Daughter's Keeper

by Ayelet Waldman

  “What good would that do?”

  “Maybe she feels the same way.”

  “So what? I’m her lawyer, Mom.”

  “I know, Izaya. I know you are. But is that what’s most important? Really?”

  “I don’t know anymore,” he said, and lay his head in his mother’s lap.

  ***

  Olivia stopped her work for a while. She rested against a half-packed box and lifted Luna to her breast. At eleven weeks, the baby was round and chubby, almost fat. She was a cheerful child who rarely cried, except when she was hungry. Her favorite activities were sitting in her bouncy seat, flailing ineffectually at the toys strung along the bar just out of her reach, and, of course, nursing. Luna nursed for hours every day.

  Olivia held Luna’s hand in her own as the baby drank. Her tiny fingers were impossibly strong, and she gripped her mother’s index finger as if she knew that all too soon it would be taken from her grasp. Olivia inhaled deeply, smelling Luna’s odor, so familiar that she was sure it was just like her own, like the smell of her own sweat or even the almost rank sweetness between her legs.

  “Hi.”

  Olivia raised her face to the sound of the voice, squinting at the light shining through the open door of the Oakland apartment she had shared with Jorge. In the doorway, silhouetted against the light, was the form of a man holding a large dog by the collar.

  “Treyvon?” she said.

  “Hey, Olivia. 8-Ball! Sit.”

  “Wow, is that the puppy? He’s so big!”

  “He over a year old now. That your baby? She beautiful.” Treyvon walked into the room and knelt down next to Olivia. 8-Ball hung back, obedient in his sitting position. Treyvon was wearing a rugby shirt and baggy jeans and had buzzed his hair nearly down to the skull. A silver lightning bolt hung from the lobe of his left ear.

  Olivia gently took her breast from Luna’s mouth and covered herself. The baby began to protest, but Olivia lifted her to her shoulder and patted her on the back. Soon, she was cooing.

  “You leaving?” Treyvon said.

  “Yeah. I can’t believe I kept the apartment for so long. I guess I just couldn’t face packing it up.”

  “Can I?” Treyvon said, holding out his arms. Olivia passed him the baby and he bounced her gently on his lap. The dog nosed his hand and he pushed it away. “What happened to your case?”

  “I was convicted.”

  “Fuck no!”

  “Yeah. I mean, I was acquitted of the drug charges, but they got me on a phone count. Four years.”

  Treyvon shook his head and looked at the baby. “What you going do?”

  “About Luna?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My boyfriend’s family is going to take her. They live in Mexico.”

  Treyvon nodded. “That’s good. She’ll be with family.”

  Olivia nodded.

  He lifted Luna’s T-shirt and buzzed her belly with his lips. She giggled. 8-Ball barked as if in reply. Treyvon turned to Olivia. “Uh, yeah. Look, it ain’t my place to give no advice, but you don’t look like somebody used to getting by. Inside, I mean.”

  Olivia shook her head. She had never really spoken to anyone about her experiences waiting to get out on bail. She ­hadn’t wanted to, and even if she had felt like talking, there would not have been anyone who would have understood.

  “I’m really scared,” she whispered.

  “I know. I was scared every goddamn day I was there. But you know what? That’s why I’m here now. I’d ever of stopped being scared, I’d of ended up dead. Being scared kept me, you know, awake. Kept me on my toes. Kept me alive.”

  “I couldn’t stand it in Martinez. I’d lie in my bed thinking I was going to die if I didn’t get out, like I’d explode or something.”

  “Yeah. It passes. It do. I mean, don’t get me wrong; you don’t never feel good. You don’t never sleep like you do outside. But that feeling—like you gonna jump on out your skin?” Olivia nodded. “It might not ever go ’way, but it get easier.” Treyvon leaned back on his heels and looked at her. “It’s like at some point you, like they say, hit bottom. You get so scared, you lie awake at night in your cell, and you thinking, shit. You going to die. Either explode, or slice yourself up, or someone else going do it for you. That the moment could be what saves you. The moment you start to survive. What you got to do is figure out what you care about, fix it in your scopes. For me, it was getting the fuck out of there with something to show for it—my GED. For you, it be getting back to this pretty little baby. Just keep that in your mind, and start walking toward it. At the end of all the years, you be there.”

