The Swap(67)

“What is this?” Britney asked. She was holding a handful of tiny pellets.

“I—I don’t know,” Freya stammered.

“A rattle broke,” I said quickly, hoping they wouldn’t ask me to explain how. “I was going to vacuum.”

“This should have been cleaned up immediately,” Ms. Chin remarked. “They’re a choking hazard.”

“The baby can’t even crawl,” Freya said, with a roll of her eyes. “How would she get one into her mouth?”

Britney seemed mildly flustered. “You haven’t done any baby proofing.”

“We will,” I said quickly. “In the next couple of weeks.”

The tiny woman consulted her clipboard. “I’ll check back in fourteen business days to see that you have.” Then she looked up at us. “I’ll have to file a report when I get back to the office, but I don’t see anything here of grave concern.” She almost sounded disappointed.

Freya escorted her to the door, closing it behind her with a resounding slam. When she returned to the living room, her eyes were dark with anger.

“Who the fuck called CPS?”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth, but I felt caught out. “Maybe some online troll?”

“Child Protection wouldn’t send someone out because I went on a fucking vacation,” she growled. “It was Jamie. It has to be.”

It made sense. She was the only one with motive.

“Did you tell her I was a bad mother?” Freya asked.

“Of course not!” I cried, my voice trembling with fear. “I would never say anything bad about you, Freya. You’re a great mom. Maggie loves you. You’re just settling into it, getting used to it.”

But she was no longer listening to me. She collected her car keys off the side table and stalked out of the house.





62


jamie


Hawking Mercantile had returned to summer opening hours. It was only spring, but I felt hopeful that business would pick up with the warmer weather. And I wanted to work six days a week, wanted to stay at the store until five thirty on weekdays, seven on Fridays and Saturdays. Staying busy distracted me from waiting for the DNA results, worrying about Maggie’s well-being, and the dull ache of guilt I felt for lying to my husband. Again.

Brian still insisted on going through the proper channels in our fight for access to Maggie. He still maintained that we would find the money to pay the lawyer, to travel to the city as often as necessary, to go to court when and if we needed to. We’d had a telephone consultation with a lawyer in the city named Julian Walsh. Speaking at the speed of an auctioneer (Mr. Walsh charged in fifteen-minute increments), Brian explained that Freya was keeping his child from him. The attorney had affirmed for us that the first step was proof of paternity. We were to provide an affidavit—basically a numbered statement of facts pertaining to the case that we would take to Nancy Willfollow for witnessing. We would then submit it to Julian Walsh, who would file it with the court.

“You might not even need to attend,” he told us, and my husband and I had shared a hopeful smile. If our evidence was sufficient, the court would compel Freya to provide Maggie’s DNA for testing.

But that could take months. And then, once we’d proven that Maggie was Brian’s daughter, there would be another court hearing to determine visitation. By the time we had access to our child (yes, I thought of her as ours now), she could be two years old.

I was going to circumvent the whole process. One night last week, as my husband snored after half a bottle of red wine, I had swabbed his cheek. Low had provided Maggie’s sample, and I had mailed them off immediately. The kit said four to six weeks—an eternity—but when the results came back, I would take them to Freya. And we would work everything out.

I couldn’t forget how Freya had admired Low’s family’s dynamics, their honesty and openness. It might have been scandalous in more conservative communities, but two couples co-parenting would not be a big deal in Hawking. Once Freya was presented with irrefutable proof of Maggie’s paternity, she would let us into the child’s life. Maggie could have two homes, two moms who dropped her at school, two dads who alternated soccer and dance practice.

I won’t pretend that I didn’t envision a premier role in our daughter’s life. Brian and I had always wanted to be parents, we were born to raise children. Freya and Max simply weren’t cut out for it. They wouldn’t remember Maggie’s pediatrician and dentist appointments, wouldn’t limit her screen time, or ensure she got enough vitamin D. When she got older, they’d forget to pack her school lunch, ignore her homework assignments, skip parent-teacher interviews. Maggie needed us, too.

It was quiet that afternoon, a Tuesday. I was preparing an ad for the Hawking Exchange—the island’s version of Craigslist—to replace Low. Without help, I would struggle with the tourist-season rush. It would be months before the store got busy, but I knew from experience that it would not be easy to find another shop assistant. There were not a lot of teens like Low Morrison, content with a slower-paced job that was really 80 percent dusting. My thoughts drifted to the odd, taciturn teen who had spent nine months in my employ. I missed her, in a way. Maybe I didn’t miss her. Maybe I was just grateful that she had swabbed Maggie’s cheek for me, had slipped away to deliver the sample, had fed me information about Freya’s lackluster parenting. Low was on my side in this battle. I didn’t know why, but I thanked her for it.