The Remedy for Regret

by Susan Meissner

  I will be a little late, but that’s okay. Small talk will have given way to the opening of the gifts, which is fine with me. I am not in the mood for a great deal of small talk, but neither do I want to sit in this empty apartment all evening.

  And I can handle the basic questions.

  How are things with you, Tess?

  Great. And you?

  Very well. Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you how glad I am that Simon wasn’t hurt in that accident.

  Yes, yes. We’re so very lucky.

  So, how are things at the boutique?

  Splendid. You should come and see our new summer line.

  Oh, I’d love to.

  That’s the danger and the beauty of wounds that are invisible.

  Everyone thinks you are fine.

  Three

  I am a little more than fashionably late to the shower but, as I had guessed, Monica—a friend from the jewelry store next to Linee Belle—is just starting to open her gifts. I have missed the games, I am told, and there is much laughter as I am shown the booties the other women tried to tear out—from behind their backs—of pink paper.

  “Looks a little like Texas,” I say to a woman named Phoebe whom I barely know as she holds up one of her booties.

  Laughter erupts around the room.

  The hostess, Yvette, hands me a cup of punch and tells me how glad she is that I came. She is Monica’s neighbor and I don’t know her.

  I take a seat by a few women I recognize from Monica’s store and notice as I sit that one of them is holding a pink bundle. Monica’s baby.

  Tracy, the one holding the baby, and Caroline, just on her other side, are cooing and gushing; their faces are wide-eyed and silly looking.

  “Look, Tess,” Tracy says to me, shifting the infant in her arms so that I can see the baby’s face. “Isn’t she adorable?”

  I nod and make a silly face myself. It is expected. The baby is asleep and sees none of this.

  “Let’s see the rest of her!” Caroline whispers.

  Giggling, Tracy pulls the pink receiving blanket away from the baby’s body. The infant is wearing a soft, white gown that is gathered at the bottom with a satiny pink ribbon.

  “I want to see her toes!” Caroline says softly, like we are conspiring to commit a crime.

  The crazy thing is, I want to see the baby’s toes, too.

  We all lean in as Tracy loosens the ribbon and reveals the tiny legs inside. The two women gasp in delight. I gasp, too. I can’t help it.

  Monica’s baby has two perfect tiny feet. It’s normal, of course, for a baby to have two perfect feet but it still amazes me. On these rare occasions when I see a newborn’s legs, my first response is always surprise. I can’t help but remember how it was when Blair, Jewel and I found that baby on the steps of Jewel’s church. How it was when we pulled away the sweatshirt that was covering that baby and saw one perfect foot and one misshapen one.

  I am still contemplating the visual differences when Caroline asks about Simon.

  Caroline is just an acquaintance, someone I see regularly at Water Tower Place but with whom I have never spent more than a minute in real conversation.

  “He’s coming along well,” I say and then I add, “Thanks for asking.”

  That’s the nice way of saying, We’re done talking about this. She gets it.

  “Let me hold her now,” Caroline says to Tracy, reaching for the baby and taking her eyes and attention off me.

  I spend the next twenty minutes as a spectator. The only person I know well enough to initiate a conversation with is Monica. And she is busy opening gifts. Watching the other women engaged in riveting dialogue, I can’t help but feel a tad left out. I wish Antonia had been invited. But then again, Antonia wouldn’t have come. Everything is business to her. Business and romance. She never does fun stuff with just a bunch of other women. She occupies herself with buying designer clothes and accessories for the boutique and chasing down eligible men who are richer than she is. I smile thinking how much she reminds me of Blair.

  Sometimes I wonder if Blair and I would have stayed friends if we had not found that baby on that lazy July morning. That one, daylong experience bound us together in a strange kind of way, as if we were both survivors of the same plane crash or something. Jewel was bound to me after that experience too, in the same kind of way, but because Jewel and Blair never hit it off well, it has always seemed different somehow. It still surprises me that Blair continued to want my friendship long after she rose to the ranks of popular girls in our middle school, as well as long after we both moved from Arkansas to other bases.

