Barb is waiting at the door when we pull up, excitement plastered across her face. I can see how much it means to her to have us here, which hits me with an unexpected grief. I’m grateful. I am. And my god, am I ready for a new beginning. But you can’t have a beginning without an end, and despite myself, I grieve my old life, the life Opal will never know, the life Jasper will soon forget. Despite myself, I miss Gabe. The way he kissed my temple each morning before he left for the beach, the way he would throw Jasper into the air when he returned from work. The way he made me laugh. The way he made me feel loved. This is the fresh start we need, necessary only because of our tremendous loss.
It’s strange, the divergent responses people have had. The friends who were once so loyal, now radio silent. The aloof acquaintances who were suddenly warm. Erin started bringing over coffee like Claire used to. It wasn’t the same, though. She was eager for gossip, not friendship. Whenever I saw Claire, if she was gardening or having a cocktail on her patio, she’d pretend she’d forgotten something inside. If we made eye contact, if I held her gaze, she’d say hi, greet the kids, and that was it. Although I’d already lost her, it was devastating to lose her again.
And then there were the former friends forfeited to distance and years suddenly back in touch. At first, I was guarded with them, assuming they were eager for details, cultural cachet. But they genuinely wanted to make sure I was okay. My friend Angie went as far as offering me a job. She’d risen in the fashion world since our days at FIT and wanted me at the helm of her new jewelry line.It seems like the perfect time for a fresh start,she explained when I asked why she would possibly want me.Plus, you have impeccable taste.Well, not when it comes to men.
Jasper clings to my leg as we approach Barb waiting at the door. It’s awkward, walking with one kid affixed to my calf, weighed down on the other side by Opal’s infant seat. Barb bends down to Jasper’s level, which causes him to hide behind my leg.
“Jasp, you remember Barb.” For the first time,grandmotherwafts into my brain. Barb and I haven’t discussed what he’ll call her, and I’m not sure she wants to consecrate him as her last connection to Regina. I was relieved when she signed the paperwork, that she wasn’t offended by my request. And I did need the agreement, not just for its legal protection. I needed it as an acknowledgment that DNA isn’t what bonds us.
Jasper angles his head around my leg, surveys Barb without recognition. It’s been six months since we’ve seen her, a quarter of his life. In another six months, will he forget Gabe too? There’s so much I haven’t figured out about Gabe: what I’ll tell my children, what kind of relationship they’ll have with him when he’s out of prison. I won’t keep any of it a secret. Jasper will never have to confront the truth of his identity. But I don’t know how to begin to explain it to him. For now, we are here. For now, this is a beginning, not an ending.
Gabe survived the stabbing. Of course he survived the stabbing. He’s a survivor. We both are. Our children will be too. They have to be. When the story broke, none of Gabe’s patients were exempt. They all had to confront the possibility of a life-altering truth. Some of the mothers who tested were relieved to discover their babies belonged genetically to them, having had viable eggs into their forties. Others refused testing and the truths they hadalready tacitly accepted. Some were so famous they wanted to maintain what privacy they still had. And too many were forced to piece together a new normal. We’ll never know the exact number of women Gabe deceived. His files were intentionally vague, and he’d genuinely lost track. As the children get older, as they decide to check their DNA if their parents haven’t, more donorships are bound to be revealed.
For now, over three hundred women have filed a class action lawsuit against Longevity Fertility and Gabe. It’s a breathtaking number. Almost inconceivable, except they each have a face and a name, a child who is theirs. Their cases will take years. Gabe declared bankruptcy for Longevity Fertility, and the clinic is now defunct. There’s no business money there. But California is a community property state. Financially speaking, I am as responsible as Gabe. Everything we have personally, from the sale of our house to our joint bank accounts—my business, even—will go to paying the victims. I’m happy to give every cent to these women, to relinquish every tie I have to Gabe. To start over with only my children. And Barb.
