“You’ve been through so much—a lifetime of pain and grief, all gummed into a few months. I know it seems hopeless right now, but that’s one of the things about depression. It won’t let the light in. Let’s see what Dr. Chin has to say tomorrow, okay? You know I love you and I’ll help you any way I can.”
Chelsea sniffed. “But I hate my life.”
“I know, honey.” Emma tucked a strand of dark hair behind her sister’s ear. “We’re going to get to work on that, as soon as you see Dr. Chin.”
Back at Chelsea’s house, the neighbor, Louise Pickler, was out inspecting her frozen lawn as her cranky little dog wandered with no leash.
“It’s the woman who ratted you out,” Emma said as she pulled Chelsea’s Subaru into the driveway. “Quick. Get the cheese.”
Chelsea actually let out a laugh.
“Isn’t there a law about keeping your dog on a leash?” Emma asked.
“Louise treats her dogs like family.”
“And her family like dogs?” Emma added.
“Good one, Emma,” Chelsea said as she pushed open the door.
The dog bolted over to them, and Emma stepped tentatively as it snapped at her ankles.
“ChiChi, back off,” Chelsea ordered, opening the stroller. The dog growled as it tried to mouth the stroller wheels.
“Little beast,” Emma muttered. She hoped to whisk Annie inside, but the neighbor was calling to Chelsea.
“Did you get a dog?” Louise accused Chelsea. The older woman stood at the edge of her lawn with her hands on her hips. “Tell me the truth, because someone’s been shitting in my flower beds.”
“It wasn’t me,” Chelsea said.
Emma bit her lips to hide a grin.
“I mean, no,” Chelsea explained. “We don’t have any animals. Just a baby.”
“And that’s enough.” Louise marched over and leaned her gnarled face close to Annabelle. “Plenty of poopy diapers stinking up your house.”
Horrified, Emma backed the stroller away. Chelsea was right: This woman was nuts. “Gotta go.” She wheeled it up the driveway.
Chelsea unlocked the door and Emma hustled the baby inside.
“Lock the door, quick,” Emma teased. “Before the Wicked Witch gets in.”
“Really. I think ChiChi bit one of my toes off.”
Emma laughed. “That woman is a lunatic!” she said, thinking that those muffins must have been from a different neighbor.
“Louise never liked us.” As Emma got Annabelle out of her quilted romper, Chelsea told her that Louise had been tight with the woman who’d lived here before. “Leo is sure that the two of them had some sort of coven, practicing spells together.”
“Don’t witches do their rituals nude under the starlight?” Emma asked.
She and Chelsea looked toward the snow-covered yard beyond the back windows.
“Maybe a little backyard ritual?” Emma suggested, wriggling her eyebrows.
“We’d better get some good shades on the nursery windows,” Chelsea said with a shot of her old sense of humor.
It was a relief to see that side of Chelsea, even if only for a moment. Maybe the medication was starting to work.
As Chelsea settled in to feed the baby, Emma felt the tug to get home. During the drive home she’d noticed some abdominal pain . . . not quite cramps. Was it something she ate? She and Chelsea had yogurts and a wrap from the little restaurant at the botanical garden. Was it just the food, not sitting right?
“I’ve got to get going,” she said, turning on one of the living room lamps. “Anything you need before I go?”
Chelsea shook her head. “I’m fine.”
No, you’re not, Emma thought. But tomorrow we’re starting you on the path to recovery.
She let herself out, locking the door behind her.
Worry plagued Emma as she drove home. Did the abdominal pain have something to do with her baby? She had miscarried once before, but it was a few weeks into the pregnancy.
It can’t be a miscarriage. She was sixteen weeks now and having a baby girl. This was her paranoid imagination. She was going to be fine. Her baby was fine.
When Emma changed into her sweatpants, she saw the blood.
Oh, dear God . . .
She elevated her feet and called the doctor. “I think I need to be seen,” she told the nurse practitioner. “Or maybe the emergency room . . . my husband will bring me in.”
