Sunlight and Joy

by Barbara Delinsky

  My mind filled with static. I tried to remember the company line. “The Eagle River recall was eighteen months ago. The water has been clean since then. It wouldn’t harm your baby.”

  I heard a meek half-cry. “The thing is, we try to buy in bulk because it’s cheaper that way. So we had a couple of twenty-fours in the basement and kind of forgot about them. Then I got pregnant, and my husband lost his job, and money was really tight, so I saw the water and thought I was doing good by using what we had instead of buying fresh. I didn’t know about the recall.”

  “It was in all the newspapers.”

  I don’t read newspapers, the ensuing silence said. “Newspapers cost money.”

  “So does bottled water.”

  “But the water from the tap tastes so bad. We thought of putting a filter on, but that costs more than the bottled water, and it’s not like we own this place.”

  “Maybe your tap water is tainted,” I said, playing to script. “Have you asked your landlord to test it?”

  “No, because my husband drinks it, and he’s healthy. I’m the only one with the problem, and I only drink bottled water. I noticed your newspaper ad, because I always drink Eagle River.” Her voice was a whispered wail. “They say the baby won’t be right, and my husband wants to get rid of it, and I have to make a decision, and I don’t know what to do. This sucks.”

  It did suck. All of it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated, and I realized she wanted my advice, but how could I give that? I was the enemy, an agent for the company whose product had caused a deformity in her child. She should have been yelling at me, calling me the most cold-hearted person in the world. Some of them did. There had been the man whose seamstress wife had developed tremors in her hands and was permanently disabled. Or the woman whose husband had died—and yes, he had a preexisting medical condition, but he would have lived longer if he hadn’t drunk tainted water.

  The names they called me weren’t pretty, and though I told myself not to take it personally, I did. Thinking that this job definitely sucked, I swiveled sideways and lowered my eyes. “I’m Emily. What’s your name?”

  “Layla,” she said. I didn’t try to enter it on my form. Nor did I ask for a last name. This had become a personal discussion.

  “Have you talked with your doctor about options?”

  “There are only two,” she said, sounding frightened. I guessed her to be in her early twenties. “My mother says I shouldn’t kill my baby. She says God chose me to protect an imperfect child, but she isn’t the one who’ll be paying medical bills or maybe losing a husband because of it.” Losing a husband … not on the formal list of “harms” but a plausible side effect, one that had to resonate with any married woman in this room.

  Or maybe not. We didn’t talk about this—didn’t talk about much of anything, because we were being paid by the hour to do our work, and time sheets would only allow for a lapse or two. What I was doing now was against the rules. I was supposed to stick to business and limit the time of each call. But Layla was talking quickly, going on about the bills that were piling up, and I couldn’t cut her off. Somewhere in the middle of it, she said, “You’re a good person, I can tell by your voice, so my husband was wrong when he said I’d be talking to a robot. He also said we’d have to sign away our lives if we got money for this. Would we?”

  I was stuck on good person, echoing so loudly through my fraudulent soul that I had to consciously refocus at the end. “No, Layla. You’d have to sign a release saying that you won’t further sue Eagle River, its parent company or distributors, but that’s it.”

  She was silent for a beat. “Are you married?”

  “Yes.”

  “With kids?”

  “Some day.” I was on the clock, but I couldn’t return to the claim form.

  “I’m desperate for them,” Layla said in her very young voice. “I mean, you work for a law firm. I work in a hardware store. Kids would give my life meaning, y’know?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied just as a sharp voice broke in.

  “What’s happening here, Emily,” Walter asked. “No one’s working.”

  I swiveled toward him, then rose from my chair enough to see over the cubicle tops. Sure enough, our team stood in scattered clusters, most looking now at Walter and me.

  “Computers are down,” called one. “Forms are frozen.”

  Walter eyed me. “Did you report this?”

  I pushed my mouthpiece away. “I hadn’t realized there was a problem. I’m working with a claimant.” Adjusting the mouthpiece, I returned to Layla. “There’s a technical glitch here. Can I call you back in a few?”

  “You won’t,” she said, defeated. “And anyway, I don’t know if I should do this.”

  “You should,” I advised, confident that Walter wouldn’t know what I was saying.

  She gave me her number. I wrote it on a Post-It and ended the call.

  “He should what?” Walter asked.

