When the Lights Go Out

by Mary Kubica

  March 14, 1997

  Egg Harbor

  Spring looms on the horizon.

  It’s weeks away still, but every now and then a day blooms before me, fifty or sixty degrees and full of sun, so that it’s easier to get through than the endlessly gray winter days.

  These rare springlike days I leave the cottage when Aaron is away and head into town. I’ve discovered a dance studio there, completely by chance—I didn’t seek it out—a small single-story cottage on Church Street that tiny ballerinas move in and out of all day.

  The first day I spotted the studio, I saw an empty park bench nearby, which was warm and welcoming, set directly in a shaft of sunlight so that even though it was no more than fifty-two degrees outside, I felt snug, my skin warm from the sun’s generous beams.

  For nearly an hour I watched the ballerinas, toddlers mainly in leotards with their hair pinned neatly back in buns. Their little voices were happy and high-pitched, like birds, as they clung to their mothers’ hands, coming and going like clockwork, nearly every hour on the hour.

  There was one group in particular that caught my eye. A group of sixteen—eight mothers and their daughters—who arrived en masse around noon, a whole bundle of giggly girls with women trailing behind, women who sipped lattes and gossiped while I sat alone on a park bench, feeling sorry for myself, isolated from society because I didn’t fit in. Because I didn’t have a child.

  The women were beautiful, every last one of them, which for whatever reason made me feel dirty, self-conscious and ashamed. I smiled as they walked by, but not one looked at me and no one smiled in reply. They wore peasant tops and floaty skirts; cowboy boots; big, baggy sweaters; hobo bags; while me, on the other hand, I sat wrapped up in a sweatshirt of Aaron’s that had faded and shrunk in the wash, feeling alone, bloated, desperate, wanting for a child.

  How different I am from those mothers.

  I could never be one of them, one of those women who travel in a pack, whispering secrets about their husbands, their children’s nighttime habits, which little ones still wet the bed. All because I didn’t have a child. Because without a child, I had nothing to offer them.

  Because I’m nothing, I easily reasoned then, if not a mother.

  There’s no other justification for my life.

  I watched them as they walked by, as they closed in on the dance studio. And then, after the women had passed and I assumed the parade was through, I noticed one little girl straggling behind, nearly stagnant on the sidewalk. Struggling to keep up. Too busy examining the buds on the trees. Smaller than the rest, which made me think of the piglet in Charlotte’s Web. Wilbur, saved from slaughter by little Fern. I was captivated by her, holding my breath as she passed by, joining the others in the studio. Only when she was gone did I allow myself to breathe.

  And now twice, sometimes three times a week I find myself sitting there on that bench, watching the dancers come and go, wishing one of them, any single one of them—but especially the littlest one, a head shorter than the rest, straw-colored hair and a collection of freckles, whose tiny feet always lag behind so that one day I worry she’ll be forgotten—was mine.

  I’ve become an addict really, and the only thing that eases the symptoms of withdrawal is seeing children, is being in the company of children. They are my fix, an antidote for the restlessness, the irritability, the tremor of my hands that is only exacerbated with each passing month that I don’t get pregnant.

  The little girl can’t be more than three years old, pudgy arms, legs and cheeks still padded with baby fat that will one day wear away, no doubt, so that she’ll look like any one of the ladies she tags along after, with their long limbs and their long hair and their coffee.

  I don’t like the way I feel sitting there on that park bench, eyeing children who are not mine. But I have nothing better to do with my time, and I don’t think I could stop if I tried.

  I suggested to Aaron that I look for a job, for some diversion from the long, lonely afternoons while he is away. Aaron isn’t game. He’d rather I not work, which makes no sense to me. The financial burden of fertility treatments is steep; we could use the additional income. We’ve begun to argue about things like the cost of ground beef, the cost of electricity.