“Actually, the best thing you can do right now is just what you’re doing,” the nurse said. “Try to relax. Keep your feet up. It could be spotting, and that will pass.”
“But there’s so much blood! Can’t you give me something to stop it? There must be something. . . .”
“No. I’m sorry, Mrs. Wyatt, but there’s nothing anyone can do at this point. Check in with the doctor tomorrow morning. If you’re still bleeding, he’ll probably have you come in for a sonogram. If the fetus is nonviable, we’ll schedule a D and C.”
Nonviable. What a sickening word.
“A surgery? You would do that already?” Emma’s voice cracked with emotion at the thought of the doctor’s scalpel scraping away the last traces of the tiny life inside her. “How can it be over so . . . so quickly?”
“The truth is, between ten and twenty-five percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.”
“But this is my second,” Emma sobbed. “That’s one hundred percent for me. It’s not fair.”
“Let’s hope it’s just spotting. For now, you need to rest. Call the doctor the first thing in the morning.”
Emma hung up the phone, pulled the fleece blanket over her head, and let out a plaintive wail. It couldn’t be over for her baby.
It couldn’t be.
Chapter 14
“We spent most of the time in the orchid exhibit, which is really amazing. There are walls of flowers.” As Chelsea recounted the outing, she moved through the kitchen, examining the ceiling in the late afternoon sunlight. No cracks, but a strange pucker and a gray ring around the naked bulbs. Maybe it would go away once it dried completely.
“And what did Annie think?” Leo asked.
“She seemed to like it. She was flirting shamelessly with the guard.”
“Of course she was. Maybe we can go back this weekend.”
“That’d be fun. How was your day?”
She filled a glass from the water pitcher in the fridge and drank it down as he talked. Lately she seemed to be thirsty all the time, a side effect of the medication. Did that mean it was working? Maybe. At moments like this she no longer felt the entire world crashing down on her head. She didn’t feel like her old self, but she could hold her head up without that black space behind her eyes.
Still, she was tired from the trip to the garden . . . and hungry. It was too early for dinner, so she grabbed a fork and picked at one of the muffins while she talked with Leo. After they hung up, she decided to make the most of her good mood and get something accomplished. She pushed open the rolltop desk and called the Sounder helpline. When the recording told her it would be a twenty-minute wait, she opted for a callback.
Then she curled into her spot on the couch and switched on the television.
She awoke with a dry mouth and a fuzzy feeling in her head. The room was cold without the sunshine, and as she went to close the shades she saw the solitary streetlamp out front, its single cold eye reminding her that she was alone.
Alone.
How did this happen? She couldn’t handle it.
She turned away and went to the kitchen, desperate for food. Had she eaten that burrito? Nothing in the fridge held appeal. The chicken or steak would have made a great meal, but she didn’t have the time or energy to cook something. And the thought of cleaning pans in the bathroom sink was even less appealing.
She poured herself a tall glass of skim milk and dug into one of the muffins. The milk tasted like old paint, but the muffin was a treat. She dug into another one. Maybe this would tide her over until the morning
.
Staring up at the ceiling, she imagined herself trying to coat the damaged ceiling with the chalky skim milk . . . like a wash on a canvas.
She would paint white on white on white, and that gray ring would still bleed through, like the spot on Lady Macbeth’s hand.
A shiver passed up her spine. Was someone watching? She turned and spotted them . . . the kitchen knives. How did they get out on the table with those boots? If someone slid them too close to the edge, they would drop right down into Annie’s little bucket seat.
Frightened, Chelsea went over and pulled out the longest knife—a carving knife with a serrated blade. Her heart thudded in her chest at the cold gleam of light on steel.
It was so sharp; it could cut a person to ribbons in seconds.
She had bought it when her cousin was selling knives to help pay off her student loans, but she always had worried about getting cut with it. What if it clattered from the holder and hit Annabelle? She imagined it swinging through the air, sinking into flesh.
