The Perfect Mother(91)

“Anyway, my parents weren’t the best role models, and I wasn’t planning on kids. But then Joshua came along, and I never wanted anything more. From the minute he showed up as a pink plus sign between two thin sheets of plastic, I knew him.”

I rub Joshua’s back, thinking about those days, how joyful they were, feeling him growing inside me. Reading him books in the bathtub. Taking him for walks in the morning to the new playground, promising to bring him back one day. I’d walk barefoot through the sand pit, envisioning him collecting rocks, learning to climb trees. All the things kids are supposed to do. “He was such an active little guy. Such a kicker. Always telling me what he wanted.” I laugh as I tip another stream of sugar into my tea. “Remember how they talked to us from inside?”

I can see by the empty expression on Francie’s face that I’ve veered off topic. “Sorry. Dr. H always said I talk too much and risk boring people to death.” I press my fingers to my temples, trying to huddle my thoughts into order, to concentrate on what I’m saying, and not on the way Joshua is looking at me.

“Stay focused, Scarlett,” I say. I smile at Francie. “I had a very specific birth plan. You know, no epidural, skin-to-skin contact, sprinkle him with organic fairy dust but don’t clean him off before giving him to me. The thing is, nobody seemed to care about my plan. Before I could even hold him, they’d taken him away to that little table thing, with all the lights and wires.

“I can’t remember the doctor’s name, but I can hear her yelling something—barking orders at people. Then she was attaching wires, wheeling him out of the room, not even letting me see his face—to see if he looked the way I’d been imagining he would.” The other doctor was there then, telling me I needed to be stitched up where I’d torn. You need to lie down, Mom. We need to take care of you first.

“Would you like a pickle?” I extend the jar to Francie. “No? Nell?” Nell’s eyes are swollen. She shakes her head. “Anyway, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. That’s what a doctor told me. In other words, he suffocated during the delivery. Or, in even other words, fetal demise. Fetal demise. Doesn’t that sound like it should be the name of a female punk band?” I begin to laugh and find that I have a hard time stopping. “Sorry,” I eventually say. “I don’t think this is funny at all. To be honest, I’m so racked with guilt. I was so careful during my pregnancy. I did everything I could to keep him safe. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to hurt him—”

Francie touches my leg. “Scarlett. It wasn’t anything you—”

“Anyway,” I say, standing up and walking away from the pity in her face. “Another woman came in to ask me if I wanted to hold my son before they took him away. I didn’t know if I wanted to hold him. ‘Is that what people do?’ I asked her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Closure.’ That’s the word she used. Someone had thought to put a hat on him, before they brought him to me. As if we still had the luxury of worrying that he might be cold.”

I pause to finger a hill of cold beans into my mouth, aware of how famished I am. I can no longer remember the last time I ate.

“They told me I had forty-eight hours to register his death. I never did it. To be honest, it’s making me a little nervous. Do you think that might be a crime?” I bounce Joshua to the balcony door, opening it. I need some fresh air. I reach for the binoculars on the bookshelf and look across the wet backyards, into Winnie’s home, wondering what she’s doing. I haven’t seen her in two days, since Daniel was there, when I watched him open the curtains and then make her dinner, sitting beside her on the couch, handing her tissues from the box in his lap, her plate untouched on the coffee table.

Oh right, I remember, putting the binoculars back in their place. She’s not home. She’s in jail.

I turn to Francie. “Anyway, that’s pretty much it.” I laugh. “My ‘birth story.’ I’m glad I got my turn. I wanted to volunteer to go that night, when Winnie declined. But I don’t know, I was feeling shy.”

“What night?” Nell asks.

“The fourth of July. At the Jolly Llama.”

“You were there?”

“Yes. I stayed inside at first, at the bar. Watching you guys. I was going to join the table, but it felt weird. I’ve never felt like I really fit in with this group. And then, of course, I met that guy.”

I see him, standing there, watching me. I knew what he wanted. I’d just witnessed him attempt the same thing with Winnie. The blatant eye contact from his place at the bar. The smile. The way he took in my body when he finally approached. Winnie rejected him immediately, but I couldn’t help myself. “I accepted his drink,” I tell Francie. “One thing led to another.” I feel his hands under my dress in the bathroom stall, begging me to go home with him. If only I’d said yes. I sigh and shake my head. “It had been a while.”

Francie is immobile. “Was he wearing a red hat?”

“He was hard to miss, right? So handsome. But yeah, that stupid red baseball hat.”

“I don’t understand,” Nell says. “How did you take the baby? With Alma—”

“Alma was lucky.”

“Lucky?” Nell says.

“Yes. After I left the bar with the key you gave me, I was sure I’d have to hurt her. But she saved me a lot of trouble. She was sound asleep.”