“Marisol had a family emergency, and I couldn’t exactly ask Dan to pick you up.”
This isn’t meant as an olive branch. It isn’t even an olive twig. A leaf, a bud.
“Well, it’s still appreciated.”
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you and Gabe?” Her voice has the cool neutrality of a reporter. She drums her nails against the doorframe, impatient for a story she can relay or discredit at the playground. Claire isn’t my confidant. I’m not sure she ever was.
“Gabe and I are over. I’ve asked him to be gone by the time I get home today.” To my surprise, I have to stifle a cry when I say this. My bed gyrates as Jasper jabs the buttons. He’s close enough that I can smell the pineapple of his shampoo. The piquant scent unleashes something in me. I wipe my tears, uncertain if I’m crying for Gabe, or because of him. If I’m grateful for what I still have, or mourning what I’ve lost.
Claire studies me, inquisitive yet unsympathetic. It’s not cruel, exactly. Just distant.
“You’re sure that’s the best idea?” she finally says. “Whatever he’s done, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. And when it’s over and you’re still there, he’ll love you even more.”
We watch each other, and I’m struck by an overwhelming sadness for Claire, even though she regards me resolutely. There’s so much we don’t know about each other’s marriages, about each other too. I nod, pretending to hear her, when really I’m nodding from a different understanding. Claire and I were always going to lose each other. We want different things from this world.
“I am sorry, you know. I never meant to interfere.”
Claire observes me, betraying no emotion. Then she tilts her head toward the hall and says, “I’ll be downstairs.”
Just like that, I’m alone with both my children for the first time.
Jasper trades the remote for my bedsheet, playing a little game of peekaboo with its starchy fabric.
I limp over to Opal and carry her to the bed, where Jasper scrambles up beside me. I lean Opal toward him. “Jasp, this is your sister, Opal. You can touch her.”
He stares at the bundle of blankets in my lap, Opal’s pinched face barely visible beneath the pink-and-blue skullcap. I have no idea what’s going on in his head. It all started with this, with Jasper not being able to communicate fully. With me believing a better mother would be able to access the thoughts of her son.
Finally, he taps Opal on the shoulder, then burrows into my lap beside her.
“She’s going to come home with us today,” I tell him.
After Jasper was born, they kept me at the hospital for four nights. Everyone had advised me to stay as long as possible, to accept the help, the experience, the rest. I couldn’t wait to get home, to start our life as a family. This time, they’re eager to get rid of me after forty-eight hours. Opal’s gaining weight and latching well. The on-call pediatrician has deemed her healthy, but my body is too weak to do this alone. I’m not about to let Gabe back just because I need someone. Although Barb can help, she isn’t going to live with us permanently. Even if she wants to stay in our lives, she needs to develop a new normal. I need to too. And that starts by letting go of Gabe, by not protecting him. It starts with the calls I have to make. It starts with the mothers.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Barb
I’ve gotten so used to spying on Gabe, it’s become second nature. Except now I’m not spying on him for Regina but for Tessa, watching as he sets up a banner, rolls a bassinet around the room, situates the pillows on the couch, then rearranges them again. He never once glances out as I stare blatantly. I’m still invisible to him.
Tessa texts that she’s checking out of the hospital and will be back within the hour. If Gabe isn’t gone, I’ll go in there and make him leave. I’m not sure how I’ll do this, so I’m relieved when he disappears and doesn’t return. Once enough time’s passed, I trust he isn’t coming back. I unlock the house using the key Tessa gave me.
Inside, I take in the familiar furniture, Regina’s furniture. To her, it wasn’t Tessa’s. It was Jasper’s. She wanted to occupy his space, to exist in some version of his world. Maybe that’s twisted. As her mother, I ache for her, for everything she couldn’t tell me, for everything she tried to understand in the wrong ways.
Jasper’s sweet face appears to me, his eyes that are my eyes, his lips that Regina inherited from Isaac. I need to tell Isaac. But tell him what, exactly? It’s not like we’re going to take Tessa’s child from her, raise himas we raised Regina, between two houses where she never felt settled, never felt supported. I know Tessa’s worried I might try something, and I’m honestly not offended. It isn’t me she distrusts. It’s the situation that pits our love for her son against us, a crisis her husband created. The only truth, as far as I’m concerned, is that Regina donated her eggs. Tessa bore a child, a child who has my eyes and Isaac’s lips. A child who is hers, not Regina’s. As much as I’d like to claim Jasper as my grandson, it’s up to Tessa what kind of relationship Isaac and I have with her son.
In the kitchen, a sign hangs above the peninsula.Welcome home, Opal.I debate taking it down, throwing away the pastries on the counter, the envelope resting against the box. It isn’t sealed. I slip the card out. It readsI’m sorry, and there’s a printed list of women’s names and dates folded inside. Right away, I know. These are the mothers he deceived.
The list is longer than I’d expected. At least three hundred names. Some of the women are so famous, even I’ve heard of them. When scandals involving celebrities break, I never feel particularly sympathetic for the famous people involved. They chose life in the spotlight. But this? No one chose this.
Some dates have multiple names listed, with asterisks indicating that he’s not sure which patient he implanted with another woman’s egg. How could he forget? At what point did it become another workday? I’ve always felt this way about doctors. More so as I’ve aged. My knee pain is the knee pain of every seventy-year-old they see. My bone decay. My heart rate. At what point did Gabe stop seeing these women as people? As mothers? At what point did Regina too?
How could my daughter do this? She was never motivated by money. She only would have been part of this if she believed she was helping these women—the mothers, the donors too. This doesn’t justify her decisions. I’m not excusing her actions. Rather, it’s a way of seeing my daughter in this horrible thing she did.
I fold the list and place it back in the card, the card in the envelope, the envelope on the counter. I understand Tessa’s impulse not to keepher husband’s secret. I’m glad she told me, trusted me at her own risk. And I wouldn’t dare doubt her conviction that she needs to tell the other mothers, too, to undermine what her body has just been through by implying she isn’t thinking clearly. But it’s a monumental decision, one she can’t undo. There’s no harm in letting it marinate. Nothing will be different in a week, a month. Yes, I can hear the hypocrisy, the advice I didn’t follow myself. I don’t want Tessa to regret her decision the way I do mine with Jessica.
When a car pulls to a stop in the alley, I throw the door open to find Dan Huntsman’s wife helping Tessa out of the passenger seat. I hate that I think of her as an extension of that angry man. I don’t know her name. She hoists Tessa’s arm over her shoulders and helps her toward the house. Then Tessa motions that she can make it inside on her own. The neighbor returns to the car to unbuckle Jasper. He spots me and barrels over. His small body crashes into my leg, sending a sharp punch through my bad knee that’s quickly overshadowed by relief. He’s safe. It’s more than that. He’s safe with me. Still, it’s Tessa’s choice. I must fight my instincts with him. As his grandmother. As his friend too.
The neighbor carries Opal’s car seat over and hands it to me. It’s heavy, and the stinging in my knee is now a throbbing. I manage to use both hands and arch my back to keep hold of it. The woman’s gaze locks with mine, but there’s no communing, no acknowledgment of the village we’ll build around Tessa. In handing Opal to me, she’s relinquishing any role in this.
