The Break(6)

Lila wakes for a breath, but I pick her up and get her snug inside the baby carrier, and then she’s back to sleep and we’re okay; we’re ready. I tiptoe through my apartment toward the kitchen. The fantasy of an apology that absolves me is like electricity in my veins. June will forgive me. I know she will. It’s strange how much I want to see her again. I always felt that I understood her; I remember being twenty-two and all the longing that comes with it, the many lives that could be yours and how they’re all there for the taking. Choose wisely, I always want to tell June, but she has her own mother for that.

In the kitchen I grab my cell. I don’t turn it on. I leave a note for Gabe, a quick scratch of pencil against paper so he doesn’t worry.

I needed a breath of air. Back soon. Xx R

Even with the note he’ll worry when my phone goes straight to voice mail, and I try not to think about how scared he’ll be that his unstable wife is out alone with his baby. I try not to think of myself like that, but if the shoe fits . . .

The pediatrician assured Gabe and me it was okay to go out in this weather if Lila was dressed properly, and I put on my own coat, a massive maternity number that may as well be a sleeping bag. I zip it over Lila so we’re even warmer, but then I imagine her overheating right there against me and I’m suddenly flooded with panic. How am I supposed to know what temperature the baby’s supposed to be? Why didn’t I take an infant course?

I push open our apartment’s front door and step into the bright light of the hallway, and I think back to the moments after what I did to June—hearing the voices of our neighbor Mrs. Davis and then Mart, the former Broadway star who lives next door to Mrs. Davis, both of them asking if we were all right. I can still hear Gabe reassuring them that everything was totally fine as June escaped into the elevator.

June only worked evenings for us for a short time, but everyone who met her liked her. Mrs. Davis hired June to feed and water her cat while she was hospitalized a few days for a procedure, and she returned home delighted to find wildflowers in a vase and a welcome home sign June had hung and signed from the cat. And whenever June and I ran into her in the hallway, Mrs. Davis seemed to relish giving June secret, weary glances if she caught me being paranoid and triple-checking that Lila was buckled into the stroller properly.

I kiss the top of Lila’s wool hat. “Here we go, little girl,” I say as I put my key in the lock. There’s a soft thud as it latches, and I hope it’s not enough to wake Gabe. I hurry down the hall. There are stairs and an elevator, but our building is so old there’s no way the staircase is built to current safety codes; there are intricate iron railings with too much space between the swirls: beautiful, but treacherous for a child or a drunk. If you tipped over the side there’s too large a gap between the railings on either side of the staircase—you could easily fall to your death six floors below. I can’t believe I never noticed it before I became a mother. I used to strut by it tipsy, wearing three-inch heels, back from a night out with Gabe. But now I zoom past it toward the elevator with my hand beneath Lila’s butt even though I know she’s supposedly secure inside this carrier thing. For a moment I swear I hear footsteps behind me, and I freeze, imagining Gabe chasing me down, furious. But there’s no one.

The elevator dings and Lila and I step inside, swallowed by the tiny box as the doors close. I peer over Lila’s head onto the carpet, into the corners, feeling the insane urge to look for evidence that June was just here a couple days ago. One of her blond hairs? An indentation on the carpet fibers from the heeled boots she always wore? In my novels there’s always bodily evidence—you can’t just wipe someone off the face of the planet. We human beings are too substantial, aren’t we? Our digital lives splay across the internet. And real life is messy with its skin, hair, and bodily fluids. You just have to look.

The elevator opens with a shudder. Lila and I pad across a marble floor, past a red velvet sofa with gold armrests. It’s kitschy but perfect, dragged home by Mart the Broadway Star from a Midtown theater that was closing. That’s what our building is like: a mix of old-school New Yorkers and young(ish) hipsters like Gabe and me. Decadent pink-and-gold wallpaper covers the lobby, and if you move right up close to it, you’ll see the pink is actually a parade of tiny flamingos. Light from a chandelier glints across the scalloped ceiling, and a secret doorway opens to a stairway that leads down to the dark bowels of the building, where a billiards room gets dusty waiting for players.

Henri, the doorman, looks up from the New York Times. “Good evening, Mrs. O’Sullivan,” he says with his smooth Swedish accent. He’s in his fifties, handsome, and always telling me I remind him of his Nordic relatives back home. “I still can’t believe this dark hair,” he says about Lila for the fifth or sixth time since we brought her home from the hospital, staring at the inky wisps snaking out from beneath her hat. He’s commenting on Lila’s dark hair because I’m white-blond. I force a smile at Henri and try to look normal and under control, because Henri is the first person Gabe will talk to if he tries to reach me on my cell and can’t.

“We’re just going out for a stroll,” I say, so he can relay that if Gabe comes stalking down to the lobby in his sweatpants and bedhead.

“Isn’t it a little cold for the baby?” Henri asks.

I stare at him, smelling Windex, which is what I always smell down here because Henri is so meticulous about the glass doors. “I-I don’t think so,” I finally stammer, trying not to let insecurity spill across my face.