by Mary Kubica
Leo grabs the fish. He sets it back on the edge of the tub. It happens all over again.
“Leo,” I say. My voice is more firm. “Did someone do this to you?” I ask, pointing for a third time to the bruise.
Leo doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he lifts a finger to his lips, says, “Shh.”
Suddenly my heart is in my throat. Did someone do this to him and tell him not to tell?
After I get him out of the bath, I call Charlotte. Charlotte should have told Josh at pickup if something happened to Leo. I ask Josh. She didn’t. He goes to see the bruise for himself.
Charlotte answers on the third ring.
“Hi, Meredith,” she says. Her voice is singsong. Charlotte is older than me. She was a teacher once. She taught at an alternative school in town. It’s what they call an “in lieu of expulsion” program. Kids that would otherwise be expelled from their current schools get transferred there. Burnout is high. Charlotte didn’t last long before she started her own in-home day care.
I tell Charlotte why I’m calling. I say what I saw in the bath. I ask, “Did Leo fall at your house? Did he get hurt? Do you know?”
“Let me think,” she says. Charlotte watches a number of kids. They range in age from eighteen months to twelve years. The older kids, like Delilah, are in school most of the day. But at three o’clock, Charlotte and the others walk to pick them up. Then her number of charges doubles. It’s organized chaos whenever I’m there.
“No,” Charlotte says after a short hiatus. “I don’t remember anything happening to Leo. I didn’t see anything happen. Leo didn’t tell me if he got hurt.” There’s a pause. She asks, “Is that what he said, Meredith, that he fell at my house?”
“No,” I tell her, “he didn’t say that. But I was just wondering, since he hasn’t been home all day, and he didn’t have the bruise this morning.” I don’t mean for it to sound accusatory.
“I’d like to think Leo would have told me if he was hurt,” Charlotte says. “We could have put some ice on it.”
The way that she says it touches a raw nerve. She’s blaming Leo. Maybe not for what happened, but for not coming to her for help.
That said, I don’t want to make more out of this than there is. He is a kid. Kids bump and bruise themselves all the time. Besides, Leo is the shrinking violet type. He would never have gone to Charlotte for comfort. That’s outside his comfort zone. The only way Charlotte would have known is if Delilah saw it happen and told.
Charlotte came recommended from nearly everyone in the neighborhood who has kids. She’s a patient, loving, grandmotherly type, though she isn’t a grandmother because she never had kids of her own. People that we know called her a godsend, an angel. The best. It doesn’t get better than that.
I say, “I know you would have, Charlotte. I’ll talk to Leo, make sure he knows he can tell you if he ever gets hurt at your house again.”
I do talk to Leo, but it only settles me somewhat. Because the realization that harm can come to one of my kids when I’m not there to protect them still terrifies me.
KATE
11 YEARS BEFORE
May
The next morning, Bea walks in on me when I’m on the phone. I’m in the bedroom. I thought she was outside in her studio working, and so I didn’t even try and be quiet. I had no intention of telling her what I had planned, knowing she’d try and talk me out of it if I did.
“Did I get that right?” she asks from behind. I spin to face her. I hadn’t heard her come in. She looks disappointed in me. She stands there, showered and dressed, while my own hair, still wet from a shower, air-dries. I’m in a towel, hurrying to get dressed before the workers arrive and find me this way.
Bea asks in disbelief, “You made an appointment with Dr. Feingold?”
I go to my dresser. I riffle through it for something to wear, putting Bea off. I don’t know how to respond to her, though it’s not worth a lie. Bea and I aren’t the type to lie to one another. But more than that, Bea heard what she heard. She knows what I’ve done.
I step into a pair of underpants and jeans. “Didn’t you know?” I ask, keeping my voice light. “Surprise!” I say. “I’m pregnant.”
“Kate,” she says, shaking her head in dismay. She knows as well as I do that I’m not pregnant. She asks, “And what exactly are you going to say when he tests you at his office and it comes back negative?”
