One Year Later
David is learning to walk.
I know—I didn’t want him to be named David. But Sam really pushed for the name—it was his father’s name, after all. Sam doesn’t talk about how much he missed his father after his heart attack took him away from their family, but it meant a lot to him to name his son after the man. And the name is also meant partially to honor Denise, who made me the woman I am today.
And now David is one year old, pulling up on the coffee table, and taking those first cautious steps into the abyss of our living room. He’s cautious and serious—just like his dad. He’s also sweet like his dad. In so many ways, David is a clone of Sam.
I adore him. I love him more than I thought it would be possible to love another human being. I loved my parents and Sam, of course, but this is different. I spend hours marveling at his perfect little hands. When I hug him, I feel like I can’t squeeze him tightly enough. When I have difficulty sleeping at night, all I have to do is go into his bedroom and peer down at his sweet little sleeping face, listen to his deep, even breathing, and all the tension drains from my body.
He has changed my life.
Sam comes into the living room with a plastic container of baby food. After all the complaining I did about how awful baby food tasted, Sam decided he was going to cook his own. And believe it or not, even though Sam couldn’t cook adult food to save his life, the little meals he puts together for David are absolutely delicious. Even I think so. It’s like he’s got a talent. I told him he needs to start his own company, but he says he’s going to stick to math.
David loves the food too. As soon as he spots the container, his chubby little cheeks stretch into a smile. That smile tugs at me every time.
Sam ruffles David’s hair affectionately before lifting him into his high chair. That’s something David’s got that isn’t like either of us—blond hair.
Sam claims he was blond as a kid, but I’ve seen pictures and he’s lying. His hair was a lighter shade of brown than it is now, but he’s not towheaded the way David is. That hair is all Monica.
Thanks to my son, there isn’t one day that goes by when I don’t think of that woman. There isn’t a day when I don’t search his face for traces of her features. I will never stop watching his behavior, wondering if he’ll end up crazy like she was.
I was lucky in that when the police searched Monica’s apartment after she shot herself, they found plenty of evidence linking her and her mother to the murder of Denise Holt. They also found out she’d been stealing money from the company—something I worry would have been attributed to me, if things had gone differently on that fateful day. This is surely why they wanted to wrap things up neatly by making it look like I killed myself
—she knew if she were ever under investigation, the truth would come out.
We also discovered that prior to offering to be my surrogate, Monica had been in contact with Janelle and had convinced her the two of us would not be appropriate parents. She was the one responsible for taking away the baby that was supposed to be ours.
Also, she’s still alive.
“Yum, yum,” Sam is saying as he holds the little plastic spoon out for David. “Yummy mashed turkey.”
David gobbles it up like it’s poached lobster. And honestly, it is pretty good. I sample everything Sam makes, because there’s still part of me that doesn’t trust him after Salmonella Surprise, but everything is great.
“Yum yum,” David babbles.
Sam laughs. He’s so good with David. He adores him more than I could have imagined. And David adores Sam. It sometimes makes me sad we had to wait so long for this. And we’d still be waiting if not for Monica.
So yes, Monica is still alive.
Alive but in a vegetative state. The last time I saw her, she was lying in a hospital bed, breathing with the aid of a ventilator, drool sliding down the side of her chin. Her scalp was crisscrossed with staples. Severe brain injury, they said. Unlikely to have a meaningful recovery.
I heard recently that she was off the ventilator, at least, but still not eating or talking or walking. She doesn’t know what’s going on around her. Still in a vegetative state. After a year, it would be considered permanent.
Sam finishes feeding David the container of baby food, and he’s gotten it absolutely everywhere. There’s baby food on his bib, but it’s also on his chubby little arms, his hair, his cheeks, and there’s a glob on his eyelid.
“How does he always get so messy?” I muse. “He takes after you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.” Sam nods, wide-eyed. “I’m always picking food out of your hair after you eat dinner. Honestly, it’s such a pain, Abby.”
I smack him in the arm, and he grins at me. Everyone says having a baby kills your sex life, and… well, I can’t say we’re as hot and heavy as we were before. We’re both tired a lot more than we used to be—David hasn’t been the best sleeper in the world. But at the same time, we still make time for each other. We have regular date nights. We still make out on the sofa while David’s asleep in his crib. There are times when having a demanding baby has put a strain on our relationship, but for the most part, it’s made our family complete.
“Do you want me to give him a bath?” I ask.
Sam shakes his head. “Nah, I’m on it.” He turns to David. “You ready for a bath, big guy? What do you say?”
David throws up his arms excitedly. “Ba!”
That kid loves baths as much as he loves Sam’s baby food.
Sam lifts him out of his high chair, doing his best to mop off some of the baby food, but it’s a hopeless cause. The two of them disappear down the hallway to our bathroom. I can’t help but smile. Maybe David’s technically got Monica’s genes, but I’ve seen hardly any traces of her in him, aside from his hair. He’s all Sam so far.
While I work on cleaning up the disaster David left in his high chair, the buzzer rings to alert me there’s a visitor downstairs. I go to the sink to quickly wash the mashed turkey dinner off my fingers before I press the button on the wall to see who’s there.
“Mrs. Adler?” The doorman’s metallic-sounding voice pipes out of the intercom. “You’ve got a visitor to see you. A Louise Johnson.”
Louise Johnson. Monica’s stepmother. What is she doing here?
“Send her up,” I say before I can overthink it.
