“We haven’t decided,” Anna said. “We’re still working out the details of our postadoption agreement with our lawyer. It’s in process.”
“Well, we have training sessions geared for open, semi-open, and closed adoptions.”
“We might have to take all three,” Anna suggested.
There would be interviews with Margret, several of them, in which we’d discuss our approach to parenting and strategies for managing stress.
Naturally all this made me think of Max. Did I have regrets in how I parented him in our seven short years together? No, my only regret was not having an eighth year to parent some more. Memories flooded me, washing me with grief anew. I thought of Max in the morning, shuffling over to me as I drank my coffee. He would have, as he had every morning, one nappy fur paw of his stuffed dog clutched in his small hand. He’d lean his body into mine for a quick snuggle and I’d bury my nose in the top of his head, smelling his hair and the sleepiness of his body. I would trade my life for one more day of that smell. Not only had I lost my son, but each day he was gone I also lost a little more of his memory.
“Gage, are you all right?”
Anna’s voice drew me out of my fog.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I lied.
“Margret asked about the smoke alarms. Do you remember when we changed the batteries?”
“Oh, um, I think we did it during the spring forward.”
“That’s good,” Margret said. “It’s just one little item you won’t have to take care of before the home study visit.”
Margret would have to go through the entire house and make certain it met with state licensing standards (e.g., working smoke alarms, adequate space for a child, free from any hazards, a child-friendly environment). We all nodded; of course we would meet all those requirements and more.
When Margret brought up the health statement, I got a look from Lily that made me shiver. I caught the hint of something mischievous lurking in her eyes, a warning to be ready. What could she be planning?
Everyone has a secret life . . .
Including me.
“So if you have a medical condition that is under control,” Margret said, “high blood pressure or diabetes, that doesn’t disqualify you from being approved. It’s something a lot of our families are worried about.”
“That’s not a worry for us,” Anna said.
“That’s good to know. Mental health care is, just so you know, a big concern for a lot of our adoptive parents. If you’ve sought counseling or treatment for a mental health condition in the past, you’ll want to let us know about those visits.”
Blood thrummed in my ears as my breath clogged. At the same time, I fought to clear a tightness gathering in my chest. They won’t find out about the Adderall, I assured myself. If I don’t tell them, they can’t find out. I’d done some homework. My doctor would be required to fill out medical forms, but like Anna, he knew nothing about my shrink. So if he didn’t know, and Anna didn’t know, there was no reason for Margret to know.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Lily looking at me. Her mouth was lifted upward, a pleased-with-herself smirk. I could feel my breathing accelerate.
“Just to waylay any concerns you may have, our agency views seeking help as a sign of strength. If you’ve sought any mental health care, it will not preclude you from adoption.”
“No worries for us, regardless,” Anna said. “Neither Gage nor I are taking any medications for our mental health. We’ve even stopped going to the grief group where we first met. Honestly, his love and support are really what’s gotten me through these very difficult years.”
“Yes, that’s true,” I said, feeling my tight chest constrict even more.
Lily made a surprised “huh” sound.
“What is it?” Margret asked.
“It’s really nothing,” Lily said. “I’m just a bit surprised Adderall isn’t considered mental health medication. I knew some kids at school who used to deal it, so I always thought it did something to the brain, like get you high or something, but I guess it was something else. What do I know? I wasn’t into drugs or anything, so I didn’t really pay much attention.”
“What does Adderall have to do with anything, Lily?” Anna asked.
I felt a red-hot flash curl up from my toes and shoot straight through my spine.
Lily appeared flummoxed.
“I just saw Gage’s bottle of Adderall when I was cleaning up from the medicine cabinet disaster. I figured that was, you know, for mental health, but I guess I was wrong.”
“What are you talking about? What bottle of Adderall? Gage?”
Anna was looking at me, her eyes two steely daggers. Something unraveled in my gut. Lily cupped her hands over her mouth.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I figured it was nothing. I wasn’t snooping. It was just underneath the cabinet. I was looking for some paper towels to help me clean up the mess. I . . . I was just thinking out loud. Oh, my gosh, I hope I didn’t mess anything up.”
“No, no,” Margret said, reassuring, brushing aside the concern with a wave of her hand. “Taking Adderall is fine. We just need that information recorded on the medical forms, is all.”
Anna kept her gaze locked on me. I’d broken a seal of trust and doubted it could ever be fully restored again.
Lily turned her head. Only I could see her expression. Her eyes were dancing with delight. If they could sing, I’d hear them belt out the refrain, “Everyone has a secret,” over and over again.
CHAPTER 24
Judging by her wan expression and pale coloring, Anna was emotionally drained. It wasn’t just Margret’s visit that had done her in.
After everyone left, we spent a good hour, maybe more, talking about Adderall. Anna packed for her flight the next morning while we discussed things. She had a client meeting with Humboldt in Minneapolis—the big deal, the one that would allow her to quit work for a while and stay home with the baby.
At the moment, however, she had other things on her mind. How long had I been taking the drug? Why hadn’t I told her about my—let’s call it what it was—addiction? What was I gaining from it? Why hadn’t I confided in her?
