Thief

“She’s my business. Whether you like it or not. And I want to have a baby with her.”

I don’t know why he doesn’t hit me. I would have hit me. Noah is a classy guy. He rubs his hand across his stubble, which hosts mostly gray, and finishes his scotch. His face is wiped of emotion, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“My sister had Cystic Fibrosis,” he says. “I used to go with her to her support groups. That’s where I met Melisa. She had it too. I fell in love with her and then had to watch her die before she had the chance to turn twenty-four. My sister died two years after her. I’ve seen two women that I love — die. I don’t want to bring a child into this world with the chance of passing them the gene. It’s not fair.”

I order a scotch.

I try to rub my headache away. This is becoming more complicated by the minute, and the last thing I want to do is feel sorry for this guy.

“What does Olivia want?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that instead of her, but all I can think about is the way her voice sounded on the phone. What is she going to tell me?

“She wants to save what we have,” he says. “We met last night to talk about things.”

I’ve felt so many forms of pain in my years with Olivia. The worst was when I walked into the hotel room and saw the condom wrapper. It was a jealous, ripping pain. I’d failed her. I’d wanted to protect her, she wanted to self-destruct, and I couldn’t stop her no matter what I did or how hard I loved her. The only thing that came close to that pain was when I showed up at her apartment and found out that she’d left me again.

What I feel now may be worse than that. She’s leaving me, and she has every right to. There is nothing I can do to morally justify her walking away from her marriage for me. Noah is right, but that doesn’t mean I am able to accept it.

The last few months we’ve gotten to know each other as adults, made love as adults, seen into each other as adults. And Olivia can deny it until her snobby face turns blue, but we work together as adults. How can she walk away from me again? We were in love. We are in love.

“I have to talk to her.”

I stand up and he doesn’t try to stop me. Had they planned this together? Noah would come tell me what her choice was? I’d have to deal? She’s obviously forgotten what I’m willing to do to have her. I drop a twenty on the bar and walk out.

Chapter Thirty-One

One week before my baby came into this world, I received a call from Olivia’s office. Not Olivia. Just her secretary. It was a new secretary, thank God. The one she had when she first started at Bernie’s firm was a psycho. The new girl’s name was Nancy, and in her clipped, professional voice, she informed me that Ms. Kaspen had asked her to make the call. Three weeks ago — she said — a woman named Anfisa Lisov contacted Olivia, claiming to have seen an American news story on CNN in Russian. She said she was the mother to the woman in the picture with Olivia, Johanna Smith. I almost dropped the phone.

She wanted contact with the woman she suspected was her daughter. I collapsed into a chair and listened to Nancy talk. No one knew Leah was adopted. We kept it out of the press; we were careful — so careful not to let that information be released. It would have jeopardized Leah’s testimony, or at least that’s what the partners said. I think it would have jeopardized her mental health. And nothing had changed. Courtney was in an assisted living facility, a vegetable. Her mother was an alcoholic. Leah was balancing a fine line of sanity. And she was having my baby. Whoever this woman was, I couldn’t let her near my wife.

“She said she gave up her baby while working as a prostitute in Kiev when she was sixteen.”

Fuck f**k f**k.

“She is flying to America to meet Johanna,” Nancy said. “Ms. Kaspen tried to deter her, but she was insistent. She wanted me to call and warn you.”

Fuck. Why hadn’t she told me sooner?

“All right. Give me all the contact information you have for her.”

Nancy gave me the hotel and flight times and wished me good luck before hanging up.

Anfisa was flying into New York first and catching a flight a day later to Miami. No doubt she was who she said she was. Who else knew Leah’s real mother was a sixteen-year-old prostitute in Kiev? Her parents certainly wouldn’t have told anyone. When I tried sending an email to Anfisa using the address Nancy gave me, it came back saying the email had a faulty address. The phone number had been disconnected. I Googled Anfisa’s name and the search came back with a picture of a striking woman with short, red hair, cut no longer than my own. She had written and published three books in Russia. I put the titles into Google translator and they came back as: My Scarlet Life, The Blood Soaked Baby and Finding Mother Russia. She hadn’t published a book in four years. I booked a trip to New York right then and there. I would fly out to meet this woman, send her away, and be back in time for my baby’s birth. I had no idea what she wanted to gain out of this reunion, but the fact that Leah came from a wealthy family was at the forefront of my thoughts. She wanted a new story to tell. Reuniting with her daughter would either give her plenty of money to take a writing hiatus or it would give her the story she was looking for. There was no way Leah would want to meet this woman — mother or not. I needed her to focus on being a mother, not have a mental breakdown about her own. I’d take care of it. I’d give her money if I had to. But, then Estella came early.

I’d told Leah that I had a business trip. She was upset, but I arranged for her mother to come for the days I would be away. I didn’t want to leave Estella, but what choice did I have? If I didn’t stop this woman from boarding a plane to Miami, she’d be knocking on our door in a few days.

I packed a small bag, kissed my wife and daughter goodbye and flew to New York to meet Anfisa Lisov, Leah’s birth mother. I could barely sit still on the plane ride. I’d asked Leah on our honeymoon — just a few days after she told me she was adopted — if she’d ever want to meet her birth mother. Before the last word was out of my mouth, she was already shaking her head.

“No way. Not interested.”

“Why not? Aren’t you curious?”

“She was a prostitute. My father was a disgusting pig. What is there to be curious about? To see if I look like her? I don’t want to look like a prostitute.”