A miscarriage never crossed my mind, not until I felt the warm rush of blood, and helpless terror flooded through me.
By the time we got to the hospital, it was over. Ten weeks. Not uncommon, especially with first pregnancies. Nature’s way of sensing a problem with the fetus.
I’d never thought of it as a fetus. That had been our baby. Our son. Though the doctor didn’t say, I knew it was a boy.
I was so glad we hadn’t told anyone, because I felt an awful sense of shame. I couldn’t put it into words. On the one hand, I believed the doctor when he said it wasn’t my fault. On the other, I hated my stupid, stupid body. My mother had seven children! My sister Nancy was on her sixth! Elaine had three!
John was kind. And sad. But you know, it felt like it was my fault, no matter what anyone said. I missed that baby. Gosh, I missed him.
All I wanted was to get pregnant again, and fast. As soon as I recovered, we started trying again. Figured since I got pregnant right away the first time, it’d be no problem the second.
We were wrong.
The weeks turned into months. That was fine, I told myself. I loved John, loved working as a paralegal, loved keeping our house perfectly tidy and appealing. If I lay awake in bed at night, tears slipping into my hair, well, of course I was taking it hard. Now that I’d had a taste of that kind of love, I needed another baby to heal my heart. I wanted to be a mother so much, I ached with it.
The second year I didn’t get pregnant, we saw a doctor. Nothing was wrong with either of us, and I was still young. “You’re not infertile,” the doctor said, “because you did get pregnant. Keep trying.” I cried in the parking lot, and John tried to console me.
I found myself growing brittle. It was harder to keep smiling, to stay perky. My mind drifted at work, and I made mistakes, too busy wondering if this month would be when nature deigned to let me have—and keep—what everyone else seemed to get so easily. John was sympathetic enough, but it was hard to put into words just how empty I felt. Like all the work and time I’d put into getting to this point in life meant nothing, not without a baby. What good was I if I couldn’t be a mother? Oh, I knew it was harder for some women, of course I did. But when Tina called with the news that she was having twins, I hung up, then called back later, saying a storm had knocked out our phone lines.
Babies were everywhere but in my womb.
I went on Clomid, but had to go off it because of the blinding headaches it caused. “There’s nothing medically wrong with either of you,” the doctor said, and I quit his practice and found someone else.
The second year of trying turned into a third year.
It wasn’t fair. Going out with other couples was harder now; once we’d all been in the same boat; now Ellen was having her second and was tired, and the Parsons couldn’t get a babysitter, and Abby and Paul had exciting news, and I didn’t want to see them anymore. Friday night dinners, which had been such fun and felt so grown-up, were now morose. Why us? When would it happen? What if something was really wrong? Should we be trying to adopt now? Could we afford a trip to Korea? Colombia? Russia? We were on three agencies’ lists, and not once did we make it to the interview stage.
Then John’s grandfather died, and much to his surprise, John inherited the old man’s home in Stoningham, Connecticut. When we pulled up to the house, I sat there, stunned silent. Grandpa Theo had been living with his sister in Maine for years and years. I’d never even been to Stoningham. Didn’t know this house existed.
It was absolutely beautiful. A Greek Revival that needed some work, but was elegant and large and so . . . so classy. As I wandered through, taking in the huge windows, the columns, the pilasters, friezes and cornices and other words whose meaning I didn’t even know, I fell in love. A front hall with a curving, graceful staircase. Fireplaces. A front parlor, a study, a family room, a dining room, a sunny if dated kitchen. Five bedrooms upstairs. Five!
A far cry from our run-down farmhouse in Nowhere, Minnesota. Our house in Cranston was cute but humble, not a place where we could have more than two couples over because the rooms were so small. But this house . . . this was heaven! The town, the house, the small enclosed yard, the nearby library, the smell of salt in the air, the cheerfully painted businesses on Water Street . . . honest to Pete, I was in heaven.
