Luckily, I’ve been assigned a really down-to-earth, no-bullshit ob-gyn, Dr. Jane Craven. Dr. Craven is the only person, other than Betsey Brown, whom I’ve spoken to several times here.

  Twice Dr. Craven—in a matter-of-fact way—has brought up the subject of “termination.” Once she said, “If you’re considering termination, you’re here in the hospital now, and the sooner is always the better.” Another time she said, “I don’t know where your mind is about terminating, but if you’re not going to do it, the sooner we get started working on a healthier you, the better.” Apparently, “The sooner the better” will be my mantra.

  A person lying in a hospital bed can only watch so many hours of CNN. So there’s plenty of time to think, to ponder, to worry, to fret.

  I review the three men I’ve been with in the last month or so. I review them over and over and over. I’m certain that I would not care to live with any of them, no offense to three perfectly fine guys. And I certainly would not choose any of them to be the father of my—our—child. I consider Dr. Craven’s advice that termination is wise, “the sooner the better.”

  At other times, of course, I consider the other side of the situation. I’m thirty-two years old, I’ve got money of my own, I’m not in love, I could easily be in love with a baby. Then I think… but as I’m thinking this time around a hospital orderly knocks on the door and wheels in a gardenia plant that’s so large, they could use it in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk.

  “Put it wherever you can find room,” I say. And as the orderly is moving the plant to a place near the window, I hear Betsey Brown’s voice.

  “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Betsey says as she enters the room. “You’ve got enough flowers in here to hold a wedding… or, for that matter, a funeral.”

  My response is simple. “That funeral joke must be going around the hospital. But here’s the other thing… I can’t believe I actually heard someone use the phrase ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.’”

  “Well, you actually also hear folks say that in Matamoras, Pennsylvania, where I grew up,” says Betsey. She is straightening and smoothing my bed linens.

  The man who brought the towering gardenia plant gives Betsey and me a quick wave as he heads toward the door.

  “Thank you!” I shout after the guy in the light-green scrubs the orderlies all wear, his blond hair tied behind his head in a long ponytail.

  I’m not sure that Betsey even sees the guy. She’s too busy talking. “Oh, my mom had a whole catalog of old-fashioned sayings like ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.’ She’d say, ‘Mind your own beeswax’ or ‘You’re full of donkey dust.’ And my favorite was always, ‘You kids’ll be the early death of me.’”

  “And were you?” I ask.

  “Were we what?”

  “Were you the early death of her?”

  “God. No. She’s eighty years old now and lives with my brother and sister-in-law and their four kids over in Port Jervis. She does all the cooking, the laundry—Jeff and Elyce both work—and Mom still drives. So she picks up…”

  Betsey stops talking for a moment. When she begins to speak again, she places her hands on her hips and says sarcastically, “I don’t believe for a second that you’re at all interested in hearing the autobiography of the Browns of Matamoras, Pennsylvania.”

  I already know a great deal about Betsey—two kids, a husband who’s a New York City firefighter, a week each summer in the Adirondacks. But I’m hoping to extract some other information from Betsey.

  “Well, I could lie and say that your life story is fascinating. But to tell the truth what I would be most interested in hearing is the inside scoop on Dr. Calvelli.”

  “Would that be the truth about him or the speculation?” Betsey says.

  “I’ll take both.”

  “The truth is that Dr. Calvelli is engaged. But Dr. Calvelli confided in Dr. Holden who told one of his residents who told me that Dr. Calvelli is not about to rush to the altar. I know that this is really high school gossip. But I thought I’d share it anyway. So if I were you I’d keep my hopes up, and I’d wear a smidge of makeup at all times while you’re a patient here.”

  Betsey hands me my toothbrush and a cute little basin for me to spit into. As I brush my teeth she keeps talking.

  “Have you had many visitors?” Betsey asks.

  I now spit into that cute little basin. Betsey hands me some water. I take some of the water and spit again. Then I speak.

