PART FIVE. EIGHTEEN

PART FIVE

Joy

EIGHTEEN

When I opened my eyes, I was underwater. In a swimming pool? The lake at summer camp? The ocean? I wasn’t sure. I could see the light above me, filtered through the water, and I could feel the pull of what was underneath me, the dark depths I couldn’t make out.

I’d spent most of my life in the water swimming with my mother, but it was my father who’d taught me how, when I was little. He’d flip a silver dollar into the water, and I’d follow it down, learning how to hold my breath, how to go deeper than I thought I could, how to propel myself back to the top. “Sink or swim, ” my father would tell me when I’d come up empty-handed and sputtering and complaining that I couldn’t, that the water was too cold or too deep. Sink or swim. And I’d go back into the water. I wanted the silver dollar, but, more than that, I wanted to please him.

My father. Was he here? I turned around frantically, paddling, trying to flip myself up toward where I thought the light was coming from. But I was getting dizzy. I was getting all turned around. And it was hard to keep paddling, hard to stay afloat, and I could feel the bottom of the ocean tugging at me, and I thought how nice it would be just to stop, not to move, to let myself float to the bottom, to sink into the soft silt of a thousand seashells ground down fine, to let myself sleep …

Sink or swim. Live or die.

I heard a voice, coming from the surface.

What is your name?

Leave me alone, I thought. I’m tired. I’m so tired. I could feel the darkness pulling me, and I craved it.

What is your name?

I opened my eyes, squinting in the bright white light.

Cannie, I muttered. I’m Cannie, now leave me alone.

Stay with us, Cannie, said the voice. I shook my head. I didn’t want to be here, wherever here was. I wanted to be back in the water, where I was invisible, where I was free. I wanted to go swimming again. I shut my eyes. The silver dollar flashed and glittered in the sunlight, arcing through the air, plunging into the water, and I followed it back down.

I closed my eyes again and saw my bed. Not my bed in Philadelphia, with its soothing blue comforter and bright, pretty pillows, but my bed from when I was a little girl — narrow, neatly made, with its red and brown paisley spread tucked tight around it and a spill of hard-cover books shoved underneath. I blinked and saw the girl on the bed, a sturdy, sober-faced girl with green eyes and brown hair in a ponytail that spilled over her shoulders. She was lying on her side, a book spread open before her. Me? I wondered. My daughter? I couldn’t be sure.

I remembered that bed — how it had been my refuge as a little girl, how it had been the one place I felt safe as a teenager, the place my father would never come. I remember spending hours there on weekends, sitting cross-legged with a friend on the other side of the bed, with the telephone and a melting pint of ice cream between us, talking about boys, about school, about the future, and how our lives would be, and I wanted to go back there, wanted to go back so badly, before things went wrong, before my father’s departure and Bruce’s betrayal, before I knew how it all turned out.

I looked down, and the girl on the bed looked up from her book, up at me, and her eyes were wide and clear.

I looked at the girl, and she smiled at me. Mom, she said.

Cannie?

I groaned as if waking from the most delicious dream and slitted my eyes open again.

Squeeze my hand if you can hear this, Cannie.

I squeezed weakly. I could hear voices burbling above me, heard something about blood type, something else about fetal monitor. Maybe this was the dream, and the girl on the bed was real? Or the water? Maybe I really had gone swimming, maybe I’d swum out too far, gotten tired, maybe I was drowning right now, and the picture of my bed was just a little something my brain had whipped up by way of last-minute entertainment.

Cannie? said the voice again, sounding almost frantic. Stay with us!

But I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be back in the bed.

The third time I closed my eyes I saw my father. I was back in his office in California, sitting up straight on his white examining table. I could feel the weight of diamonds on my finger, in my ears. I could feel the weight of his gaze upon me — warm and full of love, like I remembered it from twenty years ago. He was sitting across from me, in his white doctor’s coat, smiling at me. Tell me how you’ve been, he says. Tell me how you turned out.

I’m going to have a baby, I told him, and he nodded. Cannie, that’s wonderful!

I’m a newspaper reporter. I wrote a movie, I told him. I have friends. A dog. I live in the city.

My father smiled. I’m so proud of you.

I reached for him and he took my hand and held it. Why didn’t you say so before? I asked. It would have changed everything, if I’d just known you cared

He smiled at me, looking puzzled, like I’d stopped speaking English, or like he’d stopped understanding it. And when he took his hands away I opened mine and found a silver dollar in my palm. It’s yours, he said. You found it. You always did. You always could.

But even as he spoke he was turning away.

I want to ask you something, I said. He was at the door, like I remembered, his hand on the knob, but this time he turned and looked at me.

I stared at him, feeling my throat go dry, saying nothing.

How could you? is what I thought. How could you leave your own children? Lucy was just fifteen, and Josh was only nine. How could you do that; how could you walk away?

Tears slid down my face. My father walked back to me. He pulled a carefully folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, where he always kept them. It smelled like the cologne he always wore, like lemons, and the starch the Chinese laundry place put in, like they always did. Very carefully, my father bent down and wiped away my tears.

