The Sabbathday River

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  “How sweet,” she said caustically. “You’re worried I’ll lose my many dear friends in Goddard.”

  “I’m not worried,” Erroll said. “But I want to know right away if anyone does say anything to you.”

  “Well, I’m not worried either,” she said. “Christ, what paragons of virtue!” Naomi rolled her eyes. “Listen, anyone who could turn on a little girl like Polly who never hurt anyone, they don’t deserve to have me for a friend!” She looked back at Erroll.

  “You call me any time, Naomi. All right?”

  “Sure,” she said. He started his car and drove back down the lane. She stood for what seemed a long time, watching him go, and numbly unbalanced by this confirmation of how completely she was alone. The first drops of rain fell on her, hitting the part in her hair. Naomi looked up into roiling skies. She got into her car.

  The engine rumbled to life. She swung the wagon in a backward arc, her arm behind the headrest of the passenger seat, her neck craning to the rear. Through the slats of the crib and the dirt of the rear window and the skein of falling rain, she took in the briefest glimpse of Heather’s back field, its long slope down. And then, with an unwelcome rush, it all came back to her: the jolt of cold metal pressed against her forehead, and Heather’s forehead pressed to the same metal, and her whisper. Naomi stopped, her foot on the brake, her hand about to shift. She shook her head. The very idea.

  “Oh, please,” she said, softly but unquestionably aloud. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Except that now she couldn’t not think about it. And what was there to think about, in any case? A mad girl’s fancy, the crazed, irrational hope of the guilty that some stray thing would show what was unalterably true to be, after all, unalterably false? It didn’t bear the smallest effort. And she was late, and now it was raining.

  “Shit,” Naomi said. This time her voice was not soft. She jerked back the ignition, furious, and got out of the car.

  In the three minutes of her indecision, the rain had grown strong and the sky virtually dark. She set off quickly, rounding the back of the house, intent on doing only a quick survey and setting this ridiculous uncertainty to rest. Uncertainty about what? She upbraided herself. That Heather had told the truth about a hill behind her house, and a pond at the foot of the hill? And if she had, so what? Because Naomi, mortal that she was, could not ever hope to make sense of the sad and tangled things in Heather’s mind, nor ease those things at all, so this—this crazy search for nothing—must be for something else. Would she feel worse or better if the pond was there? She didn’t care. She wanted to go home.

  It wasn’t there. Naomi stood at the top of the slope and peered into the rain. There was nothing at all, just a a kidney-shaped depression clogged with muddy water. Not a pond, by any means, or no more a pond than, say, the fire escape of her College Town apartment had been “The Riviera,” and yet that was what they had called it, she and Daniel and their housemates, stripping to the waist—herself along with the guys, because feminine modesty was inconsistent with feminism—and oiling themselves to attract the melanoma-rich waves of light. Local parlance, not serious. She squinted at the little place, its surface just discernibly pocking with rain. The pond.

  It’s small, she thought. As Heather had said. Naomi, unable not to go closer, went closer. With a curse for each step, she let the slope make it easy, her running shoes squelching the mud. It got bigger as she came near, but not much. Even up close, Naomi thought, it was a stretch to call this anything but “the puddle” or “the mud hole.” The red herring! She chided herself. Or the clothes on the emperor who happened to be naked. My personal waste of time.

  All right, so it was a little pond—big deal. A rectangle of thick water, but tapering at the end nearer her, like a love seat built to stick out of a corner. At its edge were three stones, each the size of a human head, but tipped over, as if the eyes were looking down into the muddy ground. It looked unsavory, a bathtub promising only additional filth, a sorry little landmark. Naomi turned back to the house and was surprised by how far up it seemed, how steep and high above her.

  So Heather had told the truth, she mused, and Naomi was glad to know it. This, it seemed to her, was ample payback for having had to come down here: the girl was not so mad her madness was unanchored by truth. And yet, really, Naomi knew that much already. So what was gained by this? And how could she go back now and feel that she had settled anything at all? The pond before her, pebbled by rain, had given up nothing but its existence.

