Michael kept insisting we could make it work. We were both in tears. I told him I was sorry, that I was so sorry. He asked if I still loved him and I said that I did. But, I said, love doesn’t mean wanting to make things work. And I was tired of the effort. I was tired.
Michael’s face resembled our daughter’s in her minute of life, the look of desperation as she tried to clear the fluid from her lungs. They had the same almond eyes.
I’d later learn that Michael left, the following day, for Montreal. He went looking for Broder. He returned, months later, bearded and alone.
I know about the beard because I saw him last week on the TV news, seated in a courtroom beside Donnell Sanders. Michael, it seems, has used his new fortune to retain, for Sanders, an elite defense team. To the courts, Michael has offered Ricky’s SD bracelet as evidence of Sanders’s innocence. For these altruistic deeds, the media has deemed him a crusader for justice. I imagine his new beard helps with this image.
But on the news, Michael looked downcast and bedraggled. His eyes were bloodshot. His suit was unkempt. My guess is that he spends his nights lying sleepless, blaming himself for Broder’s disappearance and his own failure to find him up north. My guess is that, despite the media’s portrayal of Michael as Donnell Sanders’s pasty white savior—a role he always fantasized he’d play—Michael knows that the prosecution will capitalize on Broder’s absence. He knows that, unless the jury returns with a not-guilty verdict, no expensive legal team, or exonerating bracelet, or heartfelt testimony, will make up for Michael’s initial mistake.
We’re only one week into the trial, but a not-guilty verdict is already looking unlikely. The prosecution managed to pull the jury from Ricky’s Tribeca neighborhood, meaning it’s mostly made up of wealthy Caucasians. Three of the jurors work in finance. Two have personal ties to the police. Jay Devor will testify as a prosecution witness. And the prosecution claims that the gun Michael found contained Sanders’s fingerprints. According to a piece I read in this morning’s Times, accusations of police misconduct are incredibly difficult to prove. It has been reported that Sanders’s attorneys have requested that their client plead out to a lesser charge—murder in the second degree.
Shortly after The Suit™ launched, a story surfaced, blaming me for fabricating Ricky’s patronage of a nonexistent small-business grant and his support of GLAAD. Lillian wasn’t mentioned in the article, nor was Communitiv.ly’s Project Pinky campaign. In fact, nothing connecting Communitiv.ly to The Suit™ has surfaced. To distance the company from the scandal, Lillian let me go. My severance was more than fair. I’ve rented a little place here in the Rockaways. It doesn’t feel like New York, so much as a small town filled with transplanted New Yorkers.
Michael sold our apartment, and has begun to pay off our various debts. He reimbursed my father for the money he lost in the crash, and I’ve been assured that our divorce settlement will leave me in an adequate financial state. I have no doubt that Lucas would provide if I were ever in need, though that’s a position I don’t plan to be in. I’m trying to live simply and to be self-sufficient. I’m a Type One employee; I don’t wear a helmet. I want Olivia to see my eyes.
I don’t think Michael knows about her yet. We communicate through lawyers. I don’t know where he’s currently living. The only friend I see is Penny from the vape bar. She offers to babysit, but I have nowhere to go that I can’t bring Olivia. Instead, Penny and Sean take the train down and we walk along the water. Sean’s a sweet kid. He’s gentle with the baby. Sean and Penny sometimes dine with my father, Ellen, and me on Friday nights. We light the Shabbos candles, a new ritual that Ellen introduced. Sean knows all the blessings. He’s not Jewish but has been to half a dozen bar mitzvahs.
I can’t help thinking that Michael would do well as Olivia’s father, that his parenting style would be energized and demonstrative and would complement my own. This is not something I would ever ask of Michael: to wet his head in the stream of my betrayal and suffer for Olivia’s sake.
Wind sends sand into our eyes. Olivia communicates her discomfort with a cry. I’m in love with her need. I feel useful. I lick my fingers and ever so gently wipe at the corners of her eyes. Her mouth forms an O. She makes a sound that is not prelingual so much as part of a distinct and communicative language. The sound is like, Ga. I unzip and free a breast from my customized breastfeeding model of The Suit™. The product can be customized for any number of conditions. This gives the consumer the illusion of control. I have no illusions.
The Suit™ notates the time and length of this feeding. When I zip back up, sensors in my built-in bra cup will measure the difference in the weight of my breast and use that data to assess the volume of milk I’ve dispensed, accurate to within an eighth of an ounce. What is done with this data, I can’t be sure. Yesterday, I saw a piece online by someone whose Suit™ had detected a tumor. He’d had it removed before the cancer could spread.
The men to my left do their best to ignore me, but I catch them sneaking looks. My milk-filled breast is obscenely oversized. Olivia tooths down to make her claim. As if threatened, the female of the group stands from her towel and removes her jeans. She wears a bikini bottom beneath, the kind that ties
