The Other Life (33 page)

Minutes later, though, a noise woke her. They were bringing another new mother into the room. The woman and the nurse were trying to be quiet, but it was too late. Quinn was wide awake.

After the nurse left, her roommate picked up the phone to make a call, and Quinn put her pillow over her head, trying to fall back asleep. It was no use. The new mother talked as softly as she could, but she was only a few feet from Quinn, with nothing but a curtain to separate them.

“It’s a boy,” the woman whispered. “Eight pounds, three ounces. I know. Yes, Benjamin Jacob. He’s so beautiful. Like you, I think. Okay. I can’t really talk—I’ll call you in the morning. Yes, deliriously! Love you, too, Mom.”

A small noise escaped from Quinn’s throat.

“Sorry if I woke you,” the woman said. “But my mother would have killed me if I didn’t call her.”

“It’s okay,” Quinn said, as she tried to convince herself she had nothing to be depressed about. So what if the first thing this other woman did after giving birth was call her mother? It didn’t imply that Quinn’s existence was bereft of meaning. She didn’t need her mother’s approval to validate the birth of her son. Nan’s reaction was
not
the period to every statement of her life. She could have a happy life without her mother.

Normally, she might have been able to convince herself that all that was true. But on that night, depleted of every resource, she was laid bare.

“Congratulations,” Quinn choked out.

“Thanks,” said her roommate. “You, too. What did you have?”

“A boy. Isaac Nathan.”

“That’s sweet. You must be so happy.”

Quinn’s face was soaked. She wiped the tears with her hand. “Yes.”

The next day, the staff looked the other way as Quinn’s bedside was surrounded by more visitors than she was supposed to have at one time. Lewis was there, of course, and so was her father, her brother and Cordell, Lewis’s parents and sister, and two of Quinn’s girlfriends. There was barely enough room for all the flowers; with all the joyous chatter, it was as festive as a celebration could be.

“I bet you wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the world,” Cordell had said.

Quinn strained to hear her roommate talking to the one person who was visiting her at that moment, her mother, and then looked back at Cordell.

“Right,” she lied.

 

 

NAN WAS SITTING in a booth with a steaming mug in front of her when Quinn arrived. She had the look of someone who had been roused from sleep—her eyes still puffy and her hair barely combed. Quinn slipped in across from her and ordered a cup of coffee.

“You must have something pretty heavy to tell me,” Nan said.

“I do.” Quinn was determined not to beat around the bush, but now that she was actually face-to-face with her mother, the words flitted around her as if caught in a breeze.

Nan folded her hands, waiting.

It was warm in the diner, but Quinn was still chilled from the outside air. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, then closed her eyes tight. She opened them and decided she would have to start at the very beginning.

“You remember that guy Lewis I met about ten years ago?” she said.

“Of course,” Nan said. “You were going to leave Eugene for him.”

The waitress set Quinn’s coffee in front of her. A drop splashed onto the table and Quinn put her finger in it, thinking about Isaac drawing chickens with spilled milk. She started to cry.

“What is it?” Nan asked.

Quinn shook her head. She couldn’t speak.

“Tell me,” Nan said.

“I
did
leave Eugene for him, Mom.”

“What?”

“I married Lewis. We have a house in the suburbs. And a little boy. His name is Isaac and he’s six years old.” She watched her mother’s face as it became clear.

“I don’t—” Nan began, and stopped. “My God,” she said.

“He’s got your artistic talent. And your eyes.”

“My God,” Nan repeated.

“All these years,” Quinn said, “I resisted going through the portal and visiting this . . . this other life.”

Nan’s hand was over her mouth, as if she had to seal herself shut to absorb it all.

“And then . . .” Quinn said, and stopped. She couldn’t talk about it. She couldn’t explain about the baby. Not yet, anyway. “How did this happen to me?” she said instead. “Why do I have these separate lives? These portals? I know it has something to do with that day you cut your wrist, but I still don’t understand.”

Nan stared into her coffee cup, but her eyes looked unfocused and far away.

“Please,” Quinn said. “Tell me.”

Nan looked up. “I died that day,” she said. “We both did. I know I was dead because I saw that perfect light. You know the one I mean. People describe it as beautiful, but they never tell you it’s a kind of beauty you’ve never seen before. You can’t help but be drawn to it. You were with me, of course—inside. We were traveling together but you didn’t want to go. You wanted to be born—you were pushing toward life, and I was pulling you toward death. And then, in one discrete moment, you entered both worlds. I felt it. I felt the split. You were both alive and dead. And in that instant I had to make a choice to join you in one place or the other. But you . . . you had no choice. You had already gone in two opposite directions.”

Nan paused and looked out the window. It was still dark, and the only things visible were the headlights of cars and trucks traveling on the service road. She looked back at Quinn and continued. “It was a terrible decision for me. I had to either abandon you in life or in death. Up until the very last second I thought I was choosing death. It was what I wanted. And it was so much . . . easier. But my maternal instinct took over. You needed a mother, so I came back.” She used a paper napkin to blot the tears running down her cheeks. “I hoped you would never find out, but you knew. A part of you always knew.”

“I guess I did.”

“I’m sorry I never spoke to you about it before.”

Quinn shrugged. “What would you have said?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you ever sorry you made the decision to come back?”

Nan shook her head. “The only thing I’m sorry about is that I lost a part of myself that day. I tried to recapture it through you and Hayden, but I never could.”

“What did you lose?”

“It’s hard to explain. I used to think of it as the happy part of me, but that’s not it. I still experience my share of happiness . . . joy . . . rapture—whatever you want to call it. It’s more like I lost a color palette. I lost the cotton candy colors, the sorbets. All those lovely hues that dance with light.”

