No.
She stared at the candle and thought of the first time she met Adam, and how she had told him that she hoped she had babies with a dimple like that in their chins, and he had said that he hoped he had babies with hair the same color red that she had. She thought of the picture her sister Emily the artist had drawn when she announced her pregnancy, a drawing of a baby with Adam’s chin and her hair, and an utterly bewildered and constipated face.
“Because babies look like that sometimes. A lot,” said Emily, who made her living as a photographer and had taken pictures of far too many uncooperative babies in her time. “Just promise me that you won’t ask me to take any studio shots until she at least learns how to smile reliably. All right? None of that gas-smile stuff? Only candid shots then, because no one expects a baby to look perfect in those. I hate photoshopping baby smiles onto constipated faces, do you know?”
Koren had laughed and promised. She had the drawing up in the baby’s nursery right now. It was there until she had a real photo to put up in its place. But it always made her smile when she looked at it. It was so Emily. Emily, who had sworn never to have children, because she said she couldn’t see herself ever marrying someone she wanted to make a duplicate of.
No one was that good-looking. Except you and Adam, of course, she admitted, giving Koren a wink.
Another contraction hit. Koren closed her eyes again and thought of the ocean, but this time the pain was rising and rising and Koren wasn’t sure that it was ever going to recede. Her focus on breathing wasn’t helping and she felt desperate. Why should Adam get to sleep while she was going through this?
Then the contraction was over and she felt a little foolish. And she looked at the clock. It was 11:59 and the candle was still lit.
What had she been thinking?
She leaned over and blew it out, but not before the clock turned over and read “12:00.”
She froze for a long moment.
The door creaked open with the wind, and then slammed shut.
Koren put a hand to her belly. It was hard and taut. There was definitely a baby still inside there. And besides, she hadn’t put the candle in the nursery. If the fairies, or whoever they were, had to be led somewhere, they wouldn’t have done to the right place.
Except—the baby hadn’t been in the nursery. It had been in her stomach, right by the candle.
“Oh, God,” she said out loud.
She went upstairs and woke up Adam. “There’s something wrong with the baby,” she said.
He was bleary-eyed. “What is it? Are you in labor?”
“No. I don’t think so.” The contractions had been hard, but there hadn’t been enough of them to justify a trip to the hospital at this point. She was just so worried.
“Then what is it?”
Koren tried to think how to explain it without sending as crazy as the woman in the park. “I haven’t felt the baby move,” she said. “The books all say there’s something wrong with that. The baby should move every hour at least once.”
“How long has it been?” asked Adam.
“Two hours, at least.”
He sagged back into bed. “Aren’t you supposed to eat something sugary, and wait for a couple of hours before you call the doctor?”
“Right,” said Koren. How could Adam remember something like that when she couldn’t? “I’m sorry to wake you.”
He kissed her tenderly. “No problem. I know you’re going to be the best mom ever, and I’m going to be with you, every step of the way. If you need to wake me up to talk about anything, do it.”
Koren sighed. Maybe she should tell him. She turned over, but he was already asleep again, his mouth wide open, his eyes shut.
She snuggled up next to him as best she could. And somehow, fell asleep.
In the morning she woke up and felt wonderful. She had slept well for the first time in weeks. Months, probably. She sat up, stretched, and then remembered she wasn’t supposed to do that. Something about certain muscles that could snap—
She looked down at her stomach.
It was flat.
No stretch marks on it.
Her belly button was no longer poking out.
She looked like she had spent every day at the gym doing crunches. Which she had, before she got pregnant and the doctor told her she needed to let those muscles become looser, so they could expand. With baby.
She was not pregnant anymore.
She got up and went into the nursery.
It was an exercise room again.
She called Adam, who was already at work. “Adam, there’s something wrong with the baby,” she said quietly.
“Hmm? Whose baby?”
“Our baby,” she said. She had her hands clenched together in her lap. This could not be happening. It was impossible.
“Ha, ha,” said Adam. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious,” said Koren. “Our baby. Are you telling me you don’t remember me getting pregnant? You don’t remember the sex the last six months?” It had been great, a little boost to her hormones letting her have multiple orgasms for the first time in her life. Adam hadn’t minded, either, since she came back for more.
“You want to have sex? You want to make a baby? Is that what you’re saying?” said Adam.
Koren felt tears start in her eyes. She had always been tearful when she was pregnant. “No, I’m not saying that. Adam, do you remember me talking about the woman in the park? The one whose baby is missing?”
“No, I don’t,” said Adam.
“But—you acted like I was crazy. She told me to light a candle at midnight and keep the door open. She said that her baby was happier with them.”
“Koren, you’re sounding very strange. Do you want me to come be with you? Or should I call your mother?”
“I don’t want you to call my mother. I want you to get my baby back,” said Koren. She wanted a husband who would seek out the fairies or the aliens or whoever they were, pound on the gates, and demand her baby be returned to her. It had all been a mistake. She hadn’t meant it. She wanted her baby. She always had.
