Only Ever You

by Rebecca Drake

  A series of bland questions lulled her. She relaxed a little. The leprechaun stared impassively at the computer screen, his voice even with every question. “Did you cut your fingers on broken glass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you hurt your daughter?”

  “No.” Jill startled and Andrew shifted. The leprechaun didn’t change expression, just kept asking questions.

  “Did you kill your daughter?”

  “No!”

  Finally it ended. Jill felt damp through her armpits and along her hairline. She looked at the leprechaun. “How did it go?”

  “Everything worked just fine,” he said, unhooking her from the equipment without really looking at her.

  “When will we know the results?” she asked, feeling again as if this were some doctor’s appointment, but Andrew had his hand under her arm, helping her to rise, and spoke before the leprechaun got a chance.

  “Let’s go, Jill, we’re done here.” He led her out of the room and she saw David coming down the hall with Ottilo. He looked washed out, the skin under his eyes dark and puffy, but he gave her a little smile and squeezed her hand.

  “You okay?” He kept his voice low.

  She nodded. “You?”

  He nodded, holding on to her as they waited at the front of the station for Andrew, who’d offered them a lift home. He pulled up in front of the station, honking his horn to clear a path. Jill and David ran the gauntlet of reporters.

  They had to get home soon. They were appearing on an upcoming segment on the Today show, the camera crew coming to their home for the shoot. Andrew had set it up; he’d said that they needed to get the national media “on your side.”

  “You make it sound like politics,” Jill had protested, “as if we’ve got to win some sort of popularity contest for the election.”

  “Oh, it’s worse than politics,” Andrew replied. “You can’t afford to lose.”

  Jill left the front seat of the car for David and climbed in the back, resting her head against the leather seat and closing her eyes, letting their conversation wash over her. Her stomach hurt, nausea rising like a storm. Andrew and David discussed polygraph testing, their inadmissibility in court, while she agonized over whether she’d passed. She could sense that she hadn’t done well, she just knew it, and what would that mean? She pictured Detective Finley’s face leaning across that table, thought of her prying questions. Jill hadn’t lied on the test, but she’d lied to her. Parenting was more stressful than the rest of life, much more stressful. She remembered the first few days at home with Sophia and how she’d jerk awake to that distinctive, high-pitched wailing, feeling like it pierced her skin. She remembered heating bottles of formula as fast as she could and of cradling Sophia in her arms and offering her the bottle and being amazed at those little hands reaching up to cup it even before she could really grab hold. And she remembered those eyes, Sophia’s dark blue baby eyes staring at her as she drank, an intent, unblinking stare that had left Jill trembling with the sudden realization that for this tiny human being she was the center of the universe.

  “Did you kill your daughter?” No, never. Unthinkable. Except she knew what it was like to be so tired that you couldn’t see straight, that you wanted to do anything to stop that endless crying, that you wanted nothing more than to catch a few more minutes of sleep. She knew what it was like to grit your teeth until they hurt with the effort not to lash out at a stubborn toddler. She knew the secret that most parents never uttered—that you didn’t fully understand child abuse until you’d had children of your own and when you heard stories about other parents harming their children you felt almost shaky with relief that it hadn’t been you.

  Andrew and David had moved on to discuss a case they were dealing with at the firm, and she marveled at David’s ability to compartmentalize. He’d always been good at switching between work and home. Much better than she’d ever been. If she’d had a fight with David or a difficult morning with Sophia, she carried the stress with her into the studio and sometimes she’d have to sequester herself in the darkroom for thirty minutes or more, doing some repetitive task until she could drive the sickening feeling of disagreement from her mind.

  How would she ever drive this from her mind? People were resilient, she knew that firsthand, but surely there was a limit, a moment beyond which nobody could fully recover? “Did you kill your daughter?”

  The bile rose quickly, like a rogue wave, and she sat upright, slapping the seat in front of her. “Stop the car.”

