Shatter My Rock (5 page)

Having
escaped the threat of group B strep, Owen leaves the hospital two days later
with Tim and Ally. But I am not so lucky, a postpartum bleed—hemorrhaging the
medical staff were unable to stem, despite their extensive efforts and
interventions—prompting an emergency hysterectomy that left me bedridden, groggy,
and in pain for the next three days. Finally, the doctors believe I’m well
enough to go.

Ally
coasts into my room first, in all her glory as a new big sister. Then comes Tim
with Owen strapped to his chest. When I see the three of them, I must
recalibrate my thinking. It has been me, Tim and Ally for so long; now
this
is what my family looks like.

And
it looks good.

“Get
over here!” I say to Ally, whose little pumpkin face I have missed as if it
were my lifeblood.

She
knows I need a hug and delivers an embrace that would make a grizzly proud. I
try not to wince, but fail. She notices and frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“Ready
to fly the coop?” Tim asks gleefully. I have five weeks of maternity leave left,
and he’s anxious for every minute.

I
motion at Owen. “Take him out. I want to hold him.”

Tim
should argue with me, say,
We’ll be home soon; you can hold him all night if
you want.
But he knows I can’t wait.

He
floats Owen into my arms, and I ask, “How has he been sleeping?”

“Pretty
good. Four hours straight last night.”

I
skim
my fingers over Owen’s, noting his impossibly tiny nails and
knuckles so closely spaced they seem as if they’ll fail to bend. Yet they do. When
I lay my thumb in his palm, he curls his fingers around it and squeezes.

I
think of Ally and, for a moment, feel sad that my memories of her are not more
indelibly etched, my recall not so sharp as to render time inconsequential.

“Technically,
they’ve already discharged me,” I tell Tim with a glance at my neatly packed
luggage. “I just have to check out at the desk before we go.”

Ally
slings my bag—obviously oversized for her petite frame—onto her shoulder
without anyone having to ask.

I
kiss Owen on the forehead and then rub the kiss away before passing him to Tim,
who has already perfected the tricky task of marrying a newborn with a BabyBjorn.
Just one more thing about him for me to love.

I
have only been away for a few days, but somehow the house has shifted around
this new family of ours.

Tim
helps me to the recliner in the den, which I struggle to lower myself into
without popping any sutures. Thank God, the doctors have double-stitched me: a
row on the inside and a row on the out.

“I’m
tired,” I say, acutely aware of how ragged I must look. I am beyond the age
where anything bounces back automatically. “Can you bring me a blanket?”

For
a split second, Tim hesitates, torn between helping me and tending to Owen, whom
he has yet to settle. “Let me get his bassinet,” he says. “I’ll grab the throw
off the bed.”

I
cautiously recline the chair and close my eyes, wait for Tim to return. But
Ally is the one to drape the mottled chenille throw across my legs and tuck it
under me. I don’t even have to open my eyes to know.

“Thanks,
sweetheart,” I whisper as she draws the shades. But I’m not so sure she has
heard. “Ally, come here.” I pause until I sense her. “Where’s Muffin?”

It’s
the only thing that’s off in this house: Tim’s big galumph of a dog has failed
to greet us.

“Daddy
sent him to Gran’s,” Ally says. “He was bugging the baby.”

“What
do you mean ‘bugging the baby?’”

“He
kept putting his head in the bassinet, like he was going to bite. And he tore
up a bunch of stuff too.”

We’ve
had Muffin for over two years, and he has never once acted this way, except
with the fertility idol. “What did he tear up?” I ask, stumped as I survey the
den, which looks fine.

“The
baby’s stuff: blankets, clothes, toys… He broke the changing table too.”

“He
broke the changing table?” I repeat, trying to picture how a dog might
accomplish such a thing. Then again, in Muffin’s case, a wild imagination is
not necessary. Great Danes are big to start with, and Muffin is a skyscraper of
a brute. “Was Daddy upset?”

