“Do it like that, so her mouth is straight over you,” the other woman says, smiling with an air of talcum powder and happiness. “I’m Lois Belcher, by the way, the lactation consultant here at the hospital. Your mother had a nurse fetch me. She said you were having trouble getting a handle on breastfeeding, but frankly, it looks like you’re doing everything right.”
“My mother?” I stare at Tricia, aghast. She cringes like a chastised poodle.
The lactation consultant adjusts my fingers over Zerena’s head and instructs me to shift her to my other breast—“To even things out,” she says, offering the kind of practical breastfeeding advice most new moms probably receive from their own mothers. In a fit of panic and worried I’d need my mother’s help, I called my parents a week ago for the first time in over eight years. They thought I was still in Vermont, didn’t even realize I’d already graduated from college. When I mentioned I was pregnant and about to give birth, my father responded that there was no way—no way!—I could move back home again. As if. Last night, when my water broke, I called them again. They said they’d meet me at the hospital. I haven’t heard from them since, which isn’t surprising, since my parents happen to be about the sorriest critters imaginable.
The lactation consultant, seeing I’ve got the breastfeeding thing under control, leaves the room. I wish Tricia would leave too. She’s still standing against the wall, utterly rapt and creeping me out. I’m topless, and she stares at me and Zerena, unable to take her eyes off us. She’s jealous. She wishes she were me, young and blessed with a newborn girl. I’ve tried not to think of the pain I’ve caused her because there’s nothing I can do about it now. I need to take care of Zerena. I don’t want her to end up with the fuzzy end of the lollipop, which is what will happen if Jimmy ups and leaves us for Trish.
“So you were a liberal arts major, were you? At Ethan Allen College. Right?” Tricia asks, sitting down on the padded brown recliner next to my bed.
Warily, I nod. I’m not sure how she knows this. She peppers me with more questions about my college degree, engaging me in small talk, but it’s unsettling how much she knows about my classes, my grades. It’s like she’s memorized my whole transcript.
“So along with your liberal arts diploma, you earned a certificate in gender studies. What’s that for?” Tricia asks. A thin snide smile spreads over her lips. “Has that been useful in your career search?”
Unlike everything else she’s mentioned, this statement about me having a gender studies certificate is flat-out wrong. “I don’t have a gender studies certificate.”
The look she gives me is of a cat that’s just had a whisker yanked off. “You don’t? Are you sure about that?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t go through five years of college just to amnesia out on everything. Women’s studies. That’s my certificate.”
“Women’s studies,” Tricia says, as if committing it to memory, but even after she says this three times, her initial mistake still troubles her. I earned the women’s studies certificate in part by counseling teenage girls on how to develop greater self-esteem so they won’t be easily victimized or exploited.
Tricia bounds up from the recliner and puts her hand on the window. The sun’s already beginning to set, but something catches her attention. “I’m going to have to call for a cab.”
“Why’s that?”
She points to something in the parking lot outside the window. “James must’ve forgot he promised to take me home. He just hopped into his car and is driving toward one of the exits.”
“He is?” Jimmy had promised to sleep this evening on the recliner in my maternity suite. Zerena was going to be with us, sleeping in her stainless steel hospital bassinet. It was going to be the first time we would have spent an entire night all together—baby’s first night! We had talked about this, chosen an extradeluxe maternity room just so we could be together for the occasion.
“What’s the matter?” Tricia asks, fumbling through her handbag for her cell phone.
I tell Tricia about the plans we made. James knows how meaningful I wanted this to be for us. “We were going to spend the baby’s first night all together. The three of us. That’s what I told Jimmy I wanted us to do.” Disappointment is making me tell her all this. I’m so distraught that I can’t stop myself from talking. It’s what I do sometimes: blab. Listening to me, Tricia softens her expression. A look of genuine sadness falls over her. She touches my hand, shakes her head in commiseration, but then, as though she apparently remembers she considers me dirt, her snide smile reappears, making me feel worse.
“Actually, I’m glad James isn’t around right now,” Tricia says. She picks up her pink cashmere cape from the back of a chair and drapes it over her shoulders. “This extra time’s allowed you and me and Anne Elise to get to know each other. Hasn’t it been fun?”
“Her name’s not Anne Elise,” I say, clearing my throat. “It’s Zerena. Or, at least, it’s going to be Zerena.”
Tricia tilts her head, narrows her eyes. “But I thought James said—”
“I know what Jimmy said. And I know his reasons.” The one thing life’s taught me is that you can’t let anyone push you around. Though he signed the birth certificate listing Anne Elise as the official name, I’m guessing ways exist to amend the filing. I’ve never had the chance to name anything in my life—not even a goldfish or a stray cat—and I’m sure not going to let anyone name my daughter for me. “Let me tell you: Jimmy and me are going to have more discussions about this.”
Tricia eyes me for several moments, and I sense her begrudging respect for digging in my heels on this. She calls the taxi company, tells them to meet her at the hospital lobby in five minutes. When she’s through with her call, she turns back toward me. “Can I give you one piece of advice? From my own experience?”
I nod.
“Next time, if you’re going to make plans with James, prepare yourself to be disappointed,” Tricia says, patting the top of my head with an unnerving condescension that makes me want to smack her down, but then the knowledge of how to truly hurt Tricia comes over me.
“It could be worse,” I say.
“How?”
“Tonight, I’ll be snug and comfy in this bed and breastfeeding my darling little girl. You? You’ll still be old and alone. You tell me what’s worse.”
Tricia gasps, stung. I fear she’s going to slap me—or worse—which would be great because I know I can take her in any brawl. Instead, though, she stalks toward the door, but before she leaves, she spins around, her cheeks red and angry. “You’ve made the worst mistake you could ever make.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why?” Tricia laughs a deranged laugh. “A woman with a vendetta and lots of money can cause great harm. That’s why.”
Chapter Five
JIM
Ten hours have passed since I left Trish and Laurel at the hospital. For much of that time, I’d been ensconced on a barstool tipping back tumblers of Scotch with a farm belt commodities insider who, upon hearing I’d just become a father, gifted me the investment tip of a lifetime. Fatherhood and a lucrative investment tip have fallen into my lap on the same day, but my life’s a train wreck. I’m a congenial portfolio management specialist offering investment advice to the most risk-averse clientele you’d ever hope to ring up on speed dial. I’m not a genius, but I’m smart enough to know that one way or another, I’m going to pay for what I’ve done.