Safe in My Arms

by Sara Shepard

  “Yes, I’ve heard that, too,” Andrea mumbled quietly. Was this some sort of gambit to knock her off guard? Did Piper know? She needed to change the subject, now. “So, um, look, I wanted to ask you—”

  “I can’t thank you enough for being part of our family,” Piper interrupted. “We are going to set the foundation for your child’s life!”

  “Great.” Andrea tried to smile. “I’m so glad.”

  “And . . . Arthur.” Piper had picked up a clipboard of notes now and seemed to spy Arthur’s details. “He seems to be fitting right in! His teacher says that on his first day, he really connected with Johnny Fineberg and King Russell.” She looked up. “Do you know Jane Russell? King’s mom?”

  Andrea shook her head. “I haven’t really met—”

  “You should connect with her. She and her husband live in that gorgeous house at the top of the cliffs—you know the one. It looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright designed.”

  “I love that house,” Andrea mused, knowing exactly which one Piper meant. The house was the jewel in the crown of Raisin Beach.

  “The Russells have tons of beautiful houses all around the world,” Piper said, sounding envious. “You should absolutely say hi to Jane—she’s a good person to know. And very, you know . . .” She waved her hand to think of the word. “Accepting.”

  “Okay.” Andrea felt off-balance. She just needed to say what she came here for. “But . . . actually, that brings something up. Does anyone at this school have an issue with . . . with me? Being . . . trans, I mean. Are some people less accepting?”

  Piper looked affronted. “We celebrate everyone here. It’s practically our school motto.”

  “Okay, philosophically, yes. But what about the teachers? The children? Other parents? I understand some of this community is religious. Is it worth maybe having a meeting about . . . inclusion?” Andrea tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Staging a meeting certainly wouldn’t be keeping a low profile, but maybe they could do it in such a way that she wouldn’t be front and center. And also—and this suddenly irked her—wasn’t it the school’s job to nurture this? “If people can’t deal, well, I can handle that on a case-by-case basis. But I don’t want this trickling down to my son.”

  “Has your son said people have treated him poorly?” Piper looked confused.

  Andrea considered her words, then just plunged her hand into her bag. “Here.” She thrust the drawing across the table. “My son came home with this. I found it yesterday in his bag.”

  Piper pursed her lips as she stared at the paper. When she didn’t say anything for a few moments, Andrea added, “It’s me.”

  “Okay,” Piper said. “Well. This is very concerning.”

  “I know,” Andrea said. “Thank you.”

  “We have a psychologist on staff. Well—she rotates schools, but I could call her up. This should be addressed.”

  “That would be great,” Andrea said, relieved Piper was taking this seriously.

  “I also think a family therapist might be useful, too.” Piper crossed and uncrossed her long legs. “There’s no shame. North and I went to a family therapist a while back. It was so hard for him, the divorce, this move. Not all kids are great with change. A therapist can really help a child talk through that. Get to the root of his anger.”

  “Absolutely,” Andrea said, but suddenly she felt a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. “Wait. Arthur didn’t draw this. Someone else did.”

  Piper blinked at her benignly. “With all due respect, I’m not sure that makes sense. Why would someone else put a drawing of you in your son’s bag? We teach our children to respect people’s property.”

  “Someone else would do it because . . .” Andrea’s voice cracked. “I’m not an idiot!”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t happen here. This is a safe place.” It was so Pollyannaish that Andrea wanted to laugh, but Piper didn’t give her the time—she kept going. “Look, sometimes kids express what they’re afraid to say through artwork. It’s very common.”

  Andrea started to tremble. “Arthur. Didn’t. Draw. This. There’s no way. He’s aware of who I am and why I changed and that I’m happier now, and he supports me.”

  “But, I mean, he’s a four-year-old boy.” Piper almost sounded like she was going to laugh. “Four-year-olds aren’t really capable of support, in my experience.”

  But Arthur is, Andrea wanted to say. Arthur’s special. “I-It doesn’t even look like his artwork,” she tried, realizing how shrill she sounded.

