Then Came You

by Jennifer Weiner

  “I think that this baby is going to have a lot of mothers.”

  A line between her eyes deepened as she frowned.

  “Come upstairs,” I said, walking back into the lobby, giving Ricky a wave and punching the button for the elevator.

  She stood behind me silently as we ascended and, without a word, followed me into the apartment, then down the hall. Rory was just starting to wake up, kicking her legs, curling and uncurling her fingers and her toes as she wriggled around. India froze in her tracks about three feet from the crib, making a noise like she’d been hit. “Oh,” she said. Her mouth was open, and I wondered what she was thinking of: my father, or the baby she hadn’t had. “Can I…”

  “Fine.”

  She reached into the crib and gently lifted Rory into her arms. “Hi, baby,” she whispered. “Hi, little baby. I came back for you.”

  “Watch her head,” I said pointlessly. India had Rory’s head tucked into the crook of her elbow, and she was doing Annie’s little bouncing move, like she’d been born knowing it, born with that baby in her arms. I sighed, feeling the strangest mix of sorrow and relief, and I worried, for a minute, that maybe I’d start crying, too. But I had a future, my whole life ahead of me, babies of my own, if I wanted them.

  She looked at me, eyes brimming, above Rory’s head. Her bald spot was gone, and in its place was a thick tuft of glossy dark hair, the same hair as my brothers, and my dad. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I could have said something snotty, like Whatever, or It wasn’t like you had a choice. But she seemed at once so broken and so happy, standing in the room she’d decorated with the baby in her arms. . and so all I said was “You’re welcome.”

  2017

  I waited by the doorway outside the primary school with the rest of the first-grade moms and sitters and the single stay-at-home dad, making small talk until the bell rang and the six-year-olds, all pleated skirts and scabby knees and oversized backpacks, came racing out into the sunshine.

  “Rory! Over here!” She squinted, then her face broke into a smile as she ran toward me. Her dark-brown hair had come out of its ponytail and hung in ringlets around her cheeks, and her elfin face wore its usual merry expression. It always surprised me, how I felt when I saw her, how I loved her more than I’d thought it was possible to love anyone.

  She pulled up right at my side, out of breath, and shoved a folded piece of paper into my hand. “We have to do a family tree.”

  I took the paper, examining it.

  “See. Look.” Rory snatched back the assignment, pointing at the lines that were connected to the tree trunk. “You have to put your mother and your father and your grandmother and grandfather and brothers and sisters if you’ve got them.” She paused for a breath. “Do you know Sophie has two brothers and two sisters?” Her tone suggested that she could barely imagine such riches.

  “I do know that.” I also knew that Sophie’s parents had conceived both sets of twins with the help of donor insemination and all four children had been carried by two different surrogates at the same time. Maybe Rory’s tale wouldn’t be the only strange one in the class.

  My daughter slipped her hand into mine, and we started the routines of our walk home. “Candy treat?” she asked as we passed the drugstore, and I said, “Okay.”

  We went through the drugstore’s automatic doors — when she’d been little, Rory had loved to hop back and forth over the threshold, determining just how far inside she’d have to be to get the doors to work — and selected a bag of M&M’s. Rory counted each coin carefully before sliding it across the counter, then skipped home along the sidewalk, singing to herself, with the candy rattling in her pocket. Upstairs, in the apartment that Marcus had left me, along with more money than I could ever hope to spend, Rory sat at the kitchen table, sorting the M&M’s by color, lining them up in rows, then eating them one at a time, first brown, then yellow, then red, then blue, and then, finally, the green ones. She practiced her recorder for ten minutes, then looked at the schedule taped to the stainless-steel refrigerator. Wednesday was her recorder lesson; on Fridays, she had tumbling. On Sunday afternoons, Jules and Kimmie came over to spend the afternoon and take her out for dinner (these days, she favored sushi). Jules and Kimmie were married now. They’d had a sunset ceremony on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard and were talking about having a baby of their own. Kimmie was doing research for a pharmacology company, and Jules had left the world of finance, gone back to school for a journalism degree, and gotten what she laughingly called the last job as an investigative reporter at the last magazine left in New York.

