The Arrivals: A Novel

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  Stephen called back and Ginny’s heart tumbled, hearing his voice. “You and Rachel stay there,” he said, “but Jane is asking for Lillian. Can you send Lillian?”

  Ginny put the phone down carefully on the counter and called Lillian’s name. Once, twice. “I don’t know where she is,” she told Stephen. “Try her cell, or I’ll send her when I find her.”

  Ginny lay down on her bed, on top of the comforter, and looked up at the ceiling. Then she closed her eyes, but the images she saw on her eyelids were brightly colored and bizarre—little pieces of confetti dancing around—and that was more disturbing than looking at the ceiling, so she opened them again. Send Lillian, Stephen had said. Lillian, Lillian, and not her. She tried not to be hurt by that, but she was.

  She thought back to the births of her own children. Decades ago now, so far in the past that the specific sensations were buried in a subterranean section of her memory that she couldn’t seem to access. Had she been scared? Certainly she had been, but she couldn’t remember now what that fear felt like. She remembered a certain brightness in Lillian’s eyes, the way they snapped open and looked at her. She remembered the first time Stephen fell asleep in her arms, and the abandon with which his arms fell back from his body. She remembered the thick black hair on Rachel’s head, and how that had frightened her, until the nurse explained that that would most likely fall out and be replaced by hair that was softer and lighter. But specifically? The actual act of having them, the actual moment of childbirth? She didn’t remember. How was it that she didn’t remember?

  Philip, who had been sleeping in the Pack ’n Play downstairs, let out a wail, long and low, and Ginny blinked a few times, preparing herself to get up and tend to him. But then Rachel called up the stairs, “I’ll get him, Mom. I’ll take him for a walk.” Then she closed her eyes again, and this time she slept.

  She must have fallen deeply asleep because when she heard the doorbell ringing it took her some time to pull herself wholly back into consciousness. She went to the window and did not immediately recognize the man who stood on the doorstep, his back to the door, rubbing one sneakered foot into the cement.

  Of course she should have recognized him, but some trick of mind and vision and context played out in front of her all at once—the way, say, as a child you do not immediately recognize your fourth-grade teacher if you happen to see her at the supermarket, poking through the bin of day-old baked goods—and it took several seconds for his identity to take shape.

  “Tom?” she said, opening the door, startling him so that he turned around and struggled to arrange his face into an appropriate expression. “Tom?”

  They sat at the kitchen table and Ginny poured them both glasses of iced tea. Tom drank his quickly, gratefully, like a man who hadn’t had a drink in two weeks. He looked around the kitchen expectantly, as though at any minute Lillian might emerge from a cupboard or from the deli drawer inside the refrigerator.

  “She’s not here,” Ginny said finally. “So you can stop searching. She went off somewhere, I’m not sure where. And Olivia and Philip aren’t here either. They went for a walk with Rachel.”

  Tom rubbed his finger on the glass. He picked the lemon slice out of it and placed it on the table beside him. Finally he looked steadily at Ginny.

  “I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll sit here forever.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.”

  Ginny rose, and gathered both of their glasses. From the sink, not looking at Tom, she said, “I could kill you.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean really and truly. I could kill you.”

  “Yes.”

  “For hurting my little girl.”

  “I know.”

  There was a thick and uncertain silence, and finally Tom said slowly, “You’ve never made mistakes, you and William?”

  “Not that kind,” said Ginny sharply. “Certainly not that kind.”

  “I know.” Tom looked down. “I believe that.”

  “But you did.”

  “I did. But I’m here, hat in hand.”

  “Yes,” Ginny conceded. “I guess that’s true. But it took you long enough.”

  “She wouldn’t let me come! She would barely stay on the phone with me. I thought if I gave her time…”

  Minutes passed. They could hear, from down the street, a child yelling in a yard, then the ting ting of a bicycle bell. Ginny wiped the counters carefully, then straightened the dish towels on the handle of the oven door. Tom remained seated.

