The Arrivals: A Novel

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  Ginny, returning with the mail, opened the door to the deck and called, “William? That health insurance form is here.” She stepped out onto the deck, waving a pale yellow envelope.

  “Mommy?” said Olivia.

  “Yes, my little bunny.”

  “I know what’s the matter with Polly.”

  “What’s that?” Lillian was bent over, looking under the couch for one of Philip’s toys that had rolled under. Philip watched her.

  “She not regular sick. She’s homesick.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Lillian put Philip back in the chair and he let out a little wail of protest.

  “You’re okay,” Lillian told him encouragingly. “You’re fine.” Philip rubbed his nose with his fist. Then to Olivia she said, “Now, tell me more about what’s wrong with Polly.”

  Olivia looked up to the ceiling. “She misses her house, and her daddy. She wants to go home.” Olivia crawled onto the couch and then directly onto Lillian’s lap, filling the space the baby had just vacated.

  “Oh, honey,” said Lillian. She was silent for a moment. She stroked Olivia’s hair, the hair that in places was as light and as fine as it had been when Olivia was a baby. She rubbed Olivia’s earlobe; this was how, when Olivia was Philip’s age, Lillian had gotten her to sleep. She thought briefly of rocking her in the glider in their old house, the tiny house on Front Street with the little square of yard. She took a deep breath. “But we’ve got some more time to spend here, with Grandma and Grandpa. We’re not going home just yet.”

  Olivia didn’t answer.

  “We’ve got lots of fun stuff to do still,” said Lillian. We’ve hardly been swimming at all—”

  “I’ve been swimming,” Olivia whispered.

  “We haven’t been to the aquarium!”

  “The kwaryum,” Olivia repeated softly.

  “There’s lots more gardening.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia.

  “Don’t you want to help Grandpa in the garden?”

  “Yes. But.” Her face was turned away from Lillian’s, but Lillian felt a tear drop from Olivia’s eye onto her bare arm.

  “But?”

  “But Polly is sick. And she misses her daddy. And she wants to go home.”

  Rachel, sitting by the lake in her bathing suit, heard her phone ringing from the depths of her bag. That would be Tess. August first had come and gone, and with it Rachel’s opportunity to work on casting the independent film, and also with it her previous five years of work for the agency, and her opportunity to make an impact on the casting world. All of that had surely been given over to Stacy by now. Stacy, with her close-set, eager eyes, and the nervous tic that sometimes came upon her when she was particularly stressed or excited, must surely be thanking her lucky stars for Rachel’s misfortune.

  The little neighborhood beach was deserted despite the beautiful day. People must have struck out for beaches farther away, North Beach, or farther up, to the islands. And just as well: Rachel was happy to be alone. She rose from her towel and walked to the edge of the dock. She could see rocks beneath the surface; she could see small fish darting about; she could see clearly to the bottom of the lake, to the soft sand at the bottom. She sat on the edge of the dock, then lowered herself into the water. She swam once around the cove and when she returned to her towel she felt cleansed and invigorated—born anew.

  Her cell phone was still ringing, or ringing again. How odd it was of Tess to call her now, after the deadline had passed. Tess was the type to move on without looking back. She dug in her bag and retrieved the phone. But it wasn’t Tess. It was Marcus. She felt a little jolt in her body when she saw his name on the screen, a little tremble of fear or anticipation.

  “Hello?” she said uncertainly.

  “Rachel! I’ve been calling you and calling you at work. I must have left you hundreds of voice mails.”

  “I’m not at work. I’m in Vermont.” A young mother arrived pulling two children in a little red wagon. Rachel felt resentment toward them, for disturbing her peace. Can’t you see, she wanted to say, that I am busy ruining my life? “Why are you calling me?” She tried to make her voice sound stern and uncompromising, but in reality it was such a relief to hear his voice that she felt that her legs could no longer support her. She sat.

  “Rach, the landlord called me.”

