Red Lily

and awkward, how fat and unfashionable she looked, despite the gown. And yet, Reginald doted. He would stroke that bulge, even during passion. And inpassion, he was kinder, gentler than she’d ever known him to be. She could almost love him during those times, when his hands were tender instead of demanding. Almost.
    But love was not part of the game, and a game was all it was. This bartering pleasure for style. How could she love what was so weak, so deceitful, so arrogant? A ridiculous notion, as ridiculous as feeling pity for the wives they betrayed with her. Women who folded their thin lips and pretended not to know. Who passed her on the street with their noses in the air. Or women like her mother who slaved for them for pennies.
    She was meant for bigger things, she thought, and lifted a heavy crystal decanter to stroke scent on her throat. She was meant for silks and diamonds.
    When Reginald arrived, she would pout, just a little. And tell him of the diamond broach she’d seen that afternoon. How she would pine without it.
    Pining wasn’t good for the child. She imagined the broach would be hers within a day.
    She gave a light laugh, a little turn.
    Then stopped, went still. Her hand trembled as she lifted it to press over her belly.
    It had moved.
    Inside her a flutter, a stretch. Little wings beating.
    The glass reflected her as she stood in her shimmering gown, her fingers spread over the slight bulge as if she would guard what was inside.
    Inside her. Alive. Her son.
    Hers.
    H AYLEY REMEMBERED IT vividly. Even in the morning there was nothing of the fragmented or misty quality of a dream.

    “It was, I think it was, a kind of a bid for sympathy. More for empathy.” She held her cup in both hands as she sipped coffee in the breakfast nook.
    “How so?” Mitch had his tape recorder and notebook as she’d requested. “Did she speak directly to you at some point?”
    “No, because it wasn’t her, it was me. Or it was both of us. I wasn’t dreaming so much as I was there. I felt, I saw, I thought. She wasn’t just showing me, but reliving. If that makes sense.”
    “Eat your eggs, sweetie-pie,” David urged her. “You look peaked.”
    She scooped some up obediently. “She was beautiful. Not like the way we’ve seen her, really. Vibrant and drop-dead—excuse the term. There was so much going through her head—my head—I don’t know. Irritation about the changes in her body, the inconvenience, plots and plans to get more out of Reginald, surprise at his reaction to her condition, disgust for men like him, for their wives, envy, greed. It all just kept rolling around in a big mass.”
    She paused, breathed. “I think she was already a little bit crazy.”
    “And how was that a bid for sympathy?” Harper asked her. “Why would you feel sorry for someone like that?”
    “It was the change. It was feeling the baby move. I felt it, too. That shock of feeling, the sudden realization that there’s life inside you. And there’s this wave of love along with it. In that moment, the baby was hers. Not a ploy or an inconvenience, but her child, and she loved it.” She looked at Roz.
    “Yes.”
    “So she was showing me. I loved my child, wanted it. And the man, the kind of man who’d use a woman like me, took it from me. She was wearing the bracelet. The heartbracelet. And I did feel for her. I don’t think she was a good person, certainly not a nice one, and even then, before the rest happened, I don’t think she was balanced. But she loved the child, wanted it. I think what she showed me was real, and she showed me because I’d understand it more than anyone else. Yeah, I felt sorry for her.”
    “Sympathy is fine,” Mitch said. “But you can’t let down your guard. She’s using you, Hayley.”
    “I know, and I won’t. I can feel for her, but I don’t have to trust her.”
    D AYS PASSED , AND she waited for the next move, the next experience, but August boiled quietly toward September. The most wrenching experience was having her ancient car break down between work and the sitter’s, and finally having to accept it was time to replace it.
    “It’s not just the money,” she told Harper as she strolled Lily through the used-car lot. “It’s one of my last links to childhood, I guess. My daddy bought that car, secondhand. I learned to drive with it.”
    “It’ll go to a good home.”
    “Hell, Harper, it’s going on the scrap heap, and we both know it. Poor, pitiful old