The Other Life (35 page)

She tried to muffle her weeping but couldn’t. Lewis awoke and turned to her. He took her in his arms, stroked her back.

“You feel okay?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Quinn tried to speak but couldn’t. She shook her head again. Isaac appeared at the door of their bedroom.

“Mommy?”

“Mommy doesn’t feel so well, buddy,” Lewis said, rising. “Let’s go downstairs and let her rest. I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Wait,” Quinn said. She put her arms out and Isaac came to her. “I love you,” she said into his soft hair.

“You were so cranky last night,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, laughing and crying at once. “I
was
cranky last night.”

Lewis took him downstairs to let Quinn rest. Alone in the bedroom, she thought about the day her father called to say that her mother was dead. At first, she couldn’t understand what he was saying, and he had to repeat it three or four times for it to break through. Much of what happened right after that was hard to recall, as her brain shut down in some critical way. What she did remember, though, was discovering that grief was a physical illness, like the flu. Everything in her body felt slow, tender, achy. Not just her heart, but her blood, her bones, her flesh.

She felt like that now, and it made her so very tired. Within minutes, she fell into a heavy sleep, as if gravity itself were pulling her into unconsciousness.

She awoke sometime later to the smell of toast and eggs wafting up from the kitchen. She was groggy enough to go right back to sleep, but hunger pushed her out of bed, as she had hardly eaten a thing the day before. Besides, there was something urgent she needed to tell Lewis.

“Feeling better?” he asked when she entered the kitchen.

“Coffee,” she said. She needed to clear the cobwebs and regain the power of speech.

He set a cup in front of her, followed by a plate of eggs—scrambled easy, the way she liked them—and whole wheat toast. Had Lewis forgotten that she was supposed to fast this morning in preparation for her procedure? Whatever. She was famished, and still too sleepy for the conversation, so she ate greedily, gaining energy and strength as she sat across from him.

At last she downed the last sip of her coffee and cleared her throat. Lewis looked up from his newspaper.

“I’m not doing it,” she said, speaking quickly. She had so much to say and she wanted to get it all out before he interrupted. “I’m not having the abortion. I want to give this baby a chance. I know that if she makes it to term we’ll love her to pieces and we’ll feel like we can’t imagine how we ever lived without her. And if she doesn’t live, well . . . it’s impossible to predict how broken we’ll be. But we’ll get through it. Are you with me on this? I feel like you are. I
hope
that you are. And I also hope you don’t think this is some misguided attempt to make up for whatever issues I had about my mother and her death. It’s not. It’s really not. I just feel . . . I feel like I’m already Naomi’s mother and I have to do this. So we need to call it off, Lewis. We need to call and cancel the appointment. I’m not going through with it.”

“Relax,” he said. “I already did.”

“What?”

“I know you didn’t stay in bed last night,” he said. “I heard you get up and go into the basement. I don’t know what you do down there, but I respect your privacy. You need alone time. I guess I do the same thing with my weather equipment. In any case, after you left, I noticed that you had taken out that little baby outfit we found in your mother’s dresser. But you didn’t just look at it and fold it back up. You laid it out on a pillow, like you were picturing a baby inside it. It was such a tender thing to do. I knew then that you wanted the baby. And as soon as I processed that, I knew that I wanted her, too.”

Quinn had almost forgotten about that, but he was right. After lying in bed for several hours, unable to sleep, she had unfolded the little pink stretchie with the matching hat and booties. She laid it all out, trying to picture her newborn there. It was as if she owed it to Naomi to try to think of her as a live baby.

But of course it was just clothing—empty pieces of fabric. And she was too distraught for it to give her comfort one way or the other.

There’s your comfort
, she told herself, looking at Lewis.
Right there.
How grateful she was that her mother had played devil’s advocate all those years ago and pushed her to make the right choice.

Then Quinn saw something she hadn’t seen since the day Isaac was born. Lewis was crying.