  Finally she regained her seat across the table from him and said, softly, “You must miss the children.”

  “If I think about them too much,” said Tom, looking at his hands, “I am going to lose it.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” said Ginny. “They’ll be back soon enough.” Tom said nothing, so Ginny continued. “You’re all she has, you know. You’re what she has.”

  “I know,” said Tom, blinking hard, giving Ginny a pained look.

  “You did something so idiotic. So stupid, Tom.”

  “I know.”

  “You have to make it right.”

  “She’s all I have too. She’s everything. She’s what I’m missing.”

  “So you have to make it right.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “I know I do.”

  “Go away for a while and come back later. I want to talk to Lillian first, when she gets back.”

  “I don’t know if I can stand to leave—”

  “Then stay,” said Ginny firmly. “But let me talk to Lillian first. I’m going to the hospital. I’m sure that’s where she went. And I don’t care what anyone says, I am going to be there when my grandchild is born. When Rachel gets back with the children you can have some time with them. And then we’ll figure out the rest of it.”

  She was already in the car and about to pull out of the driveway when she saw Rachel walking down the sidewalk, wearing Philip in the BabyBjörn. Ginny watched as Rachel dipped her face down to kiss the top of Philip’s bobbing head, and the gesture was so unconscious, so natural, that some trick of mind or light allowed Ginny to think for a split second that it was Lillian, not Rachel, that she was looking at. Babies, she thought. She’s almost ready for her own babies.

  But something was wrong with the picture, and it took her a few seconds to work out exactly what it was. When she did, she turned off the car and leaped out of the seat. “Rachel!” she screamed. “Rachel, where’s Olivia?”

  Rachel stopped short. “Olivia? I never took Olivia. I just took Philip.”

  “I thought you said you were taking them for a walk.”

  “No! Him. I said I was taking him. Philip. She must be in the house.”

  Ginny felt something twist in her stomach or her heart. “No. That’s impossible. Tom’s here. She would have heard him. She would have come running.”

  “Then she must’ve gone with Lillian.”

  “She must have,” said Ginny, and even as she said it she was running toward the house and into the kitchen, grabbing the phone from its cradle, dialing Lillian’s cell phone number.

  “She’s not picking up,” Ginny said frantically. They heard the downstairs toilet flush and Tom emerged from the bathroom. His gaze took in Rachel and Philip, and he made a move toward Rachel and held out his arms for the baby. Rachel began to undo the straps on the Björn, and Philip kicked his feet and waved his arms. Ginny hung up the phone and redialed. “She’s not picking up,” she said again.

  “I’m sure Olivia’s with her,” said Rachel uncertainly.

  “What do you mean?” said Tom, nuzzling his face into Philip’s neck. “Olivia’s where? What’s going on?”

  “She’s got to be,” said Rachel. “Where else could she be?”

  Ginny’s heartbeat picked up rhythm; her palms felt warm against the phone. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t think she’s with Lillian.”

  Rachel said, “Mom,” and Ginny held up a hand to stop her from
saying anything more.

  “What’s going on?” said Tom again, but Ginny, who was dialing the number again, didn’t answer.

  “The doctor will be coming in to check your progress,” said the nurse. She lifted Jane’s head and gently repositioned the pillow under her. Another contraction came and Jane gasped and arched her back. The nurse held Jane’s hand and watched her steadily.

  “And then?” said Stephen.

  The nurse put her hands on her hips and considered Jane. “Well, that depends. If the doctor is happy with how she’s progressing, then we keep going like this, until we get a baby.”

  “And if she’s not?”

  “Then we consider the possibility of a C-section. Because of the placental issues, that’s certainly not out of the question.”

  Jane let out a noise that she had never heard before. It seemed not to have come from a human being, this noise, and yet it had: it had come from her.

