Lullaby and Goodnight

by Staub, Wendy Corsi

  “That it is,” she agrees, wondering why he isn’t doing just that.

  He lifts a white plastic shopping bag in answer to her unspoken question. “This is my Times. It didn’t come this morning. I just bought it. I’m sorry to say I didn’t grab some watermelon while I was at it.”

  “Yeah, well . . . you can’t be expected to think of everything.”

  He laughs. Then he takes another step up and says, “I’m Tom Reilly. In case you forgot.”

  No. She didn’t forget.

  “Um, this is the part where you tell me your name. Unless you just want me to call you Melanie?”

  “Melanie?” she echoes, puzzled.

  “You know. Watermelon. Melanie.”

  She laughs, shaking her head.

  “That was lame.” He furrows his brow. “Now you think I’m a loser, and you’ll never tell me your name. Or if you do, it won’t be your real one.”

  He’s wearing such a comically earnest expression that she can’t help saying, “It’s Peyton. My name. Peyton.”

  He looks dubious. “Real?”

  “Real.”

  “First or last?”

  “First.”

  “That’s unique. Let me guess. You were named after Peyton Manning?”

  At that, she can’t help thinking of Jeff. Back when he was her fiancé, he introduced her to the famed young NFL quarterback, who was amused that they shared the same first name. She remembers how jealous Jeff was that night, accusing her of flirting. She wasn’t then . . .

  But she is now.

  So sue me. I can’t help it. Tom’s cute.

  “I’m just a tiny bit older than Peyton Manning,” she deadpans, fighting the urge to tell Tom she’s actually met him. He might be the kind of man who enjoys chick flicks and football. But she isn’t eager to open the door on a discussion of her romantic history.

  “How much older? I’m forty-two. In case you were wondering.”

  She was. “Well, I’m old enough for Peyton Place to be more my era. Only I wasn’t named after that, either.”

  People—always adults—used to tease her about that. It was annoying when she was too young to know that Peyton Place was a steamy soap opera, and even more annoying after she found out.

  “Where did the name come from, then?” Tom asks. “There must be some kind of story behind it.”

  “Sorry, there isn’t one.”

  “Come on. Humor me. My name is Tom. Thomas. No stories there. Tell me yours.”

  She shrugs. “My mother just told me that my dad just happened to like the name Peyton.”

  “So your dad wasn’t around to tell you that himself.”

  She’s said too much. Warning bells go off inside her. She pictures iron gates slamming down to keep all her dark secrets safely locked away.

  It’s none of Tom’s business that her father left her mother before she was even born, or that Mom gave her his favorite name in hope that when he found that out, he would come back to her. As if a name alone would be reason to return. As if it were possible he’d return for any reason at all.

  He never came back.

  For all Peyton knows, Arnold Somerset never bothered to find out whether she made it into the world at all. Mom stopped talking about him years ago, after Douglas came along. She married Peyton’s stepfather and never looked back.

  By then, Peyton was long over the days of wishing she had a daddy like everybody else. If anything, having seen her friends go through high school complaining about their strict fathers and ridiculous household rules, she figured she was better off with just a mom.

  Sometimes it wasn’t easy to grow up in a single-parent home, but she turned out just fine.

  And so will her own child.

  Derry is alone when she gets the shocking news. Linden left a while ago, saying he was going to his friend Richie’s.

  So when the door buzzes from downstairs, she’s caught off guard.

  She sets aside the cross-stitch bib and takes her time going over to the security panel on the wall, figuring Linden must have forgotten his keys. She isn’t in any hurry to have him back in the apartment. Not with the way he seems to disapprove of every move she makes. She figured he’d be at Richie’s for at least a few hours, the way he usually is.

  She has no idea what he does when he’s hanging out over there, and doesn’t really care. The one time she bothered to ask, he shrugged and said, “Guy stuff,” as though that explained everything.

  Actually, it does. Guy stuff is undoubtedly watching sports and drinking beer and talking about the people they once knew as schoolkids together at Samuel Gompers High. Derry has no interest in that.

  It will be nice to have a little girl in the house, she thinks as she presses the intercom button. A little girl who will be happy to do girly things with her mom.

  “Who is it?” Derry calls into the receiver.

  “Rose,” is the unexpected reply.

  “You’re getting soaked,” Peyton tells Tom, pushing her troubled past into the far rafters of her mind.

  He shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I’m getting soaked and I sort of mind, so . . .”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  She jabs the right key into the lock at last, wondering why he’s lingering behind her.

  “One more thing, Peyton . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you want to have dinner sometime? Or maybe just coffee?”

  Good Lord. What a day. First Gil, now Tom.

  Mom would say, it never rains, but it pours.

  Then again, Peyton thinks, looking up at the gray-shrouded sky, it always rains lately. And pours.

  “I know it seems lame, asking you out on the street like this, but . . .” He shrugs. “I thought of it, and I tend to blurt out things as they occur to me. Odd habit, I know. So . . . ?”

  “Coffee would be nice,” she hears herself saying.

