She manages the exit with dignity, makes it to her car in the parking garage before the tears come. She is sobbing with her arms folded on top of the steering wheel when she hears the breaking news alert that the body of Beverly Cooke has been found at last.
Could this day get any worse?
She listens, head still pillowed on her arms. She knows—knew—Beverly from a private group on Facebook for local mothers who’ve used sperm donation to have children. It is an intimate enclave, a very safe space. It is the one place these women have to express their hopes and fears—into the waiting arms of anonymous friends who are always there to lend succor. Beverly was unique in the group because she was married, and her husband doesn’t know the baby isn’t his. The lengths she went to in order to save face for that man, the crazy details she’d shared—how she mixed the donor’s semen with her husband’s so they would never truly know unless they did testing, how guilty she felt at times for tricking him, for doing the testing to find out it was him, not her, and making the drastic decisions to catapult them both into the unique world of donation; exultant in others, especially when it became clear the baby she conceived was going to have her husband’s coloring—she’d done so much research, been so very careful to find a donor who would fit the physical bill so her husband would not become suspicious…
And then she went missing, and now she’s been found dead, and God knows what’s going to happen. Beverly’s husband, Dan, is by all accounts a kind, gentle man, incapable of harming his wife, but it’s always the husband, Darby knows this. He must have found out and lost it.
The police ask for any tips, and Darby sighs, turning off the radio, and puts the car into gear.
She stops at Five Daughters for gluten-free donuts on her way home. She shouldn’t spend the money, but she’s exhausted and heartsick and needs something sweet to help get her through the rest of the morning. She will have a nice cup of the cinnamon-spiced decaf she likes, and a donut, or maybe two, and then she will take a deep damn breath and figure out what she’s going to do.
Traffic is light. The sun is out. She listens to the All Things Considered podcast, as she always does, pretending this is a normal drive home. Despite her exhaustion, she takes the long way, as if delaying her arrival will change anything. The drive is surprisingly pleasant, so she keeps going past her street and down to Centennial Park. Eats a donut sitting by the lake, listening on her headphones. She never gets through a full episode; it normally takes her three morning commutes home. Today, she indulges. Watches the ducks bob and dunk. Feels her nose growing pink in the bright sunshine.
Finally, the show over and her gas tank reduced by one quarter, she pulls into the driveway, surprised to see Scarlett’s beat-up Volvo still in its spot. Normally Scarlett drives herself to school—the deal they made when Darby bought her the car, no more lingering in bed and missing the bus so Darby has to rush her to school when she comes home from her shift—and she’s stuck to it until today. Maybe she’s ill. Damn, just what they need. Doctors’ bills.
She gathers up her things—she’s always very careful not to leave anything of value in the car—and trundles to the door. It is unlocked, another breach of family rules.
“Scarlett?” she calls. “Are you okay?”
There is a shuffle, and Darby’s mom radar goes off. Scarlett is up to no good.
Please don’t let some random kid come down the stairs with rumpled hair and a sheepish smile. Please, not yet.
“I’m up here, Mom. Just running late. No big.”
“You won’t be as sanguine when you have Saturday school. I’m not calling you in. You’ll have to take the tardy.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
Darby has not been impressed with Scarlett’s attitude lately. She knows it’s just teenage rebellion brought about by hormones, but Scarlett’s favorite phrase is suddenly “yeah, whatever,” and it’s like waving a red flag in front of Darby’s eyes. She is the bull, Scarlett the inept but enthusiastic matador. Guess who wins?
“Get down here, young lady. Right now.”
Scarlett comes flying down the stairs like a startled cat, school uniform skirt askew, Dr. Martens unlaced, thick, curly hair spilling out of its sloppy bun. She holds her laptop like a shield, eyes huge in her lovely elfin face.
“Pull yourself together, child,” Darby says, fighting back a laugh despite herself.
“Mom. Did you hear they found Beverly Cooke?”
Ah. That explains it.
“I did. Have you been upstairs reading the news sites again? I thought we talked about that.”
“Well, it’s everywhere. I could hardly miss it. I mean, aren’t you freaked out? They’re saying she was murdered. Oh, are those donuts?”
Darby shakes the bag. “I was going to surprise you when you got home from school.”
“You’re the best mom ever. I’d be happy to be surprised now.”
“You need to get to school. I’ll save one for you.”
“Mom.” How her child has learned to inject a single-syllable word with four layers of inflection is beyond her. Her own fault, probably, letting Scarlett stream Schitt’s Creek again. She’d been in Alexis mode for weeks the first go-round.
“Fine. Here.” Darby hands over the bag, and Scarlett eases out the small brown box reverentially.
“Oh, my kingdom for a donut.”
“You have no kingdom, Richard. Eat, and scat. Drink some milk, too. You need the calcium.”
“Ugh.” But she pours a glass and downs it. Scarlett’s been hanging around with the other Bromley girls at Starbucks lately and insists she’s too old for milk. She wants coffee in the mornings now, God save us all.
A quick, missed, peck on the cheek and she’s out the door, flying to the car. Thank God she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. Darby doesn’t have her parental walls up yet; she would have broken down in front of her daughter and scared them both.
“Drive carefully,” Darby calls, heart swelling with love despite being annoyed as hell. Kids. Mixed emotions weren’t the half of it. At least they hadn’t had a fight. That happens more often than not these days. Donuts working their magic. Sugar and spice and everything nice.
Darby makes herself a cup of coffee, takes another donut because damn it, she’s having a bad morning and she deserves the treat, and sits down at her tiny desk in the corner of the kitchen. She ignores the tall stack of bills sitting neatly on the ledge just at eye level and brings up Facebook. Sees the burgeoning fight in her donor group, logs out. She can’t do this, not now. She has bigger problems.
Humiliation streaming through her, she pulls the unemployment papers from her bag and navigates to the website to file her claim.
Later, fortified with coffee, sugar, and a nap, Darby logs into Facebook again. She is met with a knotty philosophical discussion among the moms about whether they need to tell the police what they know in case there’s something related to the donor that might shed light on Beverly’s death.
On this, she has many feelings, and now she’s willing to share.
Our privacy is sacred, Darby types. It’s all we have. If we expose Beverly, we expose all of us. We will never have peace. The police, then the media, will hound us and we will be a part of this story. Our group will become the story. Tempers are high. Fear does that. We should stay out of it, at least for now.