One More Day (23 page)

The knock was heavy and startling, like a man's. Despite the recently installed alarm system, Carrie jumped in the kitchen. That vibrating fist seemed to shake the whole house. She did the math: John was in the shower, her mother was getting dressed, Nolan couldn't possibly be coming back again, and Shepherd was both dead and gone. This was probably an overenthusiastic Boy Scout selling an autumn wreath. She wiped her hands on the striped kitchen towel and walked into the living room.

Through the front window, she saw the phone first, up against an ear, short hair, shorter than she remembered it, a profile. Heard the throaty voice giving someone directions. Then the person turned and blinked at Carrie through her black-rimmed glasses. Maya Mercer.

“What do you want?” Carrie said through the door.

“I want to talk.”

“See, that's the problem. You talk too much and listen too little.”

“If you answered my questions, I'd listen. The world would listen, Carrie.”

“No.”

“So you'll just let things play out, let the whole awful story unfurl, let people think the worst of you, even if it isn't true?”

Carrie's right hand went to her throat.

Maya raised her eyebrows.

Carrie twisted the dead bolt, opened the door, and let her in.

Maya's high heels clattered on the wooden entry. For a wiry woman, she stepped almost as heavily as she knocked. She sniffed the air as if expecting the coffee she sensed, but Carrie didn't offer any. Maya walked farther into the house, and instead of sitting on the sofa or asking for that coffee, she took a few steps into the kitchen.

“I don't remember your kitchen from when we filmed.”

“The opening was draped. There were cables and lights and things in here.”

“Huh,” she said, looking around the kitchen like a real estate agent. Lingering on the
Eat
sign on the wall, the small wooden island, the red chairs against the nook in the corner. “It's cute, the way you've decorated it.”

“Thank you.”

The door to the pantry was open, and Maya stepped closer.

“Look, if you're really that hungry, just ask, Maya. I'm sure we have—”

“No,” she said. Her eyes lingered on the door frame. She knelt down and looked at the low pencil marks of Ben's height. The careful handwriting and all the unused space about it. She reached out her hand to touch it, then stopped. Pencil. Pencil didn't last forever.

She stood up abruptly. “Can I see his room?”

“No. No, you cannot.”

“Because you've changed it already?”

“What is wrong with you? You show up here, you make these accusations—”

“Carrie, let me interview you again. For real this time.”

“Why? They have the guy.”

“Yes. But can they convict him? Because I've heard the forensics don't quite match up.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying they
think
they have the guy.”

“Well, maybe he'll confess.”

“Yeah. And maybe, on the way to getting that confession, he'll tell them everything he knows about you. Every last little thing.”

“You mean…the photos he took?”

“No, Carrie, I do not mean the photos he took.”

Upstairs, the water turned off. The slide of the shower curtain, yanked so confidently, filled the air with a metallic ring they could almost taste.

Carrie glanced up at the ceiling. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” Maya said. “Repeat it to yourself over and over until you believe it. Carrie, you are in control of this situation—how people perceive you. Don't let rumors from when you were seventeen years old color the truth. Don't let some crazy person be in charge for you. Don't let John tell you what to do.”

“Crazy?” Carrie said, but Maya didn't answer.

She walked into the living room, looked around. “We could do it now. I have a camcorder in my car,” she said.

“I have to go to church,” Carrie replied.

“Catholic?”

“Episcopal. Why?”

“I was hoping you'd confess to someone. Although I'd prefer it to be me. Call me if you change your mind, Carrie. About anything.”

The kitchen was clean when John and Danielle came downstairs, but Carrie kept scouring the sink as if it were stained.

“Darn it, I was going to wash those dishes for you,” Danielle said. “Now I'll have to think of something else to help. Maybe I'll just have to mess up the kitchen again cooking a big breakfast so I can clean it,” she said and smiled.

John straightened his tie, and his mother-in-law asked him if he liked French toast. Said she'd learned the best way to cook it, and it involved whiskey. He laughed. Of course she would know the best way, just like she knew the best alarm company. Carrie had always said she and her mother weren't particularly close, but when they'd moved into the house and Danielle had lifted as many boxes as the movers they'd hired, John had told Carrie that sometimes love wasn't milk and cookies. Sometimes it was a strong back and a wrench. And Carrie had said that sounds like a father, not a mother. But Danielle had had to be both.

Carrie managed a small smile as she rinsed the sink and wrung out the sponge, grabbing her coat where she'd draped it on the chair. John punched in the new security code before they walked outside. The air was heavy and wet, pulling at the leaves.

As Carrie opened her car door, something turned her head in the opposite direction. A crow? A dog? She lifted her nose suddenly and sniffed. Wet leaves. Moss, loam.

Her husband and mother were in the car, had buckled their seat belts. John looked out. Carrie stood in profile, arm draped across the open door.

