by Luanne Rice
Her cake was on the seat beside her. It wasn’t bad, considering she didn’t have many baking things with her. She ran the Calamity Bakery, just a tiny hole in the wall under the High Line, the abandoned railroad bed, on Tenth Avenue. Through word of mouth, her business had grown, and she baked cakes to celebrate screenings, premieres, Tony and Grammy awards, book parties, art openings.
Her name was well known in Chelsea, TriBeCa, Gramercy Park. Her answering machine was constantly full; it was even now, when her outgoing message said she was visiting her mother and was sorry for all the wonderful celebrations she’d be missing and that everyone should call Chelsea Bakers till she returned.
Arriving at the school, Sylvie pulled up in front. The two girls helped their mother out of the car. She seemed steadier tonight than she had since Jane’s arrival. While Sylvie parked, Jane supported her mother as she walked inside.
The cafeteria brought back a flood of high school memories. The cinder-block walls, direct from the cold war, were painted pale yellow; the floor was industrial-strength gray linoleum. The stainless steel serving counter was loaded with casseroles, stews, salads, and sandwiches. Rectangular tables were lined up in three long rows, each surrounded by ten chairs. Many were already full with teachers and administrators, talking and laughing.
But suddenly people caught sight of Jane’s mother. The room went almost silent for a moment, and then there was a great swell of excitement—Jane heard it as real joy.
“Margaret!”
“Mrs. Porter!”
“Oh, it’s Margaret—look, she’s here!”
“Margaret, so good to see you looking so well!”
And she did look well—tall and elegant as always, dressed in a lavender silk dress with lace at the neck, gray hair swept up in a bun, wearing the long gold chain she always wore, dangling with a tiny crystal globe containing a mustard seed. Friends and colleagues surrounded her, kissing her cheek and shaking her hand, and wanting to meet Jane.
“My darling daughter, home from the big city,” Margaret said proudly.
“So nice to meet you . . .”
“We’ve heard so much about you.”
Jane nodded, smiling. She wondered: What had they heard? She had never accompanied her mother to one of these before; since leaving Rhode Island at twenty, she had hardly looked back.
She glanced across the room and saw her old English teacher. He had the same craggy face and briar-eyebrows, and he was gazing at her with the same reproach she’d seen in his eyes when she’d told him she was leaving Brown—after all he’d done to help her get in—in order to have the baby. Jane was thirty-five now, and sixteen years had passed since those days, but she felt a wave of shame all the same.
“Hi, Mr. Romney,” she said, leaving her mother to a circle of teachers as he walked over.
“My prize student,” he said. “Jane Porter.”
She blushed, hands deep in the pocket of her jacket.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m well, thank you. And you?”
“I’m fine. You look exactly the same.”
“Which means I’ve always looked old. Hmm. Well, tell me, what marvelous things have you done with your life? Written poetry for some experimental literary journal? Or perhaps a play, reaching for the very limits of human emotional experience?” he asked, his voice rising and falling in that old, familiar dramatic way, as if he should have been on the stage instead of before a classroom.
“I dropped out of college,” she reminded him, trying not to sound too apologetic.
“Sometimes the most creative people do,” he said. “Academia can’t contain some of the biggest talents.”
She smiled, lowering her gaze.
“Seriously, Jane, how has life been for you?”
“Good, Mr. Romney. I’ve got my own company in New York City—I’m a baker.”
“A . . . baker?” he asked. “That surprises me. You always loved words so much.”
“I bake cakes for lots of writers, actors, directors . . .”
“So you surround yourself with literary people.”
“Yes,” she said.
Just then Sylvie walked in, carrying the cake. No sooner had she entered the room than a portly man—balding, tweed jacket, leather elbow patches—sprinted to the door to help her. Together they bore the cake to the table, just a few feet away from Jane and Mr. Romney.
