The Red Thread

by Ann Hood

  “Which one, then?” Charlie asked her. “Pete? Johnnie?”

  Brooke took his hand and held on tight. “Johnnie,” she said. “Why not?”

  Charlie dipped a paintbrush in red paint, and with the greatest care, he wrote above the door of his daughter’s room: JOHNNIE.

  He stepped back and looked at her name, written in his own handwriting. Seeing it there like that, like an announcement, made it even more real. His daughter Johnnie.

  Then Brooke was standing there in the doorway, frowning.

  “You are as quiet as a kitten,” he said. “I didn’t even hear you coming down the hall.”

  God, he loved her! She had on her old jeans, torn at the knee, and a faded Red Sox T-shirt, and she was the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Charlie took her in his arms, like they were at a high school dance. She put her bare feet on top of his own, and he shuffled the two of them back and forth to music only he could hear playing.

  “They called,” she whispered.

  Charlie kept dancing the two of them across the floor where the daisy rug would sit and the mobile would spin and the rocking chair would rock their baby to sleep.

  “We got a baby,” she said.

  Charlie could not speak. He thought: Johnnie. My daughter.

  “We got a baby and, Charlie, I don’t want to do it.”

  He held his wife tighter. “Of course you do.”

  “No. Ever since Christmas I’ve known that this is not what I want. I thought I did. But, Charlie, you have to believe me, I don’t.”

  “You’re having prebaby jitters. That’s all.” He didn’t like how serious she looked. “Like premarital jitters. Right before you take a big leap into the unknown, you feel like you can’t do it. But then you leap and everything is all right. Better than all right.”

  Brooke stepped away from him and looked him square in the eye. “I never had premarital jitters. I’m not a jittery person. What I want is this. You and me.”

  “When you look at that little girl’s face,” Charlie said, stepping closer to her, “you’ll feel differently.”

  Even though he heard his wife saying no, even though he saw her in front of him with her arms folded tight against her chest and shaking her head, Charlie could not believe that she wouldn’t come around. Like he had.

  EMILY

  Emily did not like sports. Sure, she didn’t mind rooting for the Patriots or the Sox. But she did not enjoy watching a bunch of kids running around with sticks: on ice or grass or—like this afternoon—on mud. Dr. Bundy had told her that she should make an effort to be more involved in Chloe’s life. This might ease the tension. So here Emily stood, shivering and damp, watching Chloe and her team play lacrosse while Chloe’s mother shouted at them.

  I will not be a mother who stands on the sidelines yelling at my kid, Emily decided.

  Thinking things like this made Emily feel better. She had a long list of what she would and wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t take vacations to Disney World, let her daughter have a cell phone until she was a teenager, play video games, or get her ears pierced. She wouldn’t have a daughter like Chloe.

  Michael stood halfway between Emily and Rachel, the shouting, overenthusiastic ex-wife. He was neither by Emily’s side nor by Rachel’s. Instead, he hung between them. Talk about pathetic fallacy, Emily thought. Or just plain pathetic. After all this time, Michael wasn’t sure whose side he should be standing on.

  The girls ran back and forth across the muddy field, sticks in hand, all of them oddly alike with their blond hair and green kneesocks. Emily sighed.

  Seemingly for no reason, the girls stopped and moved off the field.

  Halftime, she realized. At last.

  “What a game, huh?” Michael said from his place in limbo.

  Rachel didn’t answer him. She was too busy opening a giant cooler and pulling out juice boxes and orange sections for the team. Snack mom. Cheering mom. Emily shuddered.

  “Thanks for coming today,” Michael said, taking a step toward her. “It means a lot to Chloe.”

  Emily wanted to point out how little it meant to Chloe, who was ignoring her completely. But Dr. Bundy would not like such honesty, especially here at this boring lacrosse game. Especially when Emily was supposed to be easing tension, not creating it.

  “Well,” she said, raising her hands in defeat, “I don’t know that much about lacrosse—”

  It didn’t matter. Michael had already walked away and taken his spot beside Rachel, handing out juice boxes to the girls. Rachel had her hair pulled into a ponytail, and she wore blue shorts with the name of Chloe’s school written in white and a green windbreaker, also with the school name on it. She looked ridiculous, Emily thought as she watched Michael talk to his ex-wife. What the hell did he have to say to her that was that exciting? Rachel’s head bobbed up and down as he talked, and now Chloe had joined them, and she too was nodding.

  Emily’s heart lurched. They looked like a family, she realized. Here she was on the sidelines, literally and figuratively. An outsider. A bystander. A nobody.

  “Hey!” she called to Michael.

  But he didn’t hear her.

  Shrugging, Emily dug her hands in her coat pockets and walked to the parking lot. The SUVs were lined up like tanks. She got into Michael’s car and pulled out her knitting. She was a terrible knitter, and the sweater she was making for her baby—her baby, goddamm it—looked twisted and wrong. Emily had gone to Susannah for help with it. Susannah was an expert knitter, making things with cables and buttonholes. She said things like seed stitch and kitchenette, things Emily did not understand.