  Because—now, honestly—it had to have happened as Heather finally admitted. There weren’t other possibilities, and even Nelson had understood that Heather somehow preferred to think of her baby here, in this filthy water, than zipped into a body bag in a Peytonville freezer. How surprising! Naomi thought, staring glumly into the pond.

  But, then again, why down there and not some other place? Why not—she looked around—underneath those trees, or farther across the field where the Sabbathday was edged in stones? She pushed back wet hair from her forehead and noted, for the first time, how cold she was and her sweater wet through in the sleeves. She wanted fiercely to leave, but by now it was clear what had to be done before that could happen.

  There was a bubble, as from a frog.

  It amazed her how quickly her heart clutched. She nearly wept.

  Leaning forward, still crouched but bracing one hand on the largest rock, she touched that place where the bubble had come and spattered and made the surface break in circles.

  It was like reaching through mirrors, or the arm that rises out of water to catch Excalibur, or the flailing arm—not waving but drowning, as she’d read, long before, in a poem. There was nothing down there at all.

  She thought this, even as her finger touched a finger.

  Naomi jerked, slipping. The hand braced behind her came off the rock and slapped mud. The ground was soft, unclean but forgiving. The hand before her dripped black water over the little pond, the fingers clawed and stiff, nearly touching their own reflections. She was shouting, but the rain took her voice away, and Naomi was glad. She didn’t really want to hear what she had to say.

  Because she knew, now that all the worst things were here, even at her feet, though just past sight. All the unspeakable things, the ones you must turn your thoughts from at any cost: the children in the robes of Scrooge’s second ghost, the children in the cattle cars, calling out in racked unison for a myriad of lost mothers, the child lost by accident in an unforgiving instant, the child supine beneath his father’s raised hand. The pain at the center of the universe. She reached out again, bending forward, slipping on a deep glove of water. Her hand touched a tiny hand, reaching up. Her elbow wet, the sleeve, up to the shoulder now. She smelled drenched wool. Not this, Naomi thought. A muddy branch, the most repellent animal, a water snake pretending to sleep: make it anything but this!

  But it could only ever be the thing it was. It was innocent of everything, that included. It had not made itself. It had not put itself here.

  She thought of how Daniel had run behind her in the Sabbathday River, shouting for God and denying it after. She would not deny it, Naomi thought, frantic. If only it could not be this, she would never deny it.

  “Oh, please!” she shouted, looking up, in case God was there, after all. But if he was, she could never stop despising him now.

  For one final moment she waited, holding its hand in a place she couldn’t see. And then she drew it up—so weightless, even rooted by the fallen parachute that trailed behind—into the world of air, the rain, the day with no more light: this fragile thing, this glacial thing. The second baby.

  Chapter 25

  Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

  WHEN POLLY NAVIGATED THE RIM OF HER CRIB and dropped to the floor, Naomi woke up with a shudder. She hadn’t been quite asleep, anyway, only lying on top of her bed in a kind of wrung, exhausted inertia. Because, on top of surrogate motherhood—which was utterly depleting—and the bleak offen
sive of her depression-in-progress, the phone had been ringing and ringing for days.

  She picked Polly up and put her under the covers. The little girl seemed reluctant to rest, but Naomi didn’t mind. 6 a.m. or not, neither was likely to fall back asleep, and entertaining Polly was an excellent way not to think about what had happened. She was amazed by Polly, anyway, and thrilled by the girl’s total acceptance of her. Was it possible that she had no memory of Heather? Naomi tried to remember the earliest things in her own life, but could go no further back than the playground on the roof of the Ethical Culture Society building on the West Side of Manhattan. She’d been four then, Naomi marveled—everything before that was lost to a kind of narcoleptic swirl. Polly, who had reached her arms around Naomi’s neck when Naomi had come to collect her at Mrs. Horgan’s, who had calmly lifted her arms and waited for Naomi to figure out the car seat and strap her in, seemed to begin her little life anew with each hour, placid and accepting. Naomi, who thought occasionally that she really ought to hold back in these matters, that her role was to care for without, particularly, caring, could help herself less and less from giving the little girl random hugs. She loved her. Already, she loved her.

