The Nest(90)

“Mel?” he finally said. “Nora just needs to know you love her as much and exactly as you did before. She needs to know she’s not alone.”

“I know,” Melody said.





CHAPTER FORTY


It was the day before Mother’s Day and Stephanie was still wearing her down vest. May in New York City was fickle. On Friday she hadn’t needed any kind of overcoat, but Saturday dawned cloudy and cold, more autumnal than springlike. Still, there were bunches of pink and purple and blue sweet peas at the farmers’ market and she splurged and bought four bouquets for herself. She’d scatter them around the house and their heady scent would permeate every room.

Vinnie and Matilda were coming over to her house for lunch. The day when she’d answered Leo’s phone, she’d quickly ended the call with Matilda, saying Leo was out. She didn’t forget about the call—or the poor girl who’d been in the car with Leo—but there was so much else for her to contend with; weeks later, she’d called back, out of duty more than anything else.

Stephanie knew she wasn’t responsible for Leo’s mess, but as Matilda nervously and somewhat disjointedly explained why she was calling, Stephanie realized she might be able to help. One of her favorite clients, Olivia Russell, was a hugely successful journalist who had written extensively about artificial limbs, especially the challenges facing Gulf War veterans. Olivia had lost a leg herself when she was young. She knew everyone and how to work every program and now ran a nonprofit that helped amputees navigate the expensive and complicated world of artificial limbs. Stephanie offered to broker an introduction. Matilda asked if she could bring her friend Vinnie. So they were all coming for lunch: Vinnie, Matilda, and Olivia, who’d already agreed to help Matilda as a favor to Stephanie. Then Stephanie’s job would be done.

“Happy Mother’s Day,” the farmer who took her money said. She assumed he was a farmer anyway; he was scruffy and already sun weathered. His fingers were thick and blunt and dirt stained, and he was wearing a bright blue baseball cap that said SHEPHERD FARMS ORGANIC in orange script on the front. It took Stephanie a minute to realize he was addressing her.

“Oh, thanks,” she said. With her height, she was carrying the pregnancy well but at six months her bulge was prominent, unmistakable.

“You have other kids at home?”

“Nope. First and last,” she said, employing the emotionally neutered tone that she’d learned usually shut down baby conversation, shifting her bags of spring potatoes and asparagus and strawberries into the crook of one elbow so she could carry the vibrant flowers in one hand, like a spring bride.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” the farmer said, grinning. “Then the kid starts walking and talking. Soon he won’t sit in your lap anymore and before you know it”—he gestured toward her middle—“you’re cooking number two.”

“Hmmmm,” she said noncommittally, holding a palm out for her change.

She’d listened to her pregnant friends complain for years about the invasiveness a protruding belly engendered, how even in New York where you could stand inches away from someone’s face on the subway secure in the tacit but universal agreement that nobody (sane) would engage with you, ever, all bets were off when you were pregnant.

Boy or girl? First one? When are you due? (Stephanie always heard When are you due? as What do you do? Always.) So she had been prepared for the annoying questions, but the thing she found most infuriating was how everyone needed to talk not only about the baby she was gestating, but also about her unplanned, unwanted future children. It was so odd. As if only wanting one child was already undercutting the motherhood that hadn’t even officially begun. As if these strangers had something at stake in the process. As if having one baby, alone, was some kind of half-hearted gesture, a part-time commitment. (Oh, they’re just jealous, Pilar, mother of one astonishingly charming and erudite nine-year-old son, told her. They want to make sure you’re going to be knocked back on your ass as soon as you’re sleeping all night. Misery loves company, my friend.)

“So do you know what it is?” the farmer said, counting out her ones.

“It’s a girl.”

“Got your name.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling thinly. “But that’s my secret.” She’d learned to keep her counsel on baby names the hard way. When she started mentioning names she was considering, before the obvious one occurred to her, everyone had an opinion based on logic so subjective and personal that it was utterly bizarre: “My first wife was named Hannah and she was a cold bitch.” “My daughter has four Charlottes in her class.” “Natasha is kind of Cold War, no?”

It also seemed to Stephanie that like so much else surrounding parenting, naming had become a competitive sport. Some dude in her childbirth class couldn’t stop talking about his Lotus spreadsheet for baby names. “We have three priorities,” he explained to a bored Stephanie and a bemused childbirth instructor (she’d seen it all). “The name needs to be unique, it needs to reflect the ethnic background of both my wife and me—a little bit Brit, a little bit Jew—and”—he paused for effect—“it needs to be mellifluous. Pleasing to the ear.”

“I know what mellifluous means,” Stephanie said.