The Other Life (22 page)

She looked at him, choking with gratitude as she tried to find the words to express her appreciation.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

She could only laugh. “I like it.”

 

 

AT BREAKFAST the next morning in a local coffee shop, Quinn pored over brochures listing area antique shops, a red pen in her hand. One, in particular, caught her eye. She circled it and turned the page to Lewis.

“Amelia’s Vintage Baby,” he read. “ ‘Antiques and collectibles for baby and you.’ ” He looked up at her. “Doesn’t this violate our agreement for this weekend?”

“I don’t care,” she said.

He looked concerned.

“It’s not going to upset me,” she said. “And, besides, when will we get another chance to see this stuff ?”

“I don’t know, Quinn. Could be an emotional minefield.”

 

 

THE SHOP WAS out of the way for them—about an hour’s drive from Aunt Bunny’s house. It was really just one cramped room that was an adjunct off a larger store selling a wider variety of antiques. It was overly heated, and soon after entering, Quinn pulled off her sweater.

She started by looking at the larger items. There were a few dressers and high chairs. The cradles captured her attention for several minutes. Some of them were quite beautiful, though clearly not as safe as modern equipment. Most were made out of wood, with curved bottoms for rocking. Two were hanging cradles made from wrought iron.

Quinn moved on. She fingered a fine, hand-decorated bib from the mid-1800s and a sweet crocheted bonnet from the 1920s. She saw a whole case of silver spoons and baby dishes. White christening gowns covered in clear plastic hung from small silk hangers. A shelf of baby dolls and stuffed animals had a sign in front inviting shoppers to visit the main store for a wider selection. Quinn looked at some dresses and went back to the bonnet. It was a delicate piece in off-white with a ribbon threaded through. She showed it to Lewis.

“Isn’t this beautiful?” she said.

“Mm-hm.”

She turned over the tag: $250. “Too extravagant,” she said, and put it back.

She went from shelf to shelf, examining each little treasure. Every time she came to a cap or bonnet, she paused to look at the price. Each one appealed to her in some way, though none seemed exactly right. And of course the prices were out of reach.

The woman who ran the store sat in a vintage rocker in the corner, knitting something in a color Quinn thought of as Christmas red. “You’re looking for a head covering?” she asked, without looking up.

Am I? Quinn wondered. It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that she was so focused on items that went on the baby’s head. Was she unconsciously looking for something to protect Naomi’s skull?

“Not really,” Quinn said, self-conscious. To prove her point, she approached a case of little baby shoes and began inspecting them. Some still had the imprints of infant toes inside, and this touched Quinn in a tender spot close to her womb. She picked up a very tiny pair of cloth shoes that had a tag indicating they were from the early 1900s. Inside, the silk lining looked pristine, almost new. She remembered the famous Hemingway quote, reputed to be the shortest story ever written:

She stared at the tiny footwear that fit so easily into her hands, and imagined the woman from Hemingway’s story clearing out a nursery that would never be used. By then her body—though left permanently barren—would have recovered from childbirth. But what about her heart? Was it, too, barren? Had it gone as cold and hard as the earth covering her baby’s grave?

She turned to Lewis. “Let’s go home.”

 

THE CLOSER THEY GOT TO HOME, THE MORE ANXIOUS QUINN became about walking through the door and reuniting with Isaac. She had spoken to him and to Georgette several times over the weekend and knew everything was fine, but she needed a fix, needed to pull him close to her and breathe in his scent. Also, she hoped this time apart would ease his anxiety about losing her. She needed him to learn, deep in his heart, that she would always come back.

“Hey,” she said, as she dropped her bag on the floor in the hall.

Isaac, who was sitting at the kitchen table with Georgette, drawing with markers, jumped off his chair and ran into her arms. Lewis joined in for a group hug.

“I missed you,” Quinn said.

Isaac gave her a tight squeeze and then scrambled from her arms. “I drew a picture of our family,” he said.

“Let me see.”

Quinn hugged Georgette and thanked her for staying with Isaac, then looked at the picture her son was holding. It was an outdoor scene, with the sun in the upper left and a tree with orange leaves on the right. Isaac drew himself in the middle of the composition, between his mother and father. Everyone was smiling.

“What’s this?” Quinn said, pointing to a strange shape he had drawn on the other side of her.

“That’s the baby.”

Quinn blanched. She had not yet told Isaac she was pregnant. She had planned to break the news to him after the amnio, but on learning about the baby’s serious condition she had decided to hold off. She glared at Georgette.

“I’m sorry,” her neighbor said. “It slipped out.”

Slipped out? How does something like that
slip out
? Quinn stared at her son, trying to see into his heart. How was he handling this enormous news? And was he traumatized by hearing it from their neighbor? He appeared unruffled.

“I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl,” Isaac said, “so I just made it a scribble.”