Stoningham was what a person thought of when they heard the word Connecticut—a little village of Colonials and Victorians, old cemeteries, posh boutiques, several restaurants, the historical society, the garden society, Long Island Sound sparkling, dotted with the white sails of boats.
Suddenly, marriage seemed wonderful again, new lifeblood injected into our lives. We needed this, John and I. The change. The freshness. We moved, John commuting half an hour or so to Providence. I decided to quit my job and devote myself to the house, which hadn’t been lived in for nearly a decade. This was where I was meant to be. This would be where my child would be born. We would belong here in a way I’d never belonged anywhere. I’d been the girl who lived on that cow farm outside of town, one of the many Johnson kids. I’d been Barb from Minnesota in Providence, and since I worked the whole time we lived in Cranston, we still hadn’t met some of our neighbors.
But in Stoningham, I could be someone. I wanted to be someone here, to fit into Stoningham’s effortless grace, to be known by name, to have our house on the tour of homes at Christmas, to be recognized by the society ladies, because this was a town that had society ladies. Being a Frost was suddenly relevant; while we may or may not have been related to the poet, the name Frost was carved in granite on three war memorials here—Silas, Obadiah and Nathaniel.
I wasn’t a paralegal anymore; I was the wife of an attorney. He’d gone to Boston College and Northeastern, and suddenly, that mattered more. He had a pedigree (maybe), and I would reflect that in everything I did, starting with our home. And once that was done, maybe God would grace me with a pregnancy, because this was where my child should be raised.
I threw myself into the town and was received graciously. Welcomed, even. I met Caro from around the corner. She was married, had one infant son and was desperate for an adult to talk to. I joined the Friends of the Library and asked for advice about the restoration of our columns from the head of the historical society, who was pleased that I took the house’s history so seriously. John bought a little sailboat and we joined the yacht club.
I still didn’t get pregnant, though. Years passed. Years of trying, that one brief pregnancy. Four different ob-gyns. No diagnosis.
It was devastating. Everywhere I went, I felt judged. I wasn’t childless by choice. I was broken somehow. Everywhere I looked, there were pregnant women, children, babies. In the summertime, when the population doubled, there were so many beautiful children everywhere that I would cry. “Don’t worry, honey,” John said one night. “It’ll happen, and if it doesn’t, well, we’re happy just the way we are.”
I wanted to punch him. Hard. I was not happy, not on the inside! Couldn’t he see that? I almost hated him, living the same life as always, staid and unruffled, driving back and forth to Providence, reasonably successful but ever complacent. How dare he be happy when I wanted to drop to my knees and sob?
When a woman can’t get pregnant, the world judges her. The husband, gosh, he’s just a great guy, releasing millions of sperm for his wife’s selfish, snobby egg to reject. He’s so patient, so understanding, so good-natured, so supportive (of her problem). That John, I imagined people thinking. He sure is a saint.
I was barren. That hateful word. I wanted to be lush, fertile, inviting, warm, nurturing . . . and instead, my uterus was an empty white room with sharp angles and immaculate floors.
One of my former coworkers was Japanese, and she told me once that women who couldn’t have children were called stone women. I felt like stone, all right. I went through the motions, sex becoming only about procreation. I snapped at John. My smil
e felt hard as I volunteered on committees and worked in the garden. When Genevieve London, the most influential and beloved of all Stoningham’s residents, told me I’d done a “truly stellar” job on the fund-raiser for a new wing in the library, I almost broke down. I don’t care about that! I imagined sobbing on her shoulder. I just want to be a mother.
I spoke with adoption agencies, longing for the Victorian days when you could just go to an orphanage and pick out a child. “This one’s adorable! We’ll take her!”
Caro was the only one I told. She’d just had her second boy, and I’d gone over with a hot dish. She let me hold him, and I must’ve looked sad, because she said, “Are you okay, honey?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “It’s just . . . we’ve been having some trouble on the baby front.” A few tears dropped onto her son’s tiny, perfect head. “He’s awfully precious, Caro.”