Then there was the darkness below me again, and the light above.

Sink or swim, I thought ruefully. And what if I wanted to sink? What was there to keep me afloat?

I thought of my father’s hand on my cheek, and I thought of the steady green-eyed gaze of the girl on the bed. I thought about what it felt to take a warm shower after a long bike ride, to slip into the ocean on a hot summer day. I thought about the taste of the tiny strawberries Maxi and I had found at the farmer’s market. I thought about my friends, and Nifkin. I thought about my own bed, lined with flannel sheets softened from many trips through the dryer, with a book on the pillow and Nifkin perched beside me. And I thought for a minute about Bruce … not about Bruce specifically, but the feeling of falling in love, of being loved, of being worthy. Treasured, I heard Maxi say.

So okay, I thought. Fine. I’ll swim. For myself, and for my daughter. For all the things I love, and everyone who loves me.

When I woke up again I heard voices.

“That doesn’t look right, ” said one. “Are you sure it’s hanging the right way? ”

My mother, I thought. Who else?

“What’s this yellow stuff? ” demanded another voice — young, female, crabby. Lucy. “Probably pudding. ”

“It’s not pudding, ” I heard in a raspy growl. Tanya.

Then: “Lucy! Get your finger out of your sister’s lunch! ”

“She’s not going to eat it, ” Lucy said sulkily.

“I don’t know why they even brought food, ” Tanya rumbled.

“Find some ginger ale, ” said my mother. “And some ice cubes. They said she can have ice cubes when she wakes up. ”

My mother leaned close. I could smell her — a combination of Chloe and sunscreen and Pert shampoo. “Cannie? ” she murmured. I opened my eyes — for real this time — and saw that I wasn’t underwater, or in my old bedroom, or in my father’s office. I was in a hospital, in a bed. There was an IV taped to the back of my hand, a plastic bracelet with my name on it around my wrist, a semicircle of machines beeping and chirping around me. I lifted my head and saw down to my toes — no belly looming up between my face and my feet.

“Baby, ” I said. My voice sounded strange and squeaky. Someone stepped out of the shadows. Bruce.

“Hey, Cannie, ” he said, sounding sheepish, looking wretched, and horribly ashamed.

I waved him away with the hand that didn’t have a needle stuck in it. “Not you, ” I said. “My baby. ”

“I’ll get the doctor, ” said my mother.

“No, let me, ” said Tanya. The two of them looked at each other, then hustled out of the room as if by mutual agreement. Lucy shot me a quick unreadable look and dashed out behind them. Which left just me and Bruce.

“What happened? ” I asked.

Bruce swallowed hard. “I think maybe the doctor better tell you that. ”

Now I was starting to remember — the airport, the bathroom, his new girlfriend. Falling. And then blood.

I tried to sit up. Hands eased me back onto the bed.

“What happened? ” I demanded, my voice spiraling toward hysteria. “Where am I? Where’s my baby? What happened? ”

A face leaned into my line of sight — a doctor, no doubt, in a white coat with the obligatory stethoscope and plastic name tag.

“I see you’re awake! ” he said heartily. I scowled at him. “Tell me your name, ” he said.

I took a deep breath, suddenly aware that I was hurting. From my belly button on down it felt like I’d been torn open and sewn back together sloppily. My ankle throbbed in time with my heartbeat. “I’m Candace Shapiro, ” I began, “and I was pregnant …” My voice caught in my throat. “What happened? ” I begged. “Is my baby okay? ”

The doctor cleared his throat. “You had what’s known as placenta abruptio, ” he began. “Which means that your placenta separated from your uterus all at once. That’s what caused the bleeding … and the premature labor. ”

“So my baby …, ” I whispered.

The doctor looked somber.

“Your baby was in distress when they brought you in here. We did a cesarean section, but because we didn’t have the fetal monitor in place, we aren’t sure whether she was deprived of oxygen, and if so, for how long. ”

He kept talking. Low birth weight. Premature. Underdeveloped lungs. Ventilator. NICU. He told me that my uterus was torn during the delivery, that I was bleeding so badly, they had to take “radical steps. ” Radical as in my uterus was now gone. “We hate to have to do this to young women, ” he said gravely, “but the circumstances left us no choice. ”

He droned on and on about counseling, therapy, adoption, egg harvesting, and surrogates until I wanted to scream, to claw at his throat, to force him to give me the answer to the only question I cared about anymore. I looked at my mother, who bit her lip and looked away as I struggled to sit up. The doctor looked alarmed, and tried to ease me back down onto my back, but I wasn’t going. “My baby, ” I said. “Is it a boy or girl? ”

“A girl, ” he said — reluctantly, I thought.

“Girl, ” I repeated, and started to cry. My daughter, I thought, my poor daughter whom I couldn’t keep safe, not even on her way into the world. I looked at my mother, who’d come back and was leaning against the wall, blowing her nose. Bruce put his hand awkwardly on my arm.

