by Sonia Taitz
“Let’s save that for now. It’s pretty rich material. Right now, I just desperately want to see Richard.”
“Well,” said Rona thoughtfully. “As a matrimonial lawyer, I am paid to be professionally cynical, but hey—whatever makes you happy. Wait—Abigail, are you crying?”
“No, I think I’m just nervous!” said Abigail, shaking with hope. But she was crying, a little, single drops falling down her face.
What would Richard say when he saw her?
She bundled Chloe into her new winter overalls and jacket, tucked her feet, wrapped in thick socks, into her pink moon boots, and lifted her to her chest like a warm, fragrant pillow. Some things were uncertain, romantic love foremost amongst them, but that she and this child belonged together was a truth never to be shaken.
Perhaps Richard Trubridge would feel the same way about her.
Richard was not in the park when Abigail and Chloe got there, but after a while, Rona came in, wheeling Dylan.
“Got the yams!” she said, flourishing the bag.
“Good, that’s good,” said Abigail mindlessly.
“Have you seen him?”
“Not yet, I’m looking around, though. You didn’t see him anywhere, did you? Can you look around? Maybe he’s here and I just can’t see him.”
“You really have it bad, Abigail,” said Rona, kindly. “You’re all red in the face.”
“Well, Rona, I haven’t set eyes on him since that time in Palm Springs. We did have a romance there, like everyone said, but I’ve had to hold it in until now. I thought he was married, because he was talking in this low voice to someone he called Honey. I thought I was just a one-night fling.”
“Yeah, I know. The dreaded ‘honey’ phenomenon,” said Rona, speaking as a divorce lawyer. “Poor you. I can just imagine how you felt when you heard that.”
“But I got pregnant anyway. Honey or no honey. And the rest is—well, Little Miss Blue Eyes, here.”
“You know, Abigail,” said Rona, “even though everyone suspected this little romance, we also believed that with your little suits and scarves, and your nose to the grindstone ways—”
“Me? Nose to the grindstone?”
“Are you serious? More than anyone else in the firm, ever. So no, we thought you could easily have had the Immaculate Conception or something. That somehow you managed to just order up a baby, no muss, no fuss. You always seemed to be so in control, so perfect—”
“Oh, I’m not too perfect anymore. Having a baby makes you stumble around a lot. You fall a lot, in all kinds of ways.” She’d tumbled down on Broadway, on the day she’d first met Tim. She’d fallen on the turbulent flight back from Grenada. But most of all, she had to admit, she’d fallen, all the way, for Richard.
“That’s good,” said Rona, fervently. “It means we’re human beings. We’re mothers.” She squeezed Abigail’s hand. Abigail squeezed back.
“And all the time it hurts, I mean it hurt, but I hid it,” Abigail admitted. “I tried to hide it well. But anyway, now I’m telling you everything, and I’m looking for Richard Trubridge to tell him also. Because Arlie—here’s the crux—she says he wouldn’t be chasing me like this if he were married.”
“Arlie?”
“I keep telling you, Arlie, my babysitter. Don’t you get it? She’s like us—without all the diplomas—and she’s learning as she goes. I trust her instincts. She found out Richard had called me, and that Tim picked up the phone—and by the way, that’s why I never found out about it. Tim hid it from me!”
“Schmuck,” said Rona.
“Jealous, threatened,” said Abigail, more compassionately.
“Anyway,” she continued, “Arlie says Richard’s not necessarily the type to be messing me around. She can tell by what Tim told her. I guess Tim could hear his tone of voice, I don’t know. . . .” Abigail broke off, disheartened. Hunches were all she had to go on, hunches and missed calls and a missing father to this beautiful child. Her courage momentarily flagged.
“Tim and she are buddies now?”
“OK, you should know that he’s kind of over me, and he’s Arlie’s boyfriend now,” said Abigail, rallying a little. It was good to have Tim move on; it made her feel less guilty. Abigail could never be what he wanted, and she kept thinking of Richard.
