The Year We Turned Forty

by Liz Fenton

  Claire held her tongue as Dr. Lee examined Mona, waiting for the spark of clarity in his eye as he pressed his stethoscope to her chest and listened, watching for the furrow of his brow that would indicate that he suspected this was much more than bronchitis. Claire nearly cried with relief when the doctor nonchalantly said he’d like to take some X-rays because Mona had mentioned she’d coughed up some blood, knowing from experience that this was a side effect of the disease. If he hadn’t, Claire had planned to pull him aside and tell him she suspected lung cancer and that he had to order an X ray. She didn’t know what she’d say if he questioned her reasoning—obviously not the truth, that she’d already lived this, that she’d already lost her mom once, that she’d do anything for more time with her. Claire prayed that they’d catch it early enough this time, but the unknown kept her up at night as she tossed and turned, fretting that she was too late again.

  Mona’s death had been long and painful, or at least that was how Claire remembered it, each day feeling as if it were moving in slow motion. Claire had been conflicted toward the end, wanting more time with her mom, but also recognizing how much she was suffering and wanting her pain to be over.

  Their relationship had been complicated since Claire was young, even more so after Emily was born. Claire felt the weight of her mother’s disappointment. A large sigh when Claire had opted to get a real estate license instead of finishing college. Downcast eyes when Emily’s father left. Shaking her head when Emily acted out and Claire seemed unable to calm her. Claire became so used to these subtle gestures that she too saw herself as a failure. It wasn’t until the very end of Mona’s life that Claire and Mona came together, the shadow of death finally removing the layers of guilt and anger that separated them. Afterward, Claire went to her grave once a week and knelt beside Mona’s headstone, sharing stories and asking her for advice, the way she wished she had while she was alive.

  As Claire’s mom changed back into her clothes, a bittersweet smile formed on Claire’s lips. She could say those things this time, while her mom was alive. She had a chance to show her that she was a success, that she was a good mother, that she was a good person. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Mason!” Claire broke the silence as they made the long walk back to the car. Her mother seemed lost in thought, and Claire wondered if a part of her already knew there was something seriously wrong.

  “Tell me about him,” Mona said, seeming genuinely interested.

  The corners of Claire’s lips lifted involuntarily. She’d forgotten how easy things had been with Mason, how intently he listened when she spoke, even if she was just complaining about a client refusing to accept an offer that was only a few thousand under the asking price or dissecting the convoluted storyline on the latest episode of Lost. Or how her stomach did little cartwheels when he woke up and pulled her close to him, planting tender kisses on her neck that she wished would never stop. Claire loved how much he cared about his job as a furniture maker, searching for the perfect wood to create a custom dining room table or shelves for a child’s room. She tried to put Jared out of her mind, tried not to think about how she’d burst into tears when he’d asked her to marry him, not sure if her stomach had butterflies because she was excited or scared or maybe a little bit of both. She was realizing that she wasn’t completely over Mason, her heart opening for him again reflexively.

  She told herself that if she was meant to marry her fiancé, life would lead her back to him, wouldn’t it? If she looked for him now, she’d find him living in Anaheim with his first wife and children, the idea that he’d eventually find love with someone else, let alone marry her, the furthest thing from his mind. The timing would be off if she interrupted his life now and she knew from what had happened to Jessie that if their worlds collided, she could be changing their future together.

  “Just be careful,” Mona said as she dug in her purse, pulling out a piece of gum and popping it into her mouth, snapping it loudly as Claire navigated the morning traffic. “You have a daughter to consider.” Before, Claire would have interpreted Mona’s warning to mean she didn’t think Claire was capable of making good decisions when it came to men. (Which, if she was being totally honest, had always been a little bit true.) Before, Claire’s blood pressure would have risen with each smack of Mona’s gum until she would eventually explode like a firecracker after the fuse had burned down, attacking her mom with a fierceness that would often dissolve as quickly as it came, but still causing damage that took far longer to heal. They always bounced back, but each argument would take its toll, further widening the gap between them.

  Claire understood now that Mona only wanted Claire to be careful. In fact, Claire had said similar things to Emily as she’d gotten older and started dating more seriously, petrified she’d choose a guy like her father, one who’d bail at the first sign of responsibility. But Emily interpreted Claire’s concerns as bullets to dodge, as judgment rather than concern. She’d tried to explain to Emily that she meant well, but she’d responded tightly that there was a fine line between care and criticism before hanging up on her. Claire had looked at the phone and laughed, thinking that Mona must be watching down and smiling now that Claire finally understood the complexities of raising a daughter.

  “I will be careful,” Claire answered quietly, wishing her mom could know she was trying to make better choices this time. She suspected that if they returned to 2015 on her forty-first birthday, any work would be erased like a chalkboard on the last day of school. Going back to her old life was still Claire’s game plan—even though she’d made mistakes along the way, she didn’t want to undo the many great things that came in the years after turning forty, like meeting Jared. She hoped Jessie and Gabriela would feel the same way, although she worried with each passing day that they were getting more attached to this life. Gabriela was closer to becoming a mother and Jessie, despite her run-in with Cathy and Peter, was reveling in having Grant back. But Claire knew a lot could happen in ten months, and she just hoped Blair would agree to let her go back on her own if necessary. And that her friends would understand why she wanted to.

  “How’s the market?” Mona asked a few minutes later. “Are you really going to buy two properties? Aren’t you worried the bubble will burst?” Mona frowned.

  “I think we have a few more years,” Claire said expertly. She’d always loved her job, but when she’d watched so many of her clients get strapped with mortgages they couldn’t afford, with lines of credit they’d regret later, eventually losing their homes and savings, she’d blamed herself and almost left the field altogether.