  “No, not a one,” I tell her. “But you know that’s how I wanted it. I texted my folks to stay at whatever art auction in Munich they’re at, and just in case they didn’t choose to obey I told them that I was being transferred to a special care facility in Boston. As you know, that’s a complete lie, but they’ll find that out only if they decide to fly to Boston and look for me.”

  “You are an evil child,” Betsey says.

  “Listen, Betsey, the rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the poisoned tree. Just because I present like a perfect person doesn’t mean I’m not a scum-bucket deep down inside,” I say.

  Betsey is now checking my chart.

  “I see you had an ultrasound this morning,” she says.

  “Early this morning,” I say.

  Betsey continues to read from the chart. Then she says, “Looks like everything on the sonogram is fine. And as soon as Dr. Craven comes by and says that you’re okay, you’re going to be discharged.”

  “Discharged?” I say, and I have alarm in my voice.

  “I’m only reading what it says on this chart. It says that you can’t leave without setting up appointments with Calvelli and Craven. And there’s an addendum that says, ‘patient decision pending elective procedure reco SA.’”

  “What’s a ‘reco SA’?” I say, struggling with my emotions.

  “It means ‘suction-aspiration.’ It means that that’s what Dr. Craven is recommending. Now it may be early enough that she just…”

  I burst into tears.

  “I can’t be discharged,” I say. “I’m not ready to leave. I have to get organized, make decisions.”

  “When Dr. Craven comes around you can talk to her about your decisions,” Betsey says. “I think the best thing right now would be for you to get some sleep.” She glances at my chart on the screen, and with outrageous exaggeration she speaks. “Why, those awful radiology people got you up at ten a.m. for your ultrasound. Can you imagine that? That’s practically the middle of the night. What an outrageous time.”

  I laugh at her sarcasm. The tears stop.

  “Well, for me, ten o’clock is sort of really early,” I say.

  “I’m sure it is,” Betsey says, and I respond.

  “You must think I’m a spoiled brat, right?”

  “I don’t think any such thing,” she says. “I think you’re a woman who has been through a lot, is going through a lot, and may have even more to get through. That’s what I think.”

  She takes my hand.

  “I’m just not sure about this baby thing. The smart thing to do is…” and I’m looking for the word.

  Then Betsey gives it to me, “To terminate.”

  “But I just can’t bring myself to do that. Not just yet. Maybe I’m being selfish or stupid or… I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t do anything,” Betsey says.

  “Don’t do anything?” I say. Is it possible that I never thought of that?

  “Uh, yeah. You’re three weeks pregnant. You’ve got time to decide.”

  “But Dr. Craven said I should think about what I want to do.”

  “Then think about it,” Betsey says.

  Why do I feel so stupid and happy at the very same time?

  “Oh, Betsey. You can’t imagine what I’m going through,” I say.

  “Oh, I think I can imagine it,” Betsey says. “I’m pregnant, too.”

  “Congratulations!” I say.

  “Yeah, this is the third, and then we’re closing down the shop,” Betsey says.

  I’ve heard that expression before, but this time it makes me chuckle.

  To have a baby? Not to have a baby? I’m calming down. I’ll take my time deciding. But who am I kidding now? I do know which way I’m leaning.

  CHAPTER

  9

  The Present

  A CHOKING, DISGUSTING STENCH has formed a kind of invisible wall that forces Joel Tierney, Kalisha Scofield, and Betsey Brown to reflexively squint, gag, and turn away when Tierney fully opens the door to Emily’s apartment.

  “Oh, shit,” Tierney says. His words are punctuated by his gulping, gagging, snorting noises.

  “We should get backup medical. Emergency waste handlers. We should wait out here before we hit this shit. That’s the problem.”

  But Kalisha has something to say.

  “The real problem is that this woman here is not NYPD, and she shouldn’t be going into the scene with us.”

  Tierney freezes, just for a second. Closes his eyes, opens them, then says, “Scofield, you and I will go in. Betsey, you wait out here until we…”

  Betsey’s response is just short of violent.

