Fly Away Home

by Jennifer Weiner

  “It’s not that far. And there’s Amtrak,” he said. “And I like you.” Lizzie stared at him and wondered. “I liked being with you,” Jeff continued. “I thought we got along. Didn’t we have a nice time this summer?”

  She found herself nodding, almost unconsciously, before her napkin brushed the bulge of her belly, and she remembered her secret. The problem was, she did like him. She could imagine a whole calendar’s worth of dates—the two of them snuggled by a fire, ice-skating, walking through Washington Square Park in the springtime, when the dogwood and cherry trees were heavy with sweet-smelling blossoms. She could imagine her baby having a father, a solid, upstanding, hardworking guy. She made herself stop thinking about it, telling herself that it would never happen—not to a girl like her. “I just don’t think it’ll work,” she said, and groped through snippets of sitcoms she’d watched and books she remembered until she arrived at, “I’m not looking for anything serious right now.”

  He looked at her soberly. “Are you seeing someone else?”

  Lizzie burst into startled laughter. Seeing someone else! That was a good one! She grabbed two napkins from the metal dispenser and started pleating them with her fingertips. “No,” she said. “There’s no one else.”

  “So what, then?” He didn’t look alarmed, just curious. He had such a nice face, open and calm, and there was a patience about him, in the way he carried himself, his stance and the set of his shoulders, the way he sat in the booth, alert and relaxed, waiting for her to answer. Maybe these were the things that had drawn her to him in the first place, on that summer night in the ice cream shop. Maybe she hadn’t made such a bad choice.

  She drummed her fingers on the table and shuffled her feet on the floor. A line from rehab rose up in her mind: You’re only as sick as your secrets. Little lies, social lies were okay, but not telling the truth about something as big as this? Besides, if she kept the baby, he’d know. If he’d found her here there was no way she could keep a baby a secret.

  He was looking at her intently, his pleasant face serious. “So what is it?” he asked.

  “I’m actually kind of pregnant,” she said.

  His face collapsed into the same shocked expression he’d worn when she told him about her past. It was almost funny, she thought, as his blue eyes widened behind his glasses. Almost, but not quite.

  “I know,” she said unhappily. “I know every time you see me it’s some big thing. Addict, pregnant. Probably you think that the next time we talk I’m going to tell you I used to be a dude.”

  Jeff choked on the sip of water he’d taken. Lizzie felt a flash of pride.

  “I wasn’t, though.” Her cheeks were pink. “But I am. Actually.”

  He blinked. “What, a guy?”

  “No. Pregnant.”

  “And it’s mine? I mean, ours?”

  She nodded, not even bothering to be offended by what his question implied, and Jeff didn’t press her.

  The waitress slid their sandwiches in front of them and asked if they needed anything else. “We’re fine,” said Jeff. When the waitress was gone, he looked at Lizzie and asked, in a low voice, “You’re sure?”

  Lizzie nodded again.

  “And you’re better now? You’re not using?”

  “Just prenatal vitamins.” She pulled the toothpicks out of her sandwich and continued. “You don’t have to be involved. My parents will—”

  “What if I want to be involved?” he asked. He leaned forward, hands planted on the table, staring into her eyes. “If you’re pregnant with my child …” The words my child seemed to linger in the air that smelled like French fries and strong coffee. For an instant, the low chatter that filled the restaurant ceased. Lizzie swallowed hard, marveling, for maybe the first time, at the enormity of what had happened; realizing, again, what the sickness and the spotting, the doctor’s appointments and the clothes that didn’t fit actually meant. A baby. Someday a child. “If I’m going to be a father … it’s a big thing, right?”

  Who said anything about him being a father? she wondered. Was it even up to him? Did he get a say? What were the rules here, and why, at her age, didn’t she know them? “So you want to …” She stopped talking, because she honestly wasn’t sure what he wanted, or what to offer him, or how to negotiate this situation.

  “Are you taking care of yourself?” Jeff was asking. “Have you been to a doctor?”

  She nodded.

  “And what did the doctor say?”

