by Robin Kirman
“And what,” she’d asked him, her voice so weak it was as if her insides had been emptied: “What happens to the part of you that’s left?”
—
The following week, Georgia’s father called, insisting on coming to see his new granddaughter. “You wanted to keep me from the wedding, fine. Mark and I don’t need to be close, but this is different, this child is my blood.”
Georgia told him he was welcome to meet Violet, but the timing was not right.
“I haven’t seen you in years now. I miss you. Don’t you care?”
“At this moment, not especially.”
“Georgia, I won’t let you punish me forever.”
“I’m not punishing you; this isn’t about you.”
At last, she’d felt she had no choice but to tell him what the trouble was.
“I’ll pack a bag,” her father said; he was dropping everything to join her in Boston. “Long as you need me.”
“That’s not at all what I need. Don’t.” It angered her to hear what sounded too much like excitement in his voice, to imagine the wish that lay behind it: Mark out of the picture, father and daughter reunited again. “I’m going to handle this myself. Mark and I. Please respect that.”
Later the same week, a call came from her mother; her father had passed along word of Mark’s diagnosis.
“William and I have discussed it,” her mother told her, dryly, practically, “and we’ve both decided the best thing is for you and Mark and Violet to move here.”
“To Santa Cruz?”
“The house is big.”
“We have a house. A house we love.”
“A house you can’t afford. Certainly not now.”
Easy for her mother to speak this way, about a home she’d never even seen, as she’d never set eyes on Mark, or Violet either, in the flesh.
“Think it through,” her mother advised. “Whatever money Mark gets on sick leave, you need to be saving, preparing for all eventualities.”
“I’m not going to discuss this with you.”
“You need to. You have a child, and no career to speak of. The way William reasons—”
“What do I care how William reasons?” As if her family’s upheaval were a problem to be solved, a matter of calculation, a chance for William to map out one of his “optimal solutions.”
“It isn’t just about what you want,” said her mother. “I’m concerned about the baby. Money aside, you’re under strain and she’ll need more support than you can give her.”
“And what? You’d be the one to help us, is that it?” This was rich; this was really too much for her to take. “You see this as your opportunity to prove your maternal muscle, after everything.”
“Georgia, I realize your feelings for me are complicated.”
“No, I think they’re pretty simple.” At that moment, she couldn’t stand the sound of her mother’s voice, let alone the thought of their sharing a home. Still, she knew her mother had a point. This month, next month, maybe, she had the means to pay the bills. Beyond that, she couldn’t guess how she’d provide for her small family on her own. Those years traveling with Mark really had been the indulgence her mother said they were; she’d spent her adult life on the run and now her irresponsibility threatened to imperil the child she’d brought into being.
Mistakenly brought into being, it seemed now: she was not built to be a mother, even less a single mother. At twenty-five she’d known this about herself, so why had she thought otherwise at thirty? Too spoiled, too removed from reality, how could she be relied upon to guard another human being from pain?
She’d begun to scare herself, especially lately, during these difficult weeks, while Mark was undergoing radiation in the hospital. One morning when she’d gone for groceries, she’d forgotten Violet in the car and run back out to the parking lot in tears. Exhaustion was to blame: Violet was crying through the nights, and in the day, when the baby napped, Georgia lay awake. Sleep only seemed to visit her at the most dangerous moments, while bathing Violet in the evening or when she was behind the wheel. Finally, having veered out of her lane on her way to the post office—with Violet, sleeping in her car seat behind her—Georgia turned the car around and headed for the Mass General pediatric ward.
She needed to see a doctor, she informed reception. The nurse observed the baby—pink and crying, in a sling at Georgia’s chest—and pointed to the waiting area. A TV screen hung from the wall, featuring an animated film: dancing fish and singing mermaids, seaweed swaying to the beat. Georgia swayed along, trying to calm both Violet and herself. Even on her feet, eyes open, she was half asleep; the voices in reception sounded themselves watery, submerged. The ringing of her phone roused her.
