What We Carry

by Kalyn Fogarty

  “You should consider warming the alcohol,” I tease, eliciting a brief nod and grunt from Jimmy, who busies himself attaching daggers to his gun.

  With growing horror, I watch as he dips the needle tip into the ink and lets the engine run once, the whirring hiss of the gun enough to make my stomach clench.

  “Here we go,” Jimmy says as he descends upon the sensitive skin of my bicep.

  After the initial shock, the quick back-and-forth stroke of the needle becomes rhythmic and soothing. Predictable pain, immediate and sharp. I get lost trying to envision which part of the design each pinch makes. We decided on using our son’s handprints, actual size, copied from the inkblot given to us by the hospital. The date of his passing will be etched in script underneath. Cassidy chose to tattoo her rib cage. Closer to her heart, she said. Since I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, I chose my arm, for all the world to see.

  “Does it hurt?” Cassidy asks, breaking the silence. Afraid talking might cause some unnecessary vibrations to ruin the steady flow of endorphins running through my system, I gently shake my head once.

  “Almost done,” Jimmy murmurs. I should be relieved, but I wish he’d keep going. People aren’t kidding when they say tattoos are addictive.

  Jimmy finishes and I stand in front of the mirror. Two perfect little hands, about the size of a quarter, forever imprinted on me. “It’s great, bud,” I say. My heart tightens and I resist the urge to hug my tattoo artist. Cassidy held those hands in her body; I had only those few precious moments in the hospital. Now a piece of him will always be with me. I pat Jimmy on the back, and he nods solemnly. Beneath the eyebrow rings and tattoos, I can tell he’s a sensitive guy.

  “Your turn,” I say, tapping the chair as Cassidy hops in. Even though she’d never admit it, she looks a little pale. “No backing out now.”

  “We’re in it together,” she says, leaning forward and pecking me on the lips. She drops to her side and lifts her shirt. “Do your worst, Jimmy,” she jokes, relinquishing herself to the pain.

  * * *

  “Margaritas or ice cream?” Cassidy asks as we walk hand in hand down Main Street. Dusk settles around us, a brilliant sunset fading into magenta shadows. The air is warm, but there’s a slight crispness in the breeze, a gentle reminder that summer will eventually turn to fall. For now, the days remain long and autumn patiently waits her turn.

  Lifting our conjoined hands, I kiss her wrist. She smells like lavender. “Both?” I venture, unable to make such a tough decision. My heart swells with happiness. How amazing it feels knowing that our only responsibility is to decide between two such sweet things.

  “Tequila-flavored ice cream?” she wonders aloud. “Now that I could get behind …”

  I laugh, cherishing this moment. It wasn’t so long ago I feared we might never laugh together again. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but it has a certain adult appeal,” I agree.

  We walk in companionable silence for a block, both lost in our own thoughts. As so often happens to long-married couples, I sense a shift in her mood before she opens her mouth.

  “Do you feel guilty?” she asks, her voice small and serious.

  Cassidy obsessed over this concept for months. Plagued with doubt and guilt, she constantly questioned why this happened and whether either of us might have done something to change the outcome. My answer was always the same, but it did little to ease her conscience. While I regret failing Cassidy and failing to protect our family, she’s worried over all the ways she might have done things differently, taking the full weight of the miscarriage as hers alone. But I carry the burden too. She might have carried him inside her body, but I hold my love for him—and her—in my heart and soul. He was the best parts of both of us, and it’s what we carry together that’s everything.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I say again. Our doctor has assured her many times of this, but it’s never enough. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We did nothing wrong.”

  She shakes her head, brows furrowing. “No, I know that,” she says, though I wonder if she truly believes it yet. She sighs, biting her lip. “I mean, guilty about this.” She gestures around to nothing in particular. “Walking down the street laughing and joking about ice cream and booze. Guilty for feeling happy?”