  On Mondays and Wednesdays, Bettina came over after work for dinner, and once a month she hosted Rory at her apartment downtown. She’d gone back to work at Kohler’s and was still dating Darren, and, while I didn’t think the two of us would ever be best friends, we enjoyed each other’s company well enough when Rory brought us together.

  Once a month, Rory and I made the trip to Phoenixville, where Rory would spend the weekend with Annie and Frank and Frank Junior and Spencer, who doted on her, introducing her as their sister and treating her like a doll. Like Jules, Annie had gone back to school. In another year she’d have her bachelor’s degree, and then she’d apply for teaching jobs in the same school system her boys attended.

  Sometimes I worried it was confusing — all these people, all these different places, different expectations, different rules — but Rory seemed to manage it all with aplomb. She was a natural negotiator, knowing, intuitively, how to get along and play well with others. In that — in so many ways, in little gestures, in the shape of her feet and her fingers, in the way she’d press her lips together, humming while she thought — she reminded me of her father.

  “Homework,” I said, and she ran to her room. The nursery had been all pale pink and green when she’d been a baby, before her true nature had revealed itself. Rory wasn’t a pink-bedroom girl, although, like all her peers, she’d undergone a brief but fervent infatuation with the Disney princesses. Now her space was outfitted with an oversize desk that held footlong plastic bins in which Rory stored her Legos, her snap circuit kit, the collection of old cell phones and calculators she’d taken apart, and plastic bins full of laboriously printed and drawn plans labeled EXPERIMINTS AND INVENSHUNS.

  We still lived in the apartment in the San Giacomo, but I’d sold the bottom floor, which meant we’d been reduced — quote-unquote — to just four bedrooms: one for me, one for Rory, and two guest suites with their own bathrooms for whoever came to stay, Bettina and Darren, Annie and Frank and their boys. I’d given a lot of the art away to museums and let go of most of the staff, although I still had someone to clean, and to cook when I entertained. I’d gone back to work part-time, and I volunteered at Rory’s school, organizing fund-raising events and the annual Book and Bake Sale, raising money for the new library and the class trips to Portugual and Spain that Rory would take as an eighth-grader. I’d even made two friends, other mothers with kids in Rory’s class, one married, one single. I’d thought about dating, but hadn’t yet. Secretly, I suspected that that part of my life was over. I’d had my big love, and now, at forty-eight (although my friends told me I didn’t look a day over forty), I had memories, friends, a weird kind of family, and a daughter I loved with all my heart. . and, surely, there were worse things than that.

  Rory came dashing back into the room in her favorite sparkly T-shirt (white, long-sleeved, with a sequined heart on the chest) and a pair of navy-blue Columbia sweatpants that Kimmie had given her. We sat in the kitchen, the room where Rory and I spent most of our time together. I’d moved one of the Persian rugs from the apartment I’d sold into one of the kitchen’s corners and bought a round table and four chairs, and moved my laptop from the desk in the dressing room onto the kitchen counter. Rory would do her homework at one end of the table; I’d sit, with my laptop, at the opposite end, where I would look up recipes or send out notices about fund-raisers and committee meetings, an
d e-mail pictures to Annie.

  Rory smoothed the page on the table. She’d written her name in big capital letters in the center of the tree trunk.

  “You know the story, right?”

  She gave a theatrical sigh — I wasn’t sure who she’d picked that up from — and then began. “Once upon a time there was a mommy with no baby, and she wanted a baby more than anything else in the world.”

  “Right you are.” This was a bit of revisionist history, but Annie was the one who’d come up with this story, the mythology of Rory’s essential beginnings, and I’d never tried to change it.

  “So the mommy and the daddy found a lady to give them a seed that would become a baby, and that lady was Jules. Then the seed got planted in another lady, and that lady was my tummy mommy, and that lady was Annie.” She peered at her paper. “Where do I put ‘tummy mommy’?”