“Georgia? I didn’t wake you, did I? Fuck.”
“Alice?”
It startled her, this once-familiar voice, out of context and unwelcome. Whatever Alice wanted, Georgia was in no state to deal with her. She wasn’t sure how Alice even had her number. In all the years following their encounter in New York, Georgia had heard nothing from her—no response to the postcard she’d sent her from Mumbai, nor to the next one she’d sent from Cairo.
“I wanted to let you know that I’m in Boston,” Alice said. “Just for the week. I’d like to see you before I go. Maybe meet for lunch.”
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time.” The nurse was signaling Georgia to join her down the hall. “In fact, I’m going to have to go now.”
“When you get a moment then, you can try me at the Charles Hotel. Please do. There’s something important I need to talk with you about.”
—
Inside the examination room, Violet’s wails sounded twice as loud; Georgia paced the narrow confines, until the doctor entered, crisp and friendly. She looked fresh out of the classroom: moon-faced, with black hair swept into a ponytail.
“Dr. Yang. Good morning. Oh, poor thing. Not feeling well today?” She tapped the baby on the nose and pulled a pen from the pocket of her doctor’s coat.
“This is how she always is, crying all the time. The other doctor thought it might be colic, but I don’t think so; at least she’s no worse after feedings.”
Dr. Yang consulted the papers on her clipboard: “You were in two weeks ago. Dr. Arnold saw you.”
“He did blood work, tested for allergies. But he found nothing wrong.”
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?” The doctor offered her a placid smile, one that only added to Georgia’s agitation. “I guess the other doctor told you then, there’s really not much we can do in cases like this. Babies cry. So long as she’s gaining weight, meeting all the markers, we consider the situation normal.”
“Don’t tell me this is normal.”
“Newborns can drive you crazy.” Dr. Yang smiled again, the smile of a young woman with no duties or misfortunes that she couldn’t leave behind, in the examining rooms, at the close of every day.
“Right, newborns cry and new mothers are tired, but this, there must be something—because honestly, if I don’t sleep—my husband’s in the hospital and I’m on my own. On the drive here, I nearly crashed. I’m afraid something terrible will happen. Maybe it doesn’t sound like an emergency, but it is, it will be.”
“You’re under stress.” Dr. Yang made a note on her clipboard. “That could be a factor here. Babies pick up on a mother’s anxiety.”
Did this woman take her for an idiot? Did she think she didn’t grasp that the child was in distress because she was? She didn’t need this teenage doctor to tell her what she already knew—what she needed was for her to take out her prescription pad and fix it.
“Then give me something for the anxiety, how’s that?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist, but I can refer you for another appointment.”
“Look, I can’t keep coming in here, waiting—I need this now. A simple script.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” She felt the urge to slap the woman�
��s face. Those sweet, earnest, young doctors, those people she’d counted as her friends for the last years, how she’d come to loathe them and their kindly uselessness, just as she’d come to dread these clean, bright hospital rooms, with all the vileness they contained. She didn’t want another appointment, didn’t want to pay one extra visit to these houses of illness, which she secretly blamed for Mark’s condition: all those years he’d spent watching people’s bodies fester and waste, death, as a concept, had been creeping in under his skin, taking root in his gut.
—
A male nurse escorted Georgia from the wing: Violet went on wailing; Georgia’s cell was again ringing, while cartoon mermaids trilled above her head. As a precaution, for Violet’s sake, Georgia caught a taxi by the entrance and left her car in the hospital lot. On the ride home, she listened to the messages on her phone: the first was older, from Mark’s mother, in Seattle: Mark suggested you might be feeling, well, a little under strain…The last call had been from Alice.
I figured you might not get back to me, so I just thought you should know: Charlie’s the one who insisted that I contact you. If you want to talk about it I’ll be at L’Espalier, one o’clock, tomorrow.
