Exiled Page 21

  "But . . . fourteen billion dollars?"

  "It's a lot of money, Is."

  My heart is twisting. "Too much. And it's . . . his."

  "Think about it, okay? Even coming from him, it's fourteen billion dollars, Isabel. You don't just turn that kind of money down."

  "I . . . I can't, Logan. I just can't."

  "No one could."

  I shake my head. Stand up. Pace furiously. "No, Logan, you don't understand. I can't take it. Not a single dime. I can't. I won't. I can't take anything of his. He owns enough of me as it is. Even in death, he's trying to own me, control me. If I take that money, I'll still belong to Caleb Indigo."

  "You're serious."

  I turn and look at You. "Money has never really meant anything to me, Logan. Not in any real practical terms. It's just a number, objectively speaking. A large number, but just a number. I can't accept anything from Caleb. I can't have anything to do with him. I have to be done."

  "I get that. I really do. But please, think about it. Just for a day or two, at least."

  I shake my head. "No, Logan. I don't need to, and I don't want to. I'm not going to change my mind."

  "You're absolutely sure that this is what you want to do? Just say, 'No thanks, keep your fourteen billion dollars'?"

  "You make it sound foolish, Logan." I am irritated. A little mad at You, honestly. "I am taking ownership of myself in turning down this money, Caleb's money. I didn't win the lottery. I didn't earn it. It is Caleb trying to manipulate me from beyond the grave. Turning down Caleb's money is the only thing I can do. I cannot and will not be his creation, his creature, his slave, his possession any longer. If I accept the money, regardless of how much it is, I would be putting myself back under his thumb. Selling myself to him, yet again. It would be just the same as if I'd never walked away from him at all. If I want to be free, truly free, of Caleb's domination of my life, then I have to be free of any and all ties to him. And that includes his fortune, vast as it may be."

  You move to stand in front of me. Take my face in your hands. "I didn't mean to make it sound like you're stupid for not taking it. It's just . . . it's a fucking lot of money. I don't think there is another person in the world capable of saying no to fourteen billion dollars."

  "Saying the number isn't going to make it any more real to me, Logan. I am incapable of comprehending the reality of that much money. I don't think anyone really is, but me least of all. My life thus far has not afforded me the kind of experience necessary to understand the value of money." I grasp Your wrists in my hands. "And what's more, I do not need to. You are not poor, by any measure. You will provide for my every need or want, and more besides. I have total faith in that, and in you. I do not need Caleb's money, because I have you. And hopefully, someday, I will earn money of my own."

  "I'm with you, babe. I support you."

  "But do you understand?"

  "Yes, I do. I have a different view of money, because I've worked so hard for so long, because I came from nothing. I don't pursue wealth as a goal in and of itself; I pursue success. I enjoy what I do and want to be the best at it, and fortunately, being the best means I make a lot of money in the process. Having the money I do means I'm better able to fathom the reality of what fourteen billion dollars looks and feels like, what it can do for you. It means I can better understand what you're refusing. But it's not my choice."

  "If it were your choice, if it were you making this decision, would you keep it?"

  You take a moment, think about it. "I'd be a lot more tempted to rationalize why I should keep it, let's just say that."

  "Let's go, then. I want to be done with this once and for all."

  You are thinking again, and do not immediately respond. You look at me. "Can I make one small suggestion?"

  "What?"

  "Don't just refuse it outright. It'll get . . . I don't even know, really, parceled out. Wasted, gobbled up by whoever can get their hands on it."

  "So what should I do with it?"

  "Donate it. You know how many charities you could fund with that money? There's an endless amount you could do with it. With even the tiniest percentage, you could fund an entire school district for years. You could put an entire city full of kids through college. You could feed thousands of people. Put in wells in Africa. Build shelters for homeless people. My point is, don't just walk away from it. You don't have to keep it for yourself, but don't just . . . leave it sitting on the table. Take it, but use it for others. You could form a nonprofit, fund it with Caleb's money, and literally spend the rest of your life putting that money to use helping people. That's--fourteen billion dollars, Isabel?--that's world-changing money. Use it to change the world."

  "You'll help me?"

  "Of course."

  "Then let's do it." I feel a fever coming over me, ideas spinning through my head one after another too fast to pluck any single one. "When you talked about the charities you donated to, I got this--rush, from hearing you talk about it. And just thinking about it now, I'm getting excited. What better way to use Caleb's money than to make the world a better place with it?"

  "So you want to run a nonprofit? It's a lot of work, babe."

  "But it's making a difference. Toward the end of things with Caleb, when the status quo started changing--because of you, you know--I was growing increasingly discontent with the fact of Madame X, of what I--what she--was doing. Questioning the value in it. We talked about it, I think. How I felt as if I were wasting my time, wasting my self trying to turn spoiled brats into half-decent men, especially as it became obvious I never really changed them, just showed them how to hide their inner bastards. This? You said it yourself, this is a chance to do something powerful and life-changing. I don't just want to distribute the money, though. I want to . . . do things. Dig the wells. See what the money does."

  You are glowing. "This is going to be so cool, watching you do this."