  I stop and pull her to face me. Pain is written across her face, little wrinkles in the creases where they never used to be. Cassidy always looked young for her age, often getting carded at bars and mistaken for a college student into her early thirties. She looks older now. The lines around her eyes a little deeper, the hollows beneath darker. Grief has chipped away at her youth but has been unable to lay claim to it all. Thankfully, her green eyes have regained some of the sparkle that dimmed in the weeks after the loss.

  “We will never forget this baby,” I say. After months of saying the wrong thing or, worse, saying nothing at all, I’m painfully aware of each word. “We can’t stop living because we miss him. We can’t not laugh or enjoy things because he’s gone.” My eyes blur with tears, and she blinks back her own. “At some point, grieving turns to remembrance, and that’s okay.” My mom told me this when my grandpa died. She promised it might hurt for a long time, but I’d have happy memories for even longer.

  Considering this, she nods. “I like that.” Her smile lights up her entire face. When we first started dating, I did anything I could to get that smile pointed in my direction, her energy radiating outward and warming everything it touched. “Did you just make that up?”

  “Wish I could take credit,” I say. Slowly the world comes back into focus. Cars move past us at full speed again and people brush by on the sidewalk. “It’s nice, though, right?”

  Reaching up on her tiptoes, she kisses me softly, then deeper. “I love you.” She settles back on her heels and takes my hand, tugging me toward the crosswalk. “I also love Ben & Jerry’s.” The WALK sign flashes, and we jog toward the ice cream parlor, still holding hands.

  ♦   23   ♦

  JOAN

  After

  August 9

  A BULL IN A china shop. That’s how I’d describe my elder daughter whenever she bothers to visit. Always one to make an entrance, she stomps through the front door and clomps down the hall as if wearing steel-toed boots. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what she actually wore. Since she sometimes comes straight from some barn, she often has mud and manure still caked to her heels and refuses to leave her shoes at the door like a civilized human being. I hear her coming from a mile away, her lumbering gait causing my knickknacks to shiver and shimmy closer to the edge of the dresser. I swear she tries to make them fall just so she can poke fun at my love of porcelain birds. Not that it bothers me. I love my little birdies, and no amount of teasing can change that. There’s over a hundred scattered about the house.

  “Cassidy, is that you?” I call out from the kitchen where I’m drying the last of the lunch dishes.

  Hostile energy hits me before she even enters the room. I brace against the swirl of red and yellow energy vying for attention, her aura at odds with itself. Every person has an aura surrounding them. Most have only one color, shifting with their moods. Some have two, the energies melting together like cotton candy. Cassidy’s battle each other, refusing to blend. Such a fight can end with the aura turning black, the negative of all colors.

  Today she’s red and yellow. Together these could meld to a vibrant orange—the color of vitality and joy—but her colors stay stubbornly separate. Since her soul is restless, the positive attributes of red—courage and strength—give way to less favorable qualities—irritability and a fiery temperament. Yellow auras are analytical and intelligent, two adjectives that aptly describe my brilliant daughter. But when unsettled, a yellow aura is tempestuous and hypercritical of themselves and others. This is shaping up to be a lovely visit.

  “Who else would it be?” she asks, brushing a quick kiss on my cheek. “Better hope I’m not an armed robber,” sh
e jokes. “Here to steal all your tchotchkes.”

  I refrain from rolling my eyes. Cassidy triggers my inner teenager, and I promised Jack I wouldn’t antagonize her. This agreement came after a rather heated argument where I insisted she always provoked me. In the end, I reluctantly agreed to cut her some slack, but obviously she wasn’t going to make this an easy task.

  “Tea?” I ask, pulling the kettle from the burner before it can swoon.

  She shrugs and settles herself into one of the wicker chairs at the breakfast table. “Sure, thanks.”

  When Claire visits, things are effortless. I don’t need to ask how she takes her tea, since I already know. Claire and I never stumble around awkwardly looking for bits of conversation, since we just pick up where we left off last time or, better yet, talk about the boys. Full of pink energy, Claire is all softness and love for others. If anything, she gives too much of herself, sacrificing her own needs for her family.

