Her Daughter's Mother

by Daniela Petrova

  I clenched my fists. The very idea of having Tyler with me at the doctor’s office, knowing all I knew about him and Katya, cut like a knife. But losing the baby was not an option.

  49.

  KATYA

  THEN

  They came out of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, turned on 110th, and headed to the park. I’d been waiting across the street behind the Peace Fountain, fuming. What the hell was Tyler doing with that mousy grad student? They met here at least twice a week, but I’d also seen them at Tea Magic a few times. I followed them at a distance. Not that there was any danger they would see me. I could tell she was crying, judging by how many times she stopped to blow her nose.

  At Riverside Park, they turned south and kept going, past the soccer field, the Dinosaur Playground and the Hippo Playground. Finally they halted at the 91st Street Garden but instead of turning around, they sat on a bench and stared at the flowers. Red, yellow, and purple tulips, daffodils and a bush of white lilac. A green plastic watering can lay on its side in the middle of the pathway.

  It was just starting to get dark. A cold spring evening, too cold for Good Friday if you ask me. Bone-chilling. Miserable. But a decent reflection of the way I felt.

  I watched as if in slow motion as she raised her face to him, whispered something, their eyes locked on each other, and he leaned over, pushed the hair away from her face, timidly, gently as if handling a precious butterfly, before their lips met and they began to kiss.

  I felt a sharp pain below my sternum. Like my insides were being twisted into a tight knot.

  I wanted to scream. To run fast and far away until I was gasping, breathless, and finally woke up—like I did from my nightmares.

  I averted my gaze. Focused hard on the watering can, feeling just as discarded, emptied.

  How could he do that to Lana? To me? To our baby?

  I clenched my fists. Not the baby. I couldn’t let him do that.

  Somehow I found the strength to turn and snap a few shots of them, smooching, before I bolted the hell out of there.

  * * *

  “I can’t fucking believe it!” I cried out when Josh finally picked up. I didn’t have his phone number. He wouldn’t give it to me and I hadn’t found a way to get it. Yet. But I had his Skype. We’d done a couple of online sessions during the winter break, while he was briefly out of town. It had worked remarkably well. Nothing like talking on the phone. I would have hated that. There was something to be said about seeing the person you were divulging your most intimate secrets to. I fed off people’s reactions. I couldn’t talk without knowing what effect my words were having.

  But this time Josh didn’t turn on his camera. I heard noises. Distant chatter, people laughing, music. For a moment, I worried he might be visiting his family for the Easter weekend. But by the sound of it, he was in a bar. Fine. I turned my camera off, too.

  “Katya, what the hell, it’s past midnight,” Josh said. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I am not. That fucking asshole—”

  “Has Damian hurt you?”

  “God, no!” I should have never told him about Damian’s temper. “No. This has nothing to do with him.”

  “Katya, you know the rules. Unless you’re in imminent danger, please come to the office at the usual time and we can talk—”

  “You don’t understand!” My voice cracked. I paused to gather myself before I went on. “Tyler fucked it all up. Everything’s ruined.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Josh said, and, for a moment, I thought I’d got him. But then he went, “I look forward to seeing you next week,” and hung up. He actually hung up on me. I was about to call him again when his icon went dark. He had signed off, the asshole.

  But of course. What did I expect? That time in the fall, when I’d asked him to go grab a drink with me, explaining how desperate I felt, even hinting at suicide, what had he done? He’d pulled out his phone to call the hospital. He would rather commit me to the loony bin than spend an hour with me, chatting over a pint of beer.

  * * *

  “So what’s going on?” Josh asked at our next session without a trace of remorse for leaving me hanging the other day.

  I hadn’t said a word since I’d walked in. I was just sitting there, like a dark cloud hovering over his couch. Meanwhile the damn April sun was blasting outside. The chatter of students came in through the open window. An ambulance wailed in the distance and I listened as it grew louder, then tapered off. A shiver ran through me.

  “Are you cold?” Josh asked, and got up to close the window. Back in his chair, he said, “You want to tell me what Professor Jones did?”

  I let the silence grow. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to punish Josh for Friday night as much as I was worried that, if I opened my mouth, I’d start sobbing.

  “You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”

  “Are you crazy?” I waited for Josh to cringe but he seemed to have given up on his stupid rule about the word crazy. “That’s sick,” I continued. “Like doing it with my father or something.” I crossed my arms, started rocking slightly in my seat before I went on. “He has a mistress, Josh. I saw them kissing.” My heart sped up. I felt out of breath just talking about it.

  “What about it upsets you?” Josh asked.

  “You’re kidding, right? This was supposed to be my way of making amends for Alex. The whole point was that I would give a baby to a happy couple so that it would grow up in a healthy environment. Unlike Alex and me. And there goes Tyler, sneaking out with another woman, while Lana is at her infertility support group, very likely upset about how few eggs they got off me.”

  Josh raised an eyebrow.

