“Do you want to come inside?”
In the back of the foyer, I can see Reid and Liddy hovering. The last thing I want to do is go into that house. “Maybe we could go over there?”
I nod to the gazebo, and he steps onto the front porch. He is barefoot but follows me to the wooden structure. I sit down on the steps. “I didn’t do it,” I say.
Max’s shoulder is touching mine. I can feel the heat of his skin through his dress shirt. “I know.”
I wipe at my eyes. “First I lost my son. Then I lost you. Now I stand to lose the embryos, and most likely my career.” I shake my head. “There won’t be anything left.”
“Zoe-”
“Take them,” I say. “Take the embryos. Just… promise me that it ends, here. That you’ll keep your lawyers from bringing Lucy into court.”
He bows his head. I don’t know if he’s praying, or crying, or both. “You have my word,” Max says.
“Okay.” I rub my hands over my knees and stand up. “Okay,” I repeat, and I walk briskly back to my car, even though I hear Max calling my name.
I ignore him. I get into the car and back out of the driveway and park near the mailbox. Even though I can’t see them from here, I imagine Max going into the foyer and telling Reid and Liddy. I picture them embracing.
All the stars fall out of the sky and rain on the roof of my car. It feels like a sword between my ribs, the loss of these children I will never know.
Vanessa is waiting for me, but I don’t drive home right away. Instead I take aimless left and right turns until I find myself in a field somewhere on the back side of T. F. Green Airport, beyond where the courier planes sleep at night. I lie on the hood of the car in the dark with my back against the sloped windshield and stare up as the jets scream down to the runway, so close it seems I can touch their bellies. The noise is absolutely deafening; I can’t hear myself think or cry, which is perfect.
So it makes no sense that I go into the trunk for my guitar. It’s the same one I used at the school to teach Lucy. I was going to let her borrow it, for a while.
I wonder what she said. If this allegation was the distance between who she was and who her parents needed her to be. If I had been completely off the mark and had interpreted her comments the wrong way. Maybe she wasn’t questioning her sexuality; maybe that was simply on my mind, because of the trial, and I painted my own thoughts over the blank canvas that Lucy actually was.
I take the guitar out of its case and crawl back onto the hood of the car. My fingers settle over the neck, stroking frets as lazily as they’d move across an old lover, and my right hand goes to strum. But there is something bright, fluttering, caught between the strings; I fish it out carefully so that it won’t fall into the sound hole.
It is the chord progression for “A Horse with No Name.” In my handwriting. I’d given it to Lucy the day we were learning the song.
But on the back, in green marker, five parallel lines have been drawn. A musical staff. On the top bar, two slanted lines break through, like train tracks.
I do not know when Lucy left me this message, but that’s what it is. Of all the musical symbols she might have drawn, Lucy’s chosen a caesura.
It’s a break in the music.
A brief, silent pause when time isn’t counted.
And at some point, when the conductor decides, the tune resumes.
18
MAX
In court the next morning, Angela Moretti’s face is pinched shut as tight as a lobster claw. “My client is withdrawing her objection, Your Honor,” she says. “We ask that the embryos not be destroyed per the contract and that they be released to Max Baxter’s custody.”
There is clapping in the courtroom. Ben grins at me. I feel like throwing up.
I’ve felt this way since last night. It started when Zoe bolted out of the driveway. And then when I walked back into the house, blinking because the lights were so suddenly bright, and told Liddy and Reid that Zoe was going to give in.
Reid lifted Liddy in his arms and danced her around the foyer. “Do you know what this means?” he asked, grinning. “Do you?”
And suddenly I did. It meant that I would have to sit by quietly and watch Liddy getting bigger and bigger with my baby inside her. I’d have to hang out in the waiting room while Reid took part in the delivery. I’d have to watch Reid and Liddy fall in love with their baby, while I was the third wheel.
But she looked so goddamned happy. She wasn’t pregnant, and there was already a glow to her cheeks and a shine to her hair. “This calls for something special,” Reid said, and he left me standing alone with her.
I took a step forward, and then another. “Is this really what you want?” I whispered. When Reid came back, we moved apart. “Congratulations, Sis,” I said, and I kissed her cheek.
He was holding an open bottle of champagne, still foaming, and two glasses. In his pocket he’d tucked a bottle of root beer. Clearly, that was for me. “Drink up,” he said to Liddy. “From here on in, it’s going to be soy shakes and folic acid.” He handed me my root beer and said, “I say we toast. To the beautiful mother to be!”
I drank to her. How couldn’t I?
“To Wade!” Reid said, hoisting his glass again. “To Lucy!”
Confused, I glanced at him. “Who’s Lucy?”
“Clive Lincoln’s stepdaughter,” Reid said. “Zoe sure picked the wrong girl to mess with.” He drained his champagne, but I didn’t drink. Instead I set my bottle down on the bottom step of the staircase and walked out the front door.
“I need some air,” I said.
“Let me go with you-” Liddy took a step toward me, but I held up my hand. I walked blindly to the gazebo, where I’d been sitting with Zoe just a few minutes before.
I had met Pastor Clive’s wife a hundred times. And his three girls, who stood up there with her on the stage and sang. None of them was anywhere near old enough to be in high school. And none of them, I knew, was named Lucy.
But there was another child. A black sheep, who suffered through services and never stayed for fellowship. If she was his stepdaughter, she could have had a different last name from Clive. It was entirely possible Zoe would never have made the connection.
Had this girl really come to Zoe for help because she was worried about being gay? Had she tried to tell her mother and stepfather? Had Clive heard all this, and immediately assumed Zoe had tried to recruit his stepdaughter to her lifestyle-because any other interpretation would only reflect poorly on
Or had Pastor Clive-knowing that we needed ammunition in court, knowing how much a victory would mean to the beliefs he preached daily-pressed this accusation out of his stepdaughter? Had he made her the fall guy so that I’d win? So that
I sat with my head in my hands, puzzling this out, until I realized that
All that mattered was that it had happened at all.
Judge O’Neill looks over at Zoe, who is staring down at the square of wood between her hands on the defense table. “Ms. Baxter,” he says, “are you doing this freely and voluntarily?”
She doesn’t answer.
Behind her, Vanessa raises her hand and rubs Zoe’s shoulder. It’s the tiniest gesture, but it reminds me of the day I first saw them together in the grocery store parking lot. It is the kind of comfort you offer, out of habit, for someone you love.
“Ms. Baxter?” the judge repeats. “Is this what you want?”
Zoe slowly lifts her head. “It is not what I want,” she says. “But it’s what I’m going to do.”
