by Vivian Wood
“Up the sedation,” the doctor said bluntly.
“What? No!” Harper said. “You can’t just knock me out—”
But it was too late. Her own weakness surprised her. As Harper raised her hand to keep the nurse away from the IVs, the nurse easily pinned her arm down. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the fluids flooded her body faster. The faux sense of calm and exhaustion moved through her body like an electric blanket.
“Harper, stop,” she heard Sean say. Stop what? “It’s okay, just rest.”
Rest. She was tired of being told to rest, to calm down, that everything was okay. Everything is clearly not fucking okay, she tried to say, but the words just echoed in the empty chamber of her head.
She felt familiar arms around her shoulders and breathed Sean in. His body eclipsed the painful bright light above her. Harper tried to fight off the drugs, but they were too strong. She heard nurses murmuring and smelled fresh sheets. Someone, somehow, had already cleaned off her legs. She pressed her thighs together like she always did in bed, aware that the thigh gap had disappeared as the hard mattress pushed against her flesh.
I’m sorry. I fucked up. I fucked everything up. The words didn’t come out, but she prayed that Sean could still hear them. Even as the blackness crept closer around her, she scanned her body and realized something was missing. There was an emptiness, a space, that was spooned out from her center. How can you miss someone who’d only been a whisper inside you?
She’d been wrong for all those days. Maybe there hadn’t been any kicks or swells of the stomach, but the baby had been there. She’d known him, through and through. Him, she thought to herself. I didn’t realize that until now.
Harper felt a bustling of busy nurses around her. They worked around Sean, too. The steadiness of his arms kept her from drifting away into the wild unknown. The smell of bleach filled the air, and she felt gentle sponges across her skin.
“ … in time to make the softball game …” one of the nurses murmured. Harper would have laughed if she could at the idiocy of it all. Here they were, changing out her bloody sheets with bits of her baby on them as they talked about finishing a shift in time to go to a game.
Probably one of their kids’ games, she thought and it hit her. Her child was gone. Her only child. No matter what any of them said, no matter what Sean would say when the drugs wore off, she wouldn’t “try” again. The first had been the only, and he’d been a miracle. And she’d ruined it all, and for what? So she wouldn’t get fat.
“There’s a difference between fat and pregnant,” P had said. Obviously, right? But she hadn’t fully believed that. She’d watched friends expand into happy motherhood and had never understood how they could do that. Especially the models, the actresses, how they could just give up their whole body for a wiggling little pink thing. But now she knew. Why do I always have to figure everything out so late?
The walls were black velvet and closed in tighter. “I love you,” Sean whispered into her ear. He just kept repeating it. She tried to open her mouth to tell him again how sorry she was, how she loved him, too. But no matter how much she tried, nothing came out.
She wanted to tell him that she understood now. Just give me another chance, a do-over, and I’ll get it right. She would eat right, exercise in moderation, rest and do everything else she was supposed to. She’d no longer obsess over getting just the right supplements, but go with her gut and just start it already. Anything it took, she would do.
The doctor could be wrong, she tried to tell herself, but she knew that was a lie. She’d been asleep when the baby had slipped away, and she hadn’t even noticed. Harper would never forget the shock of those red sheets. So bright and cheery, it had been so wrong. Where had everyone been? she thought. She remembered Sean with those white paper cups and the little brown paper bag that seeped out oil from the café.
The baby had known. He’d waited until it was just the two of them to make his escape. And Harper hadn’t been able to stop him, to keep him. Even on her back, with her thighs spread thick, she hadn’t been able to clamp her legs shut tight enough to keep him safe. The thigh gap had done what it was supposed to do. It was an alley, a highway, that let the greatest thing that had ever happened to her make a getaway into the night.
“Does she have any other family?” she heard a nurse ask.
“Not really,” Sean said. He hesitated. Don’t call my mom. Don’t you let them call my mom.
“Parents?”
“Uh, not really,” Sean said. She was aware of her phone, dead in her purse, but all it would take was a slight recharge for anyone to scroll through it to find her mother’s number.
“Okay,” the nurse said. “Just checking.”
Harper sighed internally, slightly comforted, and let the dark take her.
25
Sean
Sean’s back ached, but he’d grown used to it. The little plastic chair he’d camped out in since Harper fell asleep pushed against his spine and refused to give. You have to give it props for that, he thought. The chair was nothing if not determined. And it reminded him of all the pangs and groans that went along with life.
Nurses came in after thirty minutes and went through a series of checks and tests that he knew nothing about. They always told him she was stable and that the rest was good. There were moments her eyelids fluttered wildly in REM. During those times he gripped her hand and spoke soothing words to her. Sean could only imagine the kind of demons that roamed her nightmares.
He went back and forth to the waiting room to check in with P, though he never had any news. Finally, Sean urged him, “Go home. I’ll call you as soon as she wakes up.”
