The Perfect Mother(16)

“You don’t have to tell me. I was a mother once, too.” Marilyn pauses, but Francie is unsure how to respond. “How’s the baby?”

“Good,” Francie says. “Mostly. I’m having some trouble nursing. He doesn’t seem to be getting enough food.”

“So give him formula. Put a little baby cereal in it.”

“Oh. They don’t really use that anymore. And I’m trying not to—”

“People at church have been praying for you. Cora Lee asked me how the birth went and I realized I don’t know. You never told me.”

“I didn’t?” Francie feels herself lighten. “It was perfect. I was able to do it naturally, without any pain medication.” It wasn’t easy. About a thousand times during the nine-hour labor she’d wanted to give up and get the epidural, but she powered through it, walking circles around the hospital room, slow dancing with Lowell through the pain. She can’t help but notice the admiring way Lowell now looks at her sometimes: not as his five-foot-three-inch average-looking wife with the thick thighs and unruly curls going prematurely gray at thirty-one, but as an unstoppable, fire-breathing warrior, giving birth to a healthy seven-pound son, and on Mother’s Day, no less.

“Naturally? What does that mean? You didn’t have an epidural?”

“No. Not even one Advil.”

Silence. “On purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

Francie closes her eyes, feeling ten years old again. She keeps her voice steady. “Because I wanted—Lowell and I wanted the most natural birth experience. Unmedicated births are now—”

Marilyn chuckles. “Oh, Mary Frances, that’s so like you. You can’t do anything like everyone else.” Francie is surprised to feel tears burning the back of her throat. “Anyway, I’m calling because I have something for William. A christening dress.” Marilyn pauses. “And I’d like to come visit.”

“Visit?” She didn’t think Marilyn would ever come to New York. She’s never stepped foot out of Tennessee. “You don’t have to do that, Mom. Lowell and I are saving for plane tickets home for you to meet Will.”

“The baptism is probably soon. I could look into a flight, next weekend perhaps? You’ll need help, I imagine.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. Next weekend doesn’t work.” She racks her brain for a plausible excuse. “Lowell has a big interview. He’s working all the time, and he’d feel bad if he couldn’t spend time with you. Plus, the May Mothers. We’re—”

“The May Mothers?”

“It’s a group of friends I’ve made. A mommy group.” Francie can only imagine how her mother would judge them all: Nell, with the large, garish tattoo covering her shoulder. Yuko, breastfeeding without cover in the coffee shop, in front of other women’s husbands. Token, a gay stay-at-home dad. “But this terrible thing happened—”

“He’ll need this gown. It was yours, and before that, it was mine.” Her mother waits. She knows what she’s doing. She knows Francie won’t be baptizing him. She’s forcing her to lie. “When is the baptism?”

“We’re not quite sure yet. Like I said, Lowell’s working a lot right now.” Despite the fan, the sweat rises on Francie’s back. She turns away from the window, glancing at Will on his mat, at the muted television set, trying to figure out what to say.

And then her heart stops.

It’s Winnie. On TV. Not the Winnie she knows, though. This one is much younger—a teenager. She’s standing on a stage, wearing a gold strapless gown, her hair tied back in a loose chignon, hanging on to the arm of a nearly identical older woman who must be her mother. Another image appears: Winnie in a blush-colored leotard and long tulle skirt, ballet slippers laced to her knees. Francie picks up the television remote from the counter and increases the volume.

“—Gwendolyn Ross is best known for her role in the cult television series Bluebird, which aired in the early nineties.”

“Mary Frances?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I have to go. The baby is awake.”

She places the phone on the table. The reporter is standing on a leafy sidewalk, bright yellow police tape visible behind her. Francie moves closer to the TV. The building she’s standing in front of. It’s Winnie’s.

“Sources within the police department are keeping information tightly guarded at this point, saying only that they are, in fact, treating this as a case of child abduction, and that all leads are being pursued. The baby has been missing now for nearly nine hours. Zara Secor, reporting live from Brooklyn.”

“Thanks, Zara. Now, on to another bit of disheartening news. The climate change summit has come to—”

Francie goes to her bedside table for her laptop. Bluebird. Someone, Gemma perhaps, once mentioned that Winnie was an actress, but half the people Francie has met since moving to New York claim to be actors. She didn’t know this was what Gemma meant. Winnie is famous. The star of a television show in the early 1990s about a young ballerina auditioning for an apprentice spot in the New York City Ballet. Winnie—who went by the name Gwendolyn—was the ballerina. She was the girl they called Bluebird.

Francie had no idea. She would have been eleven years old when Bluebird aired, and it was exactly the type of show—with hints of teenage sexuality, an interracial relationship—that her mother would never have allowed in the house. She opens Wikipedia and finds Winnie’s page. Classically trained at the School of American Ballet, a summer at the Royal Ballet School. A family foundation, in her mother’s name, that provided scholarships to young dancers.