“Cannie, ” he said, “I’m sorry. ”

“Get away from me, ” I wept. “Just go. ” I wiped my eyes, shoved my matted hair behind my ears, and looked at the doctor. “I want to see my baby. ” They eased me into a wheelchair, sore and stitched up, hurting all over, and wheeled me to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I couldn’t go in, they explained, but I could see her through the window. A nurse pointed her out. “There, ” she said, gesturing.

I leaned so close my forehead pressed on the glass. She was so small. A wrinkled pink grapefruit. Limbs no bigger than my pinky, hands the size of my thumbnail, a head the size of a smallish nectarine. Tiny eyes squinched shut, a look of outrage on her face. A dusting of black fuzz on top of her head, a nondescript beige-ish hat on top of that. “She weighs almost three pounds, ” the nurse who was pushing me said.

Baby, I whispered, and tapped my fingers against the windows, drumming a soft rhythm. She hadn’t been moving, but when I tapped she pinwheeled her arms. Waving at me, I imagined. Hi, baby, I said.

The nurse watched me closely. “You okay? ”

“She needs a better hat, ” I said. My throat felt thick, clotted with grief, and there were tears running down my face, but I wasn’t crying. It was more like leaking. As if I was so full of sadness and a strange, doomed kind of hope that there was nowhere for it to go but out. “At home, in her room, the yellow room with the crib, in the dresser, the top drawer, I’ve got lots of baby hats. My Mom has keys”

The nurse leaned down. “I have to bring you back, ” she said.

“Please make them give her a nicer hat, ” I repeated. Stupid, stubborn. She didn’t need fashionable headgear, she needed a miracle, and even I could see that.

The nurse bent closer. “Tell me her name, ” she said. And sure enough, there was a piece of paper taped to one end of the box. “BABY GIRL SHAPIRO, ” it read.

I opened my mouth, not sure what would happen, but when the word came I knew instantly, in my heart, that it was right.

“Joy, ” I said. “Her name is Joy. ”

When I came back to my room Maxi was there. A quartet of candy-stripers clustered at the door of my room, their faces like blossoms, or balloons packed tight together. Maxi pulled a white curtain close around my bed, shutting them out. She was dressed more soberly than I’d ever seen her — black jeans, black sneakers, a hooded sweatshirt — and she was carrying roses, a ridiculous armload of roses, the kind of garland you’d drape around a prizewinning horse’s neck. Or lay across a casket, I thought grimly.

“I came as soon as I heard, ” she said, her face drawn. “Your mother and sister are outside. They’ll only let one of us in at a time. ”

She sat beside me and held my hand, the one with the tube in it, and didn’t seem alarmed when I didn’t look at her, or even squeeze back. “Poor Cannie, ” she said. “Have you seen the baby? ”

I nodded, brushing tears from my cheeks. “She’s very small, ” I managed, and started to sob.

Maxi winced, looking helpless, and dismayed at being helpless.

“Bruce came, ” I said, weeping.

“I hope you told him to go to hell, ” said Maxi.

“Something like that, ” I said. I wiped my non-needled hand across my face and wished for Kleenex. “This is disgusting, ” I said, and hiccoughed a sob. “This is really pathetic and disgusting. ”

Maxi leaned close, cradling my head in her arm. “Oh, Cannie, ” she said sadly. I closed my eyes. There was nothing left for me to ask, nothing else to say.

After Maxi left I slept for a while, curled up on my side. If I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them. And when I woke up Bruce was standing in the doorway.

I blinked and stared at him.

“Can I do anything? ” he asked. I just stared, saying nothing. “Cannie? ” he asked uneasily.

“Come closer, ” I beckoned. “I don’t bite. Or push, ” I added meanly.

Bruce walked toward my bed. He looked pale, edgy, twitchy in his own skin, or maybe just unhappy to be near me again. I could see a sprinkling of blackheads on his nose, standing out in sharp relief, and I could tell from his posture, from the way his hands were crammed in his pockets and how his eyes never left the linoleum, that this was killing him, that he wanted to be anywhere but here. Good, I thought, feeling rage bubble up in my chest. Good. Let him hurt.

He settled himself on the chair next to my bed, looking at me in quick little peeks — the drainage tubes snaking out from beneath my sheet, the I. V. bag hanging beside me. I hoped that he was sickened by it. I hoped that he was scared.

“I can tell you exactly how many days it’s been since we talked, ” I said.

Bruce closed his eyes.

“I can tell you exactly what your bedroom looks like, exactly what you said the last time we were together. ”

He grabbed for me, clutching blindly. “Cannie, please, ” he said. “Please. I’m sorry. ” Words I once thought I would have given anything to hear. He started crying. “I never wanted … I never meant for this to happen”

I looked at him. I didn’t feel love, or hate. I didn’t feel anything but a bone-deep weariness. Like I was suddenly a hundred years old, and I knew at that moment I would have to live a hundred more years, carrying my grief around like a backpack full of stones.

I closed my eyes, knowing that it was too late for us. Too much had happened, and none of it was good. A body in motion stays in motion. I’d started the whole thing by telling him I’d wanted to take a break. Or maybe he’d started it by asking me out in the first place. What did it matter anymore?

