by Julie Cohen
Robbie looked away, over the water. The pod of dolphins had swum off eastward.
‘It’s been three years,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s seven. If he even remembers me, he won’t want to see me. I can imagine what Marie’s been telling him about me.’
‘It could change. She could change her mind.’
‘You don’t know what kind of a husband I was to her.’
‘If that’s so, she’s strangely reluctant to let go of being married to you.’
He shook his head. ‘She’s doing it for punishment. I never knew her well, Em, but I know her well enough to understand that. She hated that church, but not half as much as she hated me.’
Emily ran her hand over the shining teak. ‘I don’t like the idea of you selling this boat. It’s as if . . . it feels as if you’d be giving up on William.’
‘I’m not. I wouldn’t. But we have to be realistic. And the boat is only a boat. It’s a symbol, not a real child.’
‘But all those years of work—’
‘I can make another boat. You and I . . .’ He hesitated, and she stiffened slightly.
‘We’ve been in a holding pattern,’ he said at last. ‘We’ve been living in the present and trying to ignore the past.’
‘What’s wrong with that? That’s what we wanted. It’s what we decided to do.’
‘Yes. It’s exactly what we wanted. But I think it might be time for us to stop ignoring the past and just to let it go. Let it go. Stop letting it define us. And part of that might be to start doing things to make the future happen.’
‘So you think we should go through Honeywell,’ she said.
‘I think we should take every chance we can.’
She gazed at him. He was forty this year; she’d spotted threads of silver in his dark hair. She had seen lines in her own face in the mirror, lines around her eyes from squinting in the sun, bracketing her mouth from smiling. Their bodies had shed cells and renewed them. In so many ways they were no longer the same people who had met all those years ago.
Who knew what they would be in the future?
‘All right,’ she said. She reached over and took his hand. ‘I agree. Let’s do it.’
He knocked on Luís Fuentes’ door.
Luís was a money person. Rumour had it that he had come over from Cuba with his elderly mother in a tiny boat during the revolution, though Luís never spoke of that, and from what Robbie could see he had never actually set foot on a boat since. The marina was his investment. Luís handled the budgets and left all of the practical running of the marina to Robbie and his friend and former drinking buddy, Tom. Once upon a time, it had mostly been Tom running things. Now, it was mostly Robbie.
When Robbie went into the office, Luís was surrounded by paperwork and cigarette smoke. He wordlessly held out the pack of Camels to Robbie, who took one and sat down across from him to wait until he’d stopped punching numbers into the adding machine.
‘What is it?’ Luís said finally, looking up and lighting a new cigarette from the butt of the one he’d just finished.
‘I need to borrow some money,’ said Robbie.
Luís was obviously surprised. ‘You haven’t asked me that in a while.’
‘I haven’t needed it till now.’
‘Well, it’s no problem. Something to tide you over to next month?’ Luís reached for his wallet, and then frowned at Robbie. ‘I thought your missus was a doctor.’
‘She is.’
‘She must make good money. You got that nice house in Coral Gables.’
‘She does. We do.’
‘She know about you asking me this? It doesn’t make a difference to me; I just want to know what to say and what not to say next time you have me for dinner, that’s all.’
Robbie hesitated. ‘She . . . doesn’t. Emily knows what the money is for; she doesn’t know that I’m asking you for it.’
‘I see.’
‘And I need to borrow a little more than something to tide me over. I need three thousand.’
Luís’s only indication of surprise was the bright red flare of his cigarette as he sucked in harder than usual. ‘That’s a lot of money.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Can I ask what it’s for?’
He thought of Emily again. ‘You . . . can’t. I’m sorry. If you agree to lend it to me, you can take it out of my wages every month. With interest. Or I’ll write you a cheque and pay it back in a lump sum when I’ve got it, whatever you prefer.’
‘I hear you sold your boat. That nice little hand-built wooden number.’
‘That’s right.’
Luís actually parked his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and leaned forward on his desk. ‘Are you in trouble, Bob?’
‘No.’
‘Because I remember when you were a drinking man. And that’s been different for awhile now, I thought—’
‘Over two years.’
‘Glad to hear it. But a man can do things when he’s thirsty, that he wouldn’t do otherwise.’
‘This has nothing to do with drinking. Or anything like that. But if you don’t want to lend it to me, no hard feelings. I can understand that you’d want to know more.’ He stood. The loss of hope weighed him down. There was nothing else to sell, and no one else to ask.
If Emily were with someone other than him, she wouldn’t be having this problem. She would probably already have a child by now.
‘Now slow down there, Bob,’ said Luís. ‘Have a seat.’
Robbie sat down.
‘You nearly lost your job a few years back. I cut you some slack, because your work is good, and because you’re a veteran. But you were becoming a liability instead of an asset. You’ve turned that around, now. You’re the best man I’ve got. I don’t want to think you’re in trouble again.’
‘I’m not in trouble, Luís.’
‘Then I trust you.’ Luís put his cigarette back in his mouth, reached into his desk drawer, and took out his chequebook. ‘You just pay me back when you can.’
