Oh my God! There he is!” My mother pointed ahead of us, and the headlights picked up the figure of a man walking toward our car.
“Who’s that?” Daddy leaned forward to peer into the half-light. “Does he have on a … is that a ski mask?”
“Dan!” My mother reached for the gearshift. “Go!”
I was wide awake now, fear flooding my body even before the headlights illuminated the man’s ice-blue eyes. Even before I saw him raise his arm. Even before I saw the gun. Instinctively, I ducked behind the driver’s seat, arms wrapped over my head, but no matter how loudly I screamed, I couldn’t block out the crack of gunfire. Over and over it came. Later, they said he only had five bullets in the gun, but I could have sworn he had five hundred.
My sharpest memories of that day will always be the blast of that gun, the ice-blue eyes, the silhouette of my father’s face, the skirt of my mother’s dress sticking to her thighs.
And my sister.
Above all, my sister.
1
Maya
I HAD PASSED THE ENORMOUS LOW-SLUNG BUILDING ON Capital Boulevard innumerable times but had never gone inside. Today, though, I felt free and whimsical and impulsive. All the moms in my neighborhood had told me there were great bargains inside the old warehouse. I needed no bargains. Adam and I could afford whatever we wanted. With the income of two physicians—a pediatric orthopedist and an anesthesiologist—money had never been our problem. It wasn’t until I stepped inside the building, the scent of lemon oil enveloping me, that I realized why I was there. I remembered Katie Winston, one of the women in my North Raleigh neighborhood book club, talking about the beautiful nursery furniture she’d found inside. Katie had been pregnant with her first child at the time. Now she was expecting her third. I’ll finally fit in, I thought, as I walked into the building’s foyer, where the concrete floor was layered with old Oriental rugs and the walls were faux painted in poppy and gold.
Every single one of the fifteen women in my book club had children except for me. They were always warm and welcoming, but I felt left out as their conversations turned to colic and day care and the pros and cons of Raleigh’s year-round school program. They thought I didn’t care. Being a doctor set me apart from most of them to begin with, and I was sure they believed I’d chosen career over motherhood. Every one of them was a stay-at-home mom. Most had had short careers before getting pregnant, and a couple still did some work from home, but I knew they saw me outside their circle. They had no idea how much I longed to be one of them. I kept those feelings to myself. Now, though, I was ready to let them out. I’d tell my neighbors at our next meeting. I hoped I could get the words out without crying.
Today marked sixteen weeks. I rested my hand on the slope of my belly as I walked down the aisle on the far left of the building, past cubicles filled with beautiful old furniture or handcrafted items. I was safe. We were safe. Most people waited until the first trimester had passed to tell people the news, but Adam and I had learned that even reaching the twelve-week mark wasn’t enough. I’d made it to twelve weeks and two days the last time. We’d wait four months this time, we’d decided. Sixteen weeks. We wouldn’t tell anyone before then—except Rebecca, of course—and we wouldn’t start fixing up the nursery until we’d passed that sixteen-week milestone.
Smiling to myself, I strolled calmly through the building as though I was looking for nothing in particular. Some of the cubicles were filled with a hodgepodge of goods, crammed so tightly together I couldn’t have walked inside if I’d wanted to. Others were a study in minimalism: shelves set up just so, each displaying a single item. Some of the cubicles had shingles in the entryway to give the appearance of a shop on a quaint street corner instead of a small square cubby in a warehouse. Rustler’s Cove. Angie’s Odds ‘n’ Ends. North Carolina Needlepoint. There were few other shoppers, though, and absolutely no one who appeared to be guarding the merchandise. If you wanted to slip a knickknack into your pocket, there was no one to see. No one to stop you. That sort of trust in human nature filled me with sudden joy, and I knew my hormones were acting up in a way that made me giddy.
I ran my fingertips over a smooth polished tabletop in one cubicle, then fingered the edge of a quilt in the next. I passed one tiny cubby that contained only a table with a coffeepot, a plate of wrapped blueberry muffins, a small sign that read Coffee: Free, Muffins: $1.50 each and a basket containing six dollar bills. I couldn’t resist. I took two of the muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast and slipped a five-dollar bill into the basket. I walked on, the irrational joy mounting inside me. People could be trusted to pay for their muffins. What a wonderful world!
I felt like calling Adam just to hear his voice. How long since I’d done that? Called him for no reason? I hadn’t seen him before he left for the hospital that morning, and I’d spent the day seeing patients in my office. If all went well with Adam’s surgeries today, he’d be home in time to go out to eat. We could celebrate the sixteen-week milestone together. The baby was due New Year’s Day. What could be more fitting? The start of a new year. A new life for all three of us. Things would be better with Adam now. Ever since learning I was pregnant, there’d been a tension between us that we hadn’t really acknowledged because we didn’t know how to get rid of it. If I was being honest with myself, I had to admit the tension had been there much longer than that. Now, though, I was sure it would disappear. We’d talk at dinner that evening, our future finally full and glowing ahead of us. Maybe we’d make lists of names, something we hadn’t dared to do before now. Then we’d go home and make love—really make love, the way we used to before all our lovemaking had turned into baby making. Once upon a time, we’d been good together in bed. I wanted that back.
I saw a sign hanging from a cubicle several yards in front of me. Baby Craft, it read, and I walked straight toward it. This was the place Katie had mentioned, I was sure of it. The lemony scent grew strong as I walked inside the rectangular cubicle. It was filled with furniture, but there was order to the layout. White cribs and dressers and gliders on one side, espresso-colored cribs and changing tables and rockers on the other. I shivered with anticipation, unsure what to look at first. Tags hung from each piece of furniture, telling me the original pieces had been refinished to meet twenty-first-century safety requirements. Lead paint removed. Crib bars moved closer together. The pieces were exquisite. Although Adam and I had held back from turning one of the bedrooms into a nursery, we’d already planned everything to the final detail, lying awake at night, talking. How many men would take that much interest? It had been easier to imagine the mural we’d have painted on the nursery wall than it was to imagine the baby. That would change now.
I spent nearly an hour in the broad cubicle, typing notes into my BlackBerry about the furniture. Prices. Contact information for the Baby Craft shop owner. Everything. And finally, reluctantly, I walked on. I couldn’t buy anything. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to tempt fate.
I’d be nearly thirty-five when the baby was born. I would have preferred to have my first earlier, but I didn’t care at this point. My first. There would be more to come, at least one more baby to use the furniture. Maybe two. Maybe a houseful, I thought, the giddiness returning.
Adam called on my cell when I walked into the house.
“Going to be a long night,” he said. “Couple of emergency surgeries, and I’m it. You doing okay?”
“I’m great,” I said as I slid open the back door to let Chauncey into the yard, spotting the four deer munching our azaleas a second too late. Chauncey tore down the deck steps, barking his crazy head off, and I laughed as the deer raised their indifferent eyes in his direction. They knew he wouldn’t take a step past the invisible fence.
“What’s
