The Red Thread

by Ann Hood

  She’d laughed at them. Maybe that was true for some people, like her old roommate Maureen who had married a man with four kids and spent most of her time fighting with them, or her husband, or his ex-wife. In the flush of love, Emily had never imagined that any of that would be true. Not for her and Michael. She’d married him and left her little house in Fox Point that she’d spent almost two years renovating and moved out here to the suburbs, into a rambling new house that still smelled of wood and paint.

  Plenty of rooms for all the children they would have, she thought when they moved in. She left her job too, as a librarian at Brown University. Here, she volunteered part-time at the town library, where she sat, bored, three afternoons a week. But once the babies came, she would be happy for the diversion the library brought.

  “Don’t do it,” her friends said, about getting married, about moving, about leaving her job.

  But she had done it. All of it. And now, three years later, she was childless and he did put Chloe ahead of her and she was bored and fifteen pounds heavier than when she’d married him. The house was empty. Her days were empty. Her womb was empty. But that was about to change.

  Emily and Michael had their first home study visit on Friday. Maya had told her not to worry. “Just be yourself,” she’d said, as if that was the easiest thing in the world. But lately, Emily wasn’t sure who she was anymore. Before she’d married Michael, she’d stripped floors and polished fireplace tiles with a toothbrush in her house. She strode across the Brown green like a woman who knew where she was going. She used to go to sleep at night happy, with her two cats purring at the foot of her bed. Sometimes she had men in that bed, and she knew how to have them satisfy her. She knew she liked peaty single malt whiskey and oaky chardonnay. She’d perfected three dinner party meals.

  So how had she landed here, uncertain of almost everything in her life? Her husband loved his daughter more than he loved her, possibly even more than he loved anything. Around Chloe, Emily felt off-balance. She was neither her mother nor her friend. If she criticized her, Michael got angry. She couldn’t comfortably discipline her or ask her about herself. The house was too big, and Emily could not find her place in it even after three years.

  She couldn’t find her place as a wife either. It had been months since she’d had a dinner party and made her beef daube or turkey in mole sauce or the ragù that took all day to get just right. Even books did not comfort her anymore the way they used to. She could remember hours lost in the bowels of the library, books piling up beside her.

  Each time she got pregnant, Emily had believed she was finding herself again, making something of her increasingly senseless days. She could almost catch a glimpse of herself happy again, a baby in her arms, then toddling across the wide planks of the kitchen floor, running through the garden. She would hang a swing there, and sit the baby in her lap and pump her legs so that she and her child could soar. But with each miscarriage, another piece of herself vanished. “Be yourself,” Maya had told her, squeezing her hand for courage and confidence. But who exactly was this person who still called herself Emily and lived in her body?

  The social worker had smiled and nodded as they answered questions and showed her around their house. When she left, Emily had felt happier than she’d been in months, ever since the last pregnancy test had come out positive. After that miscarriage, she’d started to see Dr. Bundy. But now, with this first visit behind them, Emily could almost believe that she would actually have a baby of her own before long.

  Today they were going to a get-together with their travel group at someone’s apartment over in the Armory District, on the appropriately celebratory named Parade Street. Another step toward China and a baby. Emily didn’t like potlucks. She liked things to go together. But Sophie had emailed everyone a dish to bring, so maybe this one wouldn’t be too bad.

  Emily had worried over her assignment: Something Sweet! She wasn’t much of a baker, but maybe she should make cupcakes? Coffee cake? Or perhaps she should just go to the Italian bakery and buy something fancy and rich, like cannoli or zeppoli? She even considered calling the people who had Something Fruity as their assignment and ask if they would switch with her. That was easy. Fruit salad. Cut up some apples and oranges and pineapple. Throw in raspberries and everybody’s happy.

  She stood looking at the two platters of cookies she’d spent all morning baking, chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin. Everybody liked cookies. She heard Michael and Chloe talking in Chloe’s room, above her, and smiled. So confident was she of this new direction her life was taking, she’d even urged Michael to invite Chloe to the party. Today, finally, Emily could almost feel her own baby in her arms.

  MICHAEL

  Sometimes Michael felt as if he was in one of those rooms with the walls that squeezed in on you until they completely crushed you. One wall was Chloe and one wall was his ex-wife Rachel and one wall was Emily, the woman he loved. His wife. They crushed him with their jealousy and their neediness and their suspicions about each other. All he wanted was to live a happy life. He wanted to make love to his wife and to be a good father to his daughter and to avoid fighting with his ex-wife. He wanted to give Emily babies. He wanted to do the right things so that Chloe would grow up secure and confident. But somehow, he did everything wrong.

  Like today. Didn’t Rachel always tell him that Chloe felt excluded from his life with Emily? So he had told her cheerfully, hopefully, that they were all going to a brunch with the other families adopting babies from China.

  Chloe looked at him and said, “No way.”

  “But it will be fun,” he’d said.

  “Are you kidding? A bunch of grown-ups eating bad food and talking about babies?”

  When she put it that way, Michael supposed it didn’t sound like fun for her. “Well,” he’d said, “how about coming and keeping me company?”