  Aaron and I are monitoring the Clomid cycles, which means for each failed attempt we are quite literally throwing away hundreds of dollars for the medication, blood work and ultrasounds to see whether my body is releasing eggs, and when. Insurance won’t cover these costs because, of course, some high-and-mighty insurance company doesn’t give a darn whether Aaron and I ever have a baby, and so the procedure is considered elective. We are electing to waste thousands of dollars to try and conceive a baby, while other parents, far less capable or worthy parents, are given one for free.

  “You’re under so much stress already,” Aaron said when I suggested applying for a job, and “Why not just focus on this?” meaning making a baby, as if somehow I’d been unfocused, and as if that lack of focus was the reason we were still without a child. I’d been too cavalier about it, too casual, too devil-may-care. He didn’t use those words, not a single one of them, and yet that’s exactly what I heard when he came home from work after midnight that night and, though I lamented about being bored all day, about being alone, he suggested I not apply for a job, but rather focus on this, with a sweeping gesture toward my vacuous womb.

  I screamed at him then. I slammed a door. I locked him out of the bedroom so he slept on the sofa for the night.

  Never before have I screamed at him. Never before have I raised my voice.

  He didn’t object to sleeping on the sofa. It was one in the morning. He was tired, he told me. “Eden, that’s enough,” he said with a sigh while gathering his pillow from the head of our bed. “I need to sleep.”

  I sat there in the bedroom that night, in the dark, propped up against pillows and not lying down. My hands still shook even hours after my fit was through. A headache slunk up the base of my neck and consumed my skull so that every part of my head hurt. My eyes burned from crying and though I tried to blame the medication for this—after all, mood swings and a propensity for crying were both common side effects of the Clomid—I didn’t know whether or not they were to blame this time.

  Maybe it was just me.

  I felt sorry come morning.

  But I didn’t apologize and neither did Aaron. Instead he left for work earlier than ever before and I returned to the dance studio, an addict in need of a fix.

  March 19, 1997

  Egg Harbor

  When Clomid alone failed to work, Dr. Landry suggested IUI. Intrauterine insemination. Placing Aaron’s sluggish sperm directly into my uterus so that they don’t have to paddle through those four inches of mucousy space all on their own, so that they will have an easier time finding and fertilizing my egg without getting lost, swimming in circles in my vaginal canal as they are apt to do. Each month, Aaron and I have quite literally thrown away money, frittered away follicles and eggs, doled out hundreds of dollars on medication and ultrasounds for nothing. My trips to see Dr. Landry have been a waste. It’s time to try something new. Intrauterine insemination will add a couple hundred dollars to our monthly expenditure, but will also increase the likelihood of conception, especially in cases like ours where low sperm motility is to blame.

  There it was again, that word: blame.

  There is also the added benefit that with IUI Aaron and I won’t have to have sex, which is a blessing in and of itself. Aaron is capable of collecting his sample all on his own in the comfort of a private room at the clinic, complete with pornographic videos and magazines, where sexy, buxom women far more appealing to the eye than me will help us create a child. It mortified him to have to do this, and yet after months of invasive ultrasounds and repeated blood draws, after digesting medication that made me moody, that made me cry, after poking myself in the gut with shots of
hormones for months on end, this seemed only fair. This seemed right. The nurse tendered my assistance, saying I could keep Aaron company if I’d like, but with a sideways glance, he went in without me and closed the door, and there was a spasm of jealousy, a shooting pain searing through my head as though someone had momentarily lodged an ice pick into my skull.

  I envisioned Aaron on the other side of that door, aroused by some strumpet on the television screen and not me.

  And then hours later, after the sperm had been collected and cleaned, it was my turn to be put to work, to lie on the exam table, completely undressed from the waist down with only a drape sheet to provide that false sense of privacy, while Dr. Landry placed first a catheter and then Aaron’s sperm inside me.

  And then sent us home to wait.

  Aaron, as always, went to work, leaving me alone and bored, and so I drove into town and sought out that small dance studio on Church Street and sat on the park bench, watching the little ballerinas come and go, searching for the smallest one with the straw-like hair and freckles, a head shorter than the rest, who always struggled to keep up with her mother and friends.

