Moonlit and snow glazed, the park seems magical, a fog-shrouded fairyland where anything can happen. I walk down a trail and am reminded of strolls with James. In the distance, a stream burbles. I used to fetch stones in that stream. When it was hot, we took our sandals off and let the water run over our toes, telling ourselves our lives would be perpetually sunny, perpetually filled with happiness.
“This is where your father and I sliced open a watermelon once. Right at this picnic table. And there—over there where the two maple trees are—is where we tossed Frisbees,” I say, remembering the feel of the sun on my shoulders. Though Anne Elise is asleep, it’s important she learns of the love her father and I share. “We laid out picnic blankets and unpacked salami and Havarti sandwiches from a picnic basket. I freckled easily, and your father would rub Coppertone on my shoulders, my arms, my face to prevent sunburn.”
Anne Elise looks so intelligent, so wanting of information, a sponge for any dollop of insight about her father and me, but as I tell her of the past, my mind swims toward the future. I’m seeing the springtime grass on which she’ll crawl, the oak trees she’ll climb when she’s older, the red bicycle with squeaky training wheels. Kindergarten soccer games, Saturday afternoons at the National Gallery of Art’s Impressionism exhibits, and the Christmastime performances of The Nutcracker at the Warner Theatre, James and I on either side of her in the plush velvet orchestra seats, all of us rapt in “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
But then, as snowflakes dust my hair, I know it can’t be. Sooner or later, I’m bound to be apprehended. By tomorrow, there’s a fair chance I’ll be behind bars, the subject of a messy scandal splashed out all over the front pages and the lips of the snootiest socialites of my acquaintance. And what kind of future would there be for either of us if that happens? What would my friend Allie have to say, and what will a prison sentence do to my chances of ever being named an honorary chairwoman for any of the charity cotillions I attend?
I cannot return Anne Elise to the hospital. There is so little I can do with her, but as I mull my options, a new path emerges in my mind. Should Anne Elise disappear, James will eventually return to me. Even solid marriages and long-standing relationships would crumble from the emotional turmoil of losing a newborn. James and Laurel, scarcely having known each other for more than nine or ten months, do not have the kind of stable, loving relationship to withstand such a test. Of this, I am positive. And while they may band tighter immediately following the disappearance, the bond would be ephemeral. Sooner or later, they wouldn’t be able to look in each other’s eyes without being reminded of tragedy and heartbreak. They might still fuck each other, but they’ll never be able to love each other again.
In a clearing beyond a stand of river birches, not far from where Rock Creek’s burbling icy waters bisect the park, lies the perfect spot. I stop and watch my breath in the cold air. There’s a baby-sized indentation in the snowy ground, enough fallen leaves, branches, and bigger rocks to hide her from anyone who should happen to jog past. I unzip my jacket and feel the rush of cold air come over me. Anne Elise, in her sleep, has already mastered the art of sucking her thumb. She looks so cute in her sheer baby clothes as I lay her on the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LAUREL
I’m in my bed, still stunned the hospital let Zerena disappear. “Where is she?” I keep asking. No one has any answers. Lois Belcher comes to my side while the two men in suits speak into their walkie-talkies about a possible abduction. Zerena isn’t in the nursery, nor has she been there for the last eight hours. One of the men in suits puts his hand over his walkie-talkie’s mouthpiece and tells me, “Hell or high water, we’re on this thing,” confiding this as if it’s supposed to bring me comfort. My parents stand in bewildered alarm, Tully’s arm on my mother’s shoulder. It’s the closest they’ve come to an affectionate gesture in my presence, but Tully, tugging on the collar of his white button-down shirt and glancing at his watch every other minute, eyes the security guys.
“Who’s Tricia?” Tully asks. “Some friend of yours?”
“Tricia is Laurel’s mother,” Lois Belcher answers matter-of-factly.
“No, she’s not,” Tully says. He pushes Belinda a few steps forward. “This here’s Laurel’s mom. And her name’s not Tricia.”
“It’s Belinda,” Belinda says, flashing an uncomfortable smile. She’s never liked being thrust into others’ attention. “My name’s Belinda, not Tricia, but I’ve been Laurel’s mother ever since she was born. Honest, I am.”
“See? This woman’s Laurel’s mother. Just like I told you.”
“Oh, dear,” Lois Belcher says. She puts her hand to her chin and turns two shades paler. “Is this true?”
I take a breath, close my eyes, and nod. Though I’m lying in bed, I feel as if I might fall. More people rush into the room, which seems to spin around me. Someone says something about a system-wide failure plaguing the hospital’s video surveillance cameras. The hospital security officers lower their walkie-talkies. One of them shakes his head. The other says, moaning, “Just our luck, man.”
When I was locked up in juvenile detention, I hated how security alarms blared whenever an inmate committed an infraction, but now I’d fork over my left hand or maybe a kidney to hear a klaxon, a wailing siren, some signal of hospital-wide alarm to jolt everyone into action finding my baby. Instead, the security officers look at each other with regret. One of their walkie-talkies crackles with static, reminding me of the secondhand pair of beige walkie-talkies I got for Christmas when I was eight or nine. Unwrapping them, I thought they were the coolest gift ever, and for days thereafter, Tully or Belinda would humor me with silly messages walkie-talkied to me from the other end of our trailer, but as their Christmastime cheer whittled down to the humdrum of another workaday new year, their willingness to engage in such shenanigans faded. Being an only child to frequently absent parents is lonesome. Alone most nights, I walkie-talkied myself, holding the walkie-talkies in either hand and making up pretend conversations to amuse myself in the hours I was left alone.
“So who’s Tricia then?” Lois Belcher asks.
Everyone turns to me. My throat gets dry. If I’m ever to see Zerena again, I need to be upfront about this, but embarrassment gets the better of me. Everyone’s opinion of me is about to drop ten notches as soon as I tell them I’ve been sleeping with Trish’s husband, a married man. I bite my lips. No matter what happens, I have to admit the truth. For Zerena’s sake.
“Tricia is Jimmy’s wife,” I say. “I never should have done with him what I did.”
The people around me exchange glances, slow to make sense of what I’ve said. There’s no Act of Contrition big enough to forgive the sins I’ve committed. A voice cackles out of one of the walkie-talkies so loud and electronically distorted that I momentarily mistake it for the voice of God casting judgment on me. I bring my hands to my face, shielding myself from everyone’s judgmental stares.
The news that I’m an adulterer hits Lois Belcher hard. I catch her biting her tongue. She leans against the wall, turns her gaze away from me. I wouldn’t have pegged her for the moralistic type, but birds of a generational feather flock together. Because she’s friendly with Tricia, she must look at me as some kind of whore. Though I’ve played no part in Zerena’s disappearance, this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t messed around with a married man.