“All right, Cassidy,” Dr. Julian says, popping her head in front of the curtain. Her mask is pulled down over her chin and she holds both gloved hands in front of her chest, as if in prayer. “We’re ready to start. We should have your little girl out in about twenty minutes. We’ll give you a few minutes to say hi. Then we’ll need another half hour to stich you back up before sending you to recovery. Dad will go with baby and a nurse to the recovery room and meet you there,” she says, her voice clear and worry-free. “Any questions?”
Cassidy turns to me, apprehension creasing her forehead. “Will I be able to do skin-to-skin?” she asks. For weeks, Cassidy obsessed over our birth plan, which includes her spending the first thirty minutes after birth holding our little girl against her chest for better bonding and feeding success. I fear her plan might need to be readjusted.
“Don’t worry, we’ll have you stitched up and ready for all the skin time you want, I promise.”
Cassidy frowns, disappointed. I catch her eye and pucker my lips, blowing her a kiss. She smiles and kisses back. “I’m ready,” she says, her voice small.
“You might feel a little light pulling and tugging, but that’s normal,” Dr. Julian says. My own stomach seizes at the thought, and I thank God he created women to give birth. I sure as hell couldn’t do this.
* * *
CASSIDY 1:24 PM
Well, this is weird, I think to myself as I feel the slight tugging and pulling Dr. Julian warned about. Having not felt anything from the waist down all day, it’s strange to suddenly have the ghost of sensation once again. Closing my eyes, I focus on the small movements behind the curtain. I swear I feel them removing my organs, moving them aside to make way for my baby. Maybe I’m only imagining it, but it’s surreal all the same. Perhaps because I’m a science geek, I find it more fascinating than I should. I want to tell Owen what I’m experiencing but fear he’ll get woozy and faint. He’s never been great with the gross.
Classical music plays over the speakers, and I’m glad for the noise. The sound of the machine’s bleeping was driving me crazy. Behind the curtain Dr. Julian talks about her own children with a nurse. It comforts me that this surgery is so routine that she’s able to converse about the mundane while slicing into me.
“Any minute now,” Moira says. She stands with one foot on either side of the curtain. “Get ready, dad; mom’s arms have to stay still, but you can hold the babe up to her cheek.”
My heart drops. I hoped to at least touch my baby’s face with my hand. Logically, I understand I’m in the middle of abdominal surgery, but the naïve part of me wishes they’d make an exception.
The voices behind the drape fall silent, leaving only Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto humming in the background. One last tug proceeds the best sound I’ve ever heard. My baby’s first cry.
“Congratulation, guys, you have a perfect baby girl,” Dr. Julian says, rounding the table with a squirming red bundle. Moira quickly wipes her off and wraps her in a blue-and-pink hospital swaddle, placing a tiny pink hat on her bald head.
Owen reaches out and takes our daughter, holding her to his chest as if she’s breakable. No longer crying, our daughter studies him with half-opened eyes. Owen looks down at our little girl with complete adoration and my heart swells, full. He carefully bends and holds her tiny body against my cheek. She nuzzles her face against mine as tears spill from my eyes.
“She’s perfect,” I murmur, wishing I could hold her to my chest and feel the weight I’ve been carrying inside me for all these months.
“Baby Morgan was delivered at one twenty-four PM on May thirteenth. She weighs five pounds, seven ounces, and is eighteen point five inches long,” Dr. Julian recites while Moira dutifully records the information. “We’ll have her cleaned up and run a few tests, but from what I can tell, she’s perfectly healthy. Even though she made her appearance a little early, I’d argue she came at the perfect time, just in time for Mother’s Day,” she says. “Now, let’s get you stitched up so you can go back and hold your baby.” She disappears once again behind the curtain.
“I love you,” Owen says, cradling our baby on his shoulder. I smile, not surprised at how naturally he’s taken to holding her.
“I love you both,” I say, resting my head a little deeper into the pillow. “Lillie?” I murmur, letting my eyes flutter closed. “I want to name her Lillie,” I repeat. Owen nods, kissing our little miracle before following Moira toward recovery. Vivaldi continues to twinkle in the background. Taking a deep breath, I feel myself get put back together, piece by piece.
