by Haylen Beck
Anna took a last look in the mirror over the sink. The haircut was rough; she’d aimed for ’60s Mia Farrow and wound up with a crazy lady instead. But it would have to do. She returned L’il B to the plastic seat, strapped him in, and opened the door.
The security guard, an overweight man in his thirties, stood waiting for her.
Anna stared at him for a moment before she said, “Yes?”
He gave her a polite smile and said, “I just wanted to check everything was okay, ma’am.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
“Those aren’t the clothes you were wearing when you went in,” he said. He looked her up and down and up again. “Did you cut your hair?”
“I changed my clothes,” Anna said. “That’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, I have the tags right here, they can still scan them at the checkout, right?”
“That’s not normally how we do things, but I guess it’ll be all right. Why don’t I take you to the registers now, make sure you got everything taken care of.”
“No, I can manage,” she said.
That polite smile again. “I’d prefer it if I went with you. Just to make sure everything scans okay.”
Anna agreed, and he followed her to the checkout, where he hovered while the assistant ran all the items through. She paid cash, and pushed the cart toward the exit, the guard still following. L’il B began to fuss, so she fished a pack of pacifiers from the bottom of the cart. She pulled the packaging apart and went to insert one into his mouth.
“No, no, no, stop!”
The security guard came to her side, took hold of her wrist.
“You need to sterilize that before you give it to him. It’s a boy, right? Anything you put in his mouth needs to be sterile.”
“I know,” Anna said, even though she didn’t. “I just forgot, that’s all.”
“He’s your first?” the guard asked.
“Yeah,” Anna said, and she pushed the cart away, the exit doors sliding open.
“I got three, youngest one’s six months. They’re hard work, I tell you.”
She ignored him and kept pushing.
“I think maybe I saw you on the news,” the guard said, walking alongside her.
Anna felt a chill, and a crackle of adrenaline. Her heart knocked hard inside her chest, her limbs thrumming with a sudden energy.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said, not slowing as she wheeled the cart out into the evening.
He stepped in front of her, stopped the cart with his pudgy hands.
“Please,” she said, “I need to go.”
“Just tell me the truth,” he said. “Will you and your baby be safer if I call the cops now or if I give it an hour or two?”
She stood silent for a time before saying, “A couple hours, maybe.”
He nodded and said, “That’s kinda what I thought. And I guess I didn’t catch your license plate. But you take care of that baby, you hear me?”
Anna got moving again, heading toward the parking lot. Then she stopped and turned back to him.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded and walked back to the store.
42
LIBBY SAT ALONE IN THE nursery, in the white rocking chair in which she would have fed him. It creaked as she moved back and forth, a steady rhythm that did not soothe her. A week since she left the hospital and the fury had not abated. She had come in here every day, sat in this chair, and rocked while she stared at the wall and counted the things that woman had stolen from her.
This room got the sun in the afternoon. Glowed with it. Right about now she should have been putting the baby down for a nap. She would have put the bottle on the table, burped him, changed him, and laid him down in the crib. Her days had become running lists of would-haves and should-haves, things that she had imagined for herself for the last nine months, things that were now happening somewhere else to someone else.
Her rage was incalculable. She somehow maintained a calm exterior, somehow managed not to scream and smash anything within reach, but the anger burned hard nonetheless. Mason had wisely kept his distance, letting her be when she came to this room, not arguing when she refused the meals he cooked, not questioning why she dragged a mattress from the spare room in here so she could sleep on the floor.
She supposed it was a kind of mourning. They said there were five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. There had been denial, certainly. In the twenty-four hours following the discovery of the mother’s desertion, Libby had talked around it every way she could think of. Surely, she could be tracked down? She can’t just disappear into thin air. She had to show up somewhere.
Mason had listened and nodded and patronized her until she screamed at him to get out. The denial had died before the end of the next day, and anger had taken its place. It had stayed with her ever since and she would cling to it forever if she had to.
A knock on the door.
She turned her head toward it, surprised by the sound. And displeased at the disturbance.
“What?” she said.
The door opened a few inches and she saw Mason’s pale and worried face.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
She nodded and looked toward the window, the voile curtains glowing in the sunlight. From the corner of her eye, she saw him enter and close the door behind him. He stood beside the crib, one hand on the rail.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
She did not look at him. “What about?”
“About what happened. About us. About where we go from here.”
“I’m listening,” she said.
He exhaled, steeled himself. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but—”
“Then maybe you should keep it to yourself.”
“Libby, please, this is difficult enough.”
She closed her eyes and said, “All right. Talk.”
“Thank you. I know it isn’t going to feel like it right now, but we have to consider that this might have been the best outcome for everyone.”
She wanted to scream at him to shut his fucking mouth, but she kept her own mouth shut, the words behind her teeth. He waited, expecting her to explode. She would not give him the satisfaction. Eventually, he spoke again.
