Lost You

by Haylen Beck

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS THE same old kitchen, the same old cupboards and doors, but with a lick of paint that made it brighter than Anna’s memories of it. The sunshine touched everything in a way that was strange to her. The walls were still decorated with images of Christ and her mother’s favored saints, along with a portrait of JFK and a copy of the Irish Proclamation of Independence. Philomena had read it aloud to the family every Easter Sunday, though Anna had no idea why that day in particular. All except the year her father had died. That had been on Good Friday, when Anna was twelve. Heart failure while he drank at some bar with his cronies. Marie and their mother had been devastated, but Anna could not muster the grief for him, a fact that still bothered her all these years later.

  “So where’s this architect?” Philomena asked.

  Anna remembered the lie she’d told all those months ago, the fiction that had formed in her mind as she spoke it.

  “It didn’t work out,” Anna said, feeling heat on her cheeks and neck.

  Her mother’s hard eyes told Anna she knew her daughter was lying.

  “Run off, did he?”

  “Something like that,” Anna said. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  Philomena reached out to the car seat perched on her table, and touched the tiny hands that lay over the blanket.

  “So he left you alone with this one,” she said. “Good thing he looks like you.”

  Her mother had made them each a cup of tea, Barry’s, imported by a local store to sell to the Irish population. There were still a good number of first-generation immigrants in the area, still plenty of accents from Dublin and Cork and the Black North, as her mother called it. She recalled the strange men who would sometimes arrive in the night at houses in the neighborhood, running from trouble back in Ireland, to stay for a few days before moving on. You weren’t to mention these men in school or in church. They came and went like snow in the spring.

  “He’s a wee one,” Philomena said. “What weight was he?”

  “Six pounds two ounces,” Anna said. “He’s gaining, though. He feeds like a madman.”

  Philomena sat back in her chair. “What, are you giving him the tit?”

  Anna let out a guffaw that resonated in the old kitchen, which felt good and warm deep down. “I never heard it put that way before, but yeah, I’m breastfeeding.”

  “Well, I suppose people do that these days. My generation were told the bottle was the best thing for them, but things change.”

  They each said nothing for a while, sipping hot tea, listening to L’il B’s soft breathing, letting the sunlight crawl across the wall and the pictures of saints.

  Eventually, Philomena asked, “Why did you come here?”

  “I wanted you to meet your grandson,” Anna said.

  “And I thank you for that,” Philomena said. “But that’s not all, is it?”

  Anna tried to hold back the tears, but she couldn’t. She sniffed and wiped at her cheeks.

  “I’ve got no one else,” she said. “I knew it’d be hard, but I thought I could cope. But I can’t. I’m so tired I can hardly think. I need help. Mom, whatever happened before, we can get over it, somehow, but right now, I need my family.”

  Philomena took her hand, squeezed, and said nothing. She let Anna cry it out until she had nothing left. Before either of them could speak, L’il B began to grumble, his mouth smacking and sucking.

  “Someone’s hungry,” Philomena said, smiling.

  They embraced, an awkward union, displays of affection being strange to Anna’s mother. But it felt good. It felt like a beginning.

  Anna unstrapped L’il B from the seat and cradled him in her left arm, then hoisted up her top. As she worked the fasteners of the maternity bra, Philomena held up her hands.

  “Oh no,” she said, standing, “wait till I leave the room.”

  Anna laughed. “Relax, Mom, it’s just a boob. You’ve got them too.”

  “Maybe so, but I don’t get mine out in people’s kitchens, not even my own.”

  As Philomena left them alone, L’il B latched and began to feed. Anna leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation, which she had grown to love even though it often hurt and left her feeling drained.

  As the sun warmed her where it touched her skin, she let her mind drift, and she wondered if maybe, just maybe, everything might turn out all right.

  * * *

  —

  A MOVEMENT ON the bed, a shift of weight, pulled Anna up from a deep slumber. After L’il B had taken his fill, Philomena had insisted she be allowed to burp and change him while Anna had a nap. Anna had argued halfheartedly, but it took little convincing to hand the baby over and climb the stairs. She found her old room, all traces of her long removed, and collapsed onto the bed. Sleep had taken her almost instantly.

  Now the room shifted and lurched around her as she struggled to bring herself fully to the waking world. She was aware someone was here, sitting on the edge of the bed, but her eyes could not seem to make sense of the shape.

  “Hey,” a familiar voice said. Deeper than she remembered it, rougher, but still well known to her.

  Anna rubbed her eyes until she could see her sister looking back at her. Marie gave a small sad smile.

  “What time is it?” Anna asked.

  “Almost five,” Marie said. “You’ve been under more than two hours. Mom called me as soon as you went upstairs, told me I should come over and meet someone. He’s beautiful.”

  Anna pulled herself up into a sitting position. “I know,” she said. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, considering.”

  Anna studied her. Marie had gained a little weight, and her red hair, tied back, was now threaded with a few grays.

  “Considering what?”

  “Stephen and I split,” Marie said.

