To keep myself from bursting into tears, I bit down on my bottom lip so hard I almost drew blood. “What is it?”
“121 beats per minute.”
Not that strong, but it was still early. I’d take it.
I called my mother, Tracey, and Jessica, swearing them to secrecy. Jean-Luc and I did not share the news with Max and Elvire, although he did tell his sisters, and Christian and Ghislaine were already in the know. Everybody promised to keep quiet until I was out of the woods and well on my way through this pregnancy.
Sunday, May 29, was Mother’s Day in France.
I entered Elvire’s bedroom to find her carving Je t’aime, Maman onto her wooden dresser, tears streaming down her face. I gave her a hug, told her I understood. In the frame I’d given her, a picture of Frédérique, the children’s mother, rested on Elvire’s desk. Dangling off the frame was the keepsake I’d given to guests—seven Tibetan charms symbolizing our union, like a fleur-de-lis and a dragonfly tied to a satin ribbon that hung from a starfish—at our wedding. I squeezed her shoulders and closed the door behind me, leaving her to settle all the conflicting emotions down. I was feeling a bit conflicted, too. I shut myself in the bathroom downstairs, crying silently.
Jean-Luc tapped on the door. “Are you okay, ’oney?”
I opened the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, noting the tears on my face.
“Nothing.”
“Sam?”
“God, Jean-Luc. Do I have to draw you a picture? I can’t even believe I have to tell you this. I thought you would do something on your own accord.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s Mother’s Day.”
He pointed at my stomach. “Is this because of Jack the Bean?”
“No. And yes. And also the fact I take care of your kids. So much in fact they’re like mine now. I’m the one who cooks all their meals. I’m the one giving them bisous before sending them off to school. I’m the one who dries their tears when you’re not around. God, I just want one ounce of appreciation.” I sobbed. “Just one ounce on one measly day.”
He drew me into his arms. “Of course you’re appreciated. I love you. We all do.”
I looked into his eyes. “I just went to the bathroom and when I wiped there was some blood.”
He bit down on his lip. “Sam, it’s probably nothing. But just to be sure—”
I was at Doctor K’s again, Jean-Luc by my side, on the table, same old, same old, squeezing my eyes shut as he delivered the news. “I’m sorry, but Samantha is in the process of miscarrying. There is no fetal heartbeat. I’m afraid this isn’t a viable pregnancy.”
Bang. Bang. Bang. I was dead. I was mad at Doctor K. I was mad at Jean-Luc. I was mad at France. In that moment, I was mad at everybody, the entire world. I, a woman who would give her heart and soul to a child, had to go through this. It wasn’t fair. A knot of pain twisted in my stomach. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.
“Was it something that could have been prevented?” asked Jean-Luc.
“If you’re asking if the miscarriage was caused by something else, an outside influence, the answer is no. She doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t smoke, eats healthy. She is healthy. Most likely, it’s a chromosomal anomaly. Sadly, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint a reason.”
“Is there anything we can do to stop this from happening again?”
“Perhaps,” said Doctor K. “It could have something to do with the oxygen levels in her blood, but anything we try has no guarantees. She’d have to go in for a series of tests. For now, we’ll just check all her hormone levels.”
“Will she have to have surgery?”
“No, it’s not far enough along for risking another D&C. The material will have to pass naturally. It will be like a heavier period.” I tuned out Doctor K as he told us not give up hope, to try again, that we were both still young.
But that was a lie. I wasn’t young. A high-risk case, I was turning forty-two that year.
Words echoed in my head, pulsing and throbbing. I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. Maybe forever. Jean-Luc wrapped his arms around me. “Sam, I’m feeling this sadness too.”
One week later my body convulsed in extraordinary pain. The doctor had said the loss would be like a heavy period. It wasn’t. Along with severe physical torture, I couldn’t blame the tears I had to hide from Max and Elvire on PMS, so I came up with a little white lie to explain my zombie-like state: I had a debilitating (and very contagious) stomach flu. The kids steered clear of me. On the many trips to the bathroom, I tried to find something, anything, resembling a fetus. There was nothing, only blood, and strange alien material covering my hands. I bled for a week.
