Lullaby and Goodnight

by Staub, Wendy Corsi

  She’d be back in Talbot Corners, having a baby the old-fashioned way.

  But here she is, in Manhattan, facing childbirth—and parenthood—entirely on her own.

  It’s your choice, she reminds herself, lifting her chin. You’re living your life on your terms. And now there’s no going back. Not that you want to. . . .

  But for Peyton Somerset, to whom control is key, the future suddenly seems uncertain.

  What if she loses her job now that—or because—she’s pregnant?

  How will she support herself and a child?

  Assuming she keeps her job, what if she can’t find decent child care?

  What if something happens to her baby?

  What if something happens to her, an only parent, after she has the baby?

  Stop it, Peyton. Since when do you doubt yourself, or your plans?

  Insecurity isn’t allowed. Period.

  “Well? Any questions, Mom?” asks Dr. Lombardo.

  Mom. Wow. She’s going to be somebody’s mom.

  “No,” Peyton says firmly, her head spinning. “No questions at all.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have some the minute you leave. Feel free to call the office any time, or you can e-mail us if that’s more convenient. We’re here for you, and we’re accustomed to patients who are going it alone.”

  “That’s good.” Because she certainly fits that bill. In fact, she’s never felt more alone in her life.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cordell?”

  Derry looks up from an outdated issue of Redbook she’s been pretending to read while chewing her fingernails down to nubs.

  Dr. Lombardo’s receptionist is beckoning.

  Beside her, Linden promptly gets to his feet and tosses aside a copy of Popular Mechanics or Popular Science or whatever it is that’s kept him utterly absorbed for the last twenty minutes. You’d think he’d be as agitated as she is. To Derry’s complete irritation, her husband seems utterly relaxed. He’s been relaxed ever since he found out that this visit is covered by their insurance plan.

  Linden, who always likes a bargain, didn’t even complain about coming up with the ten-dollar copay.

  “Ready?” he asks, and she nods.

  But of course she isn’t ready.

  Is any woman ever ready to find out why, after more than a year of trying to get pregnant, her period arrives as predictably as the Verizon bill every single month?

  Don’t worry, it’ll happen.

  Yeah, right. That’s easy for Derry’s mother to say; easy for her older sisters to say; for her friends to say. Things are different for all of them. Things are normal. They decided to have children, and they did.

  That’s how it’s supposed to work, but—

  “Derry?”

  She looks up at Linden.

  “Okay.” She stands and replaces the issue of Redbook on the cluttered table beside her chair. She takes a moment to straighten the table’s contents, to neatly align Redbook on top of the other magazines, telling herself that if she does it just right, everything will work out okay.

  Yes, if she makes sure all the edges of all the pages are lined up, then Dr. Lombardo will have good news for her.

  He’ll tell her that there’s no medical reason for her infertility. Or that there is, but he can give her a prescription and she’ll be good as new by tomorrow.

  Don’t you think tomorrow is a little unrealistic, Derry? These things take time.

  Yeah, no kidding. All right, then she’ll be good as new by next week. Or next month. The next time she and Linden try, conception will be guaranteed. Problem solved.

  “Mrs. Cordell?” The receptionist sounds concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She straightens and starts across the room.

  Of course I’m fine. I’m not sterile, or barren, or whatever it is they call women who can’t have babies.

  I have to be fine.

  Please, God, let me be fine.

  If I can make it to the door behind the reception desk in less than ten steps, Dr. Lombardo will tell me everything’s okay.

  She counts silently as she follows her husband across the waiting room, conscious of the other couples glancing at them as they pass.

  Some do so idly, then quickly go back to their magazines and newspapers and whispered conversations. Others seem more curious, or as anxious as Derry was, sitting there waiting. Especially the women.

  They’re the ones who are new to this, like we are, Derry tells herself. They’re thinking there’s hope, or they’ve just found out that there isn’t and they’re here to discuss further options . . .

