He was right. How did she know that Michel hadn’t simply implanted a random embryo? She certainly couldn’t sue him if the baby wasn’t Ronan. She had just trusted him blindly, the way she trusted Indira. She had confided in the wrong people, and pushed away the right ones, the ones who would have stopped her from this folly.
Elm spent the day examining the CVS results, comparing her blood type to Colin’s to the fetus’s, as if that alone would determine if it was a clone or a scam. She considered calling Michel, but then realized he would simply reassure her, and if he had been lying to her he would continue to lie in his smooth French accent. On Sunday, Colin still wasn’t home. Elm left a message on his phone apologizing, asking if he would please come home just to talk, just for a minute. She wanted to call Ian, but she’d have to explain why Colin had left her. No, this was the bed of her making, and she would have to lie in it alone.
Moira said almost nothing the entire weekend. On Sunday she asked for a playdate, and Elm called up Patty and asked if Moira could go over to her house.
“You look pale,” Patty said when they arrived. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just worn out,” Elm said. “And I’m a little anemic.”
“Oh, dear. Do you want me to keep her overnight?”
Elm considered, standing in the doorway. The idea of being in her apartment alone was unappealing, but the freedom to weep and sulk and think won out. Elm thanked her, told Moira she was having a sleepover, and kissed her good-bye.
On the way home, a wave of melancholy overtook her, and for the first time since the days just after Ronan died, she considered that she could just disappear. She could take pills, or slit her wrists. No one would find her until it was too late. And then her mistake would die with her. It would upset Moira, of course, but she was young. The young were resilient. And Colin would be angry, but at least she wouldn’t have to live knowing that she’d failed him, that he hated her. If there was a heaven, maybe she could be with Ronan there.
Even as she let these thoughts run their course, she knew she wouldn’t do it. This was suicidal ideation, as her doctor called it. It was about figuring out your place in other people’s lives, and re-upping self-esteem when you realized you were important. That you did matter. Plus, Elm felt strongly that suicide was for the weak. If there were people who cared about you, who depended on you, then you had the obligation to stick it out until the end. She had done this to herself.
Now she wondered if giving birth would even make her happy. She’d been so caught up in the logistics of it, the sheer science fiction of it, she never stopped to consider what her feelings might be once he was here. How could she have been so naïve to have expected that Colin would embrace this charade? That this would solve any of their problems?
On Monday, he sent her a text message: “I’m ok. Wld like to take Moira to dinner. Not ready to talk. 5 ok?”
Moira was excited once she was collected from her friend’s house, baggy eyes revealing how little she’d slept. Elm told her that Daddy was coming home from his business trip early just to see her for a while, and she accepted this, the way children find it perfectly natural that someone would rearrange his schedule and fly across the country just for them.
When the doorbell rang, Elm had a grouchy Moira dressed in the cutest clothes she could find, as though she were presenting an orphan for possible adoption. She had tear streaks on her cheeks; she didn’t want to wear the striped tights, didn’t want to wear tights at all, but Elm had insisted. Moira flung her fists at her at the same time the baby gave her a jab. She felt she deserved both of these assaults.
Colin was wearing clothes she’d never seen before. Well, of course, he’d had to go shopping. He looked at her as if she’d changed something about her appearance that he couldn’t put his finger on: Had she dyed her hair? Waxed her eyebrows? He wore a look of suspicion that Elm couldn’t meet.
“She’s a little tired,” Elm said by way of hello.
“I am not!” Moira protested.
“She had a sleepover last night.”
“Big girl,” Colin said. He told Moira she looked pretty. “Back by eight,” he said to Elm.
She nodded. When she closed the door on them, she burst into tears.
At work on Wednesday she sat in her office playing solitaire. Her phone didn’t ring, and her e-mail box contained nothing of urgency. She called Colin. He didn’t answer, and she didn’t leave a message. Instead she texted him: “Pls talk.”
An agonizing hour passed while she stared at her phone, stubborn in its silence. Then: “Thurs ok?”
She texted back, “Shd I get sitter?”
“No. After M goes to bed,” he said. “I’ll tuck her.”
By midafternoon, when no one sent her an e-mail, called her, or stopped by, Elm knew the article in the paper must have circulated. The hall outside her office was deserted. If it weren’t for the beeping of the receptionist’s phone and the elevator chime, she might have thought she was the only one in the building.
She had to explain to Wania what was happening. The nanny wouldn’t be content with the business trip story, so Elm said they’d had a large fight. She saw Wania’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Mr. Colin gone then, ya? Him a dogheart.”
Elm couldn’t decide if she should pack him a suitcase, to show respect for his need for space, or whether that would show indifference to his leaving, even encouragement. She stood in the center of her bedroom, looking at a sock he had thrown toward the hamper, missing but not bothering to retrieve it. What if it never moved, what if it stayed there forever?
Whatever kind of heart Colin’s was, she had broken it. He came over on Thursday with Thai food, making Moira yelp with glee. Again Elm marveled at her willingness to be cheered. She wished that every hurt could be wiped away by takeout. If that were so, she’d already banked a thousand dinners of forgiveness.
