I’m reminded of my robe and messy hair, the fact that I have yet to shower. I can feel the hallway spinning and I wonder when the last time was that I ate. I lay an unsteady hand on the wall and study Graham coming at me, completely unaffected by personal space. He is impeccable as always, in a pullover sweater with a half zip, a pair of dark wash jeans, leather loafers.
But somehow or other, I believe Graham, though I know I look an atrocious mess, I believe him when his eyes come to a standstill on mine and he tells me that I look beautiful. His eyes look me up and down as if proving it to be true. He grabs me playfully, by the hand, and begs me to go out with him tonight, to keep him company at some god-awful engagement party at Cafe Spiaggia. I can’t imagine Graham without a date in tow, some stunning blonde in a little black dress and four-inch heels.
My hands are shaking out of control, and seeing this, Graham asks if I’m feeling all right. There’s this sudden urge to fold into Graham’s sweater, to bury my face into the heather gray and tell him about the girl. The baby. The blood.
His eyes show concern, the space between his eyebrows all puckered up so that a crease runs vertically between them. He holds my gaze, trying hard to read what I won’t say, until I’m forced to look away.
He can see that something isn’t quite right, can sense that Heidi Wood, who always has everything under control, is coming undone.
“Fine,” I lie. “I feel fine.”
Physically, the truth, but emotionally, a lie. I cannot get the blood out of my mind, the sight of the yeast infection devouring the baby’s bottom, Chris’s eyes suggesting that what I’m doing—helping this poor girl who desperately needs help—is wrong. The image of baby Juliet that has returned to me after all these years in exile.
Graham doesn’t cave so easily. He doesn’t move on as others would do, taking my words at face value. He continues to stare until I repeat, with an obligatory smile this time, that I am fine. And after some time he concedes.
“Then come with me,” he says, as he pulls on my hand and I feel my feet drag down the carpeted hall. I laugh. Graham can always make me laugh.
“I want to,” I say. “You know I want to.”
“Then come. Please. You know I hate small talk,” he claims but nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’m in my robe, Graham.”
“We’ll stop off at Tribeca. Find you something sumptuous to wear.”
“I haven’t done sumptuous in years.”
“Then something pretty and practical,” he concedes, but I’m drawn to the suggestion of sumptuous, the idea of masquerading around town as Graham’s date. I find myself wondering, often, why it is that Graham’s still single, and whether or not he, as Chris insists, is gay. Are all the gorgeous women simply a cover, a security blanket of some sort?
“You know I can’t,” I say, and his eyes take on a crestfallen look before he bids me adieu and saunters off down the hall alone.
I pause beside my own door, dwelling on it all, letting the fairy tale exist for just a split second longer before reality throws a monkey wrench to it: Graham and sumptuous attire from Tribeca, dinner at Cafe Spiaggia. Me on Graham’s arm, posing as his date.
Back inside, Willow is sitting on the edge of the pull-out sofa, holding the baby. She’s dressed in Zoe’s garb, the wet towel returned to a bathroom hook. “My clothes,” she says, in a panic. “What did you do with my clothes? They’re not...” her voice is shaking. Her eyes unsteady. That rickety way she rocks the baby, more spasmodic than calming.
“I’m washing them,” I interrupt, seeing panic rise up inside her swollen blue eyes. “There were some stains,” I admit, quietly, quickly, so Chris, down the hall at the kitchen table, will not hear. I stare at her, willing her to explain so that I will not have to ask her outright about the blood. I don’t want her and her baby to leave, but if Willow’s being here is dangerous for Zoe, for my family, then I cannot allow her to stay. Were it up to Chris, she would already be halfway out the door.
But instead, I stare at her, solicitously, begging her to explain. Explain the blood. Something innocent, I pray for something...
“A bloody nose,” she interjects then, disrupting my thoughts. “I get bloody noses,” and she peers toward the ground, as people do when they are nervous or perhaps, when they are lying. “I had nothing to wipe it on,” she says, “just the shirt,” and I consider the cold spring air, aggravating the nasal tissues, making them bleed.
“A bloody nose?” I ask, and she nods her head meekly.
“A bloody nose, then,” I say, “that explains it,” and with that I walk out of the room.
WILLOW