The Mothers(61)

“Shh.” She kissed his neck, slipping her hand under the covers.

“Nadia . . .”

“I don’t want to talk,” she whispered.

He would have to stop doing this, wondering about the life they might have had together, the family they might have been. He would have to be grateful for everything she gave him.

—

BABY REACHES FOR Daddy’s unshaven face. Baby loves Daddy’s rough skin. Baby bounces in the window when Daddy pulls into the driveway. Baby throws a rattle, a pacifier, a ball. Baby’s got a hell of a throwing arm, Daddy’s friends say, but Daddy secretly hopes Baby has good catching hands. Baby swings at T-ball, Baby chases across soccer fields, Baby lines up for orange slices and water after basketball practice. Baby listens to Granddaddy preach. Baby watches football in Daddy’s lap. Baby asks Daddy about his leg, Baby learns about the fragility of dreams. Baby straps on pads and learns pain. Baby stops crying when he is hit. Baby tosses the football in the front yard with Daddy, who always catches the ball perfectly. Baby can’t understand why he still drops, but Daddy tells him his hands are too hard.

You need soft hands, Daddy says. You touch a girl the same way you catch a football. Soft hands.

—

WEEKS AFTER HER VISIT to Dr. Toby, Aubrey made an appointment with a fertility specialist. She’d first read about Dr. Yavari on FertilityFriends.com, the forum where she’d been lurking for the past few months. On evenings when Luke worked late, she ate her dinner in front of her computer screen, slowly scrolling past the giant banner at the top of the lavender website that read, There is no such thing as trying too hard to get pregnant. She never told anyone about the website, not even Luke. She didn’t want him to think that she was baby crazed and desperate. But there was something comforting about reading the message boards, about knowing that other women were struggling worse than her. They were, after all, the ones with screen names like MommytoBe75 or Waiting2Xpect82, the ones reporting their last menstrual periods or charting their days past ovulation to strangers on the Internet. She pitied these women, except for the ones who were trying for a second or third child. We all just want one, she always thought, angrily clicking out the website. On the forums, a rambling thread about California fertility specialists mentioned Dr. Yavari, based out of La Jolla, whom former patients referred to as “the baby-maker.” The nickname comforted and disturbed Aubrey. She didn’t want to think of her baby as created by a doctor, like some science experiment, but she appreciated the confidence everyone seemed to have in Dr. Yavari. Maybe this was what she needed, to visit an expert. Maybe Dr. Yavari could save her from becoming one of those sad women on the message boards. She called Dr. Yavari’s office and when Luke said he couldn’t miss work, she called Nadia and asked her to come with her.

“I can’t,” Nadia said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” she stammered. “It sounds personal. Why don’t you bring Mo?”

“She’s working too. And who cares if it’s personal? You’re not exactly a stranger.”

She laughed a little, but Nadia was silent. A quiet distance had grown between them since Nadia returned. They still talked occasionally, but not as often as Aubrey had hoped they might. She tried not to take the unanswered phone calls and ignored texts personally. Nadia had her father to worry about, and the last thing she needed was Aubrey burdening her with her own hurt feelings. Still, she felt that distance widening the longer Nadia went without answering.

“Please,” Aubrey said. “I just get nervous. And it’d make me feel better if you were there.”

“I’m sorry,” Nadia finally said. “I’m being dumb. Of course I’ll come with you.”

The next afternoon, they drove to Dr. Yavari’s office, a tan building with palm trees sprouting in front. In the waiting room, framed photos of mothers cradling babies hung over the receptionist’s desk like a promise, but Aubrey felt like the images were teasing, dangling right in front of her the things that she wanted. Beside her, Nadia played with her phone and Aubrey tried to flip through a National Geographic, but ended up twisting it in her hands into a glossy tube.

“Why are you nervous?” Nadia asked.

“Because. I know something’s wrong with me.”

She tensed, waiting for Nadia to ask how she knew. Instead, she felt Nadia’s fingers stroke the back of her neck.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said quietly, and for a second, Aubrey believed her.

Dr. Yavari was Iranian, olive-skinned with dark eyes, and thirtysomething, much younger than Aubrey had expected her to be. She welcomed both of them into her office with a smile, sweeping her arm toward a chair in the corner. “Your sister can sit there,” she said, and neither corrected her. Strangers often mistook them for sisters or cousins or even, Aubrey assumed, girlfriends. She was amazed by their ability to resemble each other, to become family, to occupy, at once, different ways to love each other. Who were they to each other? Anything at all. While the doctor flipped through her charts, she sat on the metal table, her legs swinging off the edge. In the corner, Nadia leaned against a counter covered in tubs of purple plastic gloves while Dr. Yavari asked Aubrey a series of questions. How often does your period occur? Is it heavy, light? Any sexually transmitted infections? Have you ever been pregnant? Have you ever had an abortion?