My answer is immediate because I’ve thought this through. “A false positive. Home pregnancy tests are good, but they’re not foolproof. It happens,” I say.
Last night I couldn’t sleep. How could I possibly sleep, with all that’s happening? My mind was consumed with thoughts of Meredith and Delilah, wondering where they were. As I was sleeping in my bed, all I could think about was where they were sleeping, if they were sleeping. I thought about Shelby sleeping forever. I imagined what she must have gone through in the moments before she died. I wondered what exactly someone did to take her life. Was she stabbed, shot, suffocated? No one has said. My mind drifted then to the blood the police found in Josh and Meredith’s garage. Was it Meredith’s blood? Delilah’s? How did it get there? My thoughts then shifted to Dr. Feingold, the malpractice suit, two figures hiding in the darkness of the Dickeys’ home that night, weeks ago, when Cassandra saw. Was it Dr. Feingold that she saw? Did he do something to Meredith and Delilah? At some point in the middle of the night, I knew that I needed to meet this man. I need to see for myself if he’s someone capable of murder.
“Then I’m going with you,” Bea decides.
“You can’t,” I say.
“Why the hell not?” she asks. She’s angry because she’s worried for me.
“Because two women can’t conceive on their own,” I say. “It would raise questions. Dr. Feingold would want to know why we didn’t just go see our fertility specialist if we were pregnant.”
“We don’t have to tell him we’re gay,” she says. “We’ll tell him I’m your friend. This baby is the result of a one-night stand with some man. I’m not letting you do this alone. He could be dangerous, Kate. We don’t know. Either I go with,” she says, giving me an ultimatum, because quite often that’s what Bea is in our relationship, the decision maker, “or you don’t go.”
Bea won’t be talked out of it. She’s decided, and so I agree. I finish getting ready and follow Bea downstairs, where I sit down at the kitchen counter and research symptoms of early pregnancy on the laptop. I won’t have to fake the nausea because, with Meredith and Delilah still missing, I feel constantly sick to my stomach. I can hardly keep anything down.
MEREDITH
11 YEARS BEFORE
April
Over the weekend, a client goes into labor. It’s Saturday. Ordinarily Josh would be home. But on this particular Saturday, he’s entertaining clients at a Cubs game. They have a suite on the first baseline. The weather is terrible: windy and cold. But they’ll be indoors. They also have access to as much food and beer as they can eat and drink. Josh asked if I minded if he went. He was excited, like a kid on Christmas Eve. How could I say no?
I was hoping my client wouldn’t go into labor today, not with Josh gone and the kids home with me. I need to make arrangements for them. I go to Cassandra’s first. I bring the kids with me, out into the inclement weather. It’s not raining. But the skies are portentous. The wind spins the hair around our heads. It’s like walking into a wall. It’s hard to walk at all. I grab the kids by the hand and pull them across the street. The wind tries to push us back.
I could call Cassandra. But refusing in person is harder to do than over the phone.
Marty answers the door. The surprise is evident. He hadn’t expected to see me. “Meredith,” he says, glancing down at the cold kids, then back up at me. “What’s up?”
Josh and Cassandra know that Marty and I both went to the same college in Indiana. What they
don’t know is that we were friends, that we lived in the same coed dorm our freshman year.
They also don’t know that we dated, that we were hot and heavy for a while, until we weren’t. Marty and I lost contact after college. He’s originally from Indiana. He stayed there and attended grad school after I left. We didn’t talk again after that. I didn’t think we ever would. In fact, I forgot all about Marty, except for those random thoughts that come to you at random times, like how I lost my virginity to him. I thought about him mostly in terms of Delilah, knowing that one day my daughter would grow up, go to college and discover handsome, charming, smooth-talking boys like Marty Hanaka, the kind you could never say no to.
I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted someone more like Josh for Delilah: sturdy, honest, dependable.