P had looked around wearily and held the steady gazes of children who took in his outfit with curiosity. “Maybe you’re right,” P said. “This outfit doesn’t exactly translate to daywear.”
Sean thought about texting Joon-ki or even Connor, but what could he say? There was no way he could talk to anyone without spilling why Harper was in the hospital to begin with. It might be half his child, but it was her body—and up to her whether she ever told anyone else or not.
Instead, he asked the nurse for a few pieces of paper from the copy machine and a pen. He lost himself in his imagination and dreamed up cloudless landscapes, magical creatures and beautiful scenery on the white blank sheets. The least he could do was create a miniature of a perfect world, one suitable for Harper and the baby that had gone.
There was a shift in the hum of the machines that made Sean look up. He’d just finished a pastoral landscape drenched with flowers drawn in aching detail. He imagined it to be the kind of place they might retire one day. Maybe in the English midlands, or some vast openness in the middle of the country he only knew in dreams.
Harper let out a soft moan and flexed her fingers.
“Hey,” he said as he stood up and leaned over the bed. “Welcome back.”
“What time is it?” she asked, groggy.
He glanced at the clock. “Almost three.”
“In the afternoon?”
“Yep. You slept most of the morning. Which is good.”
She tried to push herself into a seated position but flinched.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he said and propped an extra pillow below her.
“I’m sorry.” They were the first clear words she said.
“No more sorries.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I feel like I, you know, I failed. At the first task of motherhood. Keep the baby alive, that was it. That was all I had to do.”
“You make it sound like that’s easy. Or that you even had much control over it. Do you remember what the doctor said? These kinds of things happen all the time.”
“They happen a lot more when you’re underweight. Malnourished,” she said. “God. I’m so sorry. I mean, I knew I had vitamin deficiencies. Anemia, all that. I hoped the prenatal vitamins would boost me back up, but—”
“You have no idea whe
ther that had anything to do with it or not. And we’ll never know. So why worry about it?”
The nurse walked in as Harper started to protest more. “There’s our sleeping beauty,” she said. Her smile had the familiar slight tinge of coffee stains from daily habits, the same all the staff had. “Feeling better?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Harper muttered. “Can you tell me more? What happened—I mean, I know what happened. But why?”
“Harper—” Sean started, but she quieted him with a look.
“I need to know,” she said. “Was it me? Did I do something? Or … not do something?”
The nurse went about her tasks as she checked Harper’s vitals and the machines. “Miscarriages are a lot more common than most people think,” she said. “They’re most often caused by chromosomal abnormalities. Now, don’t let that worry you,” she said. “Even if that is the cause, which we can’t know, that in no way means that you won’t have a slew of babies in the future with no complications. It could also be a bunch of other reasons. If and when you’re ready to try again, it’s always best to work with an OBGYN before you even start trying. You can get tests to see what challenges you might face, and that can certainly give you peace of mind and help make future pregnancies easier.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll ‘try’ ever again,” Harper said. Sean squeezed her hand.
“You might and you might not,” the nurse said with a shrug. “All I can tell you for certain is it’s pretty pointless to think about such a big decision right here, right now.”
“Thank you,” Sean said. He meant it. The idea of actually planning a pregnancy seemed a world away. Still, there was a distinct sense of loss in the room. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted that baby, even under the circumstances.
“Yeah,” Harper whispered. “Thanks. When can I leave?”
“The doctor will come in to talk to you about that,” the nurse said. “I don’t expect you to stay overnight, but a little longer just for observation might be in order. Rest, relax. The café here is pretty good if you’re hungry—at least, relatively speaking,” she said with a wink.
They both listened to the nurse’s footsteps as she retreated down the hall.
“You know,” Sean said carefully, “don’t take this the wrong way. I’m devastated about the loss. Really. More so than I thought I would be. But there’s a part of me that’s also … relieved.”
“Relieved? Really?” Harper asked. She looked up at him with her doe eyes, but all he saw when he searched them was interest. There was no judgment.
“Yeah, kind of,” he admitted. “Just a little. I don’t think either of us were ready for that kind of responsibility. Not yet.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t agree. I mean, I was ready to make the best of it. But if it were totally up to me, up to us, to plan for something like this, it would definitely be down the road. And when I was, you know. Healthier.”
“Well, now it is completely up to us,” he said.
“I guess so,” Harper said. A slight smile played at her lips.
Sean sighed and pulled the chair beside her bed. “You know, I’m still counting the days since my relapse,” he said. “I try not to talk about it much, and think about it even less. But the day will come when you just stop counting and can’t remember off the top of your head how many days you’ve been sober. That’s kind of a small sign for me. But that day is still a ways out.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t fathom what that’s like.”
“Sure you can,” he said. “You’re still in rehab. It might be for something totally different, but there are similarities. Alcohol’s one kind of addiction, eating, or lack thereof, is kind of another.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” she said.
