The Red Thread

by Ann Hood

  “Would you excuse me?” he said.

  Before Maya could answer, he walked away, leaving his food on the table.

  Maya watched him approach his wife. He had no idea she might be pregnant, Maya realized. How many of these families would actually be on that plane to China? she wondered.

  Sophie was filling her plate again with more green bean casserole. She saw Maya watching her and she laughed. “I can’t stop eating this stuff. Maybe it reminds me of being a little kid. My mother made everything with Campbell’s soup.”

  “My mother too,” Maya said.

  “I might make it myself tomorrow,” Sophie said. “Theo will think I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Excuse me,” Nell said loudly.

  She stood in the middle of the room and motioned to everyone to be quiet. Maya had to marvel at her ability to get attention, to control a room.

  “Thank you,” Nell said. “I thought since we’re all here, maybe Maya could give us some information. A target date, perhaps, when we might get our referrals.”

  “What a good idea,” Susannah said.

  Maya cleared her throat. They were all looking at her, expectant, hopeful.

  “I wish I could do that,” she said, “but as I’ve told Nell already, I’m waiting too. For them to send the referrals, I mean. We’re dealing with the country of China, not with one orphanage or one orphanage director. I just placed children with a group whose DTC was December. So unfortunately there are many groups ahead of you. I always send emails when I get referrals, so that you can see how the queue is moving.”

  “December,” Nell said. “If I do some quick math, that means we’ll get our referrals next summer, then?”

  Emily groaned. “That’s an eternity from now.”

  “It does sound far away,” Maya said, “I know. But sometimes referrals speed up.”

  “That means sometimes they slow down, then?” Sophie asked.

  “Sometimes they slow down.”

  “So basically, Maya, you’re telling us you don’t know anything,” Nell said.

  “Actually,” Maya said, “I know that you are all very lucky. I know that your lives will be changed for the better. I know that you will get beautiful healthy babies. I just don’t know when. I wish I did.”

  “If I was pregnant, I would be waiting like this too,” Brooke said. “So I think we should just do the things any expectant parents would be doing. Paint the room and buy onesies and read baby books.”

  “I knit her a sweater,” Susannah said.

  “That’s wonderful,” Maya said.

  “Just find out when we’re getting our babies,” Nell said. “That’s enough for me.”

  Maya doubted anything was ever enough for Nell. But she smiled and assured her that she was on top of it. In every group, there was one person that Maya thought didn’t deserve one of these precious babies. But then she knew that having children, and losing them, wasn’t about deserving. After all, who was she to judge any of them? To make such decisions? She took a small spoonful of that casserole and tasted it. No. She was right. Even though Sophie was on her fourth helping, it was awful.

  11

  The Families

  EMILY

  Despite the fact that Maya had told Emily that June was only a possible time when she might get her referral, that Nell had forced Maya to say something specific, that this was out of her hands, Emily still couldn’t let go of the idea: I will have my baby next summer. They would go to the beach. They would sit in the garden in the warm summer sun. At night, with the tiki torches lit and the sky abundant with stars, she would point out the constellations to her daughter. That is Orion. The Seven Sisters. The Big Dipper.

  Despite her better judgment, she went online and ordered a toddler-size bathing suit, yellow with fat red flowers and a ruffle around the hem. She should know better. With her first pregnancy, Emily had bought tiny Converse high-tops and a hat that looked like an eggplant. That baby should have been born in the spring. When she had the miscarriage, those small items seemed to mock her pain.

  Still, the next time, she ordered furniture for the nursery: a crib that could convert to a bed and a changing table that became a bureau. It was practical, and solid with its dark wood and striped sheets. She had to cancel the order before it even shipped. The last time, she’d painted the baby’s room midnight blue, and stenciled stars and planets across the walls and ceiling. All of these happy gestures ultimately made her sadder.

