Lost You

by Haylen Beck

  She looked him in the eye and said, “I have no doubts. I want this done with, and I want my money. That’s all.”

  He watched her for seconds that spooled out into endless time, a coldness about him that she could feel cross the distance between them. Finally, he spoke.

  “Anna, I have been nothing but patient, courteous, and professional with you. Please don’t give me a reason to treat you any other way.”

  “Is that a threat?” she asked.

  “I would never threaten anyone, and I resent the suggestion,” he said. He got to his feet, placed his hands on the arms of her chair, leaned over so she could feel his breath on her skin. “Threats are for schoolteachers and weary mothers, Anna, and I am neither of those. I only make promises, and I keep them. Every single one.” He straightened and said, “Enjoy the rest of your day, and please think about what we’ve discussed.”

  Mr. Kovak walked to the door and let himself out without saying goodbye.

  Anna remained in the armchair, her hands clasped tight together to suppress the shakes. Fear and anger chased each other through her being, snapping and biting at her. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream or hide or smash something or—

  Then she felt it. That feeling that had become a friend over recent weeks, always visiting when she was at rest. It calmed her, chased the terror and rage right out of her.

  She placed a hand on her belly and said, “Hey there, Little Butterfly.”

  * * *

  —

  THE MATERNITY SECTION of the department store rang bright with life, like Christmas mornings had been when she was a kid. Anna walked among the mothers-to-be, doing what they did, lifting dresses from their rails, holding them against her body, checking the width and the hang. She enjoyed the rituals of shopping, now more so than ever because there was no guilt attached. No feeling of wasting what little she had on frivolous things. Not only could she afford these things, she could honestly say she needed them. The maternity clothes she had at home were plain and dowdy, and she had reached the limits of her loosest sweaters and leggings. She was uncomfortable enough at the best of times; the least she could do for herself was buy something that fit, something pretty.

  “When are you due?” a woman said, startling her.

  Anna turned and saw the saleswoman, an older lady with lines that arced out from her eyes when she smiled.

  “Oh…about six weeks,” Anna said.

  “Not too long, then,” the woman said. “But oh my, those last weeks can drag.”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, turning back to the rack of dresses, all of them reduced.

  The woman reached past her, saying, “With your color, I think this.”

  She lifted a bottle-green dress and held it against Anna.

  “Yes, with your eyes and hair, this is lovely. You can try it on if you’d like.”

  “Thanks,” Anna said, taking it from her. “I will.”

  “And just so you know, there’s twenty percent off everything in baby clothes today. You might want to take a look and stock up. I mean, trust me, you’ll go through the little onesies like you wouldn’t believe. You can’t have too many, take it from the voice of experience.”

  She smiled and left Anna to her browsing. Anna examined the dress, checked the price. It was more than she’d planned to spend, but not too much. And it was pretty. Not that she had anyplace to wear a dress like this, but still. She could always take it back.

  Anna looked around for the checkout, saw a row of registers over on the other side of the floor. She headed in that direction, leaving the maternity wear, and found herself among the baby clothes. Twenty percent off everything, a sign read, just like the saleswoman had said. Anna picked up three multipacks of plain neutral-colored onesies, a pack of three footies, two sets of hats and mittens, and a bundle of muslin cloths because she’d read somewhere they were good for swaddling and cleaning up.

  When she got home, she tried the dress on, and was pleased to find it a good fit, showing the swell of her belly without making her appear fat. She took it off and hung it in the closet, above the box where she’d hidden the baby clothes.

  Anna didn’t want Mr. Kovak to see the onesies and the mittens, or the diapers and wet wipes she’d bought in the drugstore the day before.

  She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  29

  LIBBY ARRANGED THE ONESIES AND footies in the top drawer and smoothed them over with her hand. She’d probably bought too many, but she’d read online that you can never have enough. Mason had believed her when she told him she’d bought them in Target rather than that upmarket place in town. So what if they were three times the price? They could afford it. Mason would only ask why she spent all that money when the baby was going to puke all over them anyway.

  She closed the drawer and stood back to admire the dresser. It was from an upcycling place, an old piece given new life by a few coats of white chalk paint. The rest of the furniture matched, including a diaper-changing station, which had been transformed from an old hostess trolley. Mason complained that new furniture would have been cheaper than this gussied-up secondhand junk. But it wouldn’t have the character, she had argued. They didn’t discuss it further after that.

  Libby had spent the last few days painting the nursery a soft mushroom color, keeping it neutral because she didn’t want to know the baby’s sex. This way a few items in blue or pink could be arranged around the room, once they knew what they had.

  She hoped it was a boy.

  One hand went to her artificial belly, the other to the small of her back. The pain had been there for three months now, and Mason had pleaded with her to take it off, even for a few hours, but she refused. The only time she separated it from her body was when she showered, and even then it was because the buildup of sweat beneath it had begun to smell.

