“What is it?” I said as she sank into the sofa. Sometimes she would lean against me, let me stroke her hair. Not today. But I took her hand all the same. “It’s about a baby, isn’t it?”
She looked so startled, you’d think I’d just summoned the ghost of her father. “How did you know that?”
“A mother has her ways, dear. Now, what’s going on?”
She shook her head miserably. The last time I saw her face drop like that was at Hank’s memorial service. “It’s nothing.”
Well, we both knew that wasn’t true. So I waited for her to continue.
“Okay, it’s something,” she said, leaning back against the cushions. “The truth is, Mom, Belle’s death made me realize that I’m only getting older. That if I want to have a baby, I need to get moving on it.”
“The dog died?” I said, but I immediately caught my gaffe. “I mean, of course I remember she died. That can be hard on a person, very hard. Remember when Pebbles passed?” I’d loved that cat, the silly old scamp. All orange cats are of the devil—that’s what my mother used to say, and Pebbles was certainly not the exception to her rule. Every spring, he’d spend several weeks yodeling to be let out at the crack of dawn, even though we’d had him fixed. And I never could figure out why he had a thing about doing his business all over Hank’s model sets. It’s a wonder Hank didn’t drop him in an alley on the other side of Brooklyn. But that cat was one of the best friends I ever had. It was a shame that animals didn’t live longer.
“I know,” said Laine, and that’s when I realized I’d not kept my thoughts in my head.
I laughed at myself because what was the alternative—go pull an Ophelia in the bathtub? Get thee to a nunnery, Sally Francis, I thought, and thankfully, this time, the thought stayed whence it came. “I didn’t mean to change the subject, love. Tell me more about wanting a baby.”
“It’s fine,” she said, except she was staring at the bookshelves. Ah, that’s where my reading glasses were; I’d been looking for those.
“Laine. I’ve known you thirty-seven years and ten months, not counting all that time you spent swimming around my womb, making me fat and miserable.”
I saw the surprise, then, mixed with her pain.
“You thought I’d forgotten how old you were?” I suddenly wanted to weep. I’d scared her with those packages. At once, it came rushing back to me—the credit card Hadley had hidden, how I’d stashed the computer somewhere I was least likely to find it, to try to keep myself from buying things I didn’t need when loneliness set in, or whatever spell it was that came over me. It hadn’t worked, and maybe that was the worst part of all. “Oh, love. I’m not gone yet. I’m still in the game.”
She gave me a small smile. “I know, Mom. And yes, I want a baby. But Josh . . .”
“He doesn’t,” I said, squeezing her hand. “That’s why you’re divorcing him.”
Now she looked truly stunned. I was, too—I hadn’t remembered that until just that moment.
“Please don’t mention it to him,” she said, glancing at the front door. “I don’t want him to say yes just so I won’t divorce him.”
Oh, my poor girl. “Laine, love, you know it’s okay to ask for what you want, don’t you? You should tell him you want a child.”
There was such terrible pain in her eyes as she looked at me. How had I not seen it earlier? “I have asked him, Mom. I’ve asked so many times that I don’t want to ask anymore. He knows, and he’s decided to overlook my request. So I’m going to come live with you. And though Josh may not know it yet, he’s staying in Michigan. I’m sorry—I know how much you and everyone love him. I feel terrible.”
“You mustn’t.” I let go of her hand and put my arm around her. I felt her head on my shoulder. Her sigh was heavy, but there was some contentment there, too. My daughter. Since the day she’d emerged, wide-eyed and observant and eager to please, she’d had a wonderful smell to her. Not a perfume or a food or a shampoo, but just this clean sort of scent, like a sunny spring day. It was one of the many things that made her uniquely her. I inhaled deeply, let myself enjoy her presence. After a moment, I added softly, “I want you to make the decisions that are best for you—not anyone else. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. I hope you know that.”
SEVENTEEN
LAINE
“There,” I said to Josh, patting my hands together. “Now you have a place to sleep.”
My mother was napping, and Josh and I had spent the past hour reorganizing the room I’d once shared with Hadley. It had taken twenty minutes just to clear a path to the bed—my mother had amassed decades’ worth of clothing, most of which was now thrown haphazardly in boxes or piled atop our old bedroom set. Maybe I was still raw from our unexpected heart-to-heart about my wanting a baby, but I hadn’t expected cleaning the bedroom to be quite so emotional. Here was the brown terry-cloth bathrobe I used to “borrow” from my mom as a kid, even though it made me trip over my own feet; there was the denim dress that she’d worn to my college graduation. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thrown any of it away. It was that I knew that when the time came, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to, either. Every one of those items was a memory, and suddenly those seemed more precious than ever.
“Thanks—it does look better,” said Josh, glancing around. “But, Laine . . . are you okay? That conversation at Hadley and Topper’s was a lot.”
“It wasn’t my favorite,” I agreed. Brunch itself had been quiet, bordering on terse; everyone, even my mother, seemed to be afraid to say the wrong thing, and Josh had ended up saving the day by telling everyone about his company and the investors he’d been speaking to. “And yeah, I’m fine. That went as well as it could’ve. Thanks again for making it easier. Everyone was really glad you were there.”
“Absolutely. But are you glad I’m here?”
I looked around, like I’d find the answer in my mother’s old clothes. Though I’d been upset that neither Josh nor Piper had thought to tell me what they’d been planning, it’d been impossible to stay mad. After all, him being there really had saved the day. Even if I could have handled that on my own, I wouldn’t have wanted to. Really, I didn’t give Josh nearly enough credit. “I am,” I admitted.
He smiled shyly. “I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you say that.” But his face grew serious as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you really going to move back?”
“Looks like it.” I shrugged, hoping I seemed casual about it. In reality, my mind was racing with all of the changes I’d have to make. I’d need to pack, and although I knew that splitting up with Josh would require dividing our stuff, having to actually do it—and soon—sounded heart-wrenching. I’d need to change the address on all of my accounts, and at some point talk to Josh about whether he wanted to stay on in the town house, and if so, how he was going to pay for that. And Melinda had emailed me just the day before to see when I could begin organizing her house. I knew the gig was a small matter in light of everything else that was going on, but I was dreading writing her back to say that I wasn’t going to be able to do the job after all.
“But you love Ann Arbor,” he said.
I did. I loved that I could step outside almost anywhere and be surrounded by trees and greenery. I loved that I didn’t have to weave through crowds to go for a walk, that I could get a table at a restaurant without a reservation I’d made two weeks earlier, and that I didn’t need to sell an organ on the black market (or have my sister subsidize me) to afford our rent. I supposed any one of these things wasn’t a big deal, but collectively, they’d made the quality of my life so much better than it had been in New York. “That’s true, but Mom needs me. And it won’t be forever.” It was painful to hear myself say that, because it implied that my mother would die. Of course I knew that no one lived forever. But somehow I was surprised to find my mother this close to the end.