  Piper paused to think. “You found this yesterday? Your files say you’re new to the community. Who’s even had time to form opinions in those few hours the children were in school?”

  Andrea’s mouth felt gummy. A teacher saw me, she wanted to say. The parents saw me. But all at once, she felt the same way she had when she and Roger got caught in that hotel room upstate. It felt like everyone was staring at her, realizing who she was—who she’d been. Everyone made assumptions then, too.

  Could Arthur have drawn this? The notion terrified her, but maybe this upheaval was more traumatic than he’d let on.

  Piper was looking at the drawing again. “This sort of anger is concerning for us as well. We don’t approve of bullying of any kind, and a child with emotional issues like these—well, it may be worth considering if this place is the right fit for him.”

  “What?” Andrea shot up. “You’re kicking Arthur out? He didn’t even do anything!”

  “Of course not.” Piper’s voice was honeyed again. “But I do think it’s worth laying the groundwork to make sure Arthur’s on a good psychological path. A kernel of anger like this”—she held up the photo, which now scandalized Andrea so badly she couldn’t look at it—“can lead to bigger things, against other children. We need to properly address it.”

  “So wait a minute,” Andrea said, backtracking. “Hold on. If I went to Miss Barnes right now, she’d back up that Arthur drew this? She’d say she saw him?” It seemed like such an oversight. “Why wouldn’t she have brought it to my attention already?”

  Piper placed the drawing facedown on the coffee table. “Teachers encourage children to draw and create throughout the day, but they can’t supervise everyone all the time. Most likely, Miss Barnes told Arthur that he could put his artwork in his messenger bag so he could bring it home. Arthur might have drawn the picture and put it away before Miss Barnes saw it.”

  “But . . .” Andrea trailed off. Could that have happened?

  “Would you like to see a picture of my son?” Piper suddenly blurted.

  Andrea blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “I mean, maybe seeing a picture of him will help you normalize family therapy.” She grabbed her phone again and pulled up an image. “This is from a few years ago, but he looks about the same.”

  It was a school picture of a boy of about ten. He sat straight and stared slightly away from the camera with a serious expression on his face. Andrea thought he looked familiar. “This is North,” Piper said vehemently. “This is my baby. All I wanted was the best for him. He was angry, too. Confused. And lost. But we got help. Which didn’t just help him—it helped every child he was around after that. Isn’t that what you want? We do what we can, we make the sacrifices where we can, for the good of everyone? For the community?”

  Andrea opened her mouth, then shut it again. This felt like guerilla warfare, deflecting and obfuscating and twisting the conversation. “I . . . do believe that,” she said slowly. “Of course I do.”

  Piper clasped her hands at her throat. “Good. So I can get you a few therapist names, then? Really, there are some wonderful ones around here.”

  A prism hanging in the window spilled rainbows across Piper’s desk. Andrea’s palms were so itchy she wondered if she was having an allergy attack, which used to happen sometimes in school when she was young. Her gaze slid
to the picture of the boy on the phone again. North had a shock of slick, dark hair cut in a trendy style. It was the haircut Arthur wanted before starting Silver Swans. The problem was, his hair was curly and didn’t lay flat in that surfer style; it had ended up kind of puffy. In the end, they’d just buzzed it all off. But Arthur had liked that, too, though. He was an easy kid.

  Except maybe he wasn’t easy. Maybe she had it all wrong.

  “To use a line from the medical community,” Piper added, “when we hear hoofbeats, we look for horses, not zebras. The person who’s most attuned with your identity, your difference, is your own child. Most children that age are so self-involved they rarely notice people around them, especially not adults. The kids probably looked at you, in a dress, and thought lady. They don’t know to think anything else. They take things at face value. But your son understands this at a deeper level.” She laced her fingers together. “You haven’t done anything wrong. No one has. We’re going to get through this.”

  Horses, not zebras, Andrea thought miserably. Every mother wanted to think their child was unusual, that he defied the odds. There wasn’t necessarily shame in a therapist. Hell, if it weren’t for Dr. Westin, Andrea wouldn’t be living her life now.