Lewis glanced at Quinn with a look that said,
It’s going to be okay.
Then he said to Isaac, “That’s fine. You did a good job.”

“If it’s a boy,” Isaac said, “can we give him a really cool name?”

“Like what?” Lewis asked.

Isaac straightened and smiled, ready to present his father with the world’s coolest boy name. Clearly, he had given it a lot of thought.

“Gary,” Isaac pronounced.

“Gary,” Lewis repeated, the mirth in his eyes belying the serious expression he tried to affect.

Isaac nodded. “Isn’t it perfect?”

“You don’t think it’s maybe just a little
too
cool for a baby?”

“He’ll grow into it,” the boy said.

The adults laughed, including Quinn, who realized it wasn’t so terrible for Isaac to know she was pregnant. After all, they would have to tell him eventually. Meanwhile, she figured she might as well seize the opportunity. She kneeled down in front of her son and took his hands. “It’s not a boy, Isaac. It’s a girl.”

Isaac looked thoughtful as he took that in. “Will she be a good climber?”

Two doors down lived an eight-year-old girl named Audrey who sometimes came over and climbed the big tree in their backyard.

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “The doctors tell us she might be sick.”

“Then let’s get medicine.”

“Sometimes people get sick and”—Quinn waited a beat, fighting the urge to cry—“and there isn’t any medicine that can make them well.”

“Why not?”

She lost the battle against tears. Her eyes burned and watered. “Because the doctors haven’t invented it yet. But they’re going to try. We all will.”

Isaac put his small, warm hand on her cheek. “If she can’t climb, I’ll teach her to draw.”

 

 

A FEW NIGHTS LATER, Lewis took Isaac to an Islanders game, and Quinn went to see Hayden, who had invited her over for dinner. She sat at the kitchen table as he cooked, watching him put a large pot of water on a burner and salt it before going back to the chicken fillets and garlic sautéing in a pan. The aroma was intoxicating. Hayden took a sip of red wine. Quinn nursed a glass of sparkling water with lemon.

“You sure you don’t need any help?” she asked.

He waved her offer away with his free hand. “Relax.”

Quinn heard something from the bedroom, which shared a wall with the kitchen. It sounded like the scrape of chair legs on the floor and she was caught off guard, as she had thought they were alone.

“Cordell’s here?” she asked.

“Came in on the red-eye this morning. Surprised me.”

“No wonder you look so happy. Is he joining us?”

“In a bit. I told him you and I needed time to talk. Besides, once he goes online I don’t see him for hours.”

Quinn thought of Georgette’s cyber adventures and made a face.

“It’s not like that,” Hayden said. “He shops. He can spend half the day trolling for treasures on craigslist and eBay. He’s like an addict.”

Quinn looked around for something to do. She didn’t like being idle, and found it frustrating to be treated like a patient. She wasn’t sick, she was pregnant. She noticed a head of romaine on the counter.

“I’ll wash the lettuce,” she said. She found Hayden’s colander, put it in the sink, and began tearing leaves from the base and dropping them in. “If Cordell wants treasures,” she said as she worked, “he should go antiquing in the Berkshires. You never know what you’re going to find.”

“Sounds like you and Lewis did some shopping of your own.”

“We stopped in an art gallery and I went hunting for a Nan Mazursky original, but I found something better.”

Hayden turned the chicken pieces. “Better?”

“A portrait of her, painted by a fellow art student in 1966. Lewis bought it for me as a birthday present. I already hung it in the living room. Can’t stop looking at it.”

Quinn finished tearing the lettuce and rinsed it under the running faucet. She turned off the water and banged the colander against the bottom of the sink.

“What’s it like?” Hayden asked. “It’s not op art, is it?” He pulled a big salad bowl from a cabinet and handed it to her. She dumped in the lettuce.

“They were students, and I think they were still studying Impressionists, so it’s more Mary Cassatt than Andy Warhol. It’s lovely. Mom looks beautiful and young. But young in a way you could never imagine her.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to see it,” she said. “There’s a lightness to her. It’s like the artist captured her before she decided that everything had to be complicated. She looks happy, without the layers of analysis beneath it. She’s just . . . a girl. It’s sweet.”

“You sure it’s Mom?”

She laughed. “Hard to believe, right?”

He added some olive oil to the pan and asked her what else was going on. Over the phone, she had alluded to a major ordeal over the weekend.

Quinn took a sip of water and steadied herself. This was going to be so hard to relive, but she couldn’t keep holding it in. She needed to tell someone before she burst, and Hayden was the only one she could confide in.

Quinn retrieved a cutting board and began to sort through the vegetables Hayden had left on the counter. Finally, she cleared her throat and cut the greenery off a couple of carrots. “I stopped by that Stonewell Resort,” she said. “I wanted to check it out for you and Cordell.”

He turned and looked at her. “Seriously?”