Elm and Colin barely looked at each other, staring instead at their plates or at their daughter, who was animatedly telling the story of something unfair that happened on the playground. While Colin bathed her and got her ready for bed, Elm cleaned up. She put the leftovers in the fridge. Maybe Colin would want to take them to wherever he was living.
The noises ceased in Moira’s room. She wondered fleetingly if Colin had kidnapped her, sneaking out through the window. Pregnant delusions; they lived on the twelfth floor. A half hour later, Colin came into the living room, rubbing his eyes. He’d fallen asleep.
He headed toward her stomach before he remembered, and instead sat down on the opposite side of the sofa.
“It’s okay,” Elm said. “It’s the same baby as it was before. It’s still ours.”
Colin sighed and rubbed his eyes again, trying to stop the tears, which brimmed anyway.
“I just … I can’t believe you.”
Elm said nothing.
“I keep waiting for you to tell me this is all a joke, that you’re kidding and ha, isn’t it funny?”
“Right now I wish it were.”
“I just keep coming back to, how could you?”
“I wanted him back.” Elm burst into tears. “I want him back so badly …”
Colin waited for her to calm down. “We both want him back, Elm, but he’s gone.”
“He won’t be gone anymore.”
“Goddammit, Elm.” Colin stood up. Even angry, he spoke in a stage whisper so as not to wake Moira. “This”—he pointed at her stomach—“is not Ronan.”
“It’s his exact DNA,” Elm protested, cradling herself.
“But it’s not him, it won’t be, and to pretend is just … cruel.”
“He’ll look like him, exactly,” Elm said. “And we have another chance. This time, we won’t let him fall off the changing table and split his lip. We’ll know to buy two of those bunnies he likes so when he loses one we’ll have a backup.”
“That won’t make him Ronan.”
“He won’t have to go to my mom’s funeral. We w
on’t go to Thailand. You won’t let him out of your sight so that a wave can sweep him away.”
“So that’s what this is.” Colin’s whisper grew loud. “You can’t forgive me for losing him.”
“I do. I mean, I try.” Elm’s tears were less urgent now, more painful.
“I have.”
“No, you haven’t. I haven’t forgiven myself completely either.”
Elm shook her head. “It’s my fault too.”
“You can’t forgive me,” Colin said. “You can’t trust me. We’re done.”
“No,” Elm said calmly. “That’s not true.”
“And now you’ve done a thing I can’t forgive you for.”
“So we’re even,” Elm pleaded.
“That’s not how this works. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Two wrongs just prove it’s wrong.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Elm, you’ve done something unforgivable. With volition. It’s disgusting. It’s immoral.”
“It’s immoral?”
“We don’t get to decide what children we have, or what children get taken from us. I wanted a baby, not a science experiment.”
“So now you’re all religious.”
“It’s not religion, it’s just morality, which I thought you had. My old wife had a moral compass. My old wife wouldn’t embezzle funds to implant something illegal and lie to her husband about it.”
“I was desperate.”
“I can see that.”
There was a silence that may have lasted a half hour. Elm could hear every beat of her heart, every beat of the baby’s heart. She could feel the blood rushing through her, the volume of it increased because the baby needed it too. She felt her hands tremble. She was frightened. Terrified.
“I want to go back to Ireland,” Colin said finally. “And I want to take Moira.”
Elm pursed her lips. “That’s not a good idea,” she said. “I can’t travel anymore.”
“Not you.” Colin stressed the last word so that Elm felt the sting of it. “Me and Moira.”
“You can’t just take her from me.”
“I refuse”—he paused—“to subject her to another brother who is going to die. I refuse to do that to her.”
“I won’t let you. That’s kidnapping.”
“I don’t think a judge would disagree with me when I tell him what you’ve done.”
“Oh, so now you’re blackmailing me?”
“You don’t leave me a choice.”
“You sound like a movie,” Elm said. “It’s not that hard. Please come back home, please. I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. I need you, I need help with our baby. I love you.”
Colin appeared to be considering this, shaking his head lightly. “I’ve put out feelers for a job back home. There are a couple that look promising. ”
“And where will I be in this scenario?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can be in hell,” Colin snapped. “I’m renting an apartment and Moira is coming to live with me in the meantime.”
Elm was tired. She couldn’t argue with him. He would just get angrier. “Fine,” she said. “I want to see her, though.”
“You can take her for dinner.”
“I can’t believe it’s coming to this,” Elm said, surveying the room.
“This is something you did,” Colin said. “Remember that. This is not a tsunami, or a fact of nature. This is something you did to us, to me.”
“For us,” Elm whispered. Colin must have heard but he didn’t take the bait.
“I’ll have a lawyer be in touch. We should get all this in writing.”
The air left Elm’s lungs. She sank into the couch, without the breath for a response.
Colin went to the refrigerator and removed the boxes of Thai food. Then he draped his jacket over his arm and walked out, closing the door forcefully behind him. A few seconds later, Elm heard the elevator ding its arrival and then the doors whooshed closed and she knew he was gone.