‘With interest.’
‘No interest. I’m considering this an investment in my business because it keeps you happy.’ He tore off the cheque, cigarette dangling from his lip, and handed it to Robbie, who looked without real comprehension at the figure on it. ‘You want to do something for me in return, you talk with Tom and tell him how you’re managing to stay sober.’
‘You see more than you let on from up here, don’t you?’
Luís tapped his forehead with his finger and smiled. ‘Just talk with Tom.’
‘I’ll try. But if someone hasn’t got a reason to stay sober, it’s never going to happen.’
‘And you have a reason?’
Robbie stood up, folded the cheque carefully, and reached over Luís’s desk to shake his hand. ‘I have the best reason in the world.’
Chapter Eighteen
June 1976
Miami, Florida
The nurses at the station were gossiping about their husbands. Emily lingered there, going over paperwork for her rounds, letting their plans wash over her.
‘Seventeen years we’ve been married and I’ve never had so much as a daisy from him. He doesn’t believe in flowers. Have you ever heard it? Doesn’t believe in them. Says they’re dead as soon as they’re cut and he doesn’t want dead things in the house. I say, what about our sex life, that’s dead.’
‘Last year JJ gave me a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day and he ate half of them himself.’
‘Andrew bought me lingerie on my birthday. I’m all, we’ve got three kids, when do you expect me to wear this?’
‘What about you, Dr Brandon? Does your husband ever give you flowers?’
Emily looked up, smiling. ‘Just one at a time.’ A single rose in an empty Coke bottle and a handwritten not
e on her bedside table on her last birthday when she’d woken up.
‘One is better than none, or half a box of chocolates. I said to my other half, I said, it’s our anniversary; when I get home from work today I at least want to see a card, or you—’ The phone rang and Flo picked it up without interrupting her monologue. ‘—you can cook your own lazy-ass dinner. Hello?’
Emily was picking up her clipboard and turning away when Flo held the phone out to her. ‘It’s for you. He’s probably calling to tell you he loves you. Where was my hubby when the romantic genes were handed out?’
She took the phone. ‘Robbie?’
‘Em? Honeywell just called.’
The mixture of emotions that hit her was indefinable: joy, fear, anticipation, yearning, a kind of sickness. Similar, but not identical, to the way she had felt seeing Robbie for the second time across a crowded room of travellers.
She turned away from the others and spoke quietly. ‘He . . . what does he say?’
‘He says he’s . . .’ For the first time she realised that Robbie’s voice was shaking. She clutched the receiver hard in both hands. ‘He says he’s found our son.’
She was water; she was stone. She was about to faint or be sick. ‘Our son?’ she whispered.
‘He’s – he’s a week old. He . . .’ She heard Robbie swallow, and all at once she wanted to be nowhere but by his side, holding him, seeing the mixture of emotions on his face as well. ‘We can get him next month. In four weeks, he said.’
‘We can take him home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Next month?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I . . . ’
An orderly went past her pushing a plastic cot, a crying baby nestled inside. Emily stared. A week old. Their son. Hers and Robbie’s. Not much older than that newborn, there, not yet uncurled from its foetal position, arms and legs delicate twigs, face red and screwed up in impotent baby rage.
Their son who they hadn’t yet met.
‘We’re not ready,’ she said into the phone.
‘We’ll get ready quick. We’ve got a month.’
‘I thought it would take longer.’
‘Apparently not. Emily, are you happy? You sound scared.’
‘You sound scared.’
‘Maybe that’s how we’re supposed to feel.’
‘I think we’re supposed to feel happy.’
‘I think . . . I’ll feel happy when we hold him.’
When we hold him. Emotion rose in Emily’s throat and she couldn’t speak.
‘Come home soon, OK?’ Robbie said gently, and Emily nodded, and though he couldn’t see her, she knew he understood. He hung up, and Emily put the phone back in the cradle.
She stared at the wall, where the nurses had put up a corkboard for all the cards and photographs the team had been sent from grateful parents. Jaquinda was on there: a smiling triumvirate of happiness, baby Inés wrapped in a pink blanket and wearing a ridiculously large crocheted bonnet.
They needed to buy a cot – a crib, they called it a crib in America – and clothes and nappies and formula and bottles. They had nothing yet. They hadn’t bought anything. It was too much like tempting fate. The empty room was still empty, except sometimes when she and Robbie sat in it, on the side of the single bed, together.
A carrycot, a pram, dummies, muslins – they all had different names in the US but she couldn’t remember what they were just now, and Emily realised she had held hundreds of babies, maybe thousands by now, and she had never fed one.
‘You all right, Dr Brandon? You look worried.’ Flo was frowning up at her. ‘Not bad news at home, is it?’
‘I’m fine. Not bad news, no. It’s good news. But good news I wasn’t quite ready for.’
‘Best kind,’ said Flo, and winked at her, and went back to her charts. The other two nurses had left while Emily was on the phone.
‘Flo?’ she said.
‘Mmm, doctor?’
‘If you’ve got a little time today, I wonder if . . . I wonder if you could show me how to change a nap— Change a diaper?’
