The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  “I know this is a lot to take in,” he finally said. “And I know it’s much harder for you since she’s your daughter and there’s a whole bunch of things you’re feeling that I don’t even claim to understand. I wish I could help you with those, but I know I can’t.” His thumb lightly rubbed her fingers, grazing over the place where her wedding ring had once been.

  “For me it’s much easier,” he continued. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a father, and there are times I wondered if it was just never gonna happen for me. I still worry about that. And then I came up here and I met this amazing woman who seemed perfect for me in every way. I found someone I could open up to and laugh with and really connect with. Right from the start, when I was with you, everything just felt right, so right that sometimes I even wondered if I should just give up on the dream of being a father and just be with you because I couldn’t imagine that not being a happy life.”

  He felt Jean squeeze his hand. She’d wrestled with the same feelings, both wishing he would come to that conclusion and praying that he wouldn’t, certain that any relationship that started with that degree of sacrifice was doomed before it began.

  “But I also knew there would eventually come a time when this feeling I’ve had since I was nineteen would eventually come back, and I’d feel like I’d cheated myself. I know that because it happened to me once, and I couldn’t bear going through that again. I knew what it would do to us if that happened, and I just couldn’t risk it. The worst part of it was that whatever I chose, I’d be giving up something I didn’t want to.”

  Jean released his hand, just for a moment. She slipped her arm through his and hugged it to her, and she buried her face in his shoulder. She was beyond tired, and she knew the tears that were blurring her vision were inevitable. At that moment it was as if her whole body was just filled with them and they were about to overflow and come pouring out of her.

  “When Christina came to me with her news,” he continued, “I probably had some of the same reactions you did. I was surprised. I was confused. And when she told me about her idea, I thought she was crazy at first, just like you did. But then she asked me two questions that got right to the heart of it.” He took Jean’s hand again, their fingers intertwined, as if they belonged that way, and he felt Jean squeeze it tightly. “She asked me if I loved you, and she asked me, if there was a way for us to have a child together, would I want to be with you?”

  Jean slunk down and turned and pressed her face in his chest. She didn’t want him to see her crying.

  “I know you’ve spent all night talking through this whole thing with her, and I know you’re hurt and you’re sad and you’re angry and just about everything else a person can feel. And I know you haven’t been able to think about anything else since she first told you.” He couldn’t see her face, but he turned toward her and kissed her on the top of her head. “But you need to know that when she asked me those two questions yesterday, I didn’t have to think at all. It was all completely clear to me. Because I do love you, Jean, and I do want to be with you. And as crazy as it sounds, maybe this is our chance.”

  Jean’s face was still buried in his chest, and he realized that the front of his shirt was clenched tightly in her fist.

  “This may not be the way I always thought it would happen for me— for us— but I also know that life doesn’t give you a lot of gifts. But it gave me you, and it gave me this chance for us to be together and have everything I want. Maybe you’re right; I’m probably crazy as hell. But I can’t help but think that I’d be even crazier to just let this pass.”

  Without taking her face from James’s chest, she lifted the hand that had been clutching the front of his shirt and lightly touched her fingers to his lips. It was a polite way of asking him to stop, not because she didn’t like what he was saying— in truth, she did— but because she just couldn’t process any more information. She needed to think, but more than anything, she needed to sleep.

  It was unusual for Jean to become so emotional, but she was exhausted after a long, sleepless night with her daughter; her emotions were very raw and just beneath the surface. If anyone other than James had witnessed her wilting into such a blubbering mess, she would have been mortified. Anyone other than James, she thought; with him she felt safe.

  After a few minutes, James excused himself and found Christina sitting on one of the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. She looked up at him expectantly, but James just offered her a weary smile and shrugged.

  “She needs some time to absorb it all,” he said. “Most of all, she needs some rest.”

  Christina looked dejected.

  “You should get some, too,” James said. “Nothing good can come from you two trying to deal with this when you’re tired. Maybe you could go let Max out and then take a nap at my place.” He reached into his pocket and handed her the keys to his jeep, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as he did. “I’m gonna stay here with your mom.” He started back into the house and stopped in the doorway. “Everything will work out,” he said.

  Christina offered a tired smile. She wasn’t so sure.

  By the time James returned to Jean, she was already lying on the living room sofa and was on the verge of sleep. James tried to offer her a pillow, but she took hold of his wrist and tugged until he sat down and she rested her head on his lap. She fell asleep almost immediately, and although she stirred a few times, she remained that way for nearly an hour.

  When she awoke, she lay still for quite a while before James knew she was awake. She gazed sleepily at the photographs that rested on the mantel. There were pictures of Christina and of the two of them together. There was even a recent photograph of Christina with Max. But it was the images of Christina as a child that she cherished the most, not just because she was such a beautiful child and they were such precious times, but because she knew she couldn’t get them back. Those pictures usually made her smile, but lately, they made her feel sad, and they made her feel old.