  Then Treyvon gave Olivia what he called his tips for federal inmates. He told her to bring a toothbrush and toothpaste and to wear her sneakers when she turned herself in. He explained how she could go about having money put on her account. After a while, as he spoke, the sheer mundaneness of all the details began to calm her. She began to see the next three and a half years as a horrible time that would depress and dismay but not destroy her. She felt something almost like a tranquility seep over her, and she held out her arms for Luna. She squeezed her baby close to her chest and inhaled her sweet smell.

  Treyvon helped Olivia load the car full of boxes. She secured Luna in her seat and hugged her neighbor close. Then she drove home.

  As she pulled in, she had to stop short to keep from hitting the large motorcycle crouched like a shiny black and chrome beetle in the middle of the driveway. Izaya was sitting on the front steps, his long legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle. He waved at her. She smiled in return.

  “Hi,” he said when she got out of the car.

  “Hi. Have you been waiting long?”

  She wrestled Luna’s car seat out of its base and carried it to the steps.

  “Not long.” He looked over at the car stuffed with boxes. “Were you packing up your apartment?”

  “Trying to,” Olivia said. “This one didn’t make it particularly easy, though.” She gently swung Luna’s seat, and the baby laughed.

  “Can I help you unload?”

  “Sure.” Olivia sat on the steps while Izaya hefted the boxes out of the car and stacked them neatly against the back wall of the garage. When he was finally done, he collapsed on the step next to her and groaned.

  “Not used to physical labor, are we?” she asked, laughing.

  He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. “What makes you say that?”

  “Do you want to come in and get a drink?”

  He followed her inside and leaned against the kitchen counter while she poured him a tall glass of ice water. He drained the cup and then held his arms out for the baby. Olivia handed Luna to him, and he raised her up in the air above his head.

  “You are so big, baby. You are so fat!” he cooed.

  “She is, isn’t she?” Olivia said. Although she knew it was somewhat ridiculous, she felt like every pound added to Luna’s plump frame was her doing, a testament to her mothering, to her nurturing of the baby. Each pound was like savings she was stockpiling for the day when she could make no more deposits.

  Izaya sat down on the floor in the living room, next to a pile of baby toys. He stretched out his legs and balanced the baby across his thighs.

  Olivia joined them, sitting cross-legged on the carpet.

  “So, what’s up?” she said. “Is there something I forgot? Something we need to do?”

  Izaya hoisted himself up on one side and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to her. “I just wanted to bring you this.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A poem.”

  “A poem?”

  “Not from me!” he said hastily, and she blushed at the assumption they both knew she’d made. She raised her eyebrows at him.
/>   “Read it,” he said.

  She skimmed the lines, stopping short at the one she recognized. Then she backed up and read the rest. She wondered what Jorge had meant by quoting this particular poem. Had he intended to tell her that his soul was lost without her, or that he no longer loved her? Perhaps both were true, or perhaps the poem meant nothing at all. Perhaps he had quoted the line because it alone seemed apt. Love was short. Oblivion, and a prison sentence, were very long. Olivia puzzled over Neruda’s words for a little while, and then suddenly realized that she did not care very much what Jorge had meant. What had been between them was now long over. Only Luna mattered.

  Izaya cleared his throat. “So, Olivia. I have some news.”

  She glanced up at him. “News?”

  “About your appeal.”

  “My appeal? I thought you said that there weren’t any appealable issues in my case.”

  He shrugged. “There aren’t any, really. But we might as well file an appeal. Hell, let’s make the government work for their money.”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s a woman who does most of my father’s appeals when he loses, which isn’t often. She’s a private criminal appellate lawyer, and she’s one of the best in the country. She’s agreed to represent you, if you’re interested.”

