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She nods slowly. “That’s probably a good idea. God knows I’ll need some therapy.” Her gaze moves to Emily, who is utterly still, her breaths barely visible. Her face crumples for a second and then smooths out. “Why is life so hard?” she asks, and I don’t give an answer, because of course there isn’t one.
Life is hard, and painful and messy and disappointing, but amidst all that there’s hope, fluttering and ragged, the last thing left in the box. I feel it when I go for my first appointment with the obstetrician and I have to fill out my medical form.
Before she examines me, she asks me about my previous pregnancy, and I explain it all to her, and for once my voice doesn’t waver. The obstetrican, Dr. Stein, reaches over and puts her hand over mine briefly.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “That must have been incredibly difficult for you.”
“It was.” I pause. “It still is.” And somehow, saying that helps.
I find hope when I visit my parents and tell them about my pregnancy, and my mother tears up while my father beams. I could have left it at that, again it would be so easy, but I don’t.
“Mom,” I say. “Dad.” They falter at my serious tone, my grave expression. “This isn’t my first pregnancy.”
And so I tell them, just as I told Rachel, and James, and Dr. Stein, and my mother weeps and my father looks diminished, shrinking into himself, shocked by my admission, by the fact I kept it a secret for so long. I always expected them to be shocked, disappointed, even condemning. But I didn’t expect them to feel hurt.
“Oh, Eva,” my mother says as she hugs me. “I wish you’d told us. I wish we could have been there for you, back then.”
I put my arms around her, feeling her frailness. “I didn’t want to disappoint you…”
“Eva.” My father’s voice is a growl to hide his own emotion. “You could never disappoint us.”
“If you’d kept her,” my mother says tremulously. “We would have helped. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I can barely get the word out as I acknowledge the regret and longing in their voices. “I know.”
“But it would have been so hard,” she continues. “Too hard, maybe…” The questioning lilt at the end of her voice tells me she doesn’t really believe that. She is trying to find me a way out, because that’s what mothers do.
I won’t let her give it to me. “I don’t know, Mom, if it would have been or not. But it was the choice I made.” And that is the trouble; that has always been the trouble. I am tormented by the not knowing, by the what if. But like Rachel said, no matter what or how much I regret, I have to let it go. And telling my parents is part of that.
We hug and cry some more, even my dad, and it isn’t easy, because I know there is now a rift between us, a rift made of love rather than hurt, but a rift all the same. It will heal, like all things heal, but it will leave a scar, as all deep wounds do.
And that, amazingly, is okay, because scars do not have to be marks of shame. They are signs of survival.
In early September, when I am about to start my second trimester, I start to do some freelance work, helping people with their digital marketing and social media. I know I want to be home with my child, but we need the money and I want to keep an outside interest.
James agrees, and he helps me set up a website, making suggestions, more interested in my fledgling career than he ever has been before. We’re finding our old rhythms as well as making new ones. He calls my bump Frodo, and jokes about the absurd names he’s thinking of—Thor. Optimus Prime.
We start looking for a new house, because this apartment isn’t big enough for a baby. We’re thinking somewhere a little bit different, maybe on the North Shore, Marblehead or Rockport. It would be a longer commute for James, but there would be beaches and playgrounds and fresh, clean air. It’s exciting to think about, for both of us.
One weekend in August we go house-hunting and spend the night at a romantic bed and breakfast right on the beach, making love with the sound of the waves in the background. Later, we walk along the moonlit beach and James tells me about how Emily loved making sandcastles, how the last time he remembered her being well was when they were on vacation in Cape Cod.
I hold his hand as he speaks and I let the words come, knowing he is telling me not because he needs to, but because he wants to. He wants to include me in his grief, and that is a good thing.
It is a beautiful day in the middle of September, the leaves touched with crimson and gold, the sky the bright, aching blue of fall, when Rachel calls me. I haven’t spoken to her in a few weeks; after the initial crisis of our return from Italy, and my visits to the hospital, things dropped off a bit between us, which felt okay. James still continued to spend most evenings at the hospital, and he kept me informed; Emily was, more or less, the same.
But today she is different.
“Eva? It’s Rachel.” Her voice is quiet and composed, and for some reason that alarms me. “It’s Emily,” she says in that same calm voice.
“Emily…”
“It’s time.”
27
Rachel
It is strange to me, how ready I am for this. After years of refusing even to think about it, of fighting it with every breath in my body, now that the time has come, I feel strangely settled inside, in a way I never, ever would have expected.
