“Don’t you remember? Zerena. With a Z. That’s what we agreed.”
“Honey. Don’t get angry. A baby can pick up on a mother’s stress, so please act calmly. Zerena’s a wonderful name. An awesome name! But I was projecting forward, thinking long haul for our daughter, envisioning the awkwardness she’d face in job interviews, constantly having to explain her name. I work in a conservative financial services firm. You know this. I work with troglodytes. I work with people so pigheaded that should they happen upon a résumé from someone named Zerena—Zerena with a Z—they’d start laughing. Or utter disparaging wisecracks. No way would they call her in for an interview. Even if she was the most eminently qualified candidate in their whole stack of résumés. I want our daughter to succeed. If that means giving her a, um, less distinctive name, so be it.”
Laurel looks at James with wide, glaring eyes. I wouldn’t have thought someone so ill-tempered and strongheaded would give in so easily, but she takes his hand, squeezes it, and thanks him for thinking “long haul” for their baby. James always knows the right tone to take, the right buttons to push. That is his power, his gift, his ability.
“Names are important,” James says. “Hospital officials came by with the paperwork an hour ago. You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you, so I took it upon myself to fill out those forms, making it official. I hope you don’t mind, honey.”
Laurel nods. She’s still smitten in the blush of love, totally taken in by her confident, sweet-talking philanderer. No doubt she looks upon James as the answer to all her financial worries. Twenty-four years old and saddled with $200,000 of student loan debt: she was foolish enough to leave her small but prestigious New England college with only a degree in liberal arts and a puny certificate in gender studies, dismal credentials that had so far landed her nothing more than waitressing opportunities.
Again, Laurel points at me. “So why is she here? I don’t want her to have anything to do with our baby.”
“Honey, I thought it would behoove us to introduce Tricia to Anne Elise as soon as possible.”
I shudder. James must be crazy. There’s no earthly reason he should’ve introduced me to his new baby unless he means to humiliate me. I’m hopping mad. Even now, I’m surprised I haven’t given in to my better senses and walked out of this room.
“Why?” Laurel asks.
James’s tone is measured, calm. He looks over to me, nods. “Earlier, while you were asleep, I saw how kindly Tricia responded to Anne Elise. She had goodness in her face, a gentleness that poured over her as she held Anne Elise.” As he’s saying this, I remember how dazzled I was to be holding the baby. I can’t believe a word James says about me, but I’d never be hostile toward the baby. “For years, we tried to conceive a child ourselves because I knew Trish would be a perfect, loving mother. Just now, watching her kiss Anne Elise—”
“Wait. Are you telling me you let that witch kiss our daughter?”
James holds out his hand to calm her, but anger blooms in Laurel’s face. I have no idea of the hormones rampaging through her, wreaking havoc with her emotions. I would have thought blissful happiness was the hormonal fate of every new mother, but as she grips the stainless steel bars at the sides of her hospital bed, Laurel’s as unhappy as anyone I’ve ever met.
“Honey, hear me out,” James says. “I’m on your side. Trust me. I want what’s best for our little daughter. And I know you do too. When I saw Trish kissing Anne Elise, I realized we’re in a win-win-win situation.”
“Huh?”
James walks up to me, takes both of my hands. We stand inches apart, and he stares into my eyes, and my knees go squishy like the first time he introduced himself to me. His hands are warm, his smile tender.
“Trish, be honest with me. You want the best for my daughter, don’t you? You wouldn’t hurt Anne Elise, would you?”
I shake my head, for how could anyone wish to harm a baby?
“Then divorce me,” James says.
Things crumble inside me. I can’t believe what James just asked. I feel dizzy, nauseous. James stares at me compassionately as if about to butter me up with another damn dose of his flattery. He reaches over, touches my arm, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to burst out in tears or push him away, and yet when I start to say something, he raises his hand to hush me.
“Hear me out,” James says. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way. Honest. I wish there was some other way. Divorce me so I can do the right thing and marry Laurel. Divorce me so I can make sure Anne Elise grows up in a strong, loving nuclear family. Divorce me so she will grow up with the confidence that she’s loved by both her parents. You know the studies. You know the odds. A child growing up in a two-parent home is far more likely to succeed in life. This is especially true for girls. Trish, you’re not an ogre. Divorce me so I can be a daddy.”
Pleading to be a daddy, he trembles, bringing tears to my eyes. The pain of living with me, being married to me, is etched all over his face. I’m horrified. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want my love, my continued support. This much I already guessed by his willingness to leap into his affair with Laurel. But it’s more than that: after twelve years of fruitless marriage, he’s cutting his losses, casting me aside because of my barrenness. A woman in his eyes is only as valuable as the baby she’s capable of gestating, and it pisses me off, this biological reductionism. Laurel, too, looks at me with glistening eyes, and now that I’m helpless with shame and tears, I remember that, by the terms of our prenuptials, James needs me to divorce him if he is to have any claim on my fortune. It is the most ironclad of prenuptial agreements: if he even threatens to bring divorce proceedings against me, he forsakes all of my money and four-fifths of whatever assets we’ve jointly acquired. Because he is reckless with his spending and reckless with his investments, I’ve always insisted that we keep our finances separate.
I let go of James’s hands. I’m not going to divorce him. In fact, I’ve already planned how to force him to toss Laurel aside. I turn toward the window. My eyes settle upon the snow-covered gazebo across the hospital’s grounds. Beyond the gazebo is a small pond. Though now skinned with ice, it is the type of pond where ducks flourish in idyllic summers, the type of place where Allie would take her toddlers to feed stale bread and broken crackers to the mallards.
“So what do you say, Trish? Will you let me do the right thing? Will you let me be a daddy?”
I turn around. The baby is asleep again on Laurel’s lap. James and Laurel are holding hands. Both have hopeful expressions. If I were to say yes, they’d thank me and promise to invite me into their house whenever I wished, but my father—a contractually minded banker with no compunctions against foreclosing on businesses, farms, homes, and families—was always proudest when declaring he hadn’t raised any suckers in the family.
“No, James. Why would I divorce you? I love you,” I say, holding my hands to the chest of my ruby-colored Armani sweater, and as I’m saying this and seeing my grinning face in the mirror atop Laurel’s bed table, I’m thrilled by the horror that comes over them. Laurel in particular seems appalled to hear that I still love James—and I do. He’s mine. I could never hold my head high if I were to let him discard me. He only wants to be with her because of the baby. Why else would he throw away the life we’ve built together? Why else would he throw away the comforts my fortune provides? Our posh Georgetown residency? If I am to keep James, I’ve got to neutralize the enchanting hold that baby has on him—and yet the baby is so beautiful. Closing my eyes for a moment, I can’t get the baby out of my mind. She’s all I ever wanted in life.
Chapter Four