  Which is almost the same thing she told Gil when he persisted in asking her out even after she dropped her pregnancy bombshell on him. He said he was happy for her. He told her she was in for the adventure of a lifetime. He congratulated her on taking charge of her maternal future, and said he wasn’t the least bit surprised.

  Long story made short, she and Gil are having dinner on Thursday night.

  And now, she and Tom are having coffee on Saturday.

  He, of course, doesn’t know about the baby-to-be. She isn’t about to tell him. She would if she thought she were embarking on a relationship with him, but coffee is just coffee. Just as dinner is just dinner.

  “We can have lunch instead, if you’d rather,” Tom suggests.

  “No,” she says quickly. “Coffee is fine.” Coffee is just coffee.

  “Okay, then . . . do you know the Starbucks on Union Square?”

  “Yes.” It’s not far from Baby Blue.

  Which reminds her, once again, that she’s not supposed to be dating. Who is she trying to kid? Coffee isn’t just coffee when you’re feeling a mutual attraction with somebody who happens to be eligible. It’s a date.

  Before she can open her mouth to cancel, Tom says, “Great. I’ll meet you there Saturday morning.”

  Meeting him there is more platonic than going over together. She relaxes a little.

  He asks, “Is nine too early?”

  The rain seems to fall harder all at once, pattering onto the concrete all around them. He takes a backward step down toward the street.

  “Nine is definitely too early.”

  “So you’re a late sleeper.”

  “Not usually, but . . .”

  But I’m pregnant. Say it. I’m pregnant.

  “How about ten-thirty, then? Later than that might border on lunch. And I know lunch is out. So ten-thirty is fine with me.” Taking another step in his casual backward retreat, Tom is clearly oblivious of the fact that suddenly, none of this is fine with her.

  Tell him.

  “Actually, Tom—”

 
“See you on Saturday.” He waves and jogs off into the rain, leaving her to wonder if he even heard her. Or maybe he did, and, sensing that she was about to back out, beat a hasty retreat.

  Oh well. She can always just not show up.

  It’s a lousy thing to do, but it’s an out. Just in case she wakes up Saturday morning and needs one.

  Peyton returns her attention to the door to her apartment and unlocks it, this time finding the right key on the first try.

  Amazing what nerves can do to you, she thinks wryly, remembering how she dumped the contents of her purse when she got up from the booth back in the restaurant earlier. Gil helped her put everything back, crawling around underneath their table and others to retrieve her loose change, her lipstick, her roll of Tums.

  He smiled when he saw those, and mentioned that Karla always had heartburn when she was pregnant.

  He said it almost fondly, and Peyton realized he wasn’t over his wife, regardless of his bitterness or his dinner invitation to an old girlfriend. That was a relief.

  He smiled again when he picked up the sonogram image, and he knew, without Peyton having to point them out, where the baby’s skull, spinal column, and knees were. He knew better than she did, having been through this twice before.

  “If you need anything, going through this alone,” he offered before they parted, “I’m here for you. Really. Anything you need. I’m great at putting cribs together, shopping for diapers and formula, whatever.”

  “Thanks, Gil.” She was warmed by the offer, warmed by his familiar friendship. She might even take him up on the offer.

  Stepping over the threshold into her apartment, she tells herself that there’s no reason she shouldn’t simply enjoy time spent with an old friend.

  And with a new one, she adds mentally, thinking again of Tom as she reaches out to blindly deposit her purse into its usual resting spot on the desk chair just inside the door.

  She nearly drops her bag onto the floor before realizing that it’s gone.

  No, not gone. Just . . . moved.

  Frowning, she stares at the chair.

  It’s over too far; just a foot or so, but it’s too far. It’s always been closer to the desk. It seems almost as if somebody moved it out of the way to get into the desk drawers, then hastily pushed it back.

  Which, of course, is impossible.

  Peyton is the only one who could have done that, and she didn’t touch the chair or the desk before she left the apartment this morning. She was too focused on meeting Gil.

  Okay, maybe she’s imagining things. She backs up a few yards, out the door, and throws the strap of her purse over her shoulder again. She’ll just retrace her steps without thinking about it. Just do what comes naturally; do what she does every single time she returns home.

  You’re just paranoid again, she tells herself, shaking her head in disgust.

  She walks quickly into the apartment and reaches out to drop the bag using reflexive motion.

  But she can’t reach the chair unless she takes another step or two.

  The chair should be closer to the door.

  So if she didn’t move it . . .

  And it’s not her imagination that it’s been moved . . .

  Somebody was in her apartment while she was gone.

  Derry stares at Rose in stunned disbelief.

  She must have heard her wrong. She must have.

  Or maybe Linden put her up to this as some kind of cruel prank. Maybe he’s trying to teach her a lesson about . . .

  About what?

  About preparing for motherhood? About being optimistic?

  It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.

  “Derry, I’m so sorry. Maybe you should sit down.”

  Derry, who refused that gentle yet ominous advice before Rose broke the news, sinks into the nearest chair.

  “I know this is devastating for you. I know how much you wanted this little girl.”

  “You promised,” she says, too numb to muster sufficient accusation. “You promised everything would work out.”

  “I know I did, and I’m so, so sorry, Derry. Sometimes donors change their minds. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of this business.”

