Life After Yes (23 page)

Kayla hands me another gift. I recognize the lovely loopy handwriting. It's from his mother.

I open the card first. Read her words. Words that I will read over and over in the future.

And it doesn't matter whether it's technically a rhyme or a song, but the words echo in my head…

 

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black.

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back…

 

I look at his mother, meet her eyes, and smile.

“Now you know why I always wear pastels,” she says.

And I keep smiling as I slip my finger under the pale floral paper, opening the gift wrapped tight.

“Hospital corners?”

She laughs.

And there it is, a pie pan. And inside it is that postcard from Paris. And on it, the recipe. For Henry's pie.

“I figure you and Sage won't be able to make it South every August,” she says. “Nor should you.”

And it occurs to me why I've been so scared of his mother. It's not because she's an evil and predatory woman, a bailiff of a mother who runs the show, a vulture who won't release her claws.

Rather, I've feared her because she like the rest of us is exquisitely flawed and essentially good. She is a woman, imperfect and loved and lovable. A woman who has lost too many children. A woman who was once young like me and probably thought things would be different. A woman who
fears many things: poison in candy, and symbolism in songs, and losing another child.

I've been scared because we want the same thing.

We want his love and his loyalty and his smile.

We both want him.

And like we did in kindergarten, we're going to have to learn to share.

“Thank you, Mrs. McIntyre,” I say.

And then she does it. She says those words, pat and predictable, that I thought I'd never hear. “You can call me Mom.”

I smile. And I won't call her this. Because I have a mom already.

“How about Miss Mama Mac?”

It's a start.

The final gift is from Avery. First, there's an apron. Across the front, it says “Mrs. McIntyre” in pink cursive writing.

“Now,
that
's darling,” Mama Mac says.

Mom doesn't do a very good job at hiding her cringe.

There's a second part to her gift: a doll. A Dora doll.

“There's a card too,” Avery says.

I open it. “Two gifts. Because we're growing up, but we'll always be girls.”

“I love it,” I say, and hug her. “But I would've appreciated that Backpack and Map.”

She nods and says, one lost little girl to another, “Me too.”

Outside, autumn sun glistens and fades. Trick-or-treaters swarm. A pumpkin and Wonder Woman stop briefly at the window, press pink button noses against the soiled glass, and look in at us. Then they continue on, disappearing into the night.

And here I am, all grown up, past my days of going door-
to-door in search of mini Snickers and Tootsie Pops, past my days of holding Mom's hand and absorbing her motherly wisdom. Here I am, neither young nor old, accumulating a new string of costumes so I can pretend to be an adult.

Yes, you get older, but you never stop pretending.

 

That night, I walk into my apartment, flanked by two mothers, trailing a rainbow of ribbons, lugging boxes and bags. Sage waits for me. He's wearing his waders and vest and his fishing hat, popping Hershey's Kisses into his mouth.

He takes the gifts from me, places them on the counter. And he hands me those wings, those flag-print wings.

“We're going out for a bit,” he announces to our moms, who sit on that prudently striped love seat.

He takes my hand and drags me to my parents' old block. Where kids gather and giggle. And we join in for a few houses, collecting candy, drawing some incredulous stares. But far more smiles.

On this Halloween, he's not going to let anyone tell him he can't eat the candy. And on this Halloween, I think I'm finally happy choosing only one.

T
he Thursday afternoon before my wedding, the day on which Sage and I fly to Wisconsin for our big day, Kayla and I leave work early and head to her ob-gyn. First, we stop at her building, which is only a block away from her doctor. I leave my suitcases with her doorman.

As we walk that block to her doctor, Kayla reaches into her purse, pulls out a vial of pills, and pops one. For a moment, I'm horrified. “Prenatals,” she says. “It's all about the folic acid, Q.”

I nod.

“This whole thing is turning me into a reasonable creature,” she says. “It's a bit worrisome.”

“No kidding.”

“I even made a list during our client meeting this morning,” she says, and pulls out a legal pad with the name of our firm up top.

She rattles off questions she will ask her doctor:

When should I hire a baby nurse?

When can I find out the sex?

What are the chances I will get stretch marks?

Can I really not eat tuna?

Is one cup of coffee okay?

As she utters these questions, I can think of only one, one that I haven't had the courage to ask thus far.

“Kayla, whose is it?” I say, pointing to her belly.

She looks at me, disappointment plain in over-lined eyes. “Well, fuck you.”

I shrug. “Seems relevant.”

“It's
mine.
”

I nod. And part of me thinks:
Good for her. She's a modern woman.
But another part of me, maybe the bigger part, thinks:
At least I had a father.

“I know you're pretty talented, but you didn't cook that up all by yourself,” I say.

“No, I didn't,” she says, and flashes a smile. “I had some very handsome help. And I'll tell you when the time is right.”

“Fair enough.”

A young mother pushes a stroller by us. “I think I want a black Bug,” Kayla says.

And even I know about the Bugaboo, the nine-hundred-dollar monstrosity, the SUV of strollers, ubiquitous as black Labs on the Upper West.

