by Taylor Hobbs
Of course, Jack had found her. All he was waiting for was a little crumb of information, enough for his detectives or whoever he hired to get started on the trail. He couldn’t be here for money or hope that they could reconcile. It was over. Their divorce had gone through; Remy’s lawyers had informed her of that. It had been a simple split—Remy had let Jack keep almost everything.
An image came to mind—Jack’s rumpled hair as he gallantly brought her breakfast in bed. But his face—it took more than a moment to remember his smile. Remy jolted in surprise when she realized it had been weeks since she tried to picture his face. How could she forget someone she saw every day for fifteen years? It frightened her how quickly something that meant the world to her could disappear.
But now that his deep green eyes burned their way back into the forefront of her mind, Remy couldn’t focus on anything else. She missed him like a punch to the gut, almost doubling her over as she left the market. The temptation urged her to give in.
Just one more night. Just one more time. He would be a familiar and comforting presence in the upheaval of her new start. Remy realized just then how bone tired she was from being stretched outside of her comfort zone for so long. It was terrifying trying to get her feet underneath her, but she hadn’t let herself realize it until now. She wanted, no, needed his arms around her, to hug her and let her be something less than strong and independent for just a few moments.
All that awaited her back at the village was another long, hot afternoon of clearing out rubble from inside the ruins of the bakery, and she simply couldn’t face it today. Picking up her pace, Remy put her groceries on her moped and roared off in search of a man who would stick out like a sore thumb in her town.
He wasn’t hard to find. Remy found him arguing with a food-cart vendor and gesturing wildly. The vendor pretended not to understand Jack and turned his back to him. As Remy parked, she saw Jack approach a pair of old ladies, obviously asking an urgent question. They just shook their heads at him.
Remy felt touched by everyone’s protectiveness, even if it wasn’t necessary. There wasn’t a soul in Ortigueira who would give Jack directions to Remy’s village. Maybe she was doing better here than she thought. Feeling stronger than she had a few minutes ago, Remy approached.
“Jack.”
He whirled around, sweat dripping from his brow and staining his too-tight collar. His eyes were wild, but clear. He hasn’t been drinking. Good.
“Remy!” Jack moved forward as if to hug her, but Remy took a step back.
One of the old women, a widow who still dressed in black in memory of a husband decades dead, reached out and touched Remy’s arm in concern. “¿Bien?” she asked. Are you okay? The widow looked like she wanted to take Remy with her as she continued her walk past the church, but Remy nodded that she would be fine. Unable to convey further concerns, the widow gave Jack one last glare as a warning and hobbled away with her friend.
“I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I had to come all the way here to apologize for everything. All those phone calls, harassing you…It wasn’t me. You know that isn’t me. I’ve just been so lost without you and—”
An audience had quickly gathered around the couple, and none of their expressions were friendly toward Jack. Remy held up a hand. “Let’s go someplace private and talk, okay?”
“I see you’ve made loyal friends here.” Jack chuckled nervously and unbuttoned his suit.
“And you heard I bought a village. From Anita, I’m assuming.” Remy led him over to her parked moped.
“At first, I thought she was making it up to cover for you, but that was the same story I heard over and over from everyone. A village. Wow.”
He actually sounds impressed. In a sudden burst of pride and generosity, Remy asked, “Do you want to see it?” After all, he’s come a long way…
“You want to show it to me? Because according to everyone I talked to in Ortigueira, this mystery village doesn’t even exist.”
Remy straddled her baby blue moped. “Hop on the back, and hold tight.” Jack opened his mouth to protest at the indignity, but apparently thought better of it and snapped his jaw shut.
Weaving up the narrow roads, Remy could hardly keep her attention on what was in front of her. With the familiar strength of Jack’s arms hugged tight behind her, his scent, his heat, and the feel of his heartbeat was enough to send her into a trance. This was her safe place for so many years.
However, the moment she entered her village, she snapped out of it. When she crossed over the property line, flashes of the last year of their marriage broke the spell, and she almost lost control of the handlebars. The moped skidded to a stop, and Remy flung herself off it. Disgust with herself and her behavior welled up, and she couldn’t look at Jack.
Selfish, selfish, selfish, a voice in her mind taunted. What was I thinking, bringing Jack here? The village was her sacred space. He didn’t fit here. He was a reminder of everything she wanted to forget. Well, maybe not forget. I don’t deserve to forget. But at least move on from. And she would never move on if Jack kept showing up in her life.
“Why did you come here?”
Jack raised his eyebrows at her abrupt attitude change. “I came to convince you to come back to New York.”
That wasn’t what Remy was expecting. “Why?” she asked, bewildered.
“I know that our marriage is over, Remy. But at least when you lived in the city, there was still the chance we would run into each other. I could see you at auctions. We could talk sometimes. I know it was hard, but it was better than nothing. The possibility of seeing you got me out of bed each day.”
