The Other Life (25 page)

“Isaac!” someone called.

Quinn looked up and saw a boy from her son’s class. “Look, honey,” she said. “It’s Rasheed.”

Isaac grinned, and Quinn realized it was the first time she saw him smile since yesterday morning. He took the seat next to his friend, who picked up two purple foam circles and held them in front of his eyes like glasses. Isaac laughed, and Quinn felt relieved. He was going to be fine—he just needed some time.

A short woman with shiny black hair clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention, and announced that the grown-ups should leave and come back in forty-five minutes. Uh-oh
,
Quinn thought. This is going to be trouble. She looked at Isaac, expecting the wild-eyed panic he always exhibited in these situations, but his face was placid. She put her hand on his shoulder and addressed him gently.

“They want the mommies and daddies to wait outside,” she said.

No response.

“You’ll be fine, right?”

He shrugged.

“I’m not leaving the library,” she said. “I’ll be right across the hall in the children’s room, finding some books we can read together, okay?”

He picked up the purple rings and held them in front of his eyes as he looked at her.

“You’re invisible,” he said.

Isaac, she realized, was coping with the trauma of losing her yesterday by finding a way to “control” the situation. If he held the power of making her disappear, he could also make her reappear.

“Those must be magic rings,” she said.

“They are.”

She kissed the top of his head. “I’ll be right across the hall.”

Quinn spent the remainder of the day by Isaac’s side, and little by little he warmed up. By that night, they were cuddled up together in his bed as she read to him from the library’s copy of
Charlotte’s Web
. It had been one of her childhood favorites, and she hadn’t read it in years.

Reading it as an adult, of course, was a completely different experience, and Quinn found herself choked with emotion from the very first page, struggling to read aloud over a strangling lump in her throat. By the middle of the book she was weeping.

“Why are you crying?” Isaac asked.

Why? Because her sweet son was coming around. Because he was still young enough to nestle in the crook of her arm as she read him a book, but old enough to appreciate this wonderful story that started out as a simple tale of a girl saving a small pig, and evolved into a fable about trust and treachery, love and miracles, and, ultimately, all the heartbreak and wonder in the circle of life. She was crying because a grown-up writer believed that beautiful sentences weren’t wasted on children. And because even as an adult, she still struggled to believe she deserved any tenderness at all.

 

 

THE NEXT DAY, Quinn and Hayden sat facing each other in upholstered chairs in the visiting room of the New York University Hospital psychiatric ward. Unlike the last time she saw him, his hair was clean and his eyes were bright. Hayden was fully dressed—in jeans and a faded sweatshirt—as the patients on this floor weren’t allowed to lounge around in pajamas like sick people. The only difference was the footwear. He was in slippers because laces (and indeed all things that could be fashioned into a noose) were considered contraband.

“Thanks for coming to see me,” he said.

“Of course.” She tried to smile.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She wasn’t, but she didn’t think it was particularly appropriate to unburden her emotional problems on her brother while he was in the psych ward.

“Shouldn’t I be asking
you
that?” she said.

He smiled at the joke, but addressed her seriously. “You’re allowed to have problems, too.”

Not really, she thought. Not here, not now. Quinn looked around the room at the small groups huddled in conversation. Everyone seemed involved in an unspoken conspiracy of pretending these were the most normal circumstances in which to have a chat.

“You seem like you’re doing better,” Quinn offered.

“I had two rounds of electroshock.”

She tried not to grimace. “What is it like?”

He shrugged. “They put you out. It’s like nothing.”

“But it really helps?”

“A lot.”

She nodded. “What about memory loss?” she asked, as she knew it was one of the side effects.

“So far, so good,” he said. “But who knows? I could forget we ever had this conversation.”

She almost laughed, but caught herself—he wasn’t kidding. “Are you worried?” she asked.

He shrugged. “If it happens, it happens. It’s only temporary.”

