Daughter's Keeper (46 page)

“Will your friend be all right?” Elaine asked.

Olivia nodded. “I hope so. I'll write her mother and ask her to bring the girls again in a couple of weeks.” She reached an arm around her mother's shoulder and squeezed. “She'll be fine, Mom. Tell me more about what's going on with you guys.”

“Why don't you put Luna down,” Elaine said. “She's been cruising on the furniture. She's so close to walking.”

Olivia set the girl on her impossibly small feet and watched her as she smacked her hands on the plastic bench. The baby turned around and, wobbling a bit, set off down the aisle, her arms raised in the air.

“Oh, my God! She's walking,” Olivia said, laughing. She ran out in front of her daughter and caught her just as she stumbled and sat down on the floor, her padded rear end hitting the rubberized flooring with a soft smack. “When did she learn to do that? How long has she been doing that?”

Elaine smiled at her daughter and lied. “This is her first time. She's been getting ready, but this is the first time she's really walked on her own.”

Elaine protected Olivia with her dishonesty. She protected her from the agonizing irony that the mother's redemption, hers, had come at the daughter's expense. Elaine, who had contracted and constricted herself until what she had offered her daughter was something barely recognizable as a mother's love, had been given a second chance. She had been given the opportunity to atone for her neglect, but this very act of contrition was itself a betrayal. She had replaced Olivia in Luna's affection. It was Elaine who was now the center of the little girl's world. And yet, even so, Olivia loved her child with every bit of the generosity and fidelity she had felt during the months they had passed their nights tangled in each other's arms. Such was the depth of her love that it could survive both separation and the little girl's disregard.

They spent the rest of the visit standing ten feet or so apart as Luna stumbled and staggered between them. Finally, a loud voice informed them that their visit was over. Olivia scooped the baby into her arms and buried her face in her neck, inhaling deeply. Elaine looked around the room and saw the mothers all doing the same thing. They were all smelling their children, breathing their aromas, memorizing their particular and unique fragrance. Olivia stood up and handed Luna to her mother. Elaine leaned over and kissed her daughter on the cheek.

“Write as much as you can,” Elaine said.

“Don't forget your Mama,” Olivia said, tracing a finger down Luna's cheek.

“Wave bye-bye to Mama,” Elaine said, and the little girl ­obediently lifted her hand, adding her voice to the chorus of ­children all saying the same thing. The grandmothers, aunts, and foster mothers guided their charges through the glass doors, leaving behind a crowd of women, each gripping a single red rose in her hand.

Ayelet Waldman
graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for a federal judge prior to becoming a criminal defense attorney for the Federal Public Defender's office in Los Angeles. Currently, she is an adjunct professor at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California. She is also the author of a successful mystery series. Ayelet lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, author Michael Chabon, and their four children.

This book benefited from the patience and attention of many talented and generous readers. Ed Swanson and Katya Kamasaruk's expertise in criminal law and the prison system was invaluable. The attorneys and staff of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children provided information critical to the plot and story. Amanda Coyne's essay, “Lockup,” was an inspiration, as was the work of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Elaine Petrocelli not only read this book and supported it early on, but also corrected a glaring error. I'm grateful to Vicki Carter of Elmwood Pharmacy for her expertise. Kathleen Caldwell read draft after draft, and was both critical and supportive, not an easy balance to strike. I also thank Mona Simpson, Vendela Vida, Dorothy Allison, Daniel Handler, Gail Tsukiyama, Susanne Pari, Kim Chernin and the other women of Edgework Books, Heidi Julavits, Rabih Almaddine, Elizabeth Joyce, Saundi Schwartz, Michael Barnard, and especially Amanda Davis, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Dave Eggers.

Megan McDonald, Melinda Johnson, and Carmen Dario did the work that gave me time to write.

Mary Evans championed this book with a devotion typical of her, and unique in the world.

I am grateful to Jennifer Fusco for her kind editorial guidance, Megan Dempster for a beautiful design, and to Dominique Raccah, Barbi Pecenco, Todd Stocke, and the entire Sourcebooks family. I am lucky to have fallen into their talented and generous hands.

I thank my children, Sophie, Zeke, Ida-Rose, and Abraham, my sweet jailors in the life sentence that is motherhood, and their father, my editor, critic, champion, and b'shert, Michael Chabon.

There is no way to acknowledge the debt I owe to the victims of the federal mandatory minimum sentences.