  Whatever those are.

  Derry refuses to allow herself to think that far ahead.

  For one thing, she and Linden are flat broke. Much too broke to even consider further options. They’re already a month behind on their Co-op City mortgage. He’s been urging her to ask her parents or sisters back in California to help them, but she can’t do that. She isn’t particularly close to any of her family these days. Anyway, her parents are barely surviving on Social Security; her sisters have mortgages and bills of their own.

  Besides, potentially expensive medical options won’t be necessary for Derry and Linden unless the doctor says one of them is sterile.

  And that’s not going to happen.

  All those tests they took last week are going to show that there’s nothing wrong.

  After all, Derry made it to the doorway in only eight steps.

  So the doctor is going to say that there’s no reason she can’t get pregnant. That in a year, maybe less, she could be holding a newborn with her auburn hair and green eyes, or Linden’s blond hair and blue eyes, or perhaps a striking combination.

  That’s all she wants. A child all their own, a biological child with Cavanaugh and Cordell blood running through its veins. Is that too much to ask?

  “Right this way,” says a familiar, perpetually smiling nurse who greets them at the door with a clipboard and a manila folder in her hand. “How are you today, Mrs. Cordell?”

  “Fine,” Derry murmurs.

  In the corridor, an attractive woman with shoulder-length light brown hair slips past them on her way out of the dressing room adjacent to the examining room.

  She’s wearing an expensive-looking suit the same chestnut shade as her hair, and has a camel dress coat draped over the crook of one arm and a chic leather shoulder bag over the other.

  She’s the kind of woman Derry has always envied: tall, sleek, slender. Her shiny hair is tucked behind her ears in an effortless yet elegant style. She probably has a perfect manicure, and pedicure, too. Derry, whose nails are ragged from incessant biting and whose wavy tresses are caught back in a plastic banana clip, is just over five feet tall and perpetually carrying an extra twenty-five pounds.

  As the other woman passes, Derry does her best not to stare. Or glare.

  “Thanks again, Nancy,” the woman says over her shoulder to the nurse.

  “Congratulations again, Peyton,” the nurse replies, beaming.

  Congratulations? In this office, that can only mean one thing. The woman is pregnant.

  Derry is momentarily stilled by a fierce stab of jealousy as she stares after the retreating stranger in dismay.

  You should feel hopeful, not resentful, she chides herself. If she’s pregnant, you can get pregnant, too.

  But what if the woman paid a fortune for infertility treatments? She looks as though she can afford it. Derry, in five-dollar Kmart clearance sneakers and too-snug ten-year-old jeans, cannot.

  She shouldn’t even be here, really. Her regular ob-gyn is up in the Bronx, where she lives. But one of her neighbors recommended this fancy Manhattan doctor, saying that if it weren’t for him, her daughter couldn’t have given her three grandchildren.

  Derry would like nothing more than to give her aging mother three grandchildren. Then perhaps they could find the common ground that has eluded their relationship, particularly since Derry moved across the
country against her parents’ wishes.

  “Right in here,” the nurse says pleasantly, indicating an empty examination room.

  “Thanks, Nancy.” Derry nods, as though she and Dr. Lombardo’s nurse have always been on a first-name basis when in reality, she never even paid attention to the woman’s name tag in the past.

  You should be more aware of things like that from now on, she tells herself.

  Not that being casually friendly with the fertility specialist’s staff has any bearing on whether or not she’ll eventually find herself on the receiving end of pregnancy congratulations. But it can’t hurt, right?

  Linden steps back to allow Derry to step over the threshold ahead of him.

  She’s careful to do it with her right foot.

  Yes, if she steps over the threshold with her right foot, everything will be all right.

  Out on the street, Peyton is greeted by a burst of icy air. Overhead, the midtown skyscrapers are outlined against a pastel blue backdrop, milky February sunshine cascading down between them to cast her lanky shadow on the dry concrete sidewalk.