No, no, no!
She shoved the rest of the muffin into her mouth, embraced the heavy butcher block knife holder, and marched it over to the closet. Leaning into the hanging coats, she pushed it toward the dark corner and let it drop like a fat stone in a pond.
The thump of it dropping seemed to rock the house, and Annabelle woke up whimpering.
“It’s okay. Mommy’s not going to hurt you.” Her voice sounded desperate and hollow, as if she were shouting in a dream. Why were her palms sweating when it was so cold in here?
Slamming the closet door behind her, Chelsea leaned against the closet and prayed that no one would ever find those knives.
Please, please, please, let them go away.
She imagined the knives rising up and stabbing at the door. She felt a jolt behind her, and let out a cry. Just her imagination.
And Annie was shrieking. Did she know about the knives?
No . . . of course not. She was a baby. A hungry baby.
She scooped Annie out of her chair and her fingers touched something moist and slippery. Oh, she needed to be changed. Her heartbeat was a dull thud as she tossed Annie’s pink flowered onesie to the side and tore off the swollen diaper. What a mess. The wipes seemed to flap away from her grip like white birds as she did her best to clean Annie up. With this weight on her head, she’d never get another onesie snapped up. A clean diaper and a yellow nightgown with a drawstring were the best she could do.
Annabelle screamed right up to the second when Chelsea pressed her nipple to the baby’s round, yowling mouth.
Thankful for the quiet, Chelsea shifted low in the couch and rested her head against the pillow. The sensation of falling through space enveloped her, and she held tight to her baby, afraid of losing her in midflight.
The phone was relentless. “Hello?” she answered, her voice floating in the black space.
Sounder Health Care. There were more forms to fill out. Endless pages of boxes and fine print extended before her, a line that led through the living room and down the front lawn and up in the air on a silvery path to the moon. She wanted to get the forms right, but she was too tired to remember the numbers and dates that defined her little family.
Fill out the forms. That’s your job now. Fill out a form, then another, and another . . . then ride them to the moon.
And fall back to earth to take care of your baby.
The bleating phone woke her, its face glowing in the dark living room. Emma’s name and number flashed in the caller ID.
“Hello?” Her voice was a dry riverbed, cracked and dusty.
“Chelsea?” Emma’s voice sounded childish, like a shrill girl on the playground. “I’m so scared. I might . . . I might be losing the baby.”
“Huh?” How could Emma lose her baby when it wasn’t even born yet?
“A miscarriage. I’m bleeding and . . . there’s no way to stop it, if it’s . . .” That giddy voice again, only this time Chelsea realized her sister was crying.
“Don’t cry, Emma.”
“But my baby . . .”
In a cloud of exhaustion, Chelsea wondered why Emma didn’t feel incredible relief. She would be off the hook now.
“I want to be a mother, more than anything.” The tremble in Emma’s voice filtered through Chelsea. “It’s all I can think about and—”
“Take my baby.” Chelsea’s voice was low and raspy. So thirsty. “Please, take my baby.” It wasn’t a gesture of generosity, just a heartfelt request. “Will you come get her now?”
The only answer was the noise of her sister sobbing.
Such a sad sound. Chelsea sank into the darkness, fading into a sad dream.
After a few minutes of sobbing, Emma said she had to go, that she would call tomorrow.
But when will you come to take the baby? Chelsea wondered after the call ended. And where was her baby?
She fumbled on the end table and finally found the lamp switch. Annabelle’s bucket seat was empty, but the baby nestled into the crevice of the couch beside Chelsea.
“Not safe,” Chelsea told herself. Annie could have smothered. She could have fallen. So many terrible things that could happen.
“Be more careful next time.” The voice had all the patience and authority of Judith Maynard. Mom. “You should be here.”
Annabelle whined, the light in her eyes. Feeding time again?
“All right, all right.” Chelsea chugged from a bottle of water on the end table, then unbuttoned her shirt.