“I didn’t even know you’d be here,” Jane said, smiling, following her teacher’s gaze to the confectionary replica she’d made of Webster’s Second. It appeared so realistic, right down to the tattered cover and faded gold letters, that someone might be inspired to try looking up a word. Mr. Romney beamed.
“Well, if you did, you couldn’t have made me happier. You still love words, Jane Porter. I always think I’ll open my New Yorker one day and see a poem or story by you.”
“I don’t write anymore,” she said.
Mr. Romney looked at her sadly, as if he was seeing the ghost of her talent. He smiled, shaking his head. “I can’t believe that,” he said. “And I won’t. You can’t take an old teacher’s dreams away that easily. I have to pick up my New Yorker every week and still hope, one day, to find you there.”
Jane opened her mouth, to joke and tell him not to hold his breath, but she found she couldn’t quite speak. She was facing the door, and at that moment she saw Mrs. Virginia Chadwick entering the cafeteria, being pushed in a wheelchair by a younger man. Mrs. Chadwick got a similar reception to Jane’s mother—the teachers were thrilled to see her.
“Ah, another beloved teacher,” Mr. Romney said. “Just like your mother. Fragile and beloved.”
Jane barely heard; she was too busy staring.
The man had a beard and intense green eyes; he looked about ten years older than Jane. He wore jeans and a black wool sweater and everything about him said he didn’t want to stand out, didn’t even want to be seen. He hung back, letting Mrs. Chadwick—obviously his mother—be pushed over to the table by her fellow teachers.
He was the man Jane had seen standing in Chloe’s orchard.
“Jane,” Sylvie said, beaming, grabbing her sister’s hand. “I want you to meet my friend, John Dufour . . .”
“Hello, John,” Jane said. “It’s great to meet you.”
Sylvie said, “Hi, Alan,” and Jane eased away, leaving Sylvie and John and Mr. Romney to talk. She stood in the corner, her heart pounding hard. Mrs. Chadwick seemed to be scanning the room. Jane had never actually been introduced to her. She hadn’t taught at the same school where Margaret had been principal. Their eyes met and locked for a moment; not recognizing her, Mrs. Chadwick kept looking around. Perhaps for her son: he had disappeared.
Jane felt pity for the woman’s frail condition, the drooping left side of her face, the way her left arm fell into her lap. But her skin felt singed—her mother was on one side of the room and Mrs. Chadwick on the other: two ailing women, the architects of Jane’s life.
She walked outside into the fresh air.
The tall bearded man stood under a yellow light, smoking. Her heart caught. She pictured him standing in the orchard. Knowing there was no way he knew who she was—he was in his forties, a good ten years ahead of her in school; his mother hadn’t seen her standing with her mother, couldn’t have put it together and figured out her identity—Jane forced a smile, and moved toward him as if homing in on a beacon.
“I know you,” he said in a deep voice. “Don’t I?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“You look familiar.”
“Maybe. It’s Rhode Island.” She smiled wider at the inside reference to their small state.
He titled his head. “Emmylou,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“You like Emmylou Harris. I saw you driving by my orchard last week. You were playing ‘Wrecking Ball,’ loud.”
“You have a good memory,” she said, reddening.
“It’s a quiet road. We don
’t get much traffic.”
“So, what are you doing here?” she asked, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. He was either the man who had adopted Chloe or his brother, and she had to know.
“Being a dutiful son. My mother’s Ginny Chadwick. She hasn’t been feeling up to these things, but tonight she wanted to come. She’s been looking forward to it all week.”
“So, you’re not a teacher?” she asked, not biting on the name, waiting for him to say I’m an insurance agent.
“No.”
She nodded, waiting, gazing into his eyes. They were deep green, the color of a river, or of apple leaves, and dark and troubled. He wasn’t a placid man, that was for sure. She saw him scowl slightly, grind his cigarette under the toe of his boot.
“So, what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a farmer,” he said.
Chloe’s uncle. Jane stood still, and she felt a shiver go down her spine. Looking into his eyes was like looking in the mirror. She could see pain and loss there, and when she took a half step closer, she knew that what she was feeling was something apart from Chloe.
