water bottle, which is where Ben found me after work.
“Are you not feeling well again?”
“Not really,” I said, sitting up and plopping the hot water bottle to the side.
“Maybe you should go to the doctor?” He looked worried. “It’s been over a week.”
My guilt kicked into overdrive. “I’m not sick. But I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.” Ben sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand up and down my bare shin, his forehead crinkled in anticipation of whatever I was about to say.
I took a deep breath. “I was pregnant.”
He stared at me for a moment, his mouth open in surprise, before asking, “Was?”
“I miscarried this morning.” I picked at some lint on my shirt, left there from the hot water bottle’s fleecy cover. I expected him to ask if I was okay, what happened, how I was feeling about it all, if I needed anything. Those were the questions I was ready for.
“You didn’t tell me.” It was a statement, wrapped in frustration.
“No, I’m... I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How far along were you?” Ben’s jaw was tight, his hands now on his lap instead of touching my leg. I knew the question he was really asking.
My voice quieted; my heart beat hard in my chest. “I found out two weeks ago.”
He looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly. “How could you not tell me, Hannah?”
I started to cry, the first tears I’d shed since finding out about the pregnancy. “Honestly? I didn’t know how I felt about it. And I wanted to figure that out first. But I guess none of that matters now.”
“Does Kate know?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t tell anyone.”
Ben nodded, and I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. At least he didn’t look as mad as before. He didn’t say anything for so long I started to get antsy, needing us to get to the part where he forgave me and we could move on.
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.
I lay back against the duvet and closed my eyes. “Yes,” I said. He shifted to lie beside me on the bed, then handed me my hot water bottle, which I pressed onto my painful abdomen.
I swallowed hard, my next words coming out in a whisper. “What if I’m a crap mother, Ben?” My own mother had done what I considered to be a satisfactory job, but she probably wouldn’t win any parenting awards. In fairness, she had raised my sister and me mostly alone, and we hadn’t made it easy on her. I had also spent enough time with Kate and young Ava—who had just yesterday flushed an entire roll of toilet paper down the powder room toilet, resulting in a very expensive plumber visit—to question if I was cut out for motherhood.
Ben laughed a little when I told him about Ava and the toilet paper, which for whatever reason made me cry harder. Probably because I knew then he wasn’t going to storm out of the bedroom and leave me to my cramps and tears and regret. “Everyone thinks they’d be a shitty parent, Hannah. That’s what helps keep you on guard to try and do the best job you can.” The tears came faster, hot and fresh. “If you think you’ll be stellar, you get cocky and miss things. People have been doing it forever. You’ll figure it out.” I almost believed him. “You’ll be a great mom, and I can’t wait to watch you in action one day.”
I blew my nose, honking into the tissues he handed me.
“I want you to promise me something.”
“What?” I blew my nose again.
“If you’re not okay, or freaked out about something, you have to tell me. I know you have Kate, and Claire in an emergency.” I snorted. Claire was pretty low on my who-to-call-in-an-emergency list. “But I’m not going anywhere. I love you. And for what it’s worth? I know having a baby right now wouldn’t have been ideal, but we would have made it work. So, promise me. Nothing but the messy truth from here on out, okay?”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Nothing but the messy truth.”
Except I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.
What I never told Ben, or even Kate when she hugged me later that day after I confessed to her as well, was that when I realized I was losing the baby I didn’t feel sadness, or despair, or even loss... I felt relief.
I was relieved I wasn’t going to be a mother.
And that’s the sort of messy truth you keep to yourself, because perhaps that one time when you whispered, “Please, I don’t want to be a mother...” to the universe, it thought you meant forever.
* * *
A few days after the Lyla and restaurant incidents, Ben and I were sitting in Dr. Horwarth’s office getting the news I knew was coming but was still not ready to hear. How do you prepare for the brutal reality of being told you will never carry your own child? You can’t, I realized, as his words washed over me along with the sensation of drowning—I was circling the same stupid drain I’d been circling since that first negative pregnancy test, all those years ago. Except this time there was no rescue mission planned, no life vest, nothing to keep me from sinking straight down to the bottom.
“Remember at the beginning of all this how I suggested you draw a line in the sand, deciding how far you’re willing to go and what you’re willing to put your body through to make it happen?” Dr. Horwarth clasped his hands on his desk, his face gentle with understanding.
But while he might have understood what we were feeling on an intellectual level, the pictures of his smiling family displayed on the corner of his desk suggested he really didn’t get it, couldn’t get it.
“I remember,” I said, my voice breaking. Ben held my hand, like I expected him to, like he knew he should and had so many times before. But it brought me no comfort today.
“I’m wondering how close we are to that line now. I’m willing to keep trying. We can do another round of IVF...but I’ll be honest,” Dr. Horwarth said, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry to say I don’t expect to have different results than what we’ve had.”
I was so filled with anger—at my body, at Dr. Horwarth, at Ben for sticking through this with me when he should have left to find a wife who wasn’t barren, at the woman in the waiting room who was having a hushed but excited conversation on her phone while she stared at her ultrasound photo, a smile stretched wide across her face. And tickling the edges of that anger was such a deep pain I was afraid of what would happen to me if I let it take over.
KATE
November
The waiting room was packed. Checking my watch I saw she was already twenty minutes behind. Settling in, I opened another