  In the beginning, when Blair and I first met, we were both so hungry for companionship because of our just-moved misery, we didn’t realize that was the only thing we truly had in common. Well, that’s not entirely true. She was starving for a mother’s love just like I was even though she still had her mother. Aside from that, we were about as different as we could be.

  When we met, she was already “boy crazy” as my Dad liked to describe her and wore a face full of make-up everywhere we went, even to the pool on base. I liked boys but I was too afraid to approach one or even let Blair know which ones I liked best. She had a figure well before her thirteenth birthday and deep, wide eyes that looked even bigger when lined with mascara and eye shadow. Blair also had perfect hair, nice clothes, and straight teeth and was never at a loss for words. Dad thought she was pushy and disrespectful and that she was falsely polite to him whenever she came over to the house. I used to defend her right and left but the truth was, he was right.

  I liked classical music and looking at maps and working jigsaw puzzles and Blair liked none of these things. My auburn hair, unlike her honey-blonde curls, was nondescript other than its color. People, especially women, commented that it was a very nice shade. But I didn’t know what to do with it and Dad never thought there was something to be done. I don’t blame him really. It just didn’t occur to him to think I might look good with a stylish haircut. That’s something a mom would have thought of. It wasn’t that Dad couldn’t buy me nice clothes either or didn’t, we just didn’t shop together very often. His parents would fly out from Wisconsin to see us every Christmas and summer, no matter where we were, and Grandma would always buy me new clothes. But Grandma’s idea of shopping for clothes was paging through the JC Penney catalog or maybe making a trip to Sears. Antonia would die if she knew how deprived I was of fashion sense before I met Blair. And Blair’s mother. Veronica Devere, Blair’s mom, spent very little time at home, and I hardly said more than a sentence to her a month, but whenever I did see her, she was always impeccably dressed. Most of the time when I was at Blair’s, Veronica was running out the house, late for something, but dressed in a beautifully coordinated outfit. I have a mannequin named after her, too.

  It’s funny; I didn’t have much in common with Jewel, either, but she remains one of the few friends, including Simon, whom I feel I could trust completely. And it’s kind of odd that I should feel that way because I hardly ever see her and neither one of us is very good about emailing or calling. She lives in Memphis, is a pastor’s wife like her mother, and has three little boys. The admiration I still feel for Jewel is partly because she reminds me of Corinthia, of course. But she also reminds me—more so than Blair—of that time in my life when everything changed for me, like a strong wind in the sail changes a ship’s direction — and its destination.

  Monica is done opening her presents and as she finishes, I am feeling a little awkward. Her baby ended up in my arms when Tracy and Caroline went to help Yvette in the kitchen. The baby is starting to tense in my arms as Monica makes her way to me. The baby is going to start wailing at any second. I smile with relief as Monica sits in the chair Tracy has vacated. All around us the other women are laughing, talking and making their way to the dining room where Yvette has laid out the refreshments.

  “You’re a natural, Tess,” Monica says, winking at me.

  “Oh, not r
eally,” I say nervously. I am anxious to hand the baby over.

  “How long has she been awake?” Monica continues.

  “Oh, the last three or four presents, I’d say,” I answer, minimizing the feat as best I can.

  “See?” Monica says with a smile. “You are a natural. It’s way past the time for her next feeding.”

  As if on cue, the baby thrusts a tiny arm out from underneath the blanket and begins to cry. Her perfect rosebud lips part, revealing a tiny red mouth that is all gums. Monica laughs and I hand her her daughter.

  At that same moment, in my mind, I see myself handing over another crying baby, this one to Jewel, who being the oldest of five, knows what to do.