I turned my face to the wall. After a while, Bruce stopped crying. And a while after that, I heard him leave.

I woke up the next morning with sunlight spilling across my face. Instantly my mother hurried through the door and pulled a chair up beside my bed. She looked uncomfortable — she was good about cracking jokes, laughing things off, keeping a stiff upper lip and soldiering on, but she wasn’t any good with tears.

“How are you doing? ” she asked.

“I’m shitty! ” I shrieked, and my mother pulled back so fast that her wheeled chair scooted halfway across the room. I didn’t even wait for her to pull herself back toward me before continuing my tirade. “How do you think I am? I gave birth to something that looks like a junior-high science experiment, and I’m all cut open and I h-h-hurt …”

I put my face in my hands and sobbed for a minute. “There’s something wrong with me, ” I wept. “I’m defective. You should have let me die”

“Oh, Cannie, ” my mother said, “Cannie, don’t talk that way. ”

“Nobody loves me, ” I cried. “Dad didn’t, Bruce didn’t …”

My mother patted my hair. “Don’t talk that way, ” she repeated. “You have a beautiful baby. A little on the petite side, for the time being, but very beautiful. ” She cleared her throat, got to her feet, and started pacing — typical Mom behavior when there was something painful coming.

“Sit down, ” I told her wearily, and she did, but I could see one of her feet jiggling anxiously.

“I had a talk with Bruce, ” she said.

I exhaled sharply. I didn’t even want to hear his name. My mother could tell this from my face, but she kept talking.

“With Bruce, ” she continued, “and his new girlfriend. ”

“The Pusher? ” I asked, my voice high and sharp and hysterical. “You saw her? ”

“Cannie, she feels just awful. They both do. ”

“They should, ” I said angrily. “Bruce never even called me, the whole time I was pregnant, then the Pusher does her thing …”

My mother looked shaken by my tone. “The doctors aren’t sure that’s what caused you to …”

“It doesn’t matter, ” I said querulously. “I believe that’s what did it, and I hope that dumb bitch does, too. ”

My mother was shocked. “Cannie …”

“Cannie what? You think I’m going to forgive them? I’ll never forgive them. My baby almost died, I almost died, I’ll never have another baby, and now just because they’re sorry, it’s all supposed to be okay? I’ll never forgive them. Never. ”

My mother sighed. “Cannie, ” she said gently.

“I can’t believe you’re taking their side! ” I yelled.

“I’m not taking their side, Cannie, of course I’m not, ” she said. “I’m taking your side. I just don’t think it’s healthy for you to be so angry. ”

“Joy almost died, ” I said.

“But she didn’t, ” said my mother. “She didn’t die. She’s going to be fine”

“You don’t know that, ” I said furiously.

“Cannie, ” said my mother. “She’s a little underweight, and her lungs are a little underdeveloped …”

“She was deprived of oxygen! Didn’t you hear them! Deprived of oxygen! There could be all kinds of things wrong! ”

“She looks just the way you did when you were a baby, ” my mother said impatiently. “She’s going to be fine. I just know it. ”

“You didn’t even know you were gay until you were fifty-six! ” I shouted. “How am I supposed to believe you about anything! ”

I pointed toward the door. “Go away, ” I said, and started to cry.

My mother shook her head. “I’m not going, ” she said. “Talk to me. ”

“What do you want to hear about? ” I said, trying to wipe my face off, trying to sound normal. “My my asshole ex-boyfriend’s idiot new girlfriend pushed me, and my baby almost died”

But what was really wrong — the part that I didn’t think I’d be able to bring myself to say — was that I had failed Joy. I’d failed to be good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, lovable enough, to keep my father in my life. Or to keep Bruce. And now, I’d failed at keeping my baby safe.

My mother wheeled in close again and wrapped her arms around me.

“I didn’t deserve her, ” I wept. “I couldn’t keep her safe, I let her get hurt …”

“What gave you that idea? ” she whispered into my hair. “Cannie, it was an accident. It wasn’t your fault. You’re going to be a wonderful mother. ”

“If I’m so great, why didn’t he love me? ” I wept, and I wasn’t even sure who I was talking about — Bruce? My father? “What’s wrong with me? ”

My mother stood up. I followed her eyes to the clock on the wall. She watched me watching, and bit her lip. “I’m sorry, ” she said softly, “but I have to run out for a few minutes. ”

I wiped my eyes, buying time, trying to process what she’d told me. “You have to …”

“I have to pick up Tanya at her continuing education class. ”

“What, Tanya forgot how to drive? ”

“Her car’s in the shop. ”

“And what is she studying today? Which facet of herself is she addressing? ” I inquired. “Codependent granddaughters of emotionally distant grandparents? ”

“Give it a rest, Cannie, ” my mother snapped, and I was so stunned that I couldn’t even think to start crying again. “I know you don’t like her, and I’m sick of hearing about it. ”

“Oh, and now is the time you decided to bring it up? You couldn’t wait until maybe your granddaughter makes it out of intensive care? ”

My mother pursed her lips. “I’ll talk to you later, ” she said, and walked out the door. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned to face me one more time. “I know you don’t believe it, but you’re going to be fine. You have everything you need. You just have to know it in your own heart. ”

I scowled. Know it in my own heart. It sounded like New Age crap, like something she’d pirated from one of Tanya’s stupid Healing Your Hurt workbooks.