♦ 45 ♦
JOAN
May 14
HOLDING THE PAINTING TUCKED beneath my arm, secure against my hip, I wonder if balloons or flowers would’ve been a more appropriate thing to bring to the hospital. I was so excited to have finished in time, it never crossed my mind to give this gift after Cassidy was home.
Of course, now I wonder if I’ve made a giant mistake. Knowing my ornery daughter, she’ll see it as just one more thing to pack up and take home from the hospital. And where will I put it? Maybe I’ll prop it on the windowsill, assuming she has a window. What if she’s sharing a room with someone and there’s no space? Perhaps I’ll offer to take it home and bring it to her house another day. Yes. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll show her the painting today but deliver it later this week. Gives us an excellent excuse for another visit.
Jack takes my other elbow, his gentle touch reminding me to breathe. I lean my weight against him, no words necessary after all these years. Even when we first met, so long ago I can’t even tell you how many years, I never needed to fill the silent spaces that fell between us. As a child, I was described as outgoing and talkative (when one was being kind) or as dramatic and annoying (when one was less kind). My own parents were distant and forgetful, and as an only child desperate for their love and affection, I learned that the best way to get attention was by acting out, not always favorably. Although they mostly ignored me, the rare instances where I elicited a response were worth it, so I talked more and more, eager for their approval. This habit lingered past adolescence and plagues me today. Quiet makes me uncomfortable. Except with Jack. Somehow his silence is heavy with everything I’ve ever longed for.
“Ready?” he asks, hand poised to knock on the door. I texted Owen earlier, so they’re expecting us, but Jack always knocks before entering any room. Two teenage daughters taught him a bit about privacy.
I nod, adjusting the painting in my arm, self-conscious. He knocks and Owen murmurs a hushed “Come in,” and I wonder if the baby’s sleeping. A stab of disappointment runs through me.
“Congratulations, sweetheart,” Jack says, beaming as he strides across the private room and kisses Cassidy on the cheek.
Cassidy cradles a small bundle wrapped in a yellow receiving blanket to her chest. “Dad,” she says, looking at him with the same adoring gaze she always saved for him. She glances toward me as I make my way to the side of her bed. “Hi, Mom,” she says, smiling. I notice the purple circles beneath both eyes and the little wrinkles fanning out from either side. She looks tired but radiant, her wild hair frizzing around her forehead like a soft pink crown. “This is Lillie,” she says, maneuvering her arms so we have a better view of our newest grandchild.
Owen reaches his hand across the bed, pumping Jack’s hand in an enthusiastic show of male spirit. So much is said with that gesture. Hello, congratulations, well done. How much simpler to be a man.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmur, eager to hold her to my own bosom, to kiss the light dusting of sandy-blond hair on her head. Realizing I can’t hold the baby while holding the painting, I lift it and prop one corner on the edge of the bed. “I made this for you,” I say, overcome with a sudden shyness. Jack nods at me, urging me on. “We can take it home with us and bring it back to your house next week, if that’s easier.”
Cassidy tilts her head to the side, readjusting Lillie in her arms and pulling her a littl
e closer. I shrink against her scrutiny, self-conscious of her stare. Even though I once dreamed of working in an art gallery or having my own exhibit, sharing my work has never come easily for me. Life prevented me from realizing these lofty, childish dreams, but I never stopped painting. The weight of Cassidy’s judgment makes me wonder if I could’ve handled the pressure anyway.
Normally I favor simple landscapes, painted in watercolors and acrylic. Although I prefer to paint from a photo or while studying a scene live, my style errs toward surrealism. Jack likens it to a dreamscape, the way I wish something might look. So, if I’m painting a mountain scene, I play with the size ratios and colors so it looks mostly real, but there’s an element of pure imagination there too.