The milk machine. The great silencer.
When the baby was done, Chelsea was too tired to head upstairs.
Why bother?
“You can sleep here,” she told Annabelle, strapping her into her bucket seat. Then she settled back on the couch, pulled the throw up to her chin, and slid into the shallow pool of exhausted sleep.
Chapter 15
Chelsea rolled over in bed and took a deep waking breath. What a wonderful feeling—to sleep, really sleep, and not be interrupted by Annie’s shrieks. At last, her little girl had slept through the night.
She nudged her chin into the pillow, thinking about all the advice about how it got easier. Everyone told her three months was the point of grace, but Annabelle was fourteen weeks now, and since the day she was born her screams and voracious appetite had kept Chelsea in a state of exhaustion.
But not last night.
With a sigh, Chelsea checked the clock. It was still dark, six thirty a.m., and the flat, cold mattress on the other side reminded her that Leo was out of town. Boston.
She’d been so upset when he’d left . . . left her feeling alone and abandoned and helpless to handle the cute little baby that needed so much but still seemed like such a stranger. “A little alien,” Leo had joked. “She even has the bald head and the big eyes, like those pictures of alien creatures.”
Well, at least last night the cute little alien had let her sleep.
She stretched, becoming aware of her rock-hard breasts. Milk had leaked through her nightgown to the sheets. Time for a feeding.
Chelsea threw back the covers and braced herself for the cold floor. Well, at least Annie was cozy in a onesie and footie pajamas. Or was she? Chelsea seemed to remember Annie in bright yellow, the color of baby chicks. Or had she dreamed of her daughter as a baby chick? Shivering, Chelsea pulled on a robe and went downstairs to pee, sure that the baby would begin to cry as soon as she heard the movement. But the blessed quiet prevailed.
Finally, a good night’s sleep and a moment of quiet. Maybe they were turning a corner.
She hurried up the stairs and into Annabelle’s tiny nursery, actually looking forward to starting Annie’s day. “Good morning, sunshine,” she said, going to the crib.
The bare sheet with little pastel elephants stopped her. She touched the rail, staring. Where was Annabelle?
“Oh.” Backtracking quickly in her mind, she wondered if she had let the baby sleep downstairs.
Right. She had left Ann
ie in the bucket seat while she slept on the couch.
But she hadn’t slept on the couch. . . . Had she left Annie downstairs alone when she came up to bed? Her memory of last night was hazy.
She barreled down the stairs. “Annie . . .”
The bucket seat sat across from the sofa. Empty.
The stroller wasn’t parked in the chilly vestibule. “Annie, where are you?” With a rush of fear and horror, Chelsea saw that the side door was open—that was why it was so cold down here. The storm door was closed, but unlocked.
“Oh, Annie . . .” Her voice held a whimper. Had she left her baby out all night?
She crashed outside to see the stroller in the driveway, facing away from her.
“Annie!” she gasped, grappling to look inside the carriage.
It was empty except for two abandoned baby blankets. Empty! She flung out the blankets, digging for her daughter.
“Annie!” She ran to check the car parked at the front of the driveway. The door refused to budge—locked. The infant seat was strapped in, but there was no sign of her baby.
This can’t be. She must be inside, somewhere. What did I do with her last night? Think. Think. Where did you leave her?
She raced back into the house and began to recheck every spot.
Upstairs she checked the queen-sized bed she and Leo shared. Her hands fished under the covers until she ripped them off, impatient to get to her baby.
She combed through Annie’s crib, the couches, the kitchen and bathroom, dining room and then closets. Where, where, where could she be?
Where is my baby?
A panic gripped her, but she couldn’t give up. She would find her baby . . . but she needed help. She grabbed the phone and stumbled on her way up the stairs, going to check the nursery one more time.
Yanking up the hem of her robe, she let the world stop for one moment to press the numbers. Nine. One. One.
PART 2
Chapter 16
All She Ever Wanted Page 12
