“You meanwhenI get it right?” I said.
She was still dancing around to the music while I was seated on the couch. “You have a lot of confidence for a guy who thought this was the Cowboy Junkies,” she said.
“I didn’t think it was—”
“Time to guess, Alex. The song will be over soon.”
“The Rolling Stones?”
“Off with your shirt!” she yelled.
I ditched my shirt and then searched my mind. “The Animals?”
“Bye-bye, shorts,” she said cutely with a wave toward me.
I stripped them off quickly. I couldn’t place the voice. My parents were not music people. Dani’s were. She could recognize any artist from their voice even if she hadn’t heard the song.
“Rod Stewart?”
She buckled over, laughing. “Rod Stewart? Are you kidding me?”
“It sounds like him,” I argued.
“Take them off!” she said, pointing to my boxers.
I shimmied out of my boxers and sat buck naked on the couch as she twirled in circles. I was extraordinarily turned-on when she finally looked back at me.
Her mouth fell open. “Oh,” she said.
“How do I even out this playing field?” I asked.
She came toward me and straddled me. We were kissing. I started to pull her shirt up. She whispered near my ear, “Nope. You haven’t guessed the right answer.” She was grinding on me, naked under the shirt. It was torture. “I’ll give you a hint…it’s Lou Reed’s band.”
“The Velvet Underground. Now take this fucking thing off.”
I pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it onto a stack of boxes.
I shake my head now, to get out of the memory that feels almosttoogood.
I’m standing in the apartment, staring at the wall, feeling lonely. What we’d had was so good. What happened? I realize I hadn’t taken the white sleeve out to see if she had written something on it. Maybe she wrote about that day.
The sleeve sticks to the cardboard like it had been wet at some point. Tears? I take it out and read her writing over and over again, trying to place the memory. It’s not that first night in our house at all…It’s horribly sad.
Song 2: “Sweet Jane”
I’m wondering if you remember our game about this song when we moved into this house. Things have changed a little. All good things though. I’m watching you hold Ethan. He dozes off as you’re feeding him in your arms. He’s just over a year old—beautiful blond curls. Noah is climbing on the back of the couch, wrapping his arms around your neck, choking you, but you don’t care. You’re still smiling as you look up at me. Noah is giggling. It sounds like the music you would hear in heaven. This is the moment that represents exactly what love is to me. You look up and smile again. We found out three days ago that we’re having a girl. I haven’t told you this yet…but I want to name her Jane.
I never knew. Why didn’t I ever read these? A tear streams down my cheek. It feels like a foreign invader. I do the math; Dani miscarried the week after she’d written this. She was nineteen weeks pregnant…almost halfway. We’d heard the heartbeat already three times and had seen the tiny baby on the screen twice. She was far enough along for them to know the sex. Dani had a small baby bump that didn’t go away for several days after the miscarriage. It was hard for me to see, so I can’t even imagine how it felt for her.
She never told me she had thought of names. After it happened, we didn’t talk about it…about her, the baby, or who she might have been. I didn’t want to make it worse for Dani. Thatday she had been writing at home while the boys were toddling around her feet. I was at the clinic. She said she had felt crampy in the morning, and by the afternoon, she was bleeding.
Her mother came over and took her to the hospital. I met them there. At that time, Irene still acted like a grandmother, but she wasn’t as sympathetic toward Dani’s pain as I thought she should have been. Maybe she was comparing it to losing a child that had already grown into a man. She took the boys back to our house and told me to go in and be with Dani.
The hospital room was dark when I walked in. Dani was lying on her side, facing the window.
“Dani?” I said softly.
She sniffled. I could see her body start to shake. She was crying. When I came around to the other side of the bed, she broke down.