  She was amazed by what Polly could do—make the sound of a boat in the bath, roll a rubber ball under her palm. She was amazed by the specifics of Polly’s taste, her willingness to eat applesauce but not apples, and small pieces of pasta but never spaghetti or linguine. An able walker, Polly only seldom bumped a table, and Naomi had quickly consigned to the annex—her only Polly-free zone—any object in her possession which might hurt the toddler.

  She was capable at this, which was perhaps the most amazing thing of all. Naomi’s arms, after the first or second try, knew how to lift Polly up, and her hip knew how to lean itself between Polly’s legs, balancing her with one arm to keep the other free. She walked around this way, making tea and stirring it until it was chilly, washing Polly’s dishes and setting them in the rack. She hadn’t left the house, of course, and after the first couple of days the tape of her answering machine had filled and refused to even listen to subsequent callers. She’d stood, one evening, with Polly asleep in her own bedroom, cutting off each message as soon as she got the gist.

  “It’s Nelson. I wanted to let you know they’ve taken it to Peytonville. Naomi, I know how you must—”

  “Naomi? It’s Judith. Listen, I heard—”

  “Yeah, Boston Globe. The number is—”

  “Ms. Roth? My name is Chris Fahland at The New York T—”

  “Naomi, please, call Judith.”

  “This is Sarah Copley. My God, we don’t know what—”

  “Yeah, Boston Globe. I’m on a deadline here. I need—”

  She only vaguely listened, hearing the voices as a kind of filler between strident beeps. There were too many people out there, anyway, and she was really happy just to stay here with Polly. There was plenty of food, and everything was interesting. Out there, she thought grimly, there might only be more babies to find.

  For a week they didn’t come. They left her alone. But late one afternoon she heard the rumble of a car turning down her steep drive. With a sinking heart, she took Polly on her hip and went to the door. It was Judith.

  “Shit,” she said, climbing out the driver’s side door and reaching back in for her bag. “I’ve been calling you for days. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  “Sorry,” Naomi said. “I just couldn’t talk about it.”

  “I’m not surprised. Jesus, what a hell of a thing.” They stood looking at each other. Judith’s hair was wedged ineffectually behind her ears, the kinks and curls freeing themselves. One earring, like a small silver spoon hammered flat, was dangling flat against her hair. The other, its fork mate, was tangled in strands of hair. Naomi felt herself stare at it. She felt it sting when she moved her own head. Finally, Judith said, “Look, can I come in? I won’t stay long.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Naomi. “I’m sorry. I’m very rude.”

  “You’re not at all.” She walked into the living room and surveyed the impact of Polly. “Naomi, God, what an ordeal for you.”

  Naomi promptly burst into tears, which very much surprised her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Judith put her arms around her. “Don’t be. It’s all right.”

  “I’m sorry!” Naomi said again, weeping. Polly wriggled and Naomi put her down.

  “So this is Heather’s daughter?”

  “Polly,” Naomi said. “She’s doing well. Come on, I’ll make tea.”

  There was a shelf of herbals. Naomi put on the kettle while Judith prowled around. “Your choice,” Naomi said.

  “To tell you the truth,” said Judith, “I never really liked herbal tea. I know it’s awful, but do you have any Lipton?”

  “Shock and horror!” Naomi laughed. When she heard herself laugh, she smiled. They settled on Constant Comment.

  “We used to call this Constant Commie in college.” Judith smelled, entranced by nostalgia.

  “So did we! I thought we invented that.”

  “Maybe there are no original ideas, after all.” The bag was more of a briefcase, Naomi noticed. She frowned at this.

  “Are you coming from work?”

