Chapter 6
Victor is in a phase where he refuses to be in a stroller, so he holds my hand tight as we weave through the crowd. “You know you could have signed up to run, too,” I tell Mercedes. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of this little guy.”
Mercedes laughs. “Of course you are. And I would have run but . . .” She stops walking and faces me with a secret smile, even as Victor tugs on my hand to keep going. “We haven’t told anyone yet. Not even Mami.”
“What!” I throw my arms around her. In the past two years, Mercedes has had two miscarriages. Ximena has been praying and lighting candles. I imagine Mercedes kept her mother in the dark because she was so devastated the last time. I look down at her flat stomach. “When?”
“Just passed the twelve--week mark,” she says proudly. “I wanted to tell you in person.”
Happiness carbonates through me. “And you feel good?”
“I feel great,” Mercedes promises, and then she smirks. “Although my mother is going to have my head when she finds out you knew first.”
“I’ll play dumb,” I promise.
“Tía Georgia,” Victor says, “c’mon. I wanna see the trucks!” The park has an area with construction vehicles for kids to climb on, as well as fire engines and police cruisers.
As we make our way there, I think of how joy evolves with time. When you are younger, it is the result of something that happens to you. When you are older, it is the result of something that happens to someone you love.
And I love Mercedes. And Milagros. Despite losing Molly, I have had children. These girls were borrowed, but I claimed them all the same.
I have not thought of Evie much lately, and haven’t looked her up on Facebook since Molly got her own Instagram. But now, when Evie’s memory resurfaces, I feel grace instead of jealousy.
Victor trips over his own little feet, bounding toward a ladder truck. “Let’s go to the police car first,” Mercedes says. “The line’s shorter, and look, you can make the lights go on!”
Victor veers toward the police car, which is flashing red and blue. A little girl sits at the wheel, bouncing. Her mother stands to the side, a baby strapped to her chest.
The policeman is crouched down beside the open door, facing away from me. “Come on, shiyázhí, let’s give someone else a turn.”
I forget to draw a breath.
The little girl reaches for Kai. “Okay, Daddy,” she says, as he turns and sees me.
“Georgia.” His eyes sweep over me, then jump to Mercedes and Victor at my side. Recovering, he gestures to the seat. “Climb on in, my friend,” he says, and Victor scrambles inside, pushing buttons.
Kai puts the child down and introduces me to the woman wearing the infant in a carrier. “This is my wife, Claire,” he says.
The woman is younger than me by a good ten years and she’s girl--next--door pretty. She smiles at me hesitantly, and that’s how I know she has heard my name before.
I do quick math. The little girl is older than Victor, which means that Kai must be her stepfather. But the baby . . .
Mercedes clears her throat; until that moment, I’d forgotten about her entirely. “Mercedes,” I manage. “You remember Kai. My . . .” I let the word trail off, because he isn’t my anything.
Claire kisses Kai’s cheek. Marking her territory. “I’ll see you after your shift,” she says, smiling. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Mama,” Victor calls. “Look!” Mercedes follows her son, who is running off to another truck.
Kai’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “How are you? You’re well? You’re happy?”
I watch the retreating backs of his wife and children. “Are you?”
He nods.
“Then, yes. I’m happy.”
He hesitates. “Georgia,” he begins. “K’aalógii . . .”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand, as if I can physically block the word. “Goodbye, Kai,” I say, following Mercedes.
When I catch up, she puts her hand on my arm. “You okay, George?”
Her calm ER doc expression coasts over me, assessing for damage. I wonder if she knows as much about the human body as I do. That hearts can be crushed over and over.
“Of course,” I say. I take Victor’s hand and keep walking away from the past.
The photo isn’t on Molly’s Instagram grid. It’s a repost on her Story, from @jessefitz, who I know is her husband.
It is the kind of picture I print out daily for women at my job. A wedge of grainy gray, the black peanut shape inside it, and the little spot of white. A viable pregnancy.
The caption reads: Coming this spring to a family near you.
