“Come here, you. Man, she’s beautiful, Molly. I mean, I know most babies are cute, but this one, lady”—Jenny jabbed a finger in Dylan’s direction—“this one is a gem. Now, let me see my favorite goddaughter!”
“She’s your only goddaughter, if I remember correctly.” Molly smiled, unbuckling her daughter’s harness. She felt pretty tonight. She knew the dark circles remained under her eyes, and that she looked more tired, more subdued, than she ever had at one of these parties, but she felt all right. She felt good.
Jenny took Dylan from Molly and held her close to her chest, rocking the baby in her arms.
“Yes, but even if I had a hundwed wittle godchildren, you’d still be my favorite, sweet pea! Yes, you would!” Molly’s best friend regarded the small infant, warm and secure in her little terry-cloth onesie. Dylan didn’t make a sound. She just watched her godmother, her eyes moving over Jenny’s face, taking her in.
“Jenny,” Molly said, “thank you so much for having this again. The early party was such a great idea. Are there a lot of kids here?”
“Are you kidding me? Uh, yeah.” Jenny nodded her head toward the back of the condo. “A bunch of them are camped out in our bedroom upstairs, watching Toy Story 3.” She looked around. “Actually, I think that’s where Dan just went. I’m sure he just wanted the excuse to go watch the movie again.
“You know, though,” Jenny continued, adjusting Dylan, who’d begun to doze in her arms, “a party with kids is the only way we’d be able to see everybody, now that our friends are popping out babies like PEZ dispensers. Otherwise we’d be sitting here all by our lonesomes, and that’s not fun.”
Dan skipped down the last few steps of the carpeted staircase and headed over to the pair, smiling broadly, his spiky hair freshly gelled and sticking straight up from the top of his head.
“Okay, it looks like they’re just getting to the incinerator scene, so I stocked them up on tissues. I figure we have a solid half hour before we have to think of something else to keep them contained. In the meantime, Molly, we’ve got food out in the dining room. Can I get you something to drink? Johnnie Walker on the rocks, right?”
“Um, not tonight, Dan. Jenny, what are you drinking? You always inspire me.” Before her friend could answer her, Molly turned to Dan. “You know what? Surprise me. I’ll have what she’s having.”
Dan smiled at Molly with an expression she thought was weirdly mischievous. “Okay, then, Molly, since you’re playing it fast and loose tonight. One Jenny special, coming right up!”
Molly watched him pat Jenny on the lower back and wink at her. Jenny blushed red like Dan said she used to do in high school when he’d kiss her in the hallway, and they both watched him stroll back to the kitchen.
Jenny turned away to greet the friends who’d just entered the party, and Molly took a moment to look around. There were some groups of people she recognized, both from S&G and outside of it, mingling here and there. A few children played with quiet focus at a coffee table in the corner with some coloring books and cars. There were low flames flickering in the fireplace, strong enough to add ambience to the night, but far from being a danger to the fingertips of any curious toddlers. There were so many candles situated around the bookshelf tops and mantle they almost negated the need for the white lights that wove among them. Once again, Jenny had pulled off a stellar decorating job. The big Christmas tree in the corner and evergreen garlands placed here and there added to the mix to create a New Year’s Eve gathering that felt inviting and special, even if this particular party was taking on a familiar, comfortable mood that felt more mellow than party-hardy.
Jenny’s loud conversation had caused Dylan to fuss a little, and Molly took her daughter so that Jenny could finish her chat in peace. She smiled to hear the music wafting through the air and rocked the baby a little to the song’s persistent beat. Molly was very aware that she still hadn’t greeted a single other person in the room, but it didn’t bother her. It was still early. She had just arrived.
“Leave all your love and your longing behind,” she softly sang. “You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive . . .”
“Okay, here you are, ladies.” Dan approached with two short glasses in his hands, and Jenny turned to join her husband and Molly. She suddenly didn’t look so well. Her face was pale, and she kept swallowing like she was trying to keep down a bad bite of food. She took the glass from Dan and took a deep sip.