  “I can’t afford someone like that, Izaya. Particularly if there isn’t any real chance we’ll win. Why can’t you do the appeal? I mean, do you not want to do it?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that she’d be better. And she’s going to represent you pro bono.”

  “Why?”

  “She gets most of her high-profile cases from my dad. I guess she figures that doing me a favor is a good way to pay him back for all of his referrals.”

  Olivia picked up a rag doll and smoothed its dress. “I don’t get it. Why is representing me doing you a favor?”

  Izaya picked Luna up off his lap and put her over his shoulder.

  “Because I don’t want to be your lawyer anymore.”

  Olivia bit her lip. She’d cried enough today.

  “Oh,” she said and reached her arms out for the baby. “Okay, that’s fine. But I don’t need you to find me another lawyer. I’m sure there’s someone in your office who can take over the case.”

  “You don’t get it,” he said, ignoring her hands and kissing Luna on the cheek. The baby began to squirm and he put her back down in his lap. “I don’t want anyone at the Federal Public Defender’s office to represent you.”

  Olivia scooped up Luna and hugged her tightly. The baby began to cry.

  “Fine. Whatever. I’ll find my own damn lawyer.”

  “Olivia. Hey, Olivia.” Izaya leaned over and smoothed her hair away from her eyes. “I don’t want my office representing you, because if we do, then I wouldn’t be allowed to do this.” He kissed her, gently at first and then harder. She felt her body begin to grow limp, and then, with a rush of warm dampness, her milk began to flow, soaking her shirt.

  “Oh, Christ,” she said.

  He leaned back on his haunches. “Oh, my God! I’m sorry,” he said and began to get up.

  “No! No, don’t be sorry. Just wait a second. It’s just, I’m—I’m leaking.” She pulled her shirt up and put Luna to her nipple. For a few minutes they sat silently while the baby sucked and grunted, kneading Olivia’s breast with her fists. At last, in stages, Luna drifted off to sleep. Olivia slipped her nipple, shiny with milk and spit, out of the baby’s mouth. She tugged her shirt back into place and gently laid Luna on a baby blanket on the floor. She looked at Izaya. He was so beautiful. So strong, and so gentle.

  She gazed at his soft, full lips and imagined pressing her own against them, darting her tongue into his mouth, tasting him. She felt an ache in her groin and crossed her arms against her breasts to keep the milk from flowing again. She closed her eyes and saw the length of his naked body wrapped around her own. And then, unbidden, Luna’s face appeared. Olivia opened her eyes and turned back to her daughter. The baby’s mouth was pursed in the shape of Olivia’s breast, and she sucked at the empty space her mother had left behind.

  “I want to kiss you so much,” she said.

  Izaya began to smile, but stopped. “But you’re not going to,” he said flatly.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not going to.”

  “You’re not interested in me that way.”

  She laughed. “No, I’m interested. I’m interested. I’m very—interested. I mean, you’re smart and you’re gorgeous…” she lifted her hand to silence his protests. “No, you really are. At any other time in my life, I’d probably jump at the chance to be with you. Just not now.”

  “Is it because of him? Because he sent you that poem? Because you know he loves you?”

  Olivia smiled ruefully. “Is that what you think? No. It has nothing to do with Jorge. I told you. I don’t love him anymore. I’m not sure I ever loved him.”

  “So why then?”

  She sighed. “I just can’t. Not now. Your timing is just, well, really bad, Izaya.”

  Izaya sat back heavily, swinging his long legs out in front of him.

  “Do you know what a b’shert is?” he said.

  Olivia shook her head.

  “It’s a word in Yiddish. My grandmother used to tell me when I was a kid that every person had a b’shert, like a soul mate. And she said that just before you’re born, an angel takes you around, shows you this person, and then smacks you hard, right here right under your nose, where this little thing is.” He reached out and tapped her philtrum. She jumped. “And that makes you forget what the angel told you. So then you get born, and you grow up, and you spend the rest of your life searching for that person you once saw that you don’t quite remember.” Olivia stared at her hands. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “Here’s the thing, Olivia. What if you’re my b’shert? What if I’m yours? Are we really just going to let that slip through our fingers because of something as stupid as timing?”

