Finally, Edward says, “I didn’t know you were doing that to yourself.”
“I didn’t always.” I used to be so much better at starving.
“What happened?”
First, Jonah happened. The goofy boy from my writing workshop, the one I hadn’t intended to sleep with, the one who called me Abby like we’d known each other so long we had secret names for each other. Licks from his ice cream cones, bites of his pizza. My body was changing, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t keeping track.
Then, late April, I was fast asleep when a wave of nausea woke me, so powerful that I barely made it to the bathroom in time. Jonah heard and came to sit beside me on the bathroom floor.
Food poisoning, we figured. I was eating then, but mostly off Jonah’s plate, still unsure how to fill my own. We both pretended not to notice when he served himself portions large enough for two.
I crawled back to bed. The next day, I felt better.
Two days later, I was sick again.
I thought maybe, after all those years of denial, my body didn’t know how to digest a normal number of calories. Maybe my stomach had shrunk so much that there simply wasn’t enough space, like someone who’d had gastric bypass surgery.
I bought the test on a whim. For years, anorexia had made my period erratic.
And then, there it was, the little pink line.
I was older than Georgia had been when she had me. I’ll inherit my trust when I turn thirty, and the house in Laurel Canyon is in my name, bought and paid for. My child would grow up thinking that Naomi was her grandmother. Georgia would be a strange, absent woman we hardly spoke about. Jonah would move to LA with me. We’d give our baby everything my parents hadn’t.
I pretended not to notice when I began eating less all over again. Then I told myself I was simply being healthy: I needed to take it slow, give my body time to adjust. I read that plenty of women had such severe morning sickness that they actually lost weight in their first trimester and still had perfectly healthy pregnancies and nobody accused them of having eating disorders. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was being gentle on myself, beingcarefulby letting myself be just a little bit (I told myself it was only a little bit) anorexic.
I started bleeding one day in May, so much I couldn’t believe it. Then, a mad dash to the emergency room. Waiting to hear a heartbeat as the technician moved the sonogram wand. The doctor’s mouth, set in a straight line. Jonah’s voice, telling me it would be okay.
“Amelia?” Edward asks gently.
“I lost it.” The words feel sharp in my mouth, like knives. I hate that phrase,I lost the baby,as though it were something I misplaced.
No, my babyfled. It knew I wasn’t a safe place, my body with the wrong nose, the wrong hair, the stomach that’s nearly flat instead of round with life, the brain that can’t count train cars.
Jonah brought me soup. He lay beside me and held me. He kissed the top of my head. He told me he loved me no matter what.
It’s remarkable to think how many human beings are the result of an accident, thoughtlessness, carelessness. I certainly hadn’t beenplanned; my mother’s pregnancy, like my own, was a surprise. I know this not because she told me, but because she was pregnant when they got married and no one actuallyplansto have a shotgun wedding. (Also, when did Georgia plan anything?) Jonah would have married me, if I’d wanted, but I didn’t want to use our child to tether him to me like I suspected Georgia did with Dad. Maybe it was the only reason she had me at all. I thought I was better than that. Better than her.
But she got to keep her baby, and I lost mine.
It’s not your fault,the doctor said.These things happen.
Jonah believed it, but I know better.
So I left. I packed up my things and flew home without saying goodbye. I moved back to the house in Laurel Canyon and searched the boxes and bins where Naomi stored Georgia’s belongings years ago, making a mess even Georgia would have approved of.
I was determined to find something that would explainwhyI survived in her body longer than my baby survived in mine. I thought there might be some clue, some hint, in her unpaid parking tickets and baby-doll dresses and unreplied-to fan mail. Instead, I found the sober diary.
November 3, 2014. The last time I was sober this long was when I was pregnant. Not so much as a sip of wine.
“The press said I was born addicted to heroin,” I tell Edward.
He shrugs. “When I was born, they said my parents were happily married.” Edward knows better than to believe the things the press says.
ButIbelieved it. My whole life, my birth story was part of how I understood myself, understood Georgia.
“It turns out, my mom almost died giving birth to me,” I tell Edward now.
After I read the November 3rd entry, I confronted Naomi. She looked surprised that I wanted to know the details of my birth. She’d told me, she said, that the press exaggerated to sell papers, didn’t I remember? But this time, I pressed for details. Georgia, she said, developed a condition called preeclampsia. They wheeled her in for an emergency C-section so quicklythat the epidural hadn’t even taken effect by the time they started to slice her open. When I asked why she hadn’t told me all this sooner, Naomi answered that she could hardly tell this story to a child; she hadn’t wanted to frighten me.
