I'm So Happy for You (28 page)

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It was a boy. Wendy heard the obstetrician say as much. Not that Daphne was aware of that fact. She was still unconscious.
Maybe it was better that way. From what Wendy could gather, the baby wasn’t in good shape when he came out. Not that she could
see much from where she stood, behind a white curtain next to Daphne’s head. But they gave him oxygen and who knew what else.
Two minutes later, he uttered his first cry, and it was a piercing one. Two minutes after that, he was whisked out of the
operating room for further examination.

Daphne came to in the recovery room forty-five minutes later. Wendy had followed her there, too. “Wendy,” Daphne said slowly,
blinking into the fluorescent light and looking stunned on multiple levels. “What are you doing here?”

Daphne’s question immediately put Wendy on the defensive. (And here she’d just saved the woman’s life! It was so typical,
Wendy thought. She wondered why she’d bothered.) “I found you in the bathroom,” she said, looking away. “I happened to stop
by.”

Daphne let out a long sigh and grimaced. Was it possible she was annoyed at Wendy for having rescued her? That she’d actually
wanted to die? “And the baby?” she asked, visibly swallowing.

“He’s in the nursery, being examined,” Wendy told her.

“It’s a he?” Her voice went up a few notes.

“Yes.”

Daphne closed her eyes and sighed again. After a few moments, she began to speak, in a slightly slurred voice. “Jonathan and
I had a fight. I told him the baby was Mitch’s, and he said our marriage was over. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want
to be alone again.…” She trailed off, as if lost in the past. After ten seconds, she resumed her monologue. “It was right
after Jonathan and I got engaged. I was so happy to have him in my life, but I was still in love with Mitch. Or maybe I wasn’t
quite ready to let him go. Or give up being bad. Or maybe unconsciously I thought that if I got pregnant, he’d finally leave
Cheryl. Or maybe I just wanted to be sure of what I was leaving behind. I can’t even remember now. It seems like so long ago.
It was just one night. Not even that, really. I didn’t tell Jonathan, and I didn’t even think about it until the twenty-week
sonogram dated the baby two weeks earlier than I thought.”

A few moments of silence passed between the two women, during which time it occurred to Wendy that (a) Daphne had attended
not just her shower but her wedding with the knowledge that she was pregnant with another man’s child; (b) she was an even
better actress than Wendy had ever given her credit for being; and (c) the inscription on the sleep sack that Wendy had given
Daphne at her shower was, above all, beside the point. “I’m sorry again about the shower gift,” Wendy said. Then she paused,
waiting for Daphne to apologize, too—at the very least for dumping a bag of flour on her head.

But it was still the same Daphne. (Apparently, a suicide attempt only went so far in changing a person’s character.) “Don’t
worry about it, but thanks” was all she said, making eye contact for the first time, dim smile attached. “Anyway, I made this
baby happen. I must have wanted it in some way. And I lived through tonight. And now I’m going to try and be a good mother,
with or without Jonathan.” She bit her lip and looked away, toward the door. “By any chance do you know where he is?”

“He’s in the waiting room,” said Wendy. “We came to the hospital together.”

“He is?” Daphne turned back to Wendy, her eyes brighter than before.

At that same moment, a nurse wheeled in what looked like a clear plastic refrigerator produce bin and parked it next to Daphne.
With a certain amount of difficulty, Daphne shifted her body to the side of the bed and peered over the edge. Wendy looked,
too.

Lying in the bassinet, swaddled in a hospital-issue flannel blanket with mauve and turquoise stripes, was an astonishingly
small, perfectly formed infant. His eyes blinked open and shut. His tiny tongue shot out of his tiny mouth with its rosebud
lips before disappearing back inside. With his shiny black hair, dimpled chin, and vaguely entitled expression, he looked
uncannily like Jonathan Sonnenberg. Daphne must have been thinking the same thing. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
Then she touched her finger to his cheek and whispered, “He’s beautiful.” And the joy and relief on her face were so exquisite
as to be contagious.

“He
is
beautiful,” said Wendy, choking up herself—and somehow relieved as well to think the baby was Jonathan’s. Things were the
way they were supposed to be. The sun would rise tomorrow after all. Corn muffins were still cake under another name.

