Elevator Pitch. Linwood Barclay
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on the wall? You went out, you asked people questions, you observed, you wrote it down. When someone wouldn’t tell you what you wanted to know, you found someone else who would. You kept asking until you got an answer. How tricky was that? You needed to go to school for four years to figure that out?
Barbara threw herself into her work from the very beginning. The proverbial printer’s ink ran through her veins. She was covering murders and gang wars and plane crashes and political scandals when she was no older than first-year journalism students.
She was having the time of her life.
Until she found out she was pregnant.
Getting knocked up was definitely not part of the plan. At first, she was in denial. She couldn’t believe that it had happened. The home pregnancy test had to be wrong. So she did nothing, told no one.
But there comes a point when what you refuse to believe becomes painfully obvious.
So when her tummy began to ever so slightly bulge, she found the courage to find the man who’d gotten her pregnant. He deserved to know, right? Barbara figured there was a chance he’d even want to know. Okay, maybe that was being too hopeful. The guy was going to be shocked, no doubt about it. Especially considering that they hadn’t even known each other until they’d had sex, and hadn’t exactly been a couple since.
They hadn’t even seen each other since.
It had been, Barbara was willing to concede, a night of very bad decisions.
Starting with going to a party at NYU given by a former high school friend who, unlike Barbara, had pursued higher education. More bad decisions followed. She smoked a little too much weed, drank a little too much gin. And then, going over to chat up that older guy in the corner. That was the big one.
He was no longer a student, having gotten his MBA a few years earlier. He’d tagged along with some girl who knew the host of the party.
So why was he all alone in the corner?
A shrug. Some guy was going on about having to leave because he played in a band and they had a late-night gig in SoHo. She left with him.
“The bitch,” Barbara said.
Later, she wasn’t entirely clear how events had progressed. They’d had more to drink. It was possible there’d been a walk. And then they’d ended up in someone’s dorm. On a bed. Barbara remembered some fumbling with a condom, but hadn’t paid all that much attention when the guy said, “Uh-oh.”
In a few weeks, she’d have an idea what had alarmed him.
While some of the events from that night were foggy, Barbara knew there was no one else up for the role of father of her child. Sure, she’d gone to bed with other guys. But the last time she’d had sex before that evening had been a good (or bad, depending on how you looked at it) six months.
Other things she was sure of? What he looked like, and a first name. She asked the friend who’d thrown the party if she knew the guy’s surname. No special reason, she said. Just, you know, wondering.
She found him.
Broke the news.
He said, “I have no idea who you are.”
The way he said it, it almost sounded like he was telling the truth. Barbara refreshed his memory with every detail she could remember.
“Sorry,” the guy said. “Honest to God, I don’t ever remember meeting you. How long ago was this? I don’t even remember being at that party.”
“Yeah, well, we were both kind of flying.”
“Maybe you were,” he said. “Not me.”
Barbara couldn’t decide what to do. Go after him? Demand a blood test?
And of course, there was one other option.
But again, Barbara was paralyzed with indecision, and did nothing. By the time she found the strength to tell her parents, it was too late to end the pregnancy. Barbara’s mother and father—fucking saints, that’s what they were—didn’t judge. Oh sure, they wanted to know about this man, and Barbara told them she’d talked to him, that he refused to accept responsibility, and had moved to Colorado or Wyoming and gone into real estate. It wasn’t worth the time to pursue him, she said.
Okay, they said. These things happen, they said. No sense ranting and raving. What’s done is done. Let’s figure out what to do.
Give the baby up for adoption, Barbara decided. I’m not cut out to be a parent.
Well, okay, sure, that’s a possibility, her mother said. But that is my future grandchild you’re talking about. If you’re absolutely determined that you do not want to raise this child, well, your father and I have still got a few good years left, and we’ve been talking about this, and we’ve agreed that if you’re okay with it, we’ll do it.
At first Barbara thought, no way. But as that child grew inside her, she started to come around to her mother’s way of thinking. This could work. The world was changing. Alternative parenting options were in vogue. Sure, some people might look down their collective noses at Barbara, but when had she ever cared what anybody else thought?
She knew her mother was betting that when the baby arrived, Barbara would have a change of heart. She’d see that infant and decide to raise the child herself, even if there was no father’s name to put on the birth certificate.
That whole mother-child bond would kick in.
Arla arrived.
The bond did not kick in.
Barbara was tormented that it did not. She was consumed with guilt that she did not want to raise this little girl. Did she love her? Of course, without question. But if there was a mothering gene, Barbara feared she did not have it.
So Barbara’s parents honored their pledge and took Arla into their home. Barbara remained conflicted about how things had turned out. She felt less guilty that she had not given Arla up to strangers, that she was with family. But every time Barbara went home and saw her mother and father so fully engaged with Arla, the guilt bubbled back to the surface. It was an ache that never went away.
Every time she saw Arla, she was reminded of her abdication of responsibility. In those moments, she wondered whether adoption would have been the better choice. Out of sight, out of mind.
She hated herself for even thinking it.
Every week, Barbara sent a good chunk of her paycheck to her parents. She visited most weeks. She did love Arla. She loved her more than anyone or anything else in the world. No one pretended Barbara was not her mother. Arla was not raised to believe Barbara was the aunt who dropped by. No, Barbara was Mom. Barbara’s parents were Grampa and Gramma.
No lies. No attempts to deceive. At least not on that score.
It all seemed to work out.
And when Arla was twelve, Grampa died. Liver cancer. Barbara’s mother carried on alone. Barbara still came by, but as Arla moved into her teens and became the kind of hellion so many teenage girls turned into for a period of time, Barbara had to admit, deep down, that she was relieved to be spared the daily turmoil.
Thirteen months ago, Barbara’s mother passed on. Heart attack.
“This is how I see it,” Arla had told Barbara the last time they’d sat down together. “You leaving me with them is what drove them to an early grave. I was a bitch and a half, no doubt about it, but I should have been your bitch and a half, not theirs.”
“I can’t rewrite history,” Barbara had said.
“Yeah, but you don’t have a problem writing about others who’ve made a mess of theirs,” she’d countered. “Bad things people have done, mistakes they’ve made, that’s your whole shtick. But looking in the mirror, that’s not so easy.”
Barbara hadn’t