  “That I’ve got as good a chance of having a healthy baby as any other woman,” she recited. The words struck her with fresh power. Any other woman. She thought maybe that was part of the appeal of pregnancy, a chance to belong to a group that did not have Anonymous as part of its name and was not made up of people who’d hit rock bottom and clawed their way back up, who met in overheated rooms to talk about the terrible things they’d done when they were drunk or high. She could sign up for prenatal yoga, she could chat with the mothers she’d seen in the park and the supermarket, and nobody would give her a funny look or treat her like she didn’t belong. Her belly and, eventually, her baby would be all the passport she needed. She wouldn’t be Lizzie the addict, or Senator Woodruff’s daughter, or the little sister or the fuck-up. She’d just be another mom. Except probably not a very good one. With her history, what made her think she had any business being responsible for a baby?

  “So what is it, then?” asked Jeff. “What’s the problem?”

  She looked down at the paper napkin she’d torn into shreds, the sandwich she hadn’t touched. “I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she said. Somehow that was more painful to admit than that she’d been an addict and that she’d gotten pregnant.

  “Well, you’ve never had a baby, either,” Jeff pointed out.

  Head still bent, Lizzie sighed.

  “Can I see you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I don’t know where I’ll be living, or what I’ll do for work … ”

  “We’ll figure it out,” said Jeff. His blue eyes were wide and serious. “We would talk on the phone. I would visit you up here, or in New York, and you could visit me in Philadelphia. We’d go out to dinner. Possibly to movies. There could be Broadway shows. Do you like Broadway shows?”

  “Musicals,” said Lizzie. At least, she’d liked them when she was a kid and, over the long Thanksgiving weekends, she’d been taken to see Dreamgirls and West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

  “We would learn about each other. We’d see if we really got along, which I bet we will.” He raised his hands. “And, honestly, the idea that there’s a kid who’s out there, a kid who’s mine, and I don’t have anything to do with him, or his mom, that I don’t know him …”

  “Or her,” Lizzie said.

  He nodded. “Or her. Whatever happens.” He breathed in, looking her right in the eyes. “I want to be part of the kid’s life. And I want us to have a chance.”

  Lizzie studied him, wishing, again, that she’d led a normal life like her sister, because if she had, she’d have a better sense of people, a better idea of whether this guy was lying to her or whether he was sincere; whether this was about getting to know her and being a father or he had ulterior motives regarding money, or her father, or something else, something worse, something she hadn’t even thought of yet. Maybe he wanted her to have the baby so he could sell it on the black market. That had happened in a book she’d taken out of the lending library in Minnesota, only in the book the pregnant women had been mail-order brides lured over from Russia with promises of riches and American husbands. The people doing the selling had included a corrupt lawyer and a psychotic former child star, one of whom had ended up dead, the other of whom had told her story on Oprah. So maybe not.

  “Do you think …” She swallowed hard, feeling that sensation of wings beating inside her, a tiny bird trapped in an attic, an unfamiliar hopefulness. “Do you think we’d be good parents?”

  Jeff considered. “I don’
t see why we wouldn’t be.” He took a spoonful of soup, a sip of water. “I also think you can learn from people’s mistakes. My mom wasn’t the greatest, and I know that whatever I do wrong, it won’t be what she did.”

  Lizzie nodded. Learning from mistakes. That sounded good. It meant that she could practically be a genius.

  “Eat something,” Jeff told her, picking up his sandwich. “You need extra calories now, right?”

  They ate quietly for a few minutes, and when the check came, Jeff paid it.

  “I have to get some groceries,” Lizzie said.

  “I’ll come with you,” he offered.

  “Don’t you have work?”

  “It’s Thanksgiving. I took the week off.” He managed a smile. “And even if I left right now it’s five hours back to Philadelphia. Come on, Lizzie,” he said, and held out his hand. “I can carry your bags. I can do that for you, at least.”