  I had to wait awhile, but eventually she came and my heart skipped a beat. My hands went numb. I held my breath.

  I saw her ambling first through the double blue doors of the studio, already lagging behind before she’d ever stepped foot outside, grappling with the weight of the door because there was no one around to hold it for her. Her tiny head barely surpassed the door’s crash bar. The others were already a good five or ten paces ahead, moving down the concrete sidewalk in the direction of town, little girls gabbing merrily about an afternoon playdate while their mothers followed behind, paper cups of coffee in hand. Only once did a mother turn around to see where she was, calling out, “Snap to it, Olivia, or you’ll get left behind,” and then she turned again, facing forward, never again checking on Olivia, who brought up the rear, the caboose on some sort of high-speed train that had somehow gotten off track.

  She had a name now. Olivia.

  But Olivia’s mother was fully immersed in a conversation with the ladies, listening to one of the other mothers complain about her husband’s long hours and relentless travel schedule. He was in Tampa Bay this week on business, and that new admin assistant from the office had gone along too, the one her husband talked about at the dinner table, so that she couldn’t help but be concerned.

  “You don’t think?” asked one of the other ladies, and Olivia’s mother piped in with “Oh, you poor thing.”

  And it was decided then. This woman’s husband was having an affair.

  Through all this, no one paid attention to Olivia, who had fallen even farther behind.

  I had no intent of rising from the park bench as she passed by. None at all. The thought didn’t cross my mind until a single bobby pin fell from her hair, a silver sprung hairpin that dropped to the ground at such a frequency only I could hear. Little Olivia kept walking, leaving the hairpin behind. Her mother kept walking, now nearly twenty or thirty paces ahead. Only I paused to retrieve the hairpin, falling in line behind Olivia and the rest of her troupe, six steps behind and struck dumb.

  I couldn’t speak.

  I could have called her by name; I could have tapped her on the shoulder and handed her the bobby pin. But I didn’t. Instead I shadowed her by a mere three feet, eyes gaping at the lavender leotard and tutu, the sheer white tights, the hair done up in a bun, starting to lose its hold as strands of brown and yellow drifted through the springlike air. Beside our feet, the snow had melted, leaving puddles that returning birds paused to drink from. On the trees there were buds, tiny shamrock-green buds about to burst forth with leaves.

  I never once thought about taking her, about grabbing a hold of her with my hand pressed to her mouth so that she wouldn’t scream. I didn’t think of luring her away, bewitching her with the promise of a puppy or ice cream. I only wanted to watch for a while, to walk a breath behind and pretend for just this one moment in time that she was mine.

  As I followed Olivia down the sidewalk, a conversation played out in my mind.

  Slow down, baby girl, I thought to myself, whispering the words in my head. Come hold Mama’s hand, I urged, and in my imaginings I held out my hand as little Olivia slackened a bit, slowing down, turning to me so I could see the color of her eyes, the wealth of freckles she’d no doubt one day either outgrow or grow to hate. She slipped her hand inside mine and I squeezed tight, careful not to let go as we passed through an intersection while the traffic on either side paused to let us through. Olivia’s hand was easy to hold. Her steps fell into sync with mine.

  It was the raucous laughter of the other girls that broke my trance, bringing me back to the earth, back to my physical existence. To reality. They had all turned at once, calling Olivia a snail, a slowpoke, waiting for her to catch up so they could go get ice-cream cones, and even though I knew it was all in jest—Olivia’s piping laughter was proof of this, no?—my heart ached for her for being called names, for being the poky little puppy, always lagging behind.

  And then my heart ached for me when she skipped off with her friends, leaving me behind, standing alone on the sidewalk with her bobby pin in my hand.

  I hoped that just once she would turn and see me and know that I was there.

  I kept Olivia’s bobby pin as a token of luck.