“It’s a little weird, I know.”
“Just a little unusual.”
“But it’s fine. It makes sense for them. It’s what they want and I’m all for it.”
“Uh-huh.” Rona took this in and absorbed it with professional aplomb. “So who in the world was ‘honey’? I mean, assuming the argument that Trubridge is not married?”
“An old girlfriend, maybe an ex? I don’t know exactly. It was a really quick conversation.”
“It’s plausible that it wasn’t a wife. Just. If it was, he might have been more nervous that you’d pop out of the bathroom and say, ‘Great sex, babe!’”
“Well, I don’t generally do that.”
“But theoretically—”
“No, it was really—it was actually that and more.” “Not my point, sorry. I mean, but what kind of intelligent man would have taken the call with you in the room, not knowing what you’d say—what noise you’d make? He could so easily have been busted—”
“So it is plausible that he’s unattached, right?”
“Sure. I guess. But about Richard Trubridge ‘chasing’ you,” persisted Rona, “that one’s harder to agree with. I mean, if he doesn’t even know you were pregnant, and you’re kind of following him here into the kiddie park, how does that constitute his chasing you?”
“Richard called me several times. Not just at home, Rona. At the office, too. Which was hard to do—you know how they felt about him. But of course Tina never let him through—she’s like my guard dog.”
“Good old indiscriminate Tina.”
“Good old idiotic yet somehow indispensable Tina. But my point is that he called repeatedly. And even Tim let on that Richard sounded forlorn when he called, like he—”
“Like he what?”
“Like sad, you know—like, alone, longing—”
“Like as though Richard Trubridge were actually—what—madly in love with you?”
“Well, it’s possible! Don’t you think I’m the least bit lovable?”
“That you are, ‘the least bit lovable,’” Rona teased.
“Oh—there he is!”
Richard had strolled in, holding Martin’s hand. He stopped and leaned over the child to talk to him. Then Martin bounded over to the curly slides. Richard followed, his long legs loping.
“That’s him and the crazy kid,” Rona whispered. “You sure you’re up for this?”
The two friends watched them for a while. Abigail nodded.
Rona said, “I think I’ll just wander off and take Dylan for a little stroll along the river.”
“You sure? Won’t you two be cold?”
“It’s not that bad. The experts say babies need to get used to all kinds of weather, anyway. You don’t want them crumpling at the first frost. Why don’t you stay here for a while, see what happens? I’ll be home in about an hour, doing the damned mashed yams.”
“Sounds great,” said Abigail distractedly. “I’ll probably see you soon, then. I mean what could happen that would stop me?” said Abigail. Her entire body was beginning to feel odd. Her knees were going wobbly. But she couldn’t fall, not now, with a baby on her chest.
Chloe was bundled up in a baby carrier that placed her against her mother’s heart. Abigail touched the fuzzy pom-pom on top of the baby’s head as though it were a talisman. Then she trained her eye on Richard, stiffened her resolve and announced, “Here we go.”
“Hey—Abigail, wait,” said Rona suddenly. “I feel I have to tell you this. I’ve been talking to people at Fletcher this week. My leave is ending, so I called them to touch base. And there’s talk that this guy you say is the father has got a screw loose. Maybe you and Chloe here are better of
f without him.”
“I know, I know, they’ve been saying that for a while. But Richard’s not even at the firm anymore!”
“Of course he isn’t—he left in disgrace—but I brought him up. They asked me how my life was going, and I was trying to sound like I wasn’t the only lawyer in the park on leave, you know, so I name-dropped him, kind of. Said I saw him here from time to time. I made up that we talk about the principles of family law while we watch the kids in the sandbox. He is kind of a big guy compared to us, and he’s very well regarded at his new firm.
“And everyone I spoke to said to keep away from him, that he’s a nutcase. Now, I realize that they’re angry about him leaving over that custody case. I mean, they lost the case, and they got penalized, too. But they implied that it’s more a mental thing than anything to do with the law as such. That Richard Trubridge is soft in the head. I mean, that boy he’s with? That’s not even his own kid, they told me. He hasn’t even got a kid. So what’s he doing?”