  “How long?” Anna asked.

  “Not quite a year. He got fired from his job. Sexual harassment, can you believe that? I mean, I knew he’d played around before, but I always took him back on account of the kids. But this time they were talking about assault. This girl he touched up, they paid her off to stop her from going to the cops, but when she complained about him, there was another and another and another, so they let him go. And then he came home to me asking forgiveness, and I didn’t have any left in me. So that was that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said, meaning it.

  “You shouldn’t be,” Marie said, her eyes brimming. “You knew what he was before I did. I should have believed you. I’m sorry.”

  Anna reached out, touched her sister’s shoulder. “Does Mom know?”

  “Not all of it, but enough. She knows you told the truth about Stephen, but you know how proud she is. She can never be wrong, even if it means cutting her daughter out of her life. But hey, babies fix everything.”

  Anna returned her smile. She started to speak, but Marie raised a hand.

  “Listen, a year ago, when all this happened, I should have gotten in touch. I didn’t know where you were, I didn’t have a number, but I could’ve tracked you down, or at least tried. I’m glad you’re here now. Really.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said.

  “You want to help me make dinner? Chelsea and Patrick are downstairs.”

  “Sure,” Anna said, feeling a quiet thrill at the idea of meeting her niece and nephew for the first time. “Just let me freshen up.”

  They embraced, then Marie headed downstairs while Anna went to the bathroom and washed her face and under her arms. She returned to the bedroom to fetch the hoodie she’d left there. As she went back to the doorway, she glanced over her shoulder, and something caught her eye. She stopped, turned to face the window and the street below.

  From this angle, by the door, she could see all the way do
wn to the intersection with the cross-street. She let her gaze wander over everything, the tired houses and lawns, the scrawny trees, the second- and thirdhand Toyotas and Volkswagens that were parked along the curb. But that one car, the BMW down near the intersection, shinier, newer than the others, better kept, stood out from the rest.

  And the man behind the steering wheel.

  Anna felt the room grow cold. Even though she didn’t want to, she moved closer to the window, keeping the car in sight. She reached the glass and put her nose against it, peering out. Yes, there was definitely a man there, she could clearly make out his silhouette. A large man, one big hand laid across the wheel.

  She felt an urge, then, so strong that she could not resist.

  Anna raised her right hand and waved.

  45

  GOD HELP HIM, HE ALMOST waved back.

  Mr. Kovak’s right hand lifted perhaps an inch before it dropped and gripped the BMW’s steering wheel tight. He cursed himself for letting her spot him so easily. He’d been here less than an hour, and he thought he’d parked far enough away to go unnoticed.

  “Goddammit,” he said.

  He turned the key in the ignition, put the car in drive, and pulled a U-turn, heading away from the house. The town of New Prestwick lay an hour west of Boston, a muddle of Irish and Italian families with a smattering of other nationalities and races. The kind of town a girl like Anna Lenihan would grow up in, aching to get out and away, only to discover that everywhere else was just as shitty if you were poor and uneducated.

  His contact had gotten back to him the day before, sending an email with a spreadsheet attached. The spreadsheet had been exported from Anna’s checking account, which his contact had been able to access online with a minimum of effort given Anna’s personal details. Mr. Kovak deposited two hundred dollars into his contact’s PayPal account for his troubles.

  The transactions listed in the spreadsheet were frequent and for small amounts. Twenty dollars withdrawn here, fifty there. A McDonald’s drive-through outside Philadelphia, thirty bucks and change in a Target in upstate New York. A string of motels, cheap ones at that. Then a few hundred dollars blown in a Buy Buy Baby in Henrietta. That still left a healthy balance in the account. Anna had been frugal with the money she’d taken from the clinic and had enough left to live on for a year, maybe two if she was careful.

  The most recent transactions were what interested Mr. Kovak. She had stopped moving about three days ago, and there were a cluster of ATM withdrawals, all in New Prestwick, which he recognized as being her birthplace, where her family still lived. She had gone home.

  There was one large cash withdrawal, five hundred dollars, and Mr. Kovak guessed that she’d paid a deposit on a place to live. He had no way to find where that might be, but he knew that if she’d driven across three states to the town she grew up in, it was a certainty that she would visit with her mother. So, an hour ago, he had pulled up to the curb, a little down the street from the house, and smiled when he saw Anna’s Civic in front of it.

  And then, goddammit, she’d seen him.

  He spotted a diner as he steered onto the main street, and in response, his stomach growled to remind him he hadn’t eaten since that morning. Stopping to eat would give him time to think and figure out his next steps. He pulled into the parking lot, climbed out of the car, and entered the diner.

  Taking a seat in the rearmost booth, he exchanged greetings with the waitress. He refused a menu and told her he wanted steak and eggs, medium rare, over easy, and a side of fries. She poured him a coffee and told him she’d have his food right out.

  While he waited, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He fished it out and checked the display, didn’t recognize the number.

  “Yes, who is this?” he asked.

  “Anna,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d have kept that number or not, or if you’d ditched it like I did.”