  But this time she knew there was a baby at the other end. In June, she would be outside with her baby. Daisy, she would tell her daughter. Hollyhock. Petunia.

  “You’re going to be mad at me when June comes and goes and there’s still no referral,” Maya told her.

  It was a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon and the two women were sitting in Emily’s kitchen eating black bean soup and warm bread. Michael was away on business, and Emily was enjoying her time alone making baby plans.

  “I won’t be mad at you,” Emily said. “I’ll be mad at China.”

  “No. This happens all the time. You’ll be mad at me. September 1, my phone will be ringing all day. Nell will yell me. You’ll yell at me.”

  “All right,” Emily said. “Maybe I’ll be mad at you, but I won’t yell.”

  “We’ll see,” Maya said.

  Emily opened the package that had just arrived from Hanna Andersson and pulled out the yellow bathing suit.

  “I shouldn’t have,” she said.

  “I think stockpiling clothes is a good thing,” Maya said.

  “Michael told me not to do anything. In the past, I got so disappointed. So sad.”

  “This will be different,” Maya said. “It will.”

  Emily traced the ruffle that ran along the bathing suit hem. “Susannah knit a sweater. Maybe I should do something like that.”

  “Do you know how to knit?” Maya asked her.

  Emily shook her head. “You?”

  She thought Maya considered a moment too long before she answered.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Did I tell you that Jack is on this trip with Michael?” Emily said, studying Maya’s face for a reaction.

  Maya shrugged.

  “Well, he is,” Emily said. “Last night apparently, he picked up a woman in the hotel bar. Michael said she was cute, southern.”

  “Good for him,” Maya said.

  “Are you two in touch?”

  “We email each other.” Just yesterday he had sent her one that said: I am remembering how you felt next to me in bed.

  “I don’t understand. If you like him, why don’t you go out with him again?”

  “Did I ever tell you about Adam?” Before Emily could ask, Maya said, “My ex-husband.”

  Emily shook her head.

  “He’s a marine biologist. A specialist on jellyfish. Handsome, but in a scruffy way. Shaggy hair. Sometimes he didn’t shave and walked around with five o’clock shadow. All of his shirts used to have frayed cuffs.” As she talked, Maya tore her napkin into tiny squares. “He never wears socks. It’s funny the things you remember about a person. Drinks his coffee black with one sugar. Likes peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches. At least he used to.”

  “And?” Emily said.

  Maya scooped all of the little squares into a pile. “And I broke his heart,” Maya said.

  “It was such a long time ago,” Emily said. “How long are you going to punish yourself for falling out of love with the guy?”

  Maya looked at her, surprised. “Did I say I fell out of love with him?”

  SUNDAY NIGHT, the rain still fell hard. Emily lay in bed naked with Michael after making love, listening to it beat on the roof. It was perhaps her favorite sound. She smiled to herself. Somehow, the weekend alone, the time with Maya, the arrival of the yellow bathing suit, the promise of summer, all of it made her feel happier than she had felt in months, since the last miscarriage.

  Michael played with her hair, oddly in rhythm with
the rain.

  “I think Maya is still in love with her ex-husband,” Emily said.

  “I always forget she was even married,” Michael said, his voice thick with sleep.

  “It was a long time ago,” Emily said.

  “Poor Jack. He’s crazy about her. Maybe I should tell him.”

  “The funny thing is, I told her she should go see the ex-husband and apologize for breaking his heart and she said: I’m going to see him after Memorial Day. Never even mentioned it.” Emily had felt slightly wounded when Maya told her that. She was so secretive sometimes that Emily was always surprised when she learned anything.

  “Do you think they’ll get back together?” Michael asked.

  “That’s even weirder. He’s remarried.” That had been another surprise. Why pine for someone who’s moved on? Why not go out with Jack?

  “I think I’ll stay out of it, then,” Michael said. “Too complicated.”

  “Guess what I did on Friday?” Emily said.

  “What did you do on Friday?”