“So a little while ago,” he continued, “when Dr. Bernard’s office called to confirm your appointment, I told them we had changed our minds. Actually, I told them we would need a few more days to think about it, but I knew we wouldn’t.”

“Oh, Lewis.” She went to him and sat on his lap. “Thank you.”

He wrapped his arms around her and put his hands on her belly. It was too early to feel the baby move, but the gesture felt so reassuring.

“I have this very strong feeling that we’re going to get to hold her in our arms and love her,” Quinn said. “Beyond that, I just don’t know.”

 

 

TH AT AFTERNOON , Isaac was scheduled to play his last soccer game of the season. Quinn wanted to go, but was under strict instructions to rest.

Isaac stood before her in his uniform, pouting, his ridiculous jersey hanging down to his shin guards.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s really no place in the world I’d rather be today than at your game, but I have to do what the doctor says.”

Isaac folded his arms. He wanted his mommy there, and that was that.

“I have an idea,” Lewis said. “I’ll take a video of the whole game and Mom can watch it when we get home. Sound good?”

Quinn could see that Isaac liked the idea, though he wasn’t quite ready to release his resentment. “Tell you what else,” she said, taking him on her lap. “As soon as the doctor says it’s okay for me to be active, I’m going to take you to Nana’s studio so we can get her paints.”

“For me?”

“For you. I think she would want you to have them.” Quinn paused and swallowed, trying not to cry. “I
know
she would.”

He laid his head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I got you mad last night,” he said.

“Oh, honey. That wasn’t your fault. I was very sad and it was wrong to take it out on you. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged.

“Do you forgive me?” she asked.

He nodded, and she kissed him.

“Can I have the brushes?” he asked.

“What?”

“Can I have Nana’s brushes, too?”

And just like that, she knew that Isaac had moved on. Last night’s scene was history that would fade into the tapestry of his memory. “Of course you can,” she said.

 

 

LATER, AFTER LEWIS and Isaac had left, Georgette dropped by with a plate of mini-muffins and a pile of paperbacks. Quinn was happy to have the company. It was as if the grieving process that had begun seven years before were starting all over again, only this time there was no formal period of mourning with visitors dropping by to distract her. And no one knew how fresh with grief she felt. This visit was a welcome diversion.

“I saw Lewis on his way out,” Georgette explained, “and he told me you would be confined to bed for a while. Thought you might need some reading material.”

Quinn glanced at the titles. They were all erotica, written under Georgette’s various pen names. “Is there anything here I don’t have to hide from Isaac?”

“Nope.”

Quinn smiled, grateful for Georgette. “Thank you, my friend. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea?”

“You sit, I’ll get it.”

Georgette went into the kitchen. When she came back into the den, carrying the beverages, she asked Quinn how she was feeling.

“Tired, but okay.”

“Lewis didn’t tell me much. Is everything okay?”

“We don’t know yet. For now, I’m just glad we didn’t lose her.”

Georgette squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I never made it to the hospital. My car wouldn’t start and I had to have it towed to the shop. Turned out that was just the beginning of my problems yesterday.”

“What else happened?”

“Esteban broke up with me.”

Quinn thought about that for a moment. She didn’t know one could actually break up with a cyber lover. “I’m . . . sorry,” she said.

“Apparently he got tired of waiting around for me all morning and hooked up with an old flame. So now they’re at it, hot and heavy.”

“Are you upset?”

“I was.”

“How did you get over it so fast?” Quinn asked as she peeled the paper off one of the muffins.

“I killed him.”

“What?”

“There’s a character based on him in my work-in-progress. But instead of a landscape architect, I made him a professional dog walker. Yesterday he got eaten by sharks.”

“How does a dog walker get eaten by sharks?”

“A crazed cockapoo chases him off a pier.”

Quinn laughed.

“It was very satisfying,” Georgette said, smiling.

“Do you miss him?” Quinn said.

“He’s already been replaced.”

That took Quinn back. “You have a new cyber lover already?”

