an expert on glutes and fate, discussing her baby with Floss and Aston. “I swear to God, Floss,” Orla said. “You have no filter!”
“It’s not like I told her your name or anything,” Floss said, raising a shoulder defensively. “I called you Pat, like our fake publicist from the old days.”
“I don’t mean what gets out,” Orla said. “I mean you’ll let just anyone in.”
The truth of it swelled inside her. Every scheme they brought to life together, every drink they shared without wiping the other’s spit from the bottle, every drunk ride home with their feet in each other’s laps—to Orla it had been everything, an end, but to Floss it had only been means.
This time, Orla shoved the table into their chests as she stood.
It was Aston who came after her, soundless on the rug, so that she didn’t know he had followed her until his hand shot past hers to hold the door closed. “All we’re asking,” he said, “is that you give it some thought. This is a big moment for you, with Polly and the book. We know you’ve been looking for a solution, and—well, we’re family already, you and me and Floss. Is it really that crazy? Worse than giving her to strangers?”
Orla stared at his hand on the door. She noticed yet another scar for the first time: a beet-red swath of skin across his knuckles, scattered with deep white pockmarks. “I don’t know the gender,” she said. “I didn’t find out.”
“Well, I think it’s a girl,” Aston said. There was a warmth to his voice that knocked Orla back for a second. The unwanted thought that came to her then was: he would be a better dad than Danny. It made no sense on the surface, she knew. To the naked eye, Danny was salt of the earth, Aston a sizable tumble in America’s cultural downfall. But he would be better. She was sure. She pushed the thought away and pushed past Aston out the door. He let her go. She heard him call, as she went down the stairs, “Hold the railing—careful.”
The street outside was empty, the surprise ride from Amadou evidently a one-way arrangement. Orla looked both ways for one of the globes that signaled the train. She pulled out her phone and tried to focus on the slow-loading map. On her way out of the kitchen, she had noticed the orange bodega tag on the bottle of apple juice. Three ninety-nine, that was all it cost, and they hadn’t even taken the sticker off. Orla fluffed up her indignation, trying to make it put out the feeling sparking like an ember beneath it. The sensation that suddenly, if she wanted it—she had found a way out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Marlow
New York, New York
2051
In the drone, in the sky, in the Statue’s shadow, Honey decoded cursive and read the letter out loud to Marlow.
January 5, 2022
Orla—
Serious question: Who the fuck do you think you are?
No, really—I’d love to know what your plan was. What were you gonna do, sit with the kids while they ate their cake and tell them your sad little story?
Who were you planning to tell the birthday girl you were? That’s the part—the thought of you going up to Marlow—that makes me want to track you down and slap you. It’d be well worth the price of a flight. Fuck, I’d even fly coach. So you’re lucky that I don’t know where you are. (Which is bananas, by the way. I gave you the goddamn apartment! Live there! It’s free! You’re free!!)
Also, Orla, this stationery. I mean, what? I’m only using it now so you understand it’s in my hands, not hers.
I’m not trying to be a bitch. I ripped up the first version of this letter because it was coming off super mean, and I know you must think it was mean of me to have you thrown out of the party. But I’m a mother, Orla, and that’s what mothers do—they don’t fuck around when they think someone’s hurting their child.
I would think you of all people would get that?!?
(Now I’m thinking that was harsher than anything in the first letter. But my hand is starting to cramp, so whatever. I’m not starting over again.)
There’s something else I want to say to you. It’s not exactly “sorry.” I’m not much of a “sorry” person—I live with no regrets. Unlike Aston. He still never shuts up about Anna, by the way. He’d still be trying to give her