  "You're helping, Logan. We are going to do this."

  "I'll help form the nonprofit, sort out the tax exemptions and all that, get you staffed and whatever else, the nuts and bolts of it, the mechanics of a corporation. That's what I do, after all. But this is you, Isabel. I'll support you, go anywhere with you. If you're digging wells in Africa, so am I. If you're rescuing girls out of prostitution in Thailand, so am I. But honey, this is going to be your project."

  I do not argue. He's right.

  For the first time in my life, I have a purpose, something I've chosen. And, oddly, I have you to thank, Caleb.

  Again.

  But this time it's a positive debt.

  I wonder what you would think, if you could see what I'm going to do with your fortune?

  EIGHTEEN

  I am in the ultrasound room of my doctor's office, and You are in a chair to my left, hands both around one of mine. With my other I keep my shirt tucked up into my bra, so it doesn't get smeared with the ultrasound jelly.

  The ultrasound technician, a woman named Lisa, has one hand on the wand, swiveling and sliding it all around my belly, angling it this way and that, tapping at the keyboard, sliding a ball that I think acts as a kind of computer mouse. Taking measurements, Lisa says--we'll get to the good stuff in a minute.

  I peer at the TV screen opposite the bed/table I'm on, trying to decipher what I'm seeing. But it's all a mystery, nothing but blobs and shadows and black and white, and sometimes ribbons of pulsating, shifting color.

  You glance at me, brows drawn down in a pinched expression of concentration. Maybe you see something I don't?

  And then Lisa taps a key and the room is filled with a rushing, rhythmic sound. A heartbeat. But there's an echo to it, or an overlap--thumpthump-THUMPTHUMP-thumpthump-THUMPTHUMP, a sound too fast to even be a fetal heartbeat.

  "Is that echoing sound normal?" I ask.

  "Let me just . . ." Lisa doesn't finish the sentence, though, but rather shifts the wand around, does something to narrow and zoom the focus, and captures the heartbeat again.
r />   Swivels, shifts, angles, utterly focused. But frowning, brow furrowed.

  "Is there something wrong?" I ask.

  "Not wrong, no. But I just want to verify what I think I'm seeing with another tech, okay? Just sit tight." And then Lisa leaves, comes back a moment later with another woman whom she introduces as Megan, an ultrasonographer.

  Megan introduces me to the less-than-wonderful experience of a vaginal ultrasound, doing much the same as Lisa did, only inside me. What fun.

  And I'm worried, because Lisa isn't telling me anything, and neither is Megan, and I'm starting to panic.

  "Can you please tell me what's going on?" I ask, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  You squeeze my hand, smile at me--it's okay, You're telling me, without needing words.

  "Okay," Megan says, zooming the perspective in, bringing up the strange, overlapping heartbeat, then holding the wand steady at a specific angle, so that within the black oval of my uterus there are two small white blobs visible. Megan points at the screen with an index finger. "So what we have here, Mom and Dad, is two babies."

  "What?" I sound as breathless as I truly am.

  "You're having twins."

  "Are you sure?" I ask.

  Megan laughs, not unkindly. "Yes, I'm sure. There's no way to mistake it, not from this angle." An index finger, stabbing the screen. "One, two. And yes, there are only two."

  Twins.

  Not just one unexpected child, but two.

  We go home, and I think we are both in a daze. Once through the front door, I slump, stunned, to the couch.

  It is overwhelming. How does one prepare for motherhood? I don't remember my mother, aside from a few minor glimpses. I haven't remembered anything else, and I don't think I will. Nothing major, at least. I don't remember my mother. I don't remember my father. I don't remember my childhood aside from a couple of insignificant memories. With no examples, how will I know whether I'm doing it right or wrong?

  I am not worried about loving them; I already do, fiercely, wildly. I think of them, whisper their names, and I feel this virulent, surging wash of throat-constricting emotion, a willingness to do whatever it takes. I have read so many books on parenting, read a thousand blogs on the subject, browsed through countless online chat forums. I go to the park and watch mothers with their children. Try to picture myself, a baby on each hip. Try to imagine waking up at midnight or three in the morning to feed them. Try to imagine buckling a little life into a car seat.

  The visions are easy.

  But I imagine the reality is always different. No one can ever be ready for parenthood, I think. You can't ever truly comprehend the truth of an entire life being solely dependent on you for survival, for guidance, for love.

  Thinking about the lives inside me, more than anything, makes me miss my parents. Or, rather, the idea of knowing them. It is difficult to put into words, even for myself. I cannot miss them, because I remember very little of them. I miss . . . the idea of them. I wish I remembered them. I wish I had them around to ask for guidance and advice. I wish . . .

  So many things.

  Too many things.

  "Isabel?" You, on the floor in front of me, looking up at me. Searching me with Your one vivid blue eye.

  "Twins, Logan." I speak the truth out loud, and I am no less afraid for saying it.

  "Twins, Isabel." You seem calm. Too calm.

  I look down at You. "You seem unaffected, Logan."

  A shrug. "It's two babies rather than one. More diapers, more bottles, more everything. More love."