  “Hmm. Why don’t we write her right next to the tree trunk.” I tapped the paper. Rory frowned. She believed in rules and could be inflexible when it came to doing things the right way, but she let me help her write “Annie” just above her own name. I wondered again why the teachers had made this assignment, why they’d sent the kids home with a family tree with spaces for mother and father but no room for alternate configurations, when, in addition to the twins-by-surrogate, at least two kids in Rory’s class had two mommies, one had two daddies, and one little girl in the second grade had parents who’d divorced their spouses and married each other, which surely made for some awkward parent-teacher conferences.

  “And then my daddy died and went to heaven, where he watches over me every day.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard, pointing at the spot for “father.” Annie, the most religious of us, had told Rory about Marcus, and about heaven, and I hadn’t quarreled.

  “And then I was born and the mommy was sooo happy to have me, and when I got my name everyone came to give me gifts, like in the story of the princess in Sleeping Beauty. Only people, not fairies.” She waited for my nod. “Bettina gave me grace. Jules gave me. .” She chewed at her lower lip. “What’s the fancy word for smart?”

  “Intelligence?”

  “Right. And Annie made me happy and smiley and friendly, and you are my mom, and you give me the gift of love, and that,” she concluded, her voice rising in triumph, “that is why you named me Aurora.”

  “Right,” I said, and gathered her into my arms. Bettina had been the one who’d named her, maybe knowing, or maybe just hoping, that all of us would be there for this child, like the good fairies who’d gathered around Sleeping Beauty’s crib to give her the best gifts they had. Someday, I’d tell her that, the whole story, how I’d left after her father had died and how her sister had been the one to name her. I gave her a kiss. For a moment, she resisted — she was growing up, “not a baby,” as she reminded me all the time, and she was getting too old to want to snuggle the way she used to — but at least once a day she’d let me hold her. “And we all love you. .”

  “… very, very much.” Her voice was muffled, her face tucked into my shoulder. When she popped out, her eyes were bright, and she was smiling, exposing the space where she’d lost her first tooth the week before. “TV now?”

  “TV,” I said, and watched her go, running off, barefoot in her sweatpants, because Rory was a girl who never walked when she could run. She had her father’s broad face and round cheeks, her sister Bettina’s thick hair, Jules’s fierce intellect and unwavering sense of right and wrong, and Annie’s sweetness and generosity. She had the best of all of us, and, as for me, I had a life that was happier than I could have imagined.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to my brilliant agent, Joanna Pulcini, and my unflappable editor, Greer Hendricks, for ten years of support, camaraderie, and fun.

  I’m grateful to Joanna’s assistant, Katherine Hennes, Greer’s assistant, Sarah Cantin, and my assistant, the smart, funny, and eternally cheerful Meghan Burnett.

  Carolyn Reidy, queen of Simon & Schuster, and Judith Curr, the publisher of Atria Books, are the best advocates and supporters that any writer could wish for. My thanks also to everyone on the Atria team: Chris Lloreda, Lisa Sciambra, Natalie White, Craig Dean, Lisa Keim, Hilary Tisman, Jeanne Lee, and Anna Dorfman, who gave Then Came You such a beautiful cover. Copy-editor Nancy Inglis keeps me honest (and grammatical).

  Across the pond, I am grateful for the efforts of Suzanne Baboneau, Ian Chapman, Jessica Leeke, and Nigel Stoneman at Simon & Schuster UK.

  Jessica Bartolo at Greater Talent Network makes my speaking engagements a joy. Marcy Engelman, Dana Gidney Fetaya, and Emily Gambir do an amazing job of telling the world about my books, whether the world wants to hear or not, and getting me in magazines and on talk shows, whether I belong there or not.

  This is the first year I’ve balanced novel-writing with show-running, so I’m grateful to the writers and the stars of ABC Family’s State of Georgia for their patience with a TV newbie. Thanks to Jeff Greenstein, who dreamed up Georgia with me, to Kirk Rudell, Hayes Jackson, Greg Schaffer, Regina Hicks, Annabel Oakes, Frank Pines, T. J. Johnson, Eric Buchman, and Melissa Oren for making me laugh every day, and to Loretta Devine, Majandra Delfino, and Raven-Symoné for bringing my words to life.

