Chapter 1 Molly #4
“Hey,” Jesse says suddenly. “I almost forgot.” He reaches into the nightstand beside the bed and pulls out a small, flat wrapped box. “Merry Christmas, baby.”
I smack his shoulder. “We weren’t supposed to get each other gifts,” I scold.
Instead, we’d decided to splurge on a Snoo, a vibrating bassinet that prevents SIDS, helps with sleep training, and basically does everything except the baby’s laundry.
But even as I complain, I’m tearing off the wrapping.
Inside is a silver picture frame, engraved at the top: the fitzgerald family.
“Wow!” I say, looking at the stock photo of a smiling elderly couple. “I’ve always wanted a picture of grandparents I never knew.”
“Wiseass!” says Jesse.
“Wait, do I have grandparents I never knew?”
“I figured we could put our very first photo of the three of us in there.”
“I know.” I kiss him. “I love it.” Then I swing my legs over the bed. “I might have gotten you something, too.”
I lumber to the linen closet in the hallway and pull out a five--pound box, lugging it back into the bedroom. I drop it on the bed, and Jesse turns it over, trying to figure out what it is, even though the picture is right on the box.
“It’s a NOCO Boost!” I tell him. “It’s like a jack--of--all--trades for emergencies.
You can start a dead car battery or use it as a flashlight or charge your phone or computer.
Or all of the above! Oh, and . . .” I dig in my own nightstand, coming up with a little yellow tube of stormproof matches.
“This is a stocking stuffer, but I forgot to put it in your stocking.”
Jesse bursts out laughing. “God, I love you, Molly. Don’t ever change.”
We tumble backward onto the bed as George Bailey watches his entire community come to save him. And then I forget the movie while Jesse unlaces my pajama bottoms and slips his hand inside.
I’m more sensitive now, and his fingers are electricity shooting over my skin. He coats me like armor. When I am sleepy and sated, he moves to clear away our dishes. I watch him walk naked into the kitchen. “Not bad for an old dude,” I say.
“Respect your elders,” he calls over his shoulder.
The movie is over; there’s a late--night talk show rerun airing. I fold the blanket under my chin. I think about the silver frame Jesse gave me.
I wonder how Georgia spent Christmas. I wonder what it would feel like to spend twenty--five Christmases without your original family.
I have more information now than I did when I woke up this morning, but instead of clarity it has only created confusion. Did my mother run away while she was delusional and unaware of what she was doing? Did she leave because she was lucid, and ashamed she’d tried to hurt me?
After a moment, I throw back the covers and pad to the bedroom trash can. I dump it onto the floor, searching for the sheet of paper that I balled up and threw away.
I smooth it as best I can, then pick up my phone and text the number at the bottom.
If you want to talk, I type, I am free tomorrow.
And then, as an afterthought: This is Molly.
My mother, the stranger, sits in my living room. She holds a mug of tea, but she hasn’t touched the cheese plate I put out.
Beside me, Jesse has held my hand tight while we have discussed the weather, the traffic in Providence, and my due date. “So, Georgia,” Jesse says, and then he hesitates. “Is that what I should call you?”
“It’s been a long time since I answered to Eloise,” she says softly.
“How long have you lived in Rhode Island?” Jesse asks.
“About five months. I took over for the receptionist who retired at Dr. Mantillard’s.”
He stretches his arm around the back of the couch, embracing me. “Crazy coincidence, isn’t it, that you’d wind up working in Molly’s doctor’s office.”
Her lips twitch. “I can see why you’re a good detective.”
“You’ve been stalking us?” I say.
“No,” Georgia insists, and then her face flushes. “Maybe a little.” She puts down her tea and presses her palms to her thighs. “I think we both know that it wasn’t a coincidence.”
“But there’s so much I don’t know,” I say. “Starting with why you left.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Georgia promises. “But if you are okay with it, I’d like to start at the beginning.”
I nod.
“I grew up in Alabama, a small town called Borden Springs. My father was an Evangelical minister. My mother was the classic minister’s wife, but with a mental health problem that we did not talk about. My little sister, Adie, was the prettiest girl in town, and unlike me, a perfect child.”
As she tells me a story of religious indoctrination, physical and sexual abuse, and suicide, I cringe.
It’s painful, and would be no matter who was telling it.
I let my gaze roam over her—-from her short dark hair with roots beginning to show to the deep bow in her upper lip that I have and my father doesn’t to the wrinkles on her hands that show a life of hard work.