“Hey, Jenny, you okay?” Molly’s eyebrows were furrowed together with worry, a habit she’d picked up over the last few months.
Jenny glanced at Dan, then took another gulp of her drink, cringing. “I’ll be fine, Mol. Just a little stomach trouble. Once I get some food in me, I’ll be okay.”
She motioned toward Molly. “Come on, try Dan’s concoction. I’m anxious to hear what you think.”
Dan grinned as he handed Molly the glass. He kept looking at her, waiting for her to try the drink. Molly watched Jenny take another sip of the iced liquid. She hadn’t seen her friend drink this much since before she and Dan had started trying again for a baby.
“Mmm,” Jenny said theatrically. “Thanks, Dan. You always get it right, don’t you?”
Molly took a taste of her drink and instantly felt her nose wrinkle.
“But, Dan, this is water. I thought—” Molly looked at Jenny, then at her glass, and felt her mouth drop open. She thought for a second that she was going to lose her hold on Dylan, and grasped her tighter to her chest.
“Are you serious? You’re—?”
Jenny squealed, softly, and bounced up and down in a little dance in front of Molly. Dan threw his arm around his wife’s shoulders, drawing her in tight, and the both of them just stood in place together, watching Molly absorb the news, grinning like cartoon characters.
“It’s early, though,” Jenny was quick to say. “Super early. I just found out a couple of weeks ago.”
“A couple of weeks ago?! And you just told me now?”
Jenny bit her lip.
“Well, we wanted to wait for the right time. You know . . .” Molly could feel her face tighten up, and she swallowed, hard. “I mean, we wanted to surprise you. Don’t be angry.”
Molly exhaled through her nose and felt the muscles in her face soften. It is a new year, she told herself. It’s a new year.
“How could I possibly be angry?” she finally exclaimed, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “This is the most incredible news I could have gotten! You’re having a baby!” She wrapped Dan and Jenny in an awkward hug around Dylan.
“But I thought you weren’t supposed to be finished with the injections until this month? What happened?”
Dan shrugged. “Looks like one of Operation Procreation’s early exploratory missions met with some surprising success. We couldn’t believe it.”
“But it’s real,” Jenny said. “We found out right before we went to Connecticut. And I have the incredible morning sickness to prove it,” she added, screwing up her face and sticking out her tongue. “Whoever named it morning sickness was a sadistic jokester. I do most of my barfing right around bedtime.”
“Oh, no,” Molly said. “Then, how are you handling all of this tonight? Will you be okay?”
“Eh, she’s a trouper if I’ve ever seen one,” said Dan. “You know how Jenny is. When it’s time for the baby to be born she’ll probably just push the kid out standing up and go back to whatever it was she was doing.”
“No, I won’t,” Jenny interjected. “Trust me. But you gotta love his optimism, right?”
“I think Dan’s probably right,” Molly said. “Anybody who can take twice-daily shots in the butt for weeks must have a pretty good hold on pain tolerance.”
“No,” Jenny laughed. “That’s just because of my sheer will and resignation to the fact that in order for a baby to come out of my vagina, a needle’s gotta go i
nto my ass.”
Dan planted a kiss on the top of his wife’s head. “She certainly has a way with words, doesn’t she?
“Seriously, though,” he continued. “She told me she wanted to go through with the party as usual. Jenny’s the one who insisted.”
“I don’t want to lose the tradition,” Jenny explained. “If we miss this year, what happens next year? Once we have the baby, it’d be too easy to say we’re too busy or tired and not do it again. We have to make the effort if we want to keep it going.”
Molly took a sip of her water and looked around. “I do love this, everybody getting together—even if they’re too afraid to talk to me yet. But it’s nice to have an excuse to not think about all the crap that happened in the last year. I’m all about celebrating the good right now.”
“And,” Jenny added, raising her glass, “unless you’re pregnant, it’s a damned good excuse to get drunk off your rear end and make out with somebody.”