“Listen, I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t worry. Whatever is wrong, we’ll fix it together, all right?”
“All right,” said Koren, sniffling. She put a hand on her stomach, but there was no movement there, no heartbeat.
Adam came home and took her to the OB/GYN she’d been seeing. But they had no record of her having been in before, no record of the ultrasounds she’d had, of the pregnancy test, or of her being three centimeters dilated.
They gave her a new pregnancy test.
She wasn’t pregnant.
“Maybe it’s that time of the month,” the nurse whispered as she walked past Adam.
Adam stayed with her until that afternoon.
“You go back to work,” Koren told him.
“You sure?”
She nodded. The tears were gone now. She felt a lot better.
What had the woman in the park said? She cried for a few hours, then she saw how much better it was this way? Her baby was with the fairies. She was happy. And Koren was happy, too. She was free again.
After Adam was gone, Koren sat by herself, enjoying doing some yoga moves she hadn’t been able to manage while pregnant. She drank some wine and even went out to get some cigarettes. But she had never been much of a cigarette smoker, and they tasted as nasty to her as ever.
It was late in the afternoon when she went back to the park. She hadn’t known where she was going, just on a walk. And it wasn’t the same time of day as she had gone before.
But Alice’s mother was there, and Koren went over to sit by her on the bench.
She found her legs swinging back and forth like a child’s.
“Do you ever get to see her again?” she asked the woman. “I mean, I know they don’t send photos. Fairies and all. But can you get a glimpse in a dream? Or will they let you come for an hour or two?”
The woman stared at her. “I
don’t know what you’re talking about.” And she moved away, looking at Koren as if Koren was crazy.
Maybe she was.
THE GHOST WHO LOVED SHOES
Holly was one of the bad girls from high school. She spent most of her life overweight but well dressed and well made up. She married my younger brother Tom when they were both still in college. A year later, she was unhappy. With her life. With herself. With her marriage.
So she had gastric bypass surgery. Her stomach was restricted to a tiny four-ounce space and she melted in front of our eyes. Suddenly we noticed how tall she was, as tall as my brother, and a lot taller when she wore the heels she decided made her legs look extra long. She cut her hair short, to her ears, and wore it slick and straight. The eye makeup that she had always worn used to seem too thick to me, but now it fit her cheekbones and made her dark eyes pop out and look a little oriental.
You’d think it would make the marriage better, but it didn’t. Things got worse. And worse. Then they filed for divorce.
But she still hoped that they would get back together, until the day he told her it would never happen.
She took an overdose and it was a neighbor who found her, three days later.
The police came. The body was taken. Calls were made to family members. A funeral was planned.
I found out in the afternoon and it didn’t touch me at first. She was my brother’s wife. I hardly saw her. I hardly knew her. She didn’t particularly like me.
I woke up early the morning of the funeral and went out on a jog.
I was on lap two when I heard her.
My dead sister-in-law. She was taller than I was, and she was right behind my left shoulder. Like she was jogging there, but in perfect rhythm with me. No, that wasn’t right. Like she was floating along behind me, whispering in my ear.
“What is wrong with you today?” she said. “You look like crap.”
“I’m jogging,” I said. “Hello! You’re supposed to look like crap while you’re jogging, you know.”
“You’re supposed to look like you don’t care how you look. But you don’t even look like that,” she said.
“I’m wearing sweats and a T-shirt. What’s wrong with that?”
“The sweats are about ten years old, they have paint stains on them, and they make your butt look about as big as an elephant. Plus that T-shirt is a man’s T-shirt.”
“So what? It’s comfortable and I’m not as big as you used to be.” I flung that at her because since the weight loss, she had always stared at my body like it was offensive to her.
But of course, this whole conversation was going on in my head. Silently.
I hoped it was silent.
I kept looking around at the other joggers, hoping they didn’t notice how I was tilting my head to the side whenever I wanted to focus on her.
It was a real conversation, though, back and forth. She said things that were not things I would have said to myself. Someone had invaded my head and it felt a lot like when I was pregnant and I knew that I had an alien being inside my stomach that I could not control. It had its own ideas of what food it wanted, and when it wanted to sleep or turn over. And if it got mad, it would kick me hard in the ribs. I had the bruises to show for it.
“Look, leave me alone. What are you doing here, anyway? It’s not like we were friends or anything. Don’t you have anyone else to talk to?” She was the one who said our family was anti-social and that she had to train Tom how to act in a normal social situation so he didn’t offend people. So she must have gobs more friends than I did.
I like a solitary existence. I have a few, very good friends. But I also enjoy quiet time to think to myself.
While running.
“You have got to do something with that hair when you’re at the funeral. You’ll completely embarrass me.”
“Embarrass you? You are dead. What do you care how I look at your funeral? They’ll have your body looking all nice, and you’re the one people will be staring at.”