Later that evening, Georgia made arrangements with a sitter for the next afternoon. She would meet with Alice, she decided: her immediate concerns left no room for old grudges and, besides, since Charlie was behind this invitation, it was really for Charlie’s sake that she was going. That was the story she told herself, at any rate, though when she awoke the next morning, surprisingly undaunted by the prospect of facing another day, she had to admit the thought of seeing Alice roused her.
With her newer friends, those she’d made through Mark, she must always endure the same bromides—he’s strong; he has so much to live for—but with Alice she might give voice to her true thoughts. Alice had lost a father as young as Mark. She was no stranger to suffering and senselessness and rage; foulmouthed Alice wouldn’t flinch to hear her curse.
And what else was there to do but curse? What other language was a suitable response to the last months? Mark’s painful surgery, followed by radiation and chemo, and, after that ordeal, his digestion was failing; to replace the hormones his body no longer produced, he was being pumped with insulin and still, in recent weeks, he’d developed diabetes. Dr. Poole, the man in charge of Mark’s case, kept saying she should be grateful that Mark was doing this well. Pancreatic cancer was one of the most brutal types; she ought to form no expectations; she ought to be reasonable. But what was reasonable about any of this?
Mark was young and fit; he’d never neglected his health; he hadn’t harbored secret hatreds, or indulged in any vices; he’d lived easily and decently and was, of all those she knew, the least deserving of this plight. What was a more suitable reaction to what he was enduring, than swearing at the top of her lungs, than wishing everyone who bid her be reasonable—these Dr. Pooles and Dr. Yangs—would have their peaceful selves deformed by pain until all they wanted was to shout obscenities, too?
—
L’Espalier was an upscale restaurant and Georgia had done her best to look presentable that day: she’d put on a skirt and proper shoes; she’d combed her hair and applied makeup. Still, she expected Alice would be a little shocked to see her; no amount of effort could hide her exhaustion or how very thin she’d become.
“There you are.” Alice rose from her corner table to kiss Georgia, lightly, on the cheek. “I’m so glad you made it,” sparing her, at least, a patronizing “you’re looking well.”
Alice, meanwhile, could truthfully be told that she looked good: she wore a short, tailored skirt suit, metallic tweed; her hair was shoulder length and she’d had the curls relaxed. This was a very different Alice from the last one she’d seen inside the ward, muttering incoherent confessions and laying her unwashed head upon Georgia’s lap; this Alice more a stranger, less a companion in chaos, than she’d hoped to find.
Georgia began stiffly. “So what brings you to Boston?”
“Technology conference. I’m preparing the remarks for two presenting CEOs. That’s the sort of writing I do now.”
“Business writing?” It seemed that even Alice had joined the ranks of the reasonable. “When did this happen?”
“A few years ago.” Alice turned to flag down a nearby waiter; her manner was different these days: impatient and assertive. “I had expenses and—well, actually, it was Charlie’s doing. He threw some work my way, once his company took off. Maybe you’ve heard about it.”
Only from her mother, who’d come across Charlie’s name in the financial news. And he was pretty smitten with you once, if I remember.
“We haven’t been in touch, not since I last saw you anyway.”
She didn’t want to be reminded of her New York visit: Alice’s madness spurring her on to a mad act of her own, one that had cost her Charlie, the only true friend that she’d found outside of Mark.
The waiter was hovering. Georgia ordered a glass of wine, figuring that alcohol was her only means of relaxing into this lunch, her one shot at reviving that blunt communication she was craving and had always valued with Alice in the past. Today, though, Alice wouldn’t join her in a drink. Alcohol interacted with her meds, she said, and so she asked instead for club soda and a shrimp cocktail—the one cocktail she was allowed.
“Charlie and I also had a falling out,” Alice admitted. “It was the Patel fellowship that got us speaking again. I don’t know if you’re aware: we’ve set up a scholarship fund in conjunction with the memorial this May.”
“No, I wasn’t aware.” Not that there was a memorial, let alone that Alice, of all people, was involved. “Charlie got you into it?”