  “I had no reason to,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can tell me what you were doing outside my mother’s house.”

  For the briefest of moments, he considered lying, denying it, saying he didn’t know what she was talking about. But there was no point.

  “Looking for you,” he said.

  He heard the sound of children laughing and squealing in the background, women’s voices, a house full of family. The image caused an ache in him that took him by surprise. He realized then, with a disquieting jolt, that he envied Anna.

  “I figured that,” she said. “But why?”

  “You won’t believe me,” he said.

  “Probably not. Why would I?”

  “I guess there’s no reason you should,” he said, “so I might as well keep it to myself.”

  A pause, then, “Go on, tell me.”

  “I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said. “I wanted to see if the baby was okay.”

  “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, it’s the truth, but there’s not much I can do to convince you. You know I got fired, right?”

  “That’s too bad,” she said, her sneer clearly audible.

  “It is,” he said. “I liked that job. I know you don’t believe it, but I cared about the women under my supervision. I cared about the children they carried. I cared about you.”

  “You had a strange way of showing it. You threatened me, you hurt my friend.”

  “And I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I really am.”

  “And if you cared about me and my baby, you’d know we belong together. You would never have tried to separate us.”

  “You’re right. I was wrong. And I’m truly sorry.”

  “You’re so full of shit, you know that?”

  He might have argued, but instead, he asked, “What did you call the baby?”

  “I call him Little Butterfly,” she said, her voice softening. “L’il B for short.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “That’s not a real name.”

  “So people keep telling me. I’ll come up with something else. I just haven’t found anything that sticks yet.”

  “How about Sean?”

  “Not bad,” she said. “It’s an Irish name. My mom would like it. Where’d you come up with that?”

  “It’s my name,” he said. “My mother was half Irish.”

  “And yet she made you. Listen, I have to go. I want you to stay away from me and stay away from my family.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “I mean it. If I see you again, I’ll call the police.”

  “You have my word. This is the last you’ll ever hear of me.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess it’s goodbye, then.”

  “I guess so,” he said. “Take care of yourself, Anna. And your baby.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, and hung up.

  As Mr. Kovak stared at the phone in his hand, the waitress returned with his food. His stomach growled at the smell and the sight of it. He was ravenous, but he had something to do before he ate. Opening the phone’s Skype app, he logged into the account he’d created two days ago and opened the lone name in the contacts list.

  He thumbed out a message: I’ve found her.

  46

  THREE DAYS AGO, LIBBY HAD taken the Amtrak from Albany to New York, spending the two and a half hours gazing out the window as Poughkeepsie and Yonkers drifted by. At one point, a man with a good suit and a fake tan sat opposite her and tried to make small talk until she asked him to go away and leave her alone.

  “Bitch,” he’d said as he vacated the seat and walked away.

  At Penn Station, she made her way down to the subway and found the 2-line Brooklyn-bound platform. There, she watched rats scurry along the black ground beneath and between the tracks until the next train arrived. She stood for the
twenty-minute journey to Clark Street Station. She rode the elevator up to the concourse and exited through Hotel St. George onto Henry Street. From there, she made her way northeast until she found the building she sought on the corner of Middagh Street.

  She had expected more. Not this indistinct mass of bricks and windows and fire escapes. The brochure and the website had shown floor-to-ceiling windows, glass and steel and white tile. She approached the door and found a row of buttons with handwritten names of businesses, lawyers, accountants, a literary agent, and there on the sixth row, the Schaeffer-Holdt Clinic. Libby pressed the button and waited.

  “Yes?” a male voice answered.

  “Dr. Sherman, this is Libby Reese. I need to speak with you.”

  A pause, then, “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, you’ll have to call and make an appointment with Dr. Sherman. We can’t accept walk-in visitors.”

  “Dr. Sherman, I know it’s you. You know I could make things very difficult for you, so I suggest you let me in right now.”

  Seconds passed, then the buzzer sounded and the door loosened in its frame. She entered, let the door swing closed behind her, and went to the small elevator at the rear of the hall. It smelled of urine and bleach, and it rattled as it ascended to the sixth floor. Libby walked along the hallway, turned a corner, and found the sign for the Schaeffer-Holdt Clinic at the very end. A plain door, painted battleship gray. She knocked on it and listened as a lock was undone.

  The door opened a few inches and Dr. Sherman’s pale face appeared in the gap. “Mrs. Reese, I explained everything to Mr. Reese. Your contract clearly states, among other things, that no surrogacy agreement can be enforced in the state of New York, and the Schaeffer-Holdt Clinic cannot be held liable for the actions of any third party, including, but not limited to—”

  “Shut up and let me in,” Libby said, letting a sliver of her rage into her voice.

  Her tone convinced him of her seriousness, and he immediately stopped talking and moved aside. She entered the office, a single room with a desk and a computer, and a row of filing cabinets. An iPad with a finger-marked screen lay on the desk, just like the one this supposed doctor had brought to her home, showing the image of the young woman who looked almost exactly like her.