“No way,” I said as she hopped ineffectively, trying to grab it out of my hand. “I’ve already told you, you’re not reading it to her.”
“Jeremy!” India said, staring at me openmouthed. “What are you doing?”
Georgia made another sudden jump for the poem, this time leaping surprisingly high. I backed away and then dashed toward the kitchen. Otis bounded off the couch and followed me, ears pricked up and tongue lolling happily, clearly thinking that this was all a fun new game. Once in the kitchen, I looked around desperately. Where should I put it? If I threw it out, Georgia would just fish it out of the garbage. It was a pity we didn’t have a wood-burning oven. Seized by a sudden idea, I leapt toward the garbage disposal. I crumpled up the poem, and was just shoving it into the disposal when Georgia and India reached the kitchen.
“Stop him!” Georgia shrieked. “That’s the only copy I have.”
I turned on the water and held up the spray nozzle. “Stay back,” I warned, with a threatening wave of the nozzle. Georgia hesitated just long enough for me to reach back and flip the switch on. The garbage disposal roared to life, chewing the poem up in its metal jaws.
“My poem!” Georgia cried, covering her mouth with cupped hands.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” I said. “But I did warn you.”
Just then, I heard an odd sound coming from India’s direction. Georgia and I turned to look at her. India was laughing. It wasn’t just a chuckle, either. She was laughing so hard, she was struggling to breathe. India clutched at her sides as though they were cramping.
“So ridiculous … poem … garbage disposal …,” India gasped. And then she laughed and laughed, while Georgia and I just stood there staring at her. Otis was clearly concerned, too. He went to India’s side and licked her hand.
“Oh, my God, she’s having a fit,” Georgia said worriedly. “Do you think we pushed her over the edge?”
“I’m fine,” India bleated, petting Otis to reassure him. But she leaned against the wall, presumably to stay upright, and kept laughing. I started to laugh, too. It was impossible not to. Even Georgia started to giggle, the fury receding from her face.
“It’s official: This family is certifiable,” India said, when she was finally able to catch her breath.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said, looking at India. She needed to shower and wash her hair, to eat a good meal and get out into the sunshine. But to see her laughing—even if it was semi-hysterical—filled me with relief. If we could still laugh, even about something so stupid, well, maybe we would get past this after all. Eventually.
“We’re not crazy. We’re unique and comfortable with self-expression,” Georgia said. She gave me a censorious look. “Although I will never forgive you for destroying my poem.”
“I can live with that,” I said. “Did you say you were hungry?”
I looked hopefully at India, who was now wiping her eyes with the cuff of her rumpled pajama top.
“Actually, I am sort of hungry,” she said, sounding surprised. “I’m craving baked ziti. Do we have the stuff to make it?”
“Let’s get takeout,” I said. I reached into the drawer where we stored the takeout menus. “Mario’s? Or Pasta Pasta?”
“Mario’s,” Georgia said definitively. “Pasta Pasta always gives me gas.”
“Thanks for sharing, Mom,” India said, rolling her eyes at me.
I just smiled.
Sixteen
INDIA
For a while, everything just unraveled. The smallest tasks—running an errand, doing the dishes, taking Otis for a walk—exhausted me. Work was out of the question. Jeremy called a photographer in town who owed me a favor, and she agreed to cover the two weddings looming on my schedule. Everything else on my calendar was postponed.
But finally, nearly a month after the adoption fell through, I knew it was time to get back to work. As little as I felt like working, I also didn’t want my business to go under. It might even be a relief, I thought, to get away from my grief and to focus on something other than my own pain.
Jeremy had already broken down the show of maternity portraits. He’d arranged for the pictures that had sold to be delivered, and stored the rest in the back room, so I wasn’t assaulted by a roomful of pregnant bellies and newborn babies as soon as I walked in the front door. But there were all the small reminders that he couldn’t possibly have known to remove. The box of instant cocoa and bag of stale marshmallows—one of Lainey’s many pregnancy cravings—stashed next to the coffeepot. A set of candid photographs Lainey had taken at a wedding stacked up on my table, ready to be added to the newlyweds’ album. A bottle of prenatal vitamins. Feeling numb, I swept everything but the photographs into the garbage.
But even with my newly scrubbed space, I still couldn’t escape the constant reminders of what I had lost. On my third day back, I had two studio sessions scheduled—one of a baby girl nearing her first birthday and a second of a pregnant woman who had read about my show in the paper and fallen in love with the idea of having a maternity portrait.
Somehow I got through it. I didn’t burst into tears when the little girl held her arms open to her mother and, in a sweet, breathy voice, demanded, “Up,” nor when the pregnant woman showed me her stretch marks. I just forced my lips up into a smile and filtered it all through the lens of my camera.
I’d set that afternoon aside to go through the large box of developed film that had come back from the printer. Most of my work—and all of my study portraits—were done with digital cameras these days. But lately—ever since I started teaching the basics of photography to Lainey—I’d been working with film more.
