Richard paused. “Do you want me to call your mother?”
Ayinde shook her head. Lolo thought that her daughter had made a mess of her life, that she’d married badly and that nothing but sadness would result from that union, and Ayinde wasn’t going to give her any ammunition or evidence to show that she was right.
“I’ll be right back. Here.” He found a paper cup, turned on the tap, and handed Ayinde a cup of water. Then he walked out the door, a tall, broad-shouldered man moving with an athlete’s ease, drawing glances from nurses, from other worried mothers, even from other children. Ayinde lifted Julian onto the table and slowly, carefully, gently, started putting his clothes back on.
“Hey, Ayinde.” Becky must have come right from Mas to Ayinde’s house. She was carrying two plastic bags and wearing black-and-white-checked pants, a long-
sleeved T-shirt, her hair twisted on top of her head, and an apron streaked with green.
Cilantro,
Ayinde thought. Kelly was right behind her, in jeans and a zippered hooded sweatshirt, her hair lank around her shoulders, circles under her eyes, and Oliver in her arms. Lia came into the kitchen last, dressed in fitted black pants and a black sweater. She’d gotten her hair colored since the last time Ayinde had seen her. The dark roots and blond ends had been replaced by a rich chestnut mane that fell in waves past her shoulders.
This is how she must have looked,
Ayinde thought fleetingly,
in her real life. Before…
“I brought dinner,” Becky said, setting the fragrant bags down on the countertop. “How are things?” she asked.
“They don’t know yet. The electrocardiogram and the X rays were inconclusive,” Ayinde recited. “Tomorrow morning he has to have something called a transesophageal echocardiogram.” Richard told her he’d explained the basics—that Julian had a hole in his heart, that the doctors were running more tests. A hole in his heart. It was almost poetic. She’d been walking around for weeks feeling like someone had torn a hole in her own. “It’s an outpatient procedure, but they do it under general anesthesia, and the doctor had an opening first thing in the morning. Where’s Ava?”
“Day care,” Becky said, as she started unpacking the food she’d brought, opening a series of steaming Styrofoam boxes, setting out napkins and silverware. “Where’s Julian?”
“In his room. With his father. I’m sorry to take you away from work…”
“Don’t be silly,” Becky said. “Although you might have to apologize to Sarah. I think she almost fainted when Richard called. It was like God calling to see if He could get a table at seven-thirty.” She passed Ayinde a plate filled with braised pork, black beans, and saffron rice. Ayinde pushed it away. “I can’t eat anything. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep…I just kept thinking, you know, what if something happens, what if he stops breathing…” She buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, Ayinde,” Becky said. Kelly covered her eyes with her hands. It was Lia who sat beside Ayinde, Lia who reached for her hands. Lia who sat quietly and let her cry.
“Hey, little man,” Richard said.
He was sitting in a rocking chair in the hospital’s waiting room, long legs bunched up uncomfortably, with Julian in his lap. Ayinde held her breath and paused in the hallway. She’d gone to the bathroom to splash water on her face, leaving Richard with the baby.
“…so you’re gonna be asleep for a while,” Richard said. Julian looked almost newborn-tiny again, leaning back in the crook of Richard’s arm. “And when you wake up, you might have a little sore throat, and then we’re gonna know what’s going on with your ticker.” He tapped the baby’s chest with one thick finger. “Could be, you’re just fine. Have to take it easy a little. Go on the inactive list. Or it could be you’re going to have to have a little operation to fix you up right. But whatever happens, you’re going to be just fine. Your momma loves you so much, and your daddy loves you, too. It’s all going to be all right, little man. Everything’s going to be fine.”
He gathered the baby into his arms and rocked him. “So don’t worry,” he said. Ayinde saw that he was crying. “You don’t have to play basketball. You don’t have to do anything but just get through this all right. We’re going to love you no matter what happens.”
She cleared her throat. Her husband looked up. “Hey, baby,” he said and wiped at his eyes.
“I’ll take him now,” she said. She held out her arms for the baby.
“Let me carry him for a little bit, all right?” Richard asked.
“Okay,” she said. This time, she was the one who reached for his hand. “Okay.”
The nurse came for Julian at nine o’clock sharp. “It’ll take half an hour,” she said, lifting him into her arms. Ayinde braced herself for the baby to cry, but Julian simply looked around, then opened and closed his hand in his baby version of a wave. “Try not to worry.”
