What We Carry

by Kalyn Fogarty

  Janice nods but shifts closer, effectively blocking my exit. For such a tiny person, she is still quite the impenetrable figure. “God only gives you what you can handle,” she whispers, her lips a thin line as she casts her eyes down as if in prayer. Her forehead is perfectly immobile, untouched by lines and wrinkles, lending her an air of confused youthfulness. A normal forehead should be creased. I’m fascinated by her marble head, unable to look away.

  “What’s so funny?” Janice asks. Confused, I look blankly back at her. A look of sharp anger passes over her features before turning to disgust. “You laughed.” Hands on her hips, she dares me to disagree. Shit. I must’ve chuckled while contemplating her statue-like skin. All traces of her earlier sympathy disappear. “Some things just never change, do they?” she spits.

  I lift my own brow, untouched by Botox and very expressive.

  “Don’t give me that look,” she growls, finally lowering her voice. I imagine the old biddies nearby leaning in to hear us. “Ever since you graduated, you thought you were better than everyone. What gives you the right to stand there and laugh at me when I’m only doing what any good Christian would do?” she hisses. “Your mom was right. You really aren’t meant for this,” she adds, eyes glinting with a specific mean-girl twinkle.

  Somewhere in the last five minutes I entered the twilight zone and Janice jumped from tearful condolences to calling me an ungrateful heathen. The proper thing to do is try to steer this train wreck back on track so I’m not cast as a monster when this story inevitably gets back to my mother and her friends. But I’m feeling distinctly unproper. Time to derail this train once and for all.

  “All right then, it was so great to see you,” I say, hoping she’ll step aside and we can avoid any more hostile words getting launched about. But I’ll have no such luck. Janice always has to have the last word.

  “Just leave,” she stammers, loudly again. The other customers don’t bother hiding their intrigue at the young women battling in the cereal aisle. “I was only making sure you were okay, but you’ve never cared about anyone besides yourself, so I’m not sure why I bothered.” Her hands are balled into fists at her sides and her cheeks are red and splotchy beneath her heavy foundation. Shooting daggers at me, she goes in for the kill. “You would’ve made a horrible mother anyway.”

  “Well, thanks for that,” I murmur, the blood draining from my face. I use the handle of the cart to steady myself and lift my chin. “You made me feel much better.” I hip-bump her cart as I push past, and a few boxes of Cheerios fall to the floor. Petty, but I don’t care. Somehow she’s always made me stoop to her level.

  I refuse to spare even one glance back. Without missing a beat, I round the corner and grab my purse, letting the cart roll aimlessly into the center of the main speedway until it eventually stops in front of a tomato sauce display. Fighting back tears, I hurry from the store. I’ll just order pizza later.

  * * *

  “I just don’t understand why you’re mad at me for telling my best friend,” my mom moans, her tone incredulous. She’s been ranting for ten minutes now, uninterrupted.

  She pauses to take a breath, and I jump in. “What I don’t understand is how you already know what happened,” I say, shaking my head. “It literally just happened,” I mutter. In a moment of poor judgment, I called to explain my side of the story, lest she hear it from one of her friends later. Clearly the grapevine moves faster than my own phone skills. “Janice and I aren’t friends, Mom. I don’t want her knowing my very personal business.”

  My mother’s sigh is loud and obnoxious over the speaker. I can picture the exact face accompanying that heavy exhalation. “I didn’t tell Janice your business,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I told Janice’s mother, who shared it with her daughter. I don’t see anything wrong with her offering you comfort. You used to be so close.”

  Opening my mouth wide in a silent scream, I flip both middle fingers at the phone. “We aren’t close anymore. She told me God gave me what I could handle and then burst into tears.” The more I think about it, the angrier I get. “She started crying, and then what was I supposed to do? Comfort her? Tell her everything happens for a reason and she’ll get over my miscarriage someday?”

  Silence hums over the speaker, and I wonder if I’ve lost the connection. Worse things could happen. But then Mom sighs again, adding a little disappointed groan to the end to further emphasize her displeasure with me.

  “What? Please tell me again how I’ve upset you.”