  Derry shakes her head, staring dully at Rose’s enormous square-cut diamond. What does she know about reality? Sitting there in her prim black suit, with that big ring and fancy purse. What does she know about anything?

  “We already had a name for her, Rose,” she chokes out. “Rhiannon.”

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “It’s from the Fleetwood Mac song. It’s how Linden and I met. We were both in this Seventies Rock chat room on the Internet, and somebody asked a trivia question, and we both knew the answer was Rhiannon. Ever since then, I knew that someday, we’d have a daughter with that name. It’s like our own special code word. Rhiannon. We use it for everything. At least, I still do. Linden used to use it as his ATM code, but he said he changed it. Now I have no idea what he uses.”

  There’s silence.

  Then Rose says, “Derry, you’re going to get through this. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Do you have children?” she asks abruptly. Harshly. She can’t help it.

  Rose’s head jerks up a little, as though something bumped beneath her chin. There’s a sharp intake of air in her nostrils.

  “No,” she says after a moment, exhaling heavily as though she’s been holding her breath. “I don’t have children.”

  It’s because she can’t, Derry realizes. She can’t have children.

  She doesn’t know how she knows that, but she does. Maybe because she recognizes a kindred spirit. Maybe because that would explain why a woman like her is doing a job like this.

  It doesn’t matter how she knows. She’s as certain of Rose’s impaired fecundity as she is that this isn’t some cruel prank staged by Linden.

  No, this is really happening.

  The donor in Iowa really did change her mind. Not about adoption. About Derry and Linden.

  “What did we do wrong?” Derry asks dully. “Why doesn’t she want us?”

  “It’s not like that. Please don’t—”

  “It’s Linden, isn’t it? It’s because he’s blue collar. Or because he isn’t well read, or well spoken.” She hates her husband. She really does. This is his fault.

  “Linden is wonderful. He’ll make a wonderful father.”

  “Then why didn’t that girl want him? Why didn’t she want us?”

  “It’s nothing specific. Don’t torture yourself. This just wasn’t the right match.”

  “But it was!”

  “Derry . . .” Rose kneels on the floor in front of her chair, taking both her hands.

  “That was our little girl. I felt her. I knew her.” She collapses, sobbing bitterly, into Rose’s arms.

  For a long time, she just cries, as Rose croons comforting words.

  Finally, the initial wave of anguish subsides, leaving Derry as bruised and raw as if she’s suffered a beating.

  “I’m never going to be a mother,” she says quietly, wiping her hot, wet eyes with the base of her palm.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No. I can’t do this again. I’m finished. I can’t handle any more pain. I’m not cut out for this kind of disappointment, and I’m not cut out for motherhood.”

  “I think you are, Derry. It just depends on how badly you want it.”

  “I want a child more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  “But you say you aren’t willing to go any further to make that happen.”

  She buries her head in her hands. “I just can’t take it. To be so close, and then . . .”

  “What if there was a guarantee?”

  With those words, something has shifted. It happens so subtly that for a moment Derry isn’t sure. Then she lifts her head, sees the expression on Rose’s face, and realizes that one door might have been slammed shut, but another seems to have opened. Just a crack. Whethe
r she forces her way through it is up to her.

  She looks Rose in the eye. “How can there be a guarantee ?”

  Rose seems hesitant. “I don’t know, Derry. I shouldn’t—”

  “How can there be a guarantee?” It’s all Derry can do not to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “You’ve got to tell me!”

  “This is highly sensitive. Highly confidential. If it ever got out . . .”

  “It won’t.”

  Still, the woman hesitates.

  “Please, Rose. You’ve got to help me. I’ll do anything if you can help me get a baby. Anything.”

  For the first time since they met, Rose’s smile seems to reach her eyes. “That,” she says, “is exactly what I was hoping to hear.”

  She’s just lucky the intruder didn’t steal her valuables. At least, that’s what the police officer tells Peyton when she returns from one last trip to her closet to confirm that nothing is missing.

  “Why do you think they didn’t take anything?”

  The police officer, who barely looks old enough to shave, shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe you came home before they could get the television or computer out the door.”

  She shudders, remembering how she was delayed coming inside, talking to Tom out on the stoop. Was somebody lurking in her apartment even then? Did the sound of her voice carry a warning to beat a hasty retreat?

  What if Tom hadn’t stopped her before she came in? Would she have interrupted a robbery in progress? Was the intruder armed? Would he have hurt her?

  She wraps her arms around her waist with protective maternal instinct, unable to bear the thought of what might have happened. To both of them.

  The apartment that has always felt like a haven in a ruthless city now feels as unfamiliar as it did the week she moved in. She gazes from the hardwood floors she sanded and refinished herself to the walls she transformed with warm-hued paint to the yards and yards of trim she restored to its original finish. She just finished paying off the shabby chic furnishings she bought brand-new at Domain, and the custom window treatments designed with filmy sheers to make the window bars less obtrusive.

  Accustomed to looking around her home and admiring anew the hours upon hours of handiwork that turned this small apartment into a pleasant refuge, Peyton now sees only the shadows, the potential hiding places, the blocked escape routes.