And then I was empty.
This time, I let Jean-Luc’s scientific reasoning offer comfort: nature had other plans for the little life once growing inside me, the bean that could’ve been a beanstalk, but didn’t quite reach the sky. His words prompted me into action, and I soon found myself digging up the earth in the backyard with my bare hands, digging like a wild dog searching for a long-forgotten bone, throwing rocks to the side. I was now planting two rosebushes, one orange and one hot pink—my favorite colors—in remembrance of two angel babies.
Jean-Luc came home from work to find me in the garden panting, which is what happens when your garden is located over a former riverbed filled with rocks. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. Dirt covered my entire body, mud splattering my arms and my face, everywhere. Blood tinged my fingernails. I may have looked certifiably insane, but my heart was in a lot less pain. I was angry and sad, but I hadn’t given up on hope.
“When we can, we’ll give this pregnancy thing one more shot,” I said. “But if the third time isn’t the charm, I won’t be able to ‘try without trying’ anymore. I just can’t do it.”
16
WEIGHT NOT, WANT NOT
It was the end of June, and Elvire had planned a slumber party with five of her friends for her fourteenth birthday. I needed to get back with the step-by-stepmom program. Although this second loss had shaken my nerves, the children’s happiness was more important than my own. Thankfully, Elvire wanted to order in goat-cheese-and-honey pizzas, and Jean-Luc was picking up a chocolate mousse cake along with two barquettes of delicious, fresh strawberries, so all I had to do was set the table and shake off any sadness that might creep up. As I watched Elvire greet her closest amies with the required bisous and yelps of delight, it became easier to smile.
Elvire bounced into the kitchen. “Can we steal your shoes? Les talons? ”
At five-foot-seven, Elvire was now taller than me, but we had the same size feet. I had let her borrow my favorite short, black motorcycle boots once. Now, when they went missing, I knew where they were: on her. Unless Jean-Luc and I went out on one of our rare date nights for a birthday or anniversary, I never wore heels. They were dangerous in my small town with its brick-paved streets.
“Bien sûr,” I said. Of course.
“Et, aussi,” said Elvire. “Puis-je emprunter le kit maquillage? Celui avec toutes les couleurs de fard à paupières? ”
“You can keep the makeup kit,” I said. I didn’t wear colored eye shadows anymore—just black eyeliner, mascara, foundation, and blush, maybe a little lipstick.
Her eyes widened with surprise. “Really?”
“It’s yours. It’s in the drawer upstairs in the bathroom.”
Elvire gave me a quick hug and bolted back to her room. If a used makeup kit made her screech with joy, just wait until she saw the silver necklace with a heart charm and tiny butterfly studs we’d purchased for her birthday gift. I set the table, listening to the giggles coming from upstairs with an ear-to-ear grin stretching across my face. Planting the two rosebushes had settled my nerves. The happiness lighting Elvire’s eyes eased the stabs of pain.
Life, indeed, does goes on.
A few moments later, Max sauntered down the stairs with a grimace on his face. “Elles sont te
llement bizarres. Une des amies d’Elvire ressemble à un chat. Avec les moustaches! ”
They are so weird. One of Elvire’s friends looks like a cat. With whiskers!
I noted that Max had used the word for cat in the masculine form, not saying une chatte. And I knew why. One day I made the mistake of asking our neighbor Claude if he’d seen my cat—“Est-ce que t’as vu ma chatte? ” First, his jaw dropped and then he laughed so hard he almost fell down. Basically, I’d asked him if he’d seen my pussy. So, unless used in dirty pillow talk, using “cat” in the feminine form was another exception to French grammar rules. This rule also applied to saying that you were excited in French. One never said je suis très excitée. To say you were very excited also carried a strong sexual connotation. And so did saying je suis chaude (I’m horny) to the paella vendor.
Every day was an education. And I was definitely learning—mostly that I had foot-in-mouth syndrome in not one but two languages.