  She smiles at the notion of how drastically that silhouette is going to change in the coming months. Glancing down at her stomach as she buttons her long cashmere coat over it, she imagines that it’s the tiniest bit swollen. She knows it isn’t, not yet. But soon enough, it will be.

  A man in a trench coat brushes by her, jostling her slightly with his briefcase. Peyton’s arms automatically cross in front of her, shielding her midsection and its precious cargo. In that momentary instinct, she grasps the scope of the tremendous responsibility that awaits.

  Another human life is in her hands. Forever.

  How can she do this alone?

  Too late to turn back now, she reminds herself, reclaiming her staunch Somerset mentality. And you can do it. Plenty of people do it, these days.

  Single motherhood may still bear a stigma back home in the Midwest, but it’s become commonplace—almost trendy—here in the city, not to mention in the media.

  Reassured for the time being, Peyton checks her watch, then looks around for a vacant taxi. The only yellow cab in the immediate vicinity is occupied and trying to back its way out of a turn down East Fifty-second Street, and no wonder. The block is clogged with traffic, funneled down to one lane at the corner because of construction. Jackhammers vibrate, car horns blare, pedestrians jaywalk, bike messengers weave in and out . . . typical midtown midday pandemonium.

  There are times when she inexplicably longs for small-town Kansas, wondering why she ever traded serenity for chaos. But that always passes quickly.

  Especially today, she thinks, absently watching the hapless yellow cab attempting to retreat to the avenue. Nothing is going to burst her bubble today.

  Peyton is happy to be right where she is, just as she is, Kansas and her past a mere speck in a rearview mirror she rarely bothers to check.

  And that, Peyton tells herself, again resisting a strange pang of foreboding, is just as it should be.

  Startled by the sudden screeching of tires and the discordant clash of metal against metal, she looks up to see that the cab has backed into another car. Both drivers are already out in the street, shouting at each other in two different languages, neither of them intelligible.

  So much for not checking the rearview mirror, Peyton tells herself with a wry shake of her head as she heads on down the block on foot.

  Anne Marie Egerton would kill to have a nanny on days like this.

  Or at least, to have a husband who isn’t currently somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, flying off to London—again—on business.

  Since the second option is out of the question, she collapses into the nearest kitchen chair and briefly considers the first.

  Again.

  Jarrett has been telling her for months to hire somebody to help her with the boys. He doesn’t understand why she won’t. Money certainly isn’t an issue. His latest promotion has pretty much guaranteed that money will never be an issue for them.

  Not that it ever was.

  It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one.

  Grandma was right about that. As for the rich man falling in love with Anne Marie in return . . . well, she’s always been certain that her Italian grandmother had a hand in that. There’s no doubt in Anne Marie’s mind that Grace DeMario is as controlling in death as she was in life, a celestial puppeteer. That would certainly be her idea of heaven.

  This—being married to Jarrett Egerton III, the mother of his children, living in Bedford, wearing the finest designer clothes and Italian leather shoes—would have been Anne Marie’s idea of heaven, at least in theory.

  She ruefully remembers another of her grandmother’s favorite sayings.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  She takes a deep breath to steady her nerves, gazing out the tall, arched window at the sunken brick terrace and the barren white trellises of her landscaped rose garden beyond. The New York winter has been harsher than usual. It’s hard to remember the lush foliage and fragrant blossoms that have been replaced by clumps of brown, thorny stalks.

  But the roses will come again. They always do, if you wait long enough.

  Anne Marie forces her weary body up out of the chair.

  “Mommy’s coming, boys,” she calls, picking up a tray that holds three individual portions of applesauce, three pieces of buttered toast, three sippy cups filled with whole milk, three napkins, three spoons.

  Three.

  Three of everything.

  All for a trio of three-year-olds who almost didn’t make it.