  “How’s Owen?” I ask, setting a cup of English breakfast tea before her. In the center of the table, I’ve laid out the sugar, honey, and milk. She grabs for the honey, just like her sister.

  She shrugs again, and I feel a nerve in my eye tic. “He’s good,” she says, blowing on the mug before taking a sip and wincing before putting it back down.

  Fine. Good. Better. It’s worse than pulling teeth. Whenever I call on her, she’s always fine. When I ask about work, it’s always busy. Owen’s always good. The house is always great. She never elaborates and instead asks me equally mundane questions. How’s dad? Good. How’s my latest painting? Almost finished. How’s the garden? Growing. We quickly run out of topics and start all over again during the next stilted call.

  “What?” she asks, looking at me like I’m a crazy person. I must’ve made a noise. Sometimes that happens lately, my inner filter lost somewhere in the last twenty years.

  “Nothing,” I snap. I will not fight, I will not fight, I remind myself.

  “What’s wrong?” she sighs. Something in her tone catches me off guard, and I see red. Her aura consumes me. Usually I hate words like triggered, thrown around by this new generation as an excuse for bad behavior, but it applies now. I’m triggered.

  Hot tears cloud my eyes. Cassidy claims I use tears as weapons, but she’s wrong. I can’t control them like that. Not everyone can wield their emotions like a sword.

  “I just don’t understand how you haven’t come to visit me sooner,” I murmur, my lip quivering. “I’m your mother, Cassidy. Girls need their moms in times like this, and you’ve barely even spoken to me on the phone.” I wish I could stop the whimpering tone in my voice. Watching her carefully, I note the calculating tilt of her head as she studies my face. I’m unsure how to act under this scrutiny.

  “No, Mom, let’s be real. You needed me,” she says, toying with her steaming mug of tea but not drinking. “You wanted me to run over here so you could ‘help’ me, but really you just wanted to be wanted.”

  My hand flutters to my chest, and she scowls.

  “It’s never about me, or Claire, or Dad. It’s always about you,” she continues, her voice like a dagger through my heart. She gains strength with each word, drawing power from wounding me. “You want to tell yourself you fixed me and that I couldn’t have survived without you,” she hisses, finally taking a deep breath and fixing me with a hard stare. “But I don’t need you, and I’m completely fine. Thanks again for asking.”

  Sitting back in my own wicker chair, I look out the bay window and across our backyard, anywhere but at her angry face. I used to sit here and watch the girls play in the yard. Sometimes I’d sketch, but usually I was too distracted. There was always some chore that needed tending, and anything I got on the paper I’d end up throwing out later.

  As the girls got older, I’d sit here and try to help with their homework. Cassidy raced through her own and then assisted Claire while I pretended I wasn’t completely confused by algebra and biology. We rarely ate at this table, saving our meals for the more formal dining room or trays in front of the television. This table was meant for sitting and talking. How many times have I sat here trying to talk with Cassidy and ended up unable to find the words?

  I turn back to face her. “What?” she asks, the defiant tone of her teen years echoing in my ears. Funny how something as simple as the sound of one’s voice can send you hurtling back through time.

  Senior year of high school was fraught with bickering and fighting between Cassidy and me. We’d always butted heads, but now that she was on the verge of spreading her wings, we were at odds more than ever. The day she found the envelope from Tufts University lying in a stack of mail on this very table, her face lit up and all traces of the moody seventeen-year-old girl evaporated. She ripped open the thick package and squealed with pure joy, literally jumping up and down with excitement. I’m not a genius, but even I knew a big fat envelope meant they’d accepted her. The moment I brought it in from the mailbox, I’d started adding up tuition, room and board, books, travel expenses. Tufts wasn’t a cheap school, and although Cassidy was a gifted student, it was unlikely she’d get a full scholarship. Jack and I had a modest college fund saved. A state university tuition amount. The rest would have to be in loans, and after reading how young adults were putting themselves into serious debt paying for astronomical college expenses, I knew I had to help Cassidy make the right choice for her future.