She got me a tissue and gave me a hug. “If you ever want to talk about it, or borrow the boys, I’m here.” And she let me hold that baby a long, long time.
And then, finally, when John had stopped asking if I was late, when I was speaking to adoption agencies in nine states and three countries, it happened. John and I had gone through the motions the night before, and when I woke up in the morning, I knew. I just knew.
Those first three months, I was so careful, holding myself together with all I had. I told God I was grateful and waited, waited for every day to pass, to bring me closer to my child. When I went to the doctor at fifteen weeks and she pronounced everything normal and healthy, I burst into tears. Only when I started to show did I confirm that yes, I was pregnant.
That beautiful, rich, sacred word. Pregnant. I called my family, and they answered in typical Minnesotan fashion. “Oh, that’s nice, Barbara. Didja hear Tina’s pregnant again, too?” I hadn’t shared my difficulties with them, but their nonchalance infuriated me.
Caro was wonderful. She threw her arms around me and cried with happiness. Took me shopping for maternity clothes and understood that I was too superstitious to want a baby shower.
What a completely terrifying time those nine months were! “Enjoy,” people would say, and I’d look at them like they were crazy. Enjoy? When I could hold my baby, I would enjoy. For now, I was wrapped in fear, walking a razor’s edge, taking such good care of myself and yet held hostage every minute.
John figured we were “out of the woods” once I hit the fourth month, unaware that I prayed ferociously and almost constantly, begging and bribing and cajoling and threatening God to give me a healthy child, to spare me another miscarriage. I would be the best mother. I would love my baby so much. I already did. I would make God so proud of me. Please. Please. Please. With every roll and push of the baby, I was struck by wonder . . . and fear. Oh, I loved this baby so much. So much.
When I went into labor, I was the most ready person in the world. None of this “please, it hurts too much, I can’t do it,” not for me. Gosh no. And it didn’t hurt—well, of course it did, but not nearly as much as they tell you it will.
I was ready, and my baby was ready, too—two hours after John and I got to the hospital, she was here.
A daughter. Oh, the joy that filled my heart when they told me! I’m sure I would’ve felt the same way if it had been a boy, but upon hearing, “It’s a girl, Mrs. Frost!” my heart overflowed with gratitude and joy and sheer, utter bliss.
Juliet Elizabeth Frost. My precious, wonderful miracle. I knew, in that moment, I would never love anyone as much.
Not even my second daughter. I’m not proud of it, but there it is just the same.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Juliet
One Wednesday in late October, months before her father’s stroke, when the sky was deep, pure blue and the last of the spectacular foliage was still lighting up the Yale campus, Juliet sat at the Union League Cafe, waiting for Arwen to arrive for their mentorship lunch. She’d been warmly greeted by the maître d’ and put at a lovely table by the window, where she watched Yalies nearly get killed as they attempted the difficult task of crossing the street. They might be among the smartest in the world, but they lacked life skills, which Juliet could say, since she was a graduate.
She looked at her watch. Ten after one.
When she’d started the mentorship program at DJK Architects, Juliet thought a monthly lunch would be a relaxed, informal way to discuss issues, goals, the company structure, projects . . . whatever the youngling needed. All her other protégés had loved these lunches, and not to brag or anything, but Juliet had a damn good reputation for supporting and nurturing young talent, at Yale, in the Association for Women in Architecture and Design (AWA+D had given her an award for that just last year, thank you) and especially at DJK. Not a single new hire there hadn’t benefited from Juliet’s guidance or support, especially the women.
And not a single one of her mentees had ever been late to a mentorship lunch. It would be highly disrespectful.
Arwen was late.
Juliet wanted to bring it up somehow—the fact that while Arwen was talented and hardworking, there was a pecking order to be acknowledged. A ladder to be climbed, even if Juliet herself had given Arwen the chance to skip a few rungs. That, at thirty-one, Arwen still had a lot to learn, and Juliet would very much love to teach her, so she should be a little bit more respectful and drop the attitude. And . . . and yet . . .
