my girl a lot of pain. Nobody should have to go through what my Penny’s gone through.”
“I’m truly sorry.” You know what? Bitch sounds like she might be.
“I can think of ways to ease that pain.”
“Mmm, then I’ll leave that to you.” She looks him straight in his eyes, and even though she’s skinny like a stick, he realizes she’s green inside, won’t snap easily.
He moves so he is blocking the way to the granny running the register. “You’re not understanding me.”
“I think I am,” she says, backing away.
He doubles back, one giant stride of his to three of her trot-trot pony steps. He’s making her nervous. He blocks the way again.
“In a big hurry to get to that baby, huh? Means an awful lot to you? Precious to you, right? Precious to us too. We have our rights, twenty-four hours. Rights to our own flesh and blood. Never know what might happen once he’s born.”
She swallows; a bobbing in the razor-thin lines of her throat skin.
“There are plenty of unwanted babies out there, waiting,” she says, and pushes past him to the register, places the blue card carefully on the counter. “All of them precious, all of them wanting everything John and I have to give. You didn’t think you were the only ones who chose us, did you?” She opens her wallet, thin with cash, stacked with plastic, and pays for the card, carefully zipping the change into a slit in the middle.
“Do you smoke, Jason?”
He makes a noise, and she asks for a pack of Marlboros, not his brand but he can taste them already.
“Here.” She puts down a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “For my friend here,” she tells the granny.
He picks up the cigarettes, the cellophane crinkling in his palm.
“Keep it; the change or anything else. That’s all the money you’ll see from me.” She picks up the plastic bag with the card inside and starts to walk away. “Not that it matters now, if you’re not going to sign. But just so you know,” she tells him as she shoves open the glass door, the bell on the handle ringing wildly, “we would have given him the world.”
12
No Intention of Living This Way
CHLOE
When the orderlies are wheeling the dinner trays, meat loaf with gravy that smells surprisingly good, down the hallway, Chloe calls Dan, who wants her to come home, then calls the agency, catches Judith before she leaves for the day.
“No baby yet…. Yeah, we’ve been here almost twenty-four hours…. John’s catching a plane back from L.A., should be here sometime tonight…. Yes, I’ll stay to the bitter end.”
Chloe walks back toward Penny’s room and is intercepted by Nurse Pat outside the curtain.
“I think the epidural isn’t working,” Pat tells her. “Anyway, I’m back to being a ‘motherfucker,’ so something’s not right.”
Then Pat’s shift ends; her replacement is surly, anti-adoption. Chloe sends Francie home to rest, with a promise to call when they are getting ready to push. She goes to the gift shop and buys a toothbrush, unable to stand the way her teeth feel any longer. She is about to call Dan again when the new nurse finds her in the hallway and says, “You know, even vultures have to stop circling eventually.” Chloe knows she got the line from Jason, that they’re all riled up in there. Great. She snaps her phone closed.
“Pardon?”
“I hear you’ve been here for more than twenty-four hours. Maybe you should go home, get some rest.” But she doesn’t say it like she’s concerned for Chloe’s well-being.
“Yeah, well, I wish I could.”
“You can’t stop them from changing their minds. By law, they have twenty-four hours after the birth to change their minds. It’s their right.”
“Of course it is, and lots do. And this is my job. If my boss wouldn’t jump down my throat, if I could go home and watch Friends and ER and drink wine with my fiancé, don’t you think I would?”
“You don’t make these things happen; God does. It’s in God’s hands now,” the nurse says ominously. “You obviously don’t have children.” Later, these words will come back to haunt Chloe.
“What?” she says now, manners slipping.
“I said, you obviously don’t have any children. You won’t be able to do this job once you do.”
“But I’m making a family,” Chloe protests. She feels the exhaustion, the wear and tear of the last two days on her, a sandpaper burn behind her eyes. She sniffs furiously.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to get to sleep at