“Jack, you know that isn’t healthy—”
“Yes, I’ve lost my wife,” he said, tears gathering in his eyes. “But no one ever talks about how you also lose your best friend at the same time. I know you’re going to say it’s a bad idea, but do you think we could get to that point, one day? Friends? I need you in my life. And I would hate to think you ran away from your old life back in New York because of me. You deserve to be there, too. It is just too hard to go through this without each other, Remy.”
The anguish in Jack’s voice twisted her heart, but what he said only solidified her reasoning behind moving to Spain. Jack deserved better. He didn’t know that she had betrayed his trust as a wife and a friend, and telling him now would only destroy him further.
Maybe if Remy had stayed in Louisiana, having a baby would have been easy. After all, it was never something that people planned for; it always just happened to girls when they hit their teen years. There was something in the water that led to kids having kids in her backwater town. Accidents were embraced as “God’s plan,” weddings were thrown together at the last minute, and one by one they all dropped out of high school.
But not Remy. By the time everyone else was on their third or fourth child, Remy was living the starving artist’s life in the big city. Even though she was surviving on ramen and hope, she still pitied everyone who never made it out like she did. But maybe leaving had been the cost of having a healthy baby.
It was hard to think about all the things she had done right in life when her empty arms ached to hold the little ones that she lost. Why were babies a natural course in life for some, while for others it was like climbing a mountain? Each inch of ascent a herculean effort, only to fall before the summit?
Doctors blamed it on a number of factors. Remy just blamed herself. For waiting too long, for assuming she could have it all, for letting the baby fever consume her and her marriage. She hated herself for hurting Jack each time she bled, for failing those little innocent beings that her body created and then killed.
When they finally started trying for a baby five years into their marriage, Remy and Jack were pretty smug that they conceived during the first month. They had a loving marriage, a stable home, and more money than they knew what to do with. Obviously, a baby was the logical next step.
Glowing with pride, Remy had let Jack anno
unce the good news to their closest friends. It never occurred to her that something could go wrong, until it did.
“It’s just a fluke,” a doctor told them. “One in three pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. Most women go on to have a successful pregnancy right after. There was nothing you did wrong. You’re still young enough, and you have time.”
Trying to conceive after a miscarriage was a special kind of hell. It seemed like everywhere Remy looked, she saw pregnant women and children. Her first pregnancy had awoken something in her that would not be quieted until she brought her own child into this world. The hopes and dreams that had appeared when she first got pregnant had nowhere to go once the baby was gone.
Sex became a chore as they tried each month with no success. One year later, Remy came out of the bathroom waving a stick with two pink lines. This was it, she was sure of it. There was no way she would lose two babies in a row.
But she did. And then a third right after, and a fourth another six months later. At that point Jack called for a time out. At the time, Remy had resented him, but they both needed a break to heal. Remy’s art was suffering, and Jack didn’t recognize himself in the mirror anymore. Who are these people? they asked each other. These once-vibrant adventurers determined to take on the world?
For Remy’s thirty-fourth birthday present, Jack gifted her a round of IVF as a last-ditch effort. “This is the last time, Remy,” he said, as they arrived at the clinic. “I can’t do it anymore. After this, I’m done. I have you. That’s all I need in this life to be happy.” The emotional toll of four losses in a row was something that neither of them were willing to go through again, but IVF was the glimmer of hope they needed. Remy was eager to agree to any of Jack’s terms if it meant they got to try one more time.
Even in the face of all past evidence to the contrary, Remy convinced herself that this time it would work. She didn’t feel the pain of the needles, the invasive exams, or the roller coaster of hormones the doctors put her on. Jack, however, kept reminding his wife that nothing was guaranteed, and that they needed to be okay with whatever the outcome was.
It didn’t take.
With that negative test result, a strange sense of peace came over Remy. It was a relief not to obsess anymore and decide that their nightmare was over. They had reached the end of the line, and for that, Remy grateful. She was just so tired of hurting.
“It kills me that I can’t give you what you want,” Jack told her. “But I think we need to close this chapter and move on.” Remy wholeheartedly agreed with him, and they were able to get their relationship back on track. The experience left them a little older, a lot wiser, and with deep lines in their skin.
But Remy was proud of the marks left on her body. It proved that she had been through an ordeal and made it out stronger than she was before. Scars and stretch marks proved that her babies had existed, and nothing could ever take that evidence away. She told herself she was still a mother and hid the hurt every Mother’s Day when Jack never thought to get her a card.
Therapy helped make her whole again. However, the year of progress she made disappeared in an instant when she got a phone call from Anita. It yanked her off the path to wellness and sent her into the worst spiral of her life.
“I did a stupid thing. Nobody else can know. Please, Remy, I need your help.”
It took all of Remy’s willpower not to simultaneously laugh and sob into the phone. Did the universe really hate her that much? Just give the baby to me. She bit her tongue bloody to keep from saying the words. What kind of a person would say that to their best friend? That would ask them to go through the trauma of pregnancy, birth, and giving up a child?
Anita had been there for Remy through every pregnancy loss, though she was staunchly child-free in her beliefs. Remy had leaned on Anita for years, and all Anita asked was for her to be in the waiting room. One afternoon while Anita undid a mistake that would have affected her whole life. Anita’s baby was not Remy’s baby. Remy could get through a few short hours. She just had to keep reminding herself that before she could go home and numb the pain with a bottle of vodka.
