroom so she turned into her building.

  “There is so much ahead of me,” she said to her empty apartment when she got home. “There is so much ahead of me.”

  She wouldn’t think about the pregnancy, not now.

  It wasn’t until she was wiping herself in the bathroom that she realized
something was wrong, and then she saw all the blood on the toilet paper, and then she looked into the toilet, and she saw more blood there, and also something that wasn’t blood, exactly, something small and thick and clotted. She pulled herself from the toilet to the floor, the corner where the tub met the wall, not caring about the mess, and when she heard the phone ringing from the other room she turned her body carefully away and thought about the pool in her friend Jennifer’s yard in Burlington, and about the summer when they were ten, when they swam every single day. She thought about the pink bathing suit with crisscross straps she’d had that summer.

  She sat there for some time and eventually she got up and cleaned herself off and cleaned the bathroom too, and then she put on her pajamas, the ones that Marcus made fun of because they were a long-sleeved matching set with flowers on them, like something a child or an old lady would wear, and she got in bed and cried and cried, for what she didn’t have yet and also for what she’d lost.

  The heat was here to stay. Lillian, walking by the lake, could feel it. She felt as if everyone—and everything, even the expanse of water before her—was trapped inside a giant bubble of humidity, pulled ever closer to the center of the earth. Philip, asleep in the Björn, was stuck to her chest; his back, when she put her hand on it, emanated heat. Olivia sat limply in the stroller. Every now and then she lifted her sippy cup of water to her lips and drank listlessly, more out of necessity than pleasure, the way a jaded drunk in a dark bar in the midafternoon might drink.

  She stopped for a moment and adjusted Philip’s sun hat. They were nearly to the little wooden bridge that covered a rushing stream feeding into the lake. As a child she had stood with Stephen and Rachel tossing sticks into that stream, watching them get trapped in the nest of leaves and rocks just under the surface. Perhaps Olivia would enjoy doing the same thing.

  She was about to bend down to release Olivia from the stroller when she heard footsteps behind her, then felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, expecting, as ever, that Tom had come to find her. But no. Father Colin. In running clothes.

  Her heartbeat quickened. She felt her cheeks warm, her transparent, cursed cheeks, and she had to look down. What to say? She couldn’t very well say that she’d been thinking about her visit to the church, that she had found herself, at odd moments, trying to capture the feeling of serenity there in the same way the rocks under the water captured the sticks and the leaves. She said, “Father Colin! Running? In this weather? You must be crazy.”

  He said, breathing heavily, “In my own way, I guess. But I’ve never minded the heat.” This was surprising, she thought, given the Irish tone to his skin, and the way the blood vessels had risen to prominence in his cheeks. Like hers. Like Tom’s too! She tried not to look at his long, nearly hairless legs, at the circles of sweat underneath his arms. It seemed bizarre and inappropriate to see a priest this way. Like walking in on your grandmother in the bathroom! He leaned over, hands on his knees, and when he looked up, he said, “These must be your children.”

  “Yes. Philip, here, sleeping. And this is Olivia.” She motioned toward the stroller. “She’s three.”

  “Three and five-eighths,” said Olivia, dislodging herself from the straps.

  “Olivia, please say hello to Father Colin. But I don’t want to interrupt your run, Father. My brother was a runner. I know how these things go.”

  Father Colin crouched down beside Olivia. “I’m just about done anyway,” he said. Then, “Olivia. It’s very nice to meet you. What beautiful blue eyes you have.”

  Olivia stared. She scratched at a mosquito bite on her arm.

  “ ‘Hello, Father,’ ” said Lillian in a high voice. “ ‘How nice to meet you.’ ”

  Father Colin laughed. Olivia said nothing.

  “Olivia!”

  “No worries,” said Father Colin. “I know how it is. Kids talk when they want to talk.” He stood, then pulled his heel up to his seat, stretching.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me when I’m coming to church?” Lillian heard the teasing note in her own voice: how embarrassing. She looked down again.

  “No,” he said. “I never ask that of anyone. But it would be a pleasure. We welcome people back to the flock at any time, no questions asked.”

  “Well,” she said, looking down at her sandals, and noticing that her toenails could use a fresh coat of polish. She looked up and squinted, and what was that sensation inside her, that brief unsettled flutter? “Well,” she said again. “You look miserable. You had better go and get yourself some water. There’s a fountain just up ahead—”

  “I should,” he said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “And you know what, I think I will. So I’ll see you soon, I hope. Lillian. Olivia. Philip.”