  The doctor came in and pulled on latex gloves. “Hello!” she said brightly, maybe familiarly. There was something comforting about her short gray hair, and the wisdom and experience it implied. Jane couldn’t remember if she had met her at one of the appointments. They had melted together, the faces and voices of all of them, into one bunch, the shadow of the long, hot summer. How long had they been in Burlington, she and Stephen? It seemed that they had lived there forever, that they might never leave. But what was the doctor doing—“Jesus Christ,” Jane said, loudly, because it was hard to know what was the worse, the contractions or the doctor’s examination—and what was she saying?

  “She’s progressing,” she said to Stephen. “But I’m not as happy as I’d like to be with the fetal heart rate. We’re not going to do this much longer.”

  Jane heard herself say, “No!”

  “Janey, we have to listen to the doctor.”

  “No. I want to deliver naturally. Please, Stephen? You have to tell them—”

  Then the pain took over, and she felt it swirl around her and envelop her; she felt as if she were falling into a long, dark well of pain. The contraction eased, and she was so relieved to feel normal again that she took in great big gulps of air and opened her eyes to see Lillian in the doorway. “Tell her to come in,” she mumbled to Stephen, and that’s all she got out before the next contraction began.

  Lillian moved Stephen out of the way and took Jane’s hand. Her hand was cooler than Stephen’s had been, and she swept the hair back from Jane’s forehead. “It’s terrible, I know,” she whispered. “It’s awful. But it’s temporary. Everything is temporary.”

  She heard Stephen say, “She doesn’t want the C-section.”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” said Lillian. “Who would?”

  “The doctor said—”

  “I know,” said Lillian. “The doctor knows what she’s doing. They won’t let it go too long.”

  Lillian took a cloth from the nurse and laid it on Jane’s forehead. “You can do this,” she said. “I know you can. But when they say it’s time to stop, you need to listen. You’ve got to do what’s right for the baby.”

  When Lillian left the room she saw Rachel and William and Ginny standing in the hallway, talking intently.

  “Wait,” said Lillian, and they all turned toward her. “If you’re here, Rach, and Dad’s here, and Mom’s here… where’s Olivia? Where’s Philip?”

  William stepped up and took her arm. “Philip is with Tom. At the house.”

  Lillian looked around wildly. “Tom? At the house?”

  “But Olivia—”

  “Tom?” said Lillian again, not hearing him. “Tom is at the house? What’s going on?”

  “Listen,” said William sharply. “Tom is at the house. Philip is with him. We thought Olivia came with you, but now we see that she didn’t.”

  “So where is she?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out,” said William, and it was when Lillian saw the fear in his face that she began to get scared herself. She couldn’t remember, later, when she tried to, if she’d ever seen her father look so frightened.

  “She’s got to be at the house,” said Lillian. “Did you call for her?”

  “Of course we called for her,” said Rachel. “We called, we screamed, we looked everywhere.”

  “Well, you must not have looked hard enough,” said Lillian, and she was off down the hospital hallway, thinking about how she’d said those terrible things to Olivia in the car, and thinking about her daughter’s small bewildered face, so hurt and confused, and about the way she could have made things right with her little girl but hadn’t.

  “Push,” said the nurse, “we’re getting close.” And Jane had only a second to think how like television this was, except that on television the mothers-to-be looked brave and serene while she felt as if the entire inside of her body had been ripped open and laid out, raw and exposed, for everyone to see. But she didn’t care who saw! She didn’t care about anything, except whether or not the pain was ever going to stop. “On the next contraction,” said the nurse, “push like there’s no tomorrow.”

  So Jane pushed. With everything in her, she pushed. “Ah,” said the nurse. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  William and Rachel caught up with Lillian in the parking garage, and William gently worked the keys out of her hands. “Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m driving.” It was torture for all of them waiting in the line to pay the parking attendant, and torture again making their slow way down Shelburne Road, where every stoplight seemed to turn red just before they reached it.

  Finally they arrived at the house, where Tom stood in the front yard, talking to a police officer and holding Philip over one shoulder. A police cruiser sat in the driveway, no light or sirens on. Lillian thought, Why no sirens? This is a goddamn emergency.