  “I can’t even go there,” I said. “I mean, imagine. I’m supposed to be the egg donor and I barely produce nine eggs? The doctor assured me that all we needed was one good one and since I was young, we had eight more than we needed. Not to worry. But still, all these other girls online had numbers in the twenties and thirties, and one girl even had fifty-six eggs. I can’t possibly imagine how bloated she must have felt. I was in so much pain with only nine. So here I am, all worried if my eggs will be good enough to give them a child when I see Tyler kissing another woman.”

  Tears filled my eyes and I reached for the box of tissues on the side table. Blew my nose and tried to collect myself. The damn hormones were making me particularly emotional. It had been only a few days since my retrieval. But hormones or no hormones, I still would have been furious.

  “On Good Friday, no less,” I continued. “You should see her. A little thing with ratty blond hair, thin lips, and pathetic slutty outfits. None of the beauty and class of Lana.”

  “Is it possible that you’re jealous?” Josh asked.

  “I’m not jealous. I’m enraged. What a bitch.”

  Josh did cringe at this word but I couldn’t care less. “I’m finding it interesting,” he said, reverting to that shrink voice of his, “that you seem to be blaming the woman for the guy’s transgressions.”

  “Oh, please. You Americans have to turn everything into a political issue. If some asshole had slept with Lana, I would have been just as incensed with him. But believe me, the person I’m most furious with is Tyler. What kind of monster has an affair while his significant other is undergoing invasive infertility treatments so that they can have a baby?”

  “Maybe it was a one-time thing,” Josh said.

  “Oh, yeah, that would make it better. Not to worry, sweetheart, we had sex only once.” I let out a forced chuckle. “And anyway, there is no such thing as one time. You’re either capable of it or you’re not. My father would never have done something like that to my mother although she sure deserved it.” I paused to catch my breath. “I’m sure you think Tyler’s infidelity is not my problem. But it is. I can’t have my baby—” Josh opened his mouth to object but I stopped him. “Fine, the baby from
my eggs. I can’t have that baby grow up in a dysfunctional family. With a father who cheats. Like my mother. No way. I can’t take the risk that my gift will turn into poison.”

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked. He’d long abandoned the “tell me more” routine.

  “I called it all off. I had no other choice.”

  “You did?” Josh’s eyes opened wide. “I didn’t think you could do that so late in the game. Didn’t you tell me they already transferred the money to you? After the retrieval? Didn’t you sign papers about it?”

  Poor naïve Josh. I laughed. “Don’t worry. I haven’t broken the terms of the contract. Though I would if I had to. This has never been about the money and you know that.”

  Josh nodded, and I told him how I’d surprised Tyler in front of his building after I’d seen him kissing his TA.

  It was dark by then. I was freezing, having waited for nearly half an hour. Tyler was startled to see me there. “What a coincidence,” he said. “Are you waiting for someone in the building?”

  “Yup,” I told him. “You.”

  His jaw began twitching as he realized this was not an innocent, joyful happenstance. I let him stew in it before I finally told him that I’d just seen him with that slut. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with it,” I said.

  He took a step back. “Let’s move a bit,” he said. “Maybe walk around the block and talk?”

  “Why? You don’t want to take me to the park?”

  He looked hurt. Imagine. As if I’d unfairly accused him of a crime he was incapable of. I did follow him away from the entrance and together we walked across the street and circled the block.

  I told him this was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t have the baby conceived with my eggs grow up with a cheating father. I told him I was going to tell Lana about his affair if that was what it would take to stop the transfer. “I know what she looks like,” I said. “And I clearly know where you guys live.”

  He got all freaked out. “Please, don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt her. She’s been through a lot.”

  Duh. Why didn’t you think about that before you got yourself a mistress?

  “Call it off, then,” I said.

  “What?” He paused, looked at me, before resuming walking. “I can’t do that. We’re in the middle of the cycle. We have a contract. The money has been transferred.”

  “And so have my eggs. The retrieval procedure wasn’t particularly pleasant and neither were the hormone injections. But I did it all, just as we’d agreed.” I paused, let him take it all in, then switched gears. “You have twenty-four hours before I send this to Lana.” I showed him the photo I’d snapped of them kissing on the bench. Even in the muted light of the streetlamp, I could see his face lose color. “Instagram message. Easy as a click,” I said, and switched to Instagram. “Ah, here she is—Lana Stone, Art Curator. Visual notes to my life—”

  “Katya, c’mon. I’m not having an affair. It was just a kiss.”

  “Just a kiss?” I was outraged. “Let’s ask Lana how she feels about that ‘just a kiss’ of yours.”

  “It was a mistake. It will never happen again.”

  “Do you expect me to believe you?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Yeah, right. I’ve seen you around campus. The two of you. Inseparable.”

  He looked down at the sidewalk, ran his hand through his hair. “Rachel and I are friends.”

  “Sure, I’ve got a friend like that, too. You can call it whatever you want but I don’t want my baby growing up in such an environment.”

  He stared at me like I was crazy. “You understand it will not be your baby, right?”

  I halted. A hot lump swelled at the base of my throat. Was he lecturing me? After what I’d just caught him doing? “You know what,” I said, and turned to go back. “Why don’t I just go to Lana and—”

  He stood in front of me, blocking my way. “Stay away from her. I’ll take care of it myself. There . . . there won’t be a baby. I promise.”

