Max, however, blocks his way. “We’ll take the next one,” he says.
We drive home in Max’s truck, which smells of loam and freshly cut grass, even though there are no mowers or weed cutters in the flatbed. I wonder who is covering the business. Max turns on the radio and sets it to a music station. This is a big deal—usually we argue over the programming. He will listen toCar Talkon NPR,Wait Wait. . . Don’t Tell Me!and just about any news show . . . but he doesn’t like music playing while he’s driving. Me, I can’t imagine even a half-mile trip without singing along to a song.
“It’s supposed to be nice this weekend,” Max says. “Hot.”
I look out the window. We’re at a red light, and in the car beside us is a mother with two children, who are eating animal crackers in the backseat.
“I thought we could take a ride down to the beach, maybe.”
Max surfs; these are the last days of summer. It’s what he’d normally do. Except nothing is normal. “Maybe,” I say.
“I thought,” Max continues, “that might be a good place for, you know.” He swallows. “The ashes.”
We named the baby Daniel and arranged to have him cremated. The ashes would come back in an urn shaped like a tiny ceramic baby shoe with a blue ribbon. We didn’t really discuss what we would do with them once they arrived, but now I realize Max has a point. I don’t want the urn on the kitchen counter. I don’t want to bury it in our backyard the way we buried our canary when it died. I suppose the beach is a pretty place, if not a meaningful one. But then again, what is my other option? It’s not like my baby was conceived in a romantic place like Venice, where I could float the urn down the river Po; or under the stars in Tanzania, where I could open the urn to the wind of the Serengeti. He was conceived in a lab at an IVF clinic, and I can’t really scatter the ashes through its halls.
“Maybe,” I say, which is all I can give Max right now.
When we pull into our driveway, my mother’s car is already there. She is going to be staying with me during the day to make sure I’m all right when Max goes to work. She comes outside to the truck to help me down from my seat. “What can I get you, Zo?” she asks. “A cup of tea? Some chocolate? We could watch the episodes ofTrue Bloodyou’ve got TiVoed . . .”
“I want to just lie down,” I say, and when she and Max both rush to help me, I hold them off. I walk down the hall slowly, using the wall for support. But instead of entering our bedroom at the end of the hall, I duck into a smaller room on the right.
Up until a month ago, this had been my makeshift office—the place where, once a week, Alexa came to do my books. Then, over the course of one weekend, Max and I painted it a sunny yolk-yellow and lugged in a crib and a changing table we’d scored from a charity shop for a grand total of forty dollars. While Max did the heavy lifting, I organized books—my favorites from when I was little:Where the Wild Things Are, Harry the Dirty Dog,andCaps for Sale—on a shelf.
But now, when I open the door, I draw in my breath. Instead of the crib and changing table, there is the old drafting board I used as a desk. My computer is hooked up and humming again. My files are neatly stacked beside it. And my instruments—djembes and banjos and guitars and chimes—are lined up against the wall.
The only indication that there might ever have been a nursery here are the walls, which are still that sunshine yellow. The color you feel inside you, when you smile.
I lie down on the braided rug in the middle of the floor and curl my knees into my chest. Max’s voice drifts down the hall. “Zoe? Zo? Where are you?” I hear him open the door to the bedroom, make a quick sweep, and leave. He does the same thing in the bathroom. Then he opens the door and sees me. “Zoe,” he says. “What’s wrong?”
I look around this room, this not-nursery, and I think of Mr. Docker, of what it means to become aware of your surroundings. It’s like waking up from the best dream to find a hundred knives at your throat. “Everything,” I whisper.
Max sits down beside me. “We have to talk.”
I don’t face him. I don’t even sit up. I keep staring straight ahead, my eyes level with the radiators. Max forgot to take the safety plugs out of the outlets. They are all still covered with those flat disks of plastic, to make sure no one gets hurt.
Too fucking late.
“Not now,” I say.
You lose keys, your wallet, your glasses. You lose a job. You lose weight.
You lose money. You lose your mind.
You lose hope; you lose faith. You lose your sense of direction.
You lose track of friends.
You lose your head. You lose a tennis match. You lose a bet.
You lose a baby, or so they say.
Except I know exactly where he is.
The next day, I wake up and my breasts have become marble. I can’t even breathe without them aching. I have no newborn, but my body doesn’t seem to know that. The nurses at the hospital had warned me about this. There used to be an injection to dry up breast milk, but there were serious side effects, and so now they could only send me home with fair warning about what would come to pass.
The covers on Max’s side of the mattress are still tucked in. He did not come to bed last night; I don’t know where he slept. By now, he will have left for work.
“Mom,” I call out, but no one comes. I sit up, wincing, and see a note on my nightstand.Gone grocery shopping,my mother has written.
