People Who Knew Me (31 page)

I rubbed my thumb over the keys of the phone, thinking. It wasn't that I
could
have been in those towers; I
should
have been. I would have been if Gabe and I hadn't spent the night together, if Gabe hadn't told me to sleep in, take the day off. Some would call it luck or fortune; I didn't see it that way. I would never see it that way. I'd always see it as a bizarre twist of fate.

I brought the plate of cold pancakes into the bedroom, got under the covers, and set them next to me. There were eleven left, enough to get me through the day. After I ate two, I fell asleep. I was awakened a couple hours later by my phone buzzing. I reached across the bed for it with residual hope. I scolded myself for that hope. It was Drew, trying again. He had residual hope, too. On the third ring, I threw the phone at the hardwood floor. The battery popped out upon impact and a couple other small pieces scattered across the room, the phone itself coming to an anticlimactic rest at the threshold to the bathroom.

I didn't yet know what I would do—not exactly, anyway. I had no plan. All I knew was that the life I'd had was gone, that I was gone in a sense, that the people who knew me should stop looking. It wasn't that I didn't love them, but I was quite certain they shouldn't love me. I was quite certain they had to let me go. Maybe I was in shock. Maybe I was delirious with grief or hunger or anger or confusion. I would sleep until I knew for certain.

 

TWENTY-SIX

I stayed in Gabe's apartment for a week. I didn't want to go out into the world. It felt dangerous to me. I didn't know who I'd be in it now. It was different and so was I.

I wore Gabe's clothes—his NYU sweatshirt, a pair of soccer shorts that were too big for me even when I pulled the drawstring tight, and green wool socks. I read books from his shelf—business books, mostly. I wasn't interested, but I wanted to fill the hours. On his nightstand was a biography of John Adams, a bookmark stuck in twenty pages from the end. I read those twenty pages, finished it for him. I subsisted on what he had in his pantry and fridge and freezer—canned soups, dry cereal, stale crackers, peanut butter on toast, frozen dinners. I hadn't turned on the TV since September 12.

I decided I would leave. Because I could. Because I had to. That was it—I
had
to. There were other options, of course, but I discounted them. The city, resilient as ever, was starting to function again. I could tell by looking out the window, seeing pedestrians and taxis on the street. I would get one of those taxis to take me to the airport and I would buy a ticket to California. I would start over. I would be a better person.

I put the clothes I'd worn the day before 9/11 in the washer—my flowy white blouse, the skirt that hugged my hips just so. Then I remembered how Gabe had yanked that skirt off me in his office and I took it out of the washer. I wanted to keep it as it was. I just ironed out the wrinkles. I stepped into it and zipped it up to see if it still fit. After all, it felt like years had passed; not just one week. It did fit, but was a little loose where before it had been tight. I'd lost weight in that one week. I worried for the baby.

I found a set of matching luggage in the back of Gabe's closet, behind boxes of dress shoes. Behind the luggage was a safe, left unlocked, as if he'd known I'd need it. At least, that's what I told myself when I took out the cash inside—two stacks of twenties, one taller than the other—totaling almost five thousand dollars. I put thirty bills in my wallet, the rest in the overnight bag from the luggage set.

I packed the overnight bag with some toiletries taken from his bathroom, along with some granola bars from his pantry. I'd have to buy clothes at an airport shop, or first thing in California. I imagined myself in a sundress. I'd never worn a sundress in New York.

I cut up all my credit cards and my ATM card using the scissors from his knife set in the kitchen. I flushed the bits down the toilet. They disappeared. I flushed again for good measure.

I took out the trash, made the bed, washed the dishes, and put them back in their respective cabinets. I found a feather duster in the linen closet and used it on all the furniture. I swept the floors with a broom that had bits of past messes still stuck on its bristles. I didn't know why I did any of this, why it mattered to me. It just did.