Apparently, the girls were getting creative with the makeup kit, doing the whole girly-girl thing. To my knowledge, Elvire and her girlfriends were still innocent. They didn’t drink, smoke, or swear, although they did rat their hair (and were probably doing it right at that moment). There was no boy drama. Yet. Oftentimes, I liked to tease Jean-Luc, telling him that she’d probably fall in love with a guy who was just like him, and Jean-Luc would cringe with fear. He remembered what he was like at her age. And he’d told me all about it.
“In the summers of my youth, girls from all over Europe would come to La Ciotat. We especially looked forward to the Swedes…”
At this point, I’d laugh and call him a player.
Upstairs, the music and laughter reached new decibels. The girls sang Rihanna’s “Only Girl (In the World)” off key and at the top of their lungs, their heeled foot-stomping putting Michael Flatley’s Riverdance to shame. Click, click, boom. Click, click, boom.
Jean-Luc came home from work, cake and strawberries in hand. “What’s all that noise? It sounds like a bunch of elephants are running around the house.”
Max shook his head. “I wouldn’t go up there.”
I handed Jean-Luc a glass of wine. “Here. You’ll need this.”
He settled onto the couch, sighed. “I think I need something stronger.”
This coming from a man who only tasted his wine.
“Don’t you ever call me Fantasia again,” I said to Jean-Luc, stopping my cooking dance in the kitchen. He was referring to the dancing hippos in the Disney movie. It was July, and I was wearing shorts and a too-tight T-shirt.
Jean-Luc coughed. “More of you to love?”
I slugged his arm, not hard, but enough to make him grimace. “Not funny.”
Although I knew I’d put on a few pounds, I’d been living in denial. Since I had gained so much weight—the top button of my skinny jeans had flown off and ricocheted off the wall and almost hit the cat in the eye—apparently it was time to stop cooking French meals in American-sized portions. And maybe eat cheese and baguettes in moderation, as well as the confit de canard or cassoulet de Toulouse, two regional specialties cooked in duck fat.
Oh, but it was soooo good.
Good—until I hopped onto the scale and took a good look at myself in the mirror. Sure, some women looked fantastic with a couple of extra pounds, maybe more, on them. I wasn’t one of them. At five-foot-five, my frame was small, and so were my features. My eyes were tiny, my lips were thin, and I didn’t have a defined jawline. I held my weight in three places—my face, which looked puffy and bloated; my stomach, which now had a pneu (spare tire), or muffin top; and my ass, which I could feel moving like a wave when I walked. Since I’d last seen Doctor K, I’d put on three more kilos, and I couldn’t blame the extra poundage on baby weight. I knew my healthy weight, one hundred and thirty pounds, give or take, but I now weighed well over one hundred and fifty pounds. Shock set in.
Elvire had given me permission to borrow her bicycle to get some exercise—and I’d read somewhere on the Internet that one hour on the bike burned around four hundred calories. Before swimsuit season was upon us, I wanted to burn all the damn calories I could. I wanted to release any anger I’d felt over the two consecutive losses. I wanted my muscles to hurt.
“Wear a helmet,” said Jean-Luc before I took off.
“I’m not five years old,” I said.
My legs pumped fast as I churned them through the town, on the bike path, past the kids’ school, and onwards. Which, with my luck, meant I ended up getting a little bit disoriented and lost. No longer on the bike path—to my left was a median, to the right a torn-up gravel sidewalk with a very high curb, and behind me a couple of cars.
I was totally in the way with nowhere to go.
But then an opportunity presented itself: a driveway where the curb stood lower. I pedaled faster and faster, making my move so the cars behind me could pass. And that’s where I made my mistake. I’d misjudged the curb. And the gravel. I wiped out in the parking lot of a pet store, skidding on my arm and thigh with the bike on top of me, my right arm taking most of the weight. Immediately, the two cars trailing me pulled over. In shock, I just held my arm, which was completely shredded, the blood not watery but thick and tarlike.
Great. Now that I was falling in love with France, the country was trying to kill me. Old, fear-filled Sam flashed in my eyes.