  I stood there watching him as he walked across the street and into his building, his shoulders slouched, his step uneasy, weighted.

  I stared at the closed door long after he’d disappeared. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t just turn around and go home and study. What was the point anymore? I walked the streets aimlessly for hours. Damian texted, asking to get together, but I couldn’t even think about hooking up. I was scared to go home, where the nightmares would be waiting for me. So I went into a bar and then another one but the liquor only made me feel worse.

  “That’s when I Skyped you,” I told Josh.

  He shook his head. Went on again to explain that it was unacceptable to be calling him every time I felt let down by someone. “This is only for emergencies.”

  “It was an emergency. My entire future had just been shattered.”

  “How?” Josh said, flipping his hands palms up. “So your professor’s a scumbag. Who cares? You got your money for the donation, didn’t you?”

  “Have you been listening to me? Sure, I got my money and that’s great. But I lost the baby.”

  “You’re young,” Josh said, and proceeded to count on his hand, “healthy, smart, beautiful, and about to graduate from an Ivy League school. You’re getting married to an American and that marriage—fake or not—will allow you to stay in the country, get a job, make as many babies as you want. By most people’s standards, your future looks pretty damn good. In fact, many would kill to—”

  “That baby was supposed to be my redemption!” I shouted, and stood up. “It was meant to make things good again. It was my ticket to a guilt-free future, to sleeping without nightmares, to a normal life. That’s all I’m asking for. A normal life.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You don’t understand my craving for it because you’ve already got it. I don’t want the extras. Beauty, degree, marriage, citizenship—none of that matters if you don’t have the basics. You can only give a damn about those things if you’re whole. And I’m not. I thought you knew that, Josh.”

  I shook my head and stomped out of his office.

  50.

  LANA

  NOW

  Monday morning hit me hard. Not going to work on Thursday and Friday had felt like a long weekend. Albeit a miserable one. Between Katya’s memorial; telling Penka, Sam, and then Tyler about my pregnancy; his threat to take my baby; and the final blow—the realization that Katya had been stalking me—I’d barely been able to pause and catch my breath. But settling on the couch after breakfast this morning instead of heading to the museum gutted me.

  It was now ten thirty and I was still on the couch, my legs propped up, a cup of mint tea getting cold on the coffee table next to me, when a new e-mail from Caitlin popped up. At seeing her name in my inbox, I felt a jab of regret in my stomach. It had yet to sink in that I was no longer a curator at the Met.

  So sorry to hear you won’t be with us anymore, Caitlin wrote. When might be a convenient time to transfer your files to me? I’ll be taking on the role as you might have heard.

  I knew she deserved it. But it hurt just the same.

  I sent her a quick note back, congratulating her and arranging for the transfer on Friday afternoon. I needed time to process and grieve before I returned to the office. I also knew Alistair left early on Fridays and hoped to avoid seeing him.

  A text from Angie flashed on my phone: Turn on NY1.

  I grabbed the remote, my fingers nearly numb with anxiety. After numerous punches on the power button I finally got it to work and navigated to the right channel. As I’d expected, Katya’s face flashed on the screen. I increased the volume to max:

  “. . . the death of Columbia student Katya Dimitrova has been ruled a suicide,” the female anchor was saying. “She is believed to have jumped off the George Washi
ngton Bridge in the early hours of Mother’s Day.” I stood there, remote in my hand, staring at the screen. The picture changed to a black-and-white freeze frame of a young girl I could only assume was Katya. The photo was heavily pixelated and taken from above so you couldn’t see her face that well, but I recognized the jeans and spaghetti strap top she’d had on that night.

  “Footage from surveillance cameras on the bridge shows her entering the pedestrian ramp at five oh eight a.m.,” the anchor continued. “According to records at the university’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center, she’d been battling depression on and off over the past year. It is unclear if she had been on any medication.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. The picture switched to footage of Columbia’s campus. The athletic-looking man from the memorial came into focus, entering one of the buildings, waving away reporters. “Her therapist at the counseling center, Josh Wozniak,” the anchor continued, “declined to comment.” So that was who he was. It made sense he’d known so much about Katya, that he’d come to comfort her mother.

  I turned off the TV and slumped on the couch. Plato jumped up next to me, making a little squeak with the effort, and began purring. Soon he quieted down and fell asleep. The Yorkie in the apartment below was yapping. Recurring rhythmic thuds came from the next-door neighbors’ apartment—their kids playing ball, I suspected. The distant wail of a police car outside.

  I was still sitting there, remote in hand, when Angie called a few minutes later.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “A suicide?”

  “The medical examiner’s report says she died of . . .” Angie paused for a moment before continuing, clearly reading from somewhere, “‘of multiple blunt-force injuries, due to an elevated fall such as from a bridge or overpass into the Hudson River.’”

  “But why? Why would she do it? I saw her just hours before. She didn’t seem upset at all. If it weren’t for the footage of her entering the bridge, I’d think it was bullshit.” I sighed. “Still, how do they know nobody pushed her?”