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Theyd shut the door to
this room and kept it closed. Once a week, their cleaning woman ventured inside, but Angie and Conlan never did. For well over a year, this room had stood empty, a shrine to their dream of someday. Theyd given up on all of it--the doctors, the treatments, the injections, and the procedures. Then, miraculously, Angie had conceived again. By the time she was five months pregnant, theyd dared once more to enter this room and fill it with their dreams. They should have known better.
She went to the closet and pulled out a big cardboard box. One by one, she began to put things into it, trying not to attach memories to every piece she touched.
"Hey. "
She hadnt even heard the door open, and yet here he was, in the room with her.
She knew how crazy it must seem to him, to find his wife sitting in the middle of the room, with a big cardboard box beside her. Inside it were all of her precious knickknacks--the Winnie-the-Pooh bedside lamp, the Aladdin picture frame, the crisp new collection of Dr. Seuss books. The only piece of furniture left was the crib. The bedding was on the floor beside it, a neat little stack of pale pink flannel.
She turned to look up at him. There were tears in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she hadnt noticed until now. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was; it had all gone wrong between them. She picked up a small pink stack of sheets, stroking the fabric. "It made me crazy" was all she could say.
He sat down beside her.
She waited for him to speak, but he just sat there, watching her. She understood. The past had taught him caution. He was like an animal that had adapted to its dangerous environment by being still and quiet. Between the fertility drugs and the broken dreams, Angies emotions were unpredictable. "I forgot about us," she said.
"There is no us, Angie. " The gentle way he said it broke her heart.
Finally. One of them had dared to say it. "I know. "
"I wanted a baby, too. "
She swallowed hard, trying to keep her tears under control. Shed forgotten that in the last few years; Conlan had dreamed of fatherhood just as she wanted motherhood. Somewhere along the way, it had all become about her. Shed focused so much on her own grief that his had become incidental. It was one of those realizations that would haunt her, she knew. She had always been dedicated to success in her life--her family called her obsessive--and becoming a mother had been one more goal to attain. She should have remembered that it was a team sport.
"Im sorry," she said again.
He took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the kind of kiss they hadnt shared in years.
They sat that way, entwined, for a long time.
She wished his love could have been enough for her. It should have been. But her need for a child had been like a high tide, an overwhelming force that had drowned them. Maybe a year ago she could have kicked to the surface. Not now. "I loved you. . . . "
"I know. "
"We should have been more careful. "
Later that night, when she was alone in the bed theyd bought together, she tried to remember the hows and whys of it, the things theyd said to each other at the end of their love, but none of it came back to her. All she could really remember was the smell of baby powder and the sound of his voice when he said good-bye.
TWO
IT WAS AMAZING HOW MUCH TIME IT TOOK TO DISMANTLE a life. Once Angie and Conlan had decided to end their marriage, details became what mattered. How to divide everything in half, especially the indivisible things like houses and cars and hearts. They spent months on the details of divorce, and by late September it was done.
Her house--no, it was the Pedersons house now-- was empty. Instead of bedrooms and a designer living room and a granite-layered kitchen, she had a sizeable amount of money in the bank, a storage facility filled with fifty percent of their furniture, and a car trunk full of suitcases.
Angie sat on the brick hearth, staring out across the gleaming gold of her hardwood floors.
There had been blue carpeting in here on the day she and Conlan had moved in.
Hardwood, theyd said to each other, smiling at the ease of their agreement and the power of their dream. Kids are so hard on carpet.
So long ago . . .
Ten years in this house. It felt like a lifetime.
The doorbell rang.
She immediately tensed.