“Sure, ” I called after her. “Go! I’m good at being left. I’m used to it. ”

She didn’t turn around. I sighed, staring at my blanket and hoping none of the nurses had heard me spouting third-rate soap opera dialogue. I felt absolutely wretched. I felt hollow, like my insides had been scooped out and all that was left was echoing emptiness, vacant black holes. How was I going to figure out how to be a decent parent, given the choices my own parents had made?

You have everything you need, she’d told me. But I couldn’t see what she meant. I considered my life and saw only what was missing — no father, no boyfriend, no promise of health or comfort for my daughter. Everything I need, I thought ruefully, and closed my eyes, hoping that I’d dream again of my bed, or of the water.

When the door opened again an hour later I didn’t even look up.

“Tell it to Tanya, ” I said, with my eyes still shut. “ ’Cause I don’t want to hear it. ”

“Well, I would, ” said a familiar deep voice, “but I don’t think she has much use for my kind … and also, we haven’t really been introduced. ”

I looked up. Dr. K. was standing there, with a white bakery box in one hand and a black duffel bag in the other. And the duffel bag appeared to be wriggling.

“I came as soon as I heard, ” he began, folding himself into the seat my mother had recently occupied, setting the box on my nightstand and the duffel bag on his lap. “How are you feeling? ”

“Okay, ” I said. He looked at me carefully. “Well, actually lousy. ”

“I can believe it, after what you’ve been through. How is …”

“Joy, ” I said. Using her name felt strange … presumptuous somehow, as if I was testing fate by saying it out loud. “She’s small, and her lungs are a little underdeveloped, and she’s breathing with a ventilator …” I paused and swiped a hand across my eyes. “Also, I had a hysterectomy, and I seem to be crying all the time. ”

He cleared his throat.

“Was that too much information? ” I asked through my tears.

He shook his head. “Not at all, ” he told me. “You can talk to me about anything you want to. ”

The black duffel bag practically lurched off his lap. It looked so funny I almost smiled, but it felt as if my face had forgotten how. “Is that a perpetual motion machine in your bag, or are you just glad to see me? ”

Dr. K. glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. Then he leaned close to me. “This was kind of a risk, ” he whispered, “but I thought …”

He lifted the bag onto the bed and eased the zipper open. Nifkin’s nose popped out, followed by the tips of his oversized ears, and then, in short order, his entire body.

“Nifkin! ” I said, as Nifkin scrambled onto my chest and proceeded to give my entire face a tongue-bath. Dr. K held him, lifting him clear of my various tubes and attachments, as Nifkin licked away. “How did you … where was he? ”

“With your friend Samantha, ” he explained. “She’s outside. ” “Thank you, ” I said, knowing that the words couldn’t begin to express how happy he’d made me.

“Thank you so much. ”

“No problem, ” said the doctor. “Here … look. We’ve been practicing. ” He lifted Nifkin and set him on the floor. “Can you see? ”

I propped myself up on my elbows and nodded.

“Nifkin … SIT! ” said Dr. K., in a voice every bit as deep and authoritative as James Earl Jones’s telling the world that this … is CNN. Nifkin’s butt hit the linoleum at lightning speed, his tail wagging triple-time. “Nifkin … DOWN! ” And down went Nifkin, flat on his belly, looking up at Dr. K. with his eyes sparkling and his pink tongue curled as he panted. “And now, for our final act … PLAY DEAD! ” And Nifkin collapsed onto his side as if he’d been shot.

“Unbelievable, ” I said. It really was.

“He’s a fast learner, ” said Dr. K., loading the now-squirming terrier back into the duffel bag. He bent back to me. “Feel better, Cannie, ” he said, and rested one of his hands on top of mine.

He walked out and Samantha walked in, hurrying over to my bed. She was in full lawyer garb — a sleek black suit, high-heeled boots, a caramel-colored leather attaché case in one hand and her sunglasses and car keys in the other. “Cannie, ” she said, “I came …”

“… as soon as you heard, ” I supplied.

“How do you feel? ” asked Sam. “How’s the baby? ”

“I feel okay, and the baby … well, she’s in the baby intensive-care place. They have to wait and see. ”

Samantha sighed. I closed my eyes. I suddenly felt completely exhausted. And hungry.

I sat up, tucking another pillow behind my back. “Hey, what time is it? When’s dinner? You don’t have, like, a banana in your purse or something? ”

Samantha rose to her feet, grateful, I thought, to have something to do. “I’ll go check … hey, what’s this? ”

She pointed at the bakery box that Dr. K. had left behind.