  “Jill? What’s wrong?” David’s head turned to look at her, but Andrew had already figured it out, jerking the car over to the side of the road and shuddering to a stop along the pebbles and grass. She struggled to open the door, the cold air rushing in at her face, and stumbled out, falling to her knees and heaving into the dry, sparse grass.

  Her stomach felt as if it was trying to turn itself inside out. She felt David’s hand on her shoulder, a solid, hot weight, but she couldn’t stop, the same horrible retching sound over and over, but there was nothing but bile and a thin, dark drizzle of coffee.

  “I don’t think she’s eaten,” David said to Andrew. “Do you have any water?”

  “Let me check.”

  She was aware of dirt underneath her hands, of gravel digging into her knees. Hair came loose from her ponytail and whipped about her eyes, which were already tearing.

  Andrew and David spoke above her, their words lost because she was heaving again, though there was nothing left to expel. David lifted his hand from her shoulder for a moment, stood, but then he came back, squatting next to her. “Here, drink this.” He handed her a bottle and she took a quick swallow, immediately gagging on the sugary taste.

  “Sorry, but all I had was an energy drink.” Andrew hovered behind her. The sudden trill of a phone made everyone jump and Andrew said, “I’ve got to take this—hold on.” It didn’t matter where they went; Andrew’s phone always had connectivity.

  “Any better?” David asked, rubbing his hand soothingly up and down her back. She nodded shakily, getting to her feet. David helped her stand and they heard Andrew’s voice rising.

  “When? Where did they find—” He’d turned from them, walking toward the hood of the car. Jill ducked into the backseat and fished tissue from her purse to wipe her mouth.

  “Better?” David said, but he wasn’t looking at her, but at Andrew, who paced back and forth several feet ahead on the road.

  Jill, wrung out and weak, discovered that fear had not been expelled with the contents of her stomach. The drawn look on Andrew’s face made her aware that it was still there, like a heavy layer of silt left at the bottom of a parched riverbed.

  “What?” she said. “What is it?”

  He snapped his phone shut, looking away for a moment, before finally meeting their gaze.

  “They’ve found a body.”

  chapter twenty-three

  DAY EIGHT

  “It isn’t confirmed,” Andrew said. “They don’t know if it’s Sophia.” He had to raise his voice to be heard above Jill’s cry. It came from somewhere deep inside her, a guttural, inhuman noise. “We have to go to the morgue,” Andrew continued, his face pale. “They need you to, well, to identify her.”

  Jill stared blankly out the car window, waiting for a traffic light to change. They were moving so slowly. It wasn’t confirmed, they didn’t know that it was Sophia. Images of her daughter cycled through her mind—Sophia rolling over, learning to walk, her first tooth, her first solid food, the first time Jill had held her in her arms. All of these images played, a photomontage Möbius strip. She couldn’t be dead; wouldn’t Jill feel it inside if her daughter had left her? She remembered what it had been like with Ethan, how she’d known something was wrong, how she’d had that feeling.

  The morgue was in the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, a long, two-story building on Penn Avenue with a few wooden picnic tables out front. Was that to make it seem cheery? They just
added to Jill’s surreal feeling. A patrolman waved Andrew into a fenced lot across the street, just as a police car, lights flashing, pulled up behind them. Detective Ottilo leapt out and came toward them. Jill stepped out of Andrew’s car, amazed that she could walk—she felt completely disconnected from her body, everything was numb.

  Ottilo fell into step with the three of them, grim-faced. “It hasn’t been confirmed,” he said. “We don’t know if this is Sophia.”

  Jill swallowed hard, managed to ask, “Why don’t they know if it’s her?”

  The detective hesitated, rubbing a hand over his face. “The bod—the child was found in the river,” he said at last. “It’s hard to identify after a certain amount of … decomposition.”