  Stepping into the breakfast room, Anne Marie smiles cheerfully at her noisy sons, who are seated at a small table parked directly in front of the enormous, wall-mounted plasma television. The Wiggles video she turned on before she left the room mere moments ago only adds to the cacophony.

  “All right, guys, snack time,” she chirps above the din, and begins handing out cups and spoons.

  In a matter of minutes, the floor is littered with crumbs, a puddle of spilled milk is seeping dangerously close to the imported wool area rug, and the boys are wearing most of their applesauce, clamoring for more.

  Anne Marie surveys the mess with a weary sigh.

  This is heaven?

  She smiles. It is. It really is.

  This is heaven.

  If anybody knows that, she does.

  Because if anybody has ever truly been to hell, it’s Anne Marie Egerton.

  Falling into step in the throng of scurrying New Yorkers, Peyton shoulders her way to the corner of East Fifty-second and Lexington, then turns down the avenue toward Grand Central Station and the subway. If the 6 train is running without delays, she might be back at her desk thirty blocks away before Tara notices she’s taken a two-hour lunch.

  She suspects she might be doing that fairly often in the months to come. With any luck, her boss will understand and bear with her. In fact, maybe she should just march right in today and tell Tara she’s pregnant. Get it out in the open from the start.

  Then again, maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe that would be a big mistake.

  She’s set her sights on a promotion to management rep, aware that a spot will be vacant after Alain transfers back to the Paris office in April or May. Tara might be reluctant to offer it to Peyton if she suspects a maternity leave is looming.

  Having seen several of her childbearing female colleagues get passed over for promotions and perks, Peyton concludes that her best bet is to keep the pregnancy to herself for as long as she can. Nobody at work would ever suspect there’s a Mommy Track in her future.

  Just a few years ago, when she was still living in Talbot Corners, Peyton herself wouldn’t have imagined it, either. She had long since put aside her dreams of New York, of a high-powered career on Madison Avenue, of motherhood.

  She set them aside nearly two decades earlier, the moment her stepfather of five years, Douglas, died on the heels of her co
llege graduation.

  Realizing she couldn’t abandon the widowed mother who had raised her single-handedly, Peyton watched her childhood sweetheart head to the East Coast without her. For a while, she convinced herself that she might somehow still marry Gil Blaney and have his children. But while she was writing him long letters and sending her resume to every corporation within a hundred-mile radius of Talbot Corners, he was embarking on a Wall Street career—and on a relationship with the woman he would soon marry.

  Mercifully, the wedding was at a New York cathedral, rather than at the First Community Church of Talbot Corners, a stone’s throw from Peyton’s front porch swing.

  By then, Peyton was over him, anyway. She had found a job commuting to Eaton Brothers, a Kansas City packaged goods company, where she eventually worked her way from an entry-level position in shipping to marketing and finally, to product manager.

  All that time, she was oblivious of the silent ticking of her biological clock. But somehow, she turned into a time bomb on her thirty-seventh birthday—which happened to coincide with a broken engagement, her second since Gil left.

  Three shattered relationships. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be married.

  Looking back, Scott, who followed Gil, was all wrong for her. He was older, somewhat arrogant, and far too controlling for her. She got cold feet, and it was a good thing. She would never have been happy as Scott’s wife.

  But with Jeff, who came later, she was head over heels in love. Who wouldn’t be? He was a former NFL running back, the pride of Topeka. Everyone in Talbot Corners knew who he was; everyone was thrilled that a hometown girl had landed a Kansas hero like Jeff. He’d retired comfortably from football and now traveled as a sports commentator. With his fame, strapping good looks, and financial security, he was too good to be true.

  At least, that was what Peyton’s mother said.

  Unfortunately, she was right.

  Jeff didn’t exactly leave his bride at the altar, but he came pretty damned close. Close enough that the First Community Church of Talbot Corners was already decked out in a thousand dollars’ worth of white roses and organza pew bows, and Peyton found herself with a paid-for white silk gown in her closet and a truckload of crystal and china to send back.