“I could cry,” she said.
But I couldn’t. If I’d let a single tear drop down my cheek, I would have dissolved like the woman in the Bible who turns to salt. I concentrated on my hands. My smile. My ballerina mask while he told her about our small church wedding, how there were only a few people there, adding, “She said she was happy it was empty because it left room for the angels.”
Another private moment. Something I had said while I was under. On our wedding night. Why would he give that little moment away? I felt it cost me something. Just a penny or so, but… something.
“Is he romantic?” she asked me.
I giggled and nodded. “He’s romantic.”
“I’m thinkin’,” Oprah mugged, “if he ain’t romantic, who is?”
“He’s—he’s very romantic.”
“Like… romantic how?” she nudged. “Like, rose petals in the bed and…?”
He smiled a teasing smile and started to raise his hand to my face the way he always did when he hypnotized me. I gracefully but firmly took hold of his wrist and brought his forearm down to my lap.
Not that. I was not giving that away for a penny. Not today.
We were here to do business. Fine. Keep it about the business. I laughed lightly and said, “For me, the most romantic thing he’s done is write all these beautiful songs for me.”
“Mm-hmm?” She raised her eyebrows, pleased that I was finally saying something. And maybe there was something I wanted to say. Maybe this was the moment to stop choking it down. Honestly, the whole thing is a foggy mess in my mind now, but maybe I wanted to offer him that opportunity without kicking through his need to control the information.
“You know,” I said, “‘Let’s Have a Baby’—because of that—I mean… I got pregnant.”
He smiled a tight smile, his lips clamped shut.
After the interview, I left them at Paisley Park to do B-roll or whatever they were going to do. I didn’t want to hear about it and never watched the show until much later. During part of it, he’s wearing that “Holy River” bolero he wore at our wedding. He wore it for me, I understood later on, but at the time, I didn’t notice.
I went home, took Amiir’s ashes from the shelf, and crawled back into bed. I cried until I slept and slept until I woke up crying. I remember staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. I didn’t recognize my own skin. My eyes were the empty eyes of a plastic doll. In my hand was the bottle of Vicodin. I filled a glass with wine and tapped the pills into the palm of my hand. First one. Then three. Then the whole bottle. I studied them, planning how to swallow them all without the bitter taste making me vomit. I decided to move to the bedroom. I didn’t know how long it would take. Better to lie down and not be found on the bathroom floor. I sat on the edge of the bed and raised my hand to my mouth.
And suddenly Mia was there, pawing my bare leg, scratching me with her blunted claws.
“Go away,” I whispered.
She yipped and spun in circles. She knew she wasn’t allowed on the bed, but she wouldn’t leave. She kept scratching at my knees and ankles.
“Mia. No!”
She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Dancing with urgency, demanding to be noticed, she kept throwing herself on her back like she wanted me to pat her belly and pick her up. She insisted that I receive this love she was determined to give me. She pawed and licked and rubbed her face against me until I put the pills back in the bottle and sank down on the floor and held her, shaking like a leaf. She licked the tears streaming down my face and badgered me with affection until I was laughing and crying at the same time.
When people ask me where my passion for animal rescue came from, I can trace it directly to this moment. Mia saved my life. If Mia hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been there the next day or the day after that. Or months later, when I finally started to feel like myself again. Or years later, when Gia finally found me.
Amiir’s gift to me was motherhood. He taught me what a privilege it is to love someone more than you love yourself. He showed me that I was capable of sacrificing my own heart to protect my child. Amiir made a mommy of me.