While Brenda complained about Laurel’s lax attitude toward her children—“She lets them drink that energy stuff, where it says right on the can it’s not for kids!”—I emptied the dishwasher and looked at the calendar. Delaney had a birthday party that afternoon. Adele had a makeup oboe lesson, and then, as was all too commonly the case, nothing. Maybe I’d take Adele out for dim sum and then to the library, and then we’d pick up Delaney and grab something to cook for dinner.
“So listen.” Brenda paused in her litany of complaints. “What if,” she said, then stopped.
After over a decade on the job, I knew the steps to this dance. “What if what?”
“What if, just for example, if you knew that a mom with little kids was doing something bad, but you didn’t want to, you know, tell anyone about it because they’d start a file on her and she’d lose her babies.”
“What would I do?” I asked. “What do you mean by something bad? Are the kids in danger?” She was talking about Laurel, I thought, and there was already a file on Laurel, one that had been started after she’d told her pediatrician that she gave her three-year-old daughter, Olivia, a Tylenol PM so she’d stop getting up in the middle of the night.
Brenda sighed. “It’s my daughter,” she said. “My baby, you know? I don’t want to get her in any trouble. I love her, and I know that the way she turned out is ’cause I wasn’t around enough and I wasn’t the best mom myself.”
“I know how much you love her, but I know you love Olivia and Tyler, too.”
Brenda sighed. “When I was over there last night I saw stuff in her bathroom.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Needles.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Laurel had been through rehab three times already, and had been clean for almost six months.
“It’s that boyfriend,” Brenda said. “That Jason. Maybe it’s his stuff. He’s a bad influence, I’ve been telling Laurel that he is. Maybe they’re his needles.”
“Do you think she’s using?”
Silence.
“Do you think the kids are safe?”
Silence, and then another sigh. “Maybe I could just take them for a while. I’ve got an empty room, with Dante away. Maybe it’s just a slip, and I can call her therapist and some of her friends, and she can get it together and I’ll watch the babies.”
While we worked out a plan for Laurel and Olivia and Marcus, Moochie traipsed down the stairs, with Delaney behind her, both of them probably drawn by the scent of toast. Upstairs, I heard the shower go on. Ever since she’d turned ten, Adele, who’d always been fastidiously neat, had gotten even more neurotic about possibly smelling bad and was bathing twice a day.
“Can I have bacon?” Delaney wore a long-sleeved white shirt with a pink star in the center and capri-length polka-dotted pink leggings, an ensemble that would be joined by slip-on sneakers covered in multicolored sparkly sequins. Understated was not a word you’d apply to my little one’s sense of style.
I pointed at the refrigerator, then at the cupboard. Delaney took the bacon out of the fridge, then rummaged for the frying pan. When I pointed to the table she frowned and pointed upstairs, letting me know that it was Adele’s turn to set, but when I pointed again, she gave a noisy, Jay-influenced sigh and started pulling out place mats and napkins. I was just hanging up and starting to boil a pot of water for poached eggs when Adele came downstairs in her bathrobe with an angry expression and her hair full of suds.
“The showerhead fell off,” she said, and pulled it out of her pocket to show me.
“Oh, shit.”
“Language!” said Delaney, through a mouthful of toast.
“Okay, you go rinse off in my shower, and then I’ve got a quick call to make after breakfast, so I need both of you to walk the dog and be ready to go by ten. There’s a present for Maria Cristina in the closet, Delaney. You just need to wrap it. Adele, help your sister.”
“Don’t I always?” grumbled Adele, who was turning the corner from the charming path of girlhood to the freeway of adolescence. She gave me a withering look, dropped the showerhead on the counter, and stalked back up the stairs.
Okay, I thought, as I scrolled through my phone, looking for the number for Laurel’s therapist. I could take Adele to her lesson, run to the home-goods store, buy another showerhead and maybe even get someone to explain to me how to install it, before picking up Adele and taking Delaney to her party. And if that didn’t work I’d call a plumber. “Thirty minutes!” I called. The water boiled, the coffee dripped, the bacon spat in the pan, and the house was warm, full of good smells and comfortable couches and music and two relatively happy girls. All will be well, I told myself, and dashed upstairs to take a shower of my own.
