She Gets That from Me

by Robin Wells

  Sarah froze her eggs when she was thirty-five and without a partner. When she reached forty-one and was still single, she’d had them mixed with donor sperm and implanted.

  I spot Lauren’s dark ponytail next. She’s about my age and attends the group as an inquirer—that’s someone who’s considering becoming a single parent. She’s looking at both adoption and artificial insemination. She works as a nurse at Ochsner Hospital, and she’s been coming to meetings for a couple of years.

  Finally, in ambles Mac. He’s a tall, shy man in his late forties or early fifties who works as an MRI technician. Mac seems to have trouble making eye contact and is a little socially awkward, but he has a heart of gold. He’s raising his brother’s teenage daughter, Kylie, because both his brother and sister-in-law were sent to prison for embezzlement. The girl, who is now fourteen, is a handful.

  After everyone settles at the table with their beverage of choice, Sarah looks at her watch. She founded the group and works as a psychological counselor, so we happily let her run the meetings whenever she attends. “Well, it’s five minutes after, so let’s get started.”

  We all nod.

  “I think we should start with a minute of silence for Brooke,” Sarah says. “I’ll set my timer in honor of her punctuality.”

  We all laugh, then hold hands. I close my eyes and say a silent prayer. The timer on Sarah’s phone buzzes.

  “We’re all wondering about Lily,” Sarah says. “So, Quinn, why don’t you start?”

  My pulse skitters. “I kind of wanted to be the last one to talk today—I have some personal news to share—but sure, I’ll kick things off with a Lily update. As most of you know, Lily’s living in Alexandria with Miss Margaret.”

  Annie’s eyes are warm pools of concern. “How’s that going?”

  “Not particularly well.” My heart feels like shattered glass, and a little sliver seems stuck in my throat. “Actually, it’s not going well at all. Lily’s regressed on her potty training, she complains of headaches, and she wakes up in the night.”

  “Poor little thing!” Lauren murmurs.

  “I call her often, and I’ve been going to Alexandria every weekend to visit. Each time, Lily wants to know if her mommy came with me. I try to explain that she’s dead . . .” Once again, tears well in my eyes. I hate how I’m a constant wet bucket of emotion, but I can’t seem to help it. “But Lily doesn’t seem to hear it. She changes the subject. Last Sunday at the end of my visit, she started talking about the things we would do together when she goes home and her mother is back. To tell the truth, it was kind of spooky.”

  “She’s in denial. Young children can stay stuck there for a while,” Sarah says. Her expertise has been really helpful to the group. “When they lose someone, they pretend it hasn’t happened.”

  I don’t blame Lily. I’d like to pretend it hasn’t happened, too. “When it was time for me to leave, Lily cried and clung to me and begged me to take her home to her mommy. I have to tell you . . . it completely broke my heart.”

  Annie puts her hand over mine. “That had to be so difficult.”

  I swallow hard, afraid the lump in my throat will make it impossible to talk. “Miss Margaret is the one who’s really having a tough time. She’s at her wit’s end. She’s following your advice, Sarah, and taking Lily to a child psychologist. The psychologist says Lily’s behavior is pretty normal. Young children have trouble understanding death.”

  “Don’t we all,” murmurs Lauren.

  “They’re coming to New Orleans this evening so Miss Margaret can put Brooke’s house on the market. I’m taking off work tomorrow to help, and I’ll keep Lily for the three or four nights they’re here. We’ll take her to visit her old home if she wants, but Miss Margaret and the psychologist thought it would be confusing for her to stay there and then have to leave again.”

  “I wish Miss Margaret would just move to New Orleans,” Annie says. “That way you and she could care for Lily together.”

  That’s what I want, too. I’ve talked to Margaret about it until I’m blue in the face, but she won’t even consider it.

  “I can’t just up and move!” Margaret had exclaimed when I’d broached the topic again this past weekend. Her brows had creased, and her fingers worried the pearls on her necklace. “This has been my home for forty-seven years. I can’t handle another huge upheaval right now.”

