After the End(94)

“You can’t have us both,” I say softly. If there are two paths, two choices, you have to pick one. We, of all people, know that.

“Philippa Adams?”

“Saved by the bell,” Max says, with a wry smile. He holds out a hand and I take it and squeeze it as we follow the woman with the clipboard.

“First baby?” the sonographer says. The pain in my chest returns, and I look at Max, but before either of us can speak, she finishes reading our notes. She looks up. “No, I see it isn’t. I’m so sorry for your loss.” There’s a tiny pause, and I wonder if I can deal with this, but then she picks up a pen and asks, “Any complications in that first pregnancy. With . . .”—she checks the notes again—“Dylan?”

“None.” It feels good to hear his name. To confirm that he came from me, that he existed. “It was a textbook pregnancy.” I put a hand on my stomach. “And no problems with this one, either.”

“Excellent.” She beams at me as though I’ve passed a test. “Hop onto the bed, then.”

I should be anxious. What if there’s no heartbeat? I try to remember when I last felt movement. What if there’s something wrong? I finally give shape to the fear that has plagued me since I fell pregnant—since Max and I first talked about having more children. What if this baby is already sick? What if he has disabilities incompatible with life?

What if that’s my punishment?

I close my eyes as the sonographer smears cold gel across my stomach, and only as the whoomph whoomph whoomph of a heartbeat echoes around the room do I turn my head and look at our baby.

“Do you want to know the sex?”

“Yes.” Max and I speak at the same time. We’ve had enough unknowns to last a lifetime. I feel his hand slip into mine as the sonographer slides the probe across my stomach and the funny bean-shaped baby on the screen slips in and out of focus.

“Congratulations,” she says at last, pressing a key to print a copy of the scan. “You’re having a little girl, and she looks absolutely perfect.”





forty-three





Max


   2017


In the few days between Christmas and New Year, I finally get my own place.

“You know you could have stayed here as long as you wanted to,” Mom says, as she helps me pack my things. Now that I no longer spend my days curled beneath the pink comforter, I think she quite likes having me around.

“I’ll come over all the time.”

Before my parents bought their house here in East Village, it wasn’t even called East Village. It was a few streets between Ukrainian Village and Noble Square; an area where more people spoke Polish than English, and it was easier to buy kielbasa than hot dogs. The year I was born the arson rate generated its own task force. My parents stayed because it was where Dad’s family had always been—way back when they were Adamczyk instead of Adams. I looked at a couple of apartments close by, but settled on a studio at 555 Arlington, Lincoln Park. It’s tiny, but it’s not far from the lake and it comes with parking. I signed a twelve-month lease.

“You better.”

When I came back to Chicago I thought Mom’s world was small, her social life limited. Now she’s out every day, and busy with meetings and coffee mornings, and I realize she was staying home for me. That she put her life on hold while her adult son had a breakdown.

I do what I can to say thank you. I cook most evenings—although never as well as she does—and I look for movies I think she’ll enjoy. I drive her in my new van to the t’ai chi class at her senior fitness group.

I think of Leila Khalili, and her excitement at the prospect of her mother’s moving in with her. I’m the lucky one, she said. I’ve been lucky, too. Lucky to have another opportunity to spend time with my own mom, to live together as adults, not parent and son.

Blair helps me get settled. “Where do you want these books?”

I look around the tiny space, smaller than the sitting room of the house Pip and I have not long since sold. “Over there. I’ll need to put the bookcase together.”

The studio isn’t furnished, but since there’s little room for much more than a bed, a small sofa, and a bookcase, my trip to IKEA hasn’t broken the bank. I’ll eat on the sofa, and, well, if there’s ever any call for a dinner for two, it’ll be side by side at the breakfast bar that separates off the kitchen area.

It’s a weird feeling, starting over. Weird having just two of everything in the cabinets—two cups, two plates, two bowls—when for years you’ve had dinner sets and extra flatware for Thanksgiving. Weird, too, to make decisions without checking. Putting the pans—one big, one small—in whatever cabinet you want. I feel the beginnings of sadness but don’t let it take root. Instead I think of the spiffy writing on my van, of the logo that Blair has designed, with its cheerful brush like an exclamation mark after my initials. I think of the place I’m in right now, and how different it is from the place I was in last year. And I count my blessings.

When we’ve finished, we fall onto the sofa and survey our work.

“Very comfy,” I conclude. I rest my head back against the pink comforter I took from Mom’s.

“I’ve got a gray one somewhere, I think,” she said, when I asked if I could have it.