Molly laughed, then motioned that she was going to settle a drowsy Dylan off to the side. Some friends of Dan’s from work—an art teacher who constantly reeked of alcohol and her defense lawyer husband—came up to talk to Jenny, so Molly took that as her excuse to step away.
Dylan had drifted off to a light sleep in her arms, but Molly somehow managed to transfer her back into her car seat without waking her. She felt proud of herself, soaking up another one of those little victories that made her feel like she could, really, take care of this child. She’d have to feed the baby soon, she knew—her breasts were starting to tingle from all the fluid packing them, waiting to be used, but for now the baby looked content.
The condo had gotten more crowded, and Molly maneuvered around the dining room table, piling a small plate with food, all the while keeping an eye on her sleeping daughter. The firelight from the stone fireplace in the adjacent room bounced off the crystal candleholders on the table, making Molly’s skin glow with a warmth that made her feel at home, content.
A pair of boys, maybe seven and nine years old, raced by the table, knocking into Molly. She tottered on the high heels of her boots and might’ve fallen if it hadn’t been for a strong hand that caught her elbow and steadied her. Molly turned to thank the man who’d helped her, but when she saw his face she breathed in so sharply her head felt suddenly light.
The man’s eyes were the exact shade of blue the sky turns just before the sun breaks the horizon at dawn. Molly noticed, too, the dusting of salt-and-pepper through his dark hair, and the way the long fingers of his large hand wrapped themselves gently around her arm, supporting her, but carefully. He was slightly taller than she was in her heels and wore a navy blue sweater over a plaid, untucked, button-front shirt. The threads of the sweater looked so soft Molly had to restrain herself from running her hand over the sleeve. She knew without hesitation that underneath his shirt the man’s skin would bear a tattoo that matched the necklace she wore. He was the teacher Jenny had been telling her about in teasing, vague terms, new to Dan’s department, just transferred in from another high school across the city. Jenny seemed to have also conveniently forgotten to mention that he’d be coming to the party. Molly looked up again at his eyes. They were smiling at her, and the skin at the corners of them wrinkled into familiar creases.
“Liam.” Molly’s smile broke into a grin so wide she knew he could see every one of her teeth.
“Molly.” Liam grinned back at her, then nodded at the floor. “You okay there?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” She felt herself blush, but recovered her composure. She looked over his face again, remembering every angle she once had memorized. “Thanks. If it weren’t for you I’d be spending my New Year’s scrubbing shrimp cocktail off of Jenny and Dan’s walls.”
“Can’t let that happen.” Liam laughed. “Don’t you remember, I grew up in Baltimore? Any waste of Old Bay is considered a grave sin where I’m from.” He picked up a bottle of porter from where he’d placed it on the table.
Molly shrugged, laughing, and glanced at Dylan, who was starting to stir in her spot on the floor. Molly picked her up and held her to her chest, hoping to comfort her so that they could stay in that spot just a few minutes longer.
Liam took a long look at the baby before resting his gaze again on Molly, his eyes focused on hers. “She’s beautiful, Molly. Really beautiful. Are you both doing well?”
Molly nodded.
“Well, I can see where she gets her good looks. I do hope she gets her grace from some other DNA, though.” He smiled to let her know he was teasing. Liam took a small sip of his beer before looking around the room. “Her father, maybe? Is he here?”
Molly shook her head, waiting for the flush of embarrassment to come. This time, though, it didn’t. “No, he’s not here. He’s not exactly in the picture, you might say.” Molly cleared her throat. “Actually, we’re not together anymore.” She made sure to look Liam straight in the eye, and was surprised when she saw his shoulders relax, felt the breath exhaled from his lips.
Molly held his gaze, waiting for him to speak. Her pulse throbbed as the blood rushed through her veins. Jenny caught her eye from the other side of the condo and gave her a thumbs-up. Molly shook her head, smiling, and turned back to Liam, but not before noticing that he’d seen Jenny’s gesture, too, and was laughing.
He nodded his head and handed her a napkin.
