Page 28 of The Other Mother
It's older. Yellowed around the edges. The rubber is softer, more worn than the others. I pull it out and turn it over in my palm, and that's when I see it.
Etched into the plastic guard, in tiny block letters: GRACIE.
My hands start shaking. Something feels familiar and then I remember. We were going to call her Gracie for a while, and her full name would be…Evelyn Grace.
But I don’t remember ordering anything with that name on it. I don’t remember opening a package.
I've never seen this pacifier before in my life. I'm sure of it, the same way I'm sure about my own name, about the house I grew up in back in Ohio, about the way my mother's voice sounded when she was dying. Some things you just know.
I grab my phone and scroll through my photos, looking for any picture of Eva with this pacifier. Nothing. Every photo shows her with the new ones, the bright clean ones we bought specifically for her. For Eva. Not Gracie.
So where did this come from?
I dig through the nursery drawers frantically, looking for receipts, for packaging, for anything that might explain this. In the trash can under Eva's changing table, I find the Target bags from last week when I bought more diapers. The receipt is crumpled but readable: three new pacifiers, all different from this one.
The rational part of my brain, the part that used to edit manuscripts and catch inconsistencies for a living, knows there has to be an explanation. Maybe it was a gift from someone. Maybe I picked it up at a garage sale months ago and forgot. Maybe.
But I can't make myself believe any of those explanations. Not when my skin is crawling just from holding this thing.
I hear Adam's key in the front door, the sound of him dropping his golf bag in the hallway. He's been playingmore lately, disappearing for entire Saturday mornings while I stay home with Eva, drowning in the endless cycle of feeding and changing and trying to soothe a baby who never seems quite satisfied with anything I do.
His footsteps on the hardwood floors sound confident, purposeful. Everything about Adam sounds that way. Even when he's wrong, he sounds right.
"Claire?" His voice carries that slightly concerned tone he's been using with me lately, like I'm made of glass and might shatter if he speaks too loudly.
"In here," I call back, still staring at the pacifier.
He appears in the doorway, still in his golf clothes, navy polo that brings out his eyes, khakis that probably cost more than I used to spend on groceries in a month. His hair is perfectly styled despite the desert wind. Adam has always been beautiful in that effortless way that makes other women look at me with mild confusion, like they can't figure out what he sees in me.
"Good day?" I ask, trying to sound normal.
"Great day. Shot under par for the first time this month." He grins, but it fades when he sees my expression. "What's wrong?"
I hold up the pacifier. "Where did this come from?"
He barely glances at it. "Target? I don't know. You picked out most of them."
"It says Gracie." I turn it so he can see the letters clearly.
Now he looks, really looks, and for just a split second I see something flicker across his face. Surprise?Confusion? It's gone so fast I wonder if I had imagined it.
"Yeah, you said you liked that name. Before we settled on Eva."
The words hit me like cold water. "I never said that."
"Claire ... " He runs a hand through his hair, messing up the perfect styling. "What are you doing?"
"I'm just asking a question. I don't remember this pacifier."
Adam steps into the room, and suddenly the nursery feels smaller. He's tall, six-two to my five-four, and when he's frustrated, his presence becomes overwhelming. Not threatening exactly, but ... big. Inescapable.
"Because you're not sleeping. You're spiraling again."
Again. The word hangs between us.
"Again?" I repeat.
He exhales hard, puts his hands on his hips in that gesture he does when he's trying to be patient but failing. It's the same stance he used with difficult contractors on job sites, the same tone he used when explaining why we had to move to the desert for his career.