  “You can count on me,” Andrea said. She leaned across the table and shook Piper’s hand. “Thanks for all your help.”

  Eight

  The sun streamed through the windows like liquid gold as Lauren poured herself her third cup of coffee. It was Thursday morning. She was trying to calculate the amount of sleep she’d gotten last night—an hour snatched here, forty-five minutes there, a big chunk of time blearily watching a Law & Order rerun—but her brain refused to do the math. When she finally dozed off, it was blissful, but she’d slept in far too late. Now she felt hungover.

  She swiveled around when she heard keys in the lock. The door swung open. First the stroller appeared, then Graham. Though when he saw her, a flare of surprise registered on his face. Then he smiled.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “You’re finally up!”

  “Where were you?” There was something sweaty about Graham, like he’d been exercising. Her gaze drifted to the stroller. It wasn’t their jogging stroller.

  Graham stretched one muscled arm to the sky. “I couldn’t sleep, so me and buddy went for a drive to the trail. I’m just so excited.” He grinned sheepishly. It was his big day, the first day of an episode shoot that was on location and would take him out of town for one night. Don’t look too thrilled, Lauren thought bitterly. Was this going to be a love nest with him and Gracie? She thought of the one time she’d asked him if they’d hooked up . . . and what had happened because of it.

  Graham cocked his head at her. “You okay? You look tired.”

  Lauren tamped down her annoyance. “I’m fine.”

  Unbidden, her gaze drifted to the pink, U-shaped scar over Graham’s eye. It hurt to look at it. Perhaps on instinct, Graham’s fingers flew there, too. Then he turned away to lift Matthew from the stroller. “Anyway,” he said. “We need to head out in less than an hour.”

  Lauren shut her eyes. Her insomnia wasn’t even due to Matthew—just garden-variety anxiety. Aside from some fussiness at around 2:00 a.m., the kid had slept the whole night through. Hell, Graham had been the one to get up with him this morning. And—this made her feel even worse—Lauren hadn’t even checked for Matthew when she woke up. She’d just assumed he was in his crib. Was she ever going to get it together?

  But she was so tired. She’d lain awake last night, tortured by her thoughts. Tuesday, Lauren had left Piper a very detailed, very passionate voicemail about postpartum rage. An hour later, she’d followed it up with an email saying more or less the same thing, adding in her phone number. Later, she’d considered calling again, apologizing for giving her phone number because of course Piper already had her phone number in Matthew’s records. She’d restrained. Piper might think that overbearing and weird once she heard all the messages.

  But Piper hadn’t called back yesterday. Or emailed. So then her thoughts had returned to the note in Matthew’s backpack. Was Piper linked to it? But if she was, wouldn’t she have written back, apologizing for her error? Maybe Lauren should have mentioned the note in her messages to Piper—only, it was just so embarrassing.

  And she hadn’t told Graham, either. Again, she worried he’d . . . blame her, somehow.

  The house phone rang. Lauren moved to answer it, but she heard Graham get it first, likely cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear as he changed the baby. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “Mm-hmm.” His voice dropped then, and was swallowed up altogether as the baby started to squawk.

  Graham reappeared with a changed, freshly clothed, smiling baby in his arms. “This guy’s all ready for Mommy!”

  “Who was on the phone?” Lauren asked.

  “Oh, your mom, actually.” Graham handed Matthew over. “But she had to run. She’s doing fine, though. Said something about Mel’s older kid making honor roll.”

  “Oh.” Lauren felt a pinch of despair. Her mother called to brag about her sister? She didn’t even want to talk to her?

  She tried to smile as she unsnapped her nursing top but here was another flare of resentment. Her kid was seven months old. She was tired of breastfeeding, tired of being wedded to the pump and rock-hard boobs and clogs and leaky nipples. But somehow, it had become this unspoken thing that she nurse until Matthew was a year.

