Reunion (2 page)

Meredith would be back later, and tomorrow, and again, if needed, in the weeks to come. Postpartum was the term she’d used. Any trouble and Harmony Blue was to call the number she’d called when her labor began, and Meredith would come. “If it isn’t an emergency, don’t go to the ER,” the midwife had said.

Bat had nodded as though she, too, was wise, and said, “Not unless you want to have to answer a lot of questions.”

She didn’t. Not any. Ever.

“Not unless she wants to wait all day,” Meredith said.

Now Meredith held the baby up, one hand beneath his buttocks, one beneath his head. “Do you want to hold him?”

“I do!” Bat said.

Harmony Blue struggled to sit upright. The pain was a shadow now, the way her belly was a shadow of what it had been just moments before. Her belly. Round but no longer bulging. A cantaloupe instead of a watermelon, and why was she thinking of fruit? Would the tiny thing sputtering there in the midwife’s hands, that red-faced creature with blood drying on his newborn skin, would he love fruit the way she did? Would his parents one day tempt him with fresh pineapple and find he took to it like a duck to bugs? Her grandma, Kate, had always said that
, like a duck to bugs.

Would he have her brown eyes, her slender fingers? Would he love to play Scrabble the way she once had? Before, in that other life that now seemed as far away as Sirius. Sirius was the brightest star, the most hopeful point of light in the sky. She had wished on it so often. Had begun, for a time, to believe she’d been heard.

“Yes, I’ll hold him,” she said. Meredith cut the umbilical cord and tied it off. She squeezed drops into the infant’s eyes, then wrapped him in a pale-yellow receiving blanket and handed him into her arms. He continued to sputter, but it was a halfhearted noise, as if he knew some sound was expected but really didn’t want to make any further fuss. He’d be a good baby, she could tell already.

When the placenta was out and the contractions had subsided, stitches were put in place, plastic bags filled and tied and placed in the cardboard box Meredith had put by the door. Meredith picked up the box and left the room, saying she’d be back in a few minutes. “We’ll do the paperwork, and then … I’ll be needing to go.”

After the door closed, Bat smoothed the baby’s damp hair and traced his eyebrows with one finger. “You have to keep him. Don’t you want to keep him? God, he’s so … I don’t know. I mean, wow!”

Harmony Blue recognized the feverish look in her friend’s eyes. Speed, probably. She looked away, back to the purity, the innocence of the tiny boy in her arms. “He deserves better.”

Meredith had quizzed her on her drug use when they met two months ago. How often? How much? She had quit once she realized she was pregnant, even as she’d still felt the need to disappear from herself. “Not too much,” was the answer she’d given Meredith, “And nothing really, you know, bad.”
Nothing from a needle; she’d heard of AIDS, she said—only to have Meredith look at her sideways.

“You know about AIDS, but not condoms?”

Guilty.

The baby seemed to be studying her. What did he see? Was her face, with its narrow nose and wide mouth and olive skin that tanned so quickly, being stored in his memory so that if he saw her one day he would know? Would she know him? Not that such a meeting would happen; the adopting parents, who she’d spoken with twice before making her decision, lived far from Chicago. They said they were West-Coast people who had tried every fertility treatment medical science had to offer. They seemed caring and kind—she’d thought so even just seeing the Polaroid Meredith had given her before they’d spoken, anonymously of course. Meredith the matchmaker. To the couple, she had given two photos of Harmony Blue—a close-up and a side view—to prove she was seven months along, she supposed. At forty and forty-three, the parents-to-be were a little older than she might have chosen, all things considered—but that was why they were using a law firm, and Meredith: No agency would approve them. They had money, though, so why not use it to help out a troubled young woman and fulfill their single most important dream? Their compassion and their money meant this child would never suffer for her weakness.

She whispered to him, “Never.”

They’d told her to take her time deciding—at least a day or two after the birth, so she would be sure she was making the right choice for her, and them. But, having finally made her decision, she’d told Meredith she wanted to get it over with quickly. She was strong, but not that strong.

Soon the front door opened again. She could see Meredith shake sleet from her umbrella and then pull it inside and prop it by the door. Terrible weather for a first trip out into the world, but children were resilient, her grandmother had always said so.

Wiping her shoes, Meredith reached into her trench coat’s right pocket. She crossed the front room and came into the bedroom, saying, “Where do you want me to put this?”

The envelope was so fiat that a rubber band had to bind it. All twenties?
The baby pushed a foot against her ribs reflexively, same as he’d done for months, only on the inside.

She shook her head. “I told you: no money.”

“And I told you, you need it. Take it.” Meredith’s eyes were sympathetic. “Consider it payment for the hard work you just did for this family. Consider it a scholarship fund.”

“Take it,” Bat said.

Harmony Blue kissed the baby’s downy head, letting her lips linger as if to imprint herself on him. He wouldn’t remember her, not really. Thank God he wouldn’t. Except in some quiet piece of his soul, where he would know she loved him.

“Have them start a savings account with the money.”

Meredith came over and squatted next to her. “He’ll have a savings account already. And everything else he needs. Don’t be foolish.”

“Too late.”

Meredith watched her for a moment, then sighed and put the money in her pocket. “We’ll talk about it again later. Let’s do the paperwork.”

Harmony Blue would not remember, in the years to come, much of what was on the forms she signed. She would remember instead the warm weight of the infant in the crook of her arm, the vision she conjured of the new parents’ joy when Meredith delivered the baby for the second time.

Meredith tucked the papers into a folder and set them aside. She asked Bat, “Do you want to go over the care instructions once more?”

