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But sometime in the last year or so, the gloss has begun to wear off. Perhaps because it feels just that—glossy, superficial, and pathetically unimportant compared to what a lot of people are doing.
Or perhaps it’s just because I’m tire d of being the corporate careerwoman. I want a baby. Not that I’ve told anyone at work about that. I was reluctant even to tell them I’d got married, knowing how Mara would mentally take me down a few rungs on the career ladder. I remember overhearing a dismissive comment of hers about a woman in the accounting department, when she went on maternity leave with her first child. Even when she comes back, it won’t be the same. She won’t work the way she used to.
Sometimes, though, I fantasize about not coming back. About having a baby and moving to the country, somewhere upstate, a rickety farmhouse with a vegetable patch and a couple of chickens. It’s all ridiculous, I know. I’ve never lived anywhere but in a city, whether it was Boston or New York or Claremont, and my husband’s job is here, as well. Yet I still dream; I picture myself in something loose and linen, my hair down my back and my feet bare, my baby in a sling. It’s not me at all, but then what is?
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve left Mara with the promise to redesign the campaign; the genius of digital marketing is that I can do that with a few clicks of my mouse and little expense. Another cramp twinges in my belly and I make a detour back to the bathroom, swearing out loud when I see that my period has come. Another month wasted. Disappointment is a twisting in my gut, a sour taste in my mouth, even though I’ve been expecting this, or at least telling myself to.
I wash my hands and when I look at myself in the mirror, my eyes are hard, my expression fixed and grim. I can’t quite fake it this time. I will be fine, I always am, but I’m not right now.
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The disappointment still clings to me like a mist as I leave Maemae’s offices in downtown Boston and head towards our apartment in Beacon Hill. It’s a twenty-minute walk and I usually use the time to clear my head, breathe deep, unwind after eight hours of mental focus and determined energy. Tonight, though, I can’t shake the sadness.
Five months of trying. And I’m thirty-six. What if it doesn’t happen? What then? I’m not ready to think of contingency plans, but I’m already afraid I’m going to have to.
It’s a beautiful evening, the trees lining Boston Common bursting with pink puffballs of cherry blossom. It’s the first really warm day, the kind where people can shed their jackets and coats and stroll easily through Boston’s parks instead of walking quickly, head down against the icy cold and biting wind. The kind of evening where I might meet up with friends somewhere trendy and fun—a wine bar in the Back Bay, or a new tapas place on Tremont Street. As it is, my phone stays in my pocket.
My steps slow as I come to the street of gracious brownstones where I live, in the kind of apartment you’d expect to see on some Boston drama or sitcom, with a big bay window and a bike chained to the iron railing, flowerboxes under every window and bookcases flanking the fireplace that we’re not allowed to use.
It’s a beautiful apartment, but it’s overpriced and it’s not a particularly good neighbourhood for families, far too expensive, but I suppose we should enjoy it while we can. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself, trying to stay upbeat.
Even now I am wondering if I should mention this latest disappointment. I always tell myself I won’t, just like I tell myself I won’t test early, and then I do. I can’t help it; I want my husband to share my sorrow, and I know he won’t, not entirely, even if he tries to act as if he does. I’m afraid I can see something like relief in his eyes when it’s another negative test, another month of no, and it hurts me every time. I know he doesn’t want this as much as I do, even if he never says it outright.
But tonight, as I step into the marble-tiled hallway, sunlight slanting through the big windows of the front room and catching the dust motes in the air, I realize something else is already going on.
James is standing by the kitchen island in the back of the apartment, his cell phone clamped to his ear, a shuttered look on his face that he always has when he’s talking to his ex-wife. Before I hear a word he says, I know it’s Rachel on the line.
I slip off my heels and pour myself a glass of wine from the bottle James has already opened, although he hasn’t yet poured himself any. I give him a fleeting smile which he doesn’t return, acknowledging me with just a nod.
I can hear the unfamiliar, strident sound of Rachel’s voice through the phone. I’ve spoken to her exactly once, on the phone, about four months ago, when she called the landline instead of James’ cell.
We were both startled, I think, by the reality of the other person; she was soft-spoken then, almost apologetic for bothering me. I stammered something about passing on the message that she’d called, and then we both hung up, feeling, I think, relieved.
I heft the bottle and gesture to James, but he shakes his head, angling his body away from me. It must be a serious call, then, like it was the last time Rachel called, when Emily slipped into a coma. James went out to meet Rachel, see Emily, and was gone for hours. When he finally got back, he looked both shocked and exhausted, his eyes unfocused. I asked him what had happened, and he shook his head, struggling to get the words out.
“She’s in a coma,” he said finally. “She just… lost consciousness. They’re not sure if she’ll wake up.” His voice was ragged but when I tried to comfort him, he flinched away. “I can’t talk about it,” he said, which was what he always said, and I let him go, because what else could I do?
I have never known how to be, when it comes to Rachel and Emily.
James told me straight away about them both, something I appreciated. He was upfront about his emotional baggage; he didn’t try to hide it the way some people do, even when you can see it trailing behind them, a battered train of wrecked relationships or fears of commitment, hidden complications or abuses or pain. They think they’re hiding it but no one really can.
If anything, James told me more than I might have wanted to know, at least all at once. I think he wanted to get it all out, and afterwards he cringed a little, as if waiting for me to back off. To say this was not what I had signed up for.
Because of course it wasn’t, and yet at the same time it was. I knew I wanted to be with a man who is there for his wife and child. And although Rachel might not agree with me, James was and is there for Emily. And that counts for a lot.
* * *
But it doesn’t make it easier, in moments like this one.
I take my glass of wine and curl up on the big, squashy sofa in the living room, glancing out the bay window that faces the street, waiting for James to finish his call. I wonder what Rachel has phoned him about. Has something happened to Emily? My mind shies away from any potential scenarios; they’re all grim, and I don’t know how I feel about any of them. I’ve never met Emily, or for that matter, Rachel. From the one photo I’ve seen of James’ little girl, I can imagine what she looks like, but it’s something vague and hazy, a pale, blonde girl lying in a bed, someone who is not quite real to me.
In the year that I’ve known James, it has never really felt like my business, to ask about Emily, and yet it seems ungenerous not to. I’ve tried to stay interested yet on the periphery; it’s hard to strike the right balance. I bought Emily a present once, a soft toy in the shape of a dolphin, because James had told me, in one of his rare moments of actually talking about Emily, that she’d loved the New England Aquarium. He took it to the hospital, and that was the last I heard of it. I didn’t know whether to ask about it, and when I do ask about anything Emily-related, James’ answers tend to be terse, so it’s easier not to ask at all, even if that feels wrong.
I sip my wine, my mind slipping over what I do know about my husband’s former life. Rachel and James were married for six years; they had Emily when they were both thirty-five, and when she was just over three years old she started exhibiting symptoms—slurring words, migraines, joint pain.
It sounded awful, and according to James it became progressively worse. I don’t know the exact details, but I know that for a year they took her for tests and searched for a diagnosis, and then just after her fourth birthday she started having seizures, and spending more time in the hospital than not. Six months ago, when she was a little over five years old, she went in for a chest infection, ended up slipping into a coma and then a persistent vegetative state.
I met James when Emily was almost five; he’d been separated from Rachel for three months, which didn’t feel quite long enough to me, but he insisted they’d been drifting apart for a while before that. How long ‘a while’ is, I’ve never asked.