“Yes!” Georgette said, her hand to her heart. “Can’t you tell? I feel like I’m glowing.”

“You’re incorrigible. What’s his name?”

“Pamela.”

Quinn almost choked on her muffin. “Pamela?”

“She’s hot.”

“But, Georgette, you’re the most heterosexual person I know.”

Her friend shrugged. “I’m not switching over to the other side, just taking a turn at bat.”

“But why?”

“It occurred to me I’d tried just about everything else.”

“I’m sure you have,” Quinn said, laughing. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d probably find a less crazy friend.”

Quinn shook her head. “That wouldn’t do.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need your . . .” She paused to think about it. “Your light.”

Georgette beamed. “I like that.”

“Me, too,” Quinn said, and tried to smile, but there was so much pain mixed in with the gratitude that her eyes teared.

“You sure you’re okay?” Georgette asked.

Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about my mom.” She paused. “Never mind. I’m just having a rocky day.”

“That’s okay,” Georgette said. “There’s no statute of limitations on missing someone. I’m sure there are still times when it feels like only yesterday.”

It was only yesterday, Quinn thought. “Thank you for understanding,” she said.

“Do you want to go over there?” Georgette asked. “I’d be happy to drive you there if you think it would help to spend time in her studio.”

Quinn shook her head. “Thanks, anyway,” she said. The thought of going to the studio now was just too much to bear. Soon, though. Soon she would go back and clear the place out. “I’ve decided to sell off most of the artwork.”

“That must have been a painful decision.”

“I thought it would be. I mean, for so long I couldn’t even consider it.”

“What changed?”

Quinn pursed her lips, considering how to answer this. “I never really understood what my unfinished business was. I thought I was trying to understand why she killed herself. But really, what I needed to do was forgive her.”

“And have you?”

Quinn thought about the weight of the sacrifice she had made by deciding to leave her mother behind, and how very close she had come to changing her mind. But her mother. Her mother’s sacrifice was infinitely larger.

“Yes,” Quinn said. “I have.”

QUINN SPENT THE NEXT TWO WEEKS RESTING, ALLOWING Lewis to do just about everything around the house. The other moms picked up the slack in carpooling, and Georgette was happy to be the one to walk to the bus stop every day to meet Isaac, who seemed to understand finally that his mother was not going to disappear. Quinn liked to think it was simply a matter of maturing, but knew it was possible he sensed that she no longer had access to a portal that could take her away from him. Indeed, the crack in the basement wall behind the antique ironing board had fused shut, leaving nothing but a faint scar. And the new fissure she had seen that night had disappeared, as if it had never been there at all.

For Quinn, accepting the help she now needed was as hard as it ever was. But at least she was able to override her instinct to reject it. For you, she whispered to her womb every time she had to fight the urge to get up off the sofa and tidy the house or throw a load of laundry into the washer.

Two weeks later, when she went to see Dr. Sally Bernard and was told she was no longer confined to complete bed rest, Quinn was thrilled.

“This doesn’t mean you can run a marathon,” her doctor cautioned. “I still want you to take it easy. And if you feel cramping, you must sit down immediately and get some rest. And of course if you start to bleed—”

“I’ll call you right away,” she promised.

Sally smiled. “I know people think being a mom is the hardest job in the world, but it’s nothing compared to being forced to sit back and let others do the work for you.”

“So true,” Quinn said.

“One day, they’ll appreciate the sacrifices we make for them,” Sally said.

At the word sacrifices, Quinn felt a sudden chill, as if she were back in the ice-water bathtub. She shivered, realizing that her mother’s spirit would always be with her.

 

 

“MOM?” ISAAC SAID a few days later as he was having his after-school snack. “When can we go to Nana’s studio and get her paints?”

A fleck of dark chocolate from the Mallomars cookie he was eating stuck to his face like a beauty mark—a little-boy version of Marilyn Monroe—and it made Quinn smile. She wiped it with her thumb.