“Don’t know, ” I said. “Dr. K. brought it. Take a look. ”

Sam ripped through the string and opened the box, and there, inside, was an é clair from the Pink Rose Pastry Shop, a wedge of chocolate bread pudding from Silk City, a brownie still in its Le Bus wrapping paper, and a pint of fresh raspberries.

“Unbelievable, ” I murmured.

“Yum! ” said Samantha. “How does he know what you like? ”

“I told him, ” I said, touched that he’d remember. “For Fat Class, we had to write down what our favorite foods were. ” Sam cut me a sliver of é clair, but it tasted like dust and stones in my mouth. I swallowed to be polite, sipped some water, then told her that I was tired, that I wanted to sleep.

I stayed in the hospital another week, healing, while Joy got bigger and stronger.

Maxi showed up every morning for a week and sat beside me and read from People, In Style, and Entertainment Weekly magazines, embroidering each story from her own personal stash of anecdotes. My mother and sister stayed with me in the daytime, making conversation, trying not to linger too long at the pauses that came where I would normally be saying something smart-ass. Samantha came every night after work and regaled me with Philadelphia gossip, about the antiquated former stars Gabby had interviewed and the how Nifkin had taken to stopping, mid-walk, and planting himself in front of my apartment building and refusing to budge. Andy came with his wife and a box of Famous Fourth Street chocolate chip cookies and a card that everyone in the newsroom had signed. “Get Well Soon, ” it read. I didn’t think that would be happening, but I didn’t tell him that.

“They’re worried about you, ” Lucy whispered when my mother was in the hall, talking about something with the nurses.

I looked at her and shrugged.

“They want you to talk to a psychiatrist. ”

I said nothing. Lucy looked very serious. “It’s Dr. Melburne, ” she said. “I had her for a while. She’s horrible. You better cheer up and start talking more, or else she’s going to ask you about your childhood. ”

“Cannie doesn’t have to talk if she doesn’t want to, ” said my mother, pouring a cup of ginger ale that nobody would drink. She straightened my flowers, plumped my pillows for the fourteenth time, sat down, then got up again, looking for something else to do. “Cannie can just rest. ”

Three days later, Joy took her first breaths without the ventilator.

Not out of the woods yet, the doctors warned me. Have to wait and see. She could be fine, or things could go wrong, but probably she’ll be okay.

And they let me hold her, finally, lifting up her four-pound-six-ounce body and cradling her close, running my fingertips over each of her hands, each fingernail impossibly small and perfect. She clutched at my finger fiercely with her own tiny ones. I could feel the bones, the push of her blood beneath her skin. Hang on, I thought to her. Hang in there, little one. The world is hard a lot of the time, but there’re good things here, too. And I love you. Your mother loves you, baby Joy.

I sat with her for hours until they made me go back to bed, and before I left I filled out her birth certificate, and my handwriting was clear and firm. Joy Leah Shapiro. The Leah was for Leonard, Bruce’s father’s middle name. Leah, the second sister, the one Jacob didn’t want to marry. Leah, the trick bride, the one her father sent down the aisle in disguise.

I bet Leah had a more interesting life anyhow, I whispered to my baby, holding her hand, with me in my wheelchair and her in her glass box that I forced myself not to see as a coffin. I bet Leah went on hiking trips with her girlfriends and had popcorn and Margaritas for dinner, if that’s what she wanted. I’ll bet she went swimming naked and slept under the stars. Rachel probably bought Celine Dion CDs and those Franklin Mint collectible plates. She was probably boring, even to herself. She never went on an adventure, never took a chance. But you and me, baby, we’re going to go on adventures. I will teach you how to swim, and how to sail, and how to build a fire … everything my mother taught me, and everything else I’ve learned. Just make it out of here, I thought, as hard as I could. Come home, Joy, and we’ll both be fine.

Two days later, I got part of my wish. They sent me home, but decided to keep Joy. “Just for another few weeks, ” said the doctor, in what I’m sure he imagined was a comforting tone. “We want to make sure that her lungs are mature … and that she’s gained enough weight. ”

I burst into bitter laughter at that one. “If she takes after her mother, ” I announced, “that shouldn’t be a problem. She’ll gain weight like a champ. ”

The doctor gave me what he no doubt believed was a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, ” he said. “Things should be fine. ”

I limped out of the hospital, blinking, in the warm May sunshine, and eased myself into my mother’s car, sitting quietly as we drove back home. I saw the leaves, the fresh green grass, the St. Peter’s schoolgirls in crisp plaid jumpers. I saw, but didn’t see. To me, the whole world looked gray. It was as if there was no room inside of me for anything except fury and fear.

My mother and Lucy unloaded my bags from the trunk and walked me to my building. Lucy carried my bags. My mother walked slowly beside me, and Tanya huffed behind us. My leg muscles felt wobbly and underused. My stitches ached, my ankle itched in its walking cast. It turned out that I’d only sprained my ankle when I’d fallen, but nobody had thought to look at my legs until days later, so the foot had stayed bent, and the tendons stayed torn, which meant a walking cast for six weeks: small potatoes, in relation to everything else I was dealing with.