  What struck her about the images, not just that morning but every time she gave them more than a passing glance, was that they felt incomplete. It was always the two of them, and despite Jean’s efforts to make Christina believe they were a family, the reality was that it felt untrue even to her. There were only two times since Christina was born when Jean felt like she was part of a complete family. The first was during those early years before Richard left, those joyful times when she was still naïve enough to believe that their lives were perfectly and permanently joined. The second was after James came into their lives, particularly the final weeks before Christina went back to school when all of those old feelings she’d taken for granted with Richard came rushing back to her. That night when the three of them strolled through the streets of Bar Harbor, she remembered catching their reflection in a store window and she recalled how wonderful it made her feel. It made her feel whole again. Most of all, it felt natural and effortless.

  Then Christina left for school and she felt alone again.

  She lay still for quite a while, relishing those memories, and arriving at the verge of a decision. She sighed.

  “Are you awake?” James whispered.

  Jean stretched but kept her head resting on James’s lap. She kept staring straight ahead. “I just had the strangest dream,” she finally said in a hushed voice.

  James’s hand was resting on her waist and he moved it slightly, lightly rubbing her hip. “Tell me,” he said.

  “I dreamed Christina was pregnant, and she wanted us to get married and raise the baby.” She touched his knee. “You were in it, too,” she said.

  “Really?” he asked, playing along.

  “Mm-hmm.” She blinked sleepily, her face still turned away from him. “You told me you loved me and you wanted to marry me.”

  He wished he could see her expression. He smiled. “Too bad it was just a dream,” he said softly.

  “Yup,” she said. “Too bad
.”

  “Did you say yes?” he asked her. “In your dream?”

  The hint of a playful grin appeared on her face. “I don’t know. I woke up.”

  James lightly stroked her hair. “So, say it now.”

  For the first time since she learned Christina’s news and her bizarre plan, Jean was aware she was smiling. She sat up and brushed her hair away from her face and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sure I look just wonderful,” she said.

  James smiled. “You always look wonderful,” he assured her.

  She looked at him and took a long, deep breath. The word, she knew, was right there on her lips.

  “Say yes,” James urged.

  “This is crazy,” she reminded him. “I’m forty-five years old and you’re thirty-six.”

  James smiled. “If you don’t mind my saying, I think you might be focusing on the wrong thing.”

  She sighed. “And my daughter is going to have a baby,” she said, as if she was telling him something he didn’t already know.

  “Right,” he said.

  “And you think this is all normal,” she said.

  “Not at all,” he confessed. “But I think it’s a chance for me to have everything I’ve ever wanted. And, if you can, I think you should try to focus less on how all of this is coming about and just ask yourself if that’s the life you want, too.”

  She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. “Why don’t you ask me?” she said.

  “I already did.”

  “Ask me again.”

  A playful smile formed on his face. “Jean Berkhardt,” he said. “Will you marry me and raise your daughter’s child with me?”

  They both laughed and Jean shook her head in disbelief; only James could have made her laugh at a time like this. “You left out the part where you told me you loved me,” she reminded him.

  “Say yes,” James said, “and I’ll tell you every day.”

  Just one day earlier, she’d spent the day longing for the days she and her daughter had spent together when Christina was younger. She’d felt so alone. Now she was looking into the expectant face of a man who was waiting for an answer, not only to his marriage proposal, but also to the insane idea that they would raise Christina’s child— her grandchild! — as their own. Despite all of that, she was surprised at how easily the word leapt from her lips: “Yes.”

  22

  The Baby In The Hedges

  Winters on Mount Desert Island had always been agonizingly long and protracted affairs, lumbering along with roughly the same velocity as the glaciers that formed the island millions of years earlier. One frigid day always seemed indistinguishable from the next until it felt as if the season might never end, and that spring might never again come to the island.

  This winter was decidedly different as Jean and James (and Christina as well) tried to prepare for the event that would change all of their lives forever. In the depths of a Maine winter, May always felt like a far-off dream. Now it seemed to be rushing at them with such haste that it always seemed to be nearly upon them.

  It was decided that Christina would finish her semester at the University. That was as much Christina’s decision as anyone else’s. Once the weight of her secret, and the decision, was lifted from her shoulders, Christina was able to concentrate on her studies again. As for the bump, which would become more pronounced with each passing week, she was able to conceal it beneath layers of clothes and over-sized wool sweaters.

  She nearly managed to hide her condition from her roommate, Gail, until the semester break. But in early December, the girl came upon Christina while she was sleeping, Christina’s over-sized sweatshirt having shifted to expose her bare and noticeably protruding belly. When Christina awoke, she discovered Gail studying her from across the room.

  “Were you never planning to tell me?” Gail asked.

  “Tell you what?” Christina replied as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

  Gail pointed to Christina’s bare belly, which Christina hastily covered with her sweatshirt, as if concealing it now could somehow make Gail forget what she’d seen.