I did my best to explain my actions in the most simple terms possible. I’d become dependent on the drug to get me through the workday. I needed the steroid-like focus that came from the rush. I didn’t have ADHD, but that shouldn’t exclude me from getting something to numb my pain.
“And you thought I’d have made you stop taking the drug?”
“Wouldn’t you?” I asked. “If we switched places, I would have been worried about you. I would have wanted you to stop taking anything that was a crutch and not a necessity.”
“But you’ve been lying to me, Gage. I’m your wife. I’m on your side, not in your way.”
I lowered my head, feeling foolish. The fear of losing my Adderall had kept me from confiding in my wife. I could have, as she said many times during our chat, put some faith and trust in her.
“How’d you get the drugs?” Anna asked, emphasizing the word drugs.
“I filled out an eighteen-question survey,” I said. I explained how I’d rated various symptoms on a scale of zero to three and scored off the charts for ADHD simply because I’d studied up on the symptoms beforehand. I got a thirty-milligram dose for Concerta, which eventually became a fifty-milligram per day prescription for Adderall as the course of my “treatment” evolved.
“What else? What other secrets are you keeping from me?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not keeping any secrets. I swear.”
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
“Look in my eyes,” I said. “Just look in my eyes.”
Anna did as I asked. A shadow crossed her face.
“You blame her,” she said.
“Blame who?”
“Lily,” Anna said. “You blame Lily for what happened tonight.”
“Well, she did bring it up,” I said.
My voice had the smoothness of sandpaper and was full of anger. Just the mention of Lily’s name was enough to quicken my pulse.
“What are you after?” Anna asked. “Are you trying to undermine what we’re doing here? Because that’s how it seems.”
“Why would Lily even mention it?”
“Because she was confused,” Anna said as if the answer should have been obvious to me. “She was thinking out loud. She’s a young girl. She’s not experienced or worldly. She’s just an innocent girl who noticed something and thought to share it, which is what you should have done with me in the first place.”
“Lily is not innocent,” I said.
Anna’s body shook.
“Damn you, Gage,” she said. Anna zipped shut her luggage. As a consultant, she had learned to become a quick, efficient packer. “You don’t want it. You’re dragging me through this and you don’t want it like I do.”
“Yes, I do. I’m just worried about Lily. You said you wanted honesty from me? Well, I’m being honest.”
“No, you don’t want it or you wouldn’t be behaving this way!” Red splotches like heat marks sprouted up on Anna’s face and neck. “I want a baby, Gage. I want to be a mother again, and you’re doing everything in your power to turn my dream into a nightmare.”
Anna went to the living room, and I followed.
“Don’t you get it? Lily brought up the Adderall for a reason,” I said. “You didn’t see how she was looking at me? She was letting me know, looking forward to making the big reveal. She knew she was going to get the opportunity.”
“And what reason can you give me for that?” Anna asked, her voice trembling. “To make sure we don’t get approved to become the adoptive parents?”
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I think Lily is trying to pit you against me.”
“What are you talking about?” Anna looked exasperated, even angry.
“Think about it,” I said. “Ever since Lily has come into our lives, we’ve been at odds.”
“No, you’ve been at odds with us,” Anna said.
“That’s my point exactly,” I said, stabbing the air with my finger. “It’s now you and Lily versus me. The present, the necklace, the Adderall—it’s all about making me think one thing about Lily and you another.”
“Good news. You’ve now got something real to go talk to your shrink about,” Anna said. “Go get yourself a prescription for your paranoia to go along with the Adderall.”
That was how the conversation ended: with Anna retreating into the bedroom, leaving me alone to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she was right.
Hours after our “discussion,” long after Anna had fallen asleep, well past the midnight hour, as soon as I heard Lily walking upstairs, I snuck out the front door. I couldn’t wait a second longer to confront my suspicions. Was I intentionally trying to derail this process? Was it possible my heart was not ready for another child? Could my subconscious be imagining behaviors that simply weren’t there? Was my mind the enemy, and not Lily? Brad hadn’t detected anything evil from Lily’s aura. Everything that had happened was sort of explainable but required eyes that saw through a different lens. The beliefs about Lily that I held certain—certain until my fight with Anna—needed clarity.
We’d told Lily to lock her front door at night. Apparently, she was absentminded. I went up the stairs and paused on the landing. The door to her apartment was closed and I presumed locked. I hoped she was safety conscious enough to lock at least one of her doors. Maybe she’d think it was Anna coming to pay her a visit. Either way, I knocked twice, waited, knocked a third time, and heard footsteps shuffling toward the door.
“Who is it?” Lily asked. Her cloying voice made me think she was expecting me.
“It’s Gage,” I said to the shuttered door. “I’m sorry it’s late, but I heard you come home. I’d like to speak with you for a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.”
The door opened and there was Lily, still wearing her waitress uniform.
“Hi, Gage,” she said. She stood with her hip cocked, like a vintage pinup, with one arm propped against the door frame as a barrier. Her tongue slipped between her ruby-painted lips to wet them just slightly. “You’re probably wanting to talk about the home study, aren’t you?”
“I think we need to have a little chat,” I said.