When, ten months ago, Cassandra and Marty moved into the house across the street from ours, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Marty isn’t one for social media. It’s not like we were Facebook friends. He isn’t on Facebook at all. He could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known.
By the time he moved across the street, he had a master’s degree and was working as a market research analyst in Chicago. He was no longer twenty-two. Now he was thirty-six, married, with two kids.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I say.
“You’re never a bother,” he says. He smiles. Marty has a way of putting me at ease. He’s still just as handsome and charming as he’s always been. Sometimes when we speak, it’s like fourteen years hasn’t passed since I last saw him. “What can I do for you?”
“Is Cassandra home?” I ask, looking past him. There is noise and activity deeper inside the house.
“She was out shopping,” Marty says, “but I think I just heard her come in the back door. Let me see,” he says, but he doesn’t need to.
“Oh, Meredith,” Cassandra says, suddenly appearing in the doorway from the kitchen. She wears a coat, but her cheeks are pink. Forty degrees and gray is much more appropriate for this time of year than the weather we’ve been having. Still, it comes as a blow. One step forward, two steps back. Everyone hates it, our eternal winter.
Cassandra takes a look at the kids and knows exactly why I’m here. “I didn’t know you were stopping by,” she says. “I’ve been out running errands. Just popped back in for a minute because I forgot a return,” as she makes her way to a coat closet, opens the door and draws out a shopping bag.
Marty looks incredulous. “You’re heading back out?” he asks. He looks at his watch. “I thought you’d be done by now. I told you, I need to go to the gym.” I’m embarrassed to be witness to their tiff. The kids and I still stand outside, on the stoop, freezing cold. No one has invited us in.
“Yes,” Cassandra says to Marty. “I have a few more stops to make. It’s not like I can easily do this during the week with the kids, and you’re never home.”
In this way she’s able to dodge my question altogether. It would be wrong of me to ask her to run her errands another day. She knows I’m not that forward.
But she also knows I wouldn’t leave my kids with Marty. Marty doesn’t know them and vice versa. Cassandra thinks I don’t know Marty, that our encounters are limited to the rare barbecues and progressive dinners our street throws. She’s wrong.
It wasn’t my decision not to tell Josh and Cassandra about our past. It just happened. Josh and Cassandra were right there when we first saw each other after all those years. It was last summer. Someone in the neighborhood had thrown a barbecue. Josh met them first, then brought them over to meet me. Marty thrust out a hand. He introduced himself as if he was someone I’d never met. I went along with it. I don’t know why we did it that way. But we couldn’t take it back after the fact.
“What’s Josh up to today?” Cassandra asks.
I say, “Cubs game.”
“Must be nice,” she says. “You and the kids didn’t go?”
“It was for work,” I say.
“He should bring you and the kids along on his fun outings,” she says.
“I don’t know how fun they are,” I say. It’s a lie. Josh always enjoys himself at events like this, though they’re chock-full of schmoozing clients. It would be a terrible place for the kids. “He’s working when he’s there,” I remind her. “Trying to get to know prospective clients.” Trying to convince prospective clients to trust him with their millions of dollars.
“Of course,” she says. “You didn’t say why you stopped by,” Cassandra remembers.
“Oh,” I say, feeling awkward. It’s not like I can ask her or Marty now to watch the kids, not after their little row. Neither of them wants to be home with their own kids. They want to be out, doing things. I can’t burden them with my kids, too, especially not when there’s this sudden untold strain on Cassandra and my friendship.
“It’s about Piper,” I say.
“Oh?” she asks. Beside me, Delilah looks up at the mention of her friend’s name.
“Yes,” I say. “Delilah was wondering if she would like to come over for a playdate this week. We were thinking about inviting little Lily Morris, too.”
“Oh. Yes,” she says, “that would be lovely.”
“Wonderful,” I say. “I’ll call Amber and set a date.”