Maybe the attitude was just confidence. Would a man be told to check in with his mentor more often if he was doing perfectly fine work? Would a boss tell a man to be less confident in his abilities? Did women do things differently because they were women? Was this more about Juliet’s ego than Arwen’s? Did Juliet just wish she’d been that confident, that—
Holy shit.
There was her father. Her father and a . . . woman. A . . . girlfriend.
Until that moment, she didn’t know he had a girlfriend.
She knew the woman was his girlfriend because he was kissing her.
Really kissing her. Right there on Chapel Street, making out like they were teenagers who’d just discovered tongues. People had to go around them, they were so locked in.
That couldn’t be her dad. Sure, he looked exactly like him, but maybe . . . nope. It was her father. They broke apart, gazed at each other, smiling, laughing.
Gross. Grotesque, that’s what it was.
The woman was tall, with dyed black hair and sharp, strong features. For a second, Juliet thought it might be a man and almost wished it was—Gay Dad would be so much better than Cheating Dad—but no, it was indeed a woman.
Dad had his hand on her ass now. God! Get a room, people! No, don’t, she quickly amended. Shit! This couldn’t be happening. Her father? Her mild father, whose exciting life consisted of reading John Grisham novels and doing the crossword puzzle, maybe taking a walk in the afternoon, followed by a nap? This couldn’t be happening.
They kissed again, deeply—Juliet shuddered—and then, finally, kept going, down Chapel toward the green.
It was as if the scene had been staged for her benefit. What were the odds that her father would decide to make out with a woman on Chapel Street? Three blocks from where she worked? Was it staged? Was it a prank? Who would think this was funny? Did he do this so Juliet would tell Mom?
What the actual fuck?
She realized she was half standing, watching them.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” said the server.
“Uh . . . uh . . . I’ll have a martini,” she said. Her heart was pounding. “Dry, three olives. Chopin, please.”
Her father was having an affair.
She sank back into her seat and pulled out her phone, thinking she’d call her mom right away. No. No, not Mom. Oliver. He was calm. He’d know what to do.
“All right, darling?” he said, which was his customary greeting.
“I . . . I just saw my father kissing
another woman.”
There was a moment of silence. “You must be mistaken, love. John Frost, with a bit on the side? I rather doubt it.”
“Oliver. I just saw him outside the restaurant where I’m having lunch.”
There was a pause. “Was it a joke?”
“No!” she said, though she’d been thinking the same thing. “His tongue was down her throat! His hand was on her ass!” She glanced around apologetically, lowering her voice.
“That’s . . . astonishing,” he said.
“I know!”
“Deep breaths, my love,” he said. “Christ, if this is true, I’m gobsmacked.”
Arwen walked in the door, wearing a white dress that fit her perfectly, black stilettos, and a huge wonking single pearl on a gold strand. Bright red purse. Heads turned, as they always did for Arwen. “I have to go,” she said to Oliver.
“Love you, darling. Ring me later.”
“Juliet. So sorry I’m late.” Arwen bent down and kissed Juliet on either cheek. Weird, since they’d seen each other in the office two hours ago. Probably some body language domination trick.
“No worries. It’s fine. It’s fine.”
Arwen tipped her head. “You sure? You look upset.”
There was that tremor of fear. “I’m great,” Juliet said, adjusting her posture.
“Your martini, madam.” The server set it down. “And for you, miss?”
“Perrier, please. Unless you feel uncomfortable drinking alone, Juliet. Alcohol makes me sleepy, so I never drink at lunch.”
Fuck. Alcohol made Juliet sleepy, too. She’d already lost this pissing match. “No. I’m fine. I . . . ” I just saw my father snogging another woman. “I’m good. It’s nice to see you, especially since we had to miss last month’s lunch.”
“How long do they go on, these mentorship meetings?” Arwen asked. The implication was clear. She no longer needed or desired them.
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