Her last day in the hospital. She’d forgotten it for years, pressed it down somewhere out of sight, but it surfaced now, bobbed up into the room and held her in its grip. The baby in her arms, reddish pink, pale blue eyes, so much black hair everyone had to make a comment—the nurses, doctors, even her own mother. The couple was waiting down the hall—she didn’t have to meet them if she didn’t want to, and she didn’t, not exactly, but she wanted to see them, to know they had kind faces, gentle hands—so she walked her baby down to them, along with the nurse, changing the plan at the last minute.
They stood beside a couch, talking softly with the woman from the adoption agency, but immediately turned when she came in. They looked very old to Ramona, though she guessed they were only thirty, with lines around their eyes and baggy, comfortable clothes. Both of them brown-haired and brown-eyed, with the same nervous smile. They looked more like a sister and brother than husband and wife, a pair of sparrows.
“She changed her mind about meeting you,” the nurse told them.
“Oh, of course,” the woman said, stepping closer and looking down at the baby, who was beginning to mewl softly as if he knew what was going to happen next.
“Remember,” the woman from the agency told them. “No last names.”
“He’s beautiful,” the adoptive mother whispered. “Thank you so much.”
Ramona recalled the soft curve of the woman’s cheek, the tiny gold hoops in her ears, the tilt of her head as she looked at the baby. The father stepped over and nodded to Ramona as he slipped an arm around his wife’s waist and leaned to look at his adopted child. He didn’t speak at all, and the wife didn’t say much either. They all just gazed at the baby, waiting for Ramona to hand him over.
That was the part she still couldn’t pry loose from memory, the actual moment of handing over her child to those virtual strangers. It was better this way, she guessed, not being able to access that part of the day.
She took another sip of the cold coffee, set it on the low glass table beside her, then rose from her chair. “Thanks for letting me in,” she told James.
“Good luck finding him,” he said, standing up.
“I’m not going to,” she told him. “This was my last stop.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Lila, then back to Ramona, obviously confused. “Well, take care, then.” They shook hands, and she stepped outside.
Ramona walked quickly away from the apartment building, down the street, and around the corner to where she’d parked on Maryland Parkway a couple of hours earlier. The air in the car was warm and stale, no longer lemony, and she cracked her window, then lay her cheek on the steering wheel and looked out at the passing traffic, the rush of lights and noise moving by her in the night.
She sat like that for a long time, not quite thinking, just untangling her mind from the day. A desire rose up to see Mark, to tell him that she’d failed. Again. He had never agreed with her adoption plan, not really. She had no one to blame but herself.
Of course, there was also no one else to thank, if things had indeed turned out well. Her son’s life might just possibly be a good one. This was her hope; this had always been her hope. She saw her baby again—all that dark hair, those pale eyes. It had been years since she’d been able to recall his face, the weight of him in her arms.
Her trance was finally broken by the insistent buzzing of her phone. Ramona fished it out of her purse, expecting Ivy and her questions, but the caller was Nash. She answered and the phone was warm against her ear, its hum comforting on her skin.
“When are you coming home again?” he asked. “I thought it was tonight, so I went to your place and was so mortally bummed out when you weren’t there, I can’t even tell you.”
She smiled at the sound of his voice and pictured his face, its tanned, craggy contours, the sunburst of lines around his blue eyes. Maybe he was older than she thought, possibly forty-five. That was good, she decided. An older father might be more patient. “Tomorrow,” she said, then took a deep breath. “And, there’s something else you should know.”
IVY
She kept expecting her mother to appear, to step through the sliding glass doors holding a glass of sangria, but the party was winding down, and she had not yet shown up. Frank had left to take his father home. Adam and Jane were off talking. Ramona had disappeared a while ago, who knew where. Now there were just a few stragglers, three teacher friends of Frank’s who liked to drink, laughing together on lounge chairs, and Jeremy.
He was removing the uneaten petit fours from the tray, and she walked over to help him. “These were a hit,” she said.
He smiled. “I thought it went really well, didn’t you?”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll leave these for you in a Tupperware. I promised Fern.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” She watched him lay each cake inside the container. “Is a check okay?”
He cleared his throat, not meeting her eyes. “Frank already paid me.”
She nodded, feeling awkward and wishing Frank had told her, saved her this small embarrassment.
“Here,” he said, passing her a silver tray scattered with empanada crumbs.
She followed him to the kitchen, where he started the warm water and tested it with his hand, then let it run while he stuck the Tupperware in the fridge and set the remaining trays beside the sink. He began to wash the first tray, steam rising around him as he scrubbed intently with a blue sponge.
Ivy moved to stand beside him. “I’ll dry.”
“Thanks.”
Laughter reached them from outside, but it felt faraway, the sounds of a separate party, and Ivy accepted the first tray and set about drying it, recalling standing exactly this way with her mother, so many years ago. The steam, the warm towel in her hands. The silence was the same too, but this silence had a nice fullness; she didn’t feel the absence of sound acutely, as she had back then. “I thought my mom would show up,” Ivy said. “I guess I was actually hoping she would.”
