She loves Lowell. He’s a good husband, a kind man.
And yet. Why didn’t she choose a man more like those so many of the May Mothers ended up with? A man like Charlie, able to buy that fancy apartment on the park, always posting photos of Colette and Poppy on Facebook, alongside sweet messages about how beautiful they both are, how lucky he is. Or Scarlett’s husband, a tenured professor who can provide a big house in the suburbs, enough money for her to stay home without worry. She once mentioned that he even made sure to be home by six each night, to sit down to dinner with her, do the bath, help with bedtime. A man nothing like Lowell, who works constantly; who has never, not once, given the baby his bath; whose practice is failing, who’s begun to tell her, with increasing frequency, that she has to figure out a way to earn some money. He’s the one who came up with the idea that Francie should organize this meeting and volunteer to take photos of the May Mothers’ babies, to build a portfolio to start a baby portrait business, a passing interest she mentioned once.
When she arrives at the willow tree fifteen minutes later, slanted under the weight of the diaper and camera bags, her curls are frizzed and damp. Colette is there already, spreading out her blanket. She wears a short light-blue dress, her hair in a fishtail braid down her back. Francie doesn’t know how Colette does it; how she always appears so rested and put together. Francie’s not even sure she brushed her teeth this morning.
“Have you heard from Nell?” Francie asks her after parking Will’s stroller in the shade.
“Not yet.” Colette opens the paper box of mini muffins and offers one to Francie. “She’s supposed to call me at her lunch break. I hope her first day back is okay.”
Token walks up then. He takes off his sunglasses, and his eyes are red-rimmed.
“You okay?” Colette asks.
“Yes,” he says, looking away. “My allergies in this heat. It’s brutal.”
Others begin to arrive, and Francie recognizes none of them. Women she’s never seen before, who never cared enough to attend a meeting when free baby photos weren’t involved, walk cautiously up to the tree, asking if this is where the May Mothers are meeting. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of the women Francie was hoping to see—no Yuko, Scarlett, or Gemma. She tries to tamp down her disappointment as she arranges the props she’s brought for the portraits, eventually inviting people to step up for a turn. She’s never taken photos of babies before, and she throws herself into it, eager to be distracted from her worries about money, about Lowell, about the image Antonia Framingham painted: Midas, alone, terrified, missing his mother.
“So, I know this is morbid, but can we talk about Midas?” someone asks from the blankets behind her.
“We were at the pediatrician this morning,” someone else says. “I waited ninety minutes to be seen and my phone died. Anything new?”
Francie tries to shut them out, concentrating on the light, the shadows, on getting the fussy and obstinate baby in front of her to cooperate. “There was an interview this morning with that doctor from Methodist—the one they mistook for Bodhi Mogaro on July 4. He graduated top of his class from Harvard Med. He wasn’t ‘acting erratically.’ He was yelling instructions into the phone to an EMT. The young mother in critical condition? She died last night.”
“Oh, how sad.”
“This thing with Bodhi Mogaro is equally disturbing,” someone else says. “His wife gave an interview. They’re making it seem like they just arrived here from Yemen, but they’re US citizens. She’s from Connecticut.”
“My mom doesn’t believe a word his wife is saying.” Whoever is talking laughs. “Granted, my mom only gets her news from The Faith Hour, so I’m not sure she should be trusted.”
“I still can’t believe any of it.” A big sigh. “That this happened to one of us.”
Brittle pine needles pit Francie’s knees as she kneels on the ground, holding her breath against the stench of a nearby garbage can overflowing with paper coffee cups and plastic bags of discarded takeout, feasted on by a swarm of spinning flies. She leans closer to the baby, wishing he’d stay still, the way she imagined they would, the way babies do for that one woman, whatever her name is, who gets them to sleep inside huge flower petals, their heads covered with a cabbage leaf.
“Can you move him a little, please? He’s in a shadow.”
“I can’t get it out of my mind—the idea of getting a call, hearing my baby is gone. My husband and I were supposed to have our first date night last night, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave her with a sitter. I read somewhere that the nanny, Alma, is part of a baby-selling ring.”
Francie read the same thing yesterday, and immediately texted Nell. Alma? Part of a baby-selling ring? Is that true?
Nell had written back one word: Yes.
Francie called her right away. “Nell, this is awful. How did you—”
“It was right there on her résumé,” Nell said. “‘Nanny for three years. Mother of two. Member of a baby-selling ring.’” She heard Nell tsk on the other end of the phone. “What could I do but hire her? I had to go back to work, and do you have any idea how few nannies there are in Brooklyn these days?”
Francie is still upset that Nell could find humor in any of this. “Nothing about this is amusing, Nell.”
“I know, Francie. But the way they’re dragging Alma into this whole mess, while breathing fear into every woman with a nanny . . . It’s infuriating. She would never do anything to hurt anyone. I have to laugh about it. Otherwise I might just go and kill someone.”
“Nice job, buddy,” Francie says now, to the new little boy on the blanket in front of her. “That’s it. Just sit still like that for another minute.”
“You see Us Weekly yesterday?” Francie’s back is to them, and she can’t tell who’s speaking. Their voices are running together. “An article said Patricia Faith has offered Winnie two million dollars for a sit-down interview.”
Francie hears the chime of a new text message, and she pauses to glance at her phone, on the ground near her camera bag. It’s Lowell again.
Really sell this business idea. Try to book something right away.
“Well, I heard a company’s offered to pay her to do a workout video, for new mothers. Disgusting.” Francie’s phone beeps again but she ignores it—she can’t deal with Lowell right now.
She turns toward the group, her head aching from the sun and heat. “Who’s next?” she asks, noticing Colette is staring down at her phone, her brow furrowed. Colette meets Francie’s eyes, and her expression is shadowed with concern.
“Look at your phone,” Colette says quietly. Francie hastily drops the camera on the blanket. It’s a message from Nell.
Turn on the Patricia Faith show. Immediately.
Nell’s arms are raised over her head and her shirt is lifted, exposing the puckered skin of her stomach spilling over the wide elastic band of her maternity jeans. She has a drink in one hand, and the other holds on to Winnie’s wrist. Nell remembers the moment this photograph was taken. It was early in the night. They were complaining about the lack of paid maternity leave in the US. She’d stood up, singing the words to “Rebel Yell,” pulling Winnie to stand. They danced. People sang along. Everyone was laughing.