Down the street, between their house and the end of the empty lot next door, in the opposite direction of where they would be driving, a car seat sat alone on the sidewalk, rocking lightly in the breeze, as if being pushed by an unseen hand.

“Is this a trick?” Carrie said.

“What?” John replied. “Is what a trick?”

Carrie walked toward the car seat and the scent in the air, unmistakable. Dead leaves. The sharp compost of fall.

“Carrie?” John called, but she didn't turn.

Danielle turned in her seat, twisting her neck to watch where her daughter was going. She blinked, squinted in the bright light, then unbuckled her belt.

“Carrie!” she called, running after her daughter.

“Shh,” Carrie said, as if she knew the child would be asleep.

She stood over the ordinary seat, rocking without its base, the sensible navy blue that anyone could have chosen anywhere. The baby inside was tiny, bent like a lima bean in a simple cotton onesie and socks, and so pale you could see the veins pulsing in its head.

Danielle looked up and down the street, shielding her eyes with one hand, as though if she looked hard enough, scanned the horizon, the reason for the baby being alone would emerge, walk out from between the shadows, jingling keys.

Carrie crouched down, and Danielle's knees bent automatically, following her. Behind them, the car shut off. John stepped cautiously toward them on the sidewalk. They heard his confusion with each halting step as they whispered over the baby's head.

“A newborn,” Carrie said.

“Looks like a C-section.”

“How can you tell?”

“He doesn't look like he struggled.” Danielle sighed. “His head is so smooth, not smooshed. Enjoy it while you can, little one. From the looks of it, the rest of your life may not be that easy.” She stood up, turned back to John.

“I think she put it here,” Carrie said suddenly. “Like a test.”

“Who? Carrie, what are you talking about?”

“Maya Mercer. She came by while you were in the shower.”

“Carrie, that's crazy. Why would she do that? Lure you?”

“I don't know. I—”

“Any of your neighbors pregnant? New parents? Or grandparents?” Danielle asked.

“No,” Carrie said firmly.

“I don't really know.” John shrugged. “We don't know any of them very well.”

“None of them had a baby. We would know that.”

“Would we?”

“All the big boxes for the crib and the high chair put out in the recycling. The blue banner and the balloons on the door welcoming him home.”

“I didn't notice that,” John said.

“I know.”

“It
is
hard not to notice a baby,” Danielle said. “On a warm day, you'd certainly hear him crying, what with all the windows open on this block.”

“We should call the police,” John said.

“Or child services,” Danielle added. “Probably both.”

“Yes,” Carrie said.

She lifted the carrier and started walking toward the house. John touched her elbow as she passed him, but she pulled her arm away, as lightly as if she were shrugging off a coat.

Danielle and John watched her walk for a minute.

“Who is Maya Mercer?” Danielle asked.

“A reporter.”

Danielle nodded. “Well, I don't think even a crazy, aggressive reporter would plant a baby in the street.”

“Yeah,” John said with a sigh. “No kidding.”

They fell in step behind Carrie. A procession, with a swaddled baby in the lead. Like church.

John had always liked running errands. When Carrie handed him a list, he never folded it in fours or crammed it in his pocket. He looked over the items excitedly, then carried them jauntily, as if they were important. Even when the list was spoken—
Can you run downstairs and get the Advil, please? And find the hot-water bottle?
—he always treated her requests with a kind of reverence, as if he would be tested on it all later, and he really wished to get a good grade. But in the days when Ben had first been taken, this had almost become a charade between them: John wanted to leave, to do anything but stay home, and Carrie wanted him gone so she could clutch Ben's belongings and cry without him watching her, wringing his hands. She gave him something to do so he wouldn't have to figure out what to do or what to say to his own wife.

Danielle was the same way. Carrie still remembered how badly she had wanted to be a cheerleader in eighth grade, and how, when she'd confessed this to her mother, Danielle had immediately pulled out a pen and paper and made a to-do list to help her succeed.
Go to library and get book on cheerleading. Go to community college and watch older cheerleaders practice. Ask Norma, who used to be a dancer, for choreography advice.
Lists weren't drudgery; lists were accomplishments waiting to happen.

And so, the day they found a baby on the sidewalk, Carrie distracted her mother and her husband with lists. A list of things they needed from the grocery store—diapers, formula, bottles, infant vitamins. And a list of steps to be taken—talk to the neighbors, check the Amber Alert website. Steps she promised to take if they would just let her move this baby inside.
If they would just relax and listen and please let her have this moment with a baby again! Please!

In the quiet hush of the living room, John and Danielle had exchanged looks over Carrie's head as she hummed a lullaby. Their tacit agreement formed in the air. How could they take this small moment away from her? No, they could not. The calls could be made later. The exact timing didn't matter.
Let her have this
, they both wrote in the air with their glances.
The world owes her this much.