•••
Two hours later, after dropping off a sulky Adele, appeasing Delaney with a package of Jolly Ranchers, and getting lost twice, I found a parking spot at Wallen Home Goods and carried the amputated showerhead inside. I peered at the signs, thinking that I’d need to get my eyes checked soon, and led Delaney through paint and toward plumbing. “Ooh!” she said, spying the strips of paint chips in their revolving displays. “Can I take some?” she asked as she spun one of the racks to the pinks and purples.
“Just a few. We have to hurry.” I watched as she considered each strip, sounding out the names of the colors. “Come on, cookie,” I said, and she sighed, filling her hands and following me deeper into the store. In the plumbing section I cornered a tall, pimply kid in a Wallen shirt.
“Excuse me,” I said, pulling the showerhead out of my purse. “This fell off. Do I need a whole new one, or is there a way to put it back on?”
“Let me find someone who knows,” he squawked, and practically ran down the aisle.
Delaney sighed. “This is boring,” she said, staring at the wall of bathroom fixtures.
“Someday I will tell you about the week I spent building houses.”
She eyed me with a mixture of skepticism and respect. “You built houses?”
“I surely did.”
A plumbing specialist arrived, and we discussed my situation, eventually choosing a new showerhead and the tools I could use to try to install it. The clerk also gave me the number of a reliable plumber. I suspected I’d be calling him before long.
“Delaney!” I turned around, but she was gone. Shit. I looked at my phone and dialed Adele’s oboe instructor while jogging back to the paint section. “Hi, Marcia, I’m running a little late. . . . She’s got a book, right? Just tell her I’m on my way.”
Marcia said that Adele was fine and could fill the extra time by practicing. Delaney wasn’t in the paint aisle. “Excuse me,” I called, raising my voice so the shoppers could hear me in the huge, echoing store. “Has anyone seen a little girl with curly hair? Pink and white shirt, sparkly sneakers?” People shook their heads as the PA system crackled, and I heard, “Would Rachel Pearl Kravitz please come to the service desk up front?”
Smiling, I raced to the front of the store. Delaney’s middle name was Pearl, so, of course, she’d assumed that mine was, too. I saw my daughter perched on the counter, her paint samples fanned out in her hand, talking intently to a man with close-cropped dark curls.
“Mommy!” she squealed. I saw that somehow she’d also glommed on to a balloon and a Hershey bar. “I got lost!”
“I’m so sorry, honey. I turned around and you weren’t there, and I was so worried!”
She handed me her pile of paint chips and hopped nimbly to the ground. “A lady asked if I was lost and took me up here, and this man says I can have a free sample of any color paint I want! And I can take it home and paint it on my wall and if I don’t like how it looks, then I can come back and get another one and it is also free! And look what he made me!” She opened her palm and showed me the letter D, made out of a straightened and rebent paper clip. “D for Delaney
! And I can keep it! Can I have the candy bar?”
“No more candy, and we don’t have time right now, but . . .” My voice died in my throat as the man turned and I could see him. The manager. The paper-clip man.
“Andy.”
“Rachel,” he said. “I didn’t know your married name.”
“Oh, she isn’t married,” Delaney said smartly. “We are divorced. That means Mommy and Daddy don’t live together anymore, they live three subway stops apart, and in my daddy’s house I have to share a room with my big sister.”
He kept looking at me, his dark eyes, his smile, all of it so familiar, so welcoming. “Andy,” I said again, in a voice that I could barely hear.
Delaney frowned. “His name tag says An-DREW.”
“Andy is a nickname,” he told her. He was looking at me, and I felt like I was going to faint. My heart was beating so hard I felt myself shaking.
“Honey, can you go wait for Mommy on that bench right there?”
“Can I have the Hershey bar?”
“Yes.”
Delaney skipped away with her prize before I could change my mind. Andy came out from around the desk and stood close enough to touch me. When I’d known him he’d always been in motion, but now he was still, motionless, waiting.