  “Let’s do it again?” Susannah had said that afternoon, and Emily had said that was a great idea, even though it wasn’t.

  Still, it was important somehow that she make this sweater for her baby. Maybe she couldn’t carry a baby herself. Maybe she didn’t understand lacrosse, or have someone to feed orange sections to or a kid’s school colors to wear. But she did have a baby waiting for her in China. Every stitch she knit brought that baby closer to her. Susannah had taken out some of the messy rows and redone them. “You’re good to go,” she’d said when she handed it back to Emily.

  Sitting here in the car alone, Emily knew she was good to go. If only. She sighed. If only a million things would change or happen.

  And then, the phone rang.

  THE SECOND HALF had started. Without Emily there, Michael was by Rachel’s side, cheering and shouting just like her.

  But Emily didn’t care. She walked right in front of them, stood her ground.

  “Michael,” she said, even though he was frowning at her for blocking his view. She felt like a balloon, about to float into the air.

  “Michael,” she said again.

  Rachel glared at her.

  “Samantha from the Red Thread just called.” She should take him aside, Emily thought. This wasn’t Rachel’s news. It was theirs, hers and Michael’s.

  “Great,” he said. “Can you tell me about it after the game?”

  Stunned, Emily took a step back, away from him and right onto the playing field where a girl from the other team knocked into her.

  Emily almost lost her balance, but managed to regain it quickly. The girl, however, seemed to fly right past her and into yet another girl, this one from Chloe’s team. They fell in a tangle of kneesocks and sticks. Parents and coaches came running from every direction.

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily said.

  Chloe was staring at her in angry disbelief.

  “What the hell are you doing on the field during a game?” a red-faced father yelled.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. She searched the crowd for Michael, but couldn’t find him.

  The two girls got unsteadily to their feet, and their teammates cheered.

  “My stupid stepmother,” Emily heard Chloe saying to someone.

  “Get off the field!” an official-looking person was screaming.

  Emily finally understood he was scr
eaming at her. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  “Get. Off. The. Field.”

  “Right, right,” she said, scurrying back. “Sorry.”

  Finally, she found Michael in the crowd as it moved off the field. He had one arm across Chloe’s shoulders and his head bent toward Rachel.

  A family, Emily thought.

  She turned and went back to the car, wondering how this man who could not take sides, who could not stand beside her, would manage now that they, at last, were going to be a family too.

  SUSANNAH

  Maya looked tanned. That was what Susannah thought as she took a seat across from her at the restaurant, the Rue de l’Espoir. Funny this was where Maya had suggested they meet. Although the name was just French for Hope Street, the street it sat on, the word hope itself seemed appropriate.

  “Have you been on vacation?” Susannah asked.

  “Kind of,” Maya said. “Not really.” She shook her head. “I was in California for a few days. Business, actually.”

  Susannah smiled and opened the menu.

  They went about the business of ordering, then small talk, until the food arrived. Then Maya said, “You wanted to talk about the referral?”

  “I can’t do it,” Susannah said calmly.

  The next day, all of the families were going to the Red Thread offices to see their babies for the first time. They would get three pictures, a health report, and information about what she liked and disliked, her temperment and schedule. They would find out when they would leave for China to bring their babies home.

  “Why do you think that?” Maya asked.

  Susannah focused on her salad, the figs and goat cheese, the toasted pecans. It was easier than looking at Maya.

  “Because I am terrified that I am a terrible mother,” Susannah said. She had rehearsed these words on the drive from Newport to Providence so that now they came easily. “I am,” she said, moving the mixed greens around on her plate. “I am already a terrible mother.”

  Maya said, “You’ve had your share of challenges.”

  Susannah looked up then.

  “I know it isn’t easy for you,” Maya said.

  “But you can’t guarantee that this baby is any different.”

  “I’ve seen the babies,” Maya said. “I’ve read the reports. They’re all healthy, beautiful children. Every one of them.”

  The two women grew quiet and concentrated on their lunch.

  After a while, Susannah said softly, “My mother was wonderful, you know.” She had not rehearsed this, and her voice sounded wobbly as she spoke. “We were together constantly, ice skating in Central Park and going to Rumpelmayer’s for hot fudge sundaes. When she got sick, my father sent me away. He didn’t think I should be around her like that. Once, he took me to the hospital and pointed to her window. He told me she was standing there waving at me, but no matter how hard I looked, I didn’t see her there. Then he put me on a train and sent me to my grandmother’s in Rhode Island. Until she got better. But she didn’t get better.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maya said. “You were how old?”

  “Ten when she died. My grandmother lived in one of the mansions on Belleview Avenue, and I wandered around that big house and the grounds like I was lost. I would peek into armoires and beneath shrubs, always looking for something. But I could never say what it was exactly. And I know it sounds foolish to complain when I had everything, in a way. All kinds of lessons and a wonderful education. I was sent off to boarding school when I was fourteen, and it was one of the best schools. Everything was the best,” Susannah said. Then she said, “Except Clara.”

  “You’re trying to—” Maya said, but Susannah interrupted her.

  “But I feel like it’s my fault. Clara. The way she is. The way I am with her.”