Ayinde walked the beige-painted halls. She felt as if she’d memorized each loop of the carpet, each name on each door. Sometimes Richard walked alongside her, not touching her, not saying anything, but walking closely enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. Then he would sit down, and her friends would flank her; Becky and Kelly on one side, Lia on the other. Becky was silent. Kelly murmured under her breath. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Hail Mary, full of grace…”
Ayinde prayed her own prayer, one word long, one single syllable.
Please. Please, please, please, please, please,
she thought, walking down the hall and back again. She would endure anything—a cheating husband, a scornful mother, public humiliation. She’d swallow it all if only her son would be healthy. “Please,” she said out loud. What would she do if she lost her baby? She’d probably end up like Lia; running like a kicked dog, trying to find some place where things felt better, some place that felt like home. But Philadelphia was her home now, she thought, as she turned at the end of the hallway and started back again. She had a life here, however messy it was at present. She’d had her baby in this hospital, she’d walked him on the sidewalks, sat with him in the shade of a weeping willow tree in the park. Her friends were here, and their babies were here, and Julian would grow up alongside them. If Julian got to grow up.
Please,
she prayed and walked with her head down, barely noticing when Lia took her hand.
Please, please, please…
She heard Richard before she saw him, the familiar beat of his footfalls as he came down the narrow hall. She looked up from the carpet, and there was her husband in motion: Richard running, the way she’d seen him a thousand times on basketball courts the world over. Richard snagging a rebound, sinking a layup, Richard rising into the air as if he’d willed himself to float, winning the tip-off, sending the ball flying precisely into one of his teammates’ hands while the crowd gasped in wonder. “Baby.”
She turned and found that she could neither move nor breathe.
“It’s okay,” Richard said. He was beaming. And suddenly she was in his arms, pressed against him, holding on tight. “There’s a hole, but it’s a small one; it’ll close up on its own. We just have to watch him closely, but he’s going to be all right.”
“All right,” she repeated. She felt her knees buckling, but this time, Richard was there to catch her before her shoulders hit the beige wall. “Shh, shh,” he whispered and kissed her cheek. Then he led her down the hall for the last time, back to the island of couches and coffee tables, the out-of-date magazines, and the parents with tense, fearful faces. Her friends were waiting for her, sitting side by side on a couch, Becky in her cook’s black-and-white pants, Kelly twisting her rosary beads in her lap, Lia’s face in profile so stern and lovely that it belonged in a painting or on a coin. They looked at her with their faces upturned like flowers, their hands linked, like sisters. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Hi,” I said, smiling as I approached the two-top—an older couple, white-haired. Grandma and Grandpa out for a nice night on the town. “My name’s Lia, and I’ll be serving you this evening. Can I tell you about our specials?”
“Only if you tell us how much they cost,” said the woman, narrowing her eyes at me as if I’d tried to make off with her purse. “I despise it when servers tell you the specials and don’t tell you how much things cost. Then you’re surprised when you get the bill. Usually unpleasantly.”
I struggled to keep my smile in place. “Of course. Tonight, we have a ceviche—that’s raw fish marinated in lime juice…”
“I know what ceviche is,” the woman said, gesturing with her butter knife. “Don’t patronize me, darling.”
Whoa. Evil Granny. “Our ceviche tonight is salmon in a lime and blood-orange marinade, and it costs twelve dollars. We’re also offering an ancho-rubbed veal chop, served with a savory chipotle flan, for eighteen dollars. Our whole fish of the night, which is prepared brushed with olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper, is dorado.” I paused. The old woman raised her eyebrows. “Dorado is a firm-fleshed, mild…”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry. It’s served with plantains, and it’s twenty-two.”
“We’d like the pulled pork empanadas,” said the man.
“I do hope they aren’t greasy,” said the woman.
“Well, they are deep-fried,” I said.
Sarah slipped by me with a tray held aloft. I looked past her and saw the party at the table behind the one I was serving. My breath caught in my throat, and I reeled two steps backward without even thinking about it. “Excuse me,” I murmured.
“Excuse
me,
” said the old woman. “We weren’t finished!”
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and then I brushed past the first-daters at table eight, the three girls gossiping at table nine, and fled to the kitchen, where I pressed my hands against the stainless-steel serving counter and tried to catch my breath.
“Hey, are you all right?” asked Becky, hurrying past with a bowl full of beaten eggs.
I nodded and held up one finger.