  Last night, she had woken from a dream with a terrible start. She had dreamed the baby was kicking in her belly. The silicone one that was of her but not of her. She could see it move, its feet and hands pressing against the not-flesh, and it was in distress. It needed to come out. But it couldn’t because there was no opening in the silicone to let it free, let it into her arms. She unstrapped the prosthesis and laid it on the bed, felt around for a fissure, anything she could get her fingers between to tear it open. And the baby writhed and roiled, and she heard it crying, crying for her to let it out, and she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t…

  She had woken with a gasp, clutching at the silicone mound that remained attached to her. Quiet and still. No baby there. Never had been, never would be. While Mason slept on, she cried in the dark.

  Now the dream still lingered despite the daylight. The fear and the desperation of it. The hopelessness. Mason’s words kept coming back to her: Having this child won’t fix you. She had dismissed the idea then, and a hundred times since, but still it lurked in the shadows of her consciousness. What if he was right?

  Libby turned in a circle, looked at all the things she’d bought. What if these were only here to fill the gap in her soul? And what if they didn’t? When the baby came, what if it didn’t provide the center to her life that she’d been craving all these years?

  After dinner yesterday evening, as Libby lay on the bed reading, Mason announced he was going to the range. She had watched as he knelt down at the closet and entered the four-digit code to open the safe. Zero-five-one-nine. The month and date of his birthday. Except this time, he entered something different. He had changed the code without telling her.

  Once he’d retrieved his pistol, locked in its case, he closed the safe’s door and stood upright. He turned and saw her looking back.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “I’ll be an hour, ninety minutes, tops,” he said, and left her there.

  He’s locked me
out of the safe, she thought as she listened to his car drive away. I’m not to be trusted with the code, she thought. For ten minutes, she tried to resume her reading, but it was no good. This was a blister that needed to be burst.

  “Goddammit,” Libby said, and climbed off the bed.

  She went downstairs, straight to Mason’s den. His desk stood against one wall, the computer there on top, along with whatever paperwork he’d taken home with him. Next to the telephone, where she knew she’d find it, sat a small hardback notebook. The kind of book people used to keep numbers and addresses in before cell phones and contact lists. She lifted the book and leafed through it, seeing numbers that had been scribbled there maybe twenty years before. Old friends they’d lost touch with, dentists they no longer used, an auto mechanic that Mason swore by until he overcharged him for an oil change.

  But Libby knew that not all of the entries were real telephone numbers. Some were PINs for bank cards hidden among the contacts, or passwords for email accounts, or any number of clumsily guarded secrets.

  Here, a fresh scribble, bright-blue ink standing out against the older digits. This entry was for the gun club that Mason frequented. Libby couldn’t help but laugh aloud at the silliness of it. A phone number had been crossed out, and the middle four digits happened to be zero-five-one-nine, just like the code for the safe upstairs. Beneath that, a new number in fresh blue ink.

  “Oh, Mason,” she said.

  Libby recited the new number a few times, then closed the notebook, and returned it to its resting place. She went back upstairs to the bedroom, opened the closet, and kneeled down by the safe. Sure enough, the four digits opened the door. Even though she had no interest in what lay inside, she felt a pleasing surge of triumph. It kept the smile on her lips as she closed the safe again and returned to the bed and picked up her book once more.

  Before long, however, both the triumph and smile faded to leave behind the sour resentment of his attempting to keep a secret from her, no matter how poorly done. The resentment lingered as she pretended to be asleep when he came home, as she kept her back to him when he climbed into bed, smelling of the wine he’d drunk before coming upstairs.

  She still felt it now as she surveyed the nursery, and it melded with the bitterness she felt at his warnings about the joining of this new life with hers. Maybe he was right about that. And maybe he was right to hide the code for the safe from her.

  “Stop it,” she said aloud. “Just fucking stop it.”

  The quiet of the room engulfed her, and she blushed in irrational embarrassment, as if the whole world had heard her talk to herself. Mira was downstairs, cleaning the kitchen, humming to herself as she worked. She couldn’t have heard.

  Libby checked her wristwatch. Almost one. Time she had some lunch. She made her way downstairs, smiled at Mira. She fetched some cheese from the fridge, some crackers from the cupboard, and poured a glass of water. As she ate, Mira found work to do elsewhere. She was always discreet like that, and Libby liked her for it.

  As Libby sat at the counter, finishing the last cracker, Mira came back, a worried expression on her face.

  “Mrs. Reese?”

  “Yes, Mira?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Libby smiled and said, “Yes. Why?”

  “It’s just, in the toilet.” She pointed to the laundry room off the kitchen, and the small bathroom beyond that. “There is blood. On the toilet paper. In the water, there is blood. And upstairs, I change your sheets this morning. There was blood also.”

  Libby stared at her, thinking. Her period had come on overnight, not long after she’d woken from the dream. The bleeding wasn’t as severe these days, having gone back on the pill after being diagnosed with endometriosis, but it was heavy enough that she had to rush to the bathroom for a tampon. She’d forgotten to strip the bed after Mason left for work, and then she’d used the downstairs bathroom at some point. When she’d flushed, some of the paper must have remained.