  “I signed up for a knitting class. I’m going to make a sweater for Isabelle.”

  “Who?”

  “Isabelle. That’s the name I’m trying out for the baby. What do you think?”

  Last night, alone in bed, Emily had dared to read the baby name book she’d bought when she was first pregnant. She had tried not to look at the names highlighted in yellow that she had liked back then. Instead, she got a pink highlighter and started over.

  “Too common,” Michael said.

  “Okay. How about Daisy?”

  “Can we do this another time? When I’m awake?”

  Don’t be disappointed, Emily told herself. He is excited about this baby. He’s just tired.

  “Okay,” she said again. “So I signed up for knitting classes so I can knit a sweater for Daisy.”

  “Did I tell you that Chloe started knitting?” Michael said. “They have an after-school class and she started a couple of weeks ago and she already knit a scarf.”

  “Scarves are easy. That’s what Susannah said and she’s been knitting forever.”

  “Maybe she can help you,” Michael said, and Emily knew he meant Chloe, not Susannah.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m taking a class.”

  “She picked it up fast.”

  Emily felt her body stiffen. She lifted her head from his chest and settled on her side of the bed. Chloe somehow managed to ruin everything. If you let her, Dr. Bundy would say. Emily took a breath, then another, the way she did in yoga. Cleansing breaths.

  “Do you like the name Daisy?” she asked again. She could take control of this conversation again. She could get Chloe out of it.

  Michael chuckled. “Not really.”

  “Tell me a name you like,” she whispered, her hand finding his beneath the covers and holding it.

  Michael didn’t answer. His own breathing told her he had fallen asleep.

  “You’re going to love our baby as much as you love Chloe, right?” she whispered.

  He squeezed her hand, but whether it was an answer or just an acknowledgment that he’d heard her, she wasn’t sure.

  MICHAEL

  Michael watched Chloe pick at her food. Maybe Emily was right. Maybe Chloe did have something going on with her eating. He couldn’t bring himself to say the word anorexia.

  “That looks good,” he said, aware of how foolish he sounded.

  Chloe shrugged and moved the salad around on her plate. She always ordered a chicken Caesar salad. Emily had pointed that out to him and she was right. He wished he didn’t know this.

  “So what do you want to do next? Maybe go shopping for that luggage I promised you?” Rachel had said that Chloe was sick of always having to be with him and Emily. She needs alone time with you, she’d said, and so here he was, alone with Chloe at the Providence Place mall eating at the Cheesecake Factory, which was loud and crowded and making his head pound.

  “I already told you,” Chloe said, “I don’t want luggage.”

  “We got all of these papers about traveling to China and there’s a weight restriction going in, but not coming out. So Emily thought we could each take an empty suitcase so that we’d have room for souvenirs.”

  “Isn’t Emily smart?” Chloe said. She was lining up all the chicken on one side of the plate.

  “Chloe,” Michael said.

  “I’m not going to China,” Chloe said, picking through the salad for more chicken.

  The three miniature hamburgers Michael had eaten rolled around in his stomach. “I want you to come more than anything,” he said.

  Chloe finally looked at him. “If I don’t come, what will you do?”

  “I’ll be hurt, Chloe,” he said. “Don’t do this.”

  “You’ll be hurt?” she said. “Do you know how it feels to have your parents sit you down and tell you they’re getting divorced? Do you? It hurts like hell.”

  “Chloe,” Michael said.

  “And then your father tells you he’s fallen in love with someone who isn’t your mother? Who isn’t anybody at all?”

  “That’s what happens sometimes. Your mother could—”

  “And then he says he wants a new baby? Like you’re not good enough?”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Michael said, jumping to his feet.

  “Feelings aren’t ridiculous!” Chloe shouted at him.

  The noisy restaurant grew quiet.

  Chloe pushed her way out of the booth and walked through the crowd. Even though Michael followed right away, he lost sight of her. When he reached the exit, she was not there. The mall stretched before him, but he could not spot Chloe.