  Lillian continued toward the bridge with her children. She said to Olivia, “Liv, next time someone gives you a compliment, you say thank you. You don’t just look at them.”

  “He was sweaty,” said Olivia.

  “I know,” said Lillian. “It’s very hot out. But still.”

  Later that day, at home, she heard Olivia telling her pink elephant, “What beautiful blue eyes you have.”

  The elephant, whose eyes were little black buttons, stared back at her, saying nothing.

  When Rachel received the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a child, she had nothing, really, to confess. She remembered lowering herself onto the small kneeler in front of the brown divider, searching her mind for sins to report to Father Michael. I was rude to my mother, she said finally. I said a bad word.

  Now, the phone in her hand, she tried to recall that feeling: the sensation of being so free from real sins that she had to make them up.

  It was early in the morning. She hoped to get Tess’s voice mail, but Tess answered the phone breathlessly. Really, the woman seemed to work nonstop. No wonder Rachel couldn’t measure up.

  Rachel took a deep breath. “Tess?” she said. “It’s Rachel. Listen. I have to go home for a while. My father—my father is very sick.”

  I have committed the sin of lying. I have committed the sin of sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. No punishment necessary, Father, for my body has punished me enough already. And now, Father, hear what I’m saying about my dad.

  “Oh, Rachel,” said Tess. “I’m very sorry to hear that. What happened?”

  “He’s just… well, I can’t really talk about it,” said Rachel. “It’s too upsetting. But thank you.”

  “Well,” said Tess. “Family comes first, you know I believe that.” Rachel had seen Tess with her children exactly once. “So take all the time you need, pet.”

  “Really?” Rachel felt her heart lift. She experienced a sudden and unfamiliar feeling of fondness for Tess.

  “Of course. You have… let me see. It looks like you have five days of vacation here. So once you go over that, it will be without pay, of course. But please. Take all the time you need.”

  Rachel’s feeling of good will evaporated. She could almost see it there in the air before her, a white cloud quickly gone. “Okay,” whispered Rachel. “Thank you.” She closed the phone and began to pack quickly. How easy it was, sometimes, to set a lie in motion.

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  Ginny was on her way up the stairs with a laundry basket. “Towels,” she said cheerfully. “It’s amazing how many you go through with houseguests.” She began unloading the towels into the linen closet, then stopped and looked at Stephen. “Everything all right with the patient?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Ginny removed an untidy stack of washcloths from the closet and refolded them quickly, then put them back in. On the floor of the closet, where Ginny kept extra tissues and toilet paper for the upstairs bathrooms, lay one of Olivia’s princess dolls, half dressed, hair disheveled.

  “She looks like she stayed out too late last night,” observed Stephen. Ginny picked up the doll, smoothed her skirt (it was the top she was missing), and placed her on the straight-backe
d wicker chair that had sat in the corner of the hall for as long as Stephen could remember.

  “Now, how on earth did that get in the closet?” Ginny peered at Stephen. “Are you sure everything is okay? You look a bit—I don’t know.”

  “A bit what?”

  “Overwhelmed.”

  “I’m not,” he said shortly. He suddenly felt very, very tired.

  Ginny regarded him from a crouched position near the bottom of the closet, where she had also found a large dust bunny, which she swept up with her fingers.

  “I mean, I am. Of course I am.”

  Ginny straightened. “It’s a lot.”

  “It’s a lot,” he agreed. “But it’s… manageable.”

  “Well,” said Ginny. She moved a pile of pillowcases from the second shelf to the top. “I suppose that’s what you hope for, at this point. Managing.”

  “Mom,” he said, his voice in a whisper, “I’m sorry about all of this—”

  “About what?”

  He waved his arm to take in the hallway, Jane’s doorway.

  “Sorry? You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, mister.”

  “Well, for the disruption and all. It’s crowded here, all of a sudden. We only meant to be here a couple of days—”

  Ginny closed the door to the linen closet firmly. “I’ve dealt with crowded before. You didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”

  He looked startled. “Do what?”

  “Give Jane a pregnancy complication.”

  “No. Of course not—”

  “Well, then. There’s no need to apologize.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” Ginny said. She set the empty basket by the stairs. “Now, your father’s got to go to the store to pick up some tape for the sprinkler system hose. Why don’t you go with him?”

  “What about—” He nodded toward the bedroom.

  “I’ll keep an ear out. Nothing’s going to happen if you’re gone for fifteen minutes.”

  Stephen studied the pictures on the wall. “Out of all the pictures of me you have in your possession,” he said, “why hang this one on the wall?”