I’ve spoken to Louise Johnson a handful of times since Monica shot herself. She and Monica’s father agreed to take Monica home when it was clear she wasn’t going to get any better. I’m surprised they did it, after all she put them through when she was growing up. They seemed like nice people, and against my better judgment, Sam offered to let them visit David from time to time. But Mrs. Johnson told me kindly but firmly that they weren’t interested. I was relieved.
I wonder what she wants. I wonder if Monica’s okay.
What if she woke up? What if she opened her eyes, sat up in bed, and demanded to see her son?
Well, that’s very unlikely. They told me Monica would never wake up.
No chance, the doctors said. But you never know…
By the time Louise Johnson rings our doorbell, I’ve worked myself into a state of absolute panic. I fling the door open and find her familiar face, with several more gray hairs than before and deep lines between her eyebrows. It must be hard caring for Monica.
“Hello, Mrs. Johnson,” I say, as calmly as I can muster. “Hello, Mrs. Adler,” she replies.
Apparently, we’re not on a first-name basis. “How are you?” I ask stiffly.
“Fine, thank you.” She manages the thinnest of smiles. “And you?” “I’m well.” I swallow a lump in my throat. “How is, um… how is
Monica?”
“The same.” She averts her eyes. “No change.”
Is it awful that my first thought is “thank God”? Am I a terrible person for not wanting the woman who nearly killed my entire family to be walking around again? It’s a relief that Monica Johnson is one thing we won’t have to worry about anymore.
But then she adds, “Except…”
My heart skips a beat in my chest. Except? Except what? Monica is in a vegetative state. They told us it was permanent. That she would never, ever wake up. She is “as good as dead,” the doctors said. Except what?
I clear my throat. “Except what?”
“Oh.” She seems surprised by my question. She shakes her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Nothing? Never mind? I want to shake the woman until she tells me exactly what she meant by “except,” but I somehow manage to get control of myself before I do something stupid.
“So, listen…” Mrs. Johnson lowers her eyes and starts rummaging around in her purse. I flinch, remembering the way Monica pulled a gun from her purse the last time she was here. But Mrs. Johnson isn’t like that— I have nothing to worry about. Although I don’t relax until she retrieves a small, frayed yellow blanket from within the purse. “I was going through some old boxes at the back of the closet yesterday and I found… well, this was there. It was… it used to belong to Monica.”
I stare down at the blanket as if she told me it’s covered in scabies.
“It was her favorite blanket as a child,” she sighs. “Even as a teenager, she used to keep it in her bed. It… meant a lot to her.”
“Oh,” I say, because for God’s sake, what else can I say to that?
“Look, Abby.” Mrs. Johnson lifts her eyes to meet mine. “I know how you must feel about Monica. I… I’ve gone through a lot of the same emotions. But she gave you the greatest gift you can give a person.”
I don’t disagree with her.
“I know Monica would want her son to have this blanket.” Her eyes flit down to the worn yellow fabric, then back up to me. “Obviously it’s your decision, but I hope you’ll give it to him. So that he’s got at least a tiny part of his biological mother with him.”
He’s already got her blood running through his veins! Isn’t it enough that every time I look at my son, I’m searching for traces of that evil woman? I love David so much, but I can never erase the fact that half his genes belong to her.
But when Mrs. Johnson thrusts the blanket in my direction, I take it from her. There’s no point in arguing. Let her believe I’ll give David the blanket if it gives her peace. Except the only place this blanket is going is the trash bin.
Just as I’m closing the door behind me and throwing the deadlock into place, Sam emerges with David, who is now sparklingly clean and snuggled up in a green towel. Sam always brings him to me after his baths because he knows how cute I think he is when he’s all wrapped up like that. David is beaming at me, showing off his six tiny teeth.
“Who was at the door?” Sam asks.
“Monica’s stepmother.” I shudder as I say the words.
Sam’s face pales in what I’m certain is a reflection of my own. “How is Monica?”
“The same,” I say.
Except…
“Oh.” His shoulders sag. “That’s comforting.”
“Also,” I add, “she brought us this blanket that used to belong to Monica.”
I hold the blanket to my nose and jerk my head back at the smell. Monica’s lavender-scented perfume is clinging to it, intermingled with the faint smell of laundry detergent. As if I needed another reason to hate this blanket.
“Christ, why does she think we’d want that?” Sam also shudders as he holds David tight to his chest. “Get rid of it. Now.”
“Banka,” David says, pointing to the blanket with a chubby hand. “That’s right,” I say. “It’s a yucky blanket and we’re going to get rid of
it.”
I turn to throw the blanket in the trash, but just as my hand hovers over
the bin, David’s face crumbles. “Banka!” he wails.
“No, buddy,” Sam says patiently. “That’s not for you.”
“Banka!” Tears are running down my son’s face. He’s flailing his body around to the point where Sam is having trouble hanging onto him. He’s quickly growing inconsolable. “Banka! Banka, Mama!”
My fingers are still gripping the blanket. I step away from the trash and David’s face fills with relief. “Banka,” he pleads with us.
“Don’t give it to him,” Sam says. “I don’t want it in my house.”
David’s hand is outstretched, trying his best to reach the blanket. He didn’t even get this excited over the toy truck he got for his first birthday (although to be fair, he liked the box the truck came in significantly more). He’s really upset. All this over a blanket?
“I’ll just let him have it for now,” I finally say. “Abby, no…
“Within a day, he’ll lose interest in it,” I say. “I guarantee it.”
Sam is shaking his head, but it’s hard for me to say no to David when he gets like this. He’s my only child and I spoil him. So instead of throwing
it away, I hold the yellow blanket out to him. He takes the blanket happily, burying his face in the lingering scent of Monica’s perfume.
THE END