  “I LOST HER,” Michael told Rachel. He pressed his cell phone close, like a shield.

  “Good move,” she said. “She’s with me.”

  “I think you need to help me out, Rachel.”

  Rachel laughed. “I’m not the one who didn’t want to be married anymore. I’m not the one who loved you, but wasn’t in love with you.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I’m not the one so desperate for another child that I’m going halfway around the world.”

  “I’m not desperate,” Michael said. “I’m married to another woman and we want a family.” Then he added, “I’m not the one who can’t move on with my life.”

  “Oh, you’ve moved on,” Rachel said. “That’s for sure.”

  “Maybe we could focus on Chloe instead of me?”

  “Fine. She called me in tears and I came to get her. We’re almost home.”

  “Rachel, you have to talk to her about coming to China,” he said.

  “I have to, huh?”

  Michael shook his head. “And you have to talk to her about her eating.”

  “What?”

  Michael swallowed hard. “I’m worried about how thin she is. I’m worried about how little she eats.”

  “You are unbelievable,” Rachel said.

  He would call Chloe’s guidance counselor and talk to her about the eating problem. He would buy that luggage himself.

  “I’m hanging up,” he said.

  “Goodbye, Michael,” Rachel said.

  Quickly, he pressed the number for home on his phone.

  “Hey,” Emily said, “you guys having fun?”

  “You home?” Michael asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Stay there,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

  SUSANNAH

  Susannah stood naked in front of the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the bedroom door. Yes, she decided, cupping her breasts in her hands, they were larger and tender. She turned to the side and smoothed her stomach. Definitely a bump. Her mouth went dry. If she just took a pregnancy test, she could stop all this. She could decide what to do.

  For the hundredth time, Susannah did fast calculations. That night on the sofa was in August and here it was the beginning of November. Ten weeks. She studied her body again. Was this the body of a woman almos
t three months pregnant? Susannah took a breath, trying to suck in her stomach. Yes, she thought again. It was. So far she had avoided mentioning it to Carter. She knew he would be excited, that he would not even think the only things that Susannah could think. Another baby of theirs could be like Clara. Or worse. Fragile X syndrome had a wide spectrum of potential problems. But Carter wouldn’t worry about that. He would say: This baby might be just fine.

  That baby in China was just fine. A sure thing. Back before they’d decided to adopt, Carter had argued that there was no sure thing. Do you think an adopted baby will be perfect? he’d asked her. Susannah didn’t want perfect. She wanted average. She wanted a child without disabilities.

  The door opened and instinctively Susannah crossed her arms to cover her breasts.

  Carter stood, his hand on the doorknob, his eyes traveling the length of her body. She was a tall, straight woman. Hipless, small-breasted. When she was pregnant with Clara, she didn’t even show until her sixth month. Now, standing naked like this, with Carter studying her, Susannah knew that he could tell instantly. They had not made love since that night, and she had been grateful that their sex life had diminished enough that it wasn’t even expected of her anymore.

  Carter didn’t speak. Instead, a sound came from him. Almost like a growl, Susannah thought, and he came toward her, unbuttoning his shirt, unbuckling his belt. When he reached her, he’d already unzipped his pants.

  “Oh,” he said softly, almost as if she wasn’t even there.

  He pushed her down to the rug. Briefly, Susannah worried about ruining the good oriental. Her grandparents had bought it in Tehran back in the twenties. It was hand-stitched in soft colors, with a pattern of birds. But when Carter entered her, she forgot about the rug. She found herself excited, even though it was more like he was taking her rather than really being with her, claiming something that was his.

  He finished quickly, then rolled off her and onto his back.

  When his breath grew even, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Again, Susannah’s mouth went dry. “The first month I spotted, so I thought maybe I wasn’t.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word pregnant. “But then I missed in October and so I’m not really sure what’s going on.”