Miriam had promised Thomas she wouldn’t buy baby things. Wouldn’t make things harder on herself. For years she kept that promise, but the hat and booties in the boutique window had caught her attention on the way back from an afternoon appointment.
Everything had looked positive that time around. She’d prayed and felt like the Lord had told her she’d have a child, and this was their last embryo. So she’d purchased the set, every day imagining bringing home her baby from the hospital in the yellow hat and booties. Every day for one week, and then she found out the procedure hadn’t taken after all. She’d never told Thomas about the box.
She crammed the baby things back inside, tied the ribbon, and pushed the package aside. It was stupid, the way she hung on to them. She was never going to have children, and the hopefulness attached to the box needed to go. The gift belonged at the Pantry. The baby things should go where they’d have purpose.
That could be her first step to freedom. But if she released this symbol of her dream, would she come apart at the seams?
Miriam knew all the right verses in Scripture. She’d memorized the verse about peace that passes all understanding, but all she felt was the weight of depression. She knew how the Lord worked together all things for the good of those who loved him, but she felt forsaken.
She pressed her palms to her eyes. It was time to let go of the baby things. She’d take them tomorrow. Maybe if she went through the right motions long enough, she’d break free. Miriam tucked the box into the folds of an extra quilt and walked to the bathroom.
The reflection stared back with red-rimmed eyes and dull skin. Hair mussed. Nothing makeup and hair product wouldn’t hide. Miriam splashed cool water on her face and began putting on her makeup. When she was finished, she practiced smiling in the mirror until she thought it might pass for genuine.
The front door creaked open. Thomas. She slipped into her closet to dress. Miriam paused for a few breaths and then walked down the stairs. He sat folded, with his elbows propped on his knees, staring at the floor between his feet.
Miriam fixed her smile in place. “Hey, sweetheart. How was service?”
He jumped up and stood with a peppy smile of his own. “Miri. How are you?”
“Better. How about we take that walk.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Had he spent as much time practicing his smile as she had? Were either of them convinced?
Monday afternoon, Miriam got out of the car at the church. A man fumbled pansies from their plastic planters and mashed them into tiny holes in the sidewalk flower beds with his large hands. He must be Thomas’s new hire. She checked to make sure her husband wasn’t near and carried the box into the single mothers’ pantry. The box was strangely heavy for such paltry contents.
Inside, she placed it on the shelf. Rearranged it. Turned it catty-corner and then straight. Unsatisfied, she moved it to the other side of the room on a higher shelf.
She sat and shuffled through her files, checking off the names of the program members. The church hoped in the future they’d have more classes and assistance to offer. Structuring all that had somehow landed on her. She tapped her pen on the desk. Ashley, the teen mother she had met with, mentioned wanting to learn how to cook simple healthy meals. There might be more with the same need. Cooking, with its predictable ingredients, steps, and outcomes, was the sort of thing she could handle. Maybe she’d have someone to pass her mother’s recipes to after all.
Miriam glanced up from her work. The box stared back. The thought of one of the young women taking it home for their own child ought to make her heart swell, but it stiffened her spine.
The hat and booties were supposed to be for her baby. She heaved a breath, went to pick up the box, covered it in the trash, and headed for her car before she could change her mind.
She could have sworn she heard a baby cry as she closed the car door. Did she still have the number for her therapist back in California? Auditory hallucinations had to be a sure sign she was in desperate need for a phone session.
The next morning, Thomas stood in the bedroom doorway in jeans and a polo, coffee in hand. “Come on, Miri. Let’s have a nice day together. I took the day off.”
Miriam rolled away from him and tightened her grip on the blanket pulled up to her chin. “I didn’t ask you to.” I can’t be what you want. Not today.
Footsteps approached and then the edge of the mattress compressed with his weight.
“Throw on your sweats. Let’s find a hole-in-the-wall diner for breakfast and then take a drive.”
She turned toward him. “Sweats? Are you out of your mind?”
His lips stretched into his poster-worthy smile. “I counted on that getting a response.”
“I’m not in the mood. Please. I just want to be alone.” Alone with the ache of leaving the precious emblem of her baby dreams sitting in the trash. To relive the feeling of walking away. It was pathetic, her wallowing, but there was nothing else left to cling to.
Thomas rested his hand on her blanketed shoulder. “I’m worried about you. I thought things were getting better. But you’ve been acting so strange since yesterday.”
Miriam shrugged away from his touch. “I went on a walk with you on Sunday.”
“Yes. Twenty minutes out of the house two days ago. If you won’t go out, at least talk to me.”
The plea in his voice, and his dogged pursuit, crashed against the crumbling walls around her heart. Her eyes teared as she sat up. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He set his coffee on the side table and took her in his arms, tucking her head under his chin. The beating of his heart was solid and steady. His voice muffled in her hair as he said, “You might be right, but at least give me the chance. Let me in.”
“It’s not pretty.”
“I didn’t ask for pretty, Miriam. I’m asking for real.”
Her chin quivered, and her words came out a blubbered mess. “Why are you so nice? You should lose your patience. Get angry.”
“I’m not so great.” He kissed the top of her head. “The way I figure it, we all fall apart sometime or another. What I’m doing is selfish, really. I’m taking care of you so when I go off the deep end, you’ll be there to catch me.”
She pulled back to look into his eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks.
He winked.
“You’re terrible.” Her voice came out as a whisper.
He sobered. “Us not being able to have children? It’s troubling you again, isn’t it?”
As if it had ever stopped. With a shuddered sniffle, she retreated into the cocoon of his arms.
“Miri . . .” He said it in that knowing tone of his.
She shook her head against his chest. But he spoke anyway.
“Childbirth isn’t the only way to grow our family.”
“Stop. I’ve heard your adoption speech. I get that fostering and adopting are beautiful things. But I’ve dreamed of motherhood since I was a little girl, and it wasn’t by raising another person’s child.” She sat up, edging away.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Life doesn’t always go—”
“Thomas. I get it. You ought to know. Your scheme to fix your wife failed. You left your dream job for her, and your new job is sucking the life out of you. And then your wife went off the deep end anyway.” Miriam turned her head away and stared out the window. The quivering of her chin bent the stubborn set of her mouth downward.