  I’d bitten my tongue and reminded myself of a bit of wisdom from the reparenting book: Let go of the things that are out of your control.

  “Miss Margaret is Lily’s legal guardian, and Alexandria is her home,” I say, sounding more stoic than I feel.

  “How old is Miss Margaret?” Annie asks.

  “Seventy-nine,” I reply.

  “Good lord!” Lauren’s eyes widen. “She looks great for her age, but still . . . she’s nearly eighty! How long is she going to be able to take care of a young child?”

  The topic gives my stomach more twists than a balloon animal. I know that Brooke intended to change her will to make me the primary guardian when Lily turned four and Margaret turned eighty, but she hadn’t lived that long, and Margaret is adamant that her guardianship is in Lily’s best interests. The elderly woman loves the child, there’s no question of that, and she’s still physically capable of caring for her, so I don’t feel like I have the right to legally challenge her. The only thing I can do is stay close to Lily and let her know that I’m there for her.

  “She’s providing Lily with a loving home, and that’s what really matters.” I look around the table, eager to get out of the hot seat. “So, Sarah—what’s going on with you?”

  She gives a gentle smile. She knows I’m deliberately changing the topic, and she’s kind enough to go along with it. “Well, the twins are growing like crazy. In fact, ‘crazy’ seems to be the operative word in my life right now.” She shakes her head. “Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking, having kids. There’s no peace or quiet at my house. They need constant supervision from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep. There’s no reasoning with two-year-olds! The sense of home being a place to relax and recharge is completely gone.”

  “It’ll get easier,” Annie says.

  “Do you promise?” Sarah asks.

  Annie nods. “But it might not settle down for another year or two.”

  “You all are scaring me.” Lauren makes a terrified face.

  “Oh, you’ll be just fine.” Sarah gives her a reassuring smile. “You’re at least a decade younger than me, and you’ll probably just have one child at a time.”

  “It’s all totally worth it,” says Annie.

  “Absolutely.” Sarah’s head bobs. “I complain, but when I look at them sleeping, my heart feels so full I think it might burst.”

  Annie smiles, her eyes soft. “That never changes.”

  “Do you still watch your son sleep?” Lauren asks.

  “Oh, yeah. And he still looks like an angel when he’s sacked out,” Annie says. “Really, motherhood is the most amazing adventure. It’s incredible how fast they learn and how much enthusiasm they have about the world. I took Sean to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium the other day, and it was like I was seeing bugs through entirely new eyes.”

  “You were.” Lauren props her chin on her hands. “His.”

  Annie grins. “You’re right. Whenever you introduce them to new things, it changes your outlook on them, too. Right now Sean and I are in a really good place.”

  “Oh, that’s so great to hear!” Sarah says.

  “Yeah. I’m trying to really enjoy it, because in another couple of years, here comes puberty.”

  “You’ll be in for it then,” Mac says.

  Sarah turns to him. “So, Mac—what’s going on with Kylie?”

  He runs a hand through his short graying hair, which reminds me of the bristle on a schnauz
er’s head. “I wish I knew. She hardly talks to me, and she refuses to visit either of her parents. I make her write them once a week. Her last letters to each of them said, ‘Uncle Mac says I have to write you, so I am.’ That was the whole letter.”

  Sarah laughs. He shoots a worried look in her direction, as if he’s afraid he’s done something wrong.

  “I think it’s great you’re making her send letters,” Sarah reassures him. “I just had to laugh at what she wrote. It’s such a classic teenage move.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s pretty funny.” He gives a hesitant grin.

  “Is she still seeing that therapist for kids with parents in prison?” Annie asks.

  He nods. “She’s even talking in the session now. The first three times she just sat there and refused to say a word.”

  “And you had to pay for that?” Lauren asks.

  “Yeah.” Mac chuckles. “Kylie thought I’d give up.”

  “Good for you for sticking with it,” Sarah says. “Have you gotten any helpful insights?”

