“Essentially the baby’s food source detaches from the uterus, which triggers pre-term labor. The baby’s only chance for survival is outside of you,” she said. It was rare, and Sara explained that stress and anxiety weren’t known risk factors, but no one could say for sure. Betsy had been complaining of abdominal pain, which was the reason she was in Sara’s office when the worst of it began, but she avoided any mention of the newspaper article. It wasn’t something she talked about. After the contractions started in earnest, there was nothing they could do to stave off labor. So Betsy and Gavin’s Christmas present became their Halloween surprise, destined for a lifetime of jack-o’-lantern carving costume parties, birthday cake taking a backseat to sacks full of candy.
While Betsy rested and Remi slept in the NICU, Gavin did the only thing he could think to do: He made a playlist. He started with “I Found a Reason,” from the Velvet Underground, Brian Eno’s “I’ll Come Running,” “Little Fat Baby” by Sparklehorse, Radiohead’s “Sail to the Moon,” Calexico and Iron & Wine’s “History of Lovers,” Bright Eyes’s “First Day of My Life.” When they weren’t snatching moments of sleep between limited, sterilized visits with their child, Betsy kept her headphones on to drown out the hospital noises and mask the sound of her racing pulse in her ears. After a week passed, Remi’s lungs were stronger and things looked less dire, Gavin would slip in a song sung by a female badass, but only terrible ones, as a rallying cry. It made Betsy laugh.
“Thanks to you I have ‘Warrior’ by Scandal stuck in my head,” she said one weary morning, when she was leaving the hospital to go home to shower and he was arriving for the day shift. “I’ve been shooting at the walls of heartache all night.”
Gavin navigated through the sea of insurance paperwork. He made sure Betsy ate a few bites of something. He kept things in order at home, called Betsy’s office to inform them of the latest news and asked for their discretion and patience. He did a scathing and dead-on impersonation of the sternest of the NICU nurses, which made Betsy laugh in a deranged, sleep-deprived way. It was hardest in the middle of the night, usually 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., which was when they weighed their tiny girl to see if she managed to eek out a few more ounces. Betsy’s body was just catching on to the idea that it had given birth, and nursing her was all but impossible. Gavin was her rock.
“I’m your three a.m. guy, right?” he said, forcing a smile. “That’s how this all started, sort of, right? We drove away into the unknown in the middle of the night.”
“And lived happily ever after?” she added, delirious from endorphins. “Sort of?”
“Sort of. I promise.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re still cute when you’re crazy.”
NEARLY FOUR YEARS later, that promise was proving difficult to keep, and their new morning routine, with Betsy struggling at preschool drop-off, was the latest of many issues. Her obsessive, oppressive impulses would override any hope they had of peace, and it would subvert even the easiest of parenting tasks, like packing their daughter’s lunch.
“Gav,” Betsy called from the bathroom, “I sliced up some fruit for Remi’s lunchbox. It’s in the fridge.”
On the second shelf, there were two rows of BPA-free containers with organic apples, diced into tiny shards to prevent choking, pears sliced razor-thin and sprinkled with lemon juice. There were carrots, julienned and blanched (uncooked carrots, another silent killer), pan-fried tofu cubes, a viscous dip made with avocado and honey. Remi sat in her Tripp Trapp chair, licking her pointer finger and pressing it onto her Hello Kitty placemat to pick up the last of her toast crumbs. She was funny, too, and rebellious, like Betsy used to be. At the park, ever since she could walk, she’d spin in wild circles, as fast as she could, until she fell down. Then she’d squeal with laughter, her green eyes sparkling.
“Dizzy, it’s the gateway drug,” Betsy would overhear Gavin say to another father on the bench, shaking his head in mock disgust. “At least she has a designated driver.”
Every once in a while, when Betsy would have a second martini, or order nachos instead of the harvest vegetable plate, or when she’d come back from a long, head-clearing run along the Hudson River, she noticed that the clouds parted for a moment, and she would be embarrassed by how Gavin would look at her anew and smile, as though he recognized a long-lost friend. Then the darkness would close in again.
“I found it,” he said, pulling out a jar of sunflower seed butter to smear on a hunk of baguette, which he then stuffed in a Ziploc, another item of contraband he picked up on late-night runs to the corner market.