I began to open up every envelope, trying to remember which photographs went to which client. I wasn’t prepared for the moment when I slit open a cardboard envelope, dumped out the photographs onto my worktable, and found myself staring down at Liam’s exquisite little face, captured forever in black and white. It was one of the rolls I’d taken at the hospital, and it had somehow gotten mixed up with the outgoing film. Only he wasn’t Liam anymore, I remembered with a fresh jolt of pain. Lainey had renamed him. Griffin. I stared down at the photo, mesmerized by the soft curves of his rounded face, unaware that I was crying until several teardrops landed on the photograph.
“Shit,” I said, wiping my tears off his face.
I scanned every last photo of him into the computer and then saved them onto my backup drive. I spent the next hour examining the prints on the monitor, blowing them up so I could see every last eyelash, every knuckle, every wisp of hair in detail. I stared and stared, in a trance of sorts. The studio phone rang.
“How’s your day going?” Jeremy asked when I answered.
“Not good,” I said softly.
“What happened?”
“The photos … from the hospital …”
“I’ll be right there.”
“No, don’t. I’m leaving anyway. I need to get out of here.” I was struggling to breathe, and my skin felt hot and tight.
“I don’t think you should be driving,” Jeremy said. “Just wait there. I’ll pick you up and bring you home.”
But I didn’t wait. Instead, I climbed into my old truck and drove to the beach. It was a hot, stifling July day, and the beach was crowded. There were the usual packs of surfers—all with long hair and floral board shorts—and sun-baked retirees basking on folding chairs. And, of course, there were the families, complete with small children brandishing plastic shovels and wearing floppy sun hats. I kicked off my shoes at the bottom of the boardwalk and walked past them all across the hot sand to the cooler, wet ground by the water’s edge. I stood there for a long time, staring out at the water. Kids bobbed around in the waves like seals, while the adults waded in slowly so they could gradually adjust to the chilly water. Farther out, expensive boats motored by, their drivers red-faced and clutching bottles of beer.
For once, I wasn’t thinking about the baby, or Lainey, or my ch
ildless future. I wasn’t really thinking anything at all. Somehow, between the hot sun and the hypnotic roar of the ocean, my mind had gone mercifully blank. I wished I’d worn my bathing suit—the cool blue of the ocean was irresistible.
“Hi,” a familiar voice said from behind me.
I started and spun around. Jeremy was standing there.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Lucky guess,” he said. “And I know you like to come here to think.”
“That’s just it. I’m not thinking. I can’t think about any of it anymore.”
Jeremy wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close. We’d always fit well together, my curves lining up against the planes of his body. He kissed the top of my head.
“It’s going to get better,” he said, his voice soft but fierce.
“I’m not so sure. Does anyone ever get over something like this?”
“Maybe that’s setting the goal too high. Maybe we should just aim for getting through it first,” Jeremy suggested.
There was a catch in his voice. I looked up quickly and saw that his eyes were wet. It occurred to me that I’d been so caught up in my own grief, it had never occurred to me that Jeremy was going through this, too.
“You fell in love with him,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I suddenly just knew it, the way I knew he had a pale silver birthmark on his lower back and a near-phobic aversion to snakes.
Jeremy didn’t say anything, but he tightened his hold on my shoulders.
“I’ve checked out on you,” I said. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“It isn’t a matter of fair or not. We’re not like that. When one of us goes through a hard time, the other one is there to pick up the slack.”
“But you’re going through a hard time, too. And I haven’t been there for you.”
“We’re both doing what we can to get through this.”
“Is that enough?”
“It has to be enough,” Jeremy said simply. He pulled me close again, one hand softly stroking my hair. After a moment, he said, “You know what really pisses me off?”
“What?”
“There’s no word to describe what this is. It’s too big to be called disappointing. But it feels wrong to call it grieving. He was healthy and perfect. We just don’t get to have him,” Jeremy said.
“I know what you mean,” I said. And suddenly, there were tears in my eyes, too, and my throat felt tight and knotted. “But it is a kind of grief. We’re grieving the future that we won’t be able to have.”
Jeremy nodded. I looked up at him. His pale skin was already starting to flush pink from being out in the sun, and his hair stood on end, as though he’d been running his fingers through it. A surge of love cracked through then, breaking past the fog of sadness.
“Come on,” I said, taking his hand and tugging it gently. “Let’s go home.”
A few evenings later, Mimi appeared at my front door, brandishing a bagful of chocolate chip cookies, a bottle of vodka, and a net sack full of grapefruits.
“What’s all that for?” I asked.
“The cookies are from the kids. They wanted to cheer you up. But don’t eat them—they’re so hard you’ll break a tooth. The vodka is from me. You and I are going to get drunk,” Mimi said, sailing past me into the house. I trailed after her back to the kitchen, where she’d put down her wares and begun to rummage through the cupboards. “Where’s your juicer?”
“Lower cabinet next to the fridge,” I said. “But I’m not really in the mood to drink right now.”
“Yeah, well, too bad. We’re drinking,” Mimi said bossily.
She busied herself slicing the grapefruit, juicing them, and then dumping the vodka, juice, club soda, and ice into a glass pitcher, which she mixed thoroughly with a spatula. She placed the pitcher on a tray, along with two tall glasses and a can of cashews she found in the pantry.
