After visiting the old prefab home in Ogallala, I found my way back to the Conoco where I begged and pleaded with the ticket lady to trade my obsolete ticket in for a new one. I’d missed the bus to Fort Collins, of course. For twenty bucks she said she would. Grudgingly. It was dark by then. The next bus wouldn’t arrive until the middle of the night: 3:05 a.m.
But I hadn’t gone to the Conoco right away. After I’d stopped sniveling in that stranger’s yard, I made my way over to the cemetery off Fifth Street and laid down on the lawn, right between Momma and Daddy.
And then I got myself together and did what needed to be done.
Every single light in the A-frame must’ve been turned on. I saw everything as if I was in that house with them all, a fly on the wall. I saw Paul Zeeger in an upstairs room, slipping off a tie. Big Lily, cradling that gosh darn baby in her arms, rocking her back and forth in a subliminal sway, her hand sweeping across the baby’s stupid head. The dog, at her feet, began a happy dance, and when Big Lily meandered to the back door to let it outside, I hid behind an enormous tree. “Go, Tyson,” she said with a slight kick to his behind, “Hurry up,” and then she closed the door, and that dog, with its amazing snout, sought me out in the trees and licked me. I pushed it away, whispered Go! in whatever firm voice I could muster, letting my eyes run their course through the home. The fireplace was on, a TV in the Zeeger bedroom (where Paul now lay, spread out across the bed) tuned in to the news.
And then there was Lily, Little Lily, my Lily, in a bedroom, all alone, braiding the hair of a baby doll. She sat on the edge of a purple bed with that doll pressed between her legs, winding the strands around her fingers. My Lily wasn’t a baby anymore. In fact, she was older than I’d been when Momma and Daddy died.
And she was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Just like Momma had been.
“Why didn’t you just take Rose?” Ms. Flores asks as she breaks off a bite of muffin and sets it in her mouth, letting it slowly dissolve. “Rose was your sister after all.”
“Lily,” I snap. “Her name is Lily,” I say, imagining the way she tired of braiding the doll’s hair—maybe she didn’t know how to do it, or maybe she was just tired of playing with the doll, I don’t know—but I saw the way she spun that doll around and stared into her acrylic eyes for a split second before she flung it across the room. The doll’s head smashed into the purple wall and fell like a brick from the sky. At the same time, Paul and Big Lily jumped, but it was Big Lily—beckoned by the sound of my Lily’s cry—who placed the baby in a cradle and climbed the steps to my Lily’s room.
Lily hated Baby Calla. That’s what I told myself. And she was taking it out on that doll. I watched as she rose from the bed in a horse-print nightgown and plaid slippers and walked to where that toy lay facedown on the ground and kicked it with a vengeance.
Ms. Flores stares at me and then gives in. Sort of. “Fine,” she says. “Lily. Rose. Whatever. Answer the question, Claire. Why didn’t you take your sister instead of the baby?”
The truth was that my Lily had a grand life. Before. Before Paul and Big Lily decided to replace her with the baby they always dreamed of. There wasn’t a thing I could give my Lily. My only possessions in the entire world were stuffed inside a suitcase Matthew had given me: dollar bills that were quickly dwindling away, a couple of books, the photograph of Momma.
“I couldn’t take care of Lily,” I tell Ms. Flores, “if I took her from that home.”
“But you could take care of the baby? You could take care of Calla?”
I shrug and say weakly, “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean, Claire?” she condemns, her lips thin, her eyebrows puckered. She removes her glasses and sets them on the table. My Lily could have that life again. The one with beach vacations and pink–and–mint-green bikes and Montessori schools. I just needed to fix things. And so, when Big Lily climbed up those steps and Paul rolled over onto his side and pretended he couldn’t hear the outburst my Lily was having, I let myself into the A-frame home, through a back door that had been left unlocked when the cocker spaniel was let outside to pee. I slipped my hands under that sleeping baby’s pink blanket and lifted her from the cradle, careful of her head like Momma always told me when Lily was a baby, and with that baby in tow, I walked out the wooden patio door and into the starless March night.
CHRIS
I oversleep.
When I finally do wake up, the hangover is immense: a splitting headache, the despotic sunlight blinding my eyes. I wake up to the impatient sound of my cell phone ringing, the tone, in my alcohol-induced state, out of place, jarring. Henry. His voice on the other end of the line, like a drill sergeant’s, calling out orders. “Where the hell are you?” he asks. It’s after nine.
I don’t have time to shower. I reek of tequila as I wait for the elevator at the end of the hall, my hair still smelling of rancid cigarette smoke from some bar I wandered to last night. My eyes are bloodshot, my hands still clammy. I forget my notes, the ones that tell me what I’m supposed to say to the group of potential investors awaiting me in the eighth-floor conference room, the ones we’re hoping to impress. As I slink into the conference room, all eyes are on me. I taste alcohol on my breath, stomach-churning in the morning light. Gastric acid propels upward and into my mouth before I choke on it, forcing it back down.
“Better late than never,” Henry slurs beneath his breath as I wipe my mouth on the back of a sleeve. I catch sight of Cassidy, leaned in close to some venture capitalist named Ted. She’s got her lips pressed so close to his ear, I imagine the way he feels her breath, the tingle of it on his skin. He turns to look at her all at once, and together they laugh in unison, laughter that I’m sure is at my expense.
I run my fingers through my hair.
At some point, Tom pulls me aside, tells me to get it together. He hands me a mug of coffee, as if the caffeine might change things, make my speech less slurred, my thoughts crystal clear. I dig into the depths of my briefcase for financial documents which are nowhere. I yank crumbled notes, memos out instead, the purple sticky note with the sole word: Yes.
The coffee settles me some. We take a midmorning break, and I return to my room to change my clothes, comb my hair. I find the missing financial documents strewn upon a table and place them in my briefcase. I brush my teeth; between the caffeine and the toothpaste, the taste of alcohol begins to slowly ebb away. I all but overdose on pain medication for the splitting headache.
When I return, Cassidy and Ted are sharing a bagel with cream cheese from a single plate. They’re leaned in close together. She licks her fingers with an overzealous tongue and leans in close to whisper something to him. Their eyes turn to mine and again they laugh. I imagine Cassidy, in my hotel room, unbuttoning the buttons of a starch-white tunic so that I will stay. And I imagine me, forcing on a pair of loafers and running through the door. I imagine that she left that hotel room and sought out Ted. Ted, a fortysomething venture capitalist with a tungsten wedding band on his left hand. Based on the looks of things, he, unlike me, didn’t turn her away. He let her unbutton that blouse, let her reveal what was hidden beneath.
I hear Heidi in my head, hear her chant femme fatale over and over again in my head: a rallying cry. Women unite! I wonder about Ted’s wife. I wonder if she’s pretty. I wonder if they have kids.
I’m not in the least bit let down. More than anything, I’m relieved, seeing now that Cassidy would’ve chosen any member of the male species to keep her company for the night. I’m grateful it wasn’t me.