“With alcohol, the goal is to avoid it,” he said. “In some ways, that’s a little easier. But with you, with the eating disorder, it’s about tackling it head-on every single day. You’re so much stronger than I could be.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. Harper squeezed his arm. “They’re just different, but both monsters.” She began to cry, slow and steady.
“Hey,” he said softly. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “I know you’re right,” she said. “About everything, about the timing. About being relieved. But it still hurts. You know?”
“I know,” he said. “Trust me, I know. And when we’re ready, really ready, we’ll try again. Okay? We can have ten kids if that’s what you want.”
“You mean it?” she asked.
“Here,” he said and stretched out his hand. “Pinky swear.”
“I’m not pinky swearing on ten kids. You’re going to have to give my vagina some kind of break.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll just swear on trying. And waiting until we’re ready.”
“Deal,” she said and wound her finger around his.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “You want me to go check out the café? I saw some of the food delivered to the room and it’s not very impressive.”
“Can we just sit here for a moment? Just, you know … observe the loss? I think, after that, I can start to put this behind us.”
“Of course,” he said. “Anything you want.”
Sean eased back into the seat, and it finally gave. He’d conformed to it, or maybe it was the other way around. But he felt cradled, and Harper’s hand in his anchored him. He closed his eyes and listened to her breathe. Sean thought about how close they’d come to diving right into the deep end. It would have been scary, was scary, but also exhilarating.
You’ll have another chance, a voice inside him whispered. Maybe it was his, maybe it wasn’t. It was too quiet to tell.
When Harper squeezed his hand, he opened his eyes and looked at her. An open smile stretched across her face.
Sean stood up, leaned down and kissed her.
Harper wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks and nodded at him.
They didn’t need words or any more explanations. He knew intuitively what that meant. They were ready, bound together by all they’d had and all they’d lost. Now, without reservations, they could move on—together—into the luminous.
26
Harper
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Sean asked. “You don’t have to go in today if you don’t want to.”
She smiled over at him as the engine idled and purred below. She’d only been home a few days, but the cabin fever had enveloped her fast. Harper had been surprised when the first place she wanted to go was rehab, but it kind of did make sense. What she needed now was healthy support more than anything else. “I’m sure,” she said.
“Okay,” Sean said. “But if you want to leave early today, just give me a call. This is a lot, a full day after what you just went through.”
“It’ll be good for me,” she said. “Promise.”
He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers. Harper’s mouth opened, receptive. There were no hesitations, which she’d worried about in the hospital. Instead, since the day he’d brought her home, it was as if they were closer than ever.
“Good luck, sweetheart,” Sean called after her. She gave him an exaggerated eye roll over her shoulder and blew back a kiss.
“Harper!” the receptionist said. “So good to see you! We weren’t sure you’d make it back in this week.”
“Hi,” Harper said. “I did. I’m here. It feels good to be back.”
“It’s good to have you back. The group’s just settling in,” she said.
As Harper made her way down the hall, one of her favorite doctors—a resident psychologist—turned the corner. “Harper, you’re here,” she said warmly. The young doctor always looked like she was playing dress-up in her lab coat. She had the smooth-skinned young face of a high schooler who had somehow escaped the curse of acne. “How are you feeling today?”
“Surprisingly good,” Harper s
aid.
“The staff has been updated on the past week’s occurrences. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” This was one of the things Harper had been afraid of. How would she react to sympathies and condolences? She didn’t know if she’d be able to handle it, but hearing someone offer their wishes in earnest made the baby feel more like he’d been part of this world.
Harper ducked into the group room as the doctor gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “—go over the foundational—Harper! You made it to group, that’s fantastic.”
She blushed slightly as she made her way into the circle. Billy reached behind him, his willowy figure bending at fantastic angles, and pulled up a chair beside him. He patted it as the rest of the group members smiled at her. “Sit here,” he said.
As she looked around the room, she realized nobody but the medical staff knew why she’d been gone. It wasn’t odd to have someone disappear for a few days, or even for good. There was no telling what might happen. Harper had heard stories of some people leaving forever, only for an obituary to be stumbled across the following week. It was usually a sudden heart attack or a hip fracture. Starvation usually made your body consume its heart first after all the fat had been gobbled up. The bones were nearly hollow as a bird’s and delicate as a soufflé.
Only the group leader offered Harper a smile of camaraderie that let her know she knew about the baby. “Harper, since it’s your first day back, you get the choice of when you’d like to share today. If at all, of course.”
Harper looked around the room at the motley crew of misfits. She drew in her breath. “I’m … okay, I guess. Not great, not terrible.”
“Why were you gone?” Billy asked. He leaned toward her, his eyes hungry for drama.
“Billy, you know we don’t ask that,” the group leader said.