But Aaron swears he needs the shoe, which inside makes me fume.
How selfish can he be? Where are his priorities?
At each unwelcome visit, when Miranda and her boys appear at my door without invitation, her belly continues to swell, another baby on the way, “Hopefully a girl this time,”she says, fingers laced together in the air.
If Aaron and I hurry up, she reminds me for the umpteenth time, joining me in the backyard for another glass of lemonade, her baby and my baby can one day go to school together. They can be friends.
I smile.
And though I don’t say it aloud, I think to myself that I’d rather die than have my baby and Miranda’s baby be friends.
June 13, 1997
Egg Harbor
The hollyhocks are in bloom. Just the sight of them lined up defiantly against the weathered picket fence stabs me in the chest. They stand high above the rest of the flowers in the garden, six feet tall or more. Their bold bell-shaped flowers burn red against the greenery.
It’s been a year then since Aaron and I planted the seedlings in the lawn against the fence where they’d be sheltered from the rain and the wind. And now here they are, exhibitionists in my flower bed, outshining the roses and lilies.
Reminding me of all the wasted time Aaron and I have spent trying to have a baby.
When Aaron was at work, I took a pair of scissors to them, cutting hard through the thick stem. I seethed as I did it, crying, taking out a year’s worth of rage on the flowers. I screamed like a maniac, grateful that, thanks to the deep rim of trees surrounding our yard, no one was around to see or hear my outburst. I grabbed handfuls of stems and tugged with all my might, wresting the roots from the ground where I stomped on them like a child. I tore the flowers from their stems, shredding them into a million pieces until my hands were yellow with pollen and I was out of breath from the outburst.
When I was finished, I threw them away, beneath the garbage where all the negative pregnancy tests go.
The deer, I’ll blame, when Aaron asks what happened to the flowers. I’ll say that the deer have had their way with the hollyhocks, eating them to the quick.
And he’ll be more upset about this than he is our lack of a baby.
After all our hard work.
“Such a shame,” he’ll say, before waging a war against the innocent deer.
jessie
I take the Brown Line back to the carriage home, walking the last couple of blocks from the station at Paulina. I feel lost without my bike. I don’t have my bike, Old Faithful, because I left it outside the Art Institute, tethered to some sort of loopy bike rack, when I walked to Liam’s, chasing after the mystery man.
It’s dark inside by the time I arrive, night falling quickly. I close the door behind me and jiggle the handle a couple of times to be sure it’s closed tight. I’m in a trance, thinking about little else but the dead Jessica Sloane. The one who is three years old. The one who is me but not me all at the same time. Lines from the newspaper article run through my mind, committed to memory already.
A four-lane highway with a speed limit of just twenty-five.
The road twisted through the small seaside town.
The driver rounded a bend at nearly twice that speed.
Every time I close my eyes I see her face.
I have only a vague recollection of riding the elevator downstairs; of pushing my way through the turnstile doors of Liam’s apartment building; of walking to the Merchandise Mart to catch the train with him at my side. He’d offered to cover the cost of a cab for me but I said no.
Still, he walked me there, to the Merchandise Mart, and paid to stand on the platform beside me, waiting until the Brown Line came. And now that I look, I see his jacket draped over me, keeping me warm. He must’ve put it there, but that I don’t remember.
I turn and walk up the carriage house’s stairway, a rickety old thing with steps that are a bit concave, the edges worn away. The steps sink at their center. They squeak. The tread pitches downward from a century’s worth of weight, and I cling to the railing so I don’t fall.
When I get to the top I have to fight for breath. The steepness of the steps isn’t to blame, nor for once my overwhelming fatigue.
What knocks the wind from my lungs is something else entirely.
Because as my feet hit the wooden floorboards and my eyes size up the open rooms, I see that the white window curtains I’d pulled shut before I left, so that no one could see inside while I was gone—every single one of them is open wide.