  “Don’t you understand? Don’t you fucking get it? This is my friend! This my best friend! She could be dead in there!”

  “Fuck it all!” Tierney shouts. “All three of us’ll hit it.”

  Breathing through the handkerchief he holds against his mouth, Tierney takes a deep breath, then he steps into the apartment’s elegant entrance hall—a small but expensive antique rug, a mahogany umbrella stand with two umbrellas and an ivory-tipped walking stick. A large white bowl sits on a skinny-legged, lacquered mahogany table; the bowl holds a few keys and a Cartier pen. Yes, the odor is sickening, but the hallway looks elegant, safe, fine.

  Betsey, of course, knows this apartment, inside and out. Three thousand square feet that serve as testimony to Emily’s exquisite taste and money.

  Joel, Kalisha, and Betsey make their way through the hallway.

  The air is rancid, but the neatness of the hall gives Betsey hope. So far so… “

  Holy shit!” yells Kalisha. “What the fuck happened here?”

  Betsey immediately joins Kalisha in the living room.

  Nothing but chaos. A gray sectional sofa is turned on its back, sofa cushions are tossed on the floor. Glassware and china have been pulled from their shelves. Broken. Shattered. Books and fireplace logs and porcelain bowls and Murano ashtrays and papers and magazines are scattered on the floor. Bottles of Absolut vodka and Wild Turkey bourbon have crash-landed on the stained Persian carpets.

  Betsey glances behind the upturned couch. No dead woman.

  Betsey remembers exactly when Emily showed her the new sofa just a few months ago.

  “Yes, a Herman Miller sofa is stupidly extravagant, but once I fell for the Noguchi coffee table, I couldn’t put a junky couch behind it.”

  Something beyond awful has happened here. A break-in? A murder? Betsey is certain that this was the death she always thought Emily might end up having—scary and cold and brutal.

  The odor is beginning to overwhelm her. Betsey thinks that if she opens her mouth even for a second that she’ll upchuck.

  Betsey swallows hard. She speaks. “You remember the layout from the last time you were here.”

  Tierney is all business. “Kalisha, you and I will each take one of the big bedrooms. Betsey, you hang with Kalisha. Then we’ll check the kitchen…”

  “And there’s also this little room off the kitchen,” Betsey adds.

  Tierney says, “Okay, thanks.” Then he adds, “By the way, I’ll handle the storage room off the dining room.”

  Betsey is confused, and asks, “Joel, how’d you know that there’s a storage room off the dining room?”

  “For God’s sake, Bets. I can see it from here. The door is open. Okay. Let’s get on it,” says Tierney.

  Betsey’s eyes won’t stop tearing up, a crappy combination of the fetid odor, her own anger, and her growing fear that somewhere in this apartment is Emily’s dead body.

  Tierney shouts—loud, no-nonsense, determined. “Get a picture of anything that is even remotely of interest, then check back with me. If you find a dead body…” he doesn’t finish the sentence.

  If you find a dead body? How can he be so matter-of-fact? Is this what cops are like?

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s get on it.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  BETSEY AND KALISHA WALK through the nightmare that is Emily’s living room. Betsey thinks that it’s like those old Westerns where the town sheriff would “deputize” some of the men when a crisis arose—from bank robberies to cattle rustling.

  “Yeah, that’s me. A deputy. I’ve been deputized,” she mumbles to herself.

  The awful smell is closing in on her. Kalisha enters the big primary bedroom and immediately starts clicking away at the damage and mess. Betsey stands frozen at the sight of broken mirrors and overturned bottles of Chanel and Creed. Emily’s beautiful clothes are torn and piled up like the aftermath of a storm of silk and cashmere.

  The thick, stomach-churning odor seems to have become stronger.

  “I’ll be right back,” says Betsey.

  “You stay with me, lady,” says Kalisha.