  “We should have my Momma call the police,” Jewel is saying in my memory, shaking her head but taking the baby anyway. It was nine o’clock in the morning on the Fourth of July. I had been living in Arkansas for just seven months. The three of us—Blair, Jewel and I—had all just recently turned thirteen. Blair had spent the night at my house and we’d come outside with plans to sit in my tree house and paint our toenails. I’d decided to ask Jewel to join us, though Blair hadn’t been too thrilled with this, and the three of us were on our way back to my backyard when we heard the faint mewling sound. We’d followed the sound and to the side door of Jewel’s church. There on the steps was a wooden box stamped with pictures of peaches. Inside, wrapped in a dirty sweatshirt, was a newborn baby. The moist, purple-gray stub of an umbilical cord was still attached to its belly and a row of mosquito bites lined its forehead. There was no one else around. Surprise kept us speechless for several seconds.

  Blair reached down and lifted the sweatshirt, revealing the perfect leg and the imperfect one. The shock turned to pity.

  “I gotta go get my Momma,” Jewel finally said, quietly.

  “No!” Blair said, not much more than whisper.

  Jewel turned her head to look at her. “We can’t just leave it here!”

  “We’re not going to.” Blair grabbed the box and headed back to my tree house with it. Jewel and I trailed after her.

  She had handed the box to me while she climbed, then reached down from the platform to take the box from me as I straddled the third wooden rung.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” Jewel muttered as she climbed in.

  When we were all inside the four wooden walls, Blair lifted the baby out of the peach box. It was naked and obviously a boy. That’s when the baby really began to cry. She had handed him over to me. And I had handed him over to Jewel.

  “We need to call the police,” Jewel said, wrapping the baby back in the sweatshirt.

  “Not yet!” Blair replied, with an unmistakable I-want-to-be-a-mother-for-a-day look in her eye.

  I didn’t want to call the police yet either but I said nothing.

  Now beside me, Monica is deftly putting her baby to her breast under the receiving blanket. I watch, remembering.

  “This baby needs to eat,” Jewel had said next.

  “Well then, let’s feed him something,” Blair replied, like all problems everywhere have a simple solution.

  “You can’t just feed a baby something,” Jewel said. “It needs mother’s milk or formula.” She was rocking the baby back and forth in her arms. Then she stuck the tip of her pinkie in its mouth. It stopped wailing.

  “Well, don’t you have some of that stuff?” Blair said.

  I can still see Jewel’s face as she looked up from the nameless infant in her arms, incredulous.

  “You want me to go to my Momma and see if she don’t mind breastfeedin’ this here baby that we just found on the church steps?” Jewel said.

  Blair narrowed her eyes. “I’m talking about the formula,” she said.

  “We don’t have to buy none of that. My Momma feeds her baby on her own,” Jewel answered.

  “Well, what do you have?” Blair said in exasperation.

  Jewel sighed. I could tell she wanted no part of this. She was the same age as Blair and me but she was older than us just the same. She was already living in the real world of cooking, housekeeping and minding her younger brothers and sisters. She was a follower of rules because for her, like so many people with genuine responsibilities, there are so many. She wanted to do the adult thing. She wanted to call the police.

  “I can get you an empty bottle,” she said instead. “But one of y’all’s gonna have to go to Kroger’s and buy some Similac. And it’s expensive.”

  Blair stood up, at least stood as high as she could owing to the pitched roof of my tree house.

  “I have money,” she said. She began to climb down. “I’m taking your bike, Tess.” She jumped to the ground from the third step.

  Blair walked over to my three-speed bike lying in the grass in my backyard. When she picked it up, a cloud of napping mosquitoes arose from the grass.

  “He needs a diaper, too,” Jewel called down to her.

  “Don’t you have those either?” Blair asked as she gripped the handlebars.

  “My Momma uses cloth,” Jewel replied, nearly proud of it.

  “Do you at least have those wipe things?”

  “We got those.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Blair flashed me a look that said, “Don’t let Jewel call the police.”

  And I had nodded.

  A loud burst of laughter brings me back to the present.

  “It’s more wonderful than I thought it would be, Tess,” Monica is saying as I pull myself back from that hot Arkansas morning fifteen years ago.