“She will,” he told her. “Just give her time.”
Ivy turned to watch Jeremy. His face was serious and intent as he washed the final tray. “Thanks for doing this today,” she told him. “And thanks for helping with Adam. He was a wreck.”
He smiled. “He just needed coffee and water.”
“Other than that fiasco, I think the party went well, don’t you?”
“Yeah, it was great. I booked a couple of other gigs with some of the teachers.” He handed her the last tray to dry. “I wish I’d started cooking like this before my parents died, so they could see I wasn’t a complete fuckup, but at least I could show you.”
“I’m very proud,” she told him, patting his shoulder, trying to put a bit of jokiness in her voice, but also the sincerity she felt.
“Where’s your father today, by the way?” he asked.
“Not sure. His affections are still sporadic, even without the drinking.” She shrugged. “It’s all right. It would seem strange if he suddenly became a doting father and grandfather. It wouldn’t seem like him.”
The three teachers filed through just as she finished up the last tray. “Thanks, Ivy,” the one with long red hair told her. Jessica, that was her name. “Really fun party.”
The other two women thanked her, and she kissed each one on the cheek, then walked the trio to the door and saw them out.
After the trays were all dried and stored away, she and Jeremy sat by the pool, legs swinging slowly in the water, and finished the sangria. Jeremy’s black pants were rolled up, and his calves were startlingly white, his feet long and thin in the blue pool. It was almost dark outside, but still warm, still light enough to see Jeremy’s profile clearly, its pointed nose and chin, those straight dark lashes.
“Lucky will probably wake up soon,” Ivy said, idly, not really worrying about it.
He’d been tired when she laid him down, completely worn out from the day. She was worn out too, especially after her late night with Adam
, but she felt alert and watchful.
“I always thought it would be me with the kids,” Jeremy said. “A big brood of accidents that I would love like crazy anyway.” He grinned. “Romantic, eh?”
“You could still have kids,” Ivy told him. “You’re only thirty-six.”
“I guess I haven’t found the right person to have them with yet.”
“You will.”
He took a deep breath, then a long swallow of sangria. “I never felt like we were completely finished with each other.”
“Finished with each other. That’s a weird way of putting it.”
“You know what I mean. I can’t even remember how or why we broke up.”
She smiled to herself and shook her head. “Well, let’s see. We were sitting by the fountain, and you said something like ‘I want to be able to see other people without you getting so fucking pissed off.’”
“Ouch. I said that?” He shook his head. “Never mind, don’t answer. That sounds like something I would have said.”
“Then you immediately started driving around with that girl Sharon, with the spiral perm and those blinking lips earrings.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about her.” He shook his head again, as if amazed by his own idiocy. “Wow.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Ivy told him.
He rubbed his face with his hands, then held them cupped over his eyes for a long moment. She had thought this reminder of Sharon would allow them both to laugh, but Ivy sensed he was on the cusp of crying. Was he really that pained by his old behavior? She put a hand on his back, his black T-shirt still warm from the sun, and sat there, waiting for him to be okay. A breeze lifted the hair on his neck and murmured through the palm trees across the pool.
When he moved his hands away from his face, he turned to her and smiled, his eyes dry. She couldn’t recall ever having seen him weep, but she knew the signs of his sadness. They returned to her now: the covered eyes, the forced smile to show he’d gathered himself. She hadn’t seen anyone cry in a long time, except for Lucky, and wondered if she would even know what to do.
“By the way,” she said, hoping to distract him. “Thanks for the piggy bank.”
“Piggy bank?” He raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
Then she understood: the piggy bank had been a gift from her mother. Ivy had collected them once, long ago, but she’d forgotten all about that. “Never mind,” she told him. “I meant, thanks for the socks. I’m constantly losing Lucky’s socks, so those are actually a useful gift.”
She could explain to Jeremy about the piggy bank—it was a story he would enjoy—but she didn’t feel like telling anyone that she’d figured out this small mystery. It was enough just to hold the knowledge on her own, to mull over this minor act of kindness. It was something, she decided. It was better than nothing at all.
“It’s been nice having you around,” she told Jeremy, finishing her last sip of sangria. “I thought it was a big mistake to hire you for this thing today, but I was wrong.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m glad you moved back.”
“Well, it’s not really permanent.”
“No?”
Even as she nodded, she understood she was wrong. Frank loved his job here. He loved being near his father. Her own father was an off-and-on presence, but he lived here too, and he was Lucky’s grandfather. And what if her mother was back for good? That would be something else to consider. She was so lost in this train of thought that she didn’t see Jeremy leaning toward her until it was too late.
Ivy decided to accept his kiss, thinking he would try to pry open her lips and ruin this temporary peace between them, but he didn’t. Their mouths pressed together briefly, and his hand reached up to touch her cheek. She expected the kiss to be familiar, even after all these years, but it wasn’t at all. It felt completely new. She detected his kindness in the kiss, his wish to make her happy, and she understood they had become friends, or at least some strange semblance of friends.