“More
like mad,” Ally says, as if the notion surprises her. “He went a little
cuckoo.”

Like
Muffin tearing up the house, Tim going cuckoo is out of the norm. “Is
everything okay?” I ask. Maybe there has been more pressure on my husband than
I’ve realized.

Ally
nods. “Uh-huh.”

Resilience.
The girl has it in spades. “If you need anything, all you have to do is ask,” I
remind her with an encouraging smile. “That’s what we’re here for.”

She
draws a breath and squeaks, “When can Muffin come home?”

I
miss him too, not that I’d admit it. “I’ll talk to Daddy.”

The
problem with Muffin is testosterone, the hormonal balance in our house having
changed. Where Tim and Muffin once countered me and Ally, now there’s Owen—and too
much manliness to go around.

“I
don’t trust him,” Tim tells me when I bring up the subject of the dog. “You
didn’t see the look in his eyes.”

I
can’t make sense of this. If I thought Muffin would do harm, I would’ve
insisted we got rid of him long ago. “Come on,” I say. “Really?”

Tim
ponders his oatmeal, but a wailing screech from Owen’s room intervenes. I try
to stand, but he stops me. “I’ll go.”

I
am still sore, bruised but healing, each new day better than the last. “Okay.”

Tim
returns with Owen nestled in the crook of his arm, a pacifier squeaking between
the baby’s eager lips. “Want me to feed him?” I ask. I should be breastfeeding,
but my milk has been spotty. When it’s there, I pump. Otherwise, it’s formula.

There
has been a passive-aggressive battle brewing between Tim and me in the last few
days over Owen’s care, a tug-of-war I seem to be winning. “Sure,” he says. He lays
the baby in my arms. “Let me get the bottle.”

The
funny thing is, Tim and I both know all he has to do is wait me out. In a few
weeks, I will be back to work, and Owen will be his. Just like Ally.

He
passes me a warmed bottle, and I trade it for the pacifier, a move that draws
frantic suckling from Owen. While he feeds, I fall for his pudgy cheeks, the
slope of his upturned nose, the pools of blue that rule his irises. Mostly
gifts from Tim.

Ally
rumbles into the kitchen, a pair of old-school roller skates dangling from her
arm. “Ready?”

Tim
appears caught, which makes me giggle.

“You
got the present, didn’t you?” Ally asks with a sigh.

Tim’s
gaze flies to the clock, then the calendar. “Kelsey’s party?”

“Uh,
yeah.
”

I
am enthralled by this turn of events, a chink in Tim’s armor exposed. “I’m
sorry,” he says to both me and Ally. Then to me specifically, “Will you be okay
if…?”

“Of
course,” I say, shooing him off. “Go.”

It’s
a matter of minutes before I hear the van clear the driveway, time I spend staring
dead-eyed at an innocuous sheet of paper Tim has left on the kitchen table. I
must have laid eyes on the thing twenty times since we arrived home from the
hospital, but only now do I see.

The
letters seem to lift off the page:
Fowler, Owen Richard; blood type: AB.
An assertion so implausible it invites dismissal, yet…

I
hear Dr. Patel’s voice say, “Is there any chance this could be a natural
conception?”

Then
Eric Blair, “You were good, you know.”

I
study Owen, but I can’t tell. And it doesn’t matter. He is mine.

My
return to work is met with the fanfare normally reserved for military homecomings
and ticker-tape parades: glittery “welcome” signs; a canopy of baby-blue
streamers; Mylar balloons so thick I can hardly discern I
have
an office
anymore.

I
punch a few of the floating obstacles out of my way and settle at my desk,
where I find a giant card—on the order of two-feet by three-feet—that has been
signed by maybe two-hundred people. My work in HR puts me in contact with
almost everyone in this place, if however briefly.

I
scan the names and well-wishes, trying to grant each its due. But something
halts me. In nearly microscopic print, a message from Eric Blair:
You’re
welcome, Claire-bear.
He has signed this cryptic sentiment:
Kisses,
Roofie.