  “Why did the landlord call you?” Slowly the understanding began to dawn on her. There was another reason August first was important—not just Tess’s deadline. Away from the city, swaddled in the family home, fed home-cooked food, idly passing the days, playing Go Fish with Olivia, she had completely forgotten to pay the rent.

  “Shit,” she said softly. “Shit, shit.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” she said. “No, not okay.” Don’t cry, she said to herself. But she could hear the strangled quality to her voice.

  “Rachel?” It was something about the way Marcus said her name, and the question that dangled at the end of it, and the care she felt behind the question, that allowed it all to come out. She told! She told Marcus just as she’d told Lillian; in fact, it was as though that night in the kitchen had been a rehearsal for this, as though here, on the other end of the line, was her real audience.

  “Oh, Jesus, Rachel,” said Marcus at the end of it. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  In a small voice she said, “I don’t know. There didn’t seem to be any point. I just wanted to get away.”

  “Do you want me to come up there?”

  Yes, she thought. She said, “And do what?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever you want me to do.”

  Marry me, she thought. Take me away. “No,” she said. She thought of the full house, of her bunking situation with Olivia. Adding another person to the mix was hardly feasible. And besides, the worst of it had passed. Physically, she felt normal.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure.” She paused. “Unless—”

  “Unless what?” he said fervently.

  “Unless you want to talk again, about what we talked about before.”

  “Before?”

  “Before you moved out.”

  Silence. Then, “Oh, come on, Rach, we covered that.”

  “I know we did,” she whispered.

  “What? I can hardly hear you.”

  “I said, I know we did.”

  “So why are you bringing it up again now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Rachel—”

  “I know,” she said. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Rachel? Do you want me to come up, though, just to hang out?”

  She felt as though time had stopped. She felt as though she had just jumped off the dock and was waiting, suspended, to hit the water. “No,” she said, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to hear that. She had said it too softly. So she said it louder, more forcefully, in a voice strong enough to carry to the mother with the wagon, to carry over the glittering surface of the lake. “No,” she said. “No, Marcus, I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, okay, Rach, but figure out what you can do about the rent. Don’t get evicted.”

  “What do you care?” The words sounded more bitter than she meant them to.

  “I care! That’s a great apartment. And besides, I care.”

  “Okay,” she said. She closed the phone carefully. The mother unpacked the children and spread out a striped picnic blanket. The children ran down to the water and the mother sat cross-legged on the blanket, watching them. Rachel watched the mother watching the children, and then after a while she lay back on the towel, her face to the sun.

  Ginny knocked on Jane’s door. She had a fresh pitcher of water and a plate with fruit and crackers. She didn’t hear an answer so she entered slowly. She thought she would leave the food if Jane were sleeping. But Jane was not sleeping. She was sitting up in the bed, tapping away furiously on her BlackBerry, her concentration so complete that she didn’t look up. Ginny put the water and the fr
uit on the dresser and didn’t try to control the sharpness in her voice when she said, “What’s all this about?”

  Jane looked up. “What? Oh, Ginny!” She saw the fruit and the water. “Thank you. I’m famished.” She smiled uncertainly. “What’s all what about?”

  “The working. I thought you had some time off.”

  “Oh.” Jane looked back down and frowned. “Not really. No such thing. But.”

  “Jane.”

  Jane said nothing.

  Ginny walked to the window and adjusted the shade. “Jane. Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  Ginny thought that she must know already, that she was making Ginny spell it out for her. “Isn’t it time to lay off a little bit? Prepare yourself for what’s coming? This is so much more important.”

  “What are you saying, then?” said Jane with exaggerated politeness.

  Ginny felt her heart beat faster. The air in the bedroom seemed to grow thicker and warmer; she thought she might have trouble breathing. This is it, she told herself. It’s now or never. “I’m saying… well, I guess I’m saying that it seems to me that after the baby is born you’re going to be putting a lot on Stephen.” More quietly she said, “And I don’t like it.”