A man with a missing tooth asked if he could have the chair they weren’t using, and Hayden said it was fine. Quinn studied her brother to see if it disturbed him to be in this strange place among mentally ill people, some of whom were delusional and possibly dangerous. But he looked calm.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Hayden said to Quinn, after the chair was dragged off. “I guess you probably figured it out, but it was me. I was the one who moved the curio cabinet back.” He paused. “And returned the paintings.”

Yes, of course. Who else could it have been? But why? It was so bewildering Quinn couldn’t imagine what his explanation would be.

“I don’t understand,” she said quietly.

“I don’t, either, but”—he paused to run his fingers through his hair—“I found the paintings in Cordell’s closet.”

“What?”

Hayden looked agitated. “Please don’t freak,” he said.

Talk about shock therapy. Quinn was reeling, but she steadied herself. “I’m not freaking,” she said evenly. “Tell me what happened.”

Hayden took a deep breath. “He left for Los Angeles to film that show and I went into his closet looking for a shirt I thought he might have borrowed. Instead, I found the paintings. I nearly passed out.”

“Why would he do that? Why would he steal the paintings?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. As soon as I found them I changed the locks on my apartment ... and then put the paintings back in Mom’s studio.”

“Why did you keep it a secret, Hayden? Why didn’t you call me?”

He pulled a tissue from the box next to him and blew his nose. He took another tissue and dabbed at his eyes. It took him a few minutes before he could respond.

“I was afraid you would call the police. I didn’t want him arrested.”

“But if he stole the paintings—”

“Please,” he interrupted. His voice sounded desperate.

She backed off. “Okay,” she said, but knew that when he was feeling more stable she would bring it up again. If Cordell stole the paintings, he deserved to be arrested.

“Anyway, I haven’t spoken to him since,” Hayden said. “He keeps calling but I don’t answer. You should see my cell phone. I have sixty-six messages.” His eyes watered and he paused, waiting for it to pass. “How could he do this, Quinn?” he whispered, as if this were the one thing he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

“I loved him.”

“I know.”

“He’s back in New York now—I heard it through the grapevine. He’s staying with some friends on West Fourth.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Probably. But even if he comes to visit, they won’t let him in.”

“That’s good,” she said.

“Is it? I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep imagining him walking through the door, holding flowers. I try to imagine a plausible explanation so I can forgive him, but I can’t make it work.” He paused, sighed. “Anyway, now you know. Now you know what pushed me over the edge.”

She reached for his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.

“I guess.”

Quinn changed the subject. “Do you know when you’re getting out of here?”

“A few days, I think. I’m eager to get back to my students. Some of them sent me get-well cards.”

She smiled. “They’re good kids.”

“The best.”

“You’re going to be okay,” she said to her brother.

“So are you.”

She nodded and wished she could believe it.

 

 

WHEN QUINN GOT OFF the elevator in the lobby, an older couple in warm-up suits approached her and asked if she knew where the maternity ward was.

“Maternity?” she said.

The woman’s rheumy eyes filled. “Our daughter had a baby,” she said. It seemed as if her joy might cause her to detonate if she didn’t get the words out.

The husband held up the flowers he had brought, as if that constituted all the proof Quinn might need.

Quinn couldn’t help smiling. “Congratulations,” she said. “Your first grandchild?”

They nodded simultaneously, which Quinn found so adorable she almost laughed. She wanted to adopt them.

“Let’s find out where you need to go,” she said, and walked them over to the security guard. As he gave directions, pointing toward the elevator they would need to take, he put his hand on Quinn’s back. It occurred to her that he assumed she was with the couple, perhaps their other daughter—the new aunt. She enjoyed the fantasy and decided to go with it. After all, she had time to kill. Quinn was meeting an old friend from Baston’s Books uptown for lunch, and had an hour or so with nothing to do.

She got on the elevator with her pretend parents, and when the doors opened they thanked her and said good-bye. Quinn stepped out into the wide hallway and watched them walk away, feeling bereft. She wasn’t quite ready to go back to being a sad and frightened pregnant woman whose mother was dead.