“Would you mind getting Jonathan?” asked Daphne.

“Of course,” said Wendy, who practically ran into the waiting room to retrieve him. (For the first time in memory, her pride
at having helped facilitate a happy ending trumped her envy of another’s good fortune.) “Daphne needs to see you,” she announced
breathlessly.

Clearly prepared for the worst, Jonathan grimaced before he stood up. He retucked his shirt into his pants. Then he followed
Wendy back to Daphne’s room.

Daphne had the baby in her arms now. Jonathan must have known what she and Wendy already knew from the moment he saw the child’s
face. Without any questions, he walked over to the bed and transferred the infant into his own arms. After a minute or two
of cradling him—and presumably inspecting his genitalia—he announced, “Alexander Sonnenberg, welcome to the free world.” And
his voice cracked at the end of the sentence. Then he carefully laid the baby back in his bassinet, reached for Daphne, fell
against her breast, and, once again, began to sob—this time audibly.

It was at that moment that Wendy realized she was no longer needed. (She’d already delivered her lines; it was time to walk
off stage.) Without saying good-bye, she slipped out of Daphne’s room, then out of the hospital and onto the street.

It was after midnight. The air had turned clear and breezy. Tomorrow would probably be a nice day, Wendy thought as she set
off down Amity in search of a cab. Probably cooler and less humid. She barely glanced at Jonathan and Daphne’s brownstone
as she passed the front gate. She knew she wouldn’t be back there any time soon. She’d seen too much now; knew too much, too;
was destined to remind Daphne of a past she’d have to learn to forget if she wanted her marriage to survive.

Which was actually fine by Wendy. She was tired of being the person she’d always been around Daphne, anyway—the person who
couldn’t stop comparing herself to others when she wasn’t busy trying to please them. It seemed clear to her now that trying
to keep up meant never getting anywhere, missing everything. What’s more, Daphne would forever be in her debt. Not that Wendy
was keeping score, anymore. Still, it was a good feeling to have, the kind of feeling she could live with without ever having
to lay eyes on Daphne’s pretty face again.

Wendy eventually found a taxi on Clinton. On the way home, she checked her cell phone. There was one message—from Adam. She
must have been in the operating room when he called. He sounded furious. “Thank you for fucking up my trip,” he said. “It
was Dad’s birthday today. I was going to surprise him. I told you that. But no, you had to call my mother and get her all
freaked out that I’d gone missing. She practically had the FBI out looking for me when I got there. It’s like you can only
think about yourself these days.” He paused. “To be honest, I think we need to talk when I get home.” He paused again. “To
be even more honest, I’ve been thinking about getting my own place. Maybe we need some time apart. Anyway, we can talk about
it when I get home.”

Wendy realized suddenly that, far from cheating on her with Daphne, Adam had merely been confessing to her his desire to leave
his marriage. Just as Daphne must have been sharing her own personal drama with Adam. That was all their relationship had
been: an impromptu (if occasionally flirtatious) support group for troubled spouses.

The strange thing was: absorbing this potentially devastating piece of news, Wendy’s first emotion was fascination. To think
she’d become the kind of paranoid hysteric who had driven away her husband for no reason! She was like Anna Karenina, she
thought, only Adam didn’t make much of a Vronsky. He wasn’t that handsome or charming. He was definitely not a count. Also,
Anna wasn’t always nagging Vronsky to get a job. (Wendy wasn’t planning on throwing herself in front of a train, either.)

Her second emotion was terror. What would become of her? Wendy wondered. Would she grow old alone? But fear mingled with a
sense of relief. Somewhere along the way, Wendy had stopped finding Adam’s T-shirt collection ironic, never mind amusing.
The same went for both his unemployment and his failure to tell her he loved or missed her without prompting. And even though
he hadn’t cheated after all, he’d still acted like a jerk, she decided. Somewhere deep inside, Wendy still felt love for her
husband. But she suspected that she mostly loved the memory of their being young together—though, if she was being honest
with herself, she hadn’t been all that happy in her twenties.

Opening the door to their apartment—and finding Adam’s dirty socks balled up under the coffee table and resembling two dead
mice—Wendy was reminded that she hadn’t been particularly happy living on No Prospect Avenue, either. Now, at least, she’d
have an excuse to move.