“Hasn’t got a kid?”
“Right—it might not even be his.”
This was good news to Abigail.
“Soft in the head?” she mumbled. Somehow, Abigail was not turned off by that description. She had had enough of hardheads. She was getting soft in the head herself.
“I will do some research, Rona. Some diligent fact-checking. I will determine, for the record, how soft in the head Richard Trubridge is. I will find out who this feisty three-year-old who intimidates you so is.”
“I’m not particularly intimidated. I just think he’s a handful.”
“He’s a boy. A three-year-old boy.”
“Well, get the scoop.”
“I will. And I will tell the world, concealing no evidence.”
Rona stared at her. “I hope you don’t mind my telling you all this. I felt I had to make a disclosure.”
“You had to. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, according to the best of your knowledge. Appreciated. And I hope you’re wrong.”
“Good luck then, sweetie,” said Rona after a moment, wheeling her baby away.
37
Abigail took a deep breath and walked over to the climbing frame. Two curly slides emerged from either side of a wooden suspended bridge. Richard was crossing the bridge, running first to one slide landing, then the other. He and Martin laughed as the bridge shuddered beneath them. They had done this before and knew the structure, though flexible, was sure. It would carry them, together, and no matter how it shook, they would not fall.
Richard chased Martin over to one slide, put him in his lap, and rode him down with his legs in the air, shouting, “Whee!”
They did this over and over. Richard, whatever his faults, was a very patient man.
Then Abigail climbed up. She crossed the shaky bridge with her child, and went down the other slide. Legs in the air, she shouted:
“Whee! We’re flying!”
Chloe let out a beautiful, bell-like laugh. It rang out clearly on this still, cold day. There were few other people in the playground.
Richard turned his head and looked over at Abigail and the little girl.
Abigail turned her head and looked over at Richard and the little boy.
“Abigail?” he called out uncertainly.
“Yes?”
“Have you had—is this your—your own baby?”
Nodding, Abigail turned Chloe around to face Richard.
“Voila,” she said, idiotically.
“She’s very—very pretty,” said Richard, coming closer, his expression still unsettled, confused. His eyes remained focused on Abigail.
“Yes, she’s a looker,” Abigail replied. “Especially that dimple in her chin,” she added, a bit sharply. Richard had one, too, and Abigail stared fixedly at it as Richard grew near. How like Chloe’s it really was.
“A dimple in her chin?” he stuttered. His hand flew up to play with the cleft on his face—a little notch he could feel in the skin, and in the bone below.
“And I’ve always really loved her combination of black hair and blue-green eyes,” said Abigail. “Really loved it ever since—ever since I met you, as a matter of fact. Never saw it before then, or since. But now, I get to see it every single day. And I’m seeing it again, as I look at you right now.”
Richard couldn’t take his eyes off Abigail’s round, dark eyes.
“What—what exactly are you telling me?” his voice was a bit harsh. “Are you saying that my eyes are the same color as—”
“Please take your hand off your chin dimple and just take a good look at this baby,” she said, just as sternly.
“But when—when on earth did you get married?”
“Married?” How stupid could this senior partner be? He was staring at the baby openmouthed, as though he were, in fact, an idiot.
“Richard,” she all but shouted, “How could I get married and whom would I marry?”
“What do you mean? Who is this child? Are you—are you actually saying she’s mine?”
“Isn’t she yours?” Abigail answered, meeting Richard’s gaze steadily.
“Are you saying that? I don’t think I fully grasp what’s going on here.”
Abigail was almost angry at him. Would he be one of those men who made you take a test, even though they were the only man in your life, and even when the baby was practically their clone?
Richard looked fixedly at the child. He began trembling.
“Yes, you two,” said Abigail, her voice trembling, too. “Both of you. Look hard at each other.”
“You want me to look at her hard?”