A man’s steely voice called from out of my view, “Who is it?”
Lily lowered her arm and motioned for me to enter.
From the foyer I saw the man standing just down the hall, drinking Budweiser from a can. He was tall and wiry, and though he wore a denim jacket with a black T-shirt underneath, I could tell his body was ripped with muscle. Intricate tattoos were visible on his hands and others snuck out from the collar of his shirt, wrapping around his neck like growing vines. His lean, sharp-featured face was pockmarked and covered in a heavy five o’clock shadow. His hawklike eyes gave the impression he saw every situation as potentially confrontational. He had thick black eyebrows and close-cropped dark hair. He looked like the sort who had come out of the womb with a chip on his shoulder, the world against him, and the fists to fight for his survival.
“Who is this?” the man asked again.
“Roy, this is Gage. He’s going to adopt my baby,” Lily said. “Gage, this is Roy. He’s the baby’s father. He’s going to live with me for a little while.”
CHAPTER 25
“Why don’t you come in and have a beer?”
Lily headed toward the kitchen, presumably to get me something to drink, a beer I didn’t want. She left me alone in the narrow hallway with Roy, who stood just a few paces away.
Roy took a long, purposeful swig of his Bud, keeping his eyes locked on me as if I might try something—attack, run, who knows what—if he let himself be distracted. Roy finished his beer in one long drink, crinkling the sides of the can with his fingers to show me he was done. He still didn’t speak. He just kept eyeing me.
“So, you’re the dude who’s going to raise my kid,” he said.
The word awkward popped into my head.
Roy kept eyeing me. I noticed how deeply set his eyes were and I wondered if it gave him a different perspective on the world. He was a hard man who made it hard to tell if I repelled him, amused him, sickened him, or a combination of all three.
“This is a lot to take in,” I said. My heart was pounding now, palms gone sweaty. How did we end up here, meeting like this? Lily acted so nonchalant about it all. Didn’t she understand the ramifications of the father entering the picture? Other thoughts crossed my mind. Would he be willing to sign off on the adoption? Would he contest Lily’s wishes? Would the baby grow up to have the same hard-edged look in his eyes as his father?
“What do you mean, take in?” Roy asked.
I picked up the drawl in his speech and wondered if he came from someplace warm, where people walked slowly, where they weren’t used to rushing to get out of the cold. Florida perhaps. His dark complexion could be genetics or the product of the sun.
“It’s a big new development, Roy,” I said.
I wanted to get his last name, but we hadn’t shaken hands, and Roy made no gestures to break the ice. We remained a good distance apart. I saw him run his tongue back and forth along the bottom of his lip. For some reason, I got the feeling this was a habit of his whenever he got to thinking. And I could see Roy was a thinking man. If Lily was the crying woman when we first met, Roy was the thinking man. The way his eyes probed, how he shifted weight from one foot to another, he didn’t do anything without having planned for every possible contingency. This was my suspicion, anyway. He knew the exits before he entered a room. He wouldn’t talk to you, not really talk, until he knew your angle, your backstory, your weakness, something he could use to his advantage. No movement was wasted, no thought without purpose; everything about him projected the single-mindedness of a predator. He was all about the hunt. One minute you might be hunting by his side, but in a flash he’d turn you into his p
rey.
Lily came back from the kitchen with two beers.
“Wish I could join you,” she said. “But the baby isn’t ready to drink.”
Lily tossed me the beer. I caught it midair, inverted it with a twist of my wrist, popped the top, and took a long swig, slurping up foam. Roy and I eyed each other as I drank my beer. That was when I saw the first hint of pleasure cross his face.
“So, why don’t we go into the living room and hang out,” Lily said. “It takes me a while to wind down after a shift.”
I wondered what time it was. One in the morning? One-thirty? I wasn’t wearing my watch, but it was late, or early morning. Everything told me to get out of there, go downstairs, wake Anna up, have a chat, do something other than what I was doing, which was sitting on the couch in Lily’s apartment. But I didn’t go anywhere. I sat down and became a part of the moment. Maybe it was Roy. Maybe in a way I was thankful for his sudden arrival.
Here was the shameful part, the thought I couldn’t speak aloud: maybe Roy was the answer to my problem.
Roy pulled up a chair, spun it around, and sat in it so the chair back was pressed up against his chest. He stretched out his arm and held out his hand, and Lily responded by tossing him a beer. Roy popped the top and Lily raised her bubbling glass of what I guessed was soda water and cranberry juice.
“Well, here’s to all of us,” Lily said, then took a sip.
A moment of silence expanded. The only thing I could do to settle my unease was to drink. Before I knew it, half my beer was gone and we hadn’t spoken a word.
“So, Roy,” I said. “Where are you from?”
“Sort of all over,” Roy said.
I gave him a chance to join in the small talk, but he preferred to let the conversation die. Instead, he drank more of his beer. I did the same and realized I’d finished all twelve ounces in about three swallows.
“So what brings you to us?” I didn’t know what else to say, but that got the hint of a smile from him.
“I needed a place to crash for a while,” Roy said. “Lily told me how nice you folks have been to her.”
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