  “My God!” Jill sagged, swaying like a puppet whose strings have been dropped. David caught her and together with Andrew, they supported her through the sliding doors and into the morgue. Quiet inside, the quiet of the dead, but strangely peaceful, too, like a church or temple. Across a tiled floor, a guard sat at a wooden desk. He paged the medical examiner and indicated some padded benches. Jill took a seat and then David began to hyperventilate and sank down next to her, dropping his head between his legs for a few minutes, struggling to breathe normally.

  The medical examiner looked like an aging hipster, with a carefully knotted bow tie peeking out at the top of his lab coat, carefully groomed beard, and square, black rimmed reading glasses. He talked quietly with Ottilo off to the side for a moment before coming over to them. “Does your daughter have any birthmarks or moles?” he asked in a solemn voice. “Or any other identifying marks?”

  “She has a birthmark on the back of her knee, a tiny café-au-lait spot,” Jill said. “And she has a few red splotches at the base of her hairline.” She raised her own hand to her neck to show where. “Little red marks—they call it stork bite.”

  “Anything else? What about her teeth?”

  “Teeth?” David asked. His face was a queer yellowish color, and Jill reached for his hand.

  “Does she have all her baby teeth?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jill said. “She hasn’t lost any teeth yet, she’s too little—” Her voice broke on the last word and she raised her hand to her mouth.

  “She has a little cowlick,” David said. “It’s a lot like mine, right here.” He pointed to his hairline, along the part, where the short blond hairs turned into a whorl pattern.

  Sophia did have one like that, in almost the same place. Jill hadn’t really thought of it before, beyond being grateful that they’d shared this in common because it helped David bond with his adopted daughter.

  “Can I do the identification?” Andrew asked.

  The medical examiner shook his head, looking regretful. He took his glasses off and rubbed them against his lab coat. “It must be a family member.”

  “I’ll do it.” David staggered to his feet. He said to Andrew, “Stay with Jill, okay?”

  Andrew immediately moved next to her on the bench, but Jill waved him away, getting to her feet. “No. I have to see her.”

  “I don’t recommend it,” the medical examiner said in his quiet voice. “She was in the water for many hours.” He reminded her of a priest, speaking slowly and reverentially.

  Ottilo said, “We don’t need both of you, Mrs. Lassiter—you don’t have to do this to yourself.”

  “I’m her mother; I have to see her.” She knew that she would never believe the answer if she didn’t see with her own eyes.

  The medical examiner looked at her intently for a moment and then nodded his head. “It’s this way.”

  Andrew came with them, trailing along behind as they followed the medical examiner down a long, painfully white corridor. The farther they got from the lobby the more it resembled a hospital rather than a church. There was a strong citrus smell, cleaning fluid or air freshener, probably supposed to mask the earthier smells of blood, death, and decay, but they were there underneath, fecund and frightening.

  The hall ended in double swinging doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The medical examiner pushed through and they followed, Ottilo, David, Jill, then Andrew. No one spoke, the only sound the occasional squeak and rhythmic click of shoes crossing tile floor. They were in a large, open, chilly room. On the left were rows of what looked like stainless steel refrigerator freezers. To the right a pockmarked woman wearing a lab coat sat reading a magazine at a small table. She stood up and at a nod from the medical examiner walked over to one of the drawers. Jill’s heart raced; the fluorescent lights above her seemed too bright. She clutched David’s hand.

  The drawer slid open like a filing cabinet and there, covered by a sheet, was an impossibly small body. Tears flooded Jill’s eyes. The morgue assistant stood at the side watching them and waiting, her jaw moving as if she were chewing gum.

  “Ready?” The medical examiner’s voice seemed to come from far away. Jill felt as if everything was blocked out except that single, slight bundle on the tray. How would she survive this? How would she go on if this small body were Sophia’s?

  David squeezed her hand and nodded at the morgue assistant. She peeled the sheet back slowly and Jill dug her nails into her other hand. Chalklike skin, so white, naked, fragile, all blue veins and odd marks and the pale hair slicked back from a tiny face that looked as if it had been smeared a little, the features blurred as if it were made of wax that had melted slightly. Jill leaned forward, staring hard at the little girl, but it was hard to make sense of this child that was no longer a child. She could hear her own panting. She said, “Turn her over. Can you turn her over?” Her voice higher than normal, not her voice, someone else’s. The morgue assistant carefully moved the body—so insubstantial, so easily shifted—and Jill and David searched the back, the hairline and that little, pale cavity behind the knee.