  “Oh, stop it,” she snaps. “Stop being so damned sensitive. Sometimes people just want to see how you’re doing. It’s not always with some ulterior motive. It’s called being human, Cassidy. Humans bond over shared experiences. Janice was only trying to make you feel better.”

  Pinching my nose with my thumb and forefinger, I count to three before answering, but my anger still burns hot. “Are you fucking kidding me? She most certainly failed at making me feel better, if that was her intention. She’s still the same bitch she was in high school.”

  “Enough,” my mom barks, warning me I’ve pushed too far. “Janice and her mother are good people. They don’t deserve to be called names just for trying to be nice to you.”

  My anger deflates as I recognize defeat. This phone call was a mistake from the start. Some irrational part of me hoped my mom might have my back, but as soon as I snapped at Janice, it stopped being about me. Now word will get around that Joan’s daughter is an ungrateful girl, and my mom will lose the group’s sympathy and all the attention that garners. No matter how I feel, I’ve embarrassed her in front of her friends, so I’m the one in the wrong. End of story.

  “Okay, Mom. Sorry. Next time I’ll take Janice for coffee so she can cry over my unborn fetus until she’s feeling better.”

  She huffs, and I hear a chair screeching back over the wood floor. She must be at the kitchen table. “An apology would suffice,” she says, ignoring the sarcasm leaking from my every word.

  “Sure, I’ll call her now and apologize. But for what, exactly? For miscarrying and making our reunion awkward? For not breaking down and hugging it out?” She keeps her mouth shut for once. “I’ve got to go.” I hit end before she reprimands me again for bad behavior.

  Without looking, I shift into reverse and back out of the spot, only to hear screeching tires followed by an angry blast of a horn. A man in a silver minivan yells a few four-letter expletives in my direction through his open window. Pulling back into the space, I cut the engine. The other driver lays on his horn again for good measure.

  “Fuck!” I yell, banging both hands on the steering wheel. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I see the same unrecognizable women I saw in the Target dressing room. My hair is loose from the clip, and a halo of strawberry-blond frizz frames my pale face. Through the passenger window I watch Janice walk toward a black Range Rover two aisles over, and I slouch in my seat. “Fuck.” Something inside snaps, and tears fall hot and quick down my cheeks. If only my mom and Janice were seeing me now. People like them hoped I’d break so they could prop me back up again. That’s what would make them feel better.

  ♦   16   ♦

  CLAIRE

  After

  June 16

  STEVE REFERS TO MY office as the “command center.” It’s not much more than a small room tucked neatly off the kitchen; some might call it a butler’s pantry. Considering our kitchen has more room than we’ll ever need, we converted the extra space into a catchall for paying bills, keeping a family calendar, and storing the assorted odds and ends that otherwise accumulated on the kitchen counter. I’m the only one who ever uses it. Steve enters on the odd occasion when he’s unable to locate his wife and children and needs to refer to my obsessively organized calendar. Most of the time he doesn’t bother to look and shoots me a quick text, thus saving him the time and trouble of decoding my “complicated” system.

  The command center revolves around a giant whiteboard centered on the
far wall, carefully drawn up to form a calendar. I painstakingly rework the dates the night before the start of each new month. Each family member has a dedicated marker color and coordinating Post-it to mark appointments, meetings, playdates, and other notes relevant to our daily lives. Steve is blue, I’m pink, Derek is green, Shane is purple, and Matty is red. Inside every square is a space with our name followed by a blank appointment line to be filled out in my neat script as we go. Even our cleaning lady, Marge, and babysitter, Sofia, have their own colors—orange and yellow, respectively.

  For instance, June 16:

  Steve: Happy hour with coworkers. Home late.

  Claire: Pilates 5:30 am. Grocery shopping 10 am. Read first 4 chapters of book club choice. Schedule appt to remove IUD ASAP. Dinner salmon, asparagus, and roasted potatoes.

  Derek: Soccer in the park 3:30 pm. Start on summer reading list.

  Shane: Story time at library 12:15 pm, Park playdate w/ Ryder 3:30 pm.

  Matty: Park playdate w/ Sidney 3:30 pm. *Mom’s name is Gemma.

  I look over the day’s schedule and, with a satisfactory swoop, erase Pilates from my list. Holding the eraser to the board, I also erase the reminder to make an appointment to remove my IUD. I’ll reschedule that for a few months from now, just to be safe.