I look around us and think:
Even Manhattan looks innocent in fall.
Leaves change on planted trees. Every now and then, a kid walks by wearing a Halloween costume a week after the fact, hand attached to a defeated and fashionably disheveled mother or a nanny on her cell phone.

At the front desk, Kayla signs in. Behind her mop of red frizzy hair, the doctor's assistant flashes a gummy grin, and
hands Kayla a small blue cup and utters in a Russian accent: “You pee now.”

Kayla hands me her jacket and bag.

“Good luck,” I say.

Kayla grins and disappears into the small bathroom.

I take a seat in the waiting room. A young couple sits in the corner flipping through a book on prenatal nutrition. The wife is absorbed, but every few moments her husband looks up and around the small room, nerves apparent in his darting eyes.

And I think:
This will be Sage and me—crouched together, fearful and excited, full of questions, eager for answers, walking hand in hand toward our biggest, most important roles.

A woman waddles in, clutching a belly that looks as if it might drop off, and jokes with the nurse about how she is past due.

I flip through an album of birth announcements. Pages and pages full of little pink faces captured in the first moments of life, faces beautifully contorted from ungraceful entrances. Pages and pages full of names in pink and blue. Pages and pages full of those aesthetic statistics—height and weight—that are for some reason important even from the very beginning.

I think of Phelps and his little son. I try to imagine him as a father, cradling a crying baby, changing a diaper. I admit these are things I've imagined before. But now when I picture things, one thing's different: It's not my baby.

There are stacks of books scattered about, and depending on how you look at things, this office is a haven of hope and new beginnings—baby name books, books showing the gestational development from fertilized egg to kicking infant, books showing portraits of prenatal yoga poses. But if you
look a little closer, things aren't so bright; books on Down syndrome, on cystic fibrosis, STDs, and breast cancer.

Kayla returns. “That's one skill law school doesn't teach you,” she says. “You'd think that if I can hammer out an ironclad contract in hours I'd be able to get it all in the cup. Not so.”

She's still smiling.

Kayla fills a plastic cup full of water from the water fountain. “Hydration is key,” she says. “Amniotic fluid.”

And so the seminar continues.

“Have you thought of names?” I ask.

“Not yet,” she says. “I have plenty of time for that.”

Kayla's name is called and she stands, tells me to follow. So I do.

They weigh her. “Up two pounds,” the nurse mumbles.

“What happened to those ten pounds you said you gained?”

Kayla shrugs. “Well, I never have been able to gain weight.”

We wait in the small, sterile room for the doctor to come in. There's a framed photograph of condoms artfully arranged.

“I hope I get another sonogram,” she says. “Did you know Sub-Zero fridges aren't magnetic?”

The doctor walks in and, instinctively, I sit up straighter. She's perky. Her pixie cut is endearingly mussed, and she is impeccably dressed in a smart camel suit and tasteful gold jewelry.

“So, how are you feeling? Last time you were here you were feeling pretty rotten, I recall,” the doctor says.

“Yeah, I was. I am actually feeling a lot better. I have been for the last couple of weeks. I think it has something to do with that new prenatal vitamin you prescribed.”

“Well, you're entering your second trimester. We like to call it the safety zone because from this point on, the chance of miscarriage is pretty much nil.”

Kayla smiles, looks at me.

“That's great,” I say.

I'm following along just fine, but then I'm somewhere else. Kayla and her doctor banter in a language I'll one day speak fluently. About platelet levels and blood types, rubella and gestational diabetes, fundal height and spilling protein.

“The next thing we must discuss is testing for abnormalities. We have the nuchal, CVS, and the amnio,” she says as if she's reading from a menu.

“I think I want the most information I can get,” Kayla says, nodding, looking at me for approval. I nod. “The more information the better, right?”

The doctor nods. “That's how most of my patients feel,” she says, making a small notation in her chart.

“Time for the fun part,” the doctor says, stands up, and walks toward Kayla, handing her a thin paper sheet. Kayla stands and shimmies out of her pants and underwear and hands them to me. She hops back up on the table and spreads her legs under the sheet, placing each heel in the appropriate metal brace.

“Now slide down,” the doctor says, and Kayla does. She slides an instrument inside my friend.

And there it is. As the doctor moves around inside her, the picture on the small screen changes rapidly. Finally, a shape appears. Kayla sees it and smiles. And I see it. The big head, the smaller body, curled like a comma.

Her baby.

“Oh, look at that,” Kayla squeals.

The doctor stops moving.

“Hold on,” the doctor says, squinting, still staring at the screen, not looking at Kayla.

I grip Kayla's thigh, tearing the thin protective paper.

“I can't find a heartbeat,” the doctor says, stripping plastic gloves from her hands.

Kayla giggles, looks at me and then the doctor. “Well then look a little harder.”

In that moment, the silence is unrelenting and cruel.

I look at my friend, who still clutches that list of questions. She begins to shake and her face goes white.

But suddenly, there it is. The thud of life. The baby's heartbeat. Loud and proud and strong.

