“The trouble is, if the card isn’t working . . . I’m out of town. I can mail a money order. Can it wait a few days?”
“The amount is already three weeks past due, and we have only a sixty-day grace period before it’s out of our hands. We’ve been attempting to reach your husband, but—”
“I’m sorry the credit card failed, and I’m sorry my husband hasn’t been in touch with you, but he hasn’t been in touch with anyone in nearly a month. He’s missing, presumed dead.”
“Oh. I hadn’t . . . I didn’t . . . I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure everyone at your center feels sort of like God, giving couples the impossible gift of children, but you work because of people like me. Your policy gives me sixty days grace. I still have some time. I just told you I’d pay the amount due if you’d only tell me what I owe!”
I hear the clicking of keys. “Three weeks late is three hundred dollars for the embryos and three hundred dollars for the specimen. But if you pay any later than tomorrow, you’ll have an additional two hundred dollars in fees. If you prefer to pay cash, I have to charge you annually. Fifteen hundred each. That’s three thousand for both the embryos and specimen.”
“Plus late fees,” I confirm. “Thirty-six hundred?”
“If you pay by tomorrow.”
“And then I’m good for a year?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Might I transfer you to reception so you can make your next appointment?”
I hang up.
“I know, Nini,” Bella’s saying. “Mommy’s mad.”
“I was mad at them, Ellie-Belle,” I say. “Because they were being mean.”
“Nini says you can’t help it. People are just mean sometimes.”
“Nini is very smart.”
The “Rock-a-bye Baby” ringtone echoes throughout the kitchen. I’m sure it’s the reception staff at River North Fertility Center, attempting to book another appointment.
Although I can’t think about it right now, I answer the call.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh, I’m sorry for the confusion. It appears the storage fees for Mr. Cavanaugh’s specimen are up to date. The charge came through after my system updated. I apologize. Storage is still due for the embryos.”
“How is that possible?”
“The charge just now came through.”
“I heard you. But . . . how?”
“You must have updated the credit card or—”
“No, I didn’t. Which card is it on?”
I hear the clicking of computer keys in the background. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cavanaugh. Your name isn’t on the financial clearance form for this particular specimen. I can’t disclose.”
I hang up even more frustrated—is anything easy in the world of infertility?—but then I think. I didn’t pay the fee. There’s only one other person who might’ve. I dial Guidry. “Hi, it’s Veronica. Can you follow up on something with our fertility clinic? Find out who paid the storage fees for Micah’s specimen. Maybe you’ll find my husband at the end of that trail.”
Chapter 38
I dragged a child-size table and chairs—two, of course; Nini needs one, too—from “Nini’s bedroom” to the driveway. Bella colors there, while I balance too many feet off the ground on Christian’s ladder and pry the remaining letters off the archway. I’m going to paint the arch, too. The top trim pieces will stay white, but the rest of it I’ll coat in the same pale yellow as the house.
“I know, Nini.” Bella chatters incessantly to her invisible friend. “But that’s what Daddy said.”
I stop what I’m doing and listen harder.
“I told you,” she continues. “When he came to see me. He said we could swim with the dolphins.” She reaches for another crayon. “But I love my daddy.”
Despite the mid-eighties temperature, a chill pricks the back of my neck. Slowly, carefully, so as not to disrupt my daughter’s chattering, I climb down from the ladder and inch closer.
“He says it’s a house even bigger and prettier than this one. And I could get a new dollhouse.”
“Bella?”
She startles when she hears me.
“When did Daddy say that?”
“Oh.” She brushes a stray coil of hair from her forehead. “He said it when he kissed me bye-bye.”
“When did he say that?”
“I told you, Mommy. I . . . saw . . . Daddy.”
“That was Mr. Renwick. With Emily and Andrea? When you were riding your bike?”
“Yes, Mommy.” She’s exasperated with having to explain it to me again.
“And he gave you a kiss goodbye?”
“In my head.”
“In your head? Or on top of your head?”
“On my nose.”
“On your nose.”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nini and I are coloring.” She doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“Bella, this is very important. You said Daddy came to God Land. This is God Land. We are at God Land.”
“Daddy’s not here anymore, Mommy.”
“You just said you saw him. So he’s like Nini?”
“Yes. Like Nini. Except Nini is in my hair.”
“Excuse me?”
I turn around to see Officer Laughlin standing next to his parked bike, under the archway.
“Veronica Cavanaugh? Officer Laughlin, Key West Police—”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Lake County asked me to drop by to get your read on something.” He hands me a few pages of printed material.
I glance down at the fruit of Guidry’s investigative efforts.
But quickly, after I register only a few words here and there and focus on the MICAH JAMES CAVANAUGH JR. in the one place I’d hoped it wouldn’t be, I return my gaze to Laughlin’s. “Does this mean . . .”
I glance down at the dates on the paper.
He doesn’t have to answer.
I don’t even have to ask the question.
Chapter 39
I’m sitting at the potter’s wheel, my fingers coated in wet clay, watching earthenware spin.
There’s no denying it now, no way to explain it as a misunderstanding or misinterpretation: the boys in the pictures I’ve packed away are my husband’s sons. Born eight weeks before Elizabella, in Wisconsin, not far from C-Way airport, where Micah’s car turned up.
I think I remember Micah taking a longer trip in my third trimester. Perhaps he went to be with the boys’ mother—someone named Gabrielle—for the birth.
What if he intended to leave me for her when she turned up pregnant with his babies? What if very quickly after he learned of her pregnancy, I was expecting, too?
I wonder how Natasha Markham fits into this mess.
I scrape this crock off the potter’s wheel and place it with the others on the shelf. I look to the kiln. So far, I’ve been hesitant to use it. But what do I have to lose? I open its heavy door, which is on the top, like a lid.
I place two vases, ones that have dried, into the cavern and close the lid. I pull the lever to lock it and turn up the temperature to cone four—it’s the setting the guy on YouTube used—set the timer for four hours, and turn the machine on.
I migrate to the kitchen and check on Bella, who is napping on the sofa in the next room.
All is quiet.
It feels as if the walls are closing in on me, as if I’m suffocating here. It’s ridiculous. The place is large and airy.
But this place is also a reminder of Micah’s infidelity.
Starting tomorrow, I’m making drastic changes. And I’m starting with paint. Instant gratification, instant visual improvement.
Mama used to say that.
I remember the day she dipped a paintbrush into a can of cobalt blue. She’d mixed the paint with plaster dust to give it a chalky, matte finish, and in no time at all, our table looked brand-new. I can do that sort of thing here, and my life will be brand-new, too.
If Micah were to materialize before me right now, would I throw my arms around him? Or would I take Claudette’s advice, slap him good across the cheek, and make him pay?
I reach for my phone and dial Claudette.
She answers instantly. “Honey, I’ve been so worried. What’s going on?”