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One year earlier
I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring down at the chipped pink nail polish on my big toe, which stuck out of my peep-toe heels like a plump sausage. The swelling hadn’t completely gone away yet. Last time, it took almost two weeks. It’s only been eleven days.
“Are you ready?” Marc’s voice called to me from the bathroom, where he was busy manipulating his short, dark hair with styling wax.
“Almost!” I shouted back as I continued to stare at my toes, silently congratulating myself for not avoiding the traumatic view.
It wasn’t my swollen toes I desperately wanted to turn away from. It was the pillowy swell of my deflated abdomen, a sight most women in my position would consider a traumatic reminder of the cruel indifference of natural selection. But I didn’t shy away from the view. Instead, I peered intently past the mound of soft flesh below my breasts. As if, by looking beyond it, I could convince myself “this too shall pass.”
Marc came out of the bathroom into the bedroom, the smile on his boyish face wavering when he found me sitting on the bed. “I thought you were getting ready.”
“I am ready,” I replied.
His eyes scanned me quickly, taking in my hasty ponytail, a black maxi dress—the one I wore throughout all eight months of my pregnancy—and a faded gray cardigan. I was painfully aware he wanted me to look my best for the Christmas party. He was trying to secure a big client for the firm tonight.
His smile returned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You look beautiful.”
My shoulders slumped as I let out a deep sigh. “Don’t patronize me.”
“What?”
“I know you want me to wear something sleek, like all the other partners’ wives, but I’m not in any—”
“I never said that!” he replied forcefully as he took a seat next to me. “I don’t want you to be like them. You’re not like them. You’ve got more class—”
“Please don’t.”
We sat in silence for a while, both of us probably making incorrect assumptions at what the other was thinking. I couldn’t be sure how long this went on, but I suddenly found my body going limp as Marc wrapped his arms around me. It was one of those moments where the tighter he held me, the more I could feel us falling apart. We’d had many of those moments over the past two years.
“Cass, you know we can try again,” he murmured into my ear.
“I don’t want to.”
His hold loosened on me as he tilted his head back. “Well, not right away. But maybe in another six months or so. You’ll feel better.”
I felt as if I were looking at a stranger. The crinkle in his brow between his icy-blue eyes, the one I’d admired on our first date over a decade ago, seemed foreign to me. Who was this man who suggested I would be ready to try for another baby in six months?
Did he forget how the last stillbirth left me in a deep depression for almost a year before I finally sought counseling? Or how I didn’t get out of bed for a week after the miscarriage? One miscarriage, two stillbirths, and eleven days later, and he thought I would be fully recovered and ready to mingle with the Philadelphia elite tonight?
“I don’t know you anymore,” I said, thinking of the secrets I knew he’d been keeping, which I’d yet to confront him with.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Please don’t start with that.”
“We’re strangers living in the same house.”
He shook his head as he rose from the bed and headed for the dresser. “You should make an appointment with Dr. Segal.”
I let out a soft puff of laughter at this suggestion, which was obviously meant as a not-so-subtle insult. “I hope you have a wonderful time tonight,” I said, lying back onto my pillow and turning my gaze to the jagged shadows on the vaulted ceiling. “Try not to screw anyone in the bathroom.”
He could have chosen that moment to remind me that we both had strayed during our four-month trial separation. But there were two things Marc despised more than talking about our fertility challenges: talking about the past and imagining me with another man.
He stood at the foot of the bed for a moment. He was probably waiting for me to apologize for the low blow, or to notice the expression on his face. When I didn’t oblige, he left the bedroom without a word, leaving behind a silence as hollow as my womb.
I pulled the covers over me to stave off the chill that settled into my bones, not bothering to remove my heels. Closing my eyes, the first image I saw was a glowing orb of yellow light, as seen through the white hospital bedsheet they used to shield my view of Mira as she was whisked away.
The day I told him I was pregnant again, Marc and I decided on the name Mira, if we had a girl. It was a Slavic name meaning “peace” or “world.” We liked to joke that our Mira would bring world peace. It was reckless to make inside jokes about the baby, to establish special phrases that could—would eventually serve as reminders of my failure as a woman.
There was no question about it, I was defective.
I considered slipping out of bed to sneak a valium out of the medicine cabinet, but I couldn’t even bring myself to take off my uncomfortable shoes, much less stand up in them.
Pulling the plush down comforter over my head, I allowed myself to imagine what my life would be like today if Mira had not died inside me. I might be lying in this bed with her suckling at my breast. Or I might be standing in the doorway, watching Marc drift off with our daughter fast asleep on his chest.
Yes, that was a good fantasy. I would go with that one.
As imaginary me quietly slid under the sheets next to Marc and Mira’s warm bodies, the real me ignored the chill of the empty bedsheets, and the chasm of grief gnawing at my insides, as I drifted off.
I woke minutes later to the sensation of Marc’s hand falling softly over my swollen abdomen as he nestled his face into the back of my neck. His fingers curled around the black fabric of my dress. As I lay my hand over his clenched fist, a strangled sob spilled softly from his lips.
“This is my fault,” he whispers.
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s just… You’re going through so much right now, with…with Mira and your father,” he whispered. “I’m supposed to be your rock, but I feel more like a ticking time bomb…or a cloud of dust.”
I turned over to face him and laid a hand on his freshly-shaven jaw. “You can fall apart with me,” I whispered as I wiped his tears. “I’d rather have a cloud of dust than a shadow.”
Don’t Apologize
My name is Cassidy. I remember the way my sister would say my name when she was upset with me — shouted shrilly with an angry inflection on the a. Shouted across no fewer than four rooms in the cavernous late 19th-century mansion we called home. My sister’s name is Caroline, but anyone who matters calls her Lina. My brother’s name is Carter.
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My father chose all three of our names. He had a fondness for alliteration.
My father was born Theodore O’Connor, but most of the world knew him as Teddy O.; the pen name he’d used to write and illustrate dozens of children’s books. But to anyone who mattered, he was Dad.
Who am I? Do I matter to anyone?
As my eyelids slowly open, a pounding headache pulsates behind my left eye socket. Blinking a few times, I manage to make out my surroundings. I’m still in Shadow’s mother’s bedroom. The room is dimly lit by the dull morning light filtering through the yellowed curtains and the thick canopy of trees outside.
I let out a soft sigh as I realize I made it through the night, and I’m able to recall at least some of the details of my life. My head injury must not be that serious. Unless the throbbing pain behind my left eye is a symptom of a slow brain bleed.
“Shine?”
I startle at the gruff, just-woken sound of Shadow’s voice, though his use of the name Shine seems almost natural to me. “Good morning,” I say, my voice weak and gravelly with thirst.
Besides my thirst, my brain feels woolen and sluggish. Had I dreamed Shadow was choking me? No, I don’t actually remember his hands on my neck.
Shadow reaches for the glass of stale water on the nightstand—didn’t I drink all the water in that glass last night? He hands it to me, and I gladly accept it, hastily gulping down the lukewarm liquid.
He still doesn’t meet my gaze as he slips the empty glass out of my limp grasp, but his voice sounds more resolute today. “You need to eat.” This isn’t a suggestion, and I’m quite glad to surrender my choice in the matter.
I don’t know what kind of food Shadow eats out here in the middle of nowhere, with no phone to order Thai take-out. But the lethargy, which has settled into every muscle in my body, convinces me it doesn’t really matter. Short of eating pickled raccoon’s feet or possum stew, I’ll probably eat just about anything I can get my hands on.
