Ava closed her eyes. If they drove the car into the water, how long would it take to fill up to the roof, drop, and sink like a stone. A mother and her two children had disappeared into a pond when Ava was a child. Days had passed before anyone thought to look there or maybe it was the silver of the hood of the car, a glint of sparkle peeking above the surface of the green pond slime. Ava never passed that pond without remembering.
“I’m okay now,” Ava said and fastened her seat belt, readied herself for the ride back to Jay’s house. She would have to go to the doctor eventually and take off her clothes and lie back on deli-style paper, tilt back into the squeaking vinyl chair. As she stared at the ceiling she would hear the crab click of instruments, she would not witness it but the monitor of the ultrasound would flicker pale blue in a darkened room like she was in an eighties arcade, the screen graphic barely more complicated than Pong. There would be no movement, no pulse on the screen. The tech would purse her lips and would not say, but her silence would signal the need to start over, rev up, and try again. But not before the sadness, the terrible days that turned her inside out, her organs exposed and sensitive to the slightest hurt. But not today. No doctor today. No more. No more. No more. No more. She would go to Jay’s house and she would recuperate there. She would stay with him as long as she could. So many black people stay somewhere. Where do you stay? They’d say. I stay with my friend; I stay with my mother. Don’t you live anywhere?
Jay put the car into drive and they pulled away from the parking lot onto the road to the house. “Your baby is with me.” Jay stared at Ava. “Your baby is with me.”
“Stop it,” Ava said. “Don’t say that again. Don’t ever say that again, Jay. I swear to God. Don’t say it.”
“I’m telling you what I believe. You get to decide, Ava. Don’t you get that? You get to decide about your life. Maybe our mothers didn’t, but we do.”
Ava’s clothes were wet but she knew for sure that blood trickled out of her, from the deepest part of her body, running in narrow rivulets down her legs, mixing with the dirty reservoir water on her skin. She could sleep for days, maybe a week. “You keep thinking you get a say, but you never really do,” Ava said.
“All I know is I’ve carried a picture of you for years in here.” Jay pointed to his chest. “I’ve been through so many things, but the picture is the same. You understand. I know you do, or we wouldn’t be here together.”
“We are confused,” Ava said.
“Does it really matter? Let’s just be confused.”
“It matters to me,” Ava said.
“I have felt you. You asked me if I felt my mother. She’s there. She’ll always be there, but so are you. In everything.”
What Ava thought was that when they were young Jay had been a dying, sad boy, new to town, mother and fatherless, a swirling cloud of the irresistible rumor of tragedy hovering all around him. She had felt her own longing in his, his desperation on a frequency she could hear. When her brother died and her mother moved to another planet and she was abandoned to look over her own shoulder, waiting for Devon to march up the road sweaty and alive, JJ had been there. She would never forget that. They were bound together. What she wanted to say to him was, “I love you. I love you so much. Please be my friend. Please don’t leave me.” What she managed to say was “I can’t do this.” Ava felt a loosening, a washing over her.
“You just don’t know it yet, Ava.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ava said.
“You just don’t know, Ava.”
“I won’t hurt you, Jay.”
Jay said, “You could try. Don’t you think? Do you think you could?” What Jay thought was that if Ava didn’t want him he’d have an empty room of a life that he could not fill.
I am not going to have a baby. How everything can go from fine to gone, I will never understand. Before I even got up from bed this morning I started bleeding. I’ve read enough of your stories to know many of you have felt what I felt. I have never admitted that to anyone, not even to myself, but I believe now. In a way it’s a relief to finally, really know. In all this time I always figured that some way I would have a child. Some way, somehow. I didn’t consider being a woman without a baby. I’ve been too stubborn to admit that I was wrong after all. Some of you know what I mean. I am worn-out—no much more than that. I AM DONE. You can’t imagine the relief just typing that. I am sorry that I wasn’t more sympathetic to you who are in pain. To you who are in pain, I send out my feeling to you. I am transmitting to you. I want peace for you. I want peace too. If I’ve learned nothing else it is I haven’t felt enough in my life or stopped to understand anyone enough.
* * *
I went to the reservoir and got soaked. When I got home I took off all my clothes, my shoes, even my underwear and put them all in the trash. I was numb, almost serene, if you can believe that. The last time this happened a nurse said to me, “Was this not a pregnancy that you wanted?” Can you believe that? “Was this not a pregnancy you wanted?” I didn’t look at her, didn’t even bother answering. But I want to tell all of you. I wanted my baby more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
* * *
I wanted to write to you all to thank you. I’ve taken such comfort in all your stories and the ways you celebrate the brief bright lights of your pregnancies, the ferocity of your love for the children that miraculously find their way to your lives. I am not one of you anymore. At least not after today.
* * *
Thank you, thank you for your help. I have loved reading your messages and your journeys. I hope you all live well. I really do. I thought my baby was on the road to me. I thought so many times that I could see her from a distance and she was waving saying “hang on.” I believed it for years. I knew it to be true. SHE. IS. NEVER. COMING. If there is a god who is merciful she will be cared for and loved until I can see her face-to-face. AVA
35
The delicate little thing at the door had to be Charlotte. A pretty girl, tiny, all flat and straight like a grown girl, Sylvia thought. Behind her was a smaller version of herself, Marcus’s daughter on the floor just in sight behind her mother.
“Hello, can I help you?” Charlotte asked, her face unmasked surprise.
“Hello, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Sylvia Ross. You don’t know me, honey, but I know Marcus.” How foolish it was to come to this girl’s house. She might have a man moved in here or already be moved on and finished with the Marcus chapters of her life. Anything! But she’d felt sick about the way she’d treated Marcus. He needed her, really needed her, and she couldn’t help him. It wasn’t enough but what would be?