“Why don’t we try to make this a fresh start? Try to work on our marriage, see if we can just be happy together. Maybe talk to a counselor, get ourselves right. Then look at whatever options are left to us.”
“You keep saying ‘us,’ but it’s really me you’re talking about, isn’t it? It’s me who needs counseling, right? It’s me who needs a shrink. Just go ahead and say it. I’m the crazy one, aren’t I?”
He crossed the room to her, got down on his knees, took her hands in his. At last, she turned her head to face him. She saw the brimming of his eyes, the darkness beneath them. He thinks he’s suffering, she thought. He knows nothing.
“Libby, honey, we both know you have problems. You thought this baby was going to fix everything, but it wouldn’t have.”
“Not it,” she said. “He.”
“All right, sorry, he wouldn’t have solved your problems. You wanted to use a child to plaster over the cracks in you, and it would never have worked. You’d have wound up hating him for it, just like you hate me. Don’t deny it. You hate me right now. But I think, I hope, you still love me. One doesn’t wipe out the other. But if we’d brought this baby home, and he didn’t fill the hole in you, you’d hate him for it. And what kind of life would he have?”
“Better than she can give him,” Libby said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Think about it. What kind of woman sells her womb?”
Mason shook his head. “That’s not fair. All kinds of women do it for
all kinds of reasons.”
“She’s the kind of woman who would steal my child.”
“Libby, he was never yours.”
She looked him hard in the eye. “Don’t you dare say that to me.”
“Why not? It’s true. You know it is.”
Her anger flared, bright and hot in her heart and mind. She raised her open right hand to strike him. He did not flinch, hunkered there, waiting for the blow. She held her hand suspended over him, then let it drop to her lap.
“I’m going to get him back,” she said. “You can either help me or stay out of my way.”
“How?” he asked. “He’s gone. There’s no way.”
“There’s always a way,” she said.
43
NINE DAYS AFTER HE’D LEFT it, Mr. Kovak let himself back into his own apartment. The place still smelled fresh; his cleaner had let herself in while he was away. A note was stuck to the fridge asking him to buy more floor polish and bleach.
His first order of business was to get out of the clothes he wore, the jeans and sweater he’d bought from a Goodwill, and have a shower. Then he planned to sleep through the evening and into the next day.
He had stayed in the motel for seven days, keeping the television constantly on the local news channel, and venturing out only to buy clothes, wash things, and get food. The young man on reception hadn’t bothered him again. Early on the eighth day, Mr. Kovak began the long drive across Pennsylvania toward New York. He’d already taken the risk of calling to extend the car rental; if the police hadn’t yet found his identity through that route, he could only assume they never would.
After hours of driving, he arrived in the outskirts of Philadelphia and found a twenty-four-hour branch of the rental company where he could drop off the car. They graciously called him a cab to take him into the city, to the 30th Street Station, where he bought an Amtrak ticket to Penn Station in New York. Arriving after midnight, he walked until he found a hotel with a vacant room where he could grab a few hours’ rest before the next stage of returning home: watching his apartment.
Although Mr. Kovak had seen no indication that he was being sought by the authorities, he could not be certain of his safety. It was not impossible that if he went straight home he would feel a pistol’s muzzle against his temple as soon as he turned the key in his door. Therefore, he would exercise caution for one more day.
At ten o’clock on the morning after arriving in New York, he rode the subway out to Jamaica. By eleven, he was walking a steady circuit around the block on which his building stood. Only one, though, so as not to draw attention to himself. He went and bought a coffee, took his time drinking it, then did another circuit an hour later. Six hours passed that way, and each time he took note of the cars parked at the sidewalk, the pedestrians on the street, any tradespeople going about their work. He saw nothing suspicious, but still he was not satisfied.
Not long after seven that evening, he entered the lobby of his building. He rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, one below his, and walked to the fire door that led to the stairs. His presence triggered a light that flickered on, and he stood quite still on the landing for a few seconds, listening. He heard nothing untoward, so he ascended the two flights of steps that brought him to his floor. Exiting the stairwell, he strode along the hallway, showing no signs of caution, then stopped at his door. He made a show of fishing in his pocket for his keys with no intention of finding or using them for the time being.
Instead, he listened. A rustle of fabric, a shoe sole on carpet, anything to announce the presence of another.
A door opened, and Mr. Kovak spun on his heels to face the sound. He put his weight on both feet, his hands out and ready, his body tensed. Then he saw it was the skinny, pale millennial boy from two doors down. He wore earbuds and running gear, his phone strapped to his upper arm.
“Hey,” the young man said.
Mr. Kovak allowed his body to relax, and returned the greeting.
The young man pointed to the cut on Mr. Kovak’s forehead. “Were you in an accident?”
“Just a fender bender,” Mr. Kovak said. “Nothing serious.”