Then they were separate again, and Ivy knew that he wouldn’t try to do anything else. That was all he seemed to want, that brief physical connection that had been a little more than friendly, but not too much more. It did not cause her guilt or alarm, only a contented warmth.
He smiled at her, green eyes crackling, then swung his legs out of the pool. “I’d better get going,” he said. “You don’t need to walk me out.”
Ivy sat by the pool for a while longer, then rose and began picking up the cups and plates strewn around the pool deck. Every few minutes she stopped to scan the backyard and sliding glass doors, as if her mother might be hiding somewhere nearby, waiting for the perfect moment to step out from behind the palm trees and make herself known. “She’s not coming.” Ivy said the words out loud even though she was alone. “She doesn’t care about you.”
“Who doesn’t care?”
She turned quickly to find Frank walking toward her across the pool deck, holding Lucky in his arms.
“I didn’t hear him cry,” she said. “I’ve been listening.”
“He wasn’t crying. Just lying there cooing to himself.”
Ivy nodded, taking him from Frank and swaying back and forth. She waited for her husband to ask what it was she’d been talking about again, but he didn’t, and she guessed that was because he already knew.
REX
He thought he’d likely never see Jane again, but then there she was, walking by the window with a strange man who must be her husband. She glanced toward his house, and he raised a hand in greeting from his spot inside on the white couch, but she must not have been able to see him behind the window’s glare because she turned away and kept going.
The man beside her looked concerned, with his furrowed brow, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his worn jeans. He had lots of brown wavy hair and a frat-boy handsomeness that struck Rex as all wrong for Jane. They were a couple that did not physically match—Jane was not as conventionally attractive as this man, or as ordinary—but Rex and Kristina didn’t match either and had still managed many good years together. You could never tell what combination might work.
When they disappeared from view, Rex rose and went outside. Jane and her husband were walking past the old neighbor’s house now, dusk darkening the air around them. Rex considered calling out to Jane, asking them both inside for a beer or lemonade, but decided against it and simply watched them walking, unobserved. They didn’t touch or even appear to be on the verge of touching, and this struck Rex as a good sign, but they were exactly the same height, and for some reason, this fact disturbed him.
He crossed the lawn and got into his car, then sat in the driveway with the windows rolled down, thinking where he could go. Kristina had the girls until tomorrow evening, and he had not made a single plan. He considered calling Jessica for a second date, but her number was somewhere inside the house, and he didn’t want to leave the car just yet. Besides, Jane said she might come by later, and it would be best if he were waiting alone.
First he drove over to the church and parked at the curb across the street. It was almost dark now, and he had expected the same empty structure from the night before, but there were lights on inside, and several people milling about on the front porch, talking and sipping from plastic cups. He watched these people for a while from inside his car. To his relief, no one seemed to notice his presence. It occurred to him that he’d entered a strange, ghostlike state, since Jane hadn’t seen him either, and he decided the idea of disappearing altogether had a definite appeal.
His physical appearance had always been a burden, especially once he began to grow and didn’t stop. People stared. They made odd, not exactly unfriendly, comments. How’s the weather up there? You’re too young for such white hair. And, more recently: are you some kind of vampire?
He knew that keeping his white hair long and wild didn’t help him to blend in, but he’d decided long ago to embrace his strange looks, to make them more outlandish.
This decision now felt childish and unwise. Why would he want to be more noticeable than he already was? If he were to step out of his car and cross the street to join the others right now, they would be disturbed by his appearance. They would try to hide their discomfort, like good churchgoers, but Rex had become adept at sensing aversion over the years. Maybe tomorrow he would cut his hair, possibly even dye it brown.
The breeze through his open windows felt soft and cool as he left the church and drove away. He headed his car in the direction of Kristina’s new place, just planning to park across the street as he had at the church, and observe. He still hadn’t seen this rented house of hers. She always wanted to come and get the girls, and always wanted to drop them off, as if she were hiding something.
The house was easy enough to find. He knew the address, and he knew this part of the city from past construction gigs. The street was quiet and a little older than his block, with bigger trees, elms and King Palms, and more variety in house color and shape.
Kristina’s house was a pale pink with white trim and a carport. The grass was green, and bright geraniums flowered in a pot on the front step. It should have been cheerful, but it felt melancholy. Despite the bright flowers, it struck him as a lonely place.
A light was on in the front room and there was a large picture window facing out, but the blinds were closed, so all Rex could see were two forms moving back and forth. He rolled his window down further and heard the faint, living hum of music. The forms were dancing, he realized, as the shadows linked hands and spun. It was his daughters, dancing. The realization filled him with unspeakable sadness. They were just fine here, after all. Better than fine.
A car pulled up and parked directly in front of him. It was a dark blue sedan with tinted windows, so that Rex couldn’t see who was inside. He guessed it was Peter and steeled himself for the moment when he’d step out of the car, but then a woman emerged, an old friend of Kristina’s from the early days of their marriage. Ginger. Ginger Gonzalez. He and Kristina had always teased her about her name, because she looked nothing like a Ginger, with her long black hair and wide face. Her body was stocky and strong and Rex had always liked her, though he hadn’t seen her in a very long time.
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