Mother of All Secrets(11)

“Is that . . . Isabel’s husband?” Kira asked, looking up toward him, her voice a bit unsteady.

“I assume so,” I whispered back.

“Let’s keep walking. I don’t want to stop.” She was speaking very quickly. “I feel really weird about being here. It’s like we’re spying. I mean, we really don’t even know her that well. We don’t belong here.” She was right, but the urgency in her voice caught me off guard.

As we walked past, we had to maneuver our strollers around some police tape. At first, it looked like it was just blocking off a patch of uneven sidewalk. But the square of sidewalk wasn’t only uneven in texture: it was also discolored, spattered liberally with rust-colored stains.

I saw Kira take it in at the same time, and knew we were both likely moving along the same progression: Blood. This could be blood. This was probably blood. This was probably Isabel’s blood.

This time, it was me hustling us away. “Let’s go,” I said. “Keep walking.”

I felt like I was going to be sick. I wondered if my pounding heart would wake Clara up. She was stirring now as we bumped our way off the sidewalk, past the police tape.

I looked back toward the house just one more time as we were walking away, and saw Isabel’s husband looking in our direction. He seemed to be staring straight at us. His expression was unreadable, especially from this distance. But his eyes lingered for several seconds.

Kira was at least ten paces ahead of me, practically running as she turned the corner onto Columbus, finally out of view of the house.

“Wait up! Kira, are you okay?”

I found her just around the corner.

“I’m just so freaked out,” she said. “I’m sorry. But, dude: that was blood. Do you think she was murdered?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. But it might not have been—it could have been anything. It’s New York, after all.”

“Please. It’s the Upper West Side. There aren’t blood-soaked sidewalks everywhere.” She sighed and pulled me in for another hug. “Be in touch if you hear anything, or if you talk to the other girls. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight—and not for the usual reason,” she said, nodding toward Caleb with a gentle eye roll.

Clara woke up as soon as Kira and I parted ways, but she seemed surprisingly pleased to find herself in her stroller, able to look at trees and sky as we walked home, oblivious to what I had just seen while she’d been asleep. Even though she was just a baby, I was grateful to have Clara for company as I digested the shock of whatever may have happened to Isabel. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone at the moment.





March 15

Dear Baby,

Where to begin? In a few months, you’ll be here with me in this crazy world. I can’t wait to hold you, to see you, to smell you. I know that’s weird, but I’ve heard babies smell amazing.

I got the idea to start writing you letters from a mommy Pinterest board—it pains me to even have to say that. Gag. Really, Allison? You’re this person now? But the idea resonated with me. I have a lot to say to you already, and I haven’t even met you yet. So I’m going to write to you, now and throughout your childhood, and give you these letters when you leave for college—or on tour with your band, or Barcelona, or culinary school, or a dance academy, or the army, or my basement, or wherever. Wherever you want.

I suppose the first thing I want to acknowledge is that the circumstances by which you came to exist were not at all as I’d imagined they would be. To the degree that I’d imagined them at all. To be honest: I was on the pill when you were conceived. Yes, it can happen. But look, even if it was the last thing I was planning for—how thrilled I am that you’ll be with me soon. Life is never what you expect.

Sure, in vague corners of my mind I’d assumed I’d have a baby one day, when I was more established at work, when I met a partner worth staying with. When I had a bigger apartment, lived in a neighborhood in DC with better schools. If I stayed in DC at all. I like it, but there are other places I’d like to live, too. Like New York. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of a baby. I’m only twenty-eight, after all—by today’s standards, that’s practically a teen pregnancy.

But after a couple of months of unusually light periods and a strong aversion to eating anything before noon, I knew I had to take a test, even though I was on birth control and hadn’t had sex with anyone except . . . well.

Suffice it to say that I never expected to see that second blue line. But there you were. A doctor confirmed it days later.

And what can I say? It was like a line from Gatsby (which was actually one of my least favorite novels in high school, and yet, this part came back to me the night I saw you in those blue lines): “I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport.” That’s how I felt about you. I loved you, and nothing has ever surprised me more. I couldn’t quite believe it myself. But I loved you already. And I wanted you, unequivocally.

I knew I had options. Of course I did. And please understand: I’m as pro-choice as they come. You’ll become well acquainted with my collection of pink hats. It was never about feeling guilty about taking a different path.

But I wanted you. I did and I do. And that’s the thing I hope you’ll take most from these letters: that despite how you came to me, you were, and are, wanted. You are cherished. You are loved, and always will be.