The young man nodded and jogged past him to the elevator, ran on the spot while he waited. Once the elevator had taken him away, Mr. Kovak leaned into his door, pressed his ear against the wood. Heard nothing. Then he knocked on it, two quick raps, before ducking out of view of the peephole.
Nothing. No cops hiding behind the door, waiting for him to enter. He inserted his key into the lock, turned it, and let the door swing open. Empty, as he hoped and expected it to be. As tempting as it was to simply shamble inside and collapse onto his good bed, he made himself pull the door closed, lock it once more, and head back to the stairs leading down to the lobby. A further two hours were lost as he traveled back to Manhattan, collected his things from the concierge at the hotel, and rode the subway out to Jamaica again.
Thus, it was with great relief that he stepped naked into his own shower, cleansed himself, before getting dry and falling onto his bed. As sleep swept in, he promised himself that tomorrow, as soon as he awoke, he would begin forgetting about Anna Lenihan.
That hard nub of pride still shouted at him to track her down and make her pay. He searched for his rage, seeking that burn that always seemed to be just beneath his skin, but it was gone. A strange calm had taken its place.
His right mind told him to forget about it.
Let her have her baby. Let her be happy.
44
ANNA PULLED UP OUTSIDE THE house and applied the parking brake. She kept the engine running, unsure whether or not she would get out of the car. L’il B slept in the good car seat she’d bought a week ago to replace the one she’d taken from the thrift store. It was fixed into the backseat, where she could glance over her shoulder to see him. It had been expensive; there were plenty of no-name brand models in the store, but she had decided she could spare it for him. Nothing was more important than his safety. Nothing was more important than him. She had been through too much to get him this far.
The house was much as she remembered. A recent coat of paint had brightened it somewhat, and the wire fence had been replaced by wood, but the yard was as unkempt as the last time she’d seen it. A newer Hyundai had replaced the old one in the driveway, but the same color. Two flags hung above the porch, one the Stars and Stripes, the other an Irish Tricolor.
Anna counted to ten, instructing herself to either get out of the car or drive away on the final number, but she did neither. Her hands still clutched the steering wheel, as if bound there, shaking. Through the open car window, she heard someone playing scales on a piano, do-re-mi, over and over, shifting up a half step with each repeat. She remembered taking lessons herself. Was old Mrs. McEvoy still teaching down the street? Or maybe her daughter had taken over. She had a daughter, didn’t she? Anna thought so.
Memories clamored for her attention. Playing on the street, hanging out in the park, sneaking out at night to smoke cigarettes and drink the Buds and Coors that the older boys shared. Kissing and fumbling in the hidden places around the neighborhood. One recollection made her smile: her mother sewing up the buttons on her blouses. To keep wandering hands out, her mother had said, I know what those boys are like. As if that would ever have stopped them, Anna thought.
The sweetness of those memories turned bitter when she remembered that it had all gone wrong. That she had left and not been missed. All because of him.
They never believed her. She was eighteen when Stephen, her elder sister’s fiancé, had found her alone in her room. It was true that she had not asked him to leave, that she did not object when he sat on her bed, but she did not ask him to try to kiss her, to force his hands where she didn’t want them. When Marie walked in and found her husband-to-be entangled with Anna, it was his explanation she took as truth. That Anna had thrown herself at him, tha
t he had been trying to get away from her. Marie reasoned that Anna had always been jealous of her, and sure, it was no surprise that she’d try to take her man from her.
As Anna wept and tried to explain what had happened, Marie and their mother turned their stony faces away and would not listen. Stephen and Marie had a long talk with Father Turlington, and Anna packed a bag and left. She had never returned.
Until now.
With no conscious decision to act, Anna shut off the engine, took the key from the ignition, and unfastened her seat belt. She opened the door, climbed out, and walked around to the rear passenger side where she removed L’il B’s seat. He grumbled a little at the disturbance as she carried him toward the house. Anna opened the gate and walked along the path to the porch. She hesitated there, one foot on the bottom step, her heart beating hard, her breath short, a buzzing between her ears.
“It’s all right,” she said aloud. “I never did anything wrong. You hear that, L’il B? No matter what they say, I never did anything wrong.”
Anna mounted the first step, then the next, then onto the porch, the boards creaking beneath her feet. She closed her eyes, swallowed, told herself she had nothing to fear, then opened them again. As she reached for the knocker, the door opened inward, and an elderly lady stood there, staring.
For a wild moment, Anna didn’t recognize her mother. Thinner, grayer, smaller. But yes, it was her.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
Philomena Lenihan reached for the spectacles on a chain around her neck, brought them to her eyes. Her lips trembled as she struggled to form words. Then she looked down at the seat that hung from Anna’s arm, and the tiny life it held. She slumped against the doorframe and let out a quivering wheeze before her hand went to her mouth, sealing in a sob.
She stepped back and allowed Anna to enter.