The Mothers(75)

She finally climbed out of the cab and rang the doorbell. After the second ring, Aubrey cracked open the door. Her stomach curved like a beach ball over her maternity pants. She was pregnant in a way that Nadia had once feared; in the days following her pregnancy test, she’d lifted her shirt in front of the mirror and stared at a flat stomach that ballooned in front of her eyes until it hung immovably over her jeans. When she’d called to make her appointment at the clinic, the man who answered the phone told her that before he could finalize the date, she had to listen to a recording explaining her other options. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, “it’s just something the clinic is required to do.” He did sound genuinely sorry, and when she’d fallen silent on the other end, he told her that he had no way of knowing whether she actually listened to the whole thing. So as soon as the recording started, she’d quietly set her phone on her desk. She didn’t need to listen to know that she didn’t want to be heavy with another person’s life.

But Aubrey didn’t look scared. She seemed comfortable in her big sweater, a hand resting on her stomach, as if to remind herself that it was still there. She wanted this baby and that was the difference: magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn’t want was a haunting.

“Congratulations,” Nadia said.

She tried to smile—this was the hardest part, wasn’t it? When the ease of friendship began to instead require drudging effort. When you stood on the welcome mat instead of trouncing right through the door. She searched Aubrey’s face, for kindness or for anger, but found neither, only a quiet steadiness as Aubrey glanced down, wrapping her sweater tighter around herself.

“You lied to me,” she said.

“I know.”

“For years. You both did.”

“And I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know how to—”

“Is that your cab?”

She felt Aubrey gaze past her shoulder to the cabdriver smoking at the curb. “I’m flying back tonight,” she said.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“So that’s your plan. You do this to me and now you’re just gonna leave.”

“Can I come in a second?”

Aubrey hesitated. For a long moment, Nadia thought she would say no, then she stepped aside and Nadia entered the little white house that had once been her home, past the cardboard boxes scattered on the floor, into the kitchen where a sonogram hung on the refrigerator. She leaned closer. There she was, a baby girl. Twenty weeks old and healthy, ten fingers, ten toes. At twenty weeks, a baby looked human.

“My dad found out,” Nadia said. “About my abortion.”

“Oh.” Aubrey’s voice was soft. “Is he mad?”

Nadia shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about her father, not now. She turned back to the sonogram on the refrigerator, imagining herself in the room, holding Aubrey’s hand as the doctor slid the wand on her stomach. The doctor would laugh when he squeezed into the crowded room—he usually didn’t see patients bring in their entire families. No one would correct him that Nadia wasn’t family. She’d join the circle forming around Aubrey—Monique holding her other hand, Kasey touching her shoulders—as all four women watched the baby appear, backlit and washed in white light. Could she feel their awe while they watched her on the screen? Could she feel that she was already encased in love? Or could a baby sense when he was not wanted?

“What does it feel like?” Nadia asked. “Being pregnant.”

“It’s strange,” Aubrey said. “Your body isn’t yours anymore. Strangers will just touch your stomach and ask how far along you are. What makes them think they can do that? But you’re not just you anymore. And sometimes it’s scary because I’ll never be just me again. And sometimes it’s nice because I’ll be more than that.” She leaned against the wall. “But other times I think, what happens if I don’t love this baby?”

“Of course you will. How could you not?”

“I don’t know. That’s what happened to us, right?”

Sometimes Nadia wished that were true. It’d be much simpler to accept that she had been unloved. It’d be much simpler to hate her mother for leaving her. But then she remembered her mother offering her seashells at the beach and sitting up with her all night when she was sick, pressing a hand against her hot forehead and then kissing her, as if that kiss could detect fever better than a thermometer. Nothing about her mother had ever been simple—her life or her death—and her memory wouldn’t be either.

“Maybe they did,” Nadia said. “At least the best they could.”

“Then that’s even scarier,” Aubrey said.

She hugged her stomach. Inside of her was a whole new person, which was as miraculous as it was terrifying. Who would you be when you weren’t just you anymore?

“Do you have a name for her yet?” Nadia asked.

Aubrey paused, then shook her head. She was lying. She had probably thought up lists of names since the baby was just a prayer. But she didn’t want to tell Nadia and Nadia had no right to know. Still, after she hugged Aubrey good-bye, after she climbed back in the cab, after she leaned against the airplane window and watched San Diego shrink beneath her, she imagined herself in the hospital one morning after she received the call. She would pace outside the nursery, looking past the rows of newborns in pink and blue beanies, until she found her. She would know her by sight, the swirling light wrapped in a pink blanket, a child sown from two people she would always love. She would know the baby she will never know.