Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [105]
Late at night she thinks about the child she never knew, as real to her as the ones she does. Her own anguish is only a small piece of what his parents must suffer, and yet it has taken her on a journey toward something deeper and more profound than she has ever experienced. Each moment of loss, she has come to believe, contains within it the possibility of a new life. When the unimaginable happens, and your life changes irrevocably, you may find along with the pain a kind of grace. And in the place of certainty and fear—the fear of losing what you had—you are left with something startling: a depth of empathy, a quivering sensitivity to the world around you, and the unexpected blessing of gratitude for what remains.
Now, when the children are asleep, the house is quiet. Alison pads around softly in her bare feet, straightening pillows, changing lightbulbs, restoring order, and feels oddly at peace. Charlie’s needs, stresses, and preoccupations had taken up so much space. It is lovely not to hear him stomping around upstairs, or to have to think about what to feed him, whether his laundry is clean, whether his seemingly endemic distractedness is a cover for irritability. Will he snap if she asks him a question? For a long time they coexisted in this house without sharing much of anything. Now he’s across the river, making a new life for himself with the only other person in the world who knows Alison as well as he does.
It makes her heart lurch, when she thinks about it. And just under the sadness are more complex emotions, anger and jealousy and hurt. So Alison tries to concentrate on the here and now. It is three-fifteen on a Monday afternoon, and she has a new job. In New York, as a senior editor at HomeStyle magazine. That’s pretty good. Even better, she has a theme, just in time for the meeting: Focus on Quiet. A favorite book, a sleeping child, the tick of a clock in a still room, solitude. Peace. She stands up, closes the folder, and makes her way down the hall to the conference room.
acknowledgments
I am privileged to work with Katherine Nintzel, the kind of editor that writers dream of, and the entire magnificent group at William Morrow. I want to thank Beth Vesel, my longtime agent and friend, for her vision and wise counsel; the English Department at Fordham University for supporting my creative work; and my close tribe of sisters, Cynthia Baker Zeitler, Clara Lester, and Catherine Baker-Pitts, who sustain and inspire me.
The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation gave me space and time to write. Anne Burt, Alice Elliott Dark, and Pamela Redmond Satran, who read some or all of the manuscript several times, form the core of my community of writers and friends. Karen Sacks, Executive Director of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, paved the way for me with New Jersey legal experts, including Marvin Adames, Chief Municipal Prosecutor of the City of Newark; Clyde Otis, a municipal prosecutor; Alix Rubin, a partner at Entwistle & Cappucci; Nicole Masella at Hack, Piro, O’Day, Merklinger, Wallace & McKenna; and Carmela Novi at Casha & Casha. Thanks also to John Cusolito at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.
I am grateful for the support of my parents, Bill and Tina Baker, and my mother-in-law, Carole Kline. Finally, my husband, David, and sons, Hayden, Will, and Eli, are at the center of everything; they make my life rich.
also by CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE
FICTION
The Way Life Should Be
Desire Lines
Sweet Water
NONFICTION
About Face: Women Write About What They See When
They Look in the Mirror (coedited with Anne Burt)
Room to Grow: Twenty-two Writers Encounter the Pleasures
and Paradoxes of Raising Young Children (editor)