For Cassidy I wanted something special, to signify the colossal change from woman to mother she’s experiencing. At first, I considered a butterfly on a flower. Had I known she planned on naming her baby Lillie, I would have painted a Lily. But maybe not—that would have been too obvious, a simple metaphor that doesn’t befit the complicated nature of Cassidy’s personality or transformation.
One morning after a rough early-winter storm, I sat at my kitchen table, drinking coffee and staring out the window. The worst of the rain had stopped, but the glass was streaked with thick droplets that stuck, fat and heavy, to the surface and refused to fall. Wisps of pale-blue sky separated thick gray storm clouds, cracking through the corners and filling in the splinters as the sun tried to rise in the unwelcoming atmosphere. Ever persistent, bright-yellow rays of sunshine peaked through the darkness, radiating off my window and reflecting a hundred colors in every direction. Sipping my coffee, I watched a thin rainbow stretch across the backdrop of my yard, fading and reappearing as I moved my head from side to side. When I looked directly forward, my window resembled stained glass, catching all the colors of the rainbow in its tearstained surface.
An artist always has a notebook at hand, and I quickly sketched an idea for what I might paint Cassidy. Far from my normal landscapes, this was unlike anything I’d captured before, and I was both scared and excited at the prospect. For months I worked on the project, trying to depict the view of that rainbow stretching across the storm-ravaged sky through the lens of those last raindrops.
The final painting is more than I envisioned. I only hope it’s clear I painted the scene through a window and that my use of watercolors, blending and bleeding, gives the impression of a rainy day and not of a painter who lost control of her brush.
Silence looms in the room, and I long to fill it. Jack shakes his head once and I bite my lip, waiting for Cassidy to say something. Anything.
“Mom, it’s beautiful.” Her brows furrow as she continues to study it. I hold my breath, waiting for the but that comes after any compliment from my oldest daughter. “I don’t even know what to say. I can’t believe you painted that for me.”
Confused, I search her face for sarcasm and find none. “I just wanted something for you to hang in her room,” I stammer, unable to put into words all the reasons I wanted to make something for her and why I wanted to make this piece in particular. Cassidy’s never been more than passingly interested in my art. She considered it a hobby or worse, an indulgent quirk. I often sensed her thinly veiled resentment every time I worked on a piece while she was younger, as though my art offended her, made me less of a mother.
“What’s it called?” she asks, lifting her gaze to me. Her eyes are shining brightly, and my heart fills with relief. Apologizing has never come easy for either of us.
Embarrassed, I look at my sneakers. It has a name, though I never thought she’d ask. “What We Carry,” I say. “We carry all the colors of the rainbow inside of us, if you look in the right places.”
All around Cassidy, colors swirl and blend, her normally turbulent aura finally at peace. I stare at my daughter and am dazzled at the pure white light—all the colors of her own rainbow blending into one, shining from within.
Cassidy smiles at me. “Can you put it on the windowsill?” she asks, nodding toward the lone window. A bouquet is perched on one side. “Then do you want to hold her? I think she wants to meet her grandma.”
♦ 46 ♦
CASSIDY
May 14
LILLIE SUCKLES GREEDILY AT my breast, her lips parted around my nipple, knowing exactly what to do. She’ll eat for another fifteen minutes before dozing off, safely cradled in my arms. Maybe I’ll shut my eyes too. Sleep when the baby sleeps, everyone says. But I can rest when I get home. Right now, I’m afraid to miss one moment. Even sleeping she’s enthralling.
I’m alone with Lillie for the first time. Owen and my parents are grabbing lunch so I can have some privacy, and the nursing staff is checking in less frequently after their initial routine of hourly visits. I relish the lovely quiet after hours of beeping machines and excited chatter.
Mom’s painting is propped up on the window, the bright sun a backdrop for its unsettling landscape. Although a handful of her paintings hung around our house growing up, I never looked closely at them. Art was never my strong suit, or so I said to spite my mother, refusing to admit to liking something she found such joy in. Understandable as a teenager, ridiculous for a grown woman. I always assumed she drew flowers and trees, pastel-colored pictures of our backyard to pass the time. Never did I imagine she created images so surreal and unnerving.