The
closing throws me, but the use of that skin-crawl-inducing pet name leaves no
doubt about its author. As for the message itself, I assume he aims to take
credit for Owen, seeks praise for a job well done.

I
open my briefcase and shuffle some papers until I find the lab report, which I
have painstakingly concealed from Tim for weeks.

One
last time I look, still disbelieving. Tim and I are both blood type A; type AB
is not a possibility.

I
feel around under my desk, my fingers landing on the power switch of a
shredder. I press it and feed the report through. Of course, this evidence
still exists outside my realm of control, in God knows how many medical
databases by now. But for a moment, relief descends.

Roofie.
The word is familiar, yet I can’t place it—at first. And when I do, I wish I
hadn’t. Those days and weeks—months and years—I spent numbing the pain of what
happened to Ricky have come back to haunt me.

Rohypnol.
It’s a date-rape drug with a variety of street names, chief among them roofie.
I can see that small white pill pinched between my fingers, masquerading as a
simple muscle relaxer with the promise of smashing my migraine to smithereens.

Instead,
this.

There
is a tower of work clogging my inbox that looks as if it will take six months
to slog through, including a sexual harassment lawsuit in which I am both a
representative of Hazelton United and a primary witness. A low-level department
head got handsy with her intern, who didn’t return the favor. Now he’s suing us
for a million five. The hope is that my testimony will be deemed immaterial, if
it comes to that, since the incident I witnessed occurred off company grounds.
I’m recommending a settlement.

I
buzz Laurie’s extension. “Can you set up a meeting with legal on the Harper
case?”

“When?”

“As
soon as possible.”

“Sure
thing.”

“And…”
I know there’s something else I need her to jump on, but it escapes me, my
brain awash in mommy hormones. “That’s all, I guess.”

I
have found a way to shut Eric Blair’s mouth for good, a plan that leaves Tim, Owen,
Ally and me untouched. But I need Jenna’s help.

“Can
I ask you a favor?” I say to her a few days later at lunch. I catch myself
subconsciously nibbling my lip and stop.

She
breezily replies, “Yeah. Shoot.”

“Can
you get me a copy of IT’s credit card statement for the last year or so?”

She
squints. “What for?”

“I
need to check something. It’s a personnel matter,” I lie. It’s clear she wants
more, so I add, “There may have been some unauthorized charges by one of the
techs. I want to nip it in the bud.”

In
reality, I hope to find the noose Eric Blair has looped around his neck, so I
can kick the box out from under him.

“Give
me a couple of days,” she says. “Things are really hectic right now.”

I
don’t want to appear too desperate. “No problem. Take your time.”

She
grins. “You know, I thought you were going to ask me to babysit.”

This
idea wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years. Two million. “Really?”

She
nods, rolls her eyes. “Can you imagine?”

“I
think I can,” I say, because I am. Some time alone with Tim would be heaven-sent.

Jenna’s
convertible wheels into our driveway at quarter to six on Saturday, a ripple of
silver in a sea of black. Even our luxury minivan has not escaped this
unwritten rule: Black is classy, chic, sophisticated. The elegance of a well-tailored
suit.

“I
love your neighborhood,” Jenna says as I greet her at the door. “It’s so
peaceful.”

“Thanks,”
I reply. “It’s great for the kids.”

This
statement once seemed a foregone conclusion, a fact so indisputable it rivaled
Newton’s third law. But I now wonder if we’re doing Ally and Owen a disservice
by raising them in the insular bubble of this gated community-equivalent, a
place so separate it defies even the need for bars.

“My
condo’s great, but you can
breathe
out here,” Jenna says, puffing her
lungs full of crisp autumn air.

I
tug the door shut and lead the way to the kitchen, where Tim blots residual
formula from the corners of Owen’s mouth and then leans the baby over his
shoulder, a clean rag at the ready.