“How about you?” he asked. “What do you do?”
“I’m a baker,” she said.
He laughed. “Do you make apple tarts?”
“One of my specialties,” she said. “Why?”
“We’re reopening the family farm stand,” he said. “My niece was just saying we should sell apple tarts again.”
“Your niece,” Jane breathed, feeling every cell in her body go liquid.
“Yeah,” he said. Squinting, the bright yellow-orange schoolyard-crime-stopping light in his eyes, he stuck out his hand. “I’m Dylan Chadwick.”
“Jane Porter,” she said, catching her breath. She watched him for a reaction. Would he know her name? The adoption was supposed to be done in strictest confidence, with her name and family identity known only to his mother. Although handled by Catholic Charities, Jane knew the details had been arranged by her mother and his mother: one child not ready to raise a baby, another grieving over the inability to conceive, secrecy imperative to all.
“Nice to meet you, Jane.”
“You, too.”
“What are you doing here, by the way?” he asked, gesturing at the school.
“I’m here with my sister,” she said, thinking, This is my chance, this is my chance.
She stared up into his eyes. He frowned slightly, as if he recognized his niece in her gaze. She shivered, feeling a physical connection to her daughter.
“Your niece likes apple tarts,” she said.
“Yes. Chloe.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
He nodded, not offering up any reasons for why it had been chosen. She wondered whether he even knew. . . .
Jane reached into her pocket. She hoped he couldn’t see her hands trembling.
“It’s chilly, even for April,” Dylan said, mistaking the emotion for shivering.
“Yes, it is. But spring’s here,” Jane said. “It’s just going to keep getting warmer.”
He looked unconvinced. Glancing at the door, he asked, “You going back in?”
“In a minute,” she said.
Jane wanted him to say Chloe’s name again, to talk about her. But of course he wouldn’t.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“You, too.”
She shook his hand a second time. It was rough, very callused, the hand of a man who worked in an apple orchard. He held on, for just half a second longer than necessary. Again, she felt a non-Chloe-related shiver go down her back as she stared into his green eyes.
“See you inside?” he asked, and she nodded.
Watching him go back into the school, Jane didn’t dare follow. She couldn’t chance Virginia, or Dylan, seeing her with her mother and Sylvie. Instead, Jane went to the car.
No one locked doors around here. She climbed in back. It was dark, in this part of the parking lot. She curled up on the seat, pulling her leather jacket around her. It was smooth-grained, very soft, an expensive gift last year from an independent film producer for whom she had baked a cake featuring the movie’s title.
The spring air was as chilly as Dylan had said, but she hardly noticed. For so many years, she had felt a hole in her life. She couldn’t bear to name it, because there was nothing to be done about it. She had given up her child; there hadn’t been an alternative. It had made logical, perfect sense.
And it was so long ago now, over fifteen years, that it sometimes had the distance of a story, something she had read about. But right now, the memories flooded back. She remembered the day she had told her mother: Her hands were sweating, and she was dizzy with morning sickness.
And she remembered her mother’s tears and panic. She had cried because Jane would have to take an entire year off from Brown. She could stay at home until she began to show, and then she would have to go away. Margaret contacted the Sisters of Mercy at Salve Regina, and they arranged for Jane to go to the St. Joseph Retreat House in Bristol.
Jane remembered trying to look as small as possible, so she wouldn’t have to leave home. She dressed in baggy jeans and oversized shirts. When fall came, she was relieved: she could wear huge sweatshirts. One day, she looked down at her body in the bathtub, and her belly button had popped out. It was a shock. She felt so out of control of everything. She had huddled in the tub, sobbing.
When her mother walked in and found her, she’d put her arm around Jane’s naked shoulders and cried too. Jane had felt so embarrassed, but she’d needed her mother’s comfort. She’d heard Margaret making the call to Sister Celeste Marie. Sylvie was at Brown by then; Jane was glad she wasn’t there to hear it. A car was sent, and Jane went away. Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, but to Jane, it felt as if she had been transported to Siberia.
