But Olivia was sure that David was right. They had been blessed with each other, with the success of her hats and his new designs in plastic polymar. With a baby.
Things started to go bad early Monday morning when Winnie stumbled upon Magnolia and Lou screwing on the beach. She kicked sand in their faces, ran back to the house, woke Olivia up to tell her what she’d found, got in the car, and drove back to New York, leaving Rex to ride the train back with Magnolia and Lou, who claimed they had fallen in love.
As they were leaving for the train station, Olivia realized that Arthur was missing. The five of them searched the house and yard, the beach and neighbors’ yards, but no Arthur.
“Maybe he fell in love, too,” Rex said.
Standing on the platform as the train pulled away, David took Olivia’s hand.
“Let’s not go back to New York tonight,” he said. “Let’s stay in bed and drink nonalcoholic beer and name our baby.”
“And maybe Arthur will turn up,” Olivia said.
“He will. He has to. He’s part of our ever-growing happy family,” David said. He had less than twelve hours to live.
Arthur never turned up again.
And after the policeman came and told Olivia, and drove her to the hospital to identify David, and after she had made phone calls from the pay phone in the lobby to Winnie and Rex and her parents and David’s parents, standing by the entrance to the emergency room, waiting for her father to come for her, Olivia felt the warm gush of blood. No baby. No David. In just a few hours, everything had gone bad.
Running, her house in sight now, Olivia thought, I am thirty-seven years old. I am a widow. I will never meet someone I will love like that again. Her life stretched before her, sad and blank.
“Oh, Pal,” she said in between breaths. “How could you?”
A cat meandered past her, and for a crazy minute Olivia thought it was Arthur. But Arthur was gone, too. She started to cry. It was easier to cry for Arthur than for her other enormous losses. It was easier to say his name as she ran, like a beat: “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.” Somewhere deep within her, it was a different name she called. But Olivia could not speak it out loud.
“Arthur,” she said foolishly, crying. “Arthur.”
Olivia could hardly make it up the dirt road that led to her own little house. She had run too long, too hard. Her dead husband’s T-shirt stuck to her like a hug. Inside, she would drink water from the jug in the refrigerator; then she would go upstairs, pull the shades, and get back in bed, where she would stay for hours, or even longer. Maybe forever, she decided, wondering how long it would take to starve or die of thirst or neglect. This was the type of thing David would have known.
A few feet from the kitchen door, Olivia noticed that it was open the slightest bit. She stopped, certain that she had locked it. She remembered growing frustrated with the old-fashioned key, pulling hard on the knob to be certain the door had locked. A robber was there, no doubt, convinced the house was empty. It had that look about it—neglected and unloved, like Olivia herself. She decided right then that she would let him kill her. In fact, she was almost relieved that it had come to this.
She yanked the screen door open, then pushed on the other door, the wooden one, and walked into her kitchen.
But it was not a man sitting there at the green metal table with the glass top.
It was a girl, a teenager.
She sat at the table, drinking a glass of water. Perspiration glistened on her face, which was pink and blotchy. Her hair was not quite red and not quite brown, but somewhere in between; long and thin, it hung in a sweaty tangle around her face, strands sticking to her neck. She had too many freckles, the kind that make a face look cluttered. She wore a nose ring, a small silver hoop in one nostril.
And, Olivia realized, she was pregnant.
Her T-shirt stretched ridiculously across her belly. Olivia could see her belly button pressing against the shirt. Her belly, round and big, made Olivia think of melons and bounty. Of life. The girl could be Sheryl Lamont herself. Or a figment of Olivia’s imagination. So Olivia spoke in a loud, booming voice.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asked.