A woman and her young daughter stood over me. The woman had short chestnut-colored hair and kind brown eyes. Her daughter was an adorable towhead with shoulder-length hair and big blue eyes, around four years old. She wore a pink sundress. I wanted to tell her how cute she was, but I could barely form words. Instead, I apologized over and over again in French and said that I was American, as if that explained everything.
The woman crouched down next to me and took my arm. “I used to be a nurse.”
The man from the other car walked over with a blanket, placing it behind me with worry pinching his lips.
“This wound needs to be cleaned,” said the woman. “I’ll do what I can, but the gravel is embedded into your skin. You need to get to the hospital immediately for stitches. Lie down.”
I could only nod, French words and nausea spinning around in my brain. The woman instructed her little girl to stand over me, to block the sun beating down on my head. This adorable angel giggled as a gust of wind lifted up her dress, flashing her white panties. This made me chuckle; her mom, too. I was surprised a child of her age wasn’t flipping out at the sight of my arm, but she just smiled, and fetched things from the car when her mother asked for them. The man paced in the background.
“Is there anybody we can call?” asked the woman when she finished bandaging up my arm.
“Mon mari,” I said. My husband. And I was dreading contacting him. He’d been right about the helmet, after all.
The woman pulled out her cell phone. “What’s the number?”
I was trying my best to keep from throwing up in shock, and I couldn’t remember the number. I was only able to get the first few digits out. I made a move to reach for the hand-me-down iPhone my sister had given me, but wasn’t able to retrieve it because I was shaking and my arm hurt.
“My cell phone is in my back pocket,” I said. “I can’t reach it.”
The woman managed to commandeer the phone. When she handed it over, it was covered in sweat. Now, I suffered with both pain and embarrassment. It took a couple of minutes until I was able to get it working, and with shaky fingers, I called Jean-Luc.
“I’ve been in a bicycle accident. I’m okay, but I’ve got to get to the hospital for stitches. Please, can you come get me?”
Both the man and the woman stayed by my side until my knight in a silver Ford arrived. Jean-Luc threw Elvire’s bike in the back hatch, harrumphing about how I should have worn a helmet. I must have said merci about a million times to the people who came to my aid, but in a rush to get to the hospital, I didn’t think to get their names. The car tore out of the gravel parking lot, and
before I could blink, or cry out in pain, I was in an emergency room in Muret, the next town over, with a gas mask on my face, being cleaned up and stitched up with fishing line.
The following day I had to get a tetanus shot. And I was petrified of needles. I visited our family doctor’s office during his open hours, where he explained I needed a prescription and wrote one up. I made my way to the pharmacy, picked up the shot, and headed back to the doctor. He didn’t even blink at me in recognition, even though I’d just seen him an hour prior. After the doc administered the shot, I said, “Wow, that didn’t hurt at all!”
The doctor wrote a prescription for bandages, so that they would be covered by our insurance and I wouldn’t be charged for them, along with a mild painkiller for the pain I was still experiencing, and we set an appointment for the following week, when he’d remove the points de suture. I was really over hospitals. And doctors. And nurses. And stitches.
At home, I peeked under the bandage. The wound was ugly and unforgiving. It appeared as if a wild animal had attacked me, which would have made for a better story. Bruises decorated my entire right side, from ribs, to my ass, to my thighs and calves. In addition to my miscarriages, now I was scarred for life.
17
MAKING ENDS MEET
Everybody was taking advantage of the beautiful French summer and the fact you could travel a mere two to four hours and find yourself in a completely new landscape. My lunches in Toulouse with Les Chicks were few and far between, but we did manage to squeeze in a dinner where our significant others would meet at Monique’s gorgeous apartment in the center of Toulouse.
I called Monique, a bit scared. “What are you making?”
She laughed. “I may not like cooking, but I know how to entertain,” she said. “We’re going to do a pierrade. Everybody will cook for themselves! Hey, do you have one? We might need two, seeing that there will be nine of us, including Kissa.”
How to Make a French Family Page 15