Quinn understood the portrait of her mother that Lewis had bought for her in the Berkshires. The reason it didn’t exactly resemble her was that the artist had captured the part of Nan that had died.

“Maybe you left behind the lightness to stay with the version of me who passed away,” Quinn said. “Maybe you didn’t abandon that baby after all.”

Nan reached over and squeezed her hand. “I hope that’s true.”

Quinn stared down at her coffee mug, trying to connect with her new existence. There would be no other life from now on, just this one. She took a sip, and mentally followed the trail of the hot liquid down her throat and into her belly. She needed to accept this physical reality.

“Did you suspect this?” she asked her mother. “Did you suspect that I had another life?”

“I knew something was going on but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe I knew on a subconscious level. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out with those paintings. Maybe I sensed there was another Quinn, and that was my way of trying to get to you.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Quinn said, shaking her head. “That thing you were trying to capture—that essence that kept eluding you—it wasn’t me. It was you.”

Nan paused to consider that. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe it was my own light I was after.” She paused and sighed. “I was so different then.”

“I know,” Quinn said. “I saw you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, not
you
, exactly, but a portrait of you. It was painted a long time ago by a fellow student.”

Nan furrowed her brow in concentration. “I remember that painting,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

“At a gallery in the Berkshires . . . with Lewis.” She felt a terrible sorrow of longing. She would miss him so much.

“Quinn,” her mother said, “why are you here?”

She closed her eyes, trying to block out images of Lewis and Isaac. “I had to leave that other life,” she said.

“Why?”

Quinn rubbed her head, trying to figure out how to explain it all. “You didn’t want me to marry Lewis,” she said.

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” Quinn insisted.

“I liked Lewis. I thought he would be good for you.”

“Then why did you tell me not to marry him?”

“I said that I didn’t think you
would
. I was playing devil’s advocate. I wanted you to marry him. I knew it would be a better life for you. But I also knew that your need to be needed was so strong that you might not make the right decision. So I pushed in the opposite direction, hoping you would push back.”

“But I
did
marry Lewis! And you were so depressed about it you practically wore black at my wedding.”

Nan sat back, thinking about that. “I was depressed at your wedding?”

“Like you were in mourning.”

“Was I taking my meds?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn admitted.

“Maybe I was just having a bad day.”

Quinn shook her head, avoiding her mother’s eyes.

“What then?” Nan asked.

“I can’t say it.”

“Look at me,” Nan said.

Quinn picked her head up and looked straight into her mother’s amber-flecked eyes. “You killed yourself,” she said. She didn’t mean to sound angry, but it came out like an accusation.

“What?”

“You killed yourself because I married Lewis.”

“No!”

“Yes! You took an overdose of pills and killed yourself. Dad found you in the bathroom. He tried to resuscitate you but you were already gone.”

“Oh, no.”

“You left him. You left me. You left all of us.”

“Maybe it was an accident.”

“You pushed me away.”

“I couldn’t have.”

“Right before you died you painted a scene. It was supposed to be a portrait of me, but it showed the two of us on opposite sides of a wall. You sat on a stool, looking straight ahead. I was on the other side, trying to get in.”

Nan chewed on her lip, and Quinn could tell her mother was envisioning the painting. She could probably imagine colors and shadows, see the expressions. Nan stared out the window at the darkness and then looked back at Quinn.

“If I was depressed when I painted it,” Nan said, “I must have been thinking about suicide. I was probably thinking that if I killed myself, you wouldn’t miss the real me, but the mother you wished I could be. My darling, I probably painted that because I was thinking you were better off without me.” She sat back, exhausted.

Quinn put her trembling hands around her coffee cup. “That’s why I left, too. Because they’re better off without me.”

“You mean your husband and your son?”

Quinn took a jagged breath and nodded. “My daughter, too,” she said softly.

“You didn’t say anything about a daughter.”

“Because she’ll never be born. I was going to call her Naomi, but . . .”

“But?”

“She’s damaged. She has a crack in her skull. And they said I would probably lose her.”

“I’m so sorry, Quinn.”

“I needed you so badly.”

“Like she might need you?”

“No. I couldn’t go through with it. I made an appointment for an abortion and then I left. I left Naomi and Isaac and Lewis. It’s better this way.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“You should have heard the way I spoke to Isaac.”

“God knows I was never mother of the year, Quinn. But did you ever think you were better off without me?”

“Never!”

“I can’t tell you what to do about the baby, Quinn, but your husband and your son need you. That’s one thing I’m sure of.”

Quinn looked out the window. There was a pink glow on the horizon as the sun started to rise. She thought of Isaac looking out the window and then running into her bedroom to wake her. What had she done!

“Oh, God! It’s too late. I can’t do it. I can’t go back!”

“Why not?”

“Because every time I cross over it’s harder to get back. And now . . . I just don’t think I can.”

“You have to try.”

“But, Mom, there’s something else. Something too horrible.”

Nan went pale. Was it possible she sensed what Quinn was about to tell her?

Quinn grabbed her mother’s warm hands with her icy fingers. “The fissure between my two lives is closing,” she said. “And if I go back—if I can somehow manage to make it through—the opening will disappear behind me, leaving nothing but a solid concrete wall. This life . . . I think this life will be gone, too.”

Nan’s breath came in steady puffs through her nose. Her face changed, hardened. Her eyes became steely. “You have to go anyway.”

“How can I?”

“You have to. You have to try. I’ll help you.”

“But, Mom . . .”

“How old is Isaac again?”

Tears rolled down Quinn’s face. “He’s six.”

“He needs you.”

The trembling that had started in Quinn’s hands now overtook her. “He does!”

Nan rose. “Let’s go.”

“Are you sure?”

Her mother nodded.

“But you’re sacrificing everything.”

She wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I’m not.”