When the Lights Go Out(47)

“That must be so difficult,” I say, trying my hardest to sound empathetic, but when Miranda replies with “You have no idea, Eden. Can you even grasp how lucky you are, getting to grocery shop alone?” it’s all I can do not to scream.

I would give life and limb to grocery shop with a child.

Miranda doesn’t bother asking how the fertility treatments are going, though just last night Aaron and I made the decision to give in vitro fertilization a try. Or rather, I should say, I made the decision to give in vitro a try. The cost of it is extortionate, thousands of dollars for a single cycle, for Dr. Landry to go inside one time and pluck an egg or two from my ovaries to combine with Aaron’s sperm, making an embryo, a baby, in a culture dish. As one grows bacteria. It seems scientific, synthetic, and yet there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for a child.

I know this now.

But Aaron isn’t so sure. As we stood in the kitchen last night, both of us speaking in acerbic tones, he calculated the costs we’ve paid over the year, all the pelvic ultrasounds and semen analyses, the Clomid cycles, the trigger shots, intrauterine insemination. The grand total tallied up to some ten thousand dollars already spent trying to create a child, an expenditure that will nearly double with one single cycle of IVF. Aaron and I don’t have this kind of money. He reminds me of this relentlessly, as he reminds me how happy we used to be before we ever made the decision to start a family, and I have this vague recollection of a couple, a man and a woman—as if in another life—sitting on a dock, holding hands, watching sailboats float by on a bay.

“I think we should stop, Eden,” he said, trying hard to reach out to me but I pulled away. “I think we should be happy with what we have.”

“And what’s that?” I asked, up in arms. What did we possibly have without a baby?

“Us,” he said, looking sad. “You and me. That’s what we have.”

I wouldn’t be deterred.

“We will do this,” I told him of the in vitro fertilization. Hands on hips, my expression flat. An imperial fiat.

I left the room so it couldn’t be further discussed.

I’ve taken out three credit cards in my own name, and charge each appointment with Dr. Landry to them in sequence. Never are we able to pay more than the minimum payment for each. The interest fees soar monthly as the cottage degenerates bit by bit. The furnace went out; we need to replace the plumbing throughout the entire home before the decades-old steel pipes wear out for good. The windows are drafty; they too need to be replaced before another winter comes or we’ll spend an arm and a leg to heat the home, watching our money quite literally go out the window.

But each of these plays second fiddle to making a baby.

Aaron and I argue daily about money. The cost of groceries, the cost of clothes.

What concessions can we make so that we can save more for a baby?

Do we really need two cars, cable TV, a new pair of shoes?

“This is ridiculous,” Aaron says as he holds up a shoe, the outsole flapping loose like a hangnail. “I can’t go to work like this.” And yet I argue with him, claiming he’s being extravagant by not making do with the shoe. “Surely you can get another month out of those shoes,” I say, suggesting he use some glue, though it isn’t about the shoe, but rather what the hundred dollars for another pair of shoes will buy. An appointment with Dr. Landry, a hormone shot, a month’s worth of Clomid.

But Aaron swears he needs the shoe, which inside makes me fume.

How selfish can he be? Where are his priorities?

At each unwelcome visit, when Miranda and her boys appear at my door without invitation, her belly continues to swell, another baby on the way, “Hopefully a girl this time,” she says, fingers laced together in the air.

If Aaron and I hurry up, she reminds me for the umpteenth time, joining me in the backyard for another glass of lemonade, her baby and my baby can one day go to school together. They can be friends.

I smile.

And though I don’t say it aloud, I think to myself that I’d rather die than have my baby and Miranda’s baby be friends.


June 13, 1997 Egg Harbor

The hollyhocks are in bloom. Just the sight of them lined up defiantly against the weathered picket fence stabs me in the chest. They stand high above the rest of the flowers in the garden, six feet tall or more. Their bold bell-shaped flowers burn red against the greenery.

It’s been a year then since Aaron and I planted the seedlings in the lawn against the fence where they’d be sheltered from the rain and the wind. And now here they are, exhibitionists in my flower bed, outshining the roses and lilies.

Reminding me of all the wasted time Aaron and I have spent trying to have a baby.

When Aaron was at work, I took a pair of scissors to them, cutting hard through the thick stem. I seethed as I did it, crying, taking out a year’s worth of rage on the flowers. I screamed like a maniac, grateful that, thanks to the deep rim of trees surrounding our yard, no one was around to see or hear my outburst. I grabbed handfuls of stems and tugged with all my might, wresting the roots from the ground where I stomped on them like a child. I tore the flowers from their stems, shredding them into a million pieces until my hands were yellow with pollen and I was out of breath from the outburst.

When I was finished, I threw them away, beneath the garbage where all the negative pregnancy tests go.