I fumbled through my purse. My wallet, the half-empty pack of chewing gum, a Chap Stick and a book of matches from the Star Bar looked like relics from another life. I was groping for my keys when Lucy put her key into the first-floor door.

“I don’t live here, ” I said.

“You do now, ” said Lucy. She was beaming at me. My mother and Tanya were, too.

I limped across the threshold, my cast thumping on the hardwood floors, and stepped inside, blinking.

The apartment — a twin of mine up on the third floor, all dark wood and circa 1970s fixtures — had been transformed.

Sunlight streamed in from windows that hadn’t been there before, sparkling on the pristine, polished maple floors that had been neither pristine nor polished nor maple when I’d last seen the place.

I walked slowly into the kitchen, moving as if I were underwater. New cabinets stained the color of clover honey. In the living room were a new couch and love seat, overstuffed and comfortable, upholstered in buttery yellow denim — pretty, but sturdy, I remember telling Maxi, as I pointed out things I coveted in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living one lazy afternoon. A beautiful woven rug in garnet and dark blue and gold covered the floor. There was a flat-screen TV and a brand new stereo in the corner, stacks of brand-new baby books on the shelves.

Lucy was practically dancing, beside herself with joy. “Can you believe it, Cannie? Isn’t it amazing? ”

“I don’t know what to say, ” I told her, moving down the hall. The bathroom was unrecognizable. The Carter administration-era pastel wallpaper, the ugly dark wood vanity, the cheap stainless steel fixtures, and the cracked toilet bowl — all gone. Everything was white tile, with gold and navy accents. The tub was a whirlpool bath, with two showerheads, in case, I guessed, I wanted to bathe with a partner. There were new glass-fronted cabinets, fresh lilies in a vase, a profusion of the thickest towels I ever felt stacked on a brand-new shelf. A tiny white tub for giving the baby a bath sat on one counter, along with an assortment of bath toys, little sponges cut into the shapes of animals, and a family of rubber duckies.

“Wait until you see the baby’s room! ” Lucy crowed.

The walls were painted Lemonade Stand yellow, just the way I’d done them upstairs, and I recognized the crib that Dr. K. had put together. But the rest of the furniture was new. I saw an ornate changing table, a dresser, a white wood rocking chair. “Antiques, ” Tanya breathed, running one thick fingertip along the curved whitewashed wood that was tinged very faintly pink. There were framed pictures on the walls — a mermaid swimming in the ocean, a sailboat, elephants marching two by two. And in the corner was what looked like the world’s smallest branch of Toys “R” Us. There was every toy I’d ever seen, plus a few I hadn’t. A set of building blocks. Rattles. Balls. Toys that talked, or barked, or cried, when you squeezed them, or pulled their strings. The exact same rocking horse I’d admired in a shop in Santa Monica two months ago. Everything.

I sank slowly down into the yellow denim love seat, underneath the hanging mobile of delicate stars and clouds and crescent moons, next to a three-foot-high Paddington Bear.

“There’s more, ” said Lucy.

“You won’t even believe it, ” said my mother.

I wandered back to the bedroom. My plain metal bedframe had been replaced with a magnificent wrought-iron canopy bed. My pink sheets had been swapped for something gorgeous — rich stripes of white and gold, tiny pink flowers.

“That’s two-hundred-thread-count cotton, ” Lucy boasted, ticking off the merits of my new linens, pointing out the pillow shams and dust ruffle, the hand-knotted carpet (yellow, with a border of pink roses) on the floor, opening the closet to show off yet more of the pinkish-whitewashed antique furniture — a nine-drawer dresser, a bedside table topped with a gorgeous spray of daffodils in a blue ginger jar.

“Open the blinds, ” said Lucy.

I did. There was a new deck outside the bedroom window. There was a big clay pot of geraniums and petunias, benches and a picnic table, a gas grill the size of a Volkswagen Bug in the corner.

I sat down — collapsed, really — onto the bed. There was a tiny card on the pillow, the kind you’d get with a bouquet of flowers. I slid it open with my thumbnail.

“Welcome home, ” it read on one side. “From your friends, ” said the other.

My mother and Lucy and Tanya stood in a line, regarding me, waiting to hear my approval.

“Who …, ” I started. “How …”

“Your friends, ” said Lucy impatiently.

“Maxi? ”

The three of them exchanged a sneaky look.

“Come on, you guys. It’s not like I’ve got other friends who could afford all this. ”

“We couldn’t stop her! ” Lucy said.

“Really, Cannie, that’s true, ” said my mother. “She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She knows all of these contractors … she hired a decorator to find you all these things … there were people working in here, like, around the clock …”

“My neighbors must have loved that, ” I said.

“Do you like it? ” asked Lucy.

“It’s …” I lifted my hands, and let them sink into my lap. My heart was beating too fast, pushing pain into every part of my body that hurt. I thought of the word that I needed. “It’s amazing, ” I finally said.

