“We’re past all that,” Olivia said, weary. “Where have you been?”
Olivia’s mother was wearing a ridiculous hat, a bronze thing with a dark brown band. It wasn’t one of Olivia’s, even though Olivia sent her a hat every Mother’s Day. Hats that she never wore, that sat in her closet getting dusty and misshapen. Why do I even bother? Olivia thought. Her mother’s gold seashell earrings looked like bugs. And her lipstick made her seem almost ghoulish. Her father sat, looking out the window, though it was too dark to see the ocean lying beyond it. These people could not possibly understand why she was doing this.
“You’re just being unrealistic. As usual,” Amy added.
She was pouting, the way she used to when she was a child and didn’t get her way. She had on a cropped black sweater that showed her flat tanned belly. Olivia saw that and thought of Ruby’s stretched, full stomach. What am I even doing here with them when Ruby might need me? Olivia thought.
“I’m going home,” she announced.
“But you ordered paella to split with Amy,” her mother said in her fluttering voice.
“Sit right down and eat with us,” her father said. “By God, there’s been enough talk.”
But of course, as usual, there hadn’t been nearly enough.
“Any day now, I’m going to have a baby,” Olivia said. “I’ll call you before we go back to New York.”
A woman at the next table looked up at her, frowning.
But Olivia didn’t care; saying we felt wonderful, like the right pronoun, at last.
Ruby was sitting at the kitchen table when Olivia got home. She had put the fan right in front of her, and her face was lifted into the air the fan spit out. But the only thing Olivia could focus on were the papers on the kitchen table, all with Ben’s signature in the right spots, in triplicate and notarized.
“It’s so fucking hot,” Ruby said.
“Any pains?” Olivia asked her. “Twitches? Twinges? Cramps?”
The papers lay between them, Ben’s signature a model of good penmanship.
“Just those stupid Braxton-Hicks,” Ruby said, locking her gaze on Olivia.
Olivia waited for more; Ruby always had more to say. But the girl was quiet.
When Olivia moved toward the steps, and bed, Ruby spoke.
“You never told me,” she said. “What names you picked out.”
“Nell for a girl,” Olivia said. “Thomas for a boy.”
“Thomas!” Ruby said. “But that’s awful.”
“It was David’s father’s name,” Olivia said.
They had thought it a name filled with historical significance—like Thomas Jefferson—and fictional integrity—Tom Sawyer.
“I don’t like Nell, either,” Ruby said. “It’s a stupid name. An old-lady name.”
Olivia thought of those papers, signed and notarized.
“I told you I’d name him Sage, didn’t I?”
“I don’t care what you name him. But those names are terrible. I’m just saying.”
Olivia went over to Ruby. “Are you okay?” she asked her.
There were tears in Ruby’s eyes, but they seemed frozen there, as if the girl was actually unwilling to let herself cry this time.
“Of course I’m not okay. This is going to hurt like hell and Ben doesn’t love me and you want to name my baby stupid names like Tom and Nell and it’s so fucking hot.”
Olivia wrapped her arms around Ruby’s shoulders.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered.
The first thing Olivia noticed when she woke up the next morning was that there was a cool breeze coming through her windows; the heat had broken.
Then she remembered that today was the day. Ruby’s baby was due today. She thought of that doctor, spinning the little plastic wheel, lining up the months and dates and coming up with today. It had seemed so far off then. Some babies, the doctor had told them, were born right on schedule.
Olivia got out of bed, the cool floor a surprise under her feet after so many weeks of heat. She peeked inside Ruby’s room, but the bed was empty, a messy tangle of sheets, a pillow thrown on the floor. Ruby had told her that it was impossible to find a comfortable position for sleep. That all night she tossed from side to side. The baby kicked and turned, her nose was stuffed up, it was too hot, and she got up and paced or added more pillows, fewer sheets, any combination that might work.
Olivia yawned and made her way downstairs. It was almost cool enough to need a light robe. Good weather for having a baby, she decided.
She didn’t get nervous until she went into the kitchen, where the fan still sat whirring on the table. The parental consent forms had blown onto the floor. A loose screen flapped against the window frame. Otherwise, it was too quiet here.
“Ruby?” Olivia said, not expecting an answer.
Still, she looked in the living room and out in the yard, where Ruby’s chaise longue sat empty. She looked because she had to go through the motions. But what Olivia knew was that Ruby had left her again.
Back in the kitchen, she tried to think of what to do, but she came up blank.