The colors pulsate, the edges blurring so all the shades roll together without boundaries. On the surface it’s just a rainbow in a rainy sky. But it’s so much more. It’s turbulence and change. Beauty and fury. Calmness and distortion. Blue bleeds into purple and fades to red. Through my tears, the picture contorts beautifully. Somehow my mother, who’s never understood me, captured everything inside me on a piece of canvas.
Lillie’s breathing slows gradually until she’s asleep, her mouth still puckered and sucking. My heart surges with love as she nestles into the nook of my shoulder. Biting back the tears, I fear my chest might explode, it’s so full. My love for Lillie is absolute and without question. I’m no longer afraid of this love and realize my heart was big enough this whole time. For so long I’ve worried myself sick over whether it’s possible to love two things at once. Now I know the expansion of your heart is infinite. There’s always room for more.
I lost a baby and I still love him. I carried him inside my belly, along with all my hopes and dreams for his future. When I lost him, I let the guilt and shame weigh me down. The burden of his loss overpowered everything, even the joy he inspired with his short existence. But my grief has blossomed into something else. Something better. I carry my heart on the outside now, a six-pound piece of me and Owen that I’ll love and cherish and worry over forever and always. I’m able to remember the son I mis-carried while making new memories with the daughter I hold now. I can be thankful for all I have and still respect that which I don’t have any longer. Just like Claire said, things aren’t always black-and-white, and some things don’t make sense. This used to bother me. The part of me eager to control and understand everything insisted on a logical explanation when, in truth, some things just are. Claire also reminded me that Owen is there to share the load, that we carry this monumental weight of parenthood together.
What we carry is each other, our family. And that is everything.
Outside the sun’s hidden behind a cloud, so the painting is cast in a different light than before. It’s changed, just like me. I’m not the same woman I was yesterday or last year or ten years before that. My whole life I’ve chased some ideal image of myself, convinced if I did this and then that, I’d be one thing and not the other, when all along I could be all the things at once. I’m a changeling. It’s possible to be a daughter, a sister, a wife, a professional, a student, a teacher, a mother. Just because you’re one doesn’t diminish another. When I lost my baby, I thought I couldn’t call myself a mother until I held my child in my arms. Now I know I was a mother all along.
The sun peeks from behind the cl
oud, and a radiant light reflects from the corner of the picture, like a beacon shining out from the dark.
As I close my eyes, sleep threatens to pull me under, and I succumb. I’m unsettled. I’m hopeful. I’m scared. I’m changed but have never felt more myself.
“Everything happens for a reason,” I whisper against Lillie’s soft head. My thoughts quiet, and beautiful darkness slips over me.
DISCUSSION GUIDE QUESTIONS
The novel places the reader right in the middle of Cassidy experiencing a miscarriage. We don’t know much about Cassidy yet, but discuss how her reaction to being told her baby is lost informs who she is as a character. How might different types of women react to this news?
Cassidy has a hard time when people, even her own family, try to offer her comfort. Why is this? Do you think this is reasonable, or is she being too sensitive? Overreacting?
After returning home from the hospital, Cassidy insists on immediately taking her wedding dress to a donation center. Why can’t she wait? What do you think her state of mind is, and how does this dictate her decision-making and response to Owen’s hesitancy?
Cassidy and her mother, Joan, often butt heads. Both of them are convinced it’s because they are so different from each other, but what do you think? Maybe they are more alike than they care to admit. Discuss.
Cassidy takes comfort in facts and figures and relishes being in control. However, she is a veterinarian and has a soft spot for animals. As a professional, she knows there is no actual relationship between her own pregnancy struggles and those of her patient, Kitty, but she can’t help but compare the two. Discuss what this says about her as a character and how humans look to make connections to help explain the inexplicable.
Cassidy and Claire have a close relationship but are very different. Claire is the peacekeeper and Cassidy the fighter. Claire chose to be a stay-at-home mother—something Cassidy claims disdain for—while Cassidy chose a career. Do you think Cassidy’s “disdain” stems from something deeper? Jealousy? Curiosity? Fear?
What We Carry Page 29