I try to imagine her as the girl who was beaten and shamed publicly, but it feels removed from the woman she is now.
When she reaches the part where she ran away the night before Adie’s funeral, I interrupt. “Why are you telling me this? Are you hoping it will make me feel more sympathetic?”
Jesse’s head snaps toward mine, surprised. “Molly!” he says.
“No,” Georgia says. “I expect you to hate me. Anything less will be a win.”
I remain stone--faced. “Fast--forward to the part where you tried to drown me.”
Her eyes fill up, and she lets out a breath. “I wondered if you knew.”
“As of yesterday.”
“I assumed they would have told you,” she says quietly.
“They thought they were protecting me.”
“I don’t remember doing it,” Georgia confesses.
“But then again, there’s a lot I don’t remember.
” She twists the mug in her hands. “I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t stop worrying that you’d get hurt.
I told the midwife and she said that was normal for a new mother.
” She swallows. “I started to hear a voice telling me that I was already dead; that I belonged to Satan. It sounded like every sermon my father used to preach. And then the voice started saying I only had a few more days left on earth . . . and that Satan would come for you next. If I wanted to save you, I had to send you to Jesus before that happened.”
She is crying now, and Jesse brings her a box of Kleenex.
“It’s called postpartum psychosis. Sometimes, if the mother succeeds, it’s described as ‘altruistic homicide.’ But back then, psychiatrists barely had words to define it.”
My mouth goes dry. “You really did try to kill me.”
“I did everything I could to stop myself. I took the medication they prescribed, but that made the voices worse, and it also made me feel like I was being burned alive. I called and begged Evie to come over. I agreed to go back to the psychiatrist the morning of 9/11. I was . . . I was not in control of my own thoughts then. Until the plane hit, and for one moment, the fog in my head . . . seemed to clear.”
“And now?” I ask.
“I take medication. I go to therapy. There are setbacks, yes, but I haven’t heard the voices in years.”
“So when you left, it was intentional,” I accuse.
“I knew you’d be better off without me.” Georgia’s gaze feels like gravity. “I knew there were people who would take care of you, and love you, and keep you safe. And look at you. I was right.”
I bristle. She was right? Although I had Evie as a stepmother, I still grew up with loss. I scoured websites about 9/11 in the hope of seeing her name. I’d never known my own mother, even though she’d been out there in the world, alive.
She reaches over, touching my hand. She’d held onto me the night she brought me to the ER after I fell, but this is different. Now I know who Georgia Gilligan is. I yank my hand away.
“Where were you living?”
“Atlanta,” she says quietly, ruefully.
“Why did it take you twenty--five years?” I ask, hating the catch in my voice. “If you got better, why didn’t you come home?”
“I tried once, very early on,” she admits. “I saw you, and Evie, and your father. You were a family. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy . . . and I thought they could do a better job than I could. And it was all still very . . . raw.”
I feel Jesse’s hand on my back, grounding me. “Okay, then why come back now? Why not just live your own life, instead of crashing back into ours?”
Georgia’s eyes flick to my belly, then back up. “Because I won’t let what happened to me happen to you.”
My work phone suddenly rings, slicing through the silence. “I have to get that,” I say.
I answer the cell as I walk toward the kitchen. “Happy Boxing Day,” Toby says.
“What the hell is Boxing Day?” I muse.
“A holiday, or so my calendar says, until Brockton Hospital had a three--alarm fire.”
My pulse kicks into high gear. Brockton is in Massachusetts, but patients may need to be moved across our state border. “Did you send out a Hospital Capacity Alert Message?”
“Yup. Sluggish response.”
“Have you talked to Dawn yet?” She is my counterpart, the head of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
“No.”
“All right. I’ll meet you at the EOC after I call her.”
I return to the living room. “I have to leave,” I tell Jesse and Georgia. “Work.”
The truth is, Toby could handle this. There really isn’t a need for me to go, especially since Massachusetts hasn’t even asked for our help yet.
Some disasters are easier to manage than others.
I stuff my feet into my boots and grab Jesse’s parka, shrugging it on.
“Anything I can do for you?” he asks.
I look helplessly at him, telepathically asking him to take care of Georgia. She rises from the love seat where she has been seated. “Maybe we can meet another time,” she says hesitantly. “Keep talking?”
“Maybe.” I head for the door. “Jesse, I’ll text you when I know how long I’ll be gone.”
“Be safe, baby.”
I hurry out of the condo, closing the door behind me. I take a deep breath, gulping as if it’s the first oxygen I’ve had in hours.