Maybe in Another Life

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  “Fancy!” I say to him. “It looks like it takes quite a bit of prep.”

  “Actually, I just have a few more steps, and then everything goes in the oven,” he says. “I think. Yeah, I think it goes in the oven.”

  I start laughing. “You’ve never made this before?”

  “Chicken sopa seca? When in my life would I have ever had reason to make chicken sopa seca? I didn’t even know what it was until a few hours ago. I make grilled cheese. I bake potatoes. When I’m feeling really fancy, I’ll make myself a pot of chili. I don’t go around wooing girls with chicken sopa seca.” He is chopping vegetables and putting them into a pot. I hang back and sit down on the stool by the kitchen.

  “What is chicken sopa seca?” I ask him.

  “I’m still a bit unclear on that,” he says, laughing. “But it involves pasta, so . . .”

  “You’ve never even had it?”

  “Again, Hannah, I ask you, when do you think I have occasion to have chicken sopa seca?”

  I laugh. “Well, why are you making it?” I ask. He is pouring broth into the pot. He looks like a natural.

  “Because you are the kind of person who deserves a fuss made over her. That’s why. And I’m just the guy to do that.”

  “You could have just made me a cinnamon roll,” I tell him.

  He laughs. “Considered and dismissed. It’s too obvious. Everyone gets you cinnamon rolls. I wanted to do something unexpected.”

  I laugh. “Well, if you aren’t making cinnamon rolls, then what’s for dessert?”

  “Ah!” he says. “I’m glad you asked.” He pulls out a cluster of bananas.

  “Bananas?”

  “Bananas Foster. I’m gonna light these babies on fire.”

  “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

  He laughs. “I’m kidding. I bought fruit and Nutella.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I say.

  “How’s Charlemagne?” Ethan asks. Charlemagne, the baby, Gabby and Mark—I want to leave all of it at the door. I don’t want to bring any of that here.

  “Let’s not talk about Charlemagne,” I say. “Let’s talk about . . .”

  “Let’s talk about how kickass you are,” Ethan says. “With a new job starting and a new car and a dog and a handsome boyfriend who makes world-class cuisine.”

  This is when I should say something. This is my opening.

  But his eyes are so kind and his face so familiar. And so much else in my life is scary and new.

  He kisses me. I immediately sink into him, into his breath, into his arms.

  This is all going to be over. This is ending.

  He picks me up off the stool, and I wrap my arms around him.

  He brings me into the bedroom. He pulls my T-shirt off. He starts to unfasten my bra.

  “Wait,” I say.

  “Oh, no, it’s fine,” he tells me. “The sopa seca has to simmer on low for a while. It’s not going to burn.”

  “No,” I say. I sit up. I look him in the eye. I put my shirt back on. “I’m pregnant.”

  Dr. Winters comes in to check on me toward the end of the day. Gabby has gone home.

  “So,” she says, “I’ve heard you’ve been galavanting around the hospital in your wheelchair.” She smiles. It’s a reproach but a kind one.

  “I’m not really supposed to be doing that, huh?” I ask.

  “Not really,” she says. “But I have bigger fish to fry, so to speak.”

  I smile, appreciative.

  “You are healing nicely. We’re almost out of the woods here, in terms of risk of complications.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she says, looking down at my chart. “We should talk about your next steps.”

  “OK,” I say. “Tell me.”

  “One of our physical therapists is going to come in tomorrow, around eleven.”

  “OK.”

  “And he and I will assess what sort of mobility you have, what you can expect in a reasonable amount of time, what you should know going forward.”

  “Great.”

  “And we will come up with a program and a tentative timeline for when you can expect to begin walking unaided.”

  “Sounds good,” I tell her.

  “This is a long road ahead. It’s one that can be very frustrating.”

  “I know,” I say. I’ve been sitting in a bed for a week, leaving only rarely and only with help.

  “It will only get more frustrating,” she says. “You are going to have to learn how to do something you already know how to do. You will get angry. You will feel like giving up.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not going to give up.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she says. “I just want you to know that it’s OK to want to give up. That it’s OK to reach a breaking point with this stuff. You have to have patience with yourself.”

  “You’re saying I’m going to have to relearn how to walk,” I tell her. “I already know that. I’m ready.”

  “I’m saying you’re going to have to relearn how to live,” she says. “Learn how to do things with your hands for a while instead of your legs. Learn how to ask for help. Learn when you have reached your limit and when you can keep going. And all I’m saying is that we have resources at your disposal. We can help you get through all of it. You will get through all of it.”

  I felt I had this under control, to a certain degree, before she walked in here, and now she’s making me feel like everything is a disaster.

  “OK,” I say. “I’ll let that marinate.”

  “OK,” she says. “I’ll come check on you tomorrow morning.”

  “Great,” I say. I only half mean it.

  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, but I know that if I go to sleep now, I’ll wake up in time to see Henry. So that’s what I do. I go to bed. I only have a few more nights in this hospital. I’d hate to waste one sleeping.

  I’m awake by eleven, when he comes in. I’m prepared for him to make a joke about me being nocturnal or something, but he doesn’t. He just says, “Hello.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  He looks down at my chart. “So you’re going to be taking off pretty soon,” he says.

