“We’ll have to speak to the kids about it. But … you’re right. She exists. She has no one. Her mother has come to us. We have to consider it.”
Kate allowed herself to wonder how it might look if Zoe did join their strange blended family. With stepchildren, ex-wives and their new husbands, they all had a story of how they’d come together. Perhaps Zoe would find a place amongst them all?
“Why don’t we talk to the kids tonight?” he continued. “See what they think. Then we can take it from there.”
“Yes,” Kate said. She scooted across the couch and sat beside him. “Yes, okay.”
David reached out and took her hand. That’s when Kate realized. The way you got past an obstacle in your marriage was through trying. David was trying. And so would she.
63
Alice sat on the couch with Kenny in her lap. Across town, Kate would be speaking to her husband, making a decision about whether or not she’d be Zoe’s guardian. It was agony, waiting for someone to make the most important decision of your life.
It got Alice thinking about people. Pre-motherhood, if she had pictured this inconceivable situation, she’d have thought there would be a dozen people willing to take her child. Her child’s father, of course. Her parents. Her friends. And yet, she found herself in the kind of situation that most people swore could never happen to them. With no one. The irony was, since the cancer diagnosis, her life had more people in it than it had had in years. Kate. Sonja. Paul. Andrew. And still, she didn’t have enough people.
She needed someone to talk to, or she’d go crazy waiting to hear from Kate. But it was late, nearly 10 P.M. It was too late to call Sonja and besides, Alice wasn’t sure it would be appropriate. It was another reason people needed multiple friends, she realized. The night owls, the early risers. A friend for every season. She’d missed having friends. She missed having a door that swung continually with neighbors and friends coming and going.
Alice stood suddenly. She strode across the apartment and out into the corridor and knocked hard on Dulcie’s door.
Dulcie answered dressed in a peach candlewick robe, and clasping a steaming mug. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
“Hi, Dulcie. I was just about to put the kettle on. I see you already have a drink, but I wondered if you’d like to join me.”
Dulcie frowned at Alice. “But … it’s ten o’clock at night.”
“Suit yourself,” Alice said. “I’ll be across the hall if you change your mind.”
Alice turned and walked back to her apartment, leaving the door ajar. A few moments later she heard Dulcie’s door close and the sound of her slippers scuffling across the hallway toward her apartment.
“It’s nice to have someone to have a cup of tea with sometimes,” Dulcie said, getting comfortable at one end of Alice’s couch.
Alice nodded. “I know what you mean.”
64
When George appeared in the kitchen, Sonja had his coffee ready.
“Here you go,” she said, handing him a coffee.
“Thank you,” George said.
It was almost as if they were a normal couple.
Ever since speaking with Alice, Sonja had thought a lot about leaving George. She’d even packed a bag of clothes and money and put it in the trunk of her car.
But George had been in a good mood these last few weeks. Only last night, he’d come home talking about Christmas. “Are we going to get a real tree this year?” he’d asked. “Stockings by the fire, that sort of thing?” Sonja didn’t know what to say. Usually she put up a few decorations—a wreath on the door, a small artificial tree in the front window—but it hardly seemed worth going all-out on decorations for just the two of them.
“Sure,” she’d said eventually.
It made Sonja wonder. Maybe retirement was starting to agree with him? Maybe he was finally starting to relax? She’d heard about it happening. Men who were harsh, cutthroat business people all their lives, suddenly becoming old softies in their golden years. Maybe that was happening to George? If so, after all the hard yards she’d put in, there was no point leaving just as things were looking up.
“Got much on today?” George asked her.
“I’m going to see Alice Stanhope,” Sonja said. “She’s out of the hospital but doesn’t have much support. I’m going to see if I can convince her to take Meals on Wheels.”
George was looking at her with an expression that was hard to read. “Alice Stanhope?”
“My client,” she said. “Ovarian cancer. She’s not doing well.”
George put down his coffee. He blinked, as though he’d received startling news, instead of a status report on her client. “Alice Stanhope?” he repeated.
“Yes,” Sonja said, confused. “Alice Stanhope. Why? Do you know her?”
George ignored the question. “You said Alice … isn’t doing well?”
“Not well at all. She’s dying.”
He stared off, his brow puckered. Sonja looked at him, wondering what on earth was going on in his mind.
George took another sip of his coffee, then put it down. He inhaled, steepling his fingers against his lips. “Sonja,” he said. “I have to tell you something.”
65
Kate wondered if it was ominous that she’d never shown anyone the box she kept in the top of her closet. It was, she thought, the aspirational area of her wardrobe. The clothes for holidays and vacations. Her wedding dress, wrapped in tissue. Some of her mother’s jewelry. And the box.
As she got it down, she thought about yesterday evening. When David had brought up the idea of Zoe coming to live with them with Scarlett and Jake, Kate had been floored by their responses. Jake had listened carefully when they’d explained the situation, and then said, “Wow, she has no one? Well, yeah. Of course we should help her.” Scarlett had been more inquisitive. “Where’s her dad?” she asked. “What about her grandparents? Her friends? Her neighbors?” She’d wanted specifics—how it would work, would they adopt her, would they be sisters? Many of the questions Kate and David didn’t have answers for, but they’d worked through them, one at a time. Finally she’d said, “Well, I’m cool with it, if you are.”
After the kids went to bed, Kate and David stayed up talking until 3 A.M. when they finally decided that they would keep Zoe. They also decided to find a relationship counselor to help them deal with their unresolved emotions around their fertility issues. It wouldn’t be resolved overnight, but they were both committed to fixing it.
She opened the box, and reached for the tiny white sleep suit—the one item she’d allowed herself to buy when she’d found out she was pregnant for the first time. Also in the box were her first positive pregnancy test and the letter she’d written to her baby that day. She’d planned to show the letter to her child, maybe when he or she was five, maybe on his or her eighteenth birthday or wedding day. When it felt right.
Now, she opened it out.