“Yes, I do. Chloe’s good at this. That’s her name, this baby here. Chloe. She’s a starer. Try it. It’s about time she looked her father in the face. And it’s about time you looked at her, too.”
Abigail held Chloe up so she could see Richard more closely. He looked into the baby’s honest, innocent eyes. They were indeed the same turquoise blue as his own—and they shone as her lips parted slowly in a smile.
Still trembling, Richard reached for her. Abigail lifted Chloe out of her carrier and Richard took her up into his arms, where she immediately nestled.
“She—she looks like—”
“Like you, like her father, like Mr. Richard Trubridge, Esquire.”
Instinctively, Richard put his hand out to touch the baby’s cheek. He had never seen or felt such soft skin. Chloe grabbed his finger and put in into her gummy mouth. She gripped it there, gnawing.
“Is she—what’s the matter—is she hungry? Ow!”
“No, no—teething,” said Abigail, trying to stay angry but wanting to laugh. Chloe could really hurt you—her jaws were vise-like.
“I just fed her,” she continued. “Me, I’m the hungry one, Richard. Always.”
“I know. I remember.”
“Yes, that’s who I always was, but I never understood what I was hungry for. I thought it was being a law partner, but that didn’t really cover it at all. Love, and goodness, and honesty. That’s what I was hungry for. Someone to rely on. All the things I thought I saw in you. There I was, being such a clever girl on the partnership track, when I found myself falling—well, literally falling down onto the grass of some golf course. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. Not only did I have to deal with the fact that I loved you unrequitedly, Richard, but as it turns out, I became pregnant.”
“You got pregnant in Palm Springs?”
“Seems so. I mean, obviously. Wasn’t that when we saw each other? Richard, your brain seems to have just died!”
“I’m just in shock. But of course, Palm Springs. Of course. When else?”
“That was a pretty significant watershed for me, as you can see.” There was a tiny edge in Abigail’s voice. She was angry at Richard for all this time—an entire precious year now—spent without him. For possibly being married, too. Because maybe he really was. Why else was he balking?
“So you’re saying that this baby is really yours
and mine?”
“It’s either that or the Immaculate Conception, Richard.”
“What a wonderful thing,” he replied.
There was a long pause as Abigail regrouped.
“Really? Wonderful?”
Then darkening, he added, “but then it was truly wrong of you, in my opinion, not to take my calls. It was my right to know. As a father. I don’t want to get legalistic with you, Abigail, but—”
“Yes, it probably was wrong. I didn’t think of it that way at the time. And it so happened that I didn’t even know about all the calls. I mean, they weren’t all delivered to me, certainly not when you tried to reach me at home. . . .”
“Yes, and who was that very unhelpful man, if I may ask?”
“A friend, Richard. Something more for a time, maybe, but not any longer.”
“A friend, even one who is ‘something more,’ would have told you that I called, especially knowing the circumstances. Which I take it he did.”
“Yes. I guess he was jealous.”
“Fine. But what about the calls at work, Abigail? Those you heard about, I presume?”
“Yes, but I didn’t—I really couldn’t face you.”
“Why on earth not? Why didn’t you tell me anything, even while I kept trying to reach you—to see you again?”
“I wanted to but I held on to my dignity, such as it was. I didn’t want to face any more humiliating scenes. Remember how I left your room so fast that last morning?”
“Of course I remember feeling terribly puzzled about it. Hurt, in fact.”
“You were hurt? I was positive you were married! That I was no more than a stupid fling. I heard you talk to your wife on the phone, jabber on about kids of your own—so why would you need one more? One little mistake with a girl you didn’t—didn’t actually care about?”
“You thought what? Whom am I supposed to be married to?”
“I don’t know her name, do I? But come on. Let’s be honest with each other for once. You were talking on the phone to some woman, your wife probably, about your kids. Don’t you remember?”
“But Abigail, for heaven’s sake, that was only—”
“Uncle Richard, my goodie! Slidey! Again! SLIDEY AGAIN!”