  “Yeah. I guess I’m just too healthy for this place.”

  “A blessing if I’ve ever heard one.” He gives me a perfunctory smile and then checks my blood pressure.

  “Would you want to help me practice standing?” I ask. “I want to show you how well I’m doing. I stood up almost entirely on my own this morning.”

  “I have a lot of patients to get to, so I don’t think so,” he says. He doesn’t even look at me.

  “Henry? What is going on with you?”

  He looks up.

  “Henry?”

  “I’m being switched to days on another floor. You’ll have a nice woman, Marlene, taking care of you for the remaining nights that you’re here.” He pulls the cuff off my arm and steps back from me.

  “Oh,” I say. “OK.” I feel rejected, somehow. Rebuffed. “Can you still stop by just to say hi?”

  “Hannah,” Henry says. His voice is now more somber, more serious. “I shouldn’t have been so . . . friendly with you. That is my fault. We can’t keep joking around and goofing off.”

  “OK,” I say. “I get it.”

  “Our relationship has to stay professional.”

  “OK.”

  “It’s nothing personal.” The phrase hangs there in the air.

  I thought this was personal. Which I guess is the problem.

  “I should go,” he says.

  “Henry, c’mon.” I find myself getting emotional; I hear my voice cracking. I try desperately to get it under control. I know that letting him know how badly I want to see him again will only serve to push him further away. I know that. But sometimes you can’t help but show the things you feel. Sometimes, despite how hard you try to fight your feelings, they show up in the glassiness of your eyes, the downward turn of your lips, the shakiness of
your voice, and the lump in your throat. “We’re friends,” I say.

  He stops where he is. He walks toward me. The look on his face is gentle and compassionate. I don’t want gentle and compassionate. I am so goddamn sick of gentle and compassionate. “Hannah,” he says.

  “Don’t,” I say. “I get it. I’m sorry.”

  He looks at me and sighs.

  “I probably misinterpreted everything,” I say finally.

  “OK,” he says. And then he leaves. He actually leaves. He just turns on his heels and walks out the door.

  I don’t fall asleep, even though I’m tired. It’s not that I can’t fall asleep. I think I can. But I keep hoping he will check on me.

  At two a.m., a woman in pale blue scrubs comes in and introduces herself as Marlene. “I’ll be taking care of you at night from here on out,” she says. “I’m surprised you’re awake!”

  “Yeah,” I say somberly. “Well, I slept all afternoon.”

  She smiles kindly and leaves me be. I close my eyes and tell myself to go to sleep.

  Henry’s not coming. There’s no reason to wait up.

  You know what? I don’t think I misinterpreted a goddamn thing.

  I like him. I like being around him. I like being near him. I like the way he smells and the way he never shaves down to the skin. I like the way his voice is sort of rocky and deep. I like his passion for his job. I like how good he is at it. I just like him. The way you like people when you like them. How he makes me laugh when I least expect it. How my legs don’t hurt as much when he’s looking directly at me.

  Or . . . I don’t know. Maybe that’s all nursing stuff. Maybe he makes everyone feel that way.

  I turn off my side light and close my eyes.

  Dr. Winters said earlier today that I might try to walk tomorrow.

  I try to focus on that.

  If I can survive being hit by a car, I will get over having a crush on my night nurse.

  Hearts are just like legs, I guess. They mend.

  It’s not yours,” I tell Ethan. He knows this, of course, based on timing alone. But I have to make it crystal clear.

  “It could be, though, right?” he asks me. “I mean, maybe last week . . .”

  I shake my head. “I’m eleven weeks. It’s not yours.”

  “Whose is it?”

  I breathe in and then out. That’s all I have to do. In and then out. The rest is optional. “His name is Michael. He and I dated in New York. I thought it was more serious than it was. He and I were careless toward the end. He doesn’t want another child.”

  “Another child?”

  “He’s married, with two children,” I tell him.

  He sighs loudly, as if he can’t quite believe what I’m saying. “Did you know he had a family?”

  “It’s sort of hard to explain,” I say. “I didn’t know at first. For a long time, I assumed I was the only one he was with. But then I should have known better and, let’s just say, I . . . made some mistakes.”

  “And now he doesn’t care that you’re pregnant?” Ethan stands up, furious. His emotions are just starting to set in, reality just starting to grab on to him. It’s easier for him to be mad at Michael than it is to be mad at me or at the situation. So I let him, for a moment.

  “He doesn’t want the baby,” I say. “And that’s his right.” I believe in a man’s decision not to have a baby as much as I believe in a woman’s.

  “And you’re just going to let this asshole treat you like this?”

  “He doesn’t want the baby. I do. I’m prepared to go it alone.”

  That word, the word alone, brings him back down to earth. “What does this mean for us?” he asks.

  “Well,” I say, “that’s up to you.”

  He looks at me. His eyes find mine and hold on. And then he looks away. He looks down at his hands, which are placed firmly on his knees. “Are you asking me to be someone’s father?”