  So unexpected was what happened next, so out of character, that, thinking about it later, in the quiet of her bedroom, where Ginny retreated after, it seemed as though it might have been a scene from a bad television drama. Because Jane flung the BlackBerry away from her and across the bedroom, where the battery dislodged and lay prone. It seemed to Ginny that Jane might actually spit at her, but she did not.

  “If you must know,” said Jane. “If you must know, I am on the brink of losing my job.” Ginny opened her mouth to say something, but Jane held up her hand, stopping her. “So how does that sit with you? How does that make you feel about Stephen’s future, and the baby’s future?”

  Ginny breathed in sharply. It seemed as though time had stopped. She said, carefully, “Not really?”

  “Really. We all might. A lot us might. They say this isn’t the worst of it.”

  “The worst of what?” Ginny’s voice sounded hollow to herself. She stared into the plate of fruit. She felt her breath coming quickly.

  Jane pushed her hair back from her face and looked down. “Oh, it’s so complicated. It would take me hours to explain it all.”

  “Try me.”

  “No,” she said shortly. “I won’t. But I will say this. I have worked my whole life to get where I am. I worked like a dog, all through school, all through college. Business school. All of it. And I’m about to lose it all. And I don’t need you or anyone else telling me what I’m doing wrong. For God’s sake.”

  Carefully Ginny said, “Does Stephen know?”

  Jane looked squarely at her, and shifted in the bed. “Of course Stephen knows,” she said. “Do you think for a second that I would keep that from him?”

  Ginny felt a sting behind her eyelids. It was a feeling she remembered from long, long ago, from childhood, of trying not to cry in front of the class after some humiliation or slight. “No,” she said, trying to steady her voice. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Exactly,” said Jane. “So we are under enough pressure without anyone else adding to it. So thank you for the fruit, and thank you for the crackers, and thank you for the visit, if you can call it that, but I’d like to be alone right now.”

  Jane woke from a fitful nap to find an unfamiliar woman standing in the bedroom. At first she thought she was still dreaming; she mistook the woman, who had a mass of yellowish curls held back from her face with a tortoiseshell comb, for an angel. She thought, briefly, that if she was not dreaming then perhaps she had died. The midmorning sun coming in through the window was casting a golden glow in the room.

  Then she saw Stephen standing slightly behind the woman, like a shadow, and she knew she was neither dreaming nor dead.

  She rubbed at her eye and reached for her glasses on the bedside table; she had given up on her contact lenses weeks ago.

  “Sweetheart?” said Stephen. “This is Jackie. She’s a masseuse. She specializes in pregnancy massages.” He was beaming—proud, it was clear, of having arranged for this stranger to be here.

  “Hello,” said Jane slowly. Her throat was dry. Her eyes were dry. Her lips were dry. She squinted up at the woman. She was very tall, and very thin, though thin in the inverted triangular shape of a swimmer or a volleyball player. She looked disconcertingly strong, but there was something gentle about the shape of her face, and about the expression in her wide brown eyes.

  “Hello,” said Jackie. “Your husband here tells me you’ve been a bit down.”

  Jane glanced at Stephen. “Under the circumstances—”

  “Of course,” said Jackie. “And who wouldn’t be?” Her voice was soft and slightly accented, though Jane couldn’t place the accent. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, perhaps, but she didn’t know how (or if) that would account for all that golden hair.

  “So—” said Stephen. “Happy birthday.”

  “My birthday’s in October.” Jane pushed herself up on her elbows.

  “Happy Wednesday, then. Enjoy.” He stepped out from around Jackie to kiss Jane on the forehead, smiled quickly at both of them, and disappeared through the door.

  “He’s lovely,” said Jackie.

  “Yes,” said Jane reluctantly.

  “Really lovely. So sweet!”

  “I know,” said Jane. She looked steadily at the ceiling.

  “So,” Jackie said. “Before we get started, let’s talk a little bit about what’s bothering you the most.”

  “It’s all bothering me,” said Jane miserably. “The whole thing.”