Quinn eyed the double doors to the maternity ward and felt a pull. New mothers. New babies. So much joy. She wanted to get close to it, to breathe it all in like pure oxygen.

Why not, she thought, and walked through the doors as if she belonged there. She didn’t want to stop and ask any questions that might arouse suspicions about her presence, so she got in step behind a nurse pushing a newborn in a bassinet. Just as she expected, the woman led her straight to the nursery.

Quinn got close to the glass and looked inside. The brightly lit room was similar to the one at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, where she had given birth to Isaac. Tiny babies swaddled in the hospital’s flannel receiving blankets were on display in acrylic bassinets. Each had a little sign with the baby’s name and gender. New moms and other proud relatives stood outside the window, smiling, laughing, cooing and even crying. Emotions were high, and Quinn felt her heart contract. This is it, she thought. This is where joy lives.

Quinn turned and saw a woman in a bathrobe waddle to the nurses’ station dragging an IV pole, her eyes swollen and red. She asked to be directed to the NICU. Neonatal intensive care unit, Quinn thought, the other place. The one where hope and sorrow fought a daily battle. When hope was defeated, the losses were unimaginable. The tiniest fallen soldiers, Quinn thought, could leave the most giant hearts battered and broken.

I shouldn’t do this, Quinn thought, as she followed the woman to the NICU. But she had to. She had to get a glimpse of her future.

Quinn stood to the side as the woman had her wristband checked and was let into the room. Though the window was smaller here, Quinn could see the woman take a chair toward the back, and watched as a nurse carefully picked up a small baby and placed it in the woman’s arms. All she could tell about the infant was that it was much too small. The mother, Quinn sensed, was saying good-bye.

It was a private moment, and Quinn looked away, focusing instead on an infant in front of the window. He or she—it was impossible to tell here—wore a white cap and had ruddy skin. Quinn intuited that this was a boy. There was an oxygen tube in his nose, a piece of tape on the side of his face holding it in place. Another tube protruded from what looked like a cuff on his birdlike arm. The baby opened his eyes, blinked, closed them again. This went on for several minutes, and Quinn could feel this child fighting. She didn’t even realize she was crying until a nurse stopped by and asked her if she was okay.

Quinn shook her head and the nurse waited for her to elaborate.

“I’m pregnant,” she began, and didn’t mean to let it all tumble out, but it did. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. She explained about the encephalocele and the MRI. She told the woman that her mother had committed suicide and that her brother was upstairs in the psych ward. She explained that she wasn’t supposed to be there but had followed a couple inside.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. “I couldn’t help it.”

The nurse, who was a head shorter than Quinn, had listened intently. And now that Quinn was done, she expected the woman to be apologetic about kicking her out. Perhaps she’d give Quinn some medical advice or tell her to seek counseling. But she didn’t.

“Come here,” said the nurse, and she led Quinn into the NICU, where she instructed her to wash her hands and put a paper gown over her clothes. Then she pushed a chair next to the little fighter by the window and asked Quinn to sit down. The nurse lifted the baby and gently placed it in Quinn’s arms.

“This is Carly,” she said.

Quinn stared at the tiny face. “A girl?”

“Yes.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Two days ago we thought we were losing her. But she’s surprising everyone.”

Carly seemed to weigh almost nothing. Quinn brought the tiny body close to hers and felt a tug in her breasts, as a primal chain reaction of hormones urged her not-quite-ready milk ducts to let down. She felt washed in a blissful, protective, “dear God, don’t let anything happen to this baby” emotion she could only describe as love.

Quinn touched the tiny hand and four impossibly small digits wrapped around her finger. “Carly,” she whispered. “You show them, little girl. You show them what you’ve got.”

Carly’s eyes blinked open and she seemed to stare into Quinn’s face. It was magical. Suddenly, everything but this one potent connection was irrelevant.