  “I know it’s none of my business but I hope one day you and Simon get married and that you will have a child together, Tess,” Monica adds, looking at her baby, not me.

  She says nothing else because we’ve had this conversation before. She knows I am at a loss to explain why I often don’t accept good things offered me. What she doesn’t know is there is a reason. I know what it is. I just can’t explain it in words.

  I don’t stay long after that. I eat a few stuffed mushrooms, a few cream puffs. Then I look at my watch. A quarter to ten. I wonder if Simon is home. If he is okay. I decide it’s time to go.

  I say goodbye to Monica and thank Yvette for inviting me. On the drive home, I try to empty my mind of everything—Monica’s baby, the abandoned infant from my past, and the way Simon made me feel earlier in the evening—so that I can concentrate on him.

  But he is not at home.

  As I slowly get ready for bed, I try not to worry. I lock the front door only after making sure Simon’s set of house keys are nowhere to be found, which must mean he has them with him. I try to read in bed for a while, wanting to stay awake, but when the book starts to fall repeatedly in my face, I get out of bed and head to the bathroom. I tape a note to the mirror above the sink:

  Wake me when you get home

  I sign my name and draw a little heart, which I hope communicates that I fell asleep concerned for him.

  As I crawl back into bed, I am aware of the scent of Monica’s baby all over me—on my arms, in my hair and in my lungs.

  Four

  The soundtrack from the London performance of Les Miserables rouses me from sleep as my CD alarm clock clicks on.

  My first waking thought is of Simon: He did not wake me up last night. I turn abruptly in my bed, first relieved that his sleeping form is beside me and then miffed that he said nothing to me when he came in.

  I wait for several minutes while the song plays through to see if the music will awaken Simon but he does not stir.

  I switch off the music and get out of bed. I make my way to the bathroom where I see that my note to Simon has been replaced with one of his own:

  Tess–It was late when I got in last night and I didn’t want to wake you. Let’s talk tonight when you get home. There’s something I need to tell you.

  p.s. I am sorry about what I said.

  I reach out to touch his note, his words. Something has changed for him; I can sense it. Something broke through his wall of despa
ir last night. It should fill me with relief but it fills me instead with fear. I am afraid he has decided to move on. To leave me. To leave the woman he lives with but who will not marry him. A man can only handle so much disappointment in his life. The accident is already too much. With me out of the picture there would be one less thing to cause him unhappiness.

  I’m tempted to run back into the bedroom, wake Simon and beg him not to leave but I instead spend several minutes trying to convince myself that it’s not smart to jump to conclusions. Maybe all Simon wants to tell me is that he’s finally decided to go back to work.

  I go about my morning routine as if there is nothing to worry about. I shower, dress, dry my hair and put on my make-up thinking only of what lies ahead for me at the boutique. When I get to the kitchen I notice with a start that the three cereal bowls from yesterday have been washed and left to dry in the drainer. Simon, who got in so late last night that he didn’t have the heart to wake me, felt compelled instead to wash a few dishes? By hand? In the middle of the night?

  My careful attempts to stay focused on just the ordinary details of the day begin to quaver. I walk back to the bedroom and stand in the doorway watching Simon sleep. He has not moved since I got up. I walk back into the bathroom, grabbing a pen from his dresser by the door on my way. I re-read his note to me and then in small letters I write my response:

  I’m sorry about what I said, too. See you tonight.

  I love you.

  If he’s thinking of leaving me, those last three words will sound like a desperate cry for him to reconsider.

  And that’s what they are.

  I get to Linee Belle at nine—an hour before we open—but there’s new inventory to bring out and the sitting areas we have set up around the boutique to make people think they are in their own home, not in a mall, need tidying. Antonia likes to keep the coffee maker busy all day, brewing strong European coffee she buys at considerable expense. She also likes to have her grandmother’s silver tray filled with Italian cookies, which anyone rich enough or brave enough to ask to try something on will be offered. I get these things ready.