Melancholy Baby

2

In the morning I was still red-eyed, even after I showered and put on makeup. By muscle memory, I fed Rosie and took her out. When I came in with her, I wasn’t hungry. I drank some orange juice and made some coffee. The phone rang. When I answered it, my voice sounded thick.

“Sunny?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Barbara Stein. Do you have a cold?”

I said, “Yes.” It seemed more dignified than “No, I’ve been crying a lot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you well enough to do a little detective work?”

“Yes.”

“You’re still in the detective business?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. I have a young woman who came into my office late yesterday. I’d done legal work for her family from time to time. You know, closings, wills, that kind of thing. She wants to find her biological parents.”

“Can’t you help her with that?”

“We’re a small firm,” Barbara said. “Just me and Jake and a paralegal... and this is going to be a little tricky, I think. The parents claim she’s theirs, that she’s not adopted.”

“DNA?”

“The parents won’t submit. Say it’s an insulting invasion of their privacy.”

“Oh, my,” I said. “Birth records?”

“So far,” Barbara said, “we can’t locate any.”

“What makes her think she is adopted?”

“She won’t say. Can you meet with her?”

“I suppose,” I said.

“Can you come to my office?”

“You still in Andover?” I said.

She was. We made a date and I hung up. What I didn’t feel like doing was working. But maybe, in the long run, it was better for me than sitting by the window, drinking Irish whiskey. Rosie went to the coat rack by the door and stared at her leash. I didn’t feel like walking her, either. Actually, I didn’t feel like doing anything. Maybe talking to someone. Usually when I felt this bad, and I had never felt this bad since Richie and I divorced, I talked to Richie. My mother and my sister were out. My best friend, Julie, would genuinely care, but she would have a little inside, unspoken thrill of satisfaction that my love life was fucked up, too. And I would sense it, and it would make me mad. My father would hug me. But what could he say.

“We’re awful goddamned alone,” I said to Rosie.

She continued to gaze at her leash.

“Except for Spike,” I said.

Rosie’s gaze toward the leash wavered for a moment when she heard Spike’s name. She loved Spike almost as much as she loved me... and Richie. And she always had fun with him. I tried to smile at her.

“Okay,” I said.

My voice still sounded hoarse to me, and thick with sadness.

“We will kill two birds. You’ll get your walk, and Spike will make me feel better. Maybe.”