We Are Not Like Them(44)

Father Mike left us with what he claimed was his very best advice. “Try not to stop loving each other on the same day.” He let loose an uncharacteristic chuckle. “Or, rather, try not to hate each other on the same day.”

It sounded ridiculous at the time. I could never hate Kevin. But when I couldn’t get pregnant, Father Mike’s advice took on a whole new meaning. That’s when I became the worst wife in the world, moody, angry, quick to snap for long stretches of time. Sometimes I blamed the hormones; the truth is that I was miserable and scared and took it all out on Kevin because he was there, a sponge to absorb my hostility. He withstood my outbursts like a tree standing in a hurricane. He remained calm, even when we got into the biggest fight of our marriage, last Christmas Eve, when I came home with the check from Riley. I presented it triumphantly, giddily, ready to call the clinic as soon as they opened after the holiday. Kevin had looked at the check with actual disgust and demanded that I return it.

“I don’t want to be in debt to her,” he’d shouted.

I should have known how he’d react. He’s not a huge fan of Riley under the best of circumstances. He thinks he hides it, but Kevin can’t hide anything. So when he says things like, “Riley thinks she’s the shit, doesn’t she?” or, “You always do what Riley says,” I let it go most of the time. He’s only jealous. He wants to be the most important person in my life—and he is, but Riley’s a very close second, a scenario that doesn’t make either of them happy.

And there was no way I was turning down the money. I made this pretty clear by screaming it at the top of my lungs. I hate what I said to him before storming out of our bedroom. “Maybe we should get a divorce and I’ll have a baby on my own. I’m not the one with the fucking problem.” I can only blame my outburst on the fact that I wanted a child with a longing so desperate and feral it consumed me. It changed me; it was like being possessed. The old Jen, the one who sat in Father Mike’s office wild-eyed with love, would never have said those words.

My whole life there’s been a little voice inside me, reminding me not to want too much. I used to complain to Lou about how unfair it was that I didn’t have a father, or new clothes, or a mother who came to school events. “Life’s not fair. Get used to it,” she’d bark at me. And I accepted that. But a baby—one healthy baby—that felt like a reasonable thing to want. I couldn’t summon a dad, or a new mother, but I could, surely, somehow, make a baby. The more it seemed like Kevin was resigned to it not happening, the more determined I felt. Even if the money from Riley wasn’t enough and I had to open yet another credit card to make up the difference. Even if taking her money made me feel embarrassed, exposed. Even if I didn’t want Riley to think Kevin had failed me somehow. The only thing that mattered was that it gave me one more chance—and that cycle, our Hail Mary, had worked, thank God. But a part of me will always wonder, What if it hadn’t? If we hadn’t gotten pregnant, would our marriage have survived? Would I have?

Kevin stood by me while I was struggling, and he deserves my patience now during the worst time of his life, though it isn’t easy, especially when he’s sullen and withdrawn and drinking too much. There are moments when I want to tell him the same thing Cookie said to me: “You gotta pull it together.” Just last night, a news story in the Inquirer sent him spinning. Tamara had made a statement to the paper, pointedly inviting him and Chris to attend Justin’s funeral next Saturday. “I want them to see what they did.”

“I know what I did!” he yelled. “They think I don’t know?” Then he spun even further the implications of being invited (“Does she mean this to be a publicity stunt?”), then agonized about whether he should go, which was a terrible idea. Then he landed in full self-pity: “I’m so tired of this. I wish I’d been the one who was shot. I wish it had been me.”

I look back down at my phone screen—Riley’s face is frozen in place where I paused the video. How could you? I think. And then, Where are you? I need you. I send the last part like a wish into the air before tucking my phone back into my bag. I peek around the waiting room. For so many years I hated to be around pregnant women, people with kids. The envy ripped me apart. Now I crave their proximity even if I have no desire to interact with them. Look at me. I made it into your club.

But I’m still scared. I start imagining all the terrible possibilities; excruciatingly detailed scenarios play out in my mind on a loop. I picture myself lying down on the scratchy paper stretched thin across the vinyl exam table, bending my knees, the nurse with a big fat smile on her face spreading the cold goo over my stomach and waving that wand that looks like a sex toy. The nurse’s smile droops into a straight line, then further into a worried frown. She busies herself putting away the equipment, tells me to wait while she grabs the doctor. When the doctor enters, she picks up the wand, rubs it against my skin, and then looks at me over my swollen belly.

“There’s no heartbeat. The baby is gone.”

I shake myself out of the dark spiral and stare at the couple holding hands in the opposite corner. The woman’s wearing an elegant wool maxidress from that expensive maternity store that bombards me with ads on Instagram. Her husband has on the shiniest loafers I’ve ever seen, no doubt off to his job at some big-time law firm after this, but even with his demanding job he never misses an appointment with his wife. I start down the road of imagining their perfect lives when I’m startled by a familiar voice booming across the waiting room.