  Maybe I never held court in front of a boardroom, wielding a laser pointer at perfectly prepared PowerPoint slides and impressing a roomful of colleagues with my creative genius. But here, in my command center, I’m CEO, CFO, and head of operations. I’m also in charge of maintenance, janitorial, and culinary services. I’m a regular one-woman circus. Everything that happens under my roof happens under my careful and precise supervision. There are days I long to discuss something other than Transformers or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but I have book club and Pilates. The grass is always greener … they say, so when I yearn to trade packing lunches and helping with homework for presentations and conference calls, I remind myself of all the blessings in my life. Most days I wouldn’t trade my life as a stay-at- home mom for all the money in the world. My days are so busy I rarely have time to contemplate what I’m missing or compare the cost. In my heart I know this is where I’m meant to be.

  Taking a sip of coffee, I settle at the vintage secretary desk I restored and painted myself. I grab a fresh piece of stationery—peach, with my name scrawled across the top in cursive, a Mother’s Day gift from Steve and the boys—and hastily jot down the grocery list. It’s staggering how much my four men eat in a week. Someone’s always eating something. Keeping the pantry and fridge stocked is a constant battle. Thankfully, only Shane is picky. The other three eat anything and ask for seconds.

  My phone buzzes, vibrating toward me and flashing Mom with every sound. It’s already 9:47 AM. Although the market is only a five-minute drive and shopping shouldn’t take more than forty-five minutes, I know picking up means I risk running behind schedule all day. Buzz. Buzz. Debating my options, I bounce back and forth between hitting ignore and biting the bullet and answering now.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, deciding not to delay the inevitable. Sofia’s here this morning, so I should be able to squeeze everything in if I keep this call relatively short. Plus, I blew Mom off yesterday and will never hear the end of it if I dare ignore her again.

  “Oh good, you’re home,” she answers, thinly veiled exasperation in her voice. Even though she’s glued to her smartphone 24-7, she still assumes one must be “home” to answer.

  “Yup, just drinking some coffee before heading out on some errands,” I say, hoping she catches the hint.

  “Have you talked to your sister?” she asks, not bothering to hide her frustration. I don’t worry about responding, since she’ll fill me in whether I like it or not. “I can’t deal with her attitude anymore, Claire. Yesterday she ran into her old friend from high school, Janice—you remember her—who asked how she was doing. Cassidy ended up yelling at the poor girl, causing a whole scene and making her feel terrible,” she says, clearing her throat before continuing. “I’m still close with Janice’s mother, so of course I told her about Cass’ little problem. She must’ve told her daughter, and the sweet girl offered her condolences to Cassidy, who couldn’t just graciously accept,” she exclaims, voice rising. I click the volume down button a few times. “No, she had to make it a whole thing. Then she calls me and starts yelling at me for sharing the news with my friend. Like I’m the bad guy in all this. To make it even worse, she hung up on me and hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts since yesterday.”

  Jesus. Really wish Cassidy had given me a heads-up on this one. Usually she let me know when she’s engaged in a battle with our mother. Last time she sent me a text with a few eye-rolling and fire emojis, warning me to expect a call, since I’ve always been the middleman in their eternal showdown. Cassidy’s radio silence leads me to believe she’s more upset than normal, a few emojis not enough to express her hurt feelings.

  “I haven’t heard from her in a few days,” I admit.

  I know what comes next. Mom will belabor all the ways Cassidy has wronged her, not only yesterday but in the last twenty years. If I try to cut her off, she’ll accuse me of always taking my sister’s side—which is false, since I never take sides. It’s why I’m the perfect middleman. The only way to end this conversation and get on with my day is to hear her out.

  “What did she say?” I ask, settling into my familiar role. Lifting my mug, I wish I had something stronger than coffee in my cup this morning.

  * * *

  It was Christmas 1992—Cassidy was seven and I was four—when Mom made one of her most memorable mothering blunders. Eager to open our last presents under the tree, I ripped open the wrapping and was delighted to find a Cabbage Patch Kid. Cassidy unveiled a rock tumbler kit and some rocks. To this day, Cassidy still gives Mom shit about the “worst” gift ever and Mom bemoans how ungrateful a daughter Cassidy was.

