The Bookseller(57)

Did Frieda visit my couch-prison? I cannot recall ever seeing her there—although of course she must have made an appearance every now and then. How often? I have no idea.


I pored over baby-name books, and every night Lars and I would consult on the subject. I refused to select more than one girl name and one boy name, so sure was I that the babies would be what I thought they were. After much discussion, we agreed on Mitchell Jon and Melissa Claire. Mitchell’s middle name was after Lars’s father, and Melissa’s middle name was after my mother. We’d call them Mitch and Missy.

Despite my best efforts to carry those babies to term, I made it to only thirty-four weeks—just over seven and a half months. On the evening of November 12, as I lay on the couch watching television with Lars, I felt warm water rushing from my body. And then I felt the first painful contraction.

“Lars, the babies . . . I think they’re coming,” I gasped.

“They can’t come!” he said. I could hear panic in his normally calm voice. “It’s too soon.”

I shrugged. I even laughed. “Tell them that.”

At the hospital, we were told that the babies would need to be born via cesarean section. “They would not survive a natural birth,” Dr. Silver told Lars and me sternly.

I tried to tell myself rationally that the doctor didn’t mean to sound as if he were scolding me—but that is exactly how he sounded.


I remember Lars holding my hand before I went into the operating room, then slowly releasing it as I was wheeled away. I remember the anesthesiologist, a kind-looking older man. “Count backward from ten, my dear,” he told me. I got to six, and that’s the last thing I remember.

When I woke up, I was in a regular hospital room. My abdomen was on fire with pain, and I winced, turning my head and closing my eyes again. I opened them and saw Lars sitting at my bedside. I whispered feebly, “The babies—are they okay?”

He smiled wearily. “They’re fine. They’re in intensive care, because their lungs are small and they need some help breathing. But they’re doing great, and the doctor thinks they’ll be just fine.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I? A boy and a girl?”

He shook his head. “You were almost right.”

“Almost? What does that mean?”

“A girl, my love. And a boy. And . . . a boy.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I wasn’t sure I understood what he meant. Then it started to sink in. “Are you saying it was . . . triplets?”

“Was and is. Yep. Triplets. The doctor thinks one was hiding behind the other two, which is why he only heard two heartbeats.” Lars let out a long breath, then took my hand. “So we have our Mitch and Missy. Now, what will we name that other fellow?”


Lying on the bed in our green bedroom, I remember all of this as if it happened yesterday.

As if it really happened.

I think about Michael, and how he was always “that other fellow.”

The unintended one. Not expected at all, really.

And, once he was here, certainly not expected to be as he turned out.





Chapter 20


When I wake up, I am at home—if indeed you can call this home; this quiet apartment with the hopeful yellow walls and the false sense of serenity.

Is it false? I think about this as I rise from the bed. A small part of me has started to wonder what is true and what is made up. It’s beginning to seem impossible that something as real as the world I share with Lars and the children could actually be imaginary.

I shake off the thought and fix myself some brain-tidying coffee. It’s Monday morning. Yesterday, thank goodness, the Soviets agreed to remove their nuclear weapons from Cuba, and the United States breathed a collective sigh of relief. I joined in the exhalation, of course; I walked over to Frieda’s house, and we watched the rebroadcast of the news on her television set, sitting side by side on her couch and drinking black tea with honey and no cream. Frieda never has cream in the house, much to my aggravation.

“Thank the Lord,” Frieda said, chain-smoking Salems and barely touching her tea. “Thank the Lord.”

Despite the relief I share with the nation, it’s true, what I said to Frieda in the middle of the night last week—I was never truly frightened about the Cuban situation. Perhaps it just seemed too unbearable to fathom, that World War III could actually be about to start, and there wasn’t a thing any of us could do about it. Or perhaps my mind is just too muddied these days by the peculiarity of my dream life, leaving me little room to think on a broader scope. Whatever the reason, I never thought the threat was as vast and imminent as everyone else seemed to believe. Turns out I was right.

As I drink my coffee, I consider this chain of events. I remember calling Frieda in the night; I remember her words of comfort. I remember, yesterday, hearing the news about Cuba and going to Frieda’s house to watch television. But what of the days in between? I shake my head. I can recall nothing of these days. I have no idea what I did or who I spoke to or what I thought about.

Feeling a bit panicky, I gulp the last of my coffee. How can this be? I search my mind for recent memories, but none appear. I look in the dustbin for newspapers from last week, but all I can find is yesterday’s Post, wrinkled and crumpled beneath a layer of bread crumbs and the wrapper from a Hershey’s candy bar. I don’t even remember eating a candy bar. When did this happen? Where was I, what was I doing, where did I buy a candy bar? It seems terribly important that I remember these details, but my mind is blank.