“No, it’s cool, both of you can count on me.”

“All right then,” Meredith said. “Supplies are in the bag. I’ll check on you later tonight. Meanwhile, use cold packs for your breasts if needed, and Tylenol every four hours. You’ll be sore all over—”

“I know. Take him.”

Meredith reached for her free hand, held it while she said, “Now I know what you told me, and I know we’ve signed the forms, but until I leave you can still change your—”

“
Take him.
”

“All right then,” Meredith said, reaching for the child. “It’s a good decision. I want you to know that.”

She could only nod.

Empty. Her arms, her belly. Now, quickly, she had to empty her mind, too, or be destroyed. Teeth clenched, she watched Meredith diaper the infant, watched her wrap him in a heavier blanket and put a cap on his head, watched her put him to her shoulder, watched her grab the file and leave the room and grasp the front door’s knob. Meredith didn’t look back; she’d done this before.

The door closed, and it was over.

n Chicago, the snow was falling so hard that, although quite a few pedestrians saw the woman standing on the fire escape nine stories up, none were sure they recognized her. At first the woman leaned against the railing and looked down, as if calculating the odds of death from such a height. After a minute or two, though, when she hadn’t climbed the rail but had instead stepped back from it, most people who’d noticed her continued on their ways. She didn’t look ready to jump, so why keep watching? And how about this snow, they said. What the hell? It wasn’t supposed to snow like this in spring!

To the few who watched her a minute longer, it was conceivable that the woman in the black pants and white blouse could be the popular talk show host whose show was taped inside the building. Conceivable, but unlikely. Was Blue Reynolds’s hair that long? That dark? Why would Blue be standing there motionless on the fire escape, looking up into the sky? Such a sensible, practical dynamo of a person—she certainly wasn’t the type to catch snowflakes on her tongue, as this woman now appeared to be doing. And especially not when
The Blue Reynolds Show
was going to start in twenty minutes. Tourists who’d hoped for last-minute tickets were right this second being turned away, the studio was full, please check the website for how to get tickets in advance.

This snow, coming two days after spring had officially begun, had the effect of bringing people throughout the city to windows and doorways—and to fire escapes, apparently. Though six to eight inches was forecasted, it was hard to begrudge snow like this, flakes so big that if
you caught one on your sleeve, you could see the crystalline shape of it, perfect as a newborn baby’s hand. And with tomorrow’s temperatures rising into the fifties, what snow was piling up on railings and rooftops and ledges would melt away. It would be as if this remarkable snowfall had never happened at all. Much like the sighting of Blue—if in fact it was Blue—there outside her studio building’s ninth floor.

The black steel fire escape stood out against the buff-colored limestone, an add-on when the building got transformed from bank to apartments in 1953. Now that it housed offices again, its fire escape made balconies for those lucky enough to have access along with their downtown skyline views. Like a switchback trail, the escape descended from the twelfth-story rooftop to the second floor, with landings at each floor.

The landing on which the woman stood was piled with a good three inches of snow, deep enough to close in on her ankles and soak the hem of black crepe pants. Her boots, Hugo Boss, lambskin, three-inch heels, were styled for fashion, not utility, and as she stood with her face upturned, she was vaguely aware that her feet were growing cold. Still, the pleasure of being pelted by snowflakes held her there. She could not recall the last time she’d been in, truly
in
, weather like this. And never alone, it seemed, and never focused, anymore, on the weather. Standing here, she had the exquisite feeling of being just one more anonymous Chicago dweller. Just a forty-ish woman on a fire escape in the snow, and not Blue Reynolds at all.

This snow made her want to be a child again so that, instead of going home to a bowl of Froot Loops eaten while she reviewed reports, she would be preparing to pull on snow pants and boots and head for the lighted hillside at the park, plastic saucer sled in tow. She would return home later soaking wet, with chapped red cheeks and frozen toes and a smile that would still be on her face when she woke the next morning.

Was such a day a memory, she wondered, or a wish?

She knew the snowflakes must be wetting her just-styled hair, spotting her white silk blouse, Escada, she’d put it on not fifteen minutes earlier. These thoughts, they existed outside her somehow, far enough away that they didn’t motivate her to climb back inside her office window—
even as today’s guests waited downstairs in the green room, nervous about meeting her. Even as the camera and lighting and sound and recording crews were gearing up for this last show of the week. Even as three hundred eager audience members were now taking their seats and would soon meet Marcy, Blue’s right hand, Marcy who managed her life, who would tell them what to expect on today’s show. They wouldn’t expect a snow-wet, distracted Blue Reynolds.

Still, even when she heard someone tapping the window to get her attention, she stood there squinting up into the whitened sky.
One more minute. One more.

The tapping, again.

“I know, I’m coming,” she said.

Inside, the stylists and her producer and her assistants fluttered around her, clucking like outraged hens.
What are you doing, it’s practically showtime! Look at that blouse! Are you sure you’re okay?
No. She wasn’t okay, hadn’t been truly okay ever, that she could recall.

hat expectation she saw on the faces of her studio audience when she took the stage! It wasn’t her they’d come to watch; she never lost sight of that. Because
she
was a regular person who argued with her mother, who cleaned hair from her shower drain so that the cleaning lady didn’t have to. She was a woman who failed to floss, who needed to clean out her purse, who paged through
People
at the dentist’s office, just like most of them. They were here to see the woman who, upon seeing that magazine, could then book whoever interested her and interview them on this very stage. They were here to see the woman who sometimes made the cover herself.