  To be fair, both of them tell the story wrong. Cassidy forgets to mention she was a major science nerd and Mom neglects to admit she had no idea what to buy her geeky daughter. Even though I was only four, I remember Cass forcing me to dig in the dirt with her every chance we had. Being the younger child, I had very little say in our game choices. I was just happy to be included and gladly followed her around the yard, insisting we were looking for T. rex bones or buried treasure. So, Mom’s gift might have seemed like a weird choice for a little girl, but it wasn’t completely farfetched. I truly believe Mom thought Cassidy would love it.

  My present was perfect. My doll came with a real birth certificate and a couple outfits. Her name was Olive and she had brown hair made of yarn that was tied up in two matching ponytails, the same way I liked to wear my own hair. Much to Cassidy’s annoyance, I brought that doll everywhere. Again, I was only four, so my memory of this story is based as much on what I’ve been told over the years as on actual recollection, but from what I understand, Cassidy was insanely jealous she didn’t get a Cabbage Patch Kid since she had secretly coveted one for some time.

  A few days or weeks after Christmas (it always changes), we were in her room playing with her new rock tumbler set. Come to find out, it was actually a really cool toy once you figured out how to use it. It took normal rocks and buffed and polished them until they shone like gemstones. I was given the task of polishing the rocks while Cassidy did the more fun job of fashioning the finished product into jewelry using fasteners and loops of string.

  It was all going well until something got stuck in the machine and the motor ground to a halt midway through a rock working its way through the tumbling system. Cassidy brushed me aside, her deft little hands working to free the rock, but it wouldn’t budge. She wedged a pair of scissors inside the mechanism and tried to shimmy it out but only got it jammed worse. In a fit of frustration, she tried banging the whole thing against the table, hoping to dislodge the pesky rock. Nothing.

  “You’ve ruined it!” she yelled at me. I’m sure I started crying and pleading for forgiven
ess. Honestly, I was too young to be playing with motorized machines, but that’s a parenting issue for another day. Cassidy banished me from the room, where she remained sulking over her broken rock tumbler, alternately banging it against the table and stabbing the rock with the scissors to no avail. In my hurry to escape my sister’s wrath, I forgot to grab Olive.

  About an hour later she came out of her room and started watching TV like nothing had happened. Thrilled that she wasn’t mad anymore, I snuggled up with her, eager to win back her favor. She suggested I go get Olive from our room so we could have a tea party. I was sure it was my lucky day, since Cassidy never wanted to play fun things like house or kitchen, even though I always asked. I ran from the room to get my doll before she changed her mind.

  My blood-curdling scream awakened our mother from her nap. She came running and found Cassidy watching cartoons, completely nonplussed by my incessant wailing from the other side of the house. When asked where her sister was, she simply shrugged, forcing Mom to find me herself.

  I was on my bed sobbing over the massacred hair of my precious Olive. Using the same scissors that couldn’t fix her machine, Cassidy had given my doll an impromptu haircut, shearing off half of either ponytail. Poor Olive looked like she’d made a pass through the rock tumbler herself. Bits and pieces of brown yarn littered the floor. When I saw my mom, I held up my butchered doll and squealed in agony. My beautiful Olive was ruined.

  Yanking the doll from my hands and snatching the scissors from my pillow, Mom stormed back into the living room to confront Cassidy, who only tilted her head innocently as though amused by the situation unfolding. I’m pretty sure I stood behind the couch, whimpering.

  “Did you do this?” she yelled, shaking the doll, which caused more yarn to tumble from her mangled head.

  “Yes,” Cassidy said.

  Shocked at the easy confession, my mother was flustered. I’m sure she expected a denial, or at least an excuse. “Why?” she asked, beckoning for me to come out from my hiding place. I crept to her side, thumb in my mouth. It’s likely I’m projecting my adult emotions onto the little girl in this memory, but I imagine I was torn between wanting my mother to punish my sister and not wanting to be the cause of my sister’s punishment. If Cassidy got into trouble, she’d blame me and I’d have no one to play with. But she ruined my doll, so my heart and mind were at odds.