  “No,” I say to him. “But I’m also not going to tell you that this doesn’t change things. I’m pregnant. And if you’re going to be with me, that means you’ll be going through this with me. My body will be going through a lot. I’ll have mood swings. When it gets time to have the baby, I’ll be scared and confused and in pain. And then, once the baby is born, there will be a child in my life, at all times. If you want to be with me, you’ll be with my child.”

  He listens, but he doesn’t speak.

  “I know you didn’t ask for any of this,” I say.

  “Yeah, you can say that again,” he snaps. He looks at me with remorse.

  “But I wanted you to know so you could make a decision about your future.”

  “Our future,” he says.

  “I guess,” I say. “Yeah.”

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  Oh, boy. How do I even begin to answer that question? “I want my baby to be healthy and happy and have a safe, stable childhood.” I suppose that’s the only thing I know for sure.

  “And us?”

  “I don’t want to lose you. I think you and I really have something, that this is the beginning of something with huge potential for us . . . But I would never want to put you in the position to do something you aren’t ready for.”

  “This is a lot,” he says. “To process.”

  “I know,” I say. “You should take all the time you need.” I stand up, ready to leave, ready to give him time to think.

  He stops me. “You’re really ready to be a single mother?”

  “No,” I say. “But this is the way life has worked out. And I’m embracing it.”

  “But I mean, this could be a mistake,” he says. “What if you just made a mistake one night with this guy? Are you ready to live with the consequences of that for your entire life? Do I have to live with the consequences of that for mine?”

  I sit back down. “I have to think that there is a method to all of this madness,” I tell Ethan. “That there is a larger plan out there. Everything happens for a reason. Isn’t that what they say? I met Michael, and I fell in love with him, even though I can clearly see now that he wasn’t who I thought he was. And one night, everything happened just so, and I got pregnant. And maybe it’s because I’m supposed to have this baby. That’s how I’m choosing to look at it.”

  “And if I can’t do it? If I’m not ready to take all of this on?”

  “I suppose it would follow that if you and I come to a place we can’t get past, then we aren’t meant to be. Right? Then we aren’t right for each other. I mean, I think I have to believe that life will work out the way it needs to. If everything that happens in the world is just a result of chance and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it, that’s just too chaotic for me to handle. I’d have to go around questioning every decision I’ve ever made, every decision I will ever make. If our fate is determined with every step we take . . . it’s too exhausting. I’d prefer to believe that things happen as they are meant to happen.”

  “So you and I finally have the timing worked out, we can finally be together, be what we suspected we always were. And in the middle of that, it turns out you’re pregnant with another man’s baby, and you’re saying que será será?”

  I want to cry. I want to scream and shout. I want to beg him to stay with me during all of this. I want to tell him how scared I am, how much I feel I need him. I want to tell him how the night I reconnected with him, the night we spent together, was the first time I’ve felt at ease in years. But I don’t. Because it will only drag this thing out further. It will only make things worse. “Yeah. Que será será. That’s what I’m saying.”

  I get up and walk out into the living room. He follows me. I can smell dinner. I wish, just for a moment, that I hadn’t told him. Right now, we’d be in his bedroom.

  And then I think, if I’m wishing for things, maybe I should wish that I’m not pregnant at all. Or that it’s his baby. Or that I never left Los Angeles. Or that Ethan and I never broke up.

  But I wonder how dif
ferent my world would be if any of those things had happened. You can’t change just one part, can you? When you sit there and wish things had happened differently, you can’t just wish away the bad stuff. You have to think about all the good stuff you might lose, too. Better just to stay in the now and focus on what you can do better in the future.

  “Ethan,” I tell him, “the minute I saw you again, I just knew that you and I were . . . I mean, I’m pretty sure you and I are . . .”

  “Don’t,” he says. “Just . . . not right now, OK?”

  “OK. I’ll leave you with your sopa seca.” I smile tenderly and then open the door to leave. He sees me out and shuts the door.

  When I get to the last step, he calls my name. I turn around.

  He’s standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at me. “I love you,” he says. “I don’t think I ever really stopped.”

  I wonder if I’ll be able to make it to my car before I burst into tears, before I cease to be a human being and become just a puddle with big boobs and a high bun.

  “I was going to tell you that tonight,” Ethan says. “Before all of this.”

  “And now?” I say.

  He gives me a bittersweet smile. “I still love you,” he says. “I’ve always loved you. I might never stop.”

  His gaze falls to the ground, and then he looks back up at me. “I just thought you should know now . . . in case . . .” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t want to say the words, and he knows I don’t want to hear them.

  “I love you, too,” I say, looking up at him. “So now you know. Just in case.”

  Luckily for everyone involved, my physical therapist is not my type.

  “OK, Ms. Martin,” he says. “We are—”

  “Ted, just call me Hannah.”

  “Right, Hannah,” Ted says. “Today we’re going to work on standing with a walker.”

  “Sounds easy enough.” I say it because that’s what I normally say to everything, not because it actually sounds easy enough. At this stage in my life, it sounds quite hard.

  He puts my feet on the floor. That part I’ve gotten good at. Then he puts the walker in front of me. He pulls me up onto him, resting my arms and chest on his shoulders. He is bearing my weight.