  She snorted. “Isn’t that why you have Emily?”

  He wanted to tell her that he had Emily because he loved her. Adored her, in fact. But that would make Chloe think he loved Emily more than he loved her. Hadn’t Rachel told him that it made Chloe uncomfortable if he kissed Emily in front of her?

  Michael tried again. “It would be good for you to get to know these folks,” he said, “for when we’re in China.”

  Chloe frowned. “China? I’m not going to China.”

  She thinks you’re replacing her, Rachel had said. Even though Michael told her that was ridiculous, Rachel had insisted.

  “Chloe,” Michael said, “I love you. This baby is going to be your sister and I’m not going to love you any less.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Chloe said. “Whatever.”

  Then she began to pack her little overnight bag, the purple one she’d had since she was a little girl and began the weekly journey back and forth between her parents.

  “What are you doing?” Michael asked her.

  “I’m not going to stay here while you and Emily go to a party,” she said. “Mom can pick me up and I’ll go to the mall with Arden and Kayla.”

  There were those walls squeezing in on him. The party and Emily and their baby waiting in China. Rachel shaking her head in disapproval. Chloe caught in the middle of it all. And Michael just wanting a day with his wife and his daughter with him.

  He watched as Rachel’s Passat drove up the driveway.

  Chloe bounded down the steps, almost happily.

  “We’ll get you new luggage for China,” Michael said, taking that sad, worn little bag from her. “Three pieces. Grown-up luggage.”

  Emily came out from the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  “My mom’s here,” Chloe said. “I’m going home.”

  The word home pierced Michael. This was supposed to be her home too. Did Emily look happy that Chloe was leaving early? Why couldn’t she see how disappointed he was?

  He followed Chloe to the car.

  Rachel shook her head when she saw him. She rolled down the window. “Have fun at your party,”
she said.

  “It’s not that kind of party,” Michael began to explain.

  But Chloe had already settled into the passenger seat and Rachel was rolling up her window and backing up.

  Behind him, he could feel Emily standing on the steps, waiting for him. Michael’s heart felt heavy.

  “Michael?” Emily said.

  He turned toward her, but she was moving back inside, away from him.

  SUSANNAH

  “But she said children were welcome,” Carter told Susannah, baffled.

  “I just thought it would be easier to leave her with Julie,” Susannah said. She busied herself with the huge bowl of fruit salad she’d made. Enough for twice the number of people.

  Clara reached one dirty hand into the bowl of cut-up fruit and picked out raspberries, filling her hand with them.

  “Stop her!” Susannah said. All of her work cutting up fruit and layering in the delicate berries ruined now. Clara had been outside playing in the dirt, and that dirt was in the fruit salad.

  “You like raspberries best, don’t you, Boo?” Carter said, gently lifting Clara off the chair she’d climbed and away from the food.

  “I love raspberries,” Clara said, her face red from them.

  “See what I mean?” Susannah said. “What if she does something like that at the party? Sticks her dirty hands into the eggs or whatever?”

  Carter shook his head. “I can’t believe you,” he muttered, scooping Clara into his arms and pretending to make her fly. Carter imitated the sound of an airplane as he dipped and soared his daughter past Susannah and out of the kitchen. Clara’s giggles made Susannah even more tense.

  She had imagined that she would give a daughter the things her mother had given her before she’d died. Hand-knit blankets for her dolls. Ice skates so that they could hold hands and skate across a frozen pond together. Glittery pink nail polish. Books to read together in bed.

  But Susannah did not know what to do with this daughter. It seemed that since Clara was born, Susannah had known something was wrong with her. At first, she’d been afraid to say anything, even to Carter. But at the mommy group she joined, and in the park with other mothers and babies, it became more and more apparent that Clara wasn’t right.

  Susannah remembered sitting on someone’s family room floor, watching the other babies laugh and roll and play, and the word retarded came to her mind. Clara was retarded. She had watched her daughter intently, the realization that this was why Clara was so dull-eyed, so slow to do anything other babies her age did, why she was so sensitive to noise and bright lights.

  “Fragile X syndrome,” the pediatrician told them. “An inherited form of mental retardation. The symptoms vary widely.”

  They varied widely and Clara had them all: Learning disabilities. Emotional disabilities. Socialization problems. An IQ of about 75.

  Susannah remembered her grandmother telling her of another child she’d had whom they’d had to put away. So sad, her grandmother had said. But what could we do? Nowadays, though, people didn’t institutionalize their children. They kept them. Information on Special Olympics and centers for disabled children always appeared in their mailbox. Well-meaning friends sent them books on children like Clara who had changed their parents’ lives for the better. Selfish people had turned generous, judgmental people had grown magnanimous.

  But Susannah remained selfish. She wanted a different child. No matter how many articles and books she read about the joy these children brought other families, Clara brought her only disappointment and shame. More and more she called Julie to come in the afternoon and take care of Clara. Although she made up excuses, usually Susannah just went into the bedroom, closed the door, and knit.

