“The thing is,” Olivia said again, “she’s giving me the baby.”
Winnie could be counted on to tell Olivia she was crazy. To remind her that she was still in mourning, that she hadn’t even taken the step of sleeping with someone again, never mind adopting a baby. Winnie could be counted on to tell Olivia that their babies would be best friends. Little city babies, little New Yorkers. She could be counted on to say that no matter how it turned out—the kid could change her mind; Olivia could change her mind—no matter, it would be the absolutely right thing. By the time they were back in the car, headed home, Winnie was repeating all the fun baby things they would do together. The park on Bleecker Street, little high-tops in size zero.
When they pulled into the driveway, Winnie said, “Now we can do things like go to watch them light the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and go to musicals. We’ll have a reason.”
Olivia was that much closer to getting this baby: Winnie understood. Winnie would help.
But they didn’t talk about the baby with Ruby. Instead, Winnie took a mango and kiwi tart from her big straw bag, and a pound of macadamia nuts, and they sat on the living room rug—Winnie, Olivia, and Ruby—and they ate until Winnie said, “It’s time.” Then she took a fat brown photo album from her big straw bag. “The husband,” Olivia said. “The house in Rhinebeck.”
“What’s Rhinebeck?” Ruby said.
Winnie took Olivia’s hand. “I made this for you,” she said. “These are all the pictures I had of you guys. It’s a good thing, I think—to remember the way it was.”
“You think I don’t remember?” Olivia said, but she stared hard at that brown album.
“I know it’s totally different,” Ruby said, “but it’s like my old dog, Rover. He got hit by a car, and for the longest time I slept with his little toys and stuff, and I wouldn’t let my mother throw away his dog dish because I had made it in school, in art class. And then one day, I like took out this picture of Rover and me, when he was new, just a little puppy, and it broke my heart, seeing him so little, and I kept thinking he only had like five years to live and he was so dumb and happy. But then I kept that picture on my bureau. You know, like in the corner of my mirror? And after a while, it didn’t make me sad. It even made me kind of happy.” Ruby considered this, then added quickly, “I mean, it’s like totally different, but you know.” Then she smiled, pleased with herself.
Olivia picked up the album and fingered it the way she used to touch that minicassette that held David’s voice. The power we give objects, she thought. What are pictures, after all? Flat. One-dimensional. Not even true representations of the thing itself. Tricks of light can blur faces or send red dots into people’s eyes.
Ruby’s voice rose above Olivia. She said, “I imagine him to be very handsome. Mysterious, even. Like Omar Sharif.”
“How would you know Omar Sharif?” Winnie said. “You’re too young to know Omar Sharif.”
“Oh please,” Ruby groaned. “That’s like saying I shouldn’t know about the Civil War, or Julius Caesar, or anything that happened before 1982.”
“Jesus Christ,” Winnie said, “don’t even tell me you were born in 1982. That is too depressing. Jesus.”
Olivia looked at the two of them. “He wasn’t particularly handsome,” she said. “Not really.”
“He wasn’t not handsome,” Winnie said. “All of his parts fit together nicely.”
“Not dark and mysterious?” Ruby asked, disappointed. “But he has to be. With a little mustache and piercing eyes.”
Olivia opened the photo album. “See for yourself,” she said to Ruby, but it was really a directive to herself.
At first, she couldn’t focus. But slowly, the faces and images became clear and Olivia realized she was looking at her own wedding. The silly Polaroids that Rex had taken that day.
“Wow,” Ruby said, “you look beautiful.”
She was right, Olivia did look beautiful in her wedding hat, her face so happy beneath it. There she was, smiling up at David, who looked right at the camera.
Olivia let her fingers drop to his face. She touched the flat laminated surface of his cheeks. So alive was he in this picture, she imagined her touch would settle on real warm flesh. But of course it was just plastic over paper.
“When I went to the hospital,” Olivia said, “I didn’t really look at him. I glanced. To be sure, you know. And even then he was clearly so dead. So not there.”
“You had to identify the body? Like on TV cop shows?” Ruby said, impressed.