“… as soon as you heard,” I supplied.
“How do you feel?” asked Sam. “How’s the baby?”
“I feel okay, and the baby… well, she’s in the baby intensive-care place. They have to wait and see.”
Samantha sighed. I closed my eyes. I suddenly felt completely exhausted. And hungry.
I sat up, tucking another pillow behind my back. “Hey, what time is it? When’s dinner? You don’t have, like, a banana in your purse or something?”
Samantha rose to her feet, grateful, I thought, to have something to do. “I’ll go check… hey, what’s this?”
She pointed at the bakery box that Dr. K. had left behind.
“Don’t know,” I said. “Dr. K. brought it. Take a look.”
Sam ripped through the string and opened the box, and there, inside, was an éclair from the Pink Rose Pastry Shop, a wedge of chocolate bread pudding from Silk City, a brownie still in its Le Bus wrapping paper, and a pint of fresh raspberries.
“Unbelievable,” I murmured.
“Yum!” said Samantha. “How does he know what you like?”
“I told him,” I said, touched that he’d remember. “For Fat Class, we had to write down what our favorite foods were.” Sam cut me a sliver of éclair, but it tasted like dust and stones in my mouth. I swallowed to be polite, sipped some water, then told her that I was tired, that I wanted to sleep.
I stayed in the hospital another week, healing, while Joy got bigger and stronger.
Maxi showed up every morning for a week and sat beside me and read from People, In Style, and Entertainment Weekly magazines, embroidering each story from her own personal stash of anecdotes. My mother and sister stayed with me in the daytime, making conversation, trying not to linger too long at the pauses that came where I would normally be saying something smart-ass. Samantha came every night after work and regaled me with Philadelphia gossip, about the antiquated former stars Gabby had interviewed and the how Nifkin had taken to stopping, mid-walk, and planting himself in front of my apartment building and refusing to budge. Andy came with his wife and a box of Famous Fourth Street chocolate chip cookies and a card that everyone in the newsroom had signed. “Get Well Soon,” it read. I didn’t think that would be happening, but I didn’t tell him that.
“They’re worried about you,” Lucy whispered when my mother was in the hall, talking about something with the nurses.
I looked at her and shrugged.
“They want you to talk to a psychiatrist.”
I said nothing. Lucy looked very serious. “It’s Dr. Melburne,” she said. “I had her for a while. She’s horrible. You better cheer up and start talking more, or else she’s going to ask you about your childhood.”
“Cannie doesn’t have to talk if she doesn’t want to,” said my mother, pouring a cup of ginger ale that nobody would drink. She straightened my flowers, plumped my pillows for the fourteenth time, sat down, then got up again, looking for something else to do. “Cannie can just rest.”
Three days later, Joy took her first breaths without the ventilator.
Not out of the woods yet, the doctors warned me. Have to wait and see. She could be fine, or things could go wrong, but probably she’ll be okay.
And they let me hold her, finally, lifting up her four-pound-six-ounce body and cradling her close, running my fingertips over each of her hands, each fingernail impossibly small and perfect. She clutched at my finger fiercely with her own tiny ones. I could feel the bones, the push of her blood beneath her skin. Hang on, I thought to her. Hang in there, little one. The world is hard a lot of the time, but there’re good things here, too. And I love you. Your mother loves you, baby Joy.
I sat with her for hours until they made me go back to bed, and before I left I filled out her birth certificate, and my handwriting was clear and firm. Joy Leah Shapiro. The Leah was for Leonard, Bruce’s father’s middle name. Leah, the second sister, the one Jacob didn’t want to marry. Leah, the trick bride, the one her father sent down the aisle in disguise.
I bet Leah had a more interesting life anyhow, I whispered to my baby, holding her hand, with me in my wheelchair and her in her glass box that I forced myself not to see as a coffin. I bet Leah went on hiking trips with her girlfriends and had popcorn and Margaritas for dinner, if that’s what she wanted. I’ll bet she went swimming naked and slept under the stars. Rachel probably bought Celine Dion CDs and those Franklin Mint collectible plates. She was probably boring, even to herself. She never went on an adventure, never took a chance. But you and me, baby, we’re going to go on adventures. I will teach you how to swim, and how to sail, and how to build a fire… everything my mother taught me, and everything else I’ve learned. Just make it out of here, I thought, as hard as I could. Come home, Joy, and we’ll both be fine.