  They walked down the street to Simmons Grocery. Lizzie pushed the shopping cart, and Jeff followed behind her as she filled it. For a moment, she allowed herself the fantasy that this could work, that the two of them could be a normal couple, mother and father and the baby they raised together. Unlikely, she decided, putting milk and butter into the cart … but maybe it was possible. It happened to other people. Why not her, too?

  He insisted on paying for the groceries, and on carrying everything but a small bag of onions up to the house. “So,” he said, in the driveway. “Do I get to meet your parents?”

  She looked at him, shifting the mesh bag in her hands. “It’s just my mom.”

  “That’s another part of it, too,” he told her. “The boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Meeting the parents.”

  Lizzie nodded, thinking that as she made her belated, one-step-forward, two-steps-back journey into adulthood, a trip that had recently been hastened by her pregnancy, at some point she would have to trust her instincts. And she’d also have to trust other people, too. She set her hand on the brass handle of the door and swung it open. Inside, the sunshine made rectangular patterns on the hardwood floor, and she could smell bread baking in the kitchen.

  “They don’t know about …” Her voice trailed off as she gestured toward her belly. Jeff’s eyebrows rose, but all he said was “Okay.”

  Lizzie swung the door open and took his hand. “Come on in.”

  SYLVIE

  On Thanksgiving morning, Sylvie stood with her hands on her hips, looking over the table. The blue-and-white dishes and crystal glasses sparkled, the creamy linen napkins that she’d ironed the night before looked just right. Except for the fire crackling in the living room and the drip and hiss of the coffeepot, the house was quiet. Diana, still troublingly thin, but not as gaunt as she’d been in October, had gone down to the beach for a run, with Milo trailing behind her. Lizzie and her young man were still upstairs, asleep. Sylvie had given Jeff his own bedroom, but she suspected that he was sneaking into Lizzie’s at night.

  Sylvie had been surprised—really, she’d been astonished—when, two days earlier, Lizzie had breezed through the door with a handsome young man carrying her groceries behind her. At first she’d wondered whether Lizzie had picked Jeff up at the supermarket. Her daughter had pulled stunts like that before. “This is Jeff. He’s a friend of mine from this summer,” she’d said, which didn’t help Sylvie at all: “summer” could have meant Philadelphia, or could have meant rehab. She looked him over—his short hair, his glasses, his neatly pressed shirt, his handsome face and friendly manner. Philadelphia, she decided. Unless he’d been in rehab, too, and the clean-cut appearance and the small talk were just overcompensation.

  “Will you be joining us for Thanksgiving?” she’d asked, and Jeff said, “Oh, no, I don’t want to impose,” but it turned out he had no plans—his parents were divorced, his mother in New Mexico, celebrating with friends, and his father in Arizona with his new wife and her family. “If it’s all right with Lizzie,” he’d finally said, and Lizzie, her voice oddly formal, had said, “That would be lovely.”

  Standing at the sink, looking out over the lawn that she and her daughters had raked over the weekend, Sylvie washed her hands and ran through her menu. She’d cook turkey and stuffing, of course. Lizzie, who’d displayed an awesome affinity for bread, rolls, and anything flour-based, was preparing corn bread, a cranberry loaf, buttermilk-cheddar biscuits, and Parker House rolls, a miracle four times over, because in years past Sylvie barely trusted her younger daughter to carry the butter to the table. There’d be Brussels sprouts in a balsamic vinegar glaze and a sweet-potato casserole. The Honorable Selma, who would arrive later that morning, was bringing an assortment of cheeses and pâtés, smoked fish and fancy crackers. Ceil and Larry were also on their way, with wine and mulled cider, and Tim was bringing pies for dessert.

  When Lizzie and Jeff came down the stairs, Jeff dressed and Lizzie in a bathrobe, Sylvie slid the cheddar-and-sausage strata she’d prepared the night before out of the oven. Jeff set the kitchen table, and Lizzie poured juice, and, eventually, Diana, glowing and sweaty, came up from the beach with Milo trailing behind her, carrying his Frisbee. Sylvie had just taken her seat when a black Town Car came crunching up the driveway. “Grandma!” Lizzie cried, and in that moment, with her eyes sparkling and her round cheeks flushed, Sylvie could see, with heartbreaking clarity, the little girl that Lizzie had been. She watched through the window as her mother climbed out of the backseat, wrapped in an ancient mink that made her look like a small, Botoxed bear.

