I start finger picking and humming, an impromptu lullaby. Today isn’t the day to get Mr. Docker to engage. Today, music therapy is all about being the Pied Piper, taking him peacefully to the point where he can close his eyes and leave us all behind.
As I play wordlessly for Mr. Docker, I find myself tearing up. The old man was a cranky, bitter bastard, but it’s the thorn in your side that leaves the biggest hole. I put down my guitar and reach for his hand. It feels like a bundle of sticks. His eyes, a rheumy blue, remain focused on the blank, black screen of the dormant television.
“I got married,” I tell him, although I am sure he’s not listening.
Mr. Docker doesn’t budge.
“It’s strange, isn’t it, how we wind up in places we never would have imagined. I bet you never thought, when you were in your big corner office, that one day you’d be stuck here, in a room that overlooks a parking lot. You never imagined, when you were ordering everyone around, that one day there might not be someone to hear you. Well, I know what that’s like, Mr. Docker.” I look down at him, but he continues to stare straight ahead at nothing. “You fell in love once. I know you did, because you’ve got a daughter. So you know what I mean when I say that I don’t think anyone who falls in love has a choice. You’re just pulled to that person like true north, whether it’s good for you or bound to break your heart.”
When I was married to Max, I mistook being a lifeline for being in love. I was the one who could save him; I was the one who could keep him sober. But there is a difference between mending someone who’s broken and finding someone who makes you complete.
I don’t say it out loud, but this is how I know that Vanessa will not hurt me: she cares more about my well- being than she does about her own. She’d break her
This time when I glance down, Mr. Docker is looking right at me. “We’re going to have a baby,” I tell him.
The smile starts deep inside of me, like a pilot light, and fans the flames of possibility.
Saying it out loud, it’s suddenly real.
Vanessa and I are standing at the reception window of the fertility clinic. “Baxter,” I say. “We’ve got a meeting to discuss a frozen embryo transfer?”
The nurse finds my name on her computer. “There you are. Did you bring your husband today, too?”
I feel my face flush. “I’m remarried. When I called, you said I needed to come in with my spouse.”
The nurse looks up at me, and then at Vanessa. If she’s surprised, her face doesn’t register it at all. “Just wait here,” she says.
Vanessa looks at me as soon as she leaves her desk. “What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know. I hope there’s nothing wrong with the embryos…”
“Did you read that article about the family that was given the wrong embryos?” Vanessa asks. “I mean, God, can you imagine?”
I shoot her a pointed look. “
“Zoe?” At the sound of my name, I turn to find Dr. Anne Fourchette, the clinic director, walking toward me. “Why don’t you two come into my office?”
We follow her down the hall to the paneled, posh space that I must have been in before but have no recollection of seeing prior to this. Most of my visits were in treatment rooms. “Is there a problem, Dr. Fourchette? Did you lose them?”
She is a striking woman with a fall of prematurely white hair, a bone-crushing handshake, and a drawl that extends my name by three or four extra syllables. “I’m afraid there was a misunderstanding,” she says. “Your ex- husband has to sign off on the release of the embryos. Once he does that, we can schedule a transfer.”
“But Max doesn’t want them. He
“Then it’s really all academic,” Dr. Fourchette replies brightly. “It’s a legal technicality we need to cover before we can schedule your appointment with a social worker.”
“Social worker,” Vanessa repeats.
“It’s something we routinely do with same-sex couples, to address some of the issues that you might not have considered. If your partner has the baby, for example, Zoe, then once he’s born, you’ll have to formally adopt him.”
“But we’re married-”
“Not according to the state of Rhode Island.” She shakes her head. “Again, it’s nothing to worry about. We just have to get the ball rolling.”
That familiar wave of disappointment floods me; once again this baby track is full of hurdles.
“All right,” Vanessa says briskly. “Is there something Max has to sign? Some form?”
Dr. Fourchette hands her a sheet of paper. “Just have him send it back to us, and as soon as we get it, we’ll call you.” She smiles at us. “And I’m really happy for you, Zoe. Congratulations to you both.”
Vanessa and I don’t speak until we are outside the clinic, riding down together in an otherwise empty elevator. “You have to talk to him,” she says.
“And say what?
“It’s not like that,” Vanessa points out. “The embryos already exist. What plans does
The doors slide open on the ground floor. A woman is waiting, with a baby in a stroller. The baby is wearing a white, hooded sweater with little bear ears sticking up.
“I’ll try,” I say.
I find Max at a client’s house, raking out mulch and twigs from the flower beds in preparation for spring landscaping. The snow has melted as quickly as it arrived, and it smells like spring. Max is wearing a shirt and tie, and he’s sweating. “Nice place,” I say appreciatively, looking around the grounds of this McMansion.
Max wheels at the sound of my voice. “Zoe? What are you doing here?”
“Liddy told me where to find you,” I say. “I was wondering if you’ve got a minute to talk?”
He leans on the rake and wipes the perspiration from his forehead, nods. “Sure. You want to, uh, sit down?” He gestures to a stone bench in the center of a hibernating garden. The granite is cold through the fabric of my jeans.
“What’s it like?” I ask. “When it’s blooming, I mean?”
“Oh, it’s pretty awesome, actually. Tiger lilies. They should be up by the end of April, if I can keep the beetles off of them.”
“I’m glad you’re still doing landscaping. I wasn’t sure.”
“Why wouldn’t I be doing it?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I thought you might be working for your church.”
“Well, on Mondays I do,” he says. “They’re one of my clients.” He rubs his jaw with his fist. “I saw a sign outside a bar, saying you’d be singing. You haven’t performed since before we got… well, for a long time.”
“I know-I sort of fell back into it.” I hesitate. “You weren’t
“No.” Max laughs. “I’m cleaner than soap these days.”
“Good. I mean, that’s really good. And, yeah, I’ve been doing a little singing here and there. Acoustically. It keeps me on my toes for my therapy sessions.”
“So you’re still doing that.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. A lot about you has… changed.”
It is so strange, to encounter an ex. It’s as if you’re in a foreign film, and what you’re saying face-to-face has nothing to do with the subtitles flowing beneath you. We are so careful not to touch, although once upon a time, I slept plastered to him in our bed, like lichen on a rock. We are two strangers who know every shameful secret, every hidden freckle, every fatal flaw in each other.
“I got married,” I blurt out.
Since Max hasn’t been paying me alimony, there’s really no reason he would have known. For a second he looks completely baffled. Then his eyes widen. “You mean, you and…?”
“Vanessa,” I say. “Yes.”
“Wow.” Max shifts, sliding centimeters away from me on the stone bench. “I, uh, didn’t realize it was so…
