Josh and Gemma Make a Baby(56)

I pull in a sharp breath, that means…it means she’s not pregnant. Again. Her seventh try failed.

“Carly. I’m so sorry.” I reach out and touch her hand.

She shrugs. “No matter.” Then she gives herself a smile in the mirror. It’s a brilliant, model-worthy smile. In fact, it’s worth the cover of a magazine for how much she shines. But I can see her eyes and they’re as bleak and dry as a desert.

“I’m truly sorry,” I say again.

She turns to me. “Why should you be sorry? Like Brook says, I’m beautiful, I’m rich, I…” She trails off, swallows and tries to continue. “I…” Her lower lip quivers. “Excuse me for a moment.”

Then she stands and walks to a china vase full of flowers. She carefully removes the flowers and sets them on the vanity, takes the vase to the bathroom sink and empties out the water.

She walks back into the lounge area, the large vase cradled in her arms. The delicate blue and white china pattern matches her dress perfectly.

“I’m beautiful. I’m rich. Right?”

I nod. I’m not sure what she needs right now.

“I…shit,” she says. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Then Carly lifts the vase and throws it across the room. It soars through the air, past the vanities, past the bathroom stalls, and smashes against the far wall. The vase shatters in a loud burst and more pieces shatter as they hit the floor.

Carly’s chest heaves and she stares at the broken bits of pottery.

“Shit,” she says again. Then, she looks at me. “Once more.”

“Alright,” I say and I nod.

I grab the vase on the vanity nearest me and hand it to her.

“Thank you.”

Then she sends the vase, water, flowers, everything and flings it. It hits with another loud crash. The pottery shatters and the water and flowers fall down with the shards. Carly stands still, and stares, transfixed by the mess.

Then, like the water spreading over the floor, she closes her eyes and tears fall down her cheeks.

“Carly,” I say.

She shakes her head, so instead of talking I reach over and put my hand on hers.

“He doesn’t love me,” she finally says.

“Who?” I ask, then I realize who she means even before she answers.

“My husband.”

She opens her eyes and gives a scornful laugh. “That was the deal, wasn’t it? I bring the beauty, he brings the money. Feelings had nothing to do with it. But stupid, stupid me, I went and fell in love with him.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

She uses the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her makeup smears and she lets out a sigh. “Love has made my marriage intolerable.”

“I don’t understand.”

She smiles and sniffs back the last of her tears. “Do you know what my husband will say when I tell him I haven’t conceived?”

“No?” And I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know.

She puts on a low dismissive voice. “‘Try again then, if it makes you happy.’” She clears her throat. “And that will be the end of it. He won’t mention anything about this again, and neither will I.”

“Do you…will you try again?”

Carly looks down at her sparkly, diamond-covered princess gown. “What does all the beauty and money in the world matter, if I can’t get the one thing I want most?”

I don’t know whether she means a child or her husband’s love. She turns to me and smiles and I imagine she knows what I’m thinking.

“No. I don’t think I will. It’s time I gave up. On a baby and on my marriage.” She crumples the dress in her hands. “Ever since you first came to our meetings, I’ve known I need to change. If you can face the world on your own, find your own way, so can I.” She tilts her chin up. “So can I. No matter if it hurts.”

I rest my hand on her arm. I don’t have any Ian quotes to give her about plucky futures and gold pots at the end of rainbows. Her IVF cycle has failed and she’s decided to leave her husband. What sort of thing do you say to that?

Except. “Have you tried telling him you love him? Maybe you should before you leave?”

She gives me another photo-shoot worthy smile. “That, my darling, would take more guts than I have. I told you I was a masochist, trying so many cycles and failing, but even I have my limits.”

I sigh and look at the shattered pottery strewn over the tile floor. “Should we clean up before we go back out?”

Carly nods. “Thank you. I’d rather no one know that I rage-threw the privy flowers.”

It doesn’t take long to scrape the large chunks of pottery and the flowers into the trash. I sop up the water as best I can.

Before we exit the bathroom, Carly gives me a swift hug. “Thank you. And good luck Saturday.”

I wrinkle my brow, and then I remember, Saturday is my transfer. The big day.

It’s only been twenty minutes when I make it back to Josh, Brook and Hannah. They’re still talking about Grim and Jewel. It’s as if the world outside stood still while the world for Carly fell apart.

I look back at her. She’s on the platform again, standing next to her husband. Except this time I look more closely. And I see it. She watches him when he isn’t looking. She leans closer when he speaks. She loves him, and he has no idea.