Centennial Park is a blur of colors spinning all around me, as if I’m at the hub of the merry-go-round. The auburn spread of leaves awaiting raking at the far end of the playground, the still-green grass, the knobby gray-brown trunks of decades-old maple trees, the offensively yellow ladder on the slide . . . Everything is a kaleidoscope of paint streaks on canvas, but I don’t register the one color I desperately need to see: the lilac of my daughter’s coat.
I can scarcely hear anything beyond the rapid beat of my heart, and even drawing a breath is difficult, but I scream at the top of my lungs: “Elizabella!”
And suddenly, I see her elbow, poking out beyond the massive trunk of a tree.
I dart to her, sweep her up into my arms, and feel her warm little body against me, her cool cheek pressed against mine.
Tears of relief blur my vision, and the faint ache of swollen ovaries rears its head again, as if reminding me, Don’t lift more than a gallon of milk.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “You can’t just run away like that.”
Bella places her hands on my cheeks, cupping my face. “Nini said she saw Daddy.”
And despite the panic of the moment, I touch my forehead to hers, and I laugh. “Let’s try to do what’s right. Okay, Ellie-Belle? And not what Nini tells us to do.”
She puckers her pretty pink lips and kisses me. Wipes away more of my tears. “I miss Daddy.”
“I miss Daddy, too. He’ll be home tomorrow.” Meanwhile I have to call to tell him about the unfortunate news from the lab. “Come on, baby. Let’s go home.”
She shakes her head—“Want to play with Fendi and Crew”—and wiggles until I put her down.
Before I have half a second to compose myself, she’s running over to the picnic bench and climbing between the model children, demanding another snack and place setting so Nini can have her own.
I follow. “No. Nini—”
“Nini isn’t real,” Claudette says. “I don’t feed children who aren’t real.”
My headache pierces. I glance at Claudette. “I can handle—”
“Is so real!” Bella frowns and puffs out her cheeks again.
Claudette finishes popping little paper straws into small cups of organic apple juice, oblivious to my protest against her parenting my child. “Let me give you some advice.” Supermom of the Year plants her hands on her lean hips, raises an eyebrow, and continues before I can tell her I’m not in the mood to hear it. “Now, you know I wouldn’t say this unless I truly cared about your family, Veronica. It takes two to raise a toddler, and because your husband is gone a lot, I want you to rely on me. I know you’re exhausted, but you need to establish and enforce some boundaries. You’re letting her control you. Who’s in charge?”
I wrap an arm around Bella’s waist and pull her, kicking, off the picnic bench. “Stop. Before you hurt someone.”
Bella doesn’t stop.
“Maybe you should find an outlet,” Claudette says. “Something for you. I was the same way before I got my realty license. The feelings of inadequacy, the overblown concentration on spoiling the children—”
“Excuse me?”
“I know you’re under a lot of pressure with IVF and with Micah’s being out of town. And it’s giving your daughter an opportunity to act out. Have you ever considered the fact that you’re trying too hard to get pregnant?”
I plant Bella on the ground next to me and meet Claudette’s gaze.
“Relax and it’ll happen,” she says. “My children are living proof of that.”
It probably took her a whole month or two of trying before a little plus sign appeared on the sticks in her bathroom. Some of us aren’t that lucky.
“Why don’t you let me take Elizabella for the afternoon? Go home, have a glass of wine—”
“I can’t drink during treatment.”
“And relax, and it’ll happen.”
“Do you honestly think we weren’t relaxed for the first year?” I tug on Bella’s hand. “Who isn’t relaxed for the first several months?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t.” My daughter is at the onset of another tantrum, but I tighten my grip on her hand and give her my best Mommy’s serious look. “If Nini’s coming, she has to come now.” And we begin toward the parking lot.
“Veronica. Sometimes positive thoughts—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve read The Secret.”
“Veronica!”
I picture Claudette staring after me, hands on hips, but I don’t turn back to confirm it. Instead, I look down at Bella. “Let’s give Daddy a call.” I try a tone with more sweetness, and it seems to work.
“Yay!” Bella skips alongside me.
Aside from emitting a dramatic sigh, Claudette seems to have already forgotten her quest to educate me in the ways of easy, carefree conception. A quick glance over my shoulder proves she’s busy with her robotic children, who obediently grasp her hands to thank Jesus for the snacks before they gobble them up.
The nerve of that woman, thinking I’d be shooting up Follistim night after freaking night because it’s more convenient than having sex at just the right time, as if I prefer the drama of infertility to simply giving my husband a roll midcycle.
No one goes through what I’m going through unless there are no other options.
Rationally, I know I shouldn’t fault Claudette for what she doesn’t understand. No one understands, unless she’s gone through the shots, the egg retrievals, the intracytoplasmic sperm injection, the inch-and-a-half-long needles filled with enough progesterone to ensure the embryos transferred into their faulty uteri stick . . . and she does it all only to see another negative result or even to miscarry.
No baby at the end of it all.
I might be one of those women now. Only one fertilized egg survived the night. And it isn’t doing well.
Once Bella and Nini are settled in the back seat, and we’re far enough away from Centennial Park that I can no longer see Claudette’s prayer circle, a feeling of utter exhaustion overcomes me. Suddenly, I’m bawling.
Guilt over my behavior and the way I treated Claudette begins to prick at me. I’ll have to call her to smooth things over.
“Nini, Mommy’s sad.”
Yes, I am.
I push the Bluetooth button on my dashboard. “Call Micah.”
“Calling Micah.” The computerized voice confirms my command.
His phone doesn’t ring; rather, it goes straight to voice mail: “You have reached the mobile phone of Micah Cavanaugh—”
In a knee-jerk reaction, I terminate the call. My tears intensify, not with despair as much as irritation. How convenient that he has the luxury of turning off his cell phone. I’ll bet he’s enjoying a late lunch and a cocktail, despite our agreement that if I can’t drink, he shouldn’t drink. And I’m stuck here with a sassy three-year-old, her mischievous imaginary friend, and Claudette Winters as my only acquaintance.
I take a deep breath and try again. “Call Micah.”
“Calling Micah.”
Again, voice mail picks up before the phone rings. This time, I leave a message, trying to hold my tears at bay: “It’s me. I have news from the lab and . . . it’s been a rather rough day. I hope you had a nice flight. We can’t wait to see you, so hurry home. Love you. Bye.”
I hang up.
“I know,” Elizabella is saying. “I told her, but she won’t believe me.”
I glance in the rearview mirror and witness Bella in deep conversation with no one. “What doesn’t Mommy believe, baby?”
“You don’t believe what Nini says. About Daddy.”
“What about Daddy?”
“You tell her, Nini.” Bella fiddles with the belt on her car seat. “I don’t want to make her mad.”
“Mommy won’t get mad,” I promise.
“I told you,” Bella says. “We’re all alone.”
“Daddy’s coming home tomorrow.”
“No.” She follows it up with a dramatic sigh. “No, Mommy. He went to God Land in his plane.”
I stomp on the brake at a red light. “Bella, you have to stop saying that! You know it isn’t true!”
“Is so.”
She sounds sleepy. I glance at her again and confirm it when I see her heavy eyelids. By the time I turn into the Shadowlands and punch in the access code at the gate, the kid is out cold.