I keep my eyes trained to the floor, glancing up only when I hear a sharp peal of laughter that feels too loud for the hushed reverence of a waiting room. The woman is on her cell phone, her mouth wide and smiling, happy as can be, her stomach swollen and full. I stare at it sadistically, letting the raw jealousy, anger and grief course through me until I’m nearly vibrating with emotion.
She makes it all look so easy, this woman. I bet she was one of those who simply decided to become pregnant and whoopsie! Next thing you know, two darling little lines on the white stick. Part of me wants to jump up and grab her by the shoulders: Why you? Why you and not me? But I don’t—not because that would be outrageous behavior that would likely draw police officers to the scene, but because I’m secretly afraid she would whisper the answer, and it would sound something like: You don’t deserve them.
The tears come quick, burning my eyes, stinging my nose, wetting my cheeks, and I brush them away with a practiced hand.
Dr. Okafor has a charming South African accent that set me at ease the first time I heard it. Today she’s silent as she wands my belly, staring at the monitor. I bury my head in the crook of Harrison’s arm, the grainy emptiness of the screen too much to bear.
After a few minutes of moving the baton back and forth and studying the screen, Dr. Okafor speaks. “OK,” she says. “I don’t see anything to cause concern here. How’s the cramping?”
“Better,” I admit. “But I’m still spotting.”
“That’s normal. Even for a few more weeks or so. If it gets worse, make sure you call,” she says, echoing the ER doctor. She gives me a handful of tissues to wipe the goo off my belly. “Any questions for me?”
I clear my throat, hating to ask, but needing to know. “When can we . . . When is it OK . . .”
“To try again?” she supplies.
I nod and Harrison’s bicep, which I’m still holding on to, twitches.
“Physically, after your next normal cycle, you should be fine to start. Emotionally—it’s up to you. Take all the time that you need. It’s a difficult experience, I know.”
Do you? I want to snarl. But I bite my lip. Maybe she does really know. I feel myself getting teary again and don’t trust my voice, even to thank her for her kindness.
“I’d also like to recommend, if you do want to try again, that you see someone, a specialist, for testing. This being your third miscarriage, it’s important to suss out any underlying factors that could be responsible, and if possible, hopefully correct them.” I open my mouth to ask the obvious, but she holds up a hand. “I’m not saying it is anything. Plenty of couples after multiple miscarriages have gone on to have healthy, viable pregnancies. It’s something to consider—that might help prevent you having to go through this again.”
I nod. What she’s saying makes sense, and I would do anything to keep from going through this again, but on the other hand, I’m scared . . . What if something is wrong? What if we can’t actually . . . I can’t even finish the thought in my head, much less say it out loud.
I didn’t always want to be a mother. In fact, I think I was dead set against it for most of my life. My own mother left us when I was eleven and Vivian was fourteen. Ostensibly, she was leaving my dad because she didn’t love him anymore. Apparently, she loved our neighbor Mr. Frank, who had been like an uncle to us most of our lives. But instead of her moving in with him, they decided it would be easier to pick up and move clear across the country to Seattle, and I remember thinking, Easier for who?
Vivian refused to go, but I went to visit every summer until college and it was like an alternate universe. Or a movie set where the role of my dad was being played by an understudy.
As I got older and realized that most mothers don’t leave their children behind when they get divorced, I wondered if she was maybe missing some mother gene, some important basic instinct—and that maybe, that meant I was missing it, too.
While most people I know ooh and aah over babies, sniffing the tops of their heads like rabid dogs, I never understood the allure. Even when Vivian had Finley, who I did think was the most adorable baby on earth (until Griffin came along), I was terrified to be alone with her and I didn’t know how to hold her or what it meant when she cried, and I certainly didn’t feel any internal pull to have a baby of my own.
But then I met Harrison. And I don’t know exactly when the switch flipped—before we got married, I had told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t think motherhood was in the cards for me, and later, as we were talking marriage, he said he didn’t fully care one way or another as long as we were together. So no one was more surprised than me when, one morning over orange juice and waffles at the diner down the street from us, I looked into his eyes and said, “Let’s do it.”
“What?” he said.
“I want to have your baby.”
Stunned, Harrison stared at me—one beat, two beats—and I got nervous. What if he thought that we had agreed not to, and he really didn’t want them? And I—me!—started to panic at the idea of not having kids with him. Like I suddenly couldn’t think of anything in the world that I wanted more. When I thought I couldn’t take his silence anymore, and was ready to go into full offense mode about why I’d changed my mind and how it was absolutely the right thing for us to do, he opened his mouth and said: “Can I finish my bacon first?”
* * *
Once I’ve arranged my clothing back in place and we leave the exam room, Harrison places his hand on the small of my back, guiding me through the waiting room. I keep my head down, not wanting to see any more pregnant women. We’re almost to the glass door when a woman’s voice calls from behind us: “Dr. Graydon?”
Harrison stops, turns his head toward the direction of the voice. “Hey there,” he says, genially, and from the cadence of his voice, I know it’s one of his patients. I clench my teeth, because all I want is to be out of there, to be in the car, at home, away from here. I consider forging ahead, through the doors. Harrison would understand, of course. But social conditioning commands me to stay put, to engage, to play the role of friendly doctor’s wife. So I put on a small smile and pivot on my heel.
And that’s when I gasp. Like punched-in-the-stomach, wind-knocked-out-of-me, loud-sucking-intake-of-air gasping.
It’s not the woman Harrison is talking to that catches me off guard. It’s the man that’s next to her.
The man from the Giant.
The man from my dreams.
Fortunately, I’ve been crying on and off the past three days, so Harrison isn’t too alarmed by this outburst. “Mia?” he asks, gently. Three pairs of eyes are suddenly trained on me, waiting for my response.