  “Yeah, that’ll turn back time,” Gail said. “How long were you planning to keep this a secret?”

  Christina sat up on the edge of her bed and faced her roommate, a defeated expression upon her face. “Just until the semester break,” she said, pressing her palms against her stomach. “Then forever.”

  Over the next hour, Christina described her predicament, carefully omitting the identity of the father. She explained that she planned to take a semester off and then put the baby up for adoption, never explaining that her mother and James, the baby’s actual father, would be raising the child as their own; that seemed like more information than she needed to share. The only thing that mattered to Christina was that she could trust her roommate to protect her secret. She tried to convince herself that she could, but she realized that if that were indeed such a certainty, she would never have felt the need to keep the secret from her in the first place. She loved Gail like a sister, but there would always be that sliver of doubt.

  It was that doubt, and that same concern for the consequences of the world knowing her business, that ultimately led her to accept her mother’s suggestion with regard to her living arrangements for the duration of her pregnancy. Jean had proposed that, after Christmas, Christina should spend her remaining months in Portland with her Aunt Dee, Jean’s sister. Dee and her husband, Gordon, were living alone now that their children were grown and had moved out, and they both agreed they would welcome the company. If Christina wouldn’t be home, at least she’d be with family. Just as importantly, no one on Mount Desert Island would ever know that Christina had been noticeably plump just before James and Jean adopted a baby. It was a secret best kept within the family.

  Initially, Christina struggled with the idea, but those last two weeks at the University, when she wondered each day if her roommate had resisted the temptation to share her secret with the world, convinced her that her mother’s suggestion made sense. The fewer who knew her secret, the better. The last thing she wanted was to become the latest topic for Claire Trumbull and her network of gossipmongers.

  Christmas was both joyous and awkward. As always, Jean was thrilled to have Christina at home during the holidays. She alternately gushed and pined over her daughter’s developing pregnancy. She acknowledged the joy it would bring her and James, but it also provided undeniable evidence— where she could always deny it before— that her daughter was no longer a child. Secretly she wondered how her daughter’s life would be affected when the baby she gave up was always present in their lives. It seemed to Jean a potentially unbearable condition, and yet Christina appeared oblivious to it, as if she relished the opportunity to make this sacrifice.

  And then there was James, who appeared unaffected by those conflicts, if only because he was wrestling with his own. While Jean was blissfully unaware of the baby’s father, James knew all too well the secret Christina was keeping. It was his secret as well, and he was racked with guilt that he was entering into his life with Jean concealing a lie of this magnitude, which even he had to acknowledge was ironic given the other secrets he was already keeping from her.

  On more than one occasion, Jean attempted to extract information about the father from Christina. She finally accepted that her daughter would never disclose the father’s identity, but she couldn’t restrain herself from trying to learn as much as she could about him.

  Jean wondered aloud about the father’s appearance.

  He was tall and handsome, Christina assured her.

  Jean was curious about his intelligence.

  He was smart without being overly intellectual, Christina replied. (James decided he would ask her about that later.)

  Jean was concerned if he knew about the baby, and if so, would he come looking for it and perhaps make the adoption difficult.

  “No,” was Christina’s curt response.


  It was James’s idea to include Ruth Kennedy in their holiday plans. Both of her children had made plans to travel to spend the holidays with their respective in-laws, leaving Ruth alone on Christmas. Ruth insisted she’d be fine alone, but neither James nor Jean would hear of it.

  Ruth accompanied James to Jean’s house for Christmas Eve dinner and for Christmas day as well. She baked pies the day before, one apple and one custard, balancing them on her lap during the short drive in order to keep Max’s curious snout out of them. She was successful, but the dog drooled so incessantly during the brief ride that James had to take a moment upon their arrival to dry several of the packages he’d stowed in the back seat of the jeep.

  Jean was happy to have Ruth join them— she reminded her so much of her own mother whom she’d dearly loved— but she was concerned that Ruth would notice Christina’s expanding belly, despite her daughter’s best efforts to hide it beneath her loose-fitting clothes.

  It was on Christmas Eve, as they were clearing the table of the dinner dishes, when Ruth Kennedy approached Christina in the kitchen. She waited until both Jean and James were out of earshot before she picked up a dish towel and sidled up to the young girl, who had begun washing some of the pots and pans that were piled in the sink.

  “Does your mother know?” Ruth asked. Her voice was soft, discreet.

  Christina was caught off guard. “About what?” she asked.

  Ruth smiled a warm, motherly smile, and glanced down at Christina’s bulging belly. “It’s okay, dear. I‘m not going to say anything. But if she doesn’t know, you should probably tell her.”

  Christina sighed, suddenly resigned to the knowledge that her secret was out. Even if it went no farther than Ruth Kennedy it had now leaked beyond their small circle. “She knows,” Christina admitted. “James knows, too. Now you. No one else.”