  “Wait half an hour before going out, so that I can call her back.” I buzzed our technology department.

  “Are you encouraging people to file claims?” Walter asked.

  “No. I’m listening. She’s in pain. She needs someone to hear what she’s saying.”

  “Your job is to document everyone who calls and tell them what medical forms we’ll need if they want a piece of the pie. That’s it, Emily. You’re not being paid to be a shrink.”

  “I’m trying to sort through claims so that we know which are legit and which aren’t. This is one way to do it.” When I heard a familiar voice in my headset, I said, “Hey, Todd, it’s Emily. We’re having trouble up here.”

  “Already on it.” He clicked off.

  I relayed the message to Walter, who wasn’t mollified. “How long ’til we’re running again?”

  It was 9:40. I figured we’d lost ten minutes, fifteen max. “Todd is fast.”

  Walter leaned closer. A natty dresser, he never looked ruffled. The only things that ever gave him away were his gray eyes and his voice. Those eyes were rocky now, the voice low and taut. “I’m under pressure, Emily. We were named to manage this settlement only after I personally assured the judge that we could do it quickly and economically. I can’t afford to have my lawyers wasting time holding hands. I’m counting on you to set an example; this is important for your career. Get the facts. That’s it.” With a warning look, he left.

  I should have been chastised, but all I could think was that if anyone was wasting time, it was the people who called us hoping for help. They wouldn’t get what they deserved; the system was designed to minimize reward. Besides, how did you price out a damaged baby, a ruined life?

  I was telling myself not to be discouraged—to keep avoiding wine and caffeine and always wash my prenatal vitamins down with good water—when a crescendoing hum came, spreading from cubicle to cubicle as the computers returned to life. I should have been relieved, but, to my horror, my eyes filled with tears. Needing a distraction, even something as frivolous as Vegas talk from Colly’s friends, I turned when my BlackBerry dinged. It was James. Maybe coming tonight? I wondered with a quick burst of hope.

  Just got a brilliant idea, he wrote and, for a final minute, still, I believed. The dinner Sunday night? That was his firm dinner. I want you to do it up big—new dress, hair, nails, the works. I have to work tomorrow anyway. That would be Saturday, the one day we usually managed a few hours together. A couple of favors? Pick up my navy suit and my shirts. And my prescription. And get cash for the week. Thanks, babe. You’re the best.

  I scrolled on, thinking there had to be more, because if that was all, I would be livid.

  But that was it. Thanks, babe. You’re the best.

  Keyboards clicked, voices hummed, electronics dinged, jangled, and chimed, and still, as I stared at the words, I heard James’s voice. I want you to do it up big—new dress, hair, nails, the works. Like I needed his permission for this?

  Suddenly
it all backed up in my throat like too much bad food—bad marriage, bad work, bad family, friends, feelings—and I couldn’t swallow. Needing air, I grabbed my purse and, as an afterthought, the Post-It with Layla’s name and number.

  Tessa Reid was as close as I came to having a friend in the firm, which was as sad a statement as any. We never socialized outside work. I did know that she had two kids and two school loans, and that she shared my revulsion for what we did. I saw it in her eyes when she arrived at work, the same look of dread reflected in my own mirror each day.

  She lived three cubicles to the right of mine. Ducking in there now, I touched her shoulder. Her earpiece was active, her hands typing. One look at my face, and she put her caller on hold.

  “Do me a huge favor, Tessa?” I whispered, not for privacy because, Lord knew, my voice wouldn’t carry over the background din, but because that was all the air I could find. I pressed the Post-It to her desk. “Call this claimant for me? We were talking when the system went down. She’s valid.” I was banking on that, perhaps with a last gasp of idealism. For sure, though, Tessa was the only one in the room whom I could trust to find out.

  She was studying me in concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need air. Do this for me?”

  “Of course. Where are you going?”

  “Out,” I whispered and left.

  A gaggle of clicks, dings, and murmurs followed me, lingering like smog even when the elevator closed. I made the descent in a back corner, eyes downcast, arms hugging my waist. Given the noise in my head, if anyone had spoken, I mightn’t have heard, which was just as well. What could I have said if, say, Walter Burbridge had stepped in? Where are you going? I don’t know. When’ll you be back? I don’t know. What’s wrong with you? I don’t know.