  “Yes. I need to talk to you about all this.”

  Naomi looked at her. She did not want to hope that this meant what it suddenly seemed it might mean.

  “Have you seen Heather?” she asked instead.

  “Yesterday afternoon. She’s overjoyed. She wants to come home.” Judith sipped her tea. “It should be that simple, but it won’t be.”

  “All right,” Naomi said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Well, it’s perfectly clear to everyone at my office what happened. Heather had her baby just as she told you—by herself, outside. The baby didn’t live, and she panicked and threw it, and the afterbirth, in the little pond. Well, she called it a pond. I haven’t been out there yet.”

  She paused to sip her tea. Naomi waited.

  “Obviously, she was tremendously guilty about this, so when they arrested her it wasn’t difficult to get her to admit to anything. Maybe she even thought there was some bizarre way that was her baby in the river. I don’t know. Guilt is powerful. We’d all crack under that kind of pressure, I’m sure. But the key is that she asked for a lawyer. At least twice, she says. And they wouldn’t let her see one. The interrogation should have stopped right there, so everything afterward shouldn’t be admissible. Only of course Charter denies that she asked for a lawyer, and he says there’s no mention of it in his notes. How surprising!” Judith laughed grimly. “Also, she offered to bring them to the pond herself, and they weren’t interested in that, either. So that could have ended it, too. And finally, Heather says they basically told her she’d never get Polly back if she didn’t confess, which is,” Judith said viciously, “absolutely reprehensible.”

  “Judith,” Naomi said, very carefully, “does this mean you’re going to be Heather’s attorney?”

  Judith turned to her. “But I told you already. In my message.”

  “I didn’t listen.” Her heart leaped. “Oh, I’m so glad! But what made you change your mind?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t stand what was happening to this girl. I mean, who knows what she did, but it’s clear as hell what she didn’t do. And she still doesn’t know what hit her. It’s incredible—she has very little grasp of the situation. She needs someone looking out for her.”

  Naomi nodded. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. She thought she might not be able to contain her gratitude.

  “Now, anytime you have a confession to a crime the person didn’t commit, you have the potential for a lawsuit, so that’s a powerful lever here. I haven’t been to see Charter yet, but I won’t hesitate to threaten him if he doesn’t back down. It might not happen as quickly as any of us would like, but I don’t see how else he can possibly deal with this. I mean, what’s he going to say, she killed bo
th of them?”

  “And they won’t just sort of switch it around and charge her with killing the second baby?”

  Judith shook her head. “They can’t. The second baby had no puncture wound. Charter might like to just take her confession and edit it to fit the second baby, he’s not going to be able to do it.” She smiled tightly. “It’ll work out.”

  Polly waddled up to Naomi and Naomi went to find crackers for her. She put the baby on her lap and they watched her eat.

  “She’s sweet,” Judith observed, but she said it flatly, without warmth.

  “Yes. But I’ll be happy to give her back if this can get settled soon. Oh, Judith, I really can’t thank you enough.”

  “But it’s my job!” Judith laughed. “And anyway, when that second baby turned up, the couple of guys who wanted the case were totally freaked out. I was just about the only one still functional on the issue. Because I can’t stand the way they blame, you see? And always a woman. You didn’t see them running around questioning men, did you? They just picked up on this girl because she’d had some problems and done this appalling thing by having a baby with a married man, and so they hauled her in and manipulated her and threatened her until she would have admitted to sinking the Titanic.” Judith shook her head. “I find this personally offensive, Naomi. I consider myself responsible for righting this. On Heather’s behalf, but also on ours. You see?”

  Naomi, who didn’t quite, nodded anyway.

  “But what about your … family thing?” she said. “I thought you said you couldn’t take on a big case.”

  “Well, with luck”—Judith smiled—“this won’t be a big case. I’m going to see Mr. Wonderful on Monday. Give it a week or two for red tape and we can all get back to normal.” She drained the end of her tea. “You, too.”