“I should have known,” he said. “She looks just like you.”
I put my hands on the desk, turning away. I couldn’t look at him. I was so sad, so mad at him, and my heart was in my throat, and I had so many questions: Why didn’t you come for me? and How did you live through what happened? and Who are you? Who are you now?
Instead, I pulled the showerhead out of my purse. “It broke,” I said, and then I started to cry.
“Then I’ll fix it,” he said.
“I missed you,” I said. “I thought you’d come back for me, but you didn’t.”
“I should have,” he said. “I wanted to, so many times, but I thought you didn’t want me, and then I made such a mess out of everything.”
“So now you’re here?” I tried to make myself look at him. He was bigger than he’d been as a runner, that almost scary whippet-lean look gone. He looked like a man now, broad-shouldered and solid, with a nametag that said “Manager” and glasses with gold rims.
“Now I’m here,” he confirmed. I looked at his hands. No rings. He was close enough for me to feel the warmth from his body, to smell his familiar smell, and I realized, as he touched my cheek, then my hair, that I had never stopped hoping for this, not in all the years we’d been apart.
My phone buzzed. WHERE R U? Adele had texted, and I knew that if I didn’t leave soon Delaney would be late for her party. “I have to go,” I said. My voice sounded gaspy. “I’m late . . . I have to . . .” The showerhead and the paint samples I’d been holding spilled onto the floor. I bent down, still crying, not knowing what I was doing, with no idea of what I wanted to happen next.
Andy put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me gently to my feet. “Do you remember the night we met? Do you remember what I asked you?”
I nodded, thinking of why I’d gone down to the emergency room that night, how I’d meant to collect a story for Alice, and how, if it was a good one, she’d answer my question and tell me what I needed to know. Will it hurt?
“You asked me, ‘Does it hurt?’ ” I told him, crying harder. I’d lived long enough now to know the answer. It hurts more than you think you can stand, I would tell our little-girl and little-boy selves, two children lost in different dark woods, and no one escapes it . . . but it’s going to be better than you can believe.
“I love you,” I said, not caring that my face was wet and that I couldn’t stop crying, not caring that I’d said it first. “You always had my heart.”
“Rachel,” said Andy, “I will love you forever.” Then he wrapped me in his arms, and I buried my face in the soft spot just beneath his shoulder, until he put his fingers under my chin and tilted my face up to his and kissed me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I want to acknowledge my agent, Joanna Pulcini, and my editor, Greer Hendricks, with whom I’ve worked for many years, on many books, and whose fingerprints are on every scene and every sentence of this one. Both of them put in endless hours reading countless drafts and turning Who Do You Love into a story they thought readers would want (here’s hoping they were right!).
My brilliant, funny, and unflappably patient and kind assistant, Meghan Burnett, worked overtime on this one to make sure that Rachel and Andy could inhabit their respective worlds fully. Thank you, Meghan, for never blinking, no matter what weird thing I told you I needed to know about, for never complaining, no matter what impossible feats I was asking you to perform. You’re the best.
I am very grateful to Katherine Compitus, who helped with background about MSW programs in New York City; Chris Chmielewski and Patrick Donnelly, who gave me insight into the runner’s life; and Laura Hoagland, for sharing her own story about life with tricuspid atresia. Apologies for the liberties I took with the 2004 Olympics, and for demoting Hicham El Guerrouj, the real gold medalist, to second place.
Sarah Cantin stepped up to bat in the ninth inning and hit it out of the ballpark. Also at Atria, I am grateful for the help and support of Haley Weaver, Kitt Reckord-Mabicka, Suzanne Donahue, Lisa Sciambra, Lisa Keim, Hillary Tisman, Elisa Shokoff, Kathleen Rizzo, and Lisa Silverman. Jin Yu, who does online marketing, might be the only person in the world who loves Twitter as much as I do. Judith Curr, publisher of Atria Books, and Carolyn Reidy, CEO and president of Simon & Schuster, continue to be powerhouses and role models whom I want to be when I grow up. I’m also grateful to Joanna’s assistant, Haley Heidemann. Finally, big love to copyeditor extraordinaire Nancy Inglis, who came out of retirement and saved me from myself another dozen times, and to my friend Carol Williams for her thoughtful advice.