  All at once Jill sank to the floor, her legs giving way completely, tears pouring in a rush down her face, like standing under a shower. “It’s not her,” she cried, smiling up at David and the medical examiner through her tears. “It’s not her, it’s not Sophia.”

  chapter twenty-four

  JOURNAL—JUNE 2010

  No one raised an eyebrow at the hospital, but I was conscious of being the only woman giving birth alone. You said you couldn’t get away, but it’s clear that you aren’t one of those men who find pregnancy a turn-on. The last time you saw me I was seven months and huge and the look that flashed across your face was horror.

  Everyone has seen some depiction of the birth experience and knows what is supposed to happen: The doctor declares, “It’s a girl!” and the wriggling, impossibly tiny, remarkably monkey-like little form is put on the mother’s chest for her to hold. This didn’t happen. Someone cut the cord and immediately took our baby away.

  I’d pleaded with you to reconsider keeping the child. “No one needs to know. I won’t tell anyone that you’re the father.”

  “It would come out. Someone would notice eventually.”

  I had to ask a nurse weighing our child whether it was a boy or a girl. She answered me with her face turned away. I begged to hold her. The young nurse looked at the doctor. She looked uncomfortable. She said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea under the circumstances.” She meant the woman from the adoption agency standing quietly by the door with a car seat.

  You found the agency and arranged everything. That was after you found me a job at a crappy little firm in another county. “Lay low for a while,” you said. “Just until after the birth.”

  I’ve lived like a virtual hermit, seeing none of my old friends, commuting back and forth every day up until I went into labor, turning down the offers of my new coworkers to grab a drink after work. I didn’t even tell my family, per your advice. “Why get them excited about a grandchild they aren’t going to be allowed to see?”

  “Please,” I pleaded with the nurse. “Please let me hold her. Just for a moment.”

  They relented. They placed her in my arms, our little girl, an
d I touched her soft, silky head and counted each one of her impossibly small fingers and toes. I wanted so much to say it had all been a terrible mistake and I was taking her home, but I was exhausted and I couldn’t hold on when they came to take her out of my arms. I cried, tears sliding from my eyes and into my hair, and the doctor and nurses bustled around me pretending not to notice.

  I couldn’t hold on to her so I’m holding on to what you promised me the last time I saw you—that I should be able to come back to the firm next year. Along with that, I’ll also be coming back to you.

  chapter twenty-five

  DAY FOURTEEN

  The little girl who would not answer to Avery huddled on the couch staring at the TV screen, mouth hanging slightly open.

  “You could have killed her the other day,” Frank said, hovering over Bea as she started preparing dinner. “You almost smothered her.”

  “She’s fine.” They could have macaroni and cheese—what child didn’t like that? Her daughter used to love it and she’d loved TV too, staring at that dumb, glowing box that Bea had wanted to get rid of, but Frank insisted on keeping. She couldn’t get rid of this TV either; she needed to watch the news and it helped to have something besides Cosmo guaranteed to keep Avery entertained. She was watching a cartoon now, what looked like a kitchen sponge with arms and legs talking to a starfish wearing bathing trunks. Bea didn’t understand it.

  She walked back out to the living room, waving her hand in front of the screen, trying to break the little girl’s fixed concentration. “Avery. Avery, listen to me. Avery!”

  The snap made the child shift in her seat and Cosmo looked up from his bored vigil at her feet, but instead of looking over the little girl just hugged her toy dog more closely. Bea could tell from the set of her jaw that she was being purposely ignored.

  “Fine then, you’ll get what I want to make,” Bea said.

  She filled a pot of water at the sink. Frank said, “She’s afraid of you.”