“Seen a ghost?” she asked.
It was something like that, I thought.
“Hey,” I said to Dash the dishwasher. “Can I have some of your water?”
“Sure!” he said, handing me the bottle, looking dazzled. “Have it all!”
I took a long swallow. Then I poured some on a napkin and draped it over the back of my neck. My mother used to do that for me on hot summer days.
There, isn’t that better?
she’d ask, with her hand resting between my shoulders.
I straightened up, retucked my white shirt into my black pants with red trim at the ankles—toreador pants, I’d thought when I’d bought them, just right for waitressing at Mas—and peeked through the door. I hadn’t been wrong. It was Merrill, from Parents Together, the one who’d gone on and on about how the Make-a-Wish people had failed to provide her dying son with a visit from a porn star. She was with her husband, the man who’d patted her shoulder so ineffectually. Merrill and her husband and a little boy.
I dropped off the gossiping girls’ check and returned to Grumpy Grandma.
“Well!” said the old lady. “Look who’s here!” I was watching Merrill’s table out of the corner of my eye, watching as she leaned toward the little boy, smiling at something he’d said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you have any questions about the menu?”
The man shook his head. “I’d like the grilled shrimp, please.”
The woman pointed at one of the entrées. “Is the chili-crusted rack of lamb spicy?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Well, could they make it without the chili?”
Merrill’s little boy was maybe two or three. He climbed out of his booster seat, and his father helped him pull on a red wool coat.
“I could ask,” I said, knowing what Sarah would say—if they want plain old meat, let ’em go down the street to Smith & Wollensky.
“Do that for me, darling,” the woman said. Merrill stood up, setting the check folder back onto the table, and guiding the boy to the door. At Parents Together, she’d worn jeans and a sweatshirt—the international uniform of the brokenhearted, I sometimes thought. But tonight she was all dressed up, hair straight and shiny, mouth painted and eyes lined, in black pants of her own, a white blouse and a belt of gold links, and red-and-gold Chinese slippers. You wouldn’t look at her and think that anything was wrong. She looked like any other youngish mother, out for the night. I felt my knees start to sag, and I grabbed onto the back of the aged party’s chair to keep myself and my new toreador pants from sliding to the floor.
“Is there a problem?” Grandma demanded.
“Sorry,” I said. Merrill and her son and her husband pushed through the door and, without even thinking, I ran back to the kitchen. “Can you cover for me?” I asked Becky.
“What?”
“Cover for me,” I said, pulling off my apron, handing her my checks. “I’ve got seven, eight, and nine. The people at seven are miserable. I’ll be right back.” I ran out of the kitchen, through the restaurant, and followed Merrill and her family onto the street. “Hey!” I called. “Merrill!”
She turned around, looking at me. “Oh God, did I leave my credit card? I’m always doing that…” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s Lisa. From Parents Together.” I smoothed out my apron. It was freezing outside. I wished I’d thought to grab my mother’s blue coat. “I’m sorry to bother you, I just…”
“Honey.” Her husband took her arm. “The movie’s starting soon.”
“You two go ahead,” she told her husband, keeping her eyes on my face. “Lisa and I are going to get a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t want to keep you. I don’t want to ruin your night…”
“It’s okay,” she said. Her breath came in silvery puffs. She opened the door to the coffee shop on Nineteenth Street. I followed her inside.
“Is that…” I swallowed hard. “That little boy. Is that…”
“My son,” she said. “His name is Jared.”
“And you had him after…”
She nodded, taking a seat at one of the back tables. “After.” We both knew what After meant.
“How? That’s what I wanted to ask you. Can you tell me how?”
She nodded, and in that gesture I caught a glimpse of the furious woman I’d seen in Grief Group, the one who would not let herself be comforted and who still seemed to be in so much pain. “I thought that we wouldn’t. That we couldn’t. I thought we’d be one of those couples everyone knows—oh, they lost their son and their marriage couldn’t take it and they split up. But Ted—that’s my husband—was so good through the whole thing with Daniel that sometimes…” She ducked her head. Her voice was almost inaudible. “I got to the point where I could almost see it as a kind of a blessing, what happened to Daniel, because it let my husband show me how much he loved me. How I’d never have to doubt it. I know how that sounds, but…”
I pressed my hands against the table to keep them from shaking. I was remembering Sam—a glass passed across a bar, a straw wrapper slipped over my finger, a wedding dress lying on a hotel bed.