“So what do you want to do? ” asked Lucy. “We could go to Dmitri’s for dinner …”

“There’s a documentary about lesbians of size at the Ritz, ” rasped Tanya.

“Shopping? ” asked my mother. “Maybe you want to stock up on groceries while we’re here to help you carry things. ”

I got to my feet. “I think I’d like to go for a walk, ” I said.

My mother and Lucy and Tanya looked at me curiously.

“A walk? ” my mother repeated.

“Cannie, ” my sister pointed out, “your foot’s still in a cast. ”

“It’s a walking cast, isn’t it? ” I snapped. “And I feel like walking. ”

I got to my feet. I wanted to exult in this. I wanted to feel happy. I was surrounded by the people I loved; I had a beautiful place to live. But I felt like I was looking at my new apartment through a dirty mirror, like I was feeling the crisp cottons and plush carpets through thick rubber gloves. It was Joy — not having Joy. None of this would feel right until my baby came home, I thought, and I was suddenly so angry that my arms and legs felt weak with the force of it, and my fists and feet tingled with the desire to hit and kick. Bruce, I thought, Bruce and the goddamn fucking Pusher. This should be my triumph, goddammit, except how can I be happy with my baby still in the hospital, when Bruce and his new girlfriend were the ones who put her there?

“Fine, ” said my mother uneasily. “So we’ll walk. ”

“No, ” I said. “By myself. I want to be by myself right now. ”

They all looked puzzled, even worried, as they filed out the door.

“Call me, ” said my mother. “Let me know when you’re ready for Nifkin to come back. ”

“I will, ” I lied. I wanted them out already, out of my house, my hair, my life. I felt like I was burning up, like I had to move or explode. I stared out the window until they’d all piled in the car and driven off. Then I pulled on a jogging bra, a ratty T-shirt, a pair of shorts, a single sneaker, and thumped out of the house and onto the hot sidewalks, determined not to think about my father, about Bruce, about my baby, about anything. I would just walk. And then, maybe, I’d be able to sleep again.

May drifted into June, and all of my days were built around Joy. I’d go to the hospital first thing in the morning, walking the thirty blocks to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as the sun came up. Robed and masked and gloved, I’d sit beside her on a sterile rocking chair in the NICU, holding her tiny hand, brushing her lips with my fingertips, singing her the songs we’d danced to months before. Those were the only moments I didn’t feel the rage consuming me; the only times I could breathe.

And when I felt the anger coming back, when I’d feel my chest tightening and my hands wanting to hit something, I’d leave her. I’d go home to pace the floors and pump my breasts, to clean and scrub floors and counters that I’d cleaned and scrubbed the day before. And I’d take long, furious walks through the city, with my ankle in the increasingly filthy walking cast, charging through yellow lights and shooting evil glances at any car that dared inch toward the intersection.

I got used to the little voice in my head, the one from the airport, the one that had floated up to the ceiling and watched me rage at Bruce while mourning quietly that he wasn’t the one. I got used to the voice asking Why? every morning, when I laced up my sneakers and yanked a succession of nondescript shirts over my head … and asking Why? again at night, when I’d play my messages back — ten, fifteen messages from my mother, my sister, from Maxi, and Peter Krushelevansky, from all of my friends — -and then erase each one without ever calling back, until the day I started erasing them without even listening. You’re too sad, the voice would murmur, as I stomped up Walnut Street. Take it easy, said the voice, as I gulped scalding black coffee, cup after cup, for breakfast. Talk to someone, said the voice. Let them help. I ignored it. Who could help me now? What was there left for me but the streets and the hospital, my silent apartment, and my empty bed?

I let the voice mail keep taking my calls. I instructed the post office that I would be out of town for an indefinite period and to please hold my mail. I let my computer gather dust. I stopped checking my e-mail. And on one of my walks I dropped my pager into the Delaware River without missing a single step. The cast came off, and I started going on even longer walks — four hours, six hours, meandering loops through the city’s worst neighborhoods, past crack dealers, hookers of the male and female variety, dead pigeons in gutters, the burned-out skeletons of cars, without seeing any of it, and without being afraid. How could any of this hurt me, after what I’d already lost? When I ran into Samantha on the street, I told her I was too busy to hang out, shifting from foot to foot with my eyes on the horizon so I wouldn’t have to see her worried face. Getting things ready, I explained, waiting to be off again. The baby’s coming home soon.

“Can I see her? ” Sam asked.

Instantly, I shook my head. “I’m not ready … I mean, she’s not ready. ”

“What do you mean, Cannie? ” asked Sam.

“She’s medically fragile, ” I said, trying out the term I’d heard over and over in the baby intensive care ward.

“So I’ll stand outside and look at her through the window, ” said Sam, looking perplexed. “And then we’ll go have breakfast. Remember breakfast? It used to be one of your favorite meals. ”

“I’ve got to go, ” I said brusquely, trying to edge my way around her. Samantha didn’t budge.

“Cannie, what is going on with you, really? ”

“Nothing, ” I said, shoving past her, my feet already moving, my eyes fixed far ahead. “Nothing, nothing, everything is fine. ”

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