My lawyer pressed me to go public, to tell the media and the court that Gabe compromised me, too, to align myself with the victims. Although it wouldn’t change my fiscal role, it would make the public more charitable toward me. She urged me to speak out against the stigma of fertility problems, to publicly criticize Gabe not only for the ways he violated us but for perpetuating unrealistic expectations of fertility, for turning egg donation into something shameful and sinister when it should be praised. She wanted me to stand on behalf of the mothers Gabe abused and pronounce that even though my son doesn’t have my DNA, he is my child. Barb agreed. She hated watching my clients abandon me, other mothers shun me and my children, the media cast me as an accomplice if only in my willful ignorance. It was painful. It’s still painful. But I don’t want my son’s picture in the tabloids. I don’t want to speak for other mothers, to homogenize their voices.
The day before we left LA, I had an unexpected visitor. The house had sold well under asking price, and I was packing up the last of the boxesto put in storage. At some point, I’d have to deal with our furniture, the art we’d collected, the cast-iron and copper pans I’d envisioned seasoning over years of use. At some point. Not now. For the moment, I had a plan, a job, a place to take my children.
The knock on our front door startled, then uneased me. I assumed it was a reporter who’d seen theSoldsign and realized this was their last chance to speak to me before we fled the canals. When the story first broke, they camped out in the alley. As it became clear Gabe wasn’t living with us, that I wouldn’t speak in his stead or as his opposition, they grew more interested in the mothers who wanted the spotlight.
When I opened the door, I saw Maya.
Maya Linsky didn’t join the lawsuit. She didn’t go on the news or talk shows or write op-eds forThe New York Times, even as reporters hounded her. No matter how many other mothers wanted to speak, it was her voice the public wanted to hear.
I’m sorry to show up like this,she said guardedly.I tried calling, but—
I changed my number.I kept my body half hidden behind the door.
Me too.I relaxed. She wasn’t there to berate me. I opened the door wider.
Do you want to come inside?
She followed me into the house. Both children were asleep upstairs, and I was thankful that Maya didn’t have to see them.
She accepted my offer of a cup of coffee, and I motioned her into the living room, crowded with packing boxes.Make yourself at home.
Make herself at home. Here, where her violator once lived. Here, where her ex-husband had tried to kill us. There was no relaxing here for either of us.
When I returned with two cups of coffee, Maya was staring outside at a couple walking by.
Do you ever get used to it?Maya asked as I handed her a mug, then sat in the armchair across from her.
If you want to live here, you have to.I took a sip of my coffee.I made it work ...My sentence trailed off. I made it work for Gabe. The canals became home. They felt secure when they weren’t.
We drank our coffee in silence. It wasn’t as awkward as it could have been. Maya seemed more at ease than the last time I’d seen her.
I could have stopped him,she finally said.Paul had been acting erratic for a while. I had a restraining order. I never really thought he was dangerous. I just wanted him to leave me alone. If I’d known, if I’d had any inkling that he could kill someone—she shook her head and rotated the coffee mug in her hands—I knew too. Marcus had these beautiful bowed lips, like a doll. No one in my family has those lips. Paul’s either. And his toes. They were so long. His fingers too. It was more than that, though. There was this energy between me and Marcus. I don’t know how to explain it, because it’s not like I loved him less or like I wasn’t his mother. There was just this feeling between us. It wasn’t even friction, or something off. Just charged.She glanced over at me. It sent a chill down my arms.Was it that way for you too?
I was too stunned to respond.
When you came to the store, you were searching for something you weren’t sure you wanted to find.
I nodded, debating what to say. Maya had constructed a version of that interaction that had bonded us, one where I had the same instincts about Jasper that she had about her son. But that wasn’t the way it happened for me.
I told Maya about our run-in at Café Collage the day before Regina drowned. About the police, who didn’t believe me. About meeting Barb, whom the police didn’t believe either. How our investigation led me to the earrings.
Jasper knew Regina. No one believed me, but I felt they were connected.It was as close as I could come to confirming her version of events, and maybe it was the same. My instincts told me my son knew Regina. If I’d probed, perhaps I would have seen their bond for what it was. Even now, it’s impossible for me to believe I had any inkling about Jasper’s DNA. That’s how I’vecome to see their connection. It isn’t about biology or motherhood. They’re linked through their genes, nothing more.