“Well, since you’re on your own, can I suggest you carry a couple extra of these around?” He looked down at Dylan again, who was staring right at him now, her eyes wide open, her face attentive. “And if you ever want some company when you, say, take her to the park, or maybe around dinnertime, I’m around, you know.” Liam gave Molly a tentative smile. “I can pick up a mean takeout.”
Molly’s heart was doing flips now inside her chest, jumping around like the winning ball in a lottery pool.
“Though I think you’ll be okay, Molly,” Liam said. “I always knew you would be.”
He set the napkins down on the table in a neat pile, then took a step back, turning to go.
“Hey, Liam.” Molly heard the words come out of her mouth before she knew what she’d say next. And then she remembered. Of course she remembered. She’d never forgotten. “Happy birthday.”
Liam’s face broke into a grin so broad and so genuine it seemed to knock out all the other light in the room. He reached out and touched her arm again, then disappeared into the crowd in the living room. Molly stood there, smiling, the plate of cold shrimp still in her hand, staring at the spot where he’d been. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liam look back at her, as if he knew she was replaying in her head what he’d said to her; as if he knew she understood that this was another beginning.
The song changed over, and all of a sudden Liz Phair was blasting out one of her and Jenny’s favorite songs over the crowd in the room. A few of Jenny’s old girlfriends from college started singing along to “Polyester Bride,” and Molly saw Dan shaking his head at his wife, who was crooning the words from across the room. Molly, too, found herself singing as she rocked her sweet baby. Maybe it was the skyscraping boots she’d pulled on tonight, but she felt taller. Straighter. She held her shoulders back, clasping Dylan against her heart with one hand while taking a big sip of her water with the other. Jenny caught her eye again and motioned for her to use the guest bedroom to breastfeed Dylan. Molly flashed her a quick smile, nodding her head, before leaving the room.
Dan had told Molly once that the students in his English class always ended every year debating Robert Frost and talking about the road not taken. Most of them were headed to college in the fall, and many of the kids were uncomfortable being at a crossroads in their lives. They worried about the choices they were making, that their decisions could lead them down the wrong paths, or to roads they weren’t “supposed” to take.
Molly had told Dan that she thought the kids were focusing on the wrong issue
. People were fooled into thinking they got to choose their path—life was just a road, one road, from start to finish. A person couldn’t take an exit off, or decide to fly instead. She was stuck on the route she was traveling, whether she liked it or not, until she reached her destination.
“But Molly,” Dan had said. “I can’t tell these kids that. That’s like telling them they have no choice in their lives at all, which is the exact opposite of what they need to hear right now. You can’t tell a bunch of hormonal teenagers that they’re basically screwed no matter which way they go. Half of them would be throwing themselves into the Delaware by graduation.”
But Molly had stuck to her argument. She’d told Dan, slowly, thoughtfully, that she still thought it was the way a person chose to walk that defined her journey. She could decide to stop at a rest area, or avoid potholes, detour through the scenic lookout. She could travel so quickly that all the sights flashed by her in a blur, or she could choose to slow down when the road was leading her to a new discovery. She might take a break to go hike that trail she almost passed. Bad stuff was going to happen along the way—that was a given, and Dan’s students should know that. But Molly insisted that the whole point of life was to use the bad, when it happened, as a stepping stone to get to the good. No one should trip over a branch in the road twice during the same walk. You fell once, brushed yourself off, and learned to watch where you were going.
“And the music, of course,” she’d said, laughing. “You can’t forget the music when you travel. Make sure to tell your students that. A little Fleetwood Mac playing ‘Go Your Own Way’ never hurt anybody.”
Molly settled down onto the guest room bed to nurse Dylan. She looked around at the soft blue walls, the bamboo blinds, and tried to picture the room as a nursery. Her friends were having a baby. They were going to have a child who was special, and loved, and a reminder of all that was good in the world, just like the baby in her arms. And in a couple of years, that small child was going to be playing with all of the other kids running around the bedroom, and probably chasing Dylan around the coffee table, and stealing candy from that dish Dan always kept filled by the front door.
All the Difference Page 26