“I’m sorry,” my mother says. “And so is Dad.”
“James knows what to do,” my father says.
In the corner, James is on his iPhone. He is so facile, he reminds me of the teenage girls at the Academy who come into the library—ostensibly for literary purposes, but mainly to text or sext with the boys.
“James?” Veronica says.
“I’m trying to find Dr. Noel. She said to reach out directly. I want to find out when Elodie can be discharged.”
“I thought you might need to get back to the office. If you do, Simon and I, we can be with Elodie.” Veronica is speaking about me like I’m not there.
“I’d like James to stay.” Another gush of blood. I’m imagining I should be transfused. “James?”
“Of course I’ll stay.”
A young nurse wearing navy scrubs comes into the room, dragging a cart. “Hello.” She looks at everyone and no one. “I’m checking your vital signs. Could everyone step outside, only for a few minutes.”
She lifts a digital thermometer from the cart. That’s when my father takes my mother by the elbow. My mother stares back at me woefully. If she could stay without him, I’d feel better; the room would feel less leaden.
“We’ll be down the hall, sweetie. I’ll find a mystery, a thriller, to distract you,” she says. “I should have stopped at Classic Books and picked up something.”
“We’re going. Now.” My father leads her away. It isn’t that I’ve not witnessed his brusque delivery—I’m used to it—but that I wish he wouldn’t.
* * *
More footsteps, female, not snappy, not stiletto. They stop outside the doorway.
“It’s me.” Aubrey, my younger sister, appears in the very same patch that our parents have escaped. The molecules of air have crossed and the room is reconfigured in a brighter hue. I pull myself up a few inches to greet her.
She has driven straight up from Miami. Although she is eight years younger, we could be twins. Our low hairlines, our overbites, which admirers find becoming, our narrow faces, how we squint the same way. Mostly we are pale, with streaky blond over brown hair. From where I am half-propped up on a hospital bed, she looks awfully tall, beyond her five feet seven, then I notice her platform suede sandals. She moves quickly to my bedside, smelling of organic body lotion and lavender, frowning. “Why the IV?”
“In case she needs any medication,” James says.
“Well, I’m with you, Elodie. When this episode is over, we’ll go on the Avenue—Ta-boo for lunch, Vintage Tales, Eau Spa. The stuff you like, and it will be relaxing. I’ll stay with you and James—till you are back to yoga, back to work.”
Aubrey bends a bit, drapes her arms around me as best she can. I let her. I let her be closer than anyone, including James.
I face the wall while my sister goes on about it—the Lake Trail, Balanchine at the Miami City Ballet, a mani-pedi, Swedish massages, the new Alice and Olivia, salty caramel gelato.
Then her sentences evaporate and the walls turn from hospital green to sepia.
CHAPTER 3
ELODIE
“You deserve credit for choosing a place that’s near the Avenue and we won’t be seen by anyone we know,” I say to James.
We’re at the pool area at the Colony Hotel at noon. We’ve been ushered to a table with an umbrella and my husband of eleven years and I sit facing each other. My second time out since my miscarriage, and the world feels precarious, precious.
“Being here is a little like playing hooky. I bet we’re the only ones who have to get back to their desks,” James says.
“We seem older; we’re the only ones not in the sun.” I point to women in string bikinis on the lounge chairs and a few toned men languidly reading texts on their iPhones. They seem to be trying to get rays, to be tanned if not sunburned. Suddenly I feel like we might not be as fetching and quintessential a Palm Beach “young couple” anymore. My friends are out and about right now. Some at work, a few at Longreens or Mar-a-Lago, playing tennis, golf, or cards. There are the “girl lunches” at the Breakers beach club or purse shopping, an occasional parent-teacher conference at the Academy.
“We came to talk, Elodie.”
At least we are invisible—no friends or family, no members of the Literary Society are circling. Besides, the southeast breeze will blow our words away from us, toward the Intracoastal.
A young woman about Aubrey’s age, blond, with a pretty face, hands us two menus, which flap in the wind. Are James and I about to decide on more change orders, discuss delays in deliveries for our new house? A list lights up in my head: custom floors—La Roche di Rex from Italy—closets with windows, an ill-conceived, then restructured terrace off the master bedroom. All this after we’ve settled the architecture debacle over Mediterranean or Bermuda style. The past year, James and I have been looped together, a team for the house. James usually wins—because he cares so much, because I speak more softly. He holds up his forefinger and middle finger. “We’ll have two iced teas.”
As our server disappears, I’m tempted to switch my order to a latte. Instead, I watch her go, wondering if she has children, what their names are. Does her husband work nearby? Do they live on the other side of the Intracoastal? Perhaps in West Palm or Lantana, or right in Lake Worth.
“Is living across the bridge more family-oriented?” I ask.
“More family-oriented?” James says. “I don’t know. Less tony, that’s for sure. There are plenty of families on the island—right in Palm Beach.”
If our server has children, they would be very young and very blond.
“Listen, Elodie,” James says. “Dr. Noel has said—”
“What? When did you speak with Dr. Noel?”
“When you were at South Palm. She was with you first and you heard what she said and then she and I had a brief—”
“Without me? Don’t we speak to Dr. Noel together?”
James raises his arms; his muscles show more than most husbands’ do. He’s in a kelly green polo shirt and khakis, meaning he might only stop at ANVO for an hour this afternoon, that he has golf plans with clients.
“There were two minutes, she and I were by the door to your room. I wanted to feel her out,” James says. “Calmly.”
Although I should have been included, I don’t say this smacks of betrayal. Instead, I admit to myself that I’ve been touchy. I give him credit for searching for answers. I wait.
“What she suggested is that we hire a gestational carrier, using a donor egg, a surrogate.”
“That’s what she said?” I look at his face.
He nods.
“James, stop, please. I don’t know what you’re thinking,” I say.
“I’m offering the options.”
“Options? Options?”
“Hear me out, please.” My husband drums his hand on the arm of his chair.
I move my body about, repositioning myself. My uterus is cramping in the aftermath of the miscarriage.
“It would be my sperm and someone else’s egg … artificial insemination. Then that woman would give birth to our baby.”