  “Oh, Lord,” she murmured, noticing the writing on the car door.

  “What?” asked Lizzie.

  “That’s the car from her apartment complex,” Sylvie said, pointing at the words DAVIDSON PAVILION stenciled on its side. “It’s supposed to take her anywhere she wants to go within a five-mile radius.”

  Diana smiled faintly. Lizzie hooted, clapping her hands together. “Way to go. Grandma hijacked the Hebrew Home car!” Selma tottered out onto the crushed shells, pressed a bill (probably a five, if Sylvie knew her mother) into the driver’s hand, and made her way up the porch steps.

  Milo ran to open the door. Selma handed him her mink, revealing a black velour tracksuit and orthopedic shoes underneath it, and bent to kiss his forehead, which was the only part of him visible between his ski cap and the armload of fur. “My number one great-grandson!” she said, and handed him a lollipop she’d pulled from her purse, the kind Sylvie knew that they gave away free at her bank. “Sylvie,” she said, and kissed her daughter’s cheek. Then she looked at the girls, her gaze seeming to linger on Lizzie’s midriff. Sylvie’s heart sank—over the years, her mother had passed the occasional critical remark about Lizzie’s weight, and Lizzie was, she had to admit, significantly rounder than she’d been at the start of the summer. She hoped her mother would keep her mouth shut; would recognize that a few extra pounds were better than a drug problem.

  “Well, well, well,” Selma said. She looked the way she always did, from her bright red lipstick and carefully curled hair to the bags beneath her eyes and the wrinkles that grooved her face. “What have we here?”

  “I’m just visiting,” Lizzie said. “I hurt my back, and I was on bed rest for a while, but now I’m okay.” She took Jeff’s arm and pulled him beside her. “This is my friend Jeff Spencer from Philadelphia.” Selma lifted her penciled eyebrows as Jeff offered his hand. Sylvie could tell that Lizzie wanted to add something more: No, really, it’s really just a visit, I’m okay—but instead she said, “Want some coffee?”

  “How about a Bloody Mary? Heavy on the horseradish.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Sylvie murmured, and Selma turned her gimlet eye on her daughter.

  “I am eighty-six years old,” she announced, in case her family had forgotten. “I am no longer employed, thanks to the antiquated mandatory-retirement laws of the state of New York. If I want to enjoy a little vodka in my tomato juice, I believe I have earned that privilege.” She turned back to Lizzie. “Unless it’s going to bother you.”r />
  “Oh, no!” Lizzie said. “I’m fine.”

  “Heavy on the horseradish,” Selma said again. Lizzie retreated into the kitchen. “Finish up your breakfast,” Diana told her son, “then start your independent reading.” Milo rolled his eyes and, with the sigh of a dwarf setting off for the coal mines, ate a slice of toast, then trudged up the stairs. Grandma Selma watched him go, then turned her gaze to Diana.

  “That boy needs a tonic.”

  “A tonic?” Diana was trying, and failing, to sound amused. “I think they went out with the mustard poultice.”

  Selma’s driver had hauled the last of her luggage and bags from Zabar’s onto the porch. Sylvie slipped outside to give him two twenties. “Your mother’s a pip,” the man said. As if Sylvie didn’t know. When she got back to the foyer Selma was rummaging through one of her bags and continuing with her inquiries.

  “Don’t tell me you’re on vacation,” she said to Diana, who was twisting the drawstring of her running pants around her index finger. “You don’t take vacations. Especially not when your son should be in school. What are you doing here?”

  “Um,” Diana murmured.

  “Speak up!” said Selma, who wore hearing aids in both ears and could hear just fine.

  “She’s taking a break,” Sylvie said, hoping that would end the conversation. Selma ignored her, staring expectantly at Diana, who let go of her drawstring and let her hands hang by her sides.