  Then one day in the grocery store she ran into an old friend of hers. Lizzie had two daughters from China, both of them beautiful and smart. They had talked with Susannah, introducing themselves and telling her about school and their new puppy. The girls were bright-eyed, alert. The opposite of Clara. That night she had told Carter she wanted to adopt a baby from China. Maybe she would have that daughter she’d so desperately wanted after all.

  At first Carter was reluctant. You can hardly deal with one child, he’d said, as if Clara wasn’t a handful with her tantrums and her problems. But she’d invited Lizzie and her daughters over for dinner one night, and he’d seen it too. What normal children could give them. How they might actually talk to a daughter, and laugh with her, and let her eat at the table with them and snuggle on their laps.

  Julie walked into the kitchen now, just as Susannah finished removing the berries Clara had squashed from the fruit salad.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Susannah said, wrapping plastic wrap over the top.

  “She likes parties,” Julie offered. “If you’ve changed your mind—”

  “She’s with Carter,” Susannah said. “We’ve got to get going.”

  “Okay,” Julie said.

  Susannah carefully folded her knitting and put it in her bag. She would knit on the ride to Providence. Then they would arrive and they would walk into this group of strangers and Clara would be far away, out of sight, in her bedroom that Susannah had so hopefully painted with scenes from all of the books she’d imagined they would read together. The Wind in the Willows and Peter Rabbit and Winnie-the-Pooh. Clara could hardly sit still through something as simple as Goodnight Moon. Those murals made Susannah sad whenever she sat on her daughter’s bed and read, “Goodnight nobody.”

  But these people today would be with her in China, getting their healthy babies. A family of sorts.

  Carter came into the kitchen and Susannah headed out the door.

  “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Clara?” he said.

  “It will only upset her,” Susannah lied. “I don’t want to make Julie’s job any harder than it already is.”

  She stepped out into the light summer rain and inhaled. It smelled fresh, new.

  6

  MAYA

  Maya always made an appearance at these first get-togethers. She knew that if she stayed too long the group wouldn’t relax. But her presence for a little while helped get things going. Sophie and Theo lived on the second floor of a green triple-decker. When Maya climbed the stairs, she heard the sound of voices already spilling from the open door. The apartment was all hardwood and color. They had painted the trim in each room white, but the walls were purple or red or yellow. Masks and textiles hung everywhere. Prayer flags draped across the kitchen.

  “Look who’s here!” Sophie said when she saw Maya standing in the doorway.

  Everyone turned at once, and moved toward her, smiling.

  Except Nell, Maya noticed. She hung back, an empty wineglass in one hand. Maya nodded at her, and that was when she noticed Theo also stayed behind the others. He stood close to Nell, as if they had something in common. Maya frowned. Those two had nothing in common. Nothing at all. Why, here was Nell in some crinkly silk jacket and black cigarette pants, high heels, perfect hair and makeup. And there stood Theo all crumpled and unshaven. Maya had read all of their paperwork before she came and she knew that Theo worked part-time, teaching language lessons through adult education and translating business reports. That Nell Walker-Adams was a high-powered investment banker. Yet their heads were bent ever so slightly toward each other, as if they had a secret.

  Sophie was handing Maya a plate of food. “Steamed dumplings and scallion pancakes and crab Rangoon,” she was saying.

  Every group did the same thing: a hodgepodge of Chinese dishes and potluck standards. But Maya thanked her and took the plate and the chopsticks she offered. As she nibbled on the food, the couples drifted up to her and told her nervously about their first home study visit, if they’d had one, and about the reading they’d done on China or the Yahoo adoption groups they’d joined. She commented on each piece of news with the same good cheer. These people believed she held their future in her hands. When she left, they would interpret each word she’d said, each e
xpression, to see if they had moved up in line somehow, or committed a small infraction. Knowing this, she kept her voice measured, her smile pleasant. She encouraged each new step they took down this path to parenthood.

  Then Nell Walker-Adams stepped away from her place by the red wall and said in her assertive voice, “Is it true they mark the children?”

  “I’ve heard that too,” the baseball player’s wife said. She looked at Maya, worried.

  “Some people believe—” Maya began, but that Nell interrupted her.

  “I’ve heard they cut them here or here”—she indicated between her fingers, around her ankles. “Or they burn them with a cigarette.”

  “A mother wouldn’t harm her own child like that,” Susannah said.

  “Is it so they can find them someday?” Emily asked. “I can imagine a mother doing that.”

  “I heard it was so that the baby has a piece of the mother forever, because they won’t be able to find each other,” Brooke said.

  “Some people do believe this,” Maya said carefully. “But the marks on babies could be from so many places. Small injuries. These girls have no histories that we know.” She shrugged. “There are many mysteries around them.”

  “I read on the Yahoo group about a woman whose baby had slashes around both ankles,” Nell said. “More than a small injury.”

  “But the child was healthy?” Maya said.

  “Otherwise, yes,” Nell said.

  “And she is happy now?”

  “I guess.”

  Maya put her plate down on the counter. “What more do we want, then? Any of us?”

  The talking began again, this topic abandoned for now.

  Maya went from person to person to say goodbye. “You’ll be hearing from us as soon as your home studies are completed,” she told each one, shaking their hands firmly and with warmth.