“It says something about a person, who comes to her funeral. And how much they dress up. That’s all. If you knew anything about real life, you’d know that. But you’re probably thinking about the quadratic equation or something useless like that.”
I started to jog home, thinking that once I was inside my house, with my children making noise, she would leave.
I walked in the door, and it seemed like she’d gone.
Relief.
I made breakfast and then went into my bedroom to take a shower.
I probably should go the funeral, I thought. I could find someone to watch the baby for an hour. It would be rude not to go.
I got out of the shower and combed through my hair, which was the extent of my normal hair styling method. It was just starting to grow out of a shorter cut which I had hated, and I could pull most of it back into a ponytail if I put barrettes in on the sides.
“It looks awful.”
There she was again, whispering in my ear, over my left shoulder. I stared at myself in the mirror, but there was no hint of a ghostly shadow in the glass. Not that I believe in those kinds of ghosts. The spooky, white sheet, Halloween kind. But spirits who have unfinished business walking the earth? I always thought that was a remote possibility. And Holly definitely had unfinished business. But why with me?
“I could leave it down,” I said, taking out the barrettes and the ponytail.
“Can you at least curl it?” asked Holly.
“Fine,” I said, and got out the very ancient curling iron under the sink. I plugged it in and went out to my bedroom to get dressed.
“Not that one,” said Holly, when I reached for a skirt and blouse in tan and black.
“But this is a funeral.”
“I don’t want everyone to look like they’re dead. And besides, you don’t look good in black.”
“Fine, what should I wear?” Holly had never shown this much interest in my fashion sense while she was alive, at least that I knew of.
“Something with color. I don’t know. You don’t have much, do you?”
“Mommy with baby here. In case you don’t know, babies throw up on you all the time. You have to make sure it’s all washable. And I don’t have time to iron.” Which had left me with a wardrobe full of knit dresses in different colors, and not all of them were stain free.
“That one,” she said finally.
Was there a little wave of wind that shook the yellow and orange skirt that I hadn’t worn for two years because it was too small for me?
“I don’t know.” I took it out dubiously and put it on. It was a tight fit.
“Live with it,” said Holly. “It’s not like you’re spending the rest of your life in that skirt. Two hours, max, and you’ll be out of it. Besides, it will help you think about how much you want to lose weight.”
“I don’t want to lose weight. I’m still nursing a baby and you’re not supposed to try to lose weight then. You need a little extra fat.”
“Yeah, you tell yourself that.”
I put on the yellow skirt.
“And a nice blouse. Something white.”
“I don’t own a white blouse,” I said. The truth was, I stained white blouses even before I had a baby.
“Fine. A yellow shirt, then. Or a red one.”
I found one that she approved of, and then went back to do my hair. I curled it the way I used to curl it in high school, but it didn’t look right. Either my hair cut was different or my hair was different. Or it just never looked that good to begin with.
“You look like a bowling ball,” said Holly.
“I can put the barrettes back in.”
“Comb it over to one side more. Then curl it over instead of under.”
I did as she said.
“Well, that will have to do.”
“Isn’t there someone else you could—you know—play dress up with? You have lots of friends coming to the funeral. Friends who like fashion and stuff.”
&nbs
p; “If you must know,” she said. “I did try to spend time with them. But they wouldn’t pay any attention to me. I guess they don’t believe in ghosts. You’re the only one who can hear me.”
I was the only person who made her feel like she was still alive—a little bit, anyway.
“What’s going to happen next?” I asked. “After the funeral?” I was thinking, did she drift away into nothingness? You know, that’s why the old pagans used to put bodies into the ground, to make sure their spirits didn’t haunt the earth.
“Like you care.”
“I do care.”
“You need shoes,” said Holly.
I opened the closet door and held back the dresses to show her my shoes. I had three pair. One pair of sturdy winter moon boots, in black and silver, bought from the children’s department. One pair of running shoes that had seen better days. I think they used to be white and blue. And one pair black casual shoes that I thought of as church shoes. They were flat with a rubber sole, and they had elastic on the sides so that I could take them on and off without bending over, very useful when holding a sleeping baby on your shoulder.
“That’s it? Tom has more shoes than you.”
“I don’t like shoes.”
“You’re crazy. Shoes are the best thing about living. You have to have shoes for every outfit. Shoes are the way you connect with the ground. They keep you from disappearing.” She sounded as passionate about shoes as I’d ever heard her about anything.
“Sorry,” I said.
“You should shave your toes. They look really hairy.”
“I don’t shave my feet,” I said.
“Why not? You shave your legs? Don’t you?”
“When I have time.”
She made a sad, ghostly sound like when a wind shivers through the timbers.
“My best friend in high school used to say I had Hobbit Feet.”
“Well, you do,” said Holly. “They are fat and wide and hairy. Just like in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.”
Saving the Moon Page 2