Let me be your family now.
“Ted asked me if I wanted to try again six months after Daniel died,” Merrill said. “I wasn’t ready then. I thought if I had another baby, another little boy, I’d be holding my breath his whole life just waiting for the leukemia to come back and finish the job. Ruin my whole family. Take everything I had, instead of just Daniel. I thought that every time he sneezed or got a bruise I’d be dragging him to the doctor’s…that I wouldn’t be able to just let him be a kid. I was too scared.”
“Is that how it was?”
“A little bit. Especially at first. I think mothers like us, mothers who’ve lost a child, we’re always holding our breath a little bit. But they grow up anyhow, and no matter how careful you want to be, they just want to be kids and do kid things. Ride a bike, play soccer, go outside in the rain…” She rubbed her hands together. “I’ve got a good husband,” she said. “That was probably three-quarters of it. The rest of it was just me. I decided that it was a choice. You know those people who say that happiness is a choice?”
I nodded. There’d been a great many of them in California.
“Hope is a choice, too. I know it sounds silly…”
I shook my head.
“I remember I was lying in bed the second night after Daniel died. Ted and I had to make the arrangements—that’s what they called it, make the arrangements, and what it meant was we had to pick out his coffin. My mother was with us, and she kept saying, ‘It’s not God’s plan for a parent to bury a child.’ All I could think was that I never knew there were coffins so small and that he wouldn’t have liked any of them. He had his whole room covered in posters and NASCAR stickers. He hated getting dressed up for church, and all the coffins were…” She shook her head. “They were just so wrong for an eleven-year-old boy. I went home that night and I was lying in bed. I hadn’t even taken my shoes off. I was just lying there in the dark, and I remember thinking to myself, You can live or you can die.”
“So you decided to live,” I said.
Merrill nodded. “I decided to hope. It was the hardest thing I ever did. The first year, a lot of days, just getting out of bed and getting dressed felt like more than I could handle…and there were days when I couldn’t even do that. But Ted was so good—he was so patient with me. Even my mother wasn’t so bad, after a while. Eventually, it got to the point where Daniel’s death wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I woke up. And I could look at other children—other boys—and not feel jealous or sad. They were just part of the landscape. And what happened with Daniel was a part of my history. An important part, a terrible part, but not something I was obsessing over every minute. It turned into something that had happened to me, not something that was still happening.” She tilted her head. “Does that make sense?”
I found that I couldn’t say anything, so I nodded instead.
“I would have told you this at group, if you’d stayed. Did I scare you away?”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t your fault,” I said. “I just wasn’t ready, I guess.” I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes. Shit. “I should go. My job…I’ve got to get back to my tables. Thank you,” I said, stumbling to my feet on shaky legs. “Thank you so much.”
“Call me,” Merrill said, writing down her number on a napkin. “Please. If you need anything, or if you just want to talk.”
I folded the napkin and ran back to Mas. Sarah was standing at the bar. “Hey, are you okay? Becky’s been taking care of your party at table seven, but you never entered their entrées. I’ve been sending out complimentary apps…”
Shit. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I collected my checks and my apron and hurried back to the table.
“Well,” said Grandma. “Look who’s reemerged.”
“I’m very, very sorry,” I said. I touched the napkin in my pocket, the one with Merrill’s phone number, hoping it would give me strength. The woman snorted.
“That’s enough, Judith,” said the old man.
The woman’s jaw gaped open. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’d like more water,” the man said.
I nodded. I went to the bar, poured the water, and went back to the kitchen again.
“Hey, if you’re gonna cry, don’t use a towel,” Dash said over my shoulder. “Becky’s all over me about the towels. Here.” He handed me a fistful of toilet paper. “Are you going to be all right? Do you need to go home?”
I shook my head, blew my nose, dabbed carefully underneath my eyes, the way one of the makeup artists I’d known in my previous life had shown me. I freshened my lipstick, combed my newly brown hair, and counted out enough crumpled bills from my pocket to pay for Grumpy Grandma’s lamb.
Hope,
I thought, remembering Ayinde’s face when she’d told us that Julian was going to be all right. In the kitchen, Becky was arranging frizzled leeks on top of someone’s steak. “Hey,” I said.
She looked up at me, grinning. “You okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said. I smoothed my hands along my apron. “I’m going to be outside for a minute. I’m not leaving or anything. I just need to make a phone call.”