  “Of course it’s extremely difficult, to be in your position.” Jackie looked at Jane expectantly, the way Jane’s mother sometimes looked at her if she’d had lots of sessions all in a row and forgot momentarily that Jane was her daughter and not a patient. “But what, specifically? It’s so much better for me to know the specifics.”

  “My hip,” said Jane. “This one.” She pointed to her left side. “I think I’m getting a bedsore.”

  “Surely not!” Jackie laughed merrily.

  “Like an aging animal. Animals get bedsores, don’t they?”

  “They do,” said Jackie. “Sometimes, I think. But we’re not going to let you get one.”

  “And also, my neck.”

  “Very common.”

  “And my back.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “Maybe it would be quicker if I told you what isn’t bothering me?”

  “Perhaps,” said Jackie. She smiled.

  Jane pondered this. Jackie had pulled out a CD from her bag and deposited it, without ceremony, into the CD player on the dresser. It began to play. Classical. Jane was pleasantly surprised; she had expected some sort of nature CD, with frogs and crickets.

  “You know what?” said Jane finally. “There’s nothing. There’s not one single thing that’s not bothering me. Bladder, elbows, eyeballs. All of it.”

  “That sounds terrible,” said Jackie, nodding. “All alone, in this little room—”

  “I know,” said Jane. “I mean, they visit me, but it’s more like… charity visits, you know? Or worse.”

  Jackie had her head down and was rummaging in an enormous black shoulder bag for something, which turned out to be a bottle of pinkish oil.

  “I sort of hate everyone right now. I feel extremely hateful. Can you fix that?”

  “Not specifically,” said Jackie. “But you know what masseuses say?”

  “What?”

  “Fix the body, and you’ve fixed the mind.” She rubbed the oil on her hands and Jane wondered, briefly, if the oil would stain the sheets and if that would upset Ginny. It seemed like the sort of thing that might upset Ginny.

  “Oh,” said Jane. “Well, I hope that’s true in my case. I feel like I’m feeding the baby negative thoughts through the
umbilical cord.”

  “No,” said Jackie. “I’m sure you’re not. They’re alarmingly resistant creatures, fetuses.”

  “I guess.”

  “Well,” said Jackie briskly, losing the smile and allowing her features to drop into an expression of professionalism and concentration. “Let’s get down to business. Why don’t you roll over on one side. I’ll start with your back.”

  “I’ve never had a massage before,” Jane confessed, still looking at the ceiling.

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Oh, massage is wonderful,” said Jackie. “One of the few pure pleasures there is. Absolutely undiluted.”

  “I’m all yours, then,” said Jane.

  As gracefully as she could manage, she rolled onto her right side and Jackie stepped around the bed to stand behind her.

  When Jane felt the pressure in her back, at first she thought Jackie had brought along some sort of instrument in the big black bag—a rolling pin was the first thing she thought of—but then she realized it was Jackie’s elbow she felt, and then the flat palm of her hand. She realized too that Jackie had located exactly the trouble spot on Jane’s back, as surely as if she had been given a map, and that as Jackie kneaded it and kneaded it the pain began to unknot slowly, to grow thinner and thinner, and then to disappear altogether.

  “Just relax into it,” said Jackie, and her voice sounded far away and softly muffled, as though it were coming from the ceiling or the closet. “Breathe right through.”

  So Jane breathed. She listened to the classical music, and she tried to pick out each particular instrument: the violins, the flute and the oboe, the tuba.

  She imagined the baby, floating in the amniotic fluid, little fists raised to little ears.

  She felt, for the first time in weeks—as she dropped off to sleep, she thought it was actually possible that it was the first time in her entire life— that she was in good hands.

  Lillian met Heather at a nearly empty bar downtown. It was a Monday night. At the far end of the bar a couple of college girls were drinking something pink out of martini glasses. The bartender was studiously wiping down the bar with a white cloth. Heather had ordered a beer and was examining her cell phone, pressing buttons.