There were other unwed mothers there. They were all young, from many parts of the country. It was like a college, where the only curriculum was childbirth. After the babies were born, the women disappeared. Jane turned inward. To pay her way, she worked in the kitchen, making beautiful cakes. The baby growing inside her was her most constant company, and she grew more attached every day.
Her father’s actions had made Jane realistic about separation. She had avoided getting close to the other mothers—knowing they would all go their separate ways and never want to relive those months at St. Joseph’s. But she couldn’t avoid bonding tightly, so tightly, with her baby. Although the nuns told the girls to avoid thinking about naming, or holding, or playing with their children, Jane disobeyed. It was all she ever thought about.
Once she sneaked out.
She took bus fare from a cookie jar in the kitchen and walked out to the main road. When the Providence bus came, she climbed aboard. She took a window seat. The bus roared up the bay, through Barrington and East Providence, into Fox Point, and onto Providence’s East Side, and the Brown campus.
It stopped on Thayer Street. Jane pressed her palm against the cold window. She was hungry for tea at Penguin’s, a movie at the Avon, poetry at Horace Mann, her carrel at the Rock. She was aching for Jeffrey. And her eyes filled with tears, at the idea of missing Brown, missing her chance to go to college with Sylvie.
“This is where your father goes to school,” she whispered to the baby, hand on her protruding belly. “This is where we met, and where you came into being . . .”
As the bus turned onto Angell Street, she caught a glimpse of Jeffrey. He was walking along, all alone, his backpack slung over one shoulder. Jane stared at him. He was lost in thought. She wondered whether he was thinking of her; but she didn’t think so.
She and the baby were alone. He had wanted it that way.
When she returned to St. Joseph’s, she was met by disapproving nuns. They prohibited her from baking cakes the rest of her time there. They wanted her to learn her lesson: She had made one big mistake, and she had to learn not to make any more.
She had to learn sense. There was such a thin
g as leaving well enough alone.
But sometimes even the best sense left a person feeling crazy. Jane had done the right thing, and it had left her half out of her mind. Every fifteen-year-old girl she saw made her think of her daughter. She was haunted by the truth—of what she had done, and of the girl she wasn’t allowed to know. But she had to know her. Somehow, Jane knew she’d die if she didn’t. This trip home to Rhode Island had been a long time coming.
And she had just met Dylan Chadwick and talked with him about his niece. His niece, Chloe.
And Jane, alone in the dark car, said her name now: “Chloe,” she whispered, holding herself. “Chloe.”
CHAPTER 7
Maybe it was going to the high school and running into Mr. Romney that sent Jane spinning back through time. Or perhaps it was meeting Chloe’s uncle, hearing her name spoken so freely, making her seem so real.
Sometimes Jane wondered whether the whole thing was a dream. Whether she had ever actually been pregnant, had a daughter at all. It had happened so long ago. And that was how she thought of it: as if it had happened. As if an event had come to pass, one that Jane had had almost no control over. Her life had been taken over. . . .
But she had had some control. There had been so much love. She couldn’t deny that, no matter how convenient it would be to brush it under the rug. She had loved the boy. Chloe’s father. She had loved the baby growing inside her. And she had even, mixed in with hate, loved her mother for wanting the best for her.
At night, asleep in her old room, she dreamed of the past. She dreamed of her first love. His name was Jeffrey Hayden. He had curly brown hair and worried eyes. She loved him from the first day she saw him, early September, freshman year at Brown. Both loaded down with books, they bumped into each other on the steps of Horace Mann, on their way in to meet their English professors.
They actually cracked foreheads, and all their books fell in a heap. Jane saw stars. Jeffrey knelt beside her, touching her eyebrow.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, are you?”
“No, because you’re bleeding . . .”
She laughed. “I’m bleeding, and you’re not okay?”