But it wasn't until John was gone, the sound of his tires on asphalt fading away slowly, that Carrie told Danielle that this was her baby.

“
Your
baby?” Danielle said with alarm. How long had John been gone? Thirty seconds? A minute? And she already wished he would come back. This was worse, worse than he'd let on. First she imagined a reporter was trying to mess with her mind, and then this. She fingered her phone in her pocket.

“Yes,” Carrie said. “The one Ethan and I had.”

Danielle swallowed hard. John had told her how easy it was to set Carrie off, to push her over the edge with a word or a look. She had to be careful. Find her moment, like she did with her clients, ruminating over a house that needed too much work. She stepped forward and put her hand on the baby's delicate skull.

Carrie glanced up at her mother, eyes shining, as if Danielle were anointing the child, acknowledging it as family. The baby's heartbeat pulsed in her palm.

“When they're this young, they're like another species. Alien, you know? Sometimes I forget that, with no child in my life.”

“I didn't forget,” Carrie said softly.

“Well, he's certainly beautiful,” she said and sighed.

“He
was
beautiful,” Carrie said. “We had a flashlight, so no one would see the light in the window from the street. I thought candles would be more relaxing, but that seemed dangerous to Ethan, you know? And I think he'd read enough to know that nothing about it was going to be relaxing. He was always so cynical, so negative. Do you remember that about him, Mom?”

“Yes,” Danielle said, but she didn't. When she thought of Ethan, tried to conjure him, with his light eyes and sandy hair, he always came up muted and vague, like a faded plaid. She knew he'd been important to her daughter. That much was clear from how long they'd dated and how badly she'd missed him when she first went away to school. But she couldn't even picture his face or the sound of his voice, let alone summon his personality. Like a lot of things during those years, Ethan was a blur.

“He just couldn't see the positives in any situation, ever. Did you ever know someone like that, Mom?”

“Yes.”

Carrie started to cry. Danielle took her hand off the baby and put it on her daughter's shoulder. This was her moment.

“Is that why he didn't want to keep the baby, honey?”

Carrie nodded, and the tears fell more heavily.

“He wanted me to have an abortion.”

“It's okay, sweetheart.”

“I know,” she said and sniffed. “It really is okay now, isn't it?”

Danielle looked away from her daughter's earnest gaze. She didn't answer; she didn't want to be misinterpreted.

“I went to church on Friday evenings all that last month, when you thought I was at the library. I didn't know why I was going really. I just felt like I had to, you know?”

“Sure.”

“I didn't know what he was planning to do. I just… But now…now I wonder if I wasn't praying for forgiveness for lying to you, but…praying for the baby's soul, praying that he be…preserved. So I could meet him again. And now I have.”

Danielle bit the inside of her lip. So much she wanted to say but didn't dare. Like that all newborn babies look alike. Like that whatever a teenaged girl in labor, sweaty and exhausted, might have thought she'd seen in the pale yellow glow of a flashlight wouldn't be accurate. What Carrie held in her head wasn't a snapshot, even though it felt like one. Time played tricks, memory, light. It was like remembering a sidewalk drawing in the pouring rain.

“You know what I think? Going to church is never the wrong thing to do,” Danielle said.

“See, and we were on our way there just now,” Carrie said. “That's…symbolic.”

Danielle patted her daughter's hand. “Still, honey, there might be someone looking for this baby. Missing him. Crying for him. His mother.”

“I already told you,” Carrie said. “I'm his mother. He's come back. Just like the others.”

The carpet beneath Danielle's feet suddenly felt swampy. She steadied herself on the rounded arm of the green sofa.

“The others?”

“First there was Ben, then Gran, Ethan, and Mr. Shepherd. Oh, and Jinxie! Gosh, I almost forgot Jinxie. And I feel awful saying this, Mom, but Jinxie was the most…the most thrilling of them all.”

Danielle swallowed hard, then took in a deep, audible breath.

“Did…you tell anyone else about this?”

“I tried to tell John,” she said, “but he didn't listen. He just kept calling Dr. Kenney and telling me to rest.”

Danielle tried not to panic. This was what John was talking about, what John hadn't been able to name. Carrie was seeing things, believing things, that made no sense to him. Did he think they would make any more sense to Danielle? Or was he just tired of dealing with a crazy wife all alone?

“Well, John cares deeply about you, honey.”

“Aren't you going to ask me about Gran?”

“What?”

“Gran. Don't you want to know how she was? If she asked about you?”

Danielle felt something twisting into a knot in her throat. Her mother. Her only family. The most positive person she'd ever known. Danielle could still conjure her mother's bright clothes, loose on her small frame. She saw clear blue eyes, heard her distinct, singsongy voice that caught every now and then on one of her multisyllable words.

