She’s not going to spend eternity in it, I scolded myself. She’d just be wearing it until they were cremated. Which brought up a whole new ball of issues. Were there rules about what she could wear?
I didn’t want to bring up that gruesome topic with Neil, and especially not in front of Olivia. So, I said, “Yeah, sure,” and left the room.
Down the hallway, with its impeccably shiny new dark wood flooring, was Emma and Michael’s bedroom. The light was off, but the door was open. Inside, curtains covered the window, blocking all but the faint light spilling around the edges. I felt around for the light switch and clicked it on.
Was there anything more intensely personal than going into a person’s bedroom without them? I felt like I was doing something wrong. I opened the walk-in closet and turned on the light.
Though her father owned two fashion magazines, suits that cost more than an average American family’s annual income, and enough shoes to outfit a whole army of millipedes, Emma hadn’t inherited any of that sartorial excess. She was one of those women who had outfits that worked for her, multiples of flattering things in different colors, and components that could be mixed for various looks. Nothing screamed, “Send me to my final rest!” to me. Not that I expected someone my age to have picked out her funeral duds and carefully set them aside.
I couldn’t make the decision. Instead, I pulled out several things I thought might work, arranged them side by side on the bed, and would make Valerie choose the winner. Something about the speed at which everything was moving made it feel like she was being left out of her daughter’s death. Probably just because of the baby.
Did she even know, yet?
I headed downstairs, thinking to step into the kitchen and quietly phone her, but as I passed the front door, someone rang the bell.
“I bet that’s the social worker,” Laura called from the kitchen. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.” I made the trek back up the stairs and to the nursery.
Neil sat in the rocking chair beside the crib, holding Olivia in the crook of his arm. She gazed up at him sleepily, fighting unconsciousness. She gripped the index finger of his other hand in her tiny fist, and he stroked the back of her chubby little arm with his thumb.
“Your daddy loves you very much. And your mummy…your mummy was the very best girl in the world.” He sniffed. “You’re going to come live with Afi and Sophie, and you won’t want for anything. But we’ll never be the same as your mummy and daddy.”
Olivia gurgled and gave him a sleepy smile.
“Hey, Neil?” I asked softly, alerting him to my presence
. “The social worker is here.”
He stared straight ahead, then blinked and got to his feet, still cradling Olivia in his arm. I understood his hesitation. When we put this whole “legal guardian” thing in motion, that was it. There was no going back to the time when Emma and Michael were her parents. Sure, that was true even if we didn’t sign papers and go to court or whatever hellish thing this process would entail, but it seemed like we should be able to just stomp on the brake a second and ease into this.
There was no easing where death was concerned. It was a difficult lesson, and I seemed to be learning it a little more every minute.
* * * *
After our brief meeting with the social worker, Neil and I worked with Laura to pack up the essentials. We would make arrangements to have all of Olivia’s things delivered to the house in Sagaponack, but at the moment, we just took what we could carry in the cab. A few changes of clothes, her bottles, and some formula Laura ran out to pick up for us. We would have to feed Olivia formula until we could get in touch with a milk bank. Emma would be furious with us.
We also wrangled Olivia’s car seat and playpen into the taxi, and Neil tipped the driver obscenely well when we arrived back at the apartment. The guy probably could have called off the rest of his shift with the wad of cash Neil had thrust upon him.
By the time we reached the apartment, Olivia was done. I knew she hated the car, but I’d had no idea how much. She was frantic by the time we got upstairs, and I was on the verge of tears with her. Thank god Neil hadn’t lost his dad skills. He mixed up a bottle of the formula like he’d just done it yesterday, tested it on his arm, and calmed her with a gentle voice so she could settle down and actually eat. All the while, I watched in fascination. Would I ever be able to do that? There was some kind of unspoken language between them that I suspected hinged upon his ease around infants that reassured them they weren’t in danger of being dropped or poisoned.
The house seemed so weird with a baby in it. Though Olivia fell asleep right after Neil gave her the bottle, I remained on high alert. I couldn’t relax; my mind was focused to a pin-point—a painful state to be in with all this fresh grief—but my body was exhausted. It was like I’d been double fisting Red Bull after twenty-six hours without sleep.
If I was exhausted, Neil was entirely depleted. He sat in one of the armchairs in the living room, Olivia sleeping against his shoulder. After a massive burp, she’d just kind of lost consciousness. A little bit of formula glazed the corners of her slack mouth.
Neil tipped his head to rest gently against hers. His voice was hoarse when he said, “I think I’ll put her down in the bedroom and try to sleep, myself. Before we have to go to the…”
To the funeral home He didn’t have to say it. I was glad he didn’t.
I should have tried to get some rest, too, but I found myself pacing around, moving from one room to the next, my mind whirling. Olivia was going to live with us. Like, forever. There would be parent/teacher conferences. There would be terrible twos and coloring on the walls. Everything would be sticky.
But there would also be back-to-school shopping and Barbie. I had loved Barbie. Or, if Olivia turned out to really be a boy, there would be sports and video games—well, not that a girl Olivia couldn’t do those things. Either way, I saw a future full of baby dolls and Hot Wheels cars and Lego—
Oh, god. I was going to step on a Lego. There was no way we could get through eighteen years without stepping on a Lego.
Eighteen years. Neil would be, what? Seventy? Seventy-one? And we would have a teenager in the house. And what if something happened, his cancer came back or something? It wasn’t as if he would just get over it a second time and everything would be fine. I could end up a single mom, or single mom-ish. I’d never wanted that. It had been a part of my rationale for not going through with my pregnancy in the first place.
And, now, we were parents, sort of.