At Simon & Schuster UK, I’m grateful to Suzanne Baboneau, Ian Chapman, and Jo Dickinson. Marcy Engelman is a PR miracle worker and a true friend who has never once made me feel bad for being completely obsessed with The Bachelor. Thanks to Simone Swink and Patty Neger at Good Morning America for giving me a platform on which to dissect the Most Dramatic Rose Ceremony Ever, and to Trish Hall and Jessica Lustig at the New York Times for letting me get back to my opinionating roots and write about Passover traditions, personal grooming, and mean girls in assisted living.
At Engelman & Co., Emily Gambir helps to tell the world about my books. At Greater Talent Network, my lecture agent, Jessica Fee, lets me travel the country and tell my stories. Tamara Staples took my author photograph and Albert Tang and Chin-Yee Lai made this book, and the rest of my backlist, look fresh and enticing.
On the home front, I am, as ever, grateful to Terri Gottlieb for tending to my girls and my garden. Thanks to my mom, Frances Frumin Weiner; her partner, Clair Kaplan; Clair’s son, David; and my siblings, Jake, Molly, and Joe Weiner and David Reek. Adam Bonin’s love and support go above and beyond. He is a first-rate father and a great friend. Susan Abrams will always be my BFF. Lucy Jane and Phoebe Pearl are the lights of my life. I am proud to be their mother every day.
A very special shout-out to my Berkshires breakfast club—Tom O’Reilly, Tim Swain, Charles Cohen, Pat Donnelly, Emma Hart, Elizabeth Ekeblad, Lesley Carter, and Franklin Mattei. I will always say “hi” to you in the halls.
To Bill Syken, whose father once saw me unexpectedly appear in his house early one morning and grumbled, “You again?” Thank you for being with me through the hard times, for always making me laugh, and for showing me, through your patience and kindness, what love looks like. Me, again. Me, forever.
And to my readers, for coming with me this far.
Atria Reading Group Guide
Who Do You Love
Jennifer Weiner
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. How did the novel’s prol
ogue frame your reading experience? Who did you imagine had broken Rachel’s heart, and were you surprised when you ultimately learned who Brenda was?
2. “She hadn’t said goodbye to me. She hadn’t told me enough about what it was like, when you knew you weren’t going to get better. She hadn’t told me if it had hurt” (page 34). How does Alice influence Rachel, and how does this early loss shape her sense of self in the years to come? You might also discuss the symbolism of the Ouija board in this scene. How does this childhood game take on greater meaning for both Alice and Rachel?
3. Compare Rachel’s initial impression to Andy’s first memory of Lori, “his beautiful mom with her red-lipsticked mouth and her hair that fell in ripples down her back.” How does Andy’s perception of his mother change as he grows older, and what causes this shift? In what ways is Andy driven by how others perceive him, both for better and for worse?
4. While Andy is growing up, he sometimes worries that his mother “just [doesn’t] like him very much” (page 40). How do you feel the dynamics between Andy and Lori affect the other relationships in Andy’s life? Ultimately, how did you feel Lori’s parenting style positively served Andy—and in what ways did it hurt him?
5. Turn to page 69, where Nana and Rachel are discussing Mrs. Blum’s outburst during the bat mitzvah service. What do you think it means to be “a woman of valor,” and why do you think Nana reminds Rachel of this, and the line from Proverbs, at this particular moment? How does Rachel live up to this ideal and in what ways does she fall short over the course of the novel?
6. How did you initially perceive Bethie Botts? As a teenager, do you think you would have acted differently toward her than Rachel and Marissa did on the youth retreat? How did Andy’s treatment of Bethie in the scene on page 130 affect your perspective on each of the characters involved—including Andy himself—and who did you feel for most deeply here? What did you make of Rachel and Bethie’s (now Elizabeth) interaction at their high school reunion? Was there a Bethie in your life—and if so, what would you say to them now?
Who Do You Love Page 35