  Maya had remained calm while Susannah talked. Until now. Her face changed, and Susannah saw real pain etched there.

  “Guilt,” Maya said, “will get you nowhere. Only you can change that. Forgive yourself and start over.”

  “Could you do it?” Susannah asked. “If you were me?”

  Maya paused. “It doesn’t matter what I would do.”

  Susannah studied Maya’s face. “What did you do,” she asked her, “that you cannot forgive yourself for?”

  To Susannah’s surprise, Maya began to cry.

  “Maya,” she said, reaching for Maya’s hand across the table. But Maya pulled away.

  “I’m here to help you,” Maya said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Perhaps,” Susannah said, “you should take your own advice?”

  Maya smiled.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But for right now, I want to tell you that I saw a picture of a nine-month baby girl who is adorable and healthy and, Susannah? She’s yours.”

  Now it was Susannah’s turn to cry. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed all of the tears that she had held inside since she was a girl in a hospital parking lot, waving up at an empty window.

  Maya slid into the booth beside her, and rubbed Susannah’s back gently, the way a mother soothed a child.

  “There, there,” Maya said softly. “There, there.”

  15

  MAYA

  “They are beautiful, these babies, yes?” Mei asked Maya over the telephone.

  Maya agreed. “Yes, they are beautiful.”

  Mei and Maya had been working together since the Red Thread placed those first babies eight years ago. From her office in Beijing, Mei helped Maya solve problems and intercepted bad news to try to fix it before it reached the United States. To thank her, Maya sent Mei monthly boxes of Gap jeans, size zero; hand lotion; commemorative stamps; Red Sox memorabilia. Whenever Maya was in Beijing, she and Mei went out to dinner. They drank Tsing Tao beer and laughed like old friends.

  “They are healthy,” Mei said, and again Maya agreed.

  “All nine months old,” Mei said. “A good age to find your family.”

  In the outer office, Samantha was preparing everything for the families. She had hung the red paper lanterns and set out platters of steamed dumplings and egg rolls and bamboo skewers of beef and chicken. Maya insisted on each referral session being a celebration, and she always served food and wine to the families.

  “Tell me,” Mei said, “the parents. All nice?”

  It was their ritual conversation. Mei asked the same questions and Maya gave the same answers.

  “Very nice,” she said.

  She thought of this group, of Nell and her Type A personality. Not a woman whom Maya necessarily would call nice, but she did think Nell would give a good home to a child. There would be advantages, sailing lessons and a good private education. If Maya truly believed in the red thread, then the baby who most needed Nell as a mother would be hers. The same could be said of each of these people. Over these months, Maya had seen them at their best, politely listening to her that first night. And she had seen some of them at their worst, during those long months of waiting. Or just yesterday, at lunch with Susannah.

  “We did good,” Mei was saying.

  “We did,” Maya said.

  Mei laughed softly. “As if we actually had anything to do with it.”

  What they both knew was that somehow each of these babies was perfect for the family they got. That was the beautiful mystery of it.

  “The red thread,” Maya said.

  Samantha caught her eye through the open office door and pointed to her watch.

  “They’re due any minute,” Maya said.

  “Good,” Mei said. “Give them their babies.”

  Maya’s breath caught.

  “And Maya? If you need anything at all—”

  “I know,” Maya said. “Thank you.”

  When she hung up, Maya sat at her desk and took out the yarn in her bottom drawer. Her knitting stretched perhaps eight feet or more if she unfolded it. Eight feet or more of nothing but neat rows, one after the other, rows that marked all the waiting she had done in that hospital
in Honolulu, in this office. Waiting for news, for babies, for her life to somehow start again. These rows were like the X’s a prisoner made on a cell wall to count the days. Sometimes, Maya thought she was a prisoner of sorts. A prisoner of her past and her guilt. A prisoner of the accident that changed everything.

  She heard voices now, and smiled when she recognized Emily and Michael’s. She was glad her friends were here first. Laying the yarn on her desk, Maya smoothed her hair and checked her lipstick before going to greet them.

  As soon as Emily saw her, she squealed and jumped with excitement like a schoolgirl.

  “She’s been like this all day,” Michael said. “Help?”

  Emily slapped him lightly on the arm. “You’ve been pretty excited too. Don’t pretend for Maya’s sake.”

  “Help yourself to some food or wine,” Maya said.

  But Emily shook her head. “Please. The baby.”

  Samantha had fanned out the folders on a table. Each folder had the couple’s name written across it. Inside was all the information and pictures of that baby.

  Maya took Emily’s elbow and led her to the table. She picked up their folder and opened it.

  “Your daughter,” Maya said, handing Emily the photograph.

  Maya read from the orphanage’s statement.

  “‘This baby was found in the park during the Flower Festival by the workers erecting the pavilion. She was about five days old, in good health, and dressed in the cloth of a village to the north.’”

  Maya glanced up from the papers and into her friend’s face.

  “And now she’s really mine?” Emily said.

  “You will be in China holding her in your arms in about a month,” Maya said.

  The others started to arrive, and Maya took each of them to the table, opened their folder, and handed them their daughter’s photograph.