Two days later, I got part of my wish. They sent me home, but decided to keep Joy. “Just for another few weeks,” said the doctor, in what I’m sure he imagined was a comforting tone. “We want to make sure that her lungs are mature… and that she’s gained enough weight.”
I burst into bitter laughter at that one. “If she takes after her mother,” I announced, “that shouldn’t be a problem. She’ll gain weight like a champ.”
The doctor gave me what he no doubt believed was a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things should be fine.”
I limped out of the hospital, blinking, in the warm May sunshine, and eased myself into my mother’s car, sitting quietly as we drove back home. I saw the leaves, the fresh green grass, the St. Peter’s schoolgirls in crisp plaid jumpers. I saw, but didn’t see. To me, the whole world looked gray. It was as if there was no room inside of me for anything except fury and fear.
My mother and Lucy unloaded my bags from the trunk and walked me to my building. Lucy carried my bags. My mother walked slowly beside me, and Tanya huffed behind us. My leg muscles felt wobbly and underused. My stitches ached, my ankle itched in its walking cast. It turned out that I’d only sprained my ankle when I’d fallen, but nobody had thought to look at my legs until days later, so the foot had stayed bent, and the tendons stayed torn, which meant a walking cast for six weeks: small potatoes, in relation to everything else I was dealing with.
I fumbled through my purse. My wallet, the half-empty pack of chewing gum, a Chap Stick and a book of matches from the Star Bar looked like relics from another life. I was groping for my keys when Lucy put her key into the first-floor door.
“I don’t live here,” I said.
“You do now,” said Lucy. She was beaming at me. My mother and Tanya were, too.
I limped across the threshold, my cast thumping on the hardwood floors, and stepped inside, blinking.
The apartment— a twin of mine up on the third floor, all dark wood and circa 1970s fixtures— had been transformed.
Sunlight streamed in from windows that hadn’t been there before, sparkling on the pristine, polished maple floors that had been neither pristine nor polished nor maple when I’d last seen the place.
I walked slowly into the kitchen, moving as if I were underwater. New cabinets stained the color of clover honey. In the living room were a new couch and love seat, overstuffed and comfortable, upholstered in buttery yellow denim— pretty, but sturdy, I remember telling Maxi, as I pointed out things I coveted in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living one lazy afternoon. A beautiful woven rug in garnet and dark blue and gold covered the floor. There was a flat-screen TV and a brand new stereo in the corner, stacks of brand-new baby books on the shelves.
Lucy was practically dancing, beside herself with joy. “Can you believe it, Cannie? Isn’t it amazing?”
“I don’t know what to say,” I told her, moving down the hall. The bathroom was unrecognizable. The Carter administration-era pastel wallpaper, the ugly dark wood vanity, the cheap stainless steel fixtures, and the cracked toilet bowl— all gone. Everything was white tile, with gold and navy accents. The tub was a whirlpool bath, with two showerheads, in case, I guessed, I wanted to bathe with a partner. There were new glass-fronted cabinets, fresh lilies in a vase, a profusion of the thickest towels I ever felt stacked on a brand-new shelf. A tiny white tub for giving the baby a bath sat on one counter, along with an assortment of bath toys, little sponges cut into the shapes of animals, and a family of rubber duckies.
“Wait until you see the baby’s room!” Lucy crowed.
The walls were painted Lemonade Stand yellow, just the way I’d done them upstairs, and I recognized the crib that Dr. K. had put together. But the rest of the furniture was new. I saw an ornate changing table, a dresser, a white wood rocking chair. “Antiques,” Tanya breathed, running one thick fingertip along the curved whitewashed wood that was tinged very faintly pink. There were framed pictures on the walls— a mermaid swimming in the ocean, a sailboat, elephants marching two by two. And in the corner was what looked like the world’s smallest branch of Toys “R” Us. There was every toy I’d ever seen, plus a few I hadn’t. A set of building blocks. Rattles. Balls. Toys that talked, or barked, or cried, when you squeezed them, or pulled their strings. The exact same rocking horse I’d admired in a shop in Santa Monica two months ago. Everything.
I sank slowly down into the yellow denim love seat, underneath the hanging mobile of delicate stars and clouds and crescent moons, next to a three-foot-high Paddington Bear.
“There’s more,” said Lucy.
“You won’t even believe it,” said my mother.
I wandered back to the bedroom. My plain metal bedframe had been replaced with a magnificent wrought-iron canopy bed. My pink sheets had been swapped for something gorgeous— rich stripes of white and gold, tiny pink flowers.