Flo looked up, a broad smile on her face. ‘I can do that, yeah.’
Afterwards, Emily could never remember precisely what the orphanage building looked like, or where in the building they went. She would think about it many times, and both wish she knew more and be glad that she didn’t. She had an impression of a modern building, with glass bricks at the entrance, and a scent of floor polish and burnt toast. What caught her attention most was the corkboard near the reception desk, covered in photographs of children: drawing, playing, running some sort of race, blowing out birthday candles. It was similar to the corkboard in the maternity ward, except that the children were older. And the adults were in the periphery of the photographs. Carers, not parents.
She held tight to Robbie’s hand because she thought she might drift away. Wander like an unmanned boat, sail flapping. They’d driven for hours to get here, and that morning, before dawn, she had stood in the room at the end of the house with her hands on the rail of the cot and she had looked down at the sheets, printed with Peter Rabbit, and the fluffy toy chicken that they had bought. She tried to imagine a baby sleeping there, a real baby, not an idea or a hope.
It had been impossible. But now here they were, in this building, being ushered through hazy hallways and to a waiting room furnished in brown and cream, with several chairs and a window with brown and orange drapes. An air conditioner rattled on the windowsill and there was a tall Swiss cheese plant in the corner. Elliott Honeywell was waiting for them there. He greeted them immediately with firm handshakes and a kiss on Emily’s cheek.
‘So, the happy day!’ he said. The room was full of his cologne and another scent, like maple syrup. ‘How do you feel?’
‘We’ve been getting ready,’ she said. She wanted to wipe Honeywell’s kiss off her cheek but instead her hand found Robbie’s again. ‘We thought it would take longer, the whole process.’
‘I told you that finding your family was my first priority,’ said Honeywell, looking pleased with himself. ‘As soon as I received the phone call I knew that I had found your son.’
Your son. Emily swallowed. ‘May we . . .?’
‘Yes, Alice has gone to get him. I thought you would want to meet him before we—’ He held up a thick folder. ‘Paperwork. Tedious.’
She couldn’t sit down. She held tight to Robbie’s hand and tried not to float away. Tried to stay here and now, in this room which could be anywhere with its drapes and its plants, with the scent of Honeywell’s cologne. Robbie was beside her. He was solid and real beside her, the only real thing there was.
‘We’re doing this together,’ he whispered into her ear, and then the door opened and a woman walked in with their son.
He was wrapped in a white waffle blanket and all she could see at first was his tiny outline and a bit of fluffy blond hair. The woman who held him was wearing a nurse’s outfit but to Emily she was a blur. Emily went to step forward, and then she checked herself. Staring and hungry.
Babies. She had seen hundreds of babies. Thousands of babies.
This one could be hers.
‘It’s all right, you can hold him,’ said Honeywell. Robbie let go of her hand. Slowly, she held out her arms and the nurse put the baby into them.
He was a warm, sweet weight. He was awake; his eyes were blue and they looked up into hers with that serious, intent expression that babies had sometimes. His hair was longer in front and formed a sort of soft quiff. His breathing was quick, like a bird’s.
‘He’s small,’ she said, surprised to find her voice sounding almost normal. ‘I’ve held newborns who were this weight.’
‘He’s lost some weight since birth,’ said the nurse, ‘but he’s started putting it back on again. Two ounces since his last weighing.’
‘He’s beautiful,’ murmured Robbie, behind her. ‘Look at him, he’s looking at you like he knows you.’
‘He does know,’ said the nurse. ‘We often see it. Babies seem to know their parents.’
She couldn’t take her gaze from him. ‘What about his – his birth parents?’ she asked. Though she had been told the facts already, she wanted to hear them again. She wanted to check that this could possibly be real.
‘She was an unwed mother,’ said Honeywell from the side of the room. ‘She knew she couldn’t raise a child on her own and decided to give him a better chance. It’s a hard decision, but the kindest one.’
‘Do you know . . . how old she was?’
‘She was very young. She was no more than a child herself. Not old enough to be a mother.’
Emily had seen these girls. These young girls with swollen bellies and varying expressions of fear. They came to see her because they had to. Consuela Diaz, she thought, because she always saw Consuela Diaz in these girls. But Consuela had not been frightened, and these girls were. The babies went to grandparents, mostly, or aunts or older siblings, but she knew that some were adopted. She rarely saw the girls again. If post-natal care was required, they avoided her eye.
She could have delivered this baby herself, to a young girl who knew she could not keep it. The girl could have been seemingly indifferent through labour, or crying with grief. She’d seen both. The mother might have asked to hold the baby, or requested that it was sent away immediately. She’d seen both of those, too.
In all of these cases she had been focused on the present, not the future. Working for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. She had never thought that perhaps the future of one of these children might rest with her.
‘I know your mother didn’t want to give you up,’ she whispered to the baby, who looked back at her with those grave blue eyes. ‘Who would want to give you up? She had to.’
‘He’s got a new mother now,’ murmured Robbie, close to her. ‘He’s got you.’