  "I wasn't ready for one baby. Now we're having two?" I try not to cry, but it is futile. The tears leak.

  You slide up onto the couch, shift me onto you, and now I am lying on top of you, hearing your heartbeat, slow, steady, reassuring. "It's going to be okay, babe. We've got this."

  "We do?" I am not so sure, and I sound it.

  "Of course we do. I've got love to spare, sweetness." You kiss me. Make me look at you so I understand, so I do not just listen, but truly hear. "If I have enough love for you and one baby, I've got enough for you and two babies. And Isabel? So do you."

  "But I don't know how to have a baby. I don't know how to be a mother, Logan."

  "Yes, you do."

  I shake my head. "I barely remember my mother. All I have are a few random memories. How will I know what to do?"

  "The memories you do have, what are they like?"

  I breathe in, and then out, thinking. "I have the impression that she was a wonderful mother. She took care of me. She loved me. And she took care of and loved my father."

  "That's all you need to know, Isabel. She loved you, she took care of you. And these babies inside you"--Your palm goes to my belly--"You will love them, both of them. You will take care of them. The how? The mechanics of being a parent? I don't think anyone is really ready for that, babe. But you do it. You learn, you figure it out. We'll figure it out together, okay? We'll love them, together. We'll take care of them, together."

  I nod. I feel somewhat reassured, but still scared.

  And it dawns on me that You found a way, once again, to tell me it would be okay without saying so.

  *

  The next several months are spent becoming increasingly big with pregnancy, and getting the nonprofit corporation set up.

  I've decided on a name--for the corporation, not the babies: The Indigo Foundation. It's your money, Caleb. You earned it. You worked for it. It will be your legacy, carried out by Logan and me.

  I couldn't begin to explain or understand the complexities of setting up something of this scale, so I am thankful every single day for You, Logan, for how easily You facilitate the process, creating accounts and interviewing staff and moving the money around and a thousand other things, on top of running Your own business. For my part, I have been researching charities, looking into the laws and regulations regarding donations and funding, deciding what I'm going to do once the whole thing is set up.

  It is a lengthy process.

  This will not be a small undertaking. It will be, as You said, a lifelong project. It is a gobsmacking amount of money, and there are an unlimited number of causes in need of funding and support. I am overwhelmed just thinking about it, compiling the lists. There is so much to know, so many causes that are worthy and in need. Which do I pick first?

  You are in the chair beside me, working as well; You work from home almost exclusively now, having made some promotions in the office and rearranged things in order to be with me as much as possible. I am nearing my due date--any day now, our doctor tells us--and You don't want to be away from me for even a moment. You have attended every doctor visit. You personally painted the nursery--green, a neutral color, because, as we discovered at the gender-reveal ultrasound, we are having a girl and a boy.

  Camila, for my mother, and Luis, for my father.

  You put together bassinets and cribs and bouncers, picked out onesies and bibs--blue ones for Luis, and pink for Camila--stocked up on diapers and wipes and ointments from the Honest Company. If I feel them kicking, you put your palm to my belly. And what a belly it is. I feel mammoth, so enormous I can barely move. Everything hurts. Being pregnant is definitely real now. Too real. Camila and Luis are there, inside me, ready to come out. I need them out, I need to be done being pregnant. It is exhausting, taxing, draining. I am in a fog, and merely walking down the stairs from the bedroom to the kitchen takes an eternity, and I have to rest halfway down, and then again once I reach the bottom.

  I try to picture doing this alone, being a mother, having an unexpected child. No Logan to comfort and provide for and protect and love. I try to picture a woman, large with child, making her way down the streets of New York, on aching feet, exhausted from working to keep the roof over her head, food in the kitchen.

  And I know what The Indigo Foundation's first project will be: a resource center for single mothers, a chain of them across the country, even. Bills paid. Pantries stocked. Nurs
eries prepared. Childcare provided. Postpartum depression therapy. Regular get-togethers of other single moms in the area, for mutual support and willing ears who understand the hardship.

  I draft an e-mail outlining my idea and send it to You. Within fifteen minutes, You have returned the email with practical next steps: find a location for the first center, begin interviewing staff, set up the charter and structure, find additional donors, locate resources to tie in, food pantries and daycares and patient advocates and babysitting services. The list is massive, and daunting. But it provides me with additional steps to begin working on.

  I decide the first center will be in Queens, an area that seems, in my limited estimation, in need of such a service. I make a list of potential available locations based on a quick real estate search, send it to You, and You in turn send it to one of the assistants You hired for the foundation, who then immediately heads to Queens with an itinerary and a list of needs from a potential location.

  The day is consumed with this work, and the hours fly by quickly. Karen, the assistant, reports three likely locations for me to choose from. Merely from a few e-mails You send to former clients, we secure several donors for the project, and I come up with a long list of resource providers that are interested in partnering with the center.

  I need a name, though.

  I decide, temporarily at least, on MiN: Mothers in Need.

  Realizing I've been working for several hours without a break, and that my bladder is screaming at me, I decide to take a break. I've also been feeling occasional contractions for the last few hours, what I assume are Braxton-Hicks contractions, and usually getting and walking around helps them go away.