The End of Her

by Shari Lapena

  “Yes, well,” he says at last, “probably better for everyone.” She looks back at him thoughtfully. He goes on. “With Lindsey gone, I just wanted to come home.” He’d left a few months into his architecture internship; he’d had to start all over again in New York State. He didn’t care. He takes another deep drink of his Scotch and realizes that somehow he’s finished it. He leans forward a little and lowers his voice. He pauses for a moment and then says, “I was absolutely devastated by what happened.”

  “I know. So was I.”

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN PATRICK ARRIVES HOME a little later than usual, he can tell Stephanie’s been waiting impatiently for him to help her with the twins. He pitches in, but his mind is elsewhere, thinking about his meeting with Erica. The conversation had remained fairly superficial. She hadn’t volunteered much about herself, but he’d noted the absence of a wedding ring. She’d flirted with him a little, but she was subtle about it. He hadn’t flirted back. He’d told her he was happily married, with twin baby girls.

  After half an hour, he’d made a show of looking at his watch, and said he had to go. He thought that might be the end of it, but she’d insisted on exchanging cell phone numbers before he left. Now it feels . . . unfinished. And that worries him.

  5

  Cheryl Manning waves at her son, Devin, from the side of the soccer field. He’s almost nine years old, going into fourth grade in September. For the month of August, though, he’s spending his days in soccer camp. He loves the sport, he’s good at it, and she’s proud of him. She and her husband both. Devin, it turns out, is a talented athlete.

  She watches him run out onto the field. They spend a lot of money on him. This specialty camp is expensive, and the gear is pricey, but they can easily afford it, and there’s nothing they won’t do to help their son realize his potential. They enjoy spending money on him; she finds it strange when the other moms she knows—who can also afford it—complain about how much their kids’ activities cost.

  There’s nothing quite as satisfying, Cheryl thinks, as seeing your kid excel and feeling in some measure responsible. She stands on the edge of the field watching him for a moment. He’s a good-looking boy. His brown hair tosses in the wind as he runs. He grins as he maneuvers the soccer ball skillfully with his feet. He waves at her, and she waves back. She’s pleased that he’s confident. He calls out to the other boys on the field, a natural leader. He makes friends easily. She knows she should go, not hover like this, but she stands a minute longer to enjoy the morning sun on her face, and to enjoy her son, appreciate his abilities.

  The coach walks over to her. “Devin’s doing really well,” he tells her. “He’s a natural.”

  She smiles at him. One doesn’t like to brag. “So we’ve been told,” she says modestly.

  The coach smiles at her and heads onto the field, blowing his whistle. He takes attendance and starts lining the kids up for drills. It’s time for her to leave. All the other parents have already gone—often having to take a second child, or even a third, to a different camp somewhere else. But Devin’s an only child, and she’s a stay-at-home mom, so she doesn’t have anywhere else she has to be. She always seems to hang around longer, as if she can’t let go. As if she still can’t quite believe that Devin is hers.

  It would have been perfect if they could have had a daughter too. She might have been one of the mothers racing to drop off at soccer so that she can get to ballet camp on time. But they only have one, and she and her husband, Gary, are desperately grateful for that.

  She can’t have children.

  It had been such a shock to discover she was sterile.

  It was more than that—it was traumatic, profoundly disorienting. The years of trying, the heroic efforts—none of it had paid off. The chronic disappointment had led to depression. She felt like a failure. All around her women were having babies, seemingly effortlessly. She was secretly afraid Gary might leave her. It was a dark time.

  They’d come to adoption only after exhausting all other options, including IVF. Even then, things hadn’t gone smoothly. They had arranged an adoption to get an infant girl, but the birth mother had changed her mind right after the baby was born. They were heartsick—left with empty arms, and out of pocket for all her expenses. It had been devastating. There was nothing they could do but suck it up and try again.

  But then, working again with the same private adoption agency, another birth mother chose them. It was an open adoption, so they were able to meet her. They were cautiously optimistic. She seemed smart and they liked her right away. She didn’t seem flaky; she seemed to have her head on straight. No drug or alcohol problems. She told them she wasn’t ready to have a baby on her own—she wanted to finish school. She didn’t want her baby to be raised by a single mother without any money, and she had no extended family to help her. She wanted what was best for him, not what was best for her.

  She was also physically attractive; more importantly, she looked a lot like Cheryl herself—blond and blue-eyed, fairly tall and slim, with fine bone structure. Cheryl had wanted a child who might resemble her in some way. They didn’t know anything about the father, except that he was white, university educated, and wasn’t interested in becoming a father.

  Devin must have taken after his biological father, because as he grew, he didn’t look anything like Cheryl.

  Cheryl takes one last look at Devin on the soccer field and waves goodbye, but he’s not watching and doesn’t notice. She turns back to her car and drives home, thinking about how lucky she turned out to be in the end. Devin’s such a great kid—he’s even good in school. So many of the moms she’s gotten to know are discovering that their kids have learning disabilities, allergies, all kinds of problems. Finally, she’s one of the lucky ones.