  Mac nods. “The therapist says Kylie identifies with her parents, but she’s ashamed of them. That means she feels a deep sense of shame about herself.” He stares at his coffee cup for a long moment. “Sometimes I’m so angry at the two of them that I can hardly stand it.”

  “That’s understandable.” Sarah pats his hand, just as she had mine. Mac’s neck and ears instantly flame—it’s amazing how fast they redden—and his whole body stiffens.

  Sarah pretends not to notice his discomfort. She casually pulls back her hand and turns to Lauren, who talks about the expense and difficulty of adopting a newborn.

  Sarah glances at her watch. “I’m nearly out of time, and Quinn said she had something personal to share.”

  All eyes turn to me.

  Lauren’s are bright and expectant. “Did you meet someone?”

  “Oh, right,” Annie says. “At the last meeting, you said you were going on a blind date.”

  “It wasn’t exactly blind.” I’d decided to give internet dating yet another try, so I’d seen a photo of the guy beforehand. He wasn’t smiling in his profile, which should have been a red flag, but as usual, I’d been overly optimistic.

  It couldn’t qualify as a blind date from the other potential meaning of the term, either; from the way he kept staring at my chest, he was anything but blind—although he might have been a little farsighted, because my shirt was cut no lower than my collarbone and my chest is in no way stare-worthy.

  “I’m not even sure it was really a date.” Does meeting for coffee in the middle of the afternoon qualify as a date?

  But I know that Annie and Lauren mean well. The eager, expectant expressions on their faces are exactly the same look Ruffles gets when I hold a Beggin’ Strips bag, and I want—I really want—to tell them what they hope to hear so that they can maintain some optimism about the dating pool.

  “I went for coffee with a guy I met online, and it was a total bust,” I say.

  “A bust, how?” Annie asks.

  “He didn’t look anything like his profile picture, I had to pay for his coffee because he forgot his wallet, and he had absolutely nothing to say. It’s like he’d undergone a personality extraction.”

  “Oh.” A disappointed sigh collectively escapes from everyone at the table, like air from a deflating tire.

  “So what’s your news?” Annie asks.

  Sarah leans forward. “Have you decided to freeze your eggs?”

  “No.” My heart hammers in my chest. The pressure that has been building in me, the pressure I’ve tamped down again and again, is expanding and swelling until it feels as though the words will burst out of my ears if I don’t let them out of my mouth. “Actually, I’m already beyond that.” My voice has a weird little wobble.

  They all stare at me. Annie’s brow pulls into a quizzical crease. Lauren looks baffled. Sarah’s gaze is intense and focused. Even Mac is looking directly at me, something he rarely does with anyone.

  I swallow hard. My tongue feels wrapped in cotton batting.

  “What do you mean?” Sarah, always outspoken, voices the question I can read on everyone’s faces.

  Oh, my God. It’s so inappropriate to feel this way with Brooke just gone, and yet, there it is—a shining bubble of pure, glowing joy.

  I say the words that finally release my secret. “I’m pregnant.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Quinn

  WHAT?”

  “How?”

  “Huh?”

  “Whose?”

  It would have been funny, the way everyone bombards me with questions all at once, if only I didn’t feel like crying. This is a moment I should be sharing with Brooke. She and I celebrated and commiserated together over all of life’s highs and lows. Right now I’m dealing with two major events that are literally life and death, the best and the worst I’ve ever experienced. Both are because of her, and she isn’t here, and . . .

  Oh, Lily was so, so right. It isn’t fair.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” I draw a breath and wipe my eyes. Annie reaches in her purse, then hands me a tissue. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Who’s the father?”

  “When did you find out?”

  “How did it happen?”

  Everyone throws out questions at the same time.

  Sarah holds up her hand and looks around. “There’s a story here, and we need to let Quinn tell it at her own pace, in her own way. I’m texting my mom to tell her she’ll just have to manage the twins for the rest of the morning.” Her thumbs fly over her phone, then she puts it down, places her elbows on the table, and turns to me. “You have our full attention, honey. Take your time, and tell us all about it.”