  “Like I said, right back,” says Betsey, and she walks down the hallway to the kitchen, which is its own shocking hellhole. The doors of the giant Gaggenau refrigerator are wide open. The contents of the monster fridge are scattered over the floor. Ground turkey and stinking fish fillets have turned blue and green and black from days of rot. Milk and a smashed glass jar of fancy mayonnaise have created puddles. At least we know where the smell is coming from, she thinks—she hopes it’s the only source of the odor.

  Betsey passes through the kitchen quickly, as if propelled by some obsession. Suddenly she feels brave, not calm, but, yes, brave. She has a certain place in mind, a room in mind, a tiny place that might turn out to be a treasure trove of clues.

  Next stop—the little room off the kitchen—a.k.a. the nursery.

  She knows that this room was always in a funny-crazy state of disarray, back when Emily used it as an office. A small glass-topped desk piled with papers and letters and file folders, an Apple laptop with a pink-and-green leather case. Stacks of books on the floor (everything from James Joyce to Joyce Carol Oates). Skyscrapers of magazines (everything from French Vogue to Sukiya Living).

  Betsey pauses outside the room. Her hand freezes just for a moment as she reaches for the doorknob. She is not afraid of finding more filth and chaos. What she actually now feels is that this little out-of-the-way room would be the perfect place to stash a body.

  Betsey opens the door. What she wasn’t prepared for was the heartbreak she feels when she sees the room again.

  CHAPTER

  11

  IT IS A BABY’S ROOM fit for a magazine photo shoot. It is a perfect symphony of bright yellows and pure whites. A wooden crib with a quilt that holds a big sun design in the middle, a mobile hanging above the crib—dangling yellow stars and white crescent moons. A wooden changing table with a tall stack of cloth diapers, baby powder in a Victorian shaker. Three of the room’s walls are painted an Easter-egg yellow. The fourth wall is white.

  Betsey feels a stab of pain as she looks around this room that holds so much promise for the future.

  The only trace left of Emily’s office is the small glass desk. It stands near the doorway, and on it rest two items: Emily’s laptop in its crazy-color leather case, and a big book covered in yellow satin. The cover reads: Baby’s First Book.

  Betsey opens it. On the first page is printed:

  MY NAME IS… That space is left blank.

  On the second page is printed:

  MY MOMMY’S NAME IS… Emily’s elegant curvy signature is unmistakable.

  Betsey turns to the next page.

  MY DADDY’S NAME IS… This space is blank.

  Everything in the room feels sad to Betsey. This beautiful, perfect little room. This almost-destroyed apartment. But most of all the disappearance of Emily.

  Betsey tries hard to put the pieces all together. But none of it makes any actual sense. Did the home invasion come from people who knew Emily? Friends or enemies? Possibly the father of the baby? Possibly the man who Emily thinks is following her? Someone hired by Emily’s family, perhaps? A random intruder? But why was this precious nursery left untouched while the other rooms were so terribly trashed? Last time the apartment was broken into, this room was disturbed. Is it the work of a crazy person? And scariest, could Emily be that crazy person?

  Betsey looks around the room again and again. Near the small glass desk are two framed Disney animation cels. One is Snow White talking with the dwarf Dopey. The other picture is Winnie-the-Pooh with an upturned pot of honey pouring down over his head.

  “Oh, I know I’m a self-indulgent wacko, Bets, but I saw these two original Disney cels from some online auction, and I just had to bid on them. They were just too adorable to pass up.”

  Betsey smiles at the memory of the crazy indulgence of her missing friend.

  Betsey moves closer to the two Disney animation cels. (Each one was a $2,000 crazy indulgence.) What catches Betsey’s eye, however, are the three small pieces of paper that are Scotch-taped to the wall near the Disney art. These pieces of paper measure no more than four by four inches. They have typed words on them. They are stuck haphazardly in a room that has been put together with precision. Betsey reads the words on the first piece of paper.

  A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.

  Carl Sandburg

  Next to this quotation is another, slightly longer piece. Betsey reads it.

  My mother said to me, “If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.” I was a painter, and I became Picasso.