Lies She Told(68)
Shame increases my tears. “I’m sorry. But you don’t understand what . . . I may have . . .” My confession burns in my throat. I swallow it.
Her expression softens. She squeezes my hand. “I promise you, Liza. This medication is not making you forget major actions. If you did something momentous, you’d remember it. What it may be doing is causing you to jump to some irrational conclusions, particularly if you’ve been drinking on it and under a lot of stress.”
I want to believe her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. These drugs could never cause the kind of memory lapses that you’re describing. I know we call them experimental, but they’re really a combination of the same hormones in many other fertility drugs. The experimental part is more the delivery system than anything else.” She fixes me with her round brown eyes. I see my desperate reflection in her pupils. “I know how much you want to have a baby, but I would never put you or any of my other patients on drugs that could cause psychological damage, even to bring a new life into the world. At the end of the day, you’re my patient. I’m here to take care of you.”
My clenched muscles start to relax. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding based on my hormone-hyped emotional state and a single shred of forgotten behavior. Maybe, knowing that I would be in the Hamptons alone, I took along my gun. Then, after drinking myself sick with Christine, I forgot doing it. Maybe, as David said, we are being investigated simply because he was Nick’s business partner and the police know conflicts can arise from such close relationships. Maybe David is only a touch bisexual and he was experimenting with Nick but not planning to leave me.
Maybe you already know the truth, Beth says.
The emotion in my doctor’s face seems sincere. She wants what is best for me, and what is best for me is to forget all about a Nick and have a baby. I nod and tell her that she’s right. I am acting nutty. Paranoid. I will stay on the drugs. I want a child. These implants are my best chance.
“Okay.” She releases my hand. “So I’ll see you next week. We will stay on top of how the hormones are impacting you emotionally, and you’ll call me if you start getting overwhelmed or feel out of control or—”
My purse buzzes. I offer an apologetic smile as I grab the phone inside. I don’t recognize the number on the screen, but I answer anyway. For all I know, it’s the police.
“Elizabeth, I’ve been . . .” It’s David. He sounds as though he’s been bawling. My stomach twists into a knot. I know what’s coming. “I’ve been arrested and arraigned. I need you to bring bail.”
Chapter 16
The park is overcrowded. Gym towels and picnic blankets cover the grass, transforming the fenced lawn outside my building into a patchwork quilt held together with green stitching. Atop every fabric surface is a sunbather in some stage of undress. I spy a group of co-eds, no doubt escaping from Greenwich Village’s paved common spaces. They wear triangle bikini tops and flaunt their prebirth bellies in the direction of a nearby volleyball court. These are the kind of girls that men like my husband salivate over. The Jakes of the world stalk such women with their wolfish grins. They separate them from their female herds with strategic flattery. You’re the prettiest. You’re the smartest. You’re so much more desirable than your friends. They scatter promises of adoration and fidelity at their feet, breadcrumbs leading back to their lairs. Then, when the young women are lost, permanently disoriented from seeing themselves and their surroundings through a male gaze, the Jakes return to hunting.
I wish to warn them not to be the lamb I was, a twentysomething transplant to the city starving for affection, thinking a husband and a baby would fill the spaces inside me. Do not court the hungry stares of the volleyball players across the way and instead toast your youth with your plastic cups of blush wine. Discover yourself before you find a man. Otherwise, when he leaves, you won’t know where to go.
But I can’t give them any advice. I’ve killed one of their kind, and I still don’t know where I am going. I only know where I don’t want to end up.
I push the stroller past a gaggle of moms hovering over a baby playground. Before, I might have joined them, introducing myself with a question about their respective children’s ages. But I am not one of them anymore. I can’t imagine making small talk about spit up and whether organic onesies are worth the price. I’m surprised that I ever managed it.
Vicky is cooing at me. She’s happy from her marathon of “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and the fact that the stroller’s motion shakes the animals appended to the bassinet’s sun shade. I talk to her as I walk, supplying the advice that I wish I’d had in my twenties in hopes that she picks up on my speech, if not its content.
Every now and again, I feel the prickle of a focused stare on my back. When I look over my shoulder, however, I see the same nondescript crowd of city dwellers: people of all colors dressed in too much black, navy, and gray for the season. I don’t really look too hard for the source of my unease. There’s no reason for the police to track me, and I’ve been careful enough that there shouldn’t ever be one. My guilt is creating goose bumps.
I walk down the esplanade, scanning for dumpsters. Manhattan authorities eliminated most public trash cans after the Boston Marathon bombings showed they could be exploited by terrorists. Dumpsters were spared due to the ability of their reinforced walls to contain blasts.