My face flushes with awe. My baby, having a baby.
A minute later, logic catches up to my emotions.
Some women who experience postpartum psychosis have no prior mental illness . . .
Affects one in five hundred women . . .
Increased incidence if a woman is bipolar or has a family history of bipolar . . .
Increased incidence if a woman’s mother had postpartum psychosis . . .
When I left my family, I had acted on instinct. However, I have had years to contemplate what, if anything, would make me return.
Another memory strikes me, from an old message board:
KimLuvsCats: I was lucky; my mother had PPP so she was watching for the signs.
I do not have a plan. I do not know where to start. I don’t know if increased incidence is a probability or a possibility.
But it doesn’t matter, because I am not taking any chances that my daughter will suffer what I did.
Fenimore Hurlihy has to be close to eighty now. I find him in the same office, with the dance studio overhead, except now it’s the thumping beat of hip--hop punctuating our conversation. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he says.
I sit down across from his desk. “I have to admit, I thought you’d be retired.”
“Eh, tried it. The wife thought I was underfoot too much.” He grins. “I’m shit at relaxing.”
“Then today’s your lucky day,” I say. “I need to find something out. But it may be illegal.”
He leans forward, his eyes brightening. “Go on.”
I have spent a week turning over options in my mind.
I could go to Rhode Island and declare that I’m Eloise Ambrose, back from the dead—-and that will create a public uproar.
Plus, showing up after twenty--five years and saying Just kidding, I’ve been alive all this time does not seem like a great foundation for trust.
On the other hand, if I return as Georgia Gilligan, how do I get close enough to Molly to watch over her around her delivery and the weeks following?
“If I give you a name, can you find out what doctor she goes to? Specifically, her obstetrician?”
“That’s a HIPAA violation,” Hurlihy says.
“I don’t need her records. I just need the name of the physician, and the office address.”
He pulls out a pad of paper. “Okay,” he says.
Often I leave work before Dr. Carlsson. I tidy the reception desk and organize the files for the next morning, leaving the physician while she records notes for transcription.
But today, I putter at my desk until she emerges from her office, shrugging on her coat.
“Georgia,” Dr. Carlsson says, surprised. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I know it’s late, but have you got a minute?”
“Of course.” She pulls up a rolling chair, gesturing for me to take my usual seat. “Is everything all right?”
“I hope so,” I say. “First I want you to know that I love working here—-”
“Nooo.” She winces. “Don’t say you’re breaking up with me. I’ve never had an office manager who is so on the ball. What can I do? A raise? More vacation? Done.”
I shake my head. “I have to move north. For family stuff.”
“Ah,” Dr. Carlsson says. “Yeah, I get it. We’re getting ready to put my mom in a home. It’s brutal, this sandwich generation shit.”
I let her labor under this misconception. “The thing is, I’m going to need a job up there.”
“Well, it goes without saying I’ll write you a glowing recommendation.”
“Thanks. That means a lot. But I have a specific favor to ask.” I push a piece of paper in Hurlihy’s handwriting toward her.
“Dr. Mantillard?” she reads aloud.
“You went to the same med school. She’s a few years younger than you are.”
I know this, because I have spent a week researching threads between these two physicians that overlap: conferences they’ve both attended, where they did their residencies, previous practices.
“She’s an ob--gyn in Providence,” I explain. “And I’m hoping to get a job in her practice.”
Dr. Carlsson looks up. “Oh. Does she have an opening?”
I meet her gaze. “I’m not sure,” I confess. “But I am wondering if you might put in a good word for me.”
By now, I have been Georgia Gilligan as long as I was Eloise Owens Ambrose. I feel like I’m standing at the Black Place, watching the two halves of me coming together along that ragged seam of mistakes. The fault line.
Maybe I’ve earned some goodwill with my hard work over the years. Maybe it is simply one woman helping another. But Dr. Carlsson takes the piece of paper and curls her hand around it. “Let me see what I can do,” she says.