The Shadowlands is a safe place. No one can be admitted unless a resident permits it. However, the property backs a forest preserve, which is blockaded with a privacy fence. If someone wanted to gain entry and couldn’t get past the gates out front, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to come in through the county preserve.
The orange glow now comes and goes at measured intervals, brightening when the smoker inhales. Whoever he is, he’s copped a squat and stopped walking. I wonder if he’s looking at me the way I’m looking at him.
I wonder if he stopped walking because he can see me silhouetted in the window.
Or—I shudder with the thought—if he came looking for me in the first place.
Chapter 7
“I’m sorry. Who are you looking for, ma’am?”
I take another deep breath and prepare to explain the situation again to the third person to whom I’ve been transferred. “My name is Veronica Cavanaugh. My husband is a pilot for your corporation. He left yesterday morning for New York, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of him since. Can someone tell me, maybe, what hotel he’s in? Or . . . or at least confirm that he landed all right?”
“You said your husband is a pilot?”
“Yes.”
“With our corporation?”
“Yes. His name is Micah Cavanaugh, and he left yesterday—”
“I don’t see an extension for anyone with that name in this office. Or for either of our satellites.”
“He isn’t in the office. I don’t think he’s ever been to the office, but he’s—”
“Just a minute, Miss . . . Cavanaugh, did you say?”
“Yes. C-a-v-a—”
“Just a minute.” Elevator music interrupts my spelling. I bite on my thumbnail to keep from screaming.
“No, Nini,” Bella is saying. “That would be bad. If we do that, Mommy will never let us stay home from school again.”
I’m sure Miss Wendy will fill my ears about Bella’s absence today, but until I find Micah, my daughter is staying put. No learning, no routine, no Westlake School rules, and if that stick with a pocketful of sunshine doesn’t like it, she can kiss my ass. This is a bona fide emergency.
While I’m on hold, my other line blips. It’s the lab. It’s awfully early for them to be calling. This can’t be good news.
I have half a mind to let it go to voice mail. They’re allowed to leave me detailed messages; I signed a waiver permitting it. However, it’s been my experience that they prefer to deliver bad news to a live person. I could call them back if they don’t leave a message, but the phones go off the switchboard at four. There’s no guarantee I’ll reach anyone, and I can’t bear the thought of not knowing until tomorrow whether or not our meek two-celled near-embryo made it out of the gate.
I click over and hold my breath.
“Well,” the lab technician says, “we had some progress overnight. It’s at five cells now, and we’ll continue to watch it.”
“Five?” A bubble of elation rises in my heart. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s progress, but it’s still behind schedule. I’ll call you tomorrow with an update either way, but your embryo had a productive day.”
“Which means . . . what? It might be viable?”
She continues: “I’m surprised to see this progress, truth be told. But some of these little guys have minds of their own. We’ve had five cells that become babies, and some eight that don’t.”
“So . . . I guess we wait and see?”
“That’s about all we can do.”
Knowing nothing more than I used to know—we might have an embryo—I click back to the elevator music and remain on hold.
It feels as if I’m living in limbo, as if my entire life is wait and see. No good news or even definitive bad news regarding the embryo. No word from Micah. No information from whomever put me on hold at Diamond Corporation.
After a glance at Bella, who is deep in conversation with Nini while a Disney flick plays in the background, I head out to the screened porch. It’s cold, and I’m wearing only a light sweater over a T-shirt, but I don’t want my daughter to watch me unravel.
Micah has been gone now for almost thirty hours. Since we met, we haven’t gone a solid twenty-four without speaking.
Something terrible has happened. Even if he needed a time-out, a vacation from the rat race of hormone shots and imaginary children—not that I’d immediately forgive his seeking such a thing, but I’d certainly understand—wouldn’t he at least have texted? To let me know he’s okay?
Maybe it’s worse than I assume. Maybe the constant battle for conception finally got the best of him. Before Elizabella was born, I feared he’d leave me for someone he could more easily impregnate. He talked me down off the ledge countless times, assured me I was more important, told me we would adopt if all else failed. Even if he’d changed his mind about me, about us, he couldn’t possibly turn his back on our daughter—especially after all we went through to have her.
“Ma’am?”
I catch my breath. “Yes. Yes, I’m here.”
“Ma’am, are you sure you have the right Diamond Corporation?”
“Headquarters in Chicago,” I say. “With satellites in New York and Miami.”
“That’s right,” the receptionist says. “The trouble is . . .”
I wait a moment for her to gather her thoughts.
“The trouble is . . . what?” I finally ask.
“Well, it’s just . . . Do you know, by any chance, who hired your husband? Who’s the head of his department?”
“I don’t know.” It’s not like other jobs, where he reports to an office, punches a time clock with familiar faces, and complains about the wages over lunch pails. “Can’t you look it up for me? Who’s the head of aviation?”
“Ma’am, bear with me, all right? We’re a small communications corporation, and—”
“Who’s in charge of your pilots? Micah is new, so maybe you don’t know him. He was hired this past spring, but someone, any pilot . . . If you talk to any pilot, he should be able to point you in the right direction, shouldn’t he? Somewhere along the chain of command, someone is going to know my husband, and—”
“It’s just that we don’t have any planes, ma’am.”
Her words knock the wind clear out of me. “Wh-what?”
“Planes. I’m unaware of any aviation department here at Diamond Corporation. I’ve asked around, and no one knows anything about pilots on our payroll. Are you sure that’s what your husband does for us?”
“Of course I’m sure! He flies planes! That’s what he does! First for United Airlines, and now for you. Maybe your supervisor knows him or her supervisor or hers. Put me in touch with the goddamned president of the corporation, for all I care. This is important!”
“I’m trying to help you, Mrs. Cavanaugh, but I’m not sure you have the right company.”
I storm into the house.
Bella startles.
I skid to a stop at the cabinets between the kitchen and the great room, which Claudette called the family planning center the first time she brought us here. I tear through the mail and find proof that I’m not insane.
“I’m looking at his pay stub right now. Is this Diamond Corporation at ten fifty-eight LaSalle, suite F twenty-two, in Chicago?”
“We are on LaSalle, ma’am—”
“What if I give you his employee ID number? Will that help?”
“But we aren’t on the twenty-second floor. This building has only fifteen.”
“ID number one-oh-three-two-nine-seven. Can you look him up that way?”
She sighs. “Look, honey. Your husband doesn’t work for us.”
“I have his pay stub. His name is on it. It says Diamond Corporation.”
“Mommy?”
I spin around to see Bella holding a picture of a plane in what looks likes silvery water in her outstretched hand. “Nini says she told you. God Land.”
I hang up the phone.
Gather my daughter into my arms.
Feel her tears against my neck when she buries her face there.
“Bella, why are you saying things like that?”
Her little arms tighten around me. “Not me. Nini.”
Chapter 8
November 13