LAUREL
I’m no special snowflake, no precious girl who demands to play by her own rules. Every dawn must have its day and every monkey its—what?—comeuppance. A woman in my position, having given birth to the daughter of another woman’s husband, can expect no favors from that other woman, but I can’t stand the dismissive, belittling way Tricia glares at me. She struts through my—my!—maternity suite with a sense of ownership as if it’s one more room in her own private little snow globe. Possession is her game, so Jimmy has let on, but she can never have me or Zerena, and although Jimmy promised he was going to ask for a divorce as soon as our baby was born, I hadn’t expected he’d call his wife to the hospital and do it right in front of me. I’m proud of Jimmy for allowing her the opportunity to do the decent thing and divorce him, but now that she’s declined to board that train, it’s time for us to move on.
Ten, maybe even five years ago, Mrs. Patricia Wainsborough (née Riggs) would’ve been beautiful. Jimmy showed me a picture of them at a ridiculously extravagant museum benefit, she in a strapless black Dior with a high-low hemline that showed off her long slender legs and impossibly thin waist, and you could see, both in the picture itself and how he fawned over the photo as he handed it to me, that he must have considered himself the luckiest duck in the pond to have had her as his arm candy. The dress must have been a size 4, something that even after I lose all the baby fat, I’d struggle shimmying into. She’s in her forties, about as old as Jimmy. No longer does her skin naturally glow. Nor is the skin as supple. If you look closely, you see wrinkles have begun to pinch her eyes. Furrows crevice her pale forehead. A wiser woman of her means would avail herself of Botox or other procedures, but her eyes, the color so breathtakingly blue you’d swear they were costume jewelry baubles, still compel attention.
“Mrs. Wainsborough, please be reasonable,” I say.
At the sound of my voice, Tricia curls her lip. “I am being reasonable. I’m simply not going to divorce James.” She takes out a gold compact from her handbag, and her anger is evident in how she powders her cheeks, caking the cosmetics so thick she must be poisoning herself. To limit the risk of birth defects and miscarriages, at Jimmy’s suggestion I refrained from cosmetics throughout my pregnancy, and now the smell of whatever she’s dusting onto herself makes my skin crawl. “I’ve simply made up my mind, and I’m not going to discuss it any further.”
“Mrs. Wainsborough. I’m asking you to leave. Get it? This is my private—private!—room. So why don’t you vacate the premises, ’kay?”
She flinches, the first rise I’ve gotten from her since waking. Despite the color pasted onto her cheeks, her face is pale. She turns to Jimmy and is about to say something, but one of his cell phones goes off, emitting the pompous opening four notes to that famous Beethoven symphony—bah bah bah bum. Like a drug dealer, he carries three separate phones, and when he answers the call, a smile flashes across his lips, and he slips into portfolio-management mode, telling whoever’s calling about the benefits of transitioning from front-loaded to rear-loaded mutual funds. It’s how this vainglorious peacock displays his plumage, showing off to his wife and me his mastery of arcane investment wisdom and going off about yields, risk rates, and debt/equity ratios. Three minutes into the call, just as I think it’s winding down, Jimmy raises a hand to signal he needs to continue his call away from our prying ears. There’s a bounce to his step, a happiness that comes to him only when talking about money. He walks out of the maternity suite and into the hallway, and when I can no longer hear his voice, I turn again to his wife.
“Mrs. Wainsborough, I don’t want to be difficult. I—”
“Tricia,” she says, interrupting me. “Call me Tricia. Even people who don’t like me call me Tricia.”
“Okay. Whatever. Tricia. Please leave. I don’t know how much clearer I can be without morphing all rude on you.”
“It’s going to have to wait.”
“Why’s that?”
“James drove me here. I have to wait until he finishes his call so he can drive me back.”
“He drove you here?” It doesn’t make sense. I assumed Tricia came here by herself. After Zerena’s birth and as doctors stitched me up from the episiotomy, drowsiness from the anesthesia and the pain meds got the better of me. Although I longed to stay awake and hold Zerena and hear the sound of her breath, I drifted off to sleep. Jimmy squeezed my hand and said he’d stay with the baby until I awoke again. I trusted him. Instead, he abandoned Zerena and me so he could go back to his wife and bring her here.
“He’s not a bad driver. Or at least no worse than every other idiot on the road.”
Zerena wakes up again, crying. She looks at me with angry eyes and shakes her fists, and suddenly I feel so sorry, so selfish, so inadequate for having done whatever I’ve unknowingly done to make her so angry. How could I have let my baby down already?
I’m heartbroken Jimmy hadn’t stayed true to his word and remained with us while I slept. He’s the only man I could imagine spending my life with, but I’ve always questioned if I can really trust him. The baby’s my lifeline to a better life, a means to escape my troubled past. Being the other woman is no easy task. Jimmy loves me. I know he does. And I love him. He has to love me. He just has to love me. Otherwise, how can I raise Zerena on my own?
What Jimmy said about a child—especially a daughter—needing the active love of a father in her life is true. Growing up, especially when I was really young, I always thought I was missing out not having the kind of father who’d read bedtime stories or take me to the park, help me onto one of the playground swings, and stand behind me, pushing me. My friends spoke glowingly of their own fathers. Me? I hardly knew where he was most of the time. What was so wrong with me that he couldn’t stick around much or even every so often ask, “Hey, girl! How was your day at school? I’m real proud of you, sugar, for all those As on your report card.”
Zerena needs Jimmy. I need Jimmy.
I first met Jimmy when he brought some clients to the restaurant where I waitressed. Looking at him from across the floor, I broke out in a cold sweat. I saw his gold wedding ring. Alarm bells zinged in my head, warning me to stay clear of him, but I couldn’t resist. How often can the man of your dreams float into your life? Handsome, with dark-brown hair and eyes that set me on fire, he asked me what was good on the menu. I stuttered out a description of the risotto del giorno and told him the chef’s signature braised lamb dish had recently been featured in the Washington Post Magazine. As I spoke, he slid his eyes up from the menu, taking me in, and smiled. I wrote down his table’s orders. His manners were impeccable. Other men at his table looked up to him. He possessed a level of self-assurance that I’d never encountered before.