“Other way around actually; I’d had the idea some time ago. It’s a long story.”
“It must be.” Hard to imagine any series of events that could lead Julie’s family to cooperate with Alice. Georgia had never met the Patels, but her one effort to reach them had been enough to dissuade her from trying again. How dare she call this house, she’d heard Mrs. Patel shouting in the background. Where does she get the nerve?
Well, Alice did always have nerve, whatever other qualities she lacked and made up for with those meds. “Sounds like a good thing you’re doing.”
Alice raised a brow, a hint of cynicism, of the less charitable spirit she’d been not so long ago. “Anyway, I’m much more interested in hearing about you.”
“Nothing very interesting to say.” She was married, a new mother: Georgia didn’t wish to tell her more—the fantasy of speaking freely this afternoon had fast dissolved. Probably it was wrong to wish that Alice would be less self-possessed; probably she should give her old friend credit for her apparent transformation. But this meeting felt too much like a farce: Alice, newly reputable and constructive, offering hope to the Patels, sponsoring some other young girl who might give Julie’s mother a smooth and eager face to look into, to mask the horrific feelings that ought to accompany her onto Harvard Yard.
“You look tired,” observed Alice.
“Yeah, well, a newborn will do that to you.”
The waiter returned, and Alice signaled for him to place the glass of wine before her friend. “Look, I’m just going to come out with it. You don’t need to pretend. Charlie told me what you’re facing.”
“And what does Charlie know about it?”
“Husband in the hospital, bills you can’t pay.”
Georgia set down her wine and watched its wobbling reflection on the tablecloth. As far as she knew, Charlie hadn’t even learned that she was married. On several occasions, she’d felt the urge to contact him, to tell him about her life now, especially to pass on the news of Violet’s birth, but in the end she’d feared he’d respond with disappointment, or worse, not respond at all. “I haven’t even spoken to him.”
“Someone else has, on your behalf.”
“Someone else?”
Alice’s expression was one Georgia recalled from sch
ool: the small frisson that preceded a hurtful or humiliating comment. “A few weeks ago, your father called him. He was worried you were overwhelmed, making yourself sick.”
“My father. He called Charlie? My fucking father—he’s the one who’s sick.”
Alice leaned in, brushing back a lock of her smooth hair. “There’s no reason to get upset, no cause for shame in needing help. We’ve all been in the shit, right? If it makes you feel better, there was a time when I also asked Charlie for a loan.”
“I’m not asking. And I hope you haven’t come here intending to persuade me.” Bad enough Charlie and Alice were privy to her problems; she wasn’t about to become their next charity case.
“No, that’s not why I’ve come.” Alice sighed and brought a chewed nail to her lips; her cuticles were raw and peeling, seemingly the one edge where Alice remained ragged.
Their dishes arrived: Alice’s, a bowl of ice, ringed with shrimp; and, for Georgia, the soup, the cheapest item on the menu.
Georgia started in, though she hardly felt like eating; the faster this lunch was done, the better.
Alice laid her napkin gingerly across her lap. “What I wanted to discuss, it’s connected to the memorial actually. The event will receive some attention in the press, which has prompted the police to reopen the case. Charlie already heard from the Patels that investigators have been in touch with them, and someone might try to reach you, too, maybe reporters. Whatever comes up, I felt we should speak first.”
Alice left off, dragging a shrimp through a small dish of red sauce. She was waiting for her to speak, Georgia realized, though her thoughts were still stuck on her father’s call to Charlie: a selfish manipulation, unsurprising. Her father inserting himself, yet again, unable to let her live her life with Mark.
“Honestly, Alice, I don’t see why we have anything to talk about.”
“Well, we never did properly address what happened. To start with, my illness.” Bipolar disorder, Alice went on to explain, which she’d likely been afflicted by during college, too: “It wasn’t diagnosed then, but in those weeks I stayed with you, and then, later, at Charlie’s, when I wrote what I did about you…I’m not making excuses.”