Regret was not a strong enough word to describe Elm’s feelings the next morning. She was sure Moira had heard them fighting. The little girl ran all the way to school, just to be away from her. Elm called in a personal day at work, understanding that she was giving everyone free rein to gossip about her.
She went into Moira’s room to pack her a suitcase. How was it possible that she’d given away her daughter? She replayed the events of the previous evening. She had been expecting Colin to come home, that the sight of her pregnant with their child (with Ronan!) would tug at him in some irresistible way. She wasn’t sure when it was that she had started being so horribly, horribly wrong about everything. She used to have good judgment, or at least, judgment that was not any worse than anyone else’s. And now she was so mistaken all the time.
But really, what choice did she have? If Colin was ever going to forgive her, she would have to be as conciliatory as possible. Maybe she didn’t deserve to see Moira.
Wania had left Moira’s stuffed animals in a row; a dozen googly eyes stared at her like a jury. She opened Moira’s closet. They had kept a few of Ronan’s things, his favorite Yankees jacket, a suit he wore only once that Elm had never been able to give away, even when she finally got rid of his Simpsons T-shirt and his Lego collection. Maybe it reminded her of what he would have been if he’d lived, grown up to wear a suit to important occasions. Or maybe she was hoping against hope that his body would be found, that they could bury him. In any event, it hung there, limp, in Moira’s closet.
What had been her plan, she wondered, for re-creating Ronan? She knew she couldn’t literally replace her son, but she had been hoping that just seeing him would ease the cramp of missing him.
It was best not to fight Colin now; she didn’t have the strength. But when she thought about packing up her daughter’s life, it seemed so unfair. Poor kid, she’d have to move and lose a parent at the same time? Colin should stay in the apartment; Elm should move out. Maybe she wanted to punish herself, she admitted. But she also thought that a few generous gestures might soften Colin slightly.
She went back into her room to pack her own suitcase. The baby gave her a nudge. She felt worse now than she did in the first few weeks after she returned from Thailand. Then she had felt confused by grief. Days would slide by and then minutes dragged on for eternity. Now she had a clear view of the ways in which she was affecting the world. As much as she wanted to turn back time and redo the moments just before the wave hit, now she wanted to go back before the implantation, before that stupid party that gave her the idea, to go back to simply missing Ronan instead of plotting to resurrect him. He was just a kid. How had he become her messiah?
What struck her most was the unreasonable quiet. She had grown up in Manhattan; the sirens and the thuds of people living on all sides of her, their muffled sneezes through the bathroom vent, the slam of their doors when they came home, all were part of what Elm considered normal. Yet now she was living in a brand-new high-rise corporate residence, double-paned windows that didn’t open and soundproofed walls and ceilings. She was so high up even the sunlight filtered through in an alien way, the strange glass reflecting its light into small particles that reassembled themselves to look like light, but were somehow different.
She could see her building from the window. Her own apartment was on the back side, so she couldn’t see into it, but she had the strange sensation of watching herself from above, living in an establishing shot for a movie. When she called Moira in the evenings, she pretended to her that she could see into her room.
Moira had taken the news that Mommy was going to live down the block with her usual nonchalance. It was unclear whether she understood that her father thought this was likely to be a permanent arrangement, but they had agreed, for everyone’s sake, to make it seem related to the birth of the baby. Moira made paper clothes for the child, and often brought home cards she’d drawn in school, her unadulterated excitement in sharp contrast to Elm’s trepidation.
The o
il painting arrived at her new apartment. It was large, two feet by four feet, and Elm took a deep breath before she opened it. It was lacking in any artistry, but the painter, whoever it was, had captured something about Ronan’s eyes, the sparkle, from the school picture. Elm found it comforting, and instead of draping it back in the butcher paper, she leaned it against the wall, face out, where she stared at it for hours.
After work each day she went directly to her corporate apartment, resting until dinner. Twice a week she walked the couple of blocks to her home (she still considered it hers; it was still the place she lived, in her mind). Colin, now free during the day, made dinner, appallingly bad renditions of recipes from Rachel Ray’s 30-Minute Meals. Elm had little desire to eat anyway. She forked the food around her plate, attempting small talk.
And then she went back to her aerie and watched Lifetime television until she fell asleep. Often the television was still on in the morning, playing older and older dramas, so that she got out of bed to the hysteria of Pia Zadora in bad eighties hair escaping abusive men who looked like they were auditioning for heavy metal bands. Had Elm worn her hair like that? Probably. She could consult her pictures, except that they were at the other apartment. She had brought only two frames with her. One picture was from last Christmas, the three of them smiling on the couch. The other was the last photo of Ronan. She wished Colin had centered the picture better. Instead, Ronan’s head was a little to the right, and the prow of a longboat seemed to poke him in the back. This was often the last image she beheld before curling up on her side and closing her eyes. Oddly, she slept dreamlessly, peacefully.
It was not surprising that Greer wanted to speak with her. What was surprising was that he suggested they meet in her apartment. Apparently, he wanted to keep Elm’s situation quiet.
She had never seen him anything but placid and composed, but as she opened her door, his face was flushed. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, then thought better of it.
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