Danielle had taken great care to hide her grief over her mother's death from her daughter. Didn't want to admit how unmoored she'd felt. After the funeral, during Carrie's senior year of high school, Danielle had called in sick for a week but pretended to go to work, for Carrie's sake. She started her day with breakfast at that old diner, then read magazines at the library. When the library closed, she sat in the bar down the street, a blue-collar pub where she was sure she wouldn't run into any clients, and nursed a single beer until it was seven p.m., the time she usually left the office. She hadn't wanted Carrie to know she'd felt afraid to work, to speak to people, to negotiate. Afraid she'd open up her mouth and only sorrow would come out.

“Of course,” Danielle said, biting her lip.

“She looked great, Mom. Not dead at all. That's the thing—they aren't like holograms or anything, you know? Not filmy and see-through the way we've been conditioned to think. They're…solid. Her hug felt exactly the same.”

“Hug?”

“She hugged me and rocked me, just like she used to. Like that picture you have.”

Danielle looked away, wiping involuntary tears onto the heel of her hand. On her nightstand at home, she kept a two-sided frame: in one side, a photograph of her mother rocking Carrie; the other, a photo of her rocking Danielle.

“Oh, and Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” Danielle sniffed, looked back at her daughter.

“She says she hears you.”

“Hears…me?”

“When you talk to her at night.”

Danielle's shoulders started to shake. “No,” she cried softly.

“No, you don't talk to her, or no, you don't think she hears you?”

Danielle walked over to the kitchen and splashed water on her face. She was standing in a house on a cul-de-sac admiring a dead baby while discussing a dead grandmother? She pulled a tissue out of a box, blew her nose.

“Mom, maybe if I remembered what I said, I could get her to come ba—”

“No.”

“No?”

Danielle knew her daughter was offering her a kind of lifeline. But if she started leaning on the idea of her mother now—when she was feeling strong—she believed she would crumble. Crumble into dust.

“Gran died a long time ago, but I still miss her, Carrie. Every day. I'm not going to deny it. And God knows I would love to see her again. But…”

“But what?”

Danielle answered carefully.

“My mother's soul… It—it's so hard for me to imagine her in the—in the in-between. I can't bear to think of her as not being at rest. At peace.”

“She was peaceful,” Carrie said simply. “It wasn't like she was trying to be somewhere she wasn't. She knew what she was doing.”

“Well, good then. Good.”

She watched as Carrie stroked the baby's cheek. It was hard not to see a found baby as a miracle. Wouldn't anyone take it as some kind of sign? Still, it was a coincidence, surely. There had to be a reason. Danielle imagined that someone looking for him would be knocking on their door any minute.

She went to the window, looked outside. A thin line of spent twigs danced in the gutter across the street. A flag flapped against a pole. No cars, no people.

“Carrie…you didn't also see…your father, did you?”

“No,” she said softly. “Why? Was there something you needed to know about him? Or any reason you could think of that he'd come back?”

Their eyes met. They both knew he'd left because he'd fallen in love with someone else. There was no mystery there, nothing to unravel. Or was there? The last fight before he left.
I don't want to be another to-do item on a list.

“An apology would be nice,” Danielle said with a small smile. She thought of what her own mother had said when he'd gotten cancer and died: his death was his apology. For everything he'd done to everybody.

The word
apology
caught in the air, like in a dialogue bubble. Carrie looked down at the baby. There was no apology Ethan could ever make for what he'd done. But this day, this moment, was Carrie's apology to the baby. For being stupid enough to have trusted Ethan. She traced the outline of the downy hair on his cheek and thought, for just a moment, that he almost smiled.

The two of them sat side by side on the sofa, but Carrie's eyes remained on the baby, as if she could fix him there, lock him down, with her gaze. Danielle listened to the sounds of each of them breathing, the different rates and rhythms, proof they were all alive, that none of them were dead.
Couldn't Carrie hear it too?

“Carrie, honey.” Danielle spoke quietly, but she hoped, with enough warmth that her daughter wouldn't turn away. “If what you say is true, why don't they stay? Why do they come, only to leave?”

“Because,” she said, “all I ever asked for is one more day.”

“But what about them? What…do they ask for, do you suppose?” There was a dreamy look in Danielle's eyes that Carrie had never seen before.

“I don't know, Mom. But Gran said they come back because they need to. They have a reason.”

Danielle nodded her head slowly, as if she understood. Did that mean she was a success? That her life was steady and upright, with nothing her mother needed to fix or adjust? There was something comforting about the idea of her mother floating above the earth, ready to swoop down and straighten out someone's life like she was leveling a crooked picture frame. She smiled, thinking of it this way. And then she wondered if John would think she was crazy too, mother and daughter and grandmother and father too, the whole bunch of them, absolutely cuckoo.