“That’s two-hundred-thread-count cotton,” Lucy boasted, ticking off the merits of my new linens, pointing out the pillow shams and dust ruffle, the hand-knotted carpet (yellow, with a border of pink roses) on the floor, opening the closet to show off yet more of the pinkish-whitewashed antique furniture— a nine-drawer dresser, a bedside table topped with a gorgeous spray of daffodils in a blue ginger jar.
“Open the blinds,” said Lucy.
I did. There was a new deck outside the bedroom window. There was a big clay pot of geraniums and petunias, benches and a picnic table, a gas grill the size of a Volkswagen Bug in the corner.
I sat down— collapsed, really— onto the bed. There was a tiny card on the pillow, the kind you’d get with a bouquet of flowers. I slid it open with my thumbnail.
“Welcome home,” it read on one side. “From your friends,” said the other.
My mother and Lucy and Tanya stood in a line, regarding me, waiting to hear my approval.
“Who…,” I started.“How…”
“Your friends,” said Lucy impatiently.
“Maxi?”
The three of them exchanged a sneaky look.
“Come on, you guys. It’s not like I’ve got other friends who could afford all this.”
“We couldn’t stop her!” Lucy said.
“Really, Cannie, that’s true,” said my mother. “She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She knows all of these contractors… she hired a decorator to find you all these things… there were people working in here, like, around the clock…”
“My neighbors must have loved that,” I said.
“Do you like it?” asked Lucy.
“It’s…” I lifted my hands, and let them sink into my lap. My heart was beating too fast, pushing pain into every part of my body that hurt. I thought of the word that I needed. “It’s amazing,” I finally said.
“So what do you want to do?” asked Lucy. “We could go to Dmitri’s for dinner…”
“There’s a documentary about lesbians of size at the Ritz,” rasped Tanya.
“Shopping?” asked my mother. “Maybe you want to stock up on groceries while we’re here to help you carry things.”
I got to my feet. “I think I’d like to go for a walk,” I said.
My mother and Lucy and Tanya looked at me curiously.
“A walk?” my mother repeated.
“Cannie,” my sister pointed out, “your foot’s still in a cast.”
“It’s a walking cast, isn’t it?” I snapped. “And I feel like walking.”
I got to my feet. I wanted to exult in this. I wanted to feel happy. I was surrounded by the people I loved; I had a beautiful place to live. But I felt like I was looking at my new apartment through a dirty mirror, like I was feeling the crisp cottons and plush carpets through thick rubber gloves. It was Joy— not having Joy. None of this would feel right until my baby came home, I thought, and I was suddenly so angry that my arms and legs felt weak with the force of it, and my fists and feet tingled with the desire to hit and kick. Bruce, I thought, Bruce and the goddamn fucking Pusher. This should be my triumph, goddammit, except how can I be happy with my baby still in the hospital, when Bruce and his new girlfriend were the ones who put her there?
“Fine,” said my mother uneasily. “So we’ll walk.”
“No,” I said. “By myself. I want to be by myself right now.”
They all looked puzzled, even worried, as they filed out the door.
“Call me,” said my mother. “Let me know when you’re ready for Nifkin to come back.”
“I will,” I lied. I wanted them out already, out of my house, my hair, my life. I felt like I was burning up, like I had to move or explode. I stared out the window until they’d all piled in the car and driven off. Then I pulled on a jogging bra, a ratty T-shirt, a pair of shorts, a single sneaker, and thumped out of the house and onto the hot sidewalks, determined not to think about my father, about Bruce, about my baby, about anything. I would just walk. And then, maybe, I’d be able to sleep again.
May drifted into June, and all of my days were built around Joy. I’d go to the hospital first thing in the morning, walking the thirty blocks to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as the sun came up. Robed and masked and gloved, I’d sit beside her on a sterile rocking chair in the NICU, holding her tiny hand, brushing her lips with my fingertips, singing her the songs we’d danced to months before. Those were the only moments I didn’t feel the rage consuming me; the only times I could breathe.
And when I felt the anger coming back, when I’d feel my chest tightening and my hands wanting to hit something, I’d leave her. I’d go home to pace the floors and pump my breasts, to clean and scrub floors and counters that I’d cleaned and scrubbed the day before. And I’d take long, furious walks through the city, with my ankle in the increasingly filthy walking cast, charging through yellow lights and shooting evil glances at any car that dared inch toward the intersection.