  I wipe my nose and nod. Someone gets up, pours me a plastic cupful of water from the pitcher at the condiment bar, and places it in front of me. I take a sip. “It all started on my thirty-sixth birthday,” I say.

  * * *

  —

  February 25

  7:00 p.m.

  “Surprise!”

  The unexpected chorus of voices on my thirty-sixth birthday makes me jump back as I open the front door of my home after work, nearly spilling the canvas tote of Whole Foods groceries in my arms. I stare at the beaming faces assembled in the living room of my uptown Victorian, most of them wearing cone-shaped birthday hats. There’s the single parent group, and there’s Terri, the fifty-and-fabulous blonde who helps me run Verve!—who left work an hour early today, allegedly to accompany her husband to an after-hours business event.

  I also spot the couple who own the coffee shop where the single parents group meets, the Smiths from next door, an old friend from college and her husband, and, of course, Brooke. Jumping up and down beside her is Lily.

  “What—what’s going on?” I ask like an idiot. Surprises seem to drain my brain cells. My childhood was full of land mines: being awakened by slamming doors and loud, angry arguments; having no one show up for kindergarten parents’ day; getting off the school bus in sixth grade to discover that Dad had moved out; learning that the dog wasn’t around because Dad had run over him when backing out the car in a white-hot rage. It’s probably understandable that I’m hardwired to be skittish of the unexpected.

  “It’s a surprise birthday party, Auntie Quinn!” Lily announces. She’s wearing a pink princess gown—her favorite type of attire—complete with a sparkling tiara, which gleams on her blond curls in front of her balloon-printed birthday hat. “Are you surprised?”

  “Very much so.” Smiling, I step into the room. Brooke takes the grocery bag from me so I can bend down and return Lily’s embrace. I lift an eyebrow at Brooke as I straighten. “I thought I was having a low-key celebration this year.”

  Brooke is the self-appointed party planner for all the special people in her lif
e, and I’d specifically told her that a thirty-sixth birthday didn’t warrant a fuss. She’d acted as if she agreed. In fact, she’d invited me come over to her house, just two blocks away, for an after-dinner cupcake and glass of wine.

  “I’m supposed to be at your place in an hour,” I say.

  “We just said that to trick you,” Lily proclaims.

  “Well, it certainly worked.”

  “That’s ’cause I made a wish and used my magic wand.”

  I grin as Lily waves it. She thinks the fairies brought it to her, but in truth, I helped her mother make it from two pieces of sequined fabric, pillow stuffing, and a dowel rod.

  I look around. Balloons float from the center of my midcentury coffee table. Boiled shrimp, a huge green salad, French bread, and jambalaya are laid out buffet-style on my Danish modern dining table, in front of a lovely bouquet of hydrangeas. Wineglasses and four decanted wine bottles cluster on the kitchen counter, and another chills in my cooler bucket. “You and your wand arranged all this?” I ask Lily.

  “Well, Mommy and Miss Terri helped.”

  Everyone laughs.

  “I’ll bet they did.” I hug Brooke. She’s wearing jeans and a sleeveless black top, her golden hair curling loosely around her shoulders, and, as usual, she looks amazing. She’s apparently changed clothes after work. She must have taken off half a day or more to organize this.

  I hug Terri next. “So this is your husband’s work event that made you leave early?”

  “I believe my exact words were, ‘There’s an after-work social thing that Paul has to attend, and he really wants me to go,’” Terri corrects.

  Laughing, I kiss Paul’s aftershave-scented cheek.

  “Don’t feel bad,” he says. “She pulls the wool over my eyes all the time.”

  “I don’t need to know any of your kinky secrets,” I say, waving my hands as if to erase the mental image. Laughter ripples through the room.

  My college chum Lisette waddles up and embraces me, pressing her hugely pregnant belly against my side. It always surprises me, how firm a baby bump feels. “Happy birthday, Eskimo girl,” she says.