  Nobody around here knows that Devin is adopted; they haven’t even told him yet. They’ve decided they’ll tell him when he’s twelve or thirteen. Everybody except close family thinks he’s their biological child. She doesn’t really want anyone to know—it’s none of their business. Devin can tell people once he finds out, if he wants to. She hopes he keeps it to himself, though. She hopes he never wants to know about his birth mother. So many adopted kids do nowadays. Nothing good comes of it, Cheryl thinks. Why rock the boat? He has all the love and everything else he’ll ever need, right here, with them.

  She arrives home and lets herself in. She’s grateful for the blast of air-conditioning—it’s so humid today. They live in a lovely house; her husband makes a very good living in commercial property development. Maybe she’ll make herself an iced coffee and go out and sit by their pool.

  But for some reason, she finds herself thinking about the past. She makes her way upstairs to Devin’s bedroom and opens his door. She’s seen some of the bedrooms of Devin’s friends. They make her shudder. The other moms complain about how messy and lazy their kids are, but Cheryl thinks maybe they aren’t bringing their kids up properly. Kids need boundaries, expectations. Good parenting is so important. She and Gary make Devin tidy his room every weekend.

  She looks at his bed, with the quilt with the airplanes on it. Devin has always loved airplanes. He wants to be a pilot someday. She thinks maybe there’s nothing he can’t do. How ambitious she is for him—she hardly likes to admit it to herself, how invested she is in him—perhaps because he’s an only child. She often daydreams about his future—what it will be like for him, and what it will be like for them as his parents. He’ll have every advantage. Her eyes fall on his dresser, which has several trophies on it: for track, soccer, hockey. His closet is full of sports equipment, his walls plastered with posters of favorite sports figures.

  She searches his bookshelf for the photo album. She pulls it out and sits down on his bed. Why is she looking at this today? She thinks she knows why. There’s a reason her mind has turned to the past.

  She opens the small a
lbum, which has a few baby pictures, carefully selected, printed, and glued into it. Photos are all digital these days, but she wanted a proper album of Devin growing up. She studies the very first photograph—a picture of him in the hospital, right after he was born. He’s all red and scrunched up and wearing a blue knitted bonnet. Cheryl and Gary hadn’t been there, at the hospital. They’d waited at home, eager for news, terrified that the birth mother would hold her newborn in her arms for the first time and change her mind like the last one had.

  Because this woman, Erica, who they’d been so taken with in the beginning, had begun to make them feel uneasy. At first it was little things. She’d had an extra cost when her car had broken down—could they cover it so she could get to her medical appointments? Of course they expected to pay her regular expenses—her rent and groceries and maternity clothes and so on. Erica had given up her job, after all, for the health of the baby. She told them she’d been working part time at a dry cleaner and she’d read that the chemicals might cause birth defects, so she’d quit as soon as she found out she was pregnant.

  And then, one day late in her pregnancy, she’d dropped by to see them, at their home. This was unexpected and not really done. She hinted that she really needed money, or “she didn’t know what she would do.” Cheryl and Gary had been deeply unsettled. They asked delicately what she needed the money for. She explained that it was for her education, or she might have to give up her dream of going to medical school and instead raise her child herself. She asked for a hundred thousand dollars.

  Stunned, they left Erica sitting in their living room while they retreated to the kitchen to make her some herbal tea and discuss the problem in hushed tones.

  “What are we going to do?” Cheryl whispered to her husband, in distress. She was starting to cry. Meanwhile, Erica sat in their living room, huge with their child, waiting serenely for her herbal tea while shaking them down for a huge amount of money.

  “We have the money,” Gary said. “Let’s just pay her.”

  Cheryl felt the blood drain from her face. “But it’s illegal—you know that! We can’t pay her more than the allowed expenses.” She added, “We have to tell the agency.”

  Her husband looked grim and said, “No, we don’t. She’s not going to tell anybody, or she could go to jail. Nobody has to know.”

  “But—what if we pay her and then she doesn’t let us have the baby?” Cheryl cried.

  “That’s a chance we have to take,” Gary said. “Do you want this baby or not?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “So do I.”

  They returned with the tea tray and Cheryl’s husband offered to write her a check.

  Erica said it might be better if he got it for her in cash.

  Miraculously, Erica hadn’t changed her mind. She’d taken the cash, and later, after the baby was born, willingly signed the papers terminating all parental rights to her child. She told them that she’d decided she didn’t want to maintain contact with them and the baby after all; she thought it would be easier if she didn’t. They’d been relieved to hear it, though of course they hadn’t said so. The period allowed for her to change her mind passed, Devin was theirs, and she disappeared from their lives. But before she left, she’d given them a copy of the birth photo, and Cheryl had treasured it.

  She looks at it now, thinking back to that time, almost nine years ago. She’s remembering it now, because after all this time, she’s afraid that Erica might be back. Cheryl thought she saw her a couple of weeks ago, in the park, watching Devin kick a ball around, and she had a camera around her neck. But she was gone before Cheryl could be sure.

