At the end of our appointment, Dr. Jordan told me that it was normal to grieve, and that some of her patients found solace in memorializing the pregnancy. It wasn’t until I was already on my way home that I realized I had no idea what “memorializing the pregnancy” meant. I had no ashes to toss in the Hudson River, no artifact to represent the baby’s short existence in my body. I dug out the ultrasound photo from underneath the stack of papers in my drawers. There the baby was, in black and white, just a small, barely visible dot.
But dots could be beautiful too. My favorite flowers were never the ones with demurely wrapped petals like roses and tulips or the ones that bloomed invitingly like orchids andchrysanthemums. Instead, I always preferred baby’s breath, each little flower a self-sufficient cluster of white, just like a dot, if I was really thinking about it. I walked to the nearest florist and asked for one bunch of baby’s breath. Then I walked along the street until I found an empty bench. I sat there for a few minutes, gently tearing the petals off each flower and placing them in my pocket.
During move-in freshman year, I overheard a parent saying that the campus reminded them of Paris, not because of the style of the architecture, but because it was beautiful no matter from which angle you looked. So I decided that I’d sprinkle the petals for the baby in all different areas of campus, so that the baby could enjoy the view from different angles too. A couple in front of the bushes at Hamilton, a few in between the trees on College Walk. A piece on top of the lion sculpture on the northwest corner of Low, a few on the sundial for good measure. A few in the left, uplifted palm of Alma, the hand that was not holding the scepter.
When there were no more petals to discard, I returned to my dorm. The guilt had lifted; instead, the ache in my chest settled into something both more permanent and more bearable. Grief. Perhaps that was the real memorialization of the baby. Perhaps that was the real artifact that the baby would leave.
TWENTY-ONE
I knew that I wasgoing through something. Probably something serious. I knew I had been through a lot this year. First, my dream of going to Harvard Law School had been crushed. Then, I more or less killed someone. Then, I had a miscarriage. And now, with the baby out of the picture, I would have to come up with another way to get into Harvard. Plus, I wasn’t talking to anyone about any of it. But I didn’t need help. I was no victim; I would not wait for someone else to save me. I was a strong believer that there was a solution to every problem, and that most of the time you could find the solution on the internet.
I looked up what you should do when you’regoing through something. The self-help influencers offered me a solution that I quite liked: To be kinder to myself. To love myself. To forgive myself. To pursue activities that made me happy, to hang out with people who brought me joy. To bemindfulabout how I was spending my time.
I knew what brought me joy, what helped fill the void. It was hanging out online with all of the other future students of Harvard Law School. Previously, I only let myself experience this pleasure once I finished drafting one hundred words toward my law school addendum. But I decided to no longer withhold this pleasure from myself. There was nothing that satisfied me more than seeing someone “like” one of my clever comments, or say “thank you” for one of my thoughtful suggestions. Some even began tagging me in posts that they thought I would enjoy, or for which I could contribute something insightful. For instance, almost immediately after one girl posted that she was looking for French conversational partners, I received a notification from Jason Applebaum, another very active member of the Facebook group who had added me as a friend on Facebook even before I added him.
“@Laura Rose, didn’t you say that you were fluent in French?”
I immediately liked and replied to the comment. “Oui! Always down to meet more Francophiles.”
During my Facebook sessions, I enjoyed tying Laura’s scarf around my neck so that I felt like I really embodied her essence. There was an inscription on the end of the silk fabric that I had not noticed until after it came into my possession. “LRK.” It sounded like “lurk.” I found that quite amusing. Maybe the scarf really was meant for me after all.
—
Jason and I had nevertalked to each other directly before, only interacted in the comments section of Facebook posts, so I was thrilled when I saw a private message from him in my inbox. It’d be great to make a new friend before law school evenstarted. We made small talk, and I told him facts about myself that I had already posted about in my introductory post in the Facebook group. (Of course, I knew that not everyone was as diligent about following other people’s social media presences as I was, so I didn’t mind repeating them.) He said that he was currently working as a paralegal at a firm in New York but would be quitting soon to backpack around South America before the start of school.
“So many people in our class are in the city, it seems!” he said. “I was actually wondering if it might be nice to host a meet-up.”
“That’s a great idea!!!!” I replied. “I’d love to help organize!”
After sending the message, I remembered my mistake. He knew me as Laura, and I wasn’t actually Laura. I was Elizabeth. Briefly, I considered pretending to be Laura (or at least someone named Laura, it didn’t have to be Laura Kim) at the meet-up, but I dismissed the idea as outrageous. I would just RSVP and attend the meet-up as myself. I was already working on a follow- up email about my application to Harvard Law School, about how I planned to break barriers by attending law school as a single mother. They didn’t have to know about the miscarriage; if they asked about it afterward, I’d just tell them that the miscarriage occurred after I had already been accepted. Laura’s death meant there was an extra spot in Harvard Law School’s incoming class for Boring Asian Females, so it was only a matter of time before I got in, especially with my new compelling narrative. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong; I mean, I really had been planning to keep the baby, and it wasn’t my fault that I had miscarried before I sent the email to Harvard about my plans. I would just be lying a bit about the timeline.
I finally managed to pull together a five-hundred-word draftof the addendum that was merely bad and not abysmal. Time was running out. It was already April, and from what I’d heard, they only considered applications until May. I would edit and finalize the addendum in the next few days, but first, I would go to the meet-up. It couldn’t hurt to spend time with the people who had accomplished the very thing that I was trying to accomplish. Maybe some of their sparkle would rub off on me, catalyze my brain into coming up with the most compelling way to frame my addendum. All the pieces of my story were there, floating around my brain, I just needed to put them all together to form the perfect representation of who I was. I wouldn’t turn in an addendum that was anything short of perfect. I had gotten this far in my plan; I wouldn’t fuck it up now.
“So, selfishly, I would love for this meet-up to happen before I fly to Argentina,” Jason said. “But I leave in just a few days, so it sucks that I didn’t think of this idea earlier. Do you think this Saturday would be too short notice to get a good group of people to show up at a bar?”
“Not at all!” I said. “Saturday is perfect.”
TWENTY-TWO
Jason and I would becohosting the event at a bar in the East Village. Over thirty people were planning to attend, an impressive number for such short notice. Someone was even taking the train from Philadelphia to come to our event. I had never felt more popular in my life.
I looked up everyone who RSVP’d. One was an NYU Tisch grad who spent the past year making short films. I tried watching one but it was too artsy and esoteric for my taste. Another was an undergraduate tennis player at Harvard College who had gone to Choate. She would have two Harvard degrees on her résumé, a fact I tried not to feel too jealous of.
I was getting ready for the event when Eunjin knocked on my door. I let her in, then went back to putting on makeup.
“You look nice,” she said. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I am.” I beamed. I had purchased an outfit just for tonight. The meet-up marked a milestone in my journey to becomingsomeone important, so I splurged on the same dress that I’d seen Laura wearing from a photo a year ago.
“And you’re glowing.”
“Thank you,” I said, and glanced at myself in my vanity mirror. Iwasglowing.
“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?”
“Oh, yes.” I had gotten distracted by my own glow and forgotten about Eunjin’s question. “It’s all very exciting. I’m going to a meet-up for people who are starting Harvard Law in the fall.”
“Do you have a cold or something?”