  Olivia wanted desperately to accede to Izaya’s gentle, tantalizing persuasion. She could tell he was absolutely serious, that he was, or thought he was, in love with her. To disappear into the horror of prison with Izaya’s photograph in her pocket, with the security of his love, real or imagined, in her heart—wouldn’t that make it all easier? Or would it? She had spent her entire life going from one boy or man to another, looking for someone who would take care of her, would provide her with the sensation of ease and security that she imagined other girls, daughters of actual, present fathers, took for granted. Here was a man willing, eager to give her that refuge.

  And yet, even though she thought she might be in love with him, it was suddenly clear to her that there was no way she could be with him. While it might seem like the easiest thing to allow him to save her, or at least to make her feel like being saved was even the remotest of possibilities, she could not do it. The fantasy of a relationship that might or might not outlast her incarceration would not provide her with the specific goal she knew she needed to survive the next years. More importantly, it would distract her. She knew herself well enough to understand that she could not fix both Izaya and Luna in her scopes at the same time.

  Olivia looked down at her sleeping baby. Luna was on her side, her legs curled up and her arms flung wide.

  “I don’t know if I’m your b’shert, Izaya. I know I like you a whole lot. I admire you. I might even love you. But I have Luna now. I have to spend every moment with her. I have to fill my eyes, and my mind, and my heart only with her. There isn’t room for anyone else, not now. There can’t be.” As Olivia spoke the words, she ­realized that they were the absolute truth. The only person she wanted was Luna; the only focus for her attention, her love, her devotion, was her baby. By bringing Luna into the world, Olivia had abdicated the right to retreat to the security of yet another man�
�s arms and attention. Her own anxiety, her own loneliness, could no longer be the motivating force behind her behavior. It was Luna’s security that had to be her primary—her only—concern. What Olivia had lacked as a daughter was no longer important—it was what she had to provide as a mother that mattered now.

  Izaya opened his mouth, but something about her expression must have made him realize there was no point in arguing, that she had made up her mind.

  He nodded. They sat in silence for awhile, and then Izaya said, “Well, what about later?” he asked.

  “Later?”

  “You know, when you get out.”

  Olivia imagined a scene some three and a half years hence. Izaya waiting for her at the gates to the prison, Luna in his arms. “I don’t know. It’s a long time away. Why don’t we just wait and see,” she said.

  ***

  Olivia held her coffee in one hand, away from her body and the arm where the baby rested. She sipped carefully and set the cup down far from Luna’s grasping fingers.

  “Are you ready?” Elaine asked.

  Olivia nodded. She had packed the contents of her apartment into a storage container and had the container picked up and taken away, having prepaid three and a half years of storage fees. She had boxed up Jorge’s belongings and mailed them down to his parents in Mexico. She had packed Luna’s tiny jumpers and T-shirts, her toys, pacifiers, and bottles, into an oversized duffel bag.

  “I was wondering,” her mother said. “Would you like to do something special today? Since it’s your last day.”

  Olivia squeezed Luna a little tighter. “Like what?”

  “Maybe Point Reyes? We’ll drive out and take a hike along the beach, eat some barbecued oysters?”

  When Olivia was ten years old, she and Elaine had spent one Sunday driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in West Marin. At one point, they had strayed off the main road and stitched their way along the quilted seam of road between the rolling hills and dairy farms. They had stumbled upon a gas station with a picnic table set up on the grass behind the pumps. A charcoal fire was burning in half of an oil drum propped up on sawhorses, and rows of oysters on the half-shell bubbled on top of the makeshift grill. A hand-lettered sign leaning against the table read BBQ Oyster 50 Cent. Olivia and Elaine had pulled over and spent an hour shoveling the oysters into their mouths, slurping up the briny liquid and wiping up tomato sauce with slices of Wonder Bread.