“Your…brother,” Wyatt says, pulling at a thread of memory.
“Yeah. He became a doctor,” I answer proudly. “A neurosurgeon.”
Wyatt shifts, so that he is looking at me. “And meanwhile…you…”
“Became a death doula,” I finish. “You know that already.”
But we both know that wasn’t what he was asking. His real question is about what Ididn’tbecome. A doctor, myself. An Egyptologist.
His.
For years I told myself that this was about Brian, because of Brian. I told myself I was too ashamed to admit to Wyatt that I had turned to someone else so quickly. But this was never about Brian. It was aboutme.
“If you had gotten my letters,” Wyatt asks softly, “would you have come back?”
I face him, staring into those bright blue eyes that have always been the pilot light inside me. “I couldn’t.”
“Then I would have come toyou.”
There was a world, maybe, where this worked. Where Wyatt finished his degree and got a job at a university and went off on digs a couple of times a year, thriving in a career I couldn’t have. In that world, I might have come to resent him for something that was never his fault.
In that world, I had not turned to another man—a good, kind man who made everything feel easier, rather than more tangled. In that world, I was not pregnant with that man’s baby.
In the real world, I chose safety and security over Wyatt.
My throat is throbbing, I try to explain all this, but I can’t. “You asked me why I’m here: because I thought this would be my life, and it wasn’t, and I needed to know what it would have been like. You, me, a dig site. A discovery. I know it was my choice to give it up. But I wanted to see, just once, what I was missing.”
I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel Wyatt’s touch on my cheek, wiping away a tear. He rubs together his thumb and forefinger, as if my sadness could seep into his skin. “Maybe wedidtake the same path, in spite of it all,” Wyatt says. “You get close to people who inevitably leave you. The difference is thatyoucall it work.Icall it love.”
He walks downstairs into the Dig House. I don’t know how long I stand on the balcony, beneath the stars in a feverish sky. Long enough to stop crying, to be able to draw in a breath without feeling like I’m breaking apart.
The Dig House is still and silent. The only light in the main workroom comes from Alberto’s computer, a geometric screen saver that twists like a Möbius strip in the throes of pain.
I sit down at his desk and open a new browser tab. It takes a few minutes for my Gmail to load, and another ten seconds to filter out the messages in the mailbox I reserve for family.
Because I am a coward, I read Kieran’s first.
Dawn, Brian won’t tell me where you are. What the fuck?
It makes me smile; he doesn’t beat around the bush.
Dawn. Everyone’s freaking out.
Dawn. If you’re in trouble, just tell me.
When I open Meret’s messages, I start crying again.
Mom, Dad swore you’re okay but if you were really okay why wouldn’t you have come home by now?
Mom, if you’re really visiting your aunt in France like Dad says you are then send me a postcard because I think he’s lying. Also, I texted you a hundred times, why aren’t you writing me back?
Mommy. Did I do something wrong?
At that, I lose it. I bend over the keyboard, thinking that my sobs will probably short-circuit all of Alberto’s fancy software and that I don’t give a damn. I imagine Meret typing this on her laptop, the glow reflecting on her face.
I can’t remember the last time she called me “Mommy,” but I do remember the first time she called me “Mom.” I had picked her up from school in fourth grade, and she was bringing home a friend. Up until that point, she would reach for my hand every time we crossed the street, as if she didn’t know how to move forward without me. But that day when I reached for her hand to cross the parking lot, she tugged away, embarrassed.Mom,she said.I’m not a baby.
Except it doesn’t work that way. She will always be my baby, even when she has children of her own. I will never stop wanting to keep her safe. But I can’t do that when I’m half a world away.
