The Mothers(62)

“What?” Aubrey said.

“I have to ask,” Dr. Yavari said, drumming her pen against her clipboard. “I usually try to wait until the men are gone—you know, it happened in college, she never told her husband, et cetera.”

“No,” she said. “None.” But she appreciated Dr. Yavari’s compassion. She hoped the doctor didn’t just guess that Aubrey was the type of woman who might have hidden a secret like that from her husband. She would have, but she hated the idea of the doctor knowing this about her.

After the exam, Dr. Yavari scheduled her follow-up appointment. Next time, there would be an X-ray to determine whether her fallopian tubes were open, a pelvic ultrasound to test the thickness of her uterine lining and check for cysts in her ovaries, and blood tests to measure her hormone production. When the doctor left, Aubrey dressed, pulling on her clothes that Nadia had folded in a small pile.

“I can’t believe she asked you that,” Nadia said.

“Asked me what?”

“You know. The abortion thing. Why does it even matter?”

“I don’t know. It must, if she asked about it.”

“Still. I can’t believe it follows you around like that.”

Later, Aubrey would wonder what had exactly tipped her off. The statement itself, or the unusual softness in Nadia’s voice, or even the way her face had looked under the fluorescent light, slightly stricken with grief. In the moment between when Nadia handed her her cardigan and she accepted it, she knew that Nadia was The Girl. Since Luke had confessed to her years ago, she had often thought about this nameless, faceless girl who had gotten rid of his child. A girl he’d loved but who had vanished, like the baby, both gone forever.

On the drive home, traffic in front of them slowed. She gripped the steering wheel tighter as the car inched forward. Beside her, Nadia fiddled with the radio dials until she reached an old Kanye West song they both used to love, one they’d listened to endlessly in her room and danced to together at Cody Richardson’s party. She thought about that night, how sloppy drunk she’d been, how easily she’d forgotten everything she didn’t want to remember. She could have been anyone that night, in that skintight dress, dancing at a crowded house party with Nadia Turner. Toward the end of the night, Nadia had looped an arm around her waist and said, in her ear, “Let’s get you home,” and she had nodded, realizing that she hadn’t even thought about how she would get home. She had known, somehow, that Nadia would take care of her. In bed that night, before falling asleep, she’d felt Nadia’s hand touch her back. It was a fleeting gesture—casual, like picking lint off someone’s sweater—but in that moment, Aubrey had never felt so safe.

After she dropped Nadia off, she stopped at the liquor store around the corner. The tiny Indian man behind the counter waved at her as she walked in. The store was mostly empty, a washed-out blonde hauling a six-pack of Coors to the counter, two boys fighting over a bag of Hot Cheetos. She grabbed an Italian pinot noir because she liked the shiny silver label. At home, she drank half the bottle while she dressed, the other half after she’d already slipped into one of the frilly black teddies crumpled in the corner of her drawer. She shook out the wrinkles, then stood in front of the mirror, fighting with the straps and bows. After the wine, she wouldn’t be able to unhook it herself. She imagined herself stuck in the teddy forever—would someone have to cut it off her, the way her father-in-law had sawed off Luke’s purity ring?

She finished her wine on the couch, listening to the dull thud of the clock. By the time Luke came home, she was drunk and sleepy. She’d meant to answer the door in the teddy—she wanted to be the first thing he saw—but she was too slow and by the time he stepped inside, she was still splayed on the couch. He froze in front of her, still holding his keys.

“Are you okay?” he said.

She stood too quickly and lost her balance, grabbing the armrest to steady herself.

“Come here,” she said.

“Are you drunk?”

She grabbed the teal drawstring on his scrubs and tugged him closer. She reached inside his pants and felt him staring at her in a way he never had before, pitying her desperation. When he pushed himself inside, she clenched her eyes and found sweetness in the pain.

—

THE NEXT DAY, Luke asked Nadia if he could take her on a date. His face, inches from hers on her pillow, looked shy; she’d forgotten how curly his eyelashes were. The afternoon sun filtered in through the blinds and she felt lazy, warm and stretching against her sheets.

“Maybe downtown?” he said. “Or the harbor? I don’t know. Wherever you wanna go.”

She traced his tattoos, the maze of interlocking images that covered his left arm. When she’d last undressed him, seven years ago, he’d had a few tattoos but now his full sleeve fascinated her: tribal markings stretched over his shoulder, and near his elbow, a skull gritted its teeth; a fanged demon’s tongue transformed into flames that licked up around Luke’s wrist. A cross on his biceps, and above it, the words On my own. A lion’s head covered Luke’s left pectoral, the mane flowing away like smoke. The other half of his chest was smooth, bare, his right arm untouched. His ink stopped abruptly, like he’d slipped one arm into a sweater and forgotten about the other.

“Why?” she said.

“Why what?”