  Ten days later, my period arrived.

  And now another month has come and gone without a baby.

  jessie

  My nighttime thoughts can be grouped into four categories. They follow the same pattern, the same predictable rotation each night. Wash, rinse, dry, repeat.

  It all begins with the morbid thoughts where I obsess over death and dying, of being dead, trapped inside an urn, unable to breathe. They settle in around twilight, when the sun sinks beneath the horizon, slipping away to play with kids on the other side of the world. It’s then that I start to wonder how much time I have left on earth. I think about how and when I will die. Will it hurt when I die? Did it hurt when Mom died?

  These morbid thoughts soon mutate into grieving, sinking ones where I miss Mom so much it hurts. By this point in the night, the world has turned black and I lie on my mattress in a black room, confined by blackness. A prisoner of the night. In all my life, it was always Mom and me, like Batman and Robin, Lucy and Ethel. Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. We were a team. Without her I don’t know what to do. I spend half the night pleading for her back. Because I don’t know who I am without her. Because, without her, I am nothing.

  I don’t cry about it because my eyes are done crying. They’ve dried up. And so instead I think things like, if Mom isn’t here, then I don’t want to be here either. It’s grim, and yet it’s true.

  My thoughts go on like this for what feels like hours because it probably is. Eventually they turn into a guilt trip, where I loathe myself for sleeping through Mom’s death. For getting testy with her when she puked for the sixth time in a row, missing the toilet by a mile. For not speaking to her for weeks when she wouldn’t come clean to me about my dad. For not holding her hand the time she chaperoned my fifth grade field trip to the planetarium, or bothering to thank her for the embroidery thread she got me in middle school—a half dozen colors to make friendship bracelets with. I’d only huffed and stomped off to another room, thinking how stupid could she be. Didn’t she know I didn’t have any friends? These memories haunt me now.

  In truth, Mom and I hardly fought. The only arguments she and I ever had were mostly over my father. Mom never wanted to talk about him—she refused to talk about him—and so I snuck around her back to try and learn more.

  I was six years old when I first realized I didn’t have a father. Until then I was too oblivious to see that other kids did and I didn’t. Mom and I lived alone. We kept to ourselves much of the time. I didn’t go to preschool and I didn’t have friends. I didn’t kn
ow much of anything outside of my world with Mom, not until school began, and then my world grew exponentially larger, though still, in comparison to everyone else’s, it was small.

  It was my first day of kindergarten when I realized that all of the kids in the class, aside from me, had both a mom and a dad. I remember that day, organizing our belongings inside the bulky metal cubbyholes, while our moms hovered in the classroom, talking to the teacher, talking to other moms. Everyone except for my mom, because she stood there alone, talking to no one. This confused me. Why didn’t Mom talk to the other women?

  But what confused me even more was the huddle of men in the classroom. A whole busload of them. Not just moms, but moms and men. Who were these men, and what were they doing here?

  I asked one little girl. I pointed at the giant of a man standing by her side. Who is that? I asked, eyes wide, looking skyward. She said it was her dad, and though I’d heard that word before, it wasn’t one that was readily in my vocabulary.

  I tallied up the men in the room, realizing that every single child had one but me.

  The mention of my father didn’t come up again until later in the school year, when some kid asked where he was. We’d had a music performance and, while everyone else had a mom and dad in tow—grandma and grandpa too—I only had Mom. And things like that, when you’re six, are big news. How Jessie Sloane doesn’t have a dad.

  Where’s your dad? the kid asked, all dressed up in a sweater-vest and pants.

  I don’t have one, I said, thinking that was the end of it. But he came back with some comment about how everyone has a dad, and others started to laugh.

  I asked Mom about it that night at home. I had to know. Where’s my dad? I asked, standing in her bedroom doorway while she lay on the bed, bare feet crossed at the ankles, reading a book. Even at six years old, I could see that she was tired from a day spent cleaning someone else’s home.