“Fine. It was quick.” They never spoke of it again.
The two other babies she lost, the miscarriages—those were equally heartbreaking. The first, just four months after their wedding, was so early it wasn’t even real. That, at least, is what the OB in Knoxville had told her. “It’s very early, just a collection of cells. Don’t worry. Keep trying.”
What wasn’t real about it? she wanted to ask, as Lowell held her hand that morning in the doctor’s office, the ghostly blue ultrasound gel drying on her abdomen. The names she’d picked out? The life she’d been imagining?
The second—two years later, after seventeen tortured months of trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, and then a round of IVF on her doctor’s advice—was the result of an embryo abnormality. “Something we can’t explain,” the doctor said this time. “It’s rare for someone in their twenties to have reproductive issues. But try again. Perhaps you’ll have better success on your second attempt.”
She could explain it. It was exactly what the nurse at the clinic had warned her about—that her decision would be something she’d come to regret. That there would be consequences. In the days leading up to the appointment, Francie would lie in bed, convinced the baby was a girl, picturing what she would look like, wishing she was strong enough to stand up to her mother, to do whatever it took for her child. To parent this baby the way she wanted to. But she didn’t do anything. She was powerless.
Francie wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes, and when she glances back at the television, Midas is on the screen. It’s a photo of him on his back, his fists at his cheeks, staring into the camera. She reaches for the remote and turns up the volume. Antonia Framingham is holding a tissue to her nose.
“I can’t help but picture Midas, the way I used to lie in bed and picture my daughter after she went missing.” She sniffs. “It’s like I can see him. He’s alone somewhere, without his mother, an ache in his tiny heart, wondering where she is. Wondering when she’s coming to get him.”
Francie turns off the television and throws the remote onto the couch. She’s had more than she can handle for the day. She walks to the kitchen, quietly placing the bottle in the sink. The formula has left Will peaceful and sleepy, and she gently fastens him into his stroller, lifting it down the four flights to the foyer, and then out into the heat and up the hill, six blocks to the park. She stops at the bodega for a Diet Coke—her first taste of caffeine in more than a week. By the time she takes a seat on the bench, her bench, in front of Winnie’s building, her T-shirt is glued to her lower back. She sets the stroller in the shade and reaches into the diaper bag for her camera, blowing the dust from the lens before standing on the bench to see over the stone wall and into the park, sweeping across the meadow to the black willow, where the May Mothers will be meeting in thirty minutes.
She’s eager to see everyone again. It’s been a little over a week since the group has been together under that tree, and she’s felt the loss. The anticipation of the meetings. Her place in the circle among the other mothers, sharing advice, surrounded by the babies. She steps off the bench and trains her camera across the street, panning from a few of the journalists who linger in front of Winnie’s building, to the news van parked nearby, and then to a window a few doors down, where, inside, she can make out a series of black-and-white family portraits hanging over a sofa, and several large palm plants that stand in the corner. She turns the zoom lens, getting in closer, until she can read the titles of the books in a neat row on a shelf.
A dog begins to bark, and Francie guides her camera to the sidewalk, to the man with thick glasses. He’s in his late forties, and she’s seen him here before, walking back and forth in front of Winnie’s building, a tiny brown dog on a leash. He’s always peering at the windows, as if he’s trying to see inside.
Francie can’t help but wonder if it’s him: Theodore Odgard. The registered sex offender who lives somewhere on this block. She found his name late last night as she fed Will, scrolling through the sex offender registry on her phone. And perhaps he’s the same man Francie read about on a crime blog—the one spotted on a bench across from Winnie’s building, the night of July Fourth.
Francie watches him through her viewfinder as he pulls his dog along. Just as he passes Winnie’s building, her front door opens. Francie’s heart quickens—Winnie’s there!
She zooms in on the door and is disappointed to see it’s not her, but a man. He closes the door behind him and walks gingerly down the stairs. He’s older, in his late sixties perhaps, and wears a light-yellow golf shirt, the name Hector embroidered on the front pocket. The little dog lunges toward him when he reaches the sidewalk, exploding in a burst of shrill barks. Hector reaches to pet the dog, nodding hello to the man at the end of the leash, to the three journalists who sit nearby on a curb. He then strolls back and forth in front of Winnie’s door, his hands clasped behind his back, stopping to finger the flowering bush near the path, snapping off a few withering petals. Francie remains motionless, watching. There’s been very little written about Winnie’s father, and Francie wonders if this is him. No, she decides, with the way he paces back and forth, he must be a security guard. A retired cop, perhaps, who Winnie hired to protect her house, making sure nobody tries to enter, no journalist rings her bell; shooing along the well-intentioned strangers who’ve come to leave a bouquet of bodega roses that immediately wither in the heat, or add another Sophie the Giraffe to the long line of Sophies laid side by side on the sidewalk, stretching from one end of Winnie’s block to the other.
She finally called Winnie. Three times. Winnie never answered, but Francie left a message each time, telling Winnie she’s been thinking of her, offering to bring her groceries, make her a few meals she can stick in the freezer. Francie also wants to tell her how much she’s been enjoying Bluebird. She found a DVD box set on eBay, all three seasons for just $60—a charge she prays Lowell won’t notice on the bank statement next month. She loves it. Winnie is so funny, so natural, such a phenomenal dancer.
Francie is still upset about the way Lowell reacted earlier that morning when she told him about the calls to Winnie.
“I don’t think that was smart, France.”
“Why not?”
“She probably wants privacy right now. And plus—”
“Plus what?”
“Well, you never know.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked him. “Never know what?”
He sighed, and seemed unwilling to say anything else, but Francie pressed him. “Where was she when Midas was taken? And how come there was no sign of forced entry? All I’m saying is, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get too close to her. And I certainly wouldn’t want Will to spend any time around her.”
Francie was furious. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
Francie watches Hector disappear around the side of Winnie’s building, wanting to forget about that conversation. She hears the vibration of her phone in the diaper bag, and strings her camera around her neck. It’s Lowell, texting. To apologize, she assumes.
Bad news. Didn’t get the renovation job. They went with the other guys.
Francie tucks the phone back into her bag, flooded with worry. That job was their only promise of income. Their rent is due in three weeks. Will rustles in his stroller, and she zips her camera into its case, piloting the stroller toward the park entrance, hoping to lull Will back to sleep, dark thoughts creeping into her brain.
She tries to block them out.