  “It’s all right,” Libby said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Mira took a step closer. “But bleeding there. It’s bad when you have a baby. Maybe you should go see the doctor.”

  “It’s fine, Mira, honestly.”

  “But maybe—”

  “Maybe you should mind your own goddamn business,” Libby said.

  She hadn’t realized she’d thrown the glass until it shattered at Mira’s feet. Mira stumbled back, almost lost her footing, until she grabbed at the edge of the sink. She stared at Libby, her eyes and mouth wide.

  “Oh my God, Mira, I’m so sorry.”

  Libby got off her stool and came around the island, her hands outstretched.

  Mira began gathering up her things. “I’ll go now.”

  Her voice quivered, and Libby knew she was fighting back tears.

  Libby approached, reaching for her. “Mira, please, I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know what—”

  “Please don’t touch me,” Mira said.

  Libby stopped, saw her purse on the counter. She went to it, rummaged through the clutter inside, and found a fifty and two twenties. She held the bills out to Mira.

  “Here,” she said. “Take this. Please. As an apology.”

  Mira finished packing her things, looked at the cash, then at Libby. “You think everything is money. You think you can buy everything you want. But you can’t. Goodbye, Mrs. Reese.”

  She let herself out through the back door, leaving Libby there alone, ninety dollars in her fingers and shattered glass at her feet.

  30

  ANNA SAT IN A SEMICIRCLE with two other young women, all facing Dr. Holdsworth. As the doctor talked, Anna observed the others. She guessed the ages as anything between twenty-five and thirty-five. Both of them white, well-dressed, healthy-looking. Just like her.

  A projector beamed an image of a baby in a womb onto the whiteboard behind Dr. Holdsworth. It lay upside down, its head down close to the cervix, its legs curled up to its chest, its arms crossed, hands tucked up to its chin. Boy or girl, she couldn’t tell. Lately, she’d been wondering about her own baby. She hoped it was a boy.

  Not that it should matter to her.

  She’d slept poorly the night before. Little Butterfly had been kicking something fierce, and she’d had to get up to pee three times. She knew the shape of him now. Yes, him, Little Butterfly was a him for now, and would be until she found out otherwise. She had tried to convince herself to stop thinking that way, to stop naming him, to stop assigning him—him—a gender. But she couldn’t. Not when she could see and feel his feet pressing against the inside of her, not when she could cup his bottom in her hand while it pushed against the other side.

  Idle daydreaming had become a dangerous thing. The stories she had been imagining for herself were beginning to take on a solidity, as if they were only a step away from reality. Playing, cuddling, running, swimming, riding, talking. All the things she and Little Butterfly would never, ever do together. At the same time, the certainty of having him taken from her had cracked, shards of it falling away. The unthinkable had become more real, the real more unthinkable. It frightened her, so she tried not to think about it.

  But then he would move, turn over, remind her he was there, alive, growing, growing, growing. Last night, her mind had raced through the darkness, settling on images that could never be. First steps, first words, first teeth. And she had buried her face in her pillow, willed the images away, because Mr. Kovak would not approve, no, Mr. Kovak would be displeased, and that idea terrified her more than anything.

  “Anna, are you listening?”

  Anna blinked at Dr. Holdsworth, her mouth opening and closing before she could find her tongue. “Yes,” she said.

  “Good,” Dr. Holdsworth said. “I’m trying to make this easier for you all. The more you know what to expect, the smoother things will go.
Now, let’s—”

  A knock on the door stopped her. It opened, and a young woman stood there, her arm held in the large hand of Mr. Kovak.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, guiding the young woman inside. “Sarah forgot to set her alarm for this morning, so I gave her a ride here.”

  Sarah’s face was flushed pink, her eyes red and brimming, her fear obvious to everyone who looked on. The room’s temperature seemed to drop. All of the women, including Dr. Holdsworth, shifted in their seats.

  Mr. Kovak brought Sarah to a chair, holding on to her arm until she was seated. She did not lift her gaze from the floor. He apologized once more for the interruption and left, closing the door behind him.

  Dr. Holdsworth cleared her throat and said, “Okay. Let’s continue.”

  One grinding hour later, they broke for refreshments. A choice of sparkling or still water, fruit, and oatmeal cookies. Anna took a banana and a cookie, along with a cup of water, and retreated to a corner of the room. Sarah, the young woman who had been escorted in by Mr. Kovak, sat in the opposite corner, not looking at anyone. Anna had hoped to be left alone too, but one of the women wouldn’t let that happen. Anna thought her name was Jocelyn. Or Joy. Or something. She didn’t much care, but still and all, here she was taking the seat next to hers.

  “Hey,” Jocelyn said.

  Yes, it was Jocelyn, Anna was almost sure of it now. She gave a noncommittal smile in return.

  “How long?” Jocelyn asked.

  “About two and a half weeks,” Anna said.

  “Ooh, you’re close,” Jocelyn said. “I’m six weeks. How you bearing up?”