  Once she settled down at the table, reading and rereading the acceptance letter, I took the seat across from her. I congratulated her, I’m sure I did. The first words out of my mouth would’ve been how proud we were of such an amazing accomplishment. I’m certain I said those things. But then I told her she should consider all her options. She’d been accepted into the honors program at UMass Amherst and based on merit received a full academic scholarship. Attending UMass and then investing in grad school was the practical thing to do. She’d mentioned veterinary school a few times, but I always assumed she’d go away and change her major fifteen times like everyone else. She listened to my guidance, her eyes growing a shade darker. When I finished, she stood and left the room and didn’t speak to me for a week. During that time, she accepted Tuft’s offer of admittance and applied for the appropriate financial aid. She never asked us for a dime.

  “Are you there?” Cassidy asks again, a slight edge of concern tingeing her voice.

  “I’m here.” I sigh, shaking my head against the memory. It’s one of a hundred other times where my best intentions fell short and blew up in my face. “I just only ever want you to be happy,” I mumble. It’s all I ever wanted for my girls. Everything came easily for Cassidy. Except happiness.

  She lets out an abrupt laugh. “Yes, you always loved to say that to us,” she says, bringing her sister back into the conversation even though it’s like comparing apples and oranges. “Just be happy,” she mimicked, her voice a high falsetto meant to sound like me. “Everything you ever did, you did for us. You gave up your own happiness for ours, right, Mom?”

  Each word is like a slap across the face. True, in the throes of parenthood, I uttered these phrases. Back in another lifetime I was a promising art student. I was taking courses at the community college but planned to transfer to an art school in Boston after two years. One professor told me I had raw talent, and that was enough for me. I dreamed of having my own exhibit or working at a gallery and painting on the side. But all that was some otherlife. In this life, I met Jack. We got pregnant. Marriage followed. I dropped out of school so he could finish. Another baby came along. I did what I had to do. I was a young mother with dreams beyond diapers and strollers, but that’s what I was dealt, and it was my job to curate some happiness in this life—if not for myself, then for my daughters.

  “You know I was happy raising you and your sister.” A statement. I don’t dare pose it as a question.

  Motherhood grew on me. It wasn’t the path I chose, but I did the best I could with the circumstances dealt to me. As I watched my older daugh
ter throw herself into her studies and excel at every turn, I was both proud and terrified. Her single-minded focus could be derailed at any moment, and she was grossly unprepared. Like I’d once been. She had no contingency plan. She went straight from undergrad into veterinary school and then internships and private practice. I’m thankful she met Owen and he was able to jump aboard her fast-moving train without slowing her down. But she didn’t leave room for error. It was my job to prepare her for the tricks and traps life might throw at her. Maybe if I nudged her the right way, she’d create space in her life for things outside her narrow focus.

  “You were happy when you were happy, and you resented it the rest of the time,” she says, leaning back and letting her shoulders fall. “As soon as we were out of the house, you didn’t waste any time turning our room into your studio. It was like you’d been waiting twenty years for your actual life to start.”

  “Oh, Cassidy, grow up,” I snap, suddenly infuriated by her righteous indignation, as strong now as ever. “I loved being your mother, but I am also a person who has interests and a life of my own. You should know that better than anyone.” She looks down, biting her tongue. I’m sure she has a smart comeback, but she keeps her mouth closed for once. “I’m not the villain in your story.”

  But oh, how many times she’s cast me as the evil queen in the fairy-tale version of her life. She tells everyone I “hated” her wedding venue. In fact, I thought her choice of a simple barn for the ceremony and reception was lovely. However, I’d hoped she’d choose a barn that wasn’t used to store actual hay, considering I have a ghastly allergic reaction to the stuff. Of course, this was spun as me making the wedding all about me. Regardless, she booked the barn and I survived the ceremony with a Claritin, Benadryl, and eye drop cocktail that still didn’t prevent me from breaking out in small red hives by the end of the night.