  6

  Erica showers, dresses in a short black skirt and silky sky-blue blouse, and applies her makeup carefully. She studies herself in the mirror, pleased, thinking about the meeting with Patrick the day before.

  She hadn’t really known what to expect. It’s been a long time. He was looking good, she has to admit. Older, of course, but he’s the kind of man who looked better with a bit more maturity. His tall frame had filled out a bit. His dark hair was shorter, nicely cut, and he’d been wearing an expensive-looking suit.

  He hadn’t been happy about her showing up at his firm, that was obvious. He was nervous; that was obvious too. He’s probably afraid of her coming back into his life, afraid of the old attraction firing up again, getting between him and his new wife. Maybe he should be afraid. He never could keep it in his pants.

  Her attractiveness has always been one of her best weapons.

  * * *

  • • •

  PATRICK STRUGGLES ALL MORNING at the office, unable to concentrate. He notices that Niall is humming quietly to himself, which only irritates Patrick. Around lunchtime he hears Niall leave his office and talk to Kerri at the front desk on his way out.

  From his window, Patrick stares out at the river, his mind dull. He has so much work to do, but instead he thinks about how Erica had come to his office, pretending she didn’t know him, when she’d known he was here all along. She’d deliberately put him in an awkward position.

  Yesterday, he’d casually asked Niall how the interview went and Niall had said, “She’s not the best candidate,” and Patrick had felt relief. She wouldn’t be back in the office. He will never have to explain that they actually know each other, although they hadn’t let on. And she’s not interested in the job anyway.

  He rises from his chair and walks tiredly over to his drafting table. He’s working on a high-end new build of a house for a prominent doctor, and he needs to focus.

  * * *

  • • •

  NIALL LOOKS ACROSS the seat to the woman driving the car. The windows are down and the wind is blowing her hair around her face. He notices she’s wearing designer sunglasses. Again he wonders why she was interviewing for a temporary admin position. Perhaps her husband has left her recently. Perhaps he will find out.

  He’d been surprised when Erica Voss called him at the office that morning, inviting him to lunch. Not typical behavior for someone hoping to get a job—a bit forward. He’d hesitated briefly, until she said she could pick him up in front of the fountain downtown.

  He feels a familiar stirring in his blood—he suspects he knows why she asked him. She’s looking very sexy today, he notices. When she came to the office on Monday for her interview she’d been conservatively dressed in a trouser suit, but today she’s wearing a tight-fitting skirt and a silky blouse, and showing some leg and cleavage. He studies her appreciatively.

  “What?” she says, glancing at him playfully.

  “I’m wondering why you’ve asked me to lunch.” He hadn’t called her back about the job. In fact, he’s not going to make her an offer. She’s too gorgeous—too sexy—to have around the office. His wife, Nancy, would go ballistic. He hopes she doesn’t think this is how she’s going to get the position. If so, he’ll have to let her down. He doesn’t mix business and pleasure.

  “It’s a celebration lunch,” she says.

  “What are we celebrating?”

  “I’ve just got a job at the hospital in Newburgh.”

  He feels his smile broadening. This isn’t going to be a problem then. The mutual attraction he’d suspected during their interview hadn’t been his imagination after all.

  She brings the car to a stop in the parking lot of the Connaught Hotel, at the end of Water Street.

  “I’ve made a reservation,” she says and gets out of the car. Together they step up the front stairs of the hotel, past the doormen, and proceed into the fine dining room on the first floor. As they’re escorted to their table, he follows her, his eyes watching her as she weaves among tables. They’re seated by the window. He glances around quickly to see if he recognizes anyone—Aylesford is not a big town. There’s no one here he knows, and he begins to relax. If someone should recognize him—perhaps one of his wife�
�s friends—he will introduce her as a potential client, a custom home build. She certainly looks the type.

  She smiles at him and he orders wine.

  “So, Niall,” she says, “tell me about yourself.”

  The lunch goes as he expected. She’s interested in him, he’s interested in her. The only question is how to go from the dining room to the hotel room with a minimum of fuss and notice. And how to pay for it. He can’t let her pay, and he can’t have a hotel room in Aylesford showing up on his credit card bill. Nancy will check. She checks everything since she caught him in his first—and only—indiscretion. He’d made it through eight years of marriage—past the seven-year itch—but last fall he’d had a brief, thrilling affair with a woman he’d met at the golf club. His wife had found out. There had been tears and recriminations; it had been awful and the fallout had gone on for weeks. She’d insisted they do marriage counseling. He’d gone because he didn’t want his marriage to end; he loved Nancy and their young son, Henry, and he couldn’t imagine life without them—and divorce would be both inconvenient and financially ruinous, it always was. So he’d broken off the affair and done everything Nancy had asked. He’d promised her he would never stray again. He’d been as good as his word, but now, there is a gorgeous woman flirting with him right across the table, and he is sorely tempted.

  In the end, he doesn’t really struggle with the decision. He’s only concerned about not getting caught. He tells himself that what Nancy doesn’t know won’t hurt her. What possible harm can there be—as long as his wife doesn’t find out?