We leave. I go to Bea and Kate’s house next. I try not to worry about whatever is going on with Cassandra. She’s being snippy. But maybe it has nothing to do with me. Maybe it has something to do with her, with her marriage. If I was a better friend I would ask her about it. I would bring baked goods and ask her if everything was all right. I will do that when things settle down and I have more time.
I ring Bea and Kate’s bell. Bea opens the door. Bea is a beautiful woman. She’s as tall as Josh. At first glance, she’s seems unapproachable. But she’s not, not at all. Bea has tattoos, too many to count. They mean things. A bird in a cage. A woman’s name written in Old English font. When she’s had a few drinks, she tells you what they mean. The woman’s name, contrary to what I first thought, is her sister, who has special needs.
Bea’s eyes light up when she sees Delilah and Leo. “How are my two favorite people?” she asks. Bea dresses in an effortlessly cool grunge style. I could never pull it off. If I tried, it would look all wrong on me. But not Bea. Ripped jeans, Doc Martens, a newsboy hat.
At Bea’s feet, Delilah giggles. She tells Bea that they are good. She’s bubbly as she says it, the word mixed up in her laugh. Shy Leo says nothing. But he grins, the kind of grin that spreads to his eyes. He’s happy to see Bea.
Bea looks to me. “What’s going on?” she asks.
I groan. “I hate to bother you,” I say.
Bea doesn’t let me get the rest out. “You’ve got a client?” she asks.
I say, “Yes. Her water just broke. She’s on the way to the hospital. It’s her third, so...”
Bea stops me there. She takes charge as Bea does; relief overwhelms me. I admire Bea’s can-do attitude. She’s a problem solver. She says to the kids, “I’ve had my heart set on pizza for the last hour, but there was no way I can eat a pizza all by myself, and Miss Kate’s at work.” She looks pleadingly at Delilah and Leo. “You think you could help me out with this?”
There’s nothing my kids love more in this world than pizza. Delilah screams, “Yes!” Leo nods his head.
“God, Bea,” I say, setting a hand on her arm, “you’re a lifesaver. I can’t thank you enough for this.”
She tells me, “You’d do the same for me.”
The four of us walk back to our house. Delilah and Leo gather a few of their things to bring with them. I say I’ll walk them back, but Bea says no. “I’ve got it from here. You need to go,” she says, and I do. The phone in my pocket pings every few minutes. It’s my client. She’s in the passenger’s seat of her husband’s car, texting updates. On the expressway. Traffic.
“Give me a
hug,” I tell the kids. “You’re going to stay and play with Miss Bea today.” The kids do as they’re told. Bea grabs them each by a hand and leaves. Leo has no qualms in getting left with Bea. He goes with her willingly, without a backward glance in my direction. It’s telling. Something about Charlotte’s house has him spooked. Seeing Leo with Bea warms my heart. I feel at peace, watching him walk voluntarily away, blue blankie dragging through the grass.
The birth is quick. My client nearly delivers without me. Sometimes this happens.
As I’m leaving, Josh calls. He’s on his way home from the baseball game. “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d answer. I was going to leave a message.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, wondering why he didn’t think I’d answer his call.
“You’re at a birth,” he says. I find my car in the hospital’s parking garage. I get in and lock the doors. I keep my eyes peeled to the rearview mirror. I don’t like not knowing what’s behind me, if anyone is there.
“Just leaving,” I say. I start the car and shift into Reverse, glad to be moving. “How did you know?” I ask. I would think that he’s spoken to Bea, except that if Josh didn’t know I was at a birth, he wouldn’t have called Bea. Unless Bea called him for something, I think, hoping the kids are all right.
“The app,” he says. “I see that you’re at the hospital.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right.” His words leave me feeling exposed, like someone is watching me, because he is. I picture Josh looking at the app on his phone. I picture the little thumbnail image of my own face on the map. I imagine it moving as I leave the parking garage and pull out onto the street, Josh all the while watching.