  “Oh, Tom,” she said, and she collapsed into him. Tom handed Philip to Rachel and put his arms around Lillian. The police officer, making notes on his pad, looked up briefly and then back down. “What do we do?” Lillian said, looking frantically from the police officer to Tom and back again. “How do we find her? How do we put out one of those AMBER Alerts? What do we do?”

  “Well,” said the police officer, and Lillian noticed a birthmark above his temple. Philip, in Rachel’s arms, started to cry.

  “I can’t nurse him now,” said Lillian, not turning around. “Give him a bottle, somebody give him a bottle.”

  “These things,” said the police officer, “often turn out to be nothing. A misunderstanding, that sort of thing.”

  “No,” said Lillian.

  “Lillian,” said Tom.

  “First off,” said the police officer, “I need to know what she’s wearing.”

  Rachel and William and Tom and the police officer all looked at Lillian. “She’s wearing…” She couldn’t remember! She couldn’t remember. She thought about looking at Olivia in the rearview mirror as she drove home from Shaw’s. She thought about earlier, in the grocery store, when she rushed her down the milk aisle. Hurry up, she’d told her. Why had she been so impatient with her? What was the rush? What was she wearing? The red dress with the hearts on it? No, that was the day before. The green “Montreal Love Bug” T-shirt William and Ginny brought her after their weekend there in the spring? No, she had put that in the hamper two days ago.

  “I think it was a pink shirt—” ventured Rachel.

  “No,” said Lillian. “No. Not a pink shirt.” When she pictured the view from the rearview mirror again she thought she saw yellow. She said, “Just let me think.” She thought about that morning at breakfast, Olivia dripping yogurt onto the counter. Lillian had snapped at her for that too. She had been wearing her Tinker Bell nightgown. Lillian hadn’t gotten her dressed. Who had?

  “Who got her dressed today?” she asked.

  “Not me,” said Rachel. “I think she dressed herself.”

  “She dressed herself?” When they had arrived in Vermont in June, Olivia didn’t pick out her own clothes, didn’
t get dressed without a series of nudges and prods. When had she become so independent? This seemed significant suddenly to Lillian, significant and heartbreaking, this detail of Olivia’s self-sufficiency.

  “That’s okay,” said the police officer. “I’ll give you a moment.” He stepped away and continued making notes on his pad.

  “I don’t remember what she was wearing,” said Lillian. “I’m a terrible mother.”

  “Now, Lilly,” said William tenderly.

  “No, you don’t understand.” She looked at Tom, Rachel, all of them. “I was awful to her earlier. I said terrible things. She’s running away from me.” She turned toward the police officer. “Please find her. Please? You have to find her.”

  Ginny sat up straight on the plastic chair in the hospital hallway. She tried not to think; she tried to keep her mind perfectly empty. She concentrated on the scrubs of one of the nurses standing in her line of vision, and on the drops of blood along her hem. Blood! Whose? A messy business for sure, this childbearing. No wonder people died from it constantly in the olden days. No, she thought. Stop. Nobody’s dying here.

  Then the door to the labor and delivery room opened, and out came Stephen: sweating, gray, nearly limping, his hair plastered to his forehead, slumping onto a chair. But smiling! Smiling. Her son, the father.

  “She’s here,” he said, taking Ginny’s hand. “Baby Sarah. She’s arrived! She’s here.”

  When the phone rang, Lillian, who was holding it, answered. William and Rachel were out searching the neighborhood. She could hear them calling: “O-LIV-I-A! O-LIV-I-A!” And each time they called she felt her heart tear a little bit. Tom was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, feeding Philip a bottle. She knew she needed to remind him to burp Philip when he was halfway through. She thought he was letting too many bubbles into the bottle. But she didn’t say anything. She felt, somehow, that to take her attention from Olivia at all was to do wrong by her, would compromise the chances of finding her.