  On the home front, my writing life wouldn’t be possible without the love and support of my friends and family. I’m grateful to Terri Gottlieb, who watches my daughters while I write, and to Lucy Jane and Phoebe Pearl for sharing me with my imaginary friends.

  Most of all, thanks to everyone who reads my books, and my tweets, and my Facebook feed. None of this would be possible without you.

  Reading Group Guide

  Questions & Topics for Discussion

  1. Discuss the different mothers that make up Then Came You. How does the behavior of these women directly affect their children?

  2. India, Annie, and Jules are all motivated, to a large degree, by financial gain. How did this affect your feelings towards them? Were some of their motivations more acceptable to you than others?

  3. When visiting her father in Pittsburgh, Jules comments, “ I don’t make excuses. I know what he’s doing is illegal. I know that he’s a drain on taxpayers’ resources, that people who work hard at their jobs are the ones paying for his apartment and his food, for the cops that bust him and the counselors who hand him pamphlets about AA and methadone…But he’s my father…and I don’t believe that it’s his fault. It’s not like he’s lazy, some privileged rich kid trying to escape from some imaginary heartache or chasing some feel-good high. He takes drugs so that he can feel something close to normal.”Do you agree with Jules’ assessment? How do you view addiction?

  4. Surrogacy is a hot-button topic, and many on both ends of the political spectrum take issue with it. Corinne and Nancy are examples of each, and voice two different, opposing views to surrogacy. Locate their arguments within the text. Do you agree with either of these opinions? Where do you stand?

  5. The novel suggests several motivations for India wanting to have a child. In the end, why do you think this was important to her?

  6. Did Jules’ story, and the novel in general, change any of your perceptions of egg donation? Would you ever donate an egg? Do you think of egg donation differently than you do sperm donation? Why?

  7. Discuss Gabe and Annie’s relationship. What purpose do you think Gabe ultimately serves in Annie’s life?

  8. Early in her marriage, India remarks, “ What I was learning was that having was, strangely, less satisfying than wanting…that dreaming of all of this luxury was somehow better than actually possessing it.” Can you empathize with this sentiment? Do you think Annie would agree?

  9. Consider the different family structures portrayed in the book. What do you think Then Came Youis saying about families?

  10. Annie worries that Frank will feel he isn’t providing sufficiently for his family, if she decides to become a surrogate so that she can contribute to the family income. She also notices that Frank
is more likely to lose his temper around bill-paying time. Do you empathize with Frank here?

  11. If you were to use a surrogate and/or a donor egg to have a child, would you want either of these women to be involved in your life after the child was born? Why or why not?

  12. Weiner is masterful at describing physical settings. Locate some instances where an interior is described, and discuss what you learn about the people that inhabit that space from this description.

  13. Did your opinion of India change as the novel progressed? If so, what caused this shift?

  14. At their first meeting, Kate Klein says to Bettina, “I always tell my clients to be careful what they wish for.” Do you think Bettina made the right decision in choosing not to tell her father what she had learned of India’s past?

  15. Perception is an important, but often subtle theme of Then Came You.Discuss how each of the main characters wrestles with the way they are publicly perceived. In what ways do they each strive to control their image?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. Imagine that you are searching for a donor egg, and consider what you would look for in an ideal candidate. Would they share many of the qualities or attributes you recognize in yourself, or would you want them to possess others? You might also write down these characteristics (be as specific as possible) and share them as a group. Are there common qualities that you would all desire from a donor?2. Pretend that you are a casting director and that Then Came You is your latest project. Who would you cast to portray Annie, Jules, India, and Bettina? What about Frank, Kimmie, Darren, and Marcus?3. Before meeting with your group, read “Meet the Twiblings” by Melanie Thernstrom, a feature that ran in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Discuss how the issues that Ms. Thernstrom grapples with are handled within Then Came You.4. In the final scene of Then Came You we hear “the mythology of Rory’s essential beginnings.” Think about the kind of narrative that you were told to you as a child about your “beginnings”—and if you’re a parent, consider the narratives that you’ve crafted to tell your child. Share these with the group.