I wipe a tear from under Kayla's eye. The doctor smiles. “Sometimes it's hard to get the heartbeat right away. But there it is. Everything looks perfect.”

The doctor slips out and I stay with Kayla as she dresses again. She bends down to pull her heels on and starts to cry. I crouch down on the floor next to her. “Are you okay?”

“I thought I lost it,” she says. “The first good thing that's happened to me. The first pure thing. And I thought it was suddenly gone.”

“It's not gone,” I say. “It's inside you. Growing. With a strong and perfect heartbeat.”

She nods, wipes away her tears. “I feel like it's a girl. I kind of hope it is.”

“A little
you
,” I say.

“I hope not,” she giggles.

On the sidewalk, she grabs my shoulders and looks me in the eyes. “You're getting married in two days. I'm having a baby. What is happening to us?”

“We're growing up,” I say.

And she grabs my hand, yanks me down the street. Back at her lobby, I ask her doorman for my suitcases.

“Leave them there for a bit and come upstairs. I know you have a flight to catch, but you have time for one glass of champagne.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do.”

As we walk toward her apartment, her cell phone rings and she looks at it.

“It's
him
,” she says. “Calling to see how the appointment went.”

“Well then, answer, but I'm not getting on that plane unless you identify this mystery man.”

She picks up the phone and as she whispers, the tears come again. “The doctor says things look perfect.”

She hangs up. And her smile is different.

“You're in love,” I say.

She smiles. “Remember the Winter Party? That gorgeous bartender Jake? Well, he called.”

“It seems he did a little bit more than call,” I say. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I don't know. Because I was embarrassed. He's no i-banker. I am a lawyer. He is a bartender.”

“Who cares? Plus, no one in Manhattan is just a bartender,” I say.

“Exactly,” she says. “Turns out he plays the trumpet in a jazz band. He is away for a gig in L.A. this weekend. They just signed a record deal.”

For a moment, she disappears into the kitchen, and returns holding a glass of champagne in one hand and clutching something in her other hand.

“This is my baby quilt,” she says, clutching a faded pink and green blanket. “My grandmother made it when my mom was pregnant. I'm going to give it to her.”

At this display of uncharacteristic joy, I smile. At the fact that she is so determined it is a girl simply because that is what she hopes for, I smile. “So, let me get this straight. A few months ago, you were a cynical and pin-striped powerhouse and poof!—you're going to have a gorgeous little girl and a man who plays her jazz lullabies and then fixes you perfect cocktails? Not bad.”

“I will still be a pin-striped powerhouse,” she insists. “But a pin-striped powerhouse-plus. I will have it all. The job, the man, the baby. I'm allowed to believe that's possible for now at least.”

I nod. “Of course, you are allowed to believe,” I say. And she is. “K?”

“Yes?”

“I don't think I've heard you swear once today.”

She pauses. “Maybe when you're happy,
fucking
happy, there's no reason to swear.”

We laugh. Hard.

Together, we sit on her floral couch. She plays back an episode of
Oprah
. The woman herself stands at the center of the flat-screen TV, her body stretched, vast diamond earrings flashing in the camera. Her lips move, but we don't hear what she says.

“Her teeth are illegally white,” Kayla says.

“Totally,” I say, and smile.

I look around her apartment, the complementary floral patterns and gingham pillows. The botanicals hung in perfect lines, the well-chosen antiques scattered about. Kayla swears her mother decorated it.

Oprah talks about alcohol abuse. That forty-three percent of Americans misuse alcohol, and it's for a variety of reasons—to suppress emotional pain, to self-medicate, to cope with loss, to quell anxiety, to make life more euphoric.

I nod and sip my champagne. “
Cheers!
”

On tomorrow's
Oprah
: women and bra size. Some eighty-two percent of American women wear the wrong size bra. I wonder if I'm one of them.

Outside, the sky grays, preparing for night, and windows on the tall buildings turn on and off, a crossword puzzle of light.

“K, I should go,” I say. “I have a plane to catch.”

I stop off in her bathroom. And I see them there on the counter. A tall stack of wedding magazines. I pick them up and carry them out to her. “Is there something you have to tell me?”

“Not yet,” she says. “But hopefully soon.”

I smile. It's good to hope. It's good to believe.

“Q, I want to thank you,” Kayla says as I gather my things.

“For what?”

“For coming with me today. For putting up with me. For being a good person. For being a good friend,” she says. “I don't deserve you.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you do,” I say.

“No, I don't,” she insists, taking a small sip of my champagne. “I'm sorry.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because I mean it,” she says.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” I ask.

“Sage. I always had this crush. I think I was envious of you, how much you have. It only happened once, I promise.”

“It?”

“It was just a kiss. And it happened a long time ago.”

“
When?
” I ask.

“At my birthday party last year,” she says.

Kayla's birthday is on September fifteenth. When the Towers came down, she canceled her table at a nightclub and opted for a “quiet gathering” at her apartment. And while I was with my mother and brother uptown, Sage “stopped by on our behalf” to drop off a bottle of champagne.