I sat on the bed, in his NYU sweatshirt and soccer shorts and wool socks, next to my packed bag and my purse. The sun set. I still had the curtains drawn, but I could tell when the sun was there and when it was not. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I just sat there, until a small sliver of light through the curtains told me it was morning.

*   *   *

Just after eight o' clock, I changed into my skirt and blouse and slipped on my heels. I hung my purse over one shoulder, the overnight bag over the other. I felt like I was forgetting something, but then realized I had nothing to forget. This wasn't my home.

I stood in the doorway, staring at the apartment for a moment, as if I were reluctant to say good-bye, as if I'd created hundreds of wonderful memories there, within those walls. In reality, I was mourning the fact that I didn't get to.

I cleared my throat, anticipating my need to hail a taxi. I hadn't spoken a word out loud in a week. I wondered if I'd be able to.

I started to pull the door shut, then decided to turn the inside lock. I wasn't worried about other people breaking in. I wasn't worried about Gabe's property; it all seemed so worthless now. My only worry was that I might try to come back.

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

Claire's due date was the end of April, but she took her sweet time. May arrived and she still hadn't. I couldn't afford to take any time off work, so at forty weeks' pregnant, I lugged my huge belly to the day-care center and the steakhouse in Malibu. It was at the steakhouse, in the middle of the dinner rush, around six o'clock, on May 9, that my water broke as dramatically as you see in the movies. I was in the kitchen, picking up just-plated food to bring to a table, and the telltale puddle appeared between my legs. A waitress I worked with, Tina, said, “Well, shit.”

My plan all along was to just drive myself to the hospital, but Tina insisted on taking me. I barely knew her; she'd only been working at the steakhouse for a few weeks. She drove my car instead of her own. “In case you have the kid on the way,” she said with a look of mild disgust.

I'd expected labor to be a days-long ordeal, especially since it was my first child. But, no. It was fast and furious, as if Claire had decided she'd waited long enough and wanted out immediately. That's like Claire—determined, intent, stubborn. There wasn't even time for drugs or an epidural. I screamed through the most intense pain of my life and then she was in the world, crying her tiny lungs out.

When the nurses put her in my arms for the first time, I lost my breath. It just left me. It wasn't only the miracle of this human being on my chest that took it away, but the realization that I'd made a grave error. It was so blatantly obvious: Claire wasn't Gabe's; she was Drew's.

It shocked me, truly. Most newborns don't even look human, do they? They look shriveled and swollen simultaneously—like plump raisins. I didn't think she would have distinguishable features for months. And if she did, I thought they would be Gabe's. I was so sure.

I cried uncontrollably, shaking so badly that one of the nurses— a round, fifty-something black woman—came to the bedside to steady Claire, cradle her head as it bobbed each time my chest heaved.

“I know, it's emotional,” the nurse said, stroking my hand. I don't remember her name. She was kind to me, committed to being at my side because nobody else was. Tina had taken a taxi back to the restaurant right after she dropped me off.

“She looks just like him,” I said.

His bright blue eyes, his sharp nose. There was no doubt.

“Does she?” was all the kind nurse said.

The nurse helped me position Claire on my breast. She latched right onto my nipple and I just stared. At the time, I saw the uncanny resemblance to Drew as some kind of punishment. I'd have to look at Claire every day and think about what I'd done, who I'd left behind. But over the years I've realized that she doesn't look like him so I
have
to remember him; she looks like him so I
can
remember him.

*   *   *

Dr. Richter calls on a Tuesday to say she has good news.

“You don't have the gene,” she says.

Most people think you only need to sit when receiving bad news, but my knees buckle at this news, too. No gene. My cancer is random, like most things in life.

“So there's no chance I can pass this on to Claire?” I say. I'm tentative. Dr. Richter is not a big fan of speaking in absolutes. I'm afraid she'll say,
Well, there is a slight chance
 …

“No, Connie,” she says, surprising me, “there is nothing you can pass on.”