  As she took Matthew into her arms and tried to push him toward her nipple, he arched away with a grunt. “Come on, buddy,” she crooned.

  Matthew didn’t want to be held. He squirmed away from her so strongly, it was like she was trying to pin down an adult cat. She could feel her milk letting down.

  “Matthew,” she said sternly, grabbing the upper half of his torso and shoving his head hard into her cleavage. “Come on. Just eat.”

  Matthew arched away again. Lauren let out a beleaguered sigh. Calm. Calm. Calm, she tried to mantra—a lactation consultant had told her to repeat that for better milk production. She was just frustrated because Piper blew her off. Maybe there was a good reason. Maybe she was busy. Maybe she hadn’t gotten the messages.

  Nursing just wasn’t working. Lauren’s boobs were sticky with leaked milk, and none of it was getting in Matthew’s mouth. “Maybe I’ll pump,” she announced to the baby—and also to Graham, who was standing in the doorway, watching. “I’ll make a bottle with frozen stuff,” she announced, then stood, still holding the baby. “C’mon, buddy.”

  “I’ll take him,” Graham volunteered. “You’re holding him kind of tight.”

  “No, I’m not,” Lauren said.

  “When you held him that tightly the other day, he started crying.”

  Lauren stared at him. She didn’t remember that. Still, she pressed the baby into his arms. “I’ll be just a sec.”

  Graham’s petulant expression transformed when Matthew was against his chest. “Hey, buddy,” he whispered adoringly.

  Lauren strode to the fridge to fetch frozen breast milk and a bottle. Finding the breast milk was easy—she had a lot stocked away. But there wasn’t a single clean bottle. Nor were there clean pump parts.

  “Damn it,” she whispered. She yanked the pump parts and a bottle from the dishwasher racks—they’d forgotten to actually run it last night—and ran them under the tap.

  She hated spending any time in the kitchen—the awful thing had happened just there, in the far corner. The back door had been open, a fragrant breeze blowing in, Lauren was in bare feet and a maternity sundress. Why could she remember those things but not what she did next? She’d held the baby in her arms, his head propped on her shoulder. But the next moment—well, the next moment was blurry. She remembered Graham lunging, grabbing Matthew, shrieking, “Lauren!”

  “Honey?” Graham called now, snapping Lauren back.

  “Comi
ng!” Lauren hurried into the living room to find that Graham had laid the baby on his back on the floor. He glanced at Lauren over his shoulder, his eyes dark.

  “Any idea how Matthew got this bruise?”

  Lauren dropped to her knees. Graham was pointing to a purplish splotch on Matthew’s thigh. It was shaped like a thumbprint.

  “I-I don’t know.”

  A tiny, pointed silence ensued. Graham’s gaze flicked to her, then flicked away. She swore she heard the tiniest of scoffs. “What? I don’t!”

  “Okay. But, like, Clarissa’s always been here, right?”

  The air felt colder, devoid of oxygen. “Yes, Graham.”

  Graham’s throat bobbed. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his head. “I’m already so nervous about leaving you guys. I don’t like to be away. I’m sorry.”

  She sat back on her haunches. Are you ever going to trust me again? And yet, the night in the kitchen said it all. He shouldn’t trust her. Maybe she shouldn’t trust herself.

  And then something occurred to her. “Could this have happened at school?”

  Graham looked appalled. “I hope not. We’re paying tens of thousands of dollars to that place. The least they can do is make sure our kid isn’t mishandled.”

  “Maybe it was an accident, though.” But as she said this, she wasn’t so sure. First a creepy note in his backpack, now a bruise?

  Graham’s phone rang. As he rose to get it, Matthew started crying in earnest. “Come on, come on,” Lauren said, scooping him from the floor. She settled him onto the couch with the bottle, and after a few moments, Matthew was drinking peacefully. Lauren felt the opposite. She stared at Graham’s broad, straight back as he moved to the corner, his phone tucked by his ear, his eye on Lauren and the baby the whole time. He wasn’t even going to go into his office to take the call.