  The last would have been a lie, but how to explain what I was feeling when the tentacles were all tangled up? I might have said that it went beyond work, that it covered my entire life, that it had been building for months and had nothing to do with impulse. Only it did. Survival was an impulse. I had repressed it for so long that it was weak, but it must have been beating somewhere in me, because when the elevator opened, I walked out.

  Even at 9:57, Fifth Avenue buzzed. Though I had never minded before, now the sound grated. I turned right for the bus and stood for an excruciating minute in traffic exhaust, before giving up and fleeing on foot, but pedestrian traffic was heavy, too. I walked quickly, dodging others, dashing to make it over the cross street before a light changed. When I accidentally jostled a woman, I turned with an apology, but she had continued on without looking back.

  I had loved the crowds when I first came here. They made me feel part of something big and important. Now I felt part of nothing. If I wasn’t at work, others would be. If I bumped into people, they walked on.

  So that’s what I did—just walked on, block after block. I passed a hot dog stand but smelled only exhaust fumes from a bus. My watch read 10:21, then 10:34, then 10:50. If my legs grew tired, I didn’t notice. The choking feeling had passed, but I felt little relief. My thoughts were in turmoil, barely touched by the blare of a horn or the rattle of the tailgate of a truck at the curb.

  Nearing our neighborhood, I stopped for my husband’s suit and shirts, and picked up his prescription, then entered the tiny branch office of our bank. The teller knew me. But this was New York. If she wondered why I cashed more money than usual, she didn’t ask.

  The bank clock stood at 11:02 when I hit the air again. Three minutes later, I turned down the street where we lived and, for a hysterical second, wondered which brownstone was ours. Through my disenchanted eyes, they all looked the same. But no; one had a brown door, another a gray one; and there was my windowbox, in which primrose and sweet peas were struggling to survive.

  Running up the steps, I let myself in, emptied my arms just inside, and dashed straight up the next flight and into the bedroom. I pulled my bag from the closet floor, but paused only when I set it on the bed. What to bring? That depended on where I was going, and I didn’t have a clue.

  ALSO BY BARBARA DELINSKY

  FAMILY TREE

  For as long as she can remember, Dana Clarke has longed for the stability of home and family. Now she has married a man she adores, whose heritage can be traced back to the Mayflower, and she is about to give birth to their first child. But what should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart. Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, and, in addition, unmistakably African-American in appearance. Dana’s determination to discover the truth about her baby’s heritage becomes a shocking, poignant journey.

  NOT MY DAUGHTER

  When Susan Tate’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, announces she is pregnant, Susan is stunned. A single mother, she has struggled to do everything right. She sees the pregnancy as an inconceivable tragedy for both Lily and herself. Then comes word of two more pregnancies among other high school juniors who happen to be Lily’s friends. The town turns to talk of a pact. As fingers start pointing, and Susan struggles with the implication of her daughter’s pregnancy, her job, financial independence, and long-fought-for dreams are all at risk. Barbara Delinsky has once again given us a powerful novel, one that asks a central question: What does it take to be a good mother?

  THE SECRET BETWEEN US

  Deborah Monroe and her daughter, Grace, are driving home from a party when their car hits a man running in the dark. Grace was at the wheel, but Deborah sends her home before the police arrive, determined to shoulder the blame for the accident. Her decision then turns into a deception that takes on a life of its own and threatens the special bond between mother and daughter. The Secret Between Us is an unforgettable story about making bad choices for the right reasons and the terrible consequences of a lie gone wrong.

  WHILE MY SISTER SLEEPS

  Molly and Robin Snow are sisters in the prime of life. So when Molly receives the news that Robin has suffered a massive heart attack, the news couldn’t be more shocking. At the hospital, the Snow family receives a grim prognosis: Robin may never regain consciousness. Feelings of guilt and jealousy flare up as Robin’s family struggles to cope. It’s up to Molly to make the tough decisions, and she soon makes discoveries that shatter some of her most cherished beliefs about the sister she thought she knew.

  ANCHOR BOOKS

  Available wherever books are sold.

  www.randomhouse.com

  Coming soon from Doubleday

  Escape

  In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman’s desire to abandon the endless obligations of work and marriage—and the idea that the most passionate romance can be found with the person you know best.

  AVAILABLE JULY 2011 WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD

  www.barbaradelinsky.com