I've never heard her so bubbly. She must know, as a mother herself, how much this means to me.

“Is there any chance the test is wrong?” I say.

“You don't have the gene. This is one test that is pretty black-and-white.”

*   *   *

Claire and I are talking again, though she seems guarded, wary. It's like she's steeling herself for whatever is to come. On Sunday, we go to Zuma Beach instead of our usual beach. It's farther up the coast, at the north end of Malibu. During summer it's packed with people, cars parallel-parked haphazardly along the highway. Now, though, in February, it's deserted. The long, wide stretch of sand is just for us.

I've thought about how to start this talk with Claire:

I have a couple things I need to tell you about your DNA. First, you don't have the gene for breast cancer. Second, you have a father in New York
.

In the moment, though, I just opt for:

“I want to talk to you about some things.”

She stops in her tracks. She's worried, noticeably. She thinks there's a new cancer update, a proverbial turn for the worse.

“It's not about the cancer,” I say. “I mean, it is and it isn't.”

“Mom, just tell me,” she says impatiently. Her arms are crossed over her chest—not in an angry way, but like she's bracing herself, like she's learning how to soothe herself, without me.

“I talked to Dr. Richter earlier this week and I don't have the gene for cancer,” I say.

“Oh, okay,” she says. She's not exactly sure what this means.

“So you can't inherit it from me,” I say. Then: “It's all random.”

“Random,” she repeats. “I guess that's good?”

“I think so,” I say. “If I had the gene, you would have a high chance of getting cancer one day.”

“But you don't,” she says. “So if I get cancer, it will be random.”

“Random,” I say.

She resumes walking and I follow her.

“Is that it?” she says. The wind tousles her hair. She started letting it grow out when she found out I might die. She's cold, hands hidden inside the sleeves of her oversized sweatshirt. She's still so skinny and flat-chested, like I was at her age. Her naïveté is obvious in the shape—or lack thereof—of her body. All that will change soon. Hormones will make her a different person than the one I see now. Tears come when I consider not meeting that girl, that woman. I swallow them back, feel them drip down my throat.

“There's something else.”

She stops again, a few feet in front of me. She faces me, but doesn't step closer. She wants news at a distance. She can't handle it up close. I don't blame her.

“I've been thinking,” I say. “If I'm gone, there's something you need to know.”

She moves her mouth just slightly, starts to say something, probably,
You won't be gone
, but she stops, silenced by this mysterious thing she needs to know.

I always thought I'd tell her one day, but I imagined it would be when she was older—in her twenties or thirties, even, after she'd had her own complicated experiences with love, when we had transcended the mother-daughter dynamic to pure friendship. Life has rushed me, us.

“What is it?”

She's tentative, unsure whether or not she wants to know. The look on her face is the same as when I took her to the famous haunted house in the Valley last year for Halloween. She clung to me as we approached, said, “You first.”

I go to her. The wind is picking up, tossing around grains of sand.

“It's about your father,” I say, just letting the words dangle there in the ocean air between us.

She squints at me.

“What about him?”

All she knows is the story I made up. The only true part of that story is the blue eyes.

“He didn't die like I said.”

She squints harder, because of the sandy wind or because of confusion. It's like she's trying to find something minuscule—some little lie, some little truth—on my face.

“He didn't die at all.”

She starts gnawing on her thumbnail, a nervous habit she got from me.

“He's alive?” she says.

“As far as I know.”

“Where?”

“In New York.”

“New York?” She says it like it's Nepal.

“That's where I used to live.”

She doesn't say anything, just hugs herself, so I go on: “His name is Andrew Morris. I used to call him—everyone called him—Drew.”

I've decided she doesn't need to know about Gabe, about the affair. Not now. If I live long enough, I'll tell her one day.

“I don't understand,” she says.

I put my hands on her upper arms, nearly completing a thumb-to-index-finger circle around them. She doesn't release her grip on herself, though.

“I'm sorry I lied to you,” I say.