Before Anita was led into the patient room, she gave Remy a tearful hug and said, “I wish we could switch bodies.” Remy squeezed her tightly, and rage seared through her. It wasn’t rational to be angry with Anita, but the hate and resentment consumed her for a split second. And so she let out the words that she had sworn to her nana never to say. “I wish I could have a baby. I’d give anything for it…”
Anita pulled away and gave Remy a guilt-ridden look. Remy stared back, horrified, though for a different reason. Once the words had escaped her mouth, there was no going back. I wish…
The entire time Remy dealt with infertility, she had resisted making a wish for herself. There was always a cost to the words, and she could never control the consequences. She couldn’t put others in her life at risk, and nothing, not even a healthy child, would be worth the cost of a lifetime of guilt. Jameson’s fate still haunted her.
As she sat alone in the clinic waiting room while Anita went through with her procedure, satisfaction crept over Remy. Why shouldn’t she wish for something good for herself? What was wrong with wanting something so basic and instinctual? Why did she have to be the morality police and decide what was worth the consequences and what wasn’t?
She had exhausted all her other options already. Jack’s drug arrests in his early twenties hadn’t seemed like such a big deal until the adoption talks started and then immediately stopped. Remy had paid her dues. It wasn’t her fault there was no other way for her to have the family she so desperately wanted.
She went home and seduced Jack that very night. He had no idea what she had wished for, that she was ovulating, or what he had unknowingly consented to. Remy pulled him into her twisted plan without warning, though he had made it perfectly clear that he could not handle another loss.
But it won’t be a loss this time, she told herself as an excuse. Jack would be so happy when it all worked out. He wouldn’t consider the fact that his wife had used his body to trap him into another pregnancy. The end would justify the means.
For the first three months, Remy was a ghost. She could hardly look Jack in the eye, fearing she would reveal her secret. She couldn’t tell anybody until she knew that the baby would stick. So she hid. Citing a new project as the reason for her absence, Remy painted with a bucket right beside her to throw up in when morning sickness gripped her.
Anita assumed Remy was avoiding her because of the abortion. Jack thought his wife was going through another bout of depression and urged her to open up to her therapist. Remy just locked the door to her studio and painted canvas after canvas as a distraction.
That series of paintings were not the hopeful, vibrant paintings one would expect from a woman creating the miracle of life. They were dark—more disturbing than any collection Remy had created before. Nothing happy would flow from her brush, but she couldn’t paint anything else. Her mind’s eye controlled her hands, and she was left at the mercy of her subconscious.
It all became clear to Remy at her twenty-week appointment. Her baby—a boy, as she would later find out—had a heart condition incompatible with life. Doctors told her that if she carried to term, her child would survive a few days at most outside of her womb.
“But I said it!” she wailed, eyes glued to the ultrasound screen. “I wished for it! I said the words! I should have a baby—” She shook uncontrollably, threw up all over herself, and then blacked out.
He would have had your nose, Remy wanted to tell Jack, as they stood in the village square. They showed me his profile on the ultrasound. He would have looked just like you. But Jack would never know of their son’s existence. The single baby that could have been born if Remy had allowed it. To protect both her boys’ suffering, Remy shouldered the burden. She cleared her throat and looked away.
“So, how long are you staying in town?” she asked.
“Until you agree to come
back to the States with me,” Jack said, brushing the tears from his face and pretending they never happened. He had poured his heart out to his ex-wife, and all Remy had given him back was a polite question. They both felt the awkwardness between them, a distance that couldn’t be closed.
“Jack, I’m building a life here. I’m not going back. Honestly, I think it would be better for both of us if you left sooner rather than later.”
“You bought a village,” he said, getting angrier. “And you live here alone. Nobody needs that much space. It’s just you, surrounded by houses that are falling down. You need to be in a place that’s living! This is the past. Everyone else has moved on from here, and for good reason. I can’t stand the thought of you being here by yourself. It’s dangerous and stupid, Remy. Come back to the real world.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Remy said stiffly, feeling protective of her village as it was assaulted by Jack’s insults. “But I’m getting by here just fine. Plus, I won’t be here alone forever.”
“Are you telling me there is someone else?” Jack’s voice was deadly calm.
“Don’t be dramatic. No. I’m restoring it for…” she hesitated, not wanting to reveal her long-term plan. “I’m exactly where I need to be right now. The rest is really none of your business. I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“You’re right, you don’t. But you’re going to have to start explaining yourself at some point, because sooner or later everyone in your life is going to get pretty fed up with the response that you just get to do whatever you want, whenever you want. We aren’t asking for much, simply to be let in instead of locked out of your life.”
“I’m staying here.”
“Fine. Then I’ll be staying at the hotel in town.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“I won’t be seeing you around,” Remy warned. “This isn’t healthy for either of us. Please reconsider and go back home. Don’t come up here again.”
