He described, with such anguish, how Torrey reacted. I could tell the images of that horrible day were just ripping right through to the very moment that he was telling me this. They returned from the hospital to their home, but she was never the same. They as a couple were never the same.
I disclosed that unexpected death landed me in Grandor, too, and that he wasn’t alone.
He took my hand and walked me into his workshop. He showed me a picture of her that he had tacked up onto the wall. Her eyes looked metallic and gray, reflecting the lake. Her lips were full and pink and burst out from her lush skin. Her shoulder was turned toward the camera and she was beautiful. Silas lifted up that photo to reveal two sonograms underneath. It was their baby. One sonogram at three months and one at five months of a baby that would never be.
My heart ached for him. And it was a deep, deep ache. I was never certain why he shared what he shared in that moment.
I felt a sadness both for him and with him. I sensed both an intimate attachment given our shared experience, but also a certainty that there would be an unnavigable distance between us.
From time to time, I would see him pick up the phone to try to call her. But, to my knowledge, he was never able to get himself to go through with it.
I don’t know why I feel compelled to admit this now but I do. One day, I snuck into his phone and took down her number. I had a feeling I might need it at some point. I didn’t want to acknowledge it yet, but I think it was my way of admitting to myself that we would have never lasted. I think if it wasn’t going to be me in his life, I knew it would be her. I don’t think there is a single woman on this earth that could replace Torrey for him. Or Ruby, for that matter.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t love you, and Eve, too. I really believe that.
I’m sorry if it made a mess of things,
Mom.
13
For Jane, the rest of the day almost felt normal. The twins woke up and still did all the twin things. Cam still did all the Cam things. And the door to Hazel’s room was still slightly ajar with nothing but quiet behind it. The quiet behind the door wasn’t new, but the feeling of emptiness was. Jane put her hand against the door and thought about pushing it wide open and lying down on Hazel’s bed and calling her and closing her own eyes and listening to the sound of her daughter’s voice. But she knew she shouldn’t.
Hazel was beginning her own journey and she needed the space to do it. So Jane settled for a text message instead.
She typed, Thinking of you, hit Send and then held the phone against her chest. She would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t wishing that Hazel would call her immediately and want to come home. But the phone remained cold and dormant.
Jane continued down the hallway into her bedroom, where Cam was already in bed, reading by lamplight. She tucked herself in under the covers next to her husband.
“The twins went down easy tonight, huh?” Cam said and then kissed her on the cheek. His lips lingered there for longer than usual.
Jane nodded and smiled. These were the kinds of moments she could look forward to without Hazel around.
“Which means I’ll go down easy tonight, too!” Cam laid his book on the bedside table, turned the lamp off and pressed his ear into the pillow with his face turned away from Jane’s. “Good night, love,” he whispered and then didn’t make another move or sound.
And neither did Jane, but her mind was swirling with thoughts of Hazel. Whether the girls had arrived safely. What Hazel was doing. How she was feeling. Whether she liked Silas. Whether she liked Eve. Whether she was homesick. What they ate for dinner. If they had dessert. What they would do tomorrow. It all swirled and swirled into a tornado picking up momentum and fear and anxiety.
Jane checked her phone for a response. Still nothing. She scrunched her eyes shut.
Her heart was pulsing. Sleep was not likely. Not likely at all.
Jane opened her eyes up wide, and as quietly as possible slipped out of the covers, out of the room and resumed reading Susie’s notebook from right outside Hazel’s door.
Letter 2
Learning I was pregnant
Susie
Dear Eve,
Shortly after my trip up to Grandor, a pregnancy test I took alone in our bathroom revealed a second blue line. I clutched my belly. I pressed my open palm into my flesh tenderly. I remember that it surprised me that I was happy with how supple and bloated it was. I usually wanted my belly taut.
There were many other mixed feelings, too. I had wanted a baby so, so badly. I wanted you. But I was so, so ashamed to have betrayed my husband. It was very out of character. I felt a flash of wondering how I would ever live with myself. And then I thought of you, and it melted away.
It was pure elation, despite the memory of being in bed with a man that was not my husband. That was not your father. As I told you in my last letter, I was trying desperately to forget everything back home. It’s no excuse, but Silas was the perfect man to violate the sanctity of everything I thought I once believed in. He was scruffy and dark and strong and his hands were calloused. He was a man so clear, so in control, of his own morality and attitude. It was as if there was an invisible boundary around him. One that I could not cross. Which was exactly what I wanted because I knew I was going back to my life at home with your father.
But still, this was something I had not yet encountered in another man. Something that intrigued me.
Especially after months of calendars and trackers and hollow lovemaking and waiting with your father for that second line on the pregnancy test to emerge. Of course, it never did. We learned soon after that that your father’s sperm wasn’t viable and that he would never be able to produce children. Imagine that, honey. It was heartbreaking. Everything felt so empty. My belly. My life. So I had run away to Grandor and done something so terrible. So unfair to your father. Something I want to say I would take back, but I never can because it led me to you.
And truth be told, when I woke up the next morning after having been with Silas, he was gone. I vaguely remember him tiptoeing out and telling me he had to get home, but I was still hazy with sleep and the remnants of the prior evening’s tequila. I was glad he wasn’t there, though, because alone in that bed after doing something so unspeakable, my feelings for your father and our life at home intensified. They surged through me so fiercely. My heart beat with it. My blood was vicious with it. I’d believed I got everything I wanted from Silas. I committed to letting that memory live in a place so far away in my mind that no one would know about it. I vowed not to tell Parker. Not to tell my girlfriends. Anyone.
I clutched the pregnancy test in my hands. I had been wrong about what Silas would give me. I honestly felt relief more than anything. I had ached for this moment, this baby. I had yearned for it. And now here it was. Small and thirsty for life. A life that I could provide. If only it were your father’s.