It was another two days—blurry ones;
Barricade
had found a new home in an old sweatshop in Chinatown, and everyone was busy unpacking—before Wendy realized she’d missed
her period. Was it possible? There had been that one time while half asleep before work.… She took a pregnancy test, and two
pink lines appeared side by side like two old friends. Or maybe two new friends. Tears quickly filled her eyes, because what
she’d wanted for so long had finally happened, and also because her dream of creating the perfect family—the family she herself
had never known—was apparently not to be.

On the other hand, she’d have a beautiful baby of her own. And she couldn’t imagine not giving him or her all the nurturing
and selflessness she had to offer, however little of them there was. (She couldn’t imagine not bringing her baby to the circus
to see the lady who hung from her hair.)

After Wendy dried her eyes, she started to laugh. And laugh and cry some more. Then she called her mother.

“It’s about time,” said Judy, sounding simultaneously irritable and elated. “Please congratulate Adam for me.”

Wendy took a deep breath. “Adam doesn’t know yet, and, to be honest, it might be a while before I tell him. We split up.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Finally, Judy spoke: “Well, I know how you feel. I’ve always said that men
were overrated.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Wendy, tearing up yet again.

Wendy also called her friends. Everyone was thrilled for her. Or so they claimed. Though Wendy suspected that Maura, recently
returned from Mexico, had taken this latest dispatch from “Wendy-ville” harder than she let on. “I’m so happy for you,” she
said, but her voice was thin and wan and not entirely convincing.

A
FTER FINALLY ADMITTING
to herself that she was never going to finish her dissertation, Maura quit academia and moved full-time to Tulum, where she
became a receptionist at a yoga retreat and fell in love with a mariachi singer.

Paige and Jeremy married and moved to London, where Paige launched her own highly successful hedge fund, and, even though
they didn’t need a second income, never stopped berating Jeremy for being a lazy drunk who lived off her largesse. (Either
he didn’t notice or didn’t mind.)

Pamela became executive producer of
24 Hours
. She left Todd for a lesbian documentary filmmaker named Lori. Being a perfect husband, Todd took the whole thing well. He
and Pamela shared custody of Lucas, who had to be enrolled in a special preschool for geniuses, having stopped crying at two
and mastered algebra at three.

Four months after the birth of baby Jude, Dolph finally agreed to marry Sara, though not before admitting he had a crush on
her older brother.

To all her friends’ astonishment, Gretchen got pregnant again. She and Rob moved to a four-bedroom colonial in Summit, New
Jersey, whereupon she threw out her headset and became a full-time mom (and got really depressed).

Alyson rose through the ranks at
Barricade,
becoming the youngest senior editor in the magazine’s history. To enhance her income, she modeled part-time.

Ron Schwartz eventually made a full recovery. He officially retired from the tax law business and, along with Phyllis, moved
to Sarasota, Florida.

After a paternity test confirmed that Daphne’s baby was indeed Jonathan’s, the two entered couples counseling with a certain
Morgan Weintraub, PhD, who’d been recommended by Carol. Their marriage grew stronger. Two years after the birth of Alexander,
they had a daughter named Daisy. Daphne and Jonathan also acquired more real estate—namely, a “cottage” in Sag Harbor, which
happened to have six bedrooms and an in-ground gunite pool. To Wendy’s relief, Daphne’s screenplay got stuck in turnaround.
By all appearances, it was unlikely ever to be made into a movie.

Meanwhile, Adam and Wendy embarked on a trial separation. Adam stayed in Brooklyn, while Wendy (with, later, her infant daughter,
Lila) moved back into her mother’s rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Conceived as temporary,
the arrangement proved so copacetic that it went on and on. Three was a much better number for a family, Wendy found. It made
everything less claustrophobic. You didn’t have to pretend you didn’t need each other at all because you needed each other
so much. It also meant that Wendy had free babysitting. To Wendy’s surprise and delight, Judy proved a loving and patient
grandmother. It was also Judy who, drawing on her experience with Jack the candle maker, had come to Wendy’s emotional aid
during her breakup with Adam.