A door slammed. Jonathan was home.
Renee had bought flowers, a great bouquet of yellow and red tulips. She took them to the door to greet him. “Jonathan,” she called, and already he was there in the kitchen doorway. His eyes caught on the flowers, and instantly Renee felt silly. This day was nothing. It might be nothing. Why mark it with so much fanfare? She placed the bouquet beside the sink.
“Hi,” Renee said. “How was the flight?”
“Long.” He glanced at the bags on the counter. “Did you get wine?”
“Yes. A nice pinot gris. Harold recommended it.”
“Great. Tonight, you know. The thing at Nan’s.”
“Yes. I’m not going. Remember?”
“Why?”
“I need to rest. I can’t drink.”
“Renee.”
His voice was solemn and she paused before answering. “What?”
“I don’t want this.” Jonathan was still wearing his jacket. His packed suitcase was still in his hand.
“They’re just flowers,” Renee said, although she knew what he meant. The only surprise, she realized now, was that it had taken this long.
“I mean. This. The egg. The baby.”
“It’s not a baby yet.”
“It will be. You heard what they said. You’re a great candidate.”
“Still. Anything could happen.”
“I don’t want it. The change, the disruption. I like us the way we are.”
Rene studied Jonathan: graying, a shadow of stubble, older than she was. He still wore the same glasses, the same types of shoes as he had when they first met. Jonathan was loyal, there was no denying that, when the subject of his loyalty remained constant. But Renee: she had changed.
“We’ve been over this, Jonathan. With Betsy. With Dr. Petarro. This is what I need. But if you want to go, go.” Renee waved him away and turned back to the sack of groceries; there were still items to unpack.
There followed a minute or two of silence from Jonathan. Renee refused to look at him as she moved around the kitchen, finishing up. It was his choice to make. She would not try to convince him. On some questions the need for persuasion meant you had already lost.
Finally Renee heard the rattle of Jonathan’s keys, the soft tap of his shoes, the whine of the door as it opened and closed again. The quiet that descended.
She emptied the grocery bag and hung it from a knob. She took the flowers from the counter and carefully unwrapped them, snipped the ends, found a vase in the side cupboard, the tall one used for unwieldy things, and filled the vase with water. She slid the flowers in and placed the vase onto the kitchen table, right in the middle. They were lovely flowers, the cups of the tulips just beginning to open. It was spring, and the watery, dank scent of spring—even here, surrounded by concrete—came to her from the open window.
So much remained uncertain, but Renee felt at ease. This egg, hers but not hers. A baby. After eighteen years with Jonathan Frank, Renee was ready to love someone new.
Chapter 18
I sat at the computer in the den reviewing my itinerary for the climate-change conference. Three mornings of presentations and meetings in Seattle, with day excursions possible. A trip to the Olympic Peninsula. A ferry ride to various islands, each one appearing on Google Maps as craggy and green, studded with peaks shrouded in mist. I clicked through this link, then that one. Will was upstairs packing for his own business trip, this one to Chicago, when he heard me cry out.
“Fiona?” He pounded down the stairs and stood in the doorway. “What is it? Is it Renee?”
“No,” I said. “Not Renee. She’s still pregnant and big as a house and bloated, but she’s fine. I just talked to her an hour ago.” Caroline and I were on perpetual call for Renee: she’d asked us both to be there for the delivery.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Will said. “What is it, then?”
“I . . . I found someone,” I said.
“Who?”
This of course was the question. I had told Will only the barest information about Luna Hernandez. My brother’s girlfriend, the woman who’d been with him when he fell. A terrible accident. Judgment clouded by alcohol. I had never told him about the ring or our search for Luna, about Mimi Prince, that private investigator, Caroline’s fall into despondency. It had seemed a silly, shameful chain of events.
But now. On the screen. I pointed to the website. Will leaned over, pulled reading glasses from his front pocket, and squinted at the page. “Ivy and Vine. Farm-to-table restaurant and grocery,” he read. “And?” He removed the glasses and looked at me.
“That woman,” I said. “I recognize her. I think I know her. I may look her up when I’m in Seattle.”
“An old friend? College or something?”
I nodded. “Yes, college. I haven’t seen her in years. Laura Shipka,” I read the name off the website. “Must be her married name.”
“Sounds Russian.”
I tilted my head. “Maybe.”
“Huh,” Will grunted. “Okay, then. I’m going up to finish packing. You sure you’re okay?” He looked at me with his soft gray eyes, his red hair gone white at the crown, the sweet concern of Will, my husband of fourteen years.
“Yes.” I nodded and smiled. “Totally fine. Just tired.”
Will left the room. I heard the creak of his feet ascending the stairs to our bedroom. I leaned in closer to the computer, then enlarged the photo until the woman’s face filled the screen. Short black hair, high cheekbones, a mole the size of a dime high on her right cheek. I had only seen that one Polaroid photo of Luna, although I had imagined her countless times. Was this the woman Joe had loved? The picture fractured into colored atoms, pixels fine as dust.
I picked up my phone and dialed the number on the screen. Luna answered on the first ring. “Ivy and Vine,” she said. “How may I help you?”
* * *
I stood at the front door of Luna’s house, but I did not knock. I listened to the sounds within. A child’s request: “Again, please, Mommy. More.” The bark of a good-natured dog. A woman’s laughter. The house stood alone at the end of a very long dirt road, up on a low hill that looked to the basin of Puget Sound. Tall pines rose to the east of the house, and mature gardens surrounded it, settled now into late-winter dormancy.
I had not told Caroline or Renee about my discovery. Renee was thirty-seven weeks pregnant, progressing exactly as she should, but still—it was a high-risk pregnancy, and she insisted on maintaining her surgery schedule for as long as possible. Caroline was acting as doula, helpmate, labor coach, and anything else Renee needed. My business trip would be short, only two days. “I am a hundred percent reachable,” I told Renee before I boarded the plane. “I’ll have my phone on at all times.”
Caroline had moved temporarily out of the Hamden house, leaving Raffi with careful instructions as to garden maintenance and care of the chickens, and into Renee’s apartment. In the past weeks, Jonathan had made overtures toward a reconciliation, but Renee had rebuffed him.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Honestly, I had no idea how easy it would be to do this without you.”