“Now. Where shall we go? Let’s sit out by the pool.” Mimi decided.
“It’s boiling out.”
“If we get too hot, we’ll just jump in the water.”
“Okay,” I said, shrugging. In my current state, I was no match for the sheer force of Mimi’s will.
It was actually nicer out than I’d thought. The sky was still light, but the sun was low on the horizon and starting to fade to sherbet shades of pink and orange. Mimi poured out two drinks, handed me one, and then clinked her glass against mine.
“Cheers,” she said, and tasted her cocktail. “Mmm, that’s delicious. I wasn’t sure about the grapefruit—they’re out of season—but the grocer told me to give them a try. I’ll have to report back to him that he was right. Men always love to hear that.”
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“Does there have to be an occasion for vodka?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve obviously come over to give me some sort of a pep talk about getting on with my life.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Liar.”
“No, really. You don’t need a pep talk. I think you’re holding up extraordinarily well under the circumstances.”
“You don’t have to humor me. I know I’m a mess.”
“You’re getting up, showering, eating, even getting back to work. I think that’s pretty amazing considering what you’ve been through. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“You’re really not here to give me one of your up-and-at-’em talks?”
“Scout’s honor,” Mimi said, holding up one hand.
“Like you were ever a Girl Scout,” I scoffed.
“You’re right, I wasn’t,” Mimi confessed. “I always thought the uniforms were hideous, and there was no way I’d ever sell cookies door-to-door. How’s Jeremy?”
“He’s hurting. And he’s angry.” I sighed and ran a hand through my unruly hair. “I feel badly that I haven’t been there for him. He’s been holding everything together, while I just unraveled. It isn’t fair.”
Mimi lifted one shoulder. “Did you ever think that maybe he needs to be the one to hold it all together? That maybe that’s how he’s coping?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t ready to let myself off the hook so easily.
“I should have listened to you,” I finally said. “You warned me about Lainey from the beginning.”
“Actually, I think I was wrong about her. Don’t look so surprised. I think she might not have had the best intentions when you first met her, but I also think something changed along the way. I saw her that last night, when we all drove you to the hospital. I’m convinced she genuinely planned to give the baby to you,” Mimi said. She spread her hands, palms facing the sky. “But then she saw him.”
“And fell in love,” I said. Even now, the waves of longing took me by surprise. It wasn’t just that I missed him; that was to be expected. It was that I pined for him. It was like a piece of me was missing—a crucial limb, a necessary organ—and I had no way of getting it back. “Maybe it would be easier if I could get angry at her. It’s like, she made this incredibly tough decision. Raising a child by herself is going to be so hard. Of course it’s not what I wanted, but even so, I don’t want her to fail. Just the opposite. I want her to succeed.”
“That’s because you’re his mother, too,” Mimi said.
I stared at her, hardly believing that she could say such a thing to me. “I’m not his mother,” I said. The words felt raw and sharp in my throat.
“Of course you are,” Mimi said gently.
“Spending a few hours with a baby in a hospital doesn’t turn you into a mother,” I said bitterly. “And even if it did, I don’t have him anymore. I didn’t get to keep him.”
“Once you become a mother, you can’t go back and undo it. It doesn’t matter if you had him for five minutes, or five hours, or five years before you lost him. That shift that occurs inside of you—the way everything in your life that you thought was a priority just falls away to make room for this new, greater love—that happens instantly. An
d it doesn’t just change back,” Mimi said.
Tears started to stream down my face. “Please stop.”
Mimi reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it gently. “I don’t want to make you sad. But I don’t think you’re ever going to feel better if you just close that part of yourself off forever.”
I wiped angrily at my wet cheeks. “I don’t know, Mimi. I’m not ready to think about another adoption yet.”
Mimi nodded. “I know. But it will hurt less in time,” she said. “You won’t forget it—you won’t ever forget him—but it will become bearable over time.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know about that.”
“Life has a funny way of proving us wrong,” Mimi said. She poured us each another drink and handed mine to me. I shook my head, miserable, but she pressed it on me. “Come on, take it. It’s medicinal.”
I smiled. It sounded like something my mother would say. She’d always sworn by the healing power of two things: swimming in the ocean and the perfect hot toddy. My dad had suffered from chronic bronchitis, and he claimed my mom’s hot toddies were the only thing that made him feel better.
My dad. I hadn’t thought of him in a while. I remembered the early days after his death, when Mom and I had both walked around in a fog. Mom would get weepy every time she came across an extra pair of his reading glasses stowed in a drawer, or found a book he’d been reading, a corner bent down to mark his page. I tried to remain stoic for her sake, but there were moments when I was alone, where I’d curl up into a ball and weep into my pillow, feeling like everything was forever bleak and hopeless. But then, gradually, over time, the intensity of the pain had faded.
“My dad once told me that the greatest tragedy in life is not when a man is beaten—that happens to everyone sometimes—but when he just gives up on his dreams,” I said, turning my sweating glass around in my hands.
“He sounds like a very wise man.”
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