“The universe has a funny sense of timing, that’s for sure.”
I rolled my eyes. The universe. My mother was in the front pew of the church, pearls on, the three of us in smocked dresses beside her, every Sunday morning for most of our childhood. It wasn’t like I had this strong faith or anything, but I liked that she did. It bugged me that she had lost so much of herself when she lost our dad. But I didn’t want to get into it today.
“Do you think that’s what made James cheat?” It was the first time I had said it out loud. Because it was a reason men cheated, wasn’t it? We had spent six years, ever since Vivi was three and it became apparent that I was not getting pregnant on my own, doing every fertility treatment under the sun. From Clomid to Chinese herbs, acupuncture to IVF, the big, the small, the Eastern, the Western, and everything in between. If someone had gotten pregnant doing something, I tried it. And nothing. No baby.
It was the most stressful time in our marriage. No doubt about it. I can’t count the number of months I cried over an EPT, the number of months James had tried to persuade me to give myself a break.
I took my eyes off the road long enough to see Mom shake her head. “Caroline, no.” She sighed. “I want to think only the worst of him right now because I’m mad at him, but the way he took care of you and supported you through all of that . . . I’m not sure many men could have taken it.”
It brought tears to my eyes. “Did you ever think about adopting, Mom?”
She shrugged. “Sure I did. But your father didn’t love the idea of that.” She paused. “I hope that doesn’t color him in a negative light. It was a different time. It wasn’t even about the baby, really. It was such an invasive process. He didn’t want anyone delving into our histories, all of our financial details . . .”
She trailed off. James had been so good about that, saying that we could adopt. And at first, I thought we should. I don’t know if it was the hormones or my basic personality or what, but once I started down the fertility road, I couldn’t stop. I became obsessed by being pregnant again, of experiencing giving birth. I almost idolized the idea. When one doctor would sense my desperation, would tell me that he or she wouldn’t let this lunacy continue, I would go to the next one and the next.
James tried to talk to me about it, but it was like he knew this had gotten bigger than me. He knew I couldn’t hear him, not really. He had to let me do this. He was always good about knowing that.
One night at dinner, the three of us were discussing how we would celebrate Vivi’s ninth birthday. And I said, in my usual way, “Wonder how we’ll celebrate your tenth birthday when the new baby gets here?”
Vivi was calm but strong. She reminded me a lot of Sloane in that way. She burst into tears at the dinner table and looked at me with the most beautiful yet terrorized face I’d ever seen and said, “Do you even love me anymore? Or only the new baby?”
She ran from the table, and I let her leave. I was stunned, as though she had slapped me across the face. No words could have cut more deeply or hurt me worse. She sliced right through me in the way only a daughter can do to her mother.
I didn’t cry or really even react much. I just turned to James and said, “What have I done?”
He squeezed my shoulder and said, “We understand, Caroline. It’s a hard time for you.”
I shook my head. “I have damaged my relationship with the child I do have in favor of the one I don’t.”
That was it. It was the last day I went to a doctor except for a regular checkup. The last time I took hormones, injected myself with drugs, anything. That’s how I am, though, I think. Sometimes something big has to happen to snap me out of it. But once it does, I’m done. It’s over.
“Thanks for everything, Mom,” I said now. “You were so great.”
She squeezed my arm. “I knew what you were going through. I wanted to protect you from it, but of course, I couldn’t.”
“It was better my way. At least there was something wrong with me. I could be in control. I can’t imagine if I’d had to wait around for James to decide what he wanted to do.”
Mom laughed. “That is what you would think about. Men can be very sensitive about these things, but your father was really fine. He was totally on board. He wanted our babies to at least be mine, and he was very grown-up and stoical about the whole thing.”
“Mom, did you worry that Dad would love Emerson the most?” There. I’d said it. Sort of. We always used to joke that Emerson was Dad’s favorite child. But even the joke stung just a little. She was the only one who was biologically his, after all.
She laughed again. Harder. “You need to turn right at the next stoplight.” She laughed again. “Honey, no. Of course not. I can promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that he did not love Emerson the most. It’s different for men. They don’t carry the babies. Either way, they sort of spontaneously come into the world. He was so grateful for you, because we weren’t sure we’d have any children. And then Sloane and Emerson were both just beautiful icing on a beautiful cake.”
I smiled and turned right into pickup and dropoff, which was a comical name for a section of the tiny airport that could have easily been someone’s house. There were no cars anywhere. Just us.
I put the car in park, and Mom said, “Whew! We survived!”
I held up my phone. “I didn’t even text and drive. Impressive, right?”
“You’d better not ever,” Mom said. She was very serious about three things: we were not allowed to text and drive, take shots, or skydive. Otherwise, she was OK.
So maybe my parents didn’t have favorites, or maybe they did. But I was pretty certain, as I walked into the tiny airport a few minutes later, that I was Grammy’s favorite grandchild. When I met her at baggage claim, she was on one of those contraptions that you rest your leg on and wheel around. It was shocking how agile she still was, in her blue tracksuit, pearls, and Ferragamo tennis shoes. Her hair was whiter than the last time I had seen her, curled and set like the good Southern woman she was.
“How do you do it?” was the first thing she said to me when I saw her.
“What, Grammy?”
“How do you manage to look like a million bucks right after a C-section? There is no rational explanation for it, yet here you are, stunning as ever.”
This was why I loved this woman.
“So,” I said, wheeling her two suitcases through the lobby, while she looked like she was having way too much fun on her scooter. “Give it to me straight.”
She nodded. We had always had that connection, that mind meld, where we used very few words. “Well, darling. You made your bed. You’re going to have to lie in it. For heaven’s sake, that son of yours can’t grow up without a father.”
I turned my head toward her. “But Grammy—”