  Before, she’d always let fear hold her back from investing in the market, her mother’s conservative voice ringing inside her head. But now, with her gift of foresight, and her plans to buy and flip two houses, she had a chance to make enough money to actually be able to afford the Lexus she knew she’d have to purchase soon. She thought of Blair’s warning, that they couldn’t use time travel to make easy money. But she still had to see the right investments, manage any necessary renovations, and be able to sell them—and that all required expertise.

  Claire slowed as she approached her mom and dad’s peach stucco town house, noticing how the roses planted out front were beginning to burst into bloom. “When is your next doctor’s appointment?”

  “Oh, let’s see,” her mom said, fumbling through her purse for the appointment card the nurse had given her. Claire thought how much easier it would be if Mona had a smartphone with a calendar, knowing she’d lose the card and have to call the office, which was precisely why Claire was asking her for the date now. “Next Tuesday. He wants to do a CT scan and some bloodwork. Seems like a lot of rigmarole for a bad cough,” Mona said, but Claire noticed a flicker of concern in her mother’s eyes. Her mom had always put up a tough front, but Claire knew she was hurting, that the pain in her chest was worse than she was letting on.

  “I’ll come with,” Cl
aire said, and laid her hand on her mom’s shoulder, remembering how her life had been divided into two categories after Mona’s diagnosis: before and after. Before, when she’d send her mom’s calls to voice mail. After, when she’d fumble to take her call. When she would have done anything for just another day together. She would have let her smack her gum as loudly as she wanted.

  “You don’t need to. You should be working, right?” She opened the car door. “I’m a tough cookie. I’ll be fine. I love you,” she finished before blowing a kiss and walking toward the house.

  Claire put the car in gear quickly and drove away, tears crashing down her face. Her mom had uttered the same words to her the day she died.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  December 2005

  “I’ve got it,” Gabriela snapped, and Colin threw his hands up and went into his walk-in closet, letting a long exaggerated sigh pass through his lips on the way in.

  Gabriela twisted her right arm over her shoulder and tried with all her energy to reach the zipper on the back of her dress, her pride now refusing to let Colin help, even though she knew it was physically impossible to accomplish without him. She gave up and plunked down on the bed. She had so many fertility drugs coursing through her she felt as if she could fly into a rage or break down in sobs at any given minute. Just yesterday at Target, she’d seen a plaque about motherhood and started bawling, deserting her cart and ducking into a restroom before anyone spotted her.

  In the six months since Colin had agreed to try to make a baby, she’d already undergone one intrauterine insemination and one IVF cycle and neither had resulted in a pregnancy. And despite Gabriela’s fertility doctor’s cautious optimism, that after she adjusted a couple of drugs, her odds of conception would increase, Gabriela was concerned. Time was running out. She knew from the TTC (trying to conceive) message boards she scoured nightly that she was ahead of the curve, that you weren’t supposed to start seeking help until it had been a year of trying naturally, but she didn’t have that kind of time.

  Colin had raised his eyebrow when Gabriela insisted on starting a second round of IVF immediately after the last cycle failed. “Don’t you want to give it some time? You’re putting so much pressure on yourself. Remember, Dr. Larson said stress can actually make it harder to get pregnant.”

  Gabriela squeezed her hands into fists. She knew Colin had tried to deliver his sentence as gently as possible. Even still, she felt that anger start to burn inside of her and she had to shut herself in the bathroom so she wouldn’t lash out at him. Gabriela hadn’t been prepared for the snowball effect of devastation that happened after she had to tell everyone there was still no baby. With each phone call to her father and her mother-in-law, the sad words exchanged as she delivered the news to her friends, the pain inside her grew larger and larger.

  Ten days after the only viable embryo created had been implanted in Gabriela, she’d rushed to the drugstore and bought several boxes of pregnancy tests, her hands shaking so much as she hovered over the first stick that she’d peed all over it. Dr. Larson had narrowed her blue eyes and cautioned her to wait until the blood test to get the most accurate results. The store-bought test had been negative and so had the three she’d taken after that, but still, she’d felt hopeful as she waited for the nurse’s call, sure she could feel something different was happening inside of her. When her phone rang, she answered breathlessly, only to be told by Jan, a nurse she’d come to know fairly well after countless office visits for everything from blood work to ultrasounds, that she wasn’t pregnant. Gabriela cried for hours, because it hadn’t worked, because Jan didn’t seem sympathetic, because of so many things, until the tears finally dried up and she felt numb. Colin tried to find the right words, but nothing he could say would change things. He didn’t understand, he had no idea what she was feeling. The fear, the loss, the failure.

  “Are you sure you’re okay going tonight? Maybe you can tell Sheila you aren’t feeling well? She’ll understand,” Colin said, emerging from his closet as he buttoned his blue dress shirt.

  Gabriela shook her head. “I can’t do that to her. She’s already been incredibly patient considering I haven’t sent her the pages I’ve been working on. I know she’s nervous that I’m not going to deliver my manuscript on time.” Gabriela thought about her last call with her editor, how Sheila had taken a long pause when she’d told her she missed her deadline because she’d been trying to conceive, no doubt shocked by Gabriela’s change of heart, remembering the many times Gabriela had told her she was never having children for this very reason—they made life more complicated, and suddenly things like book deadlines seemed less important than your ovulation.

  Colin’s eyes asked the question he wouldn’t. Well, are you going to meet your deadline? She didn’t know the answer.

  And it didn’t help that she’d stopped doing the one thing that would help her when she had writer’s block—running. Her once taut body had slowly become softer. Some of the women on the message boards had convinced her that yoga was a better option, so she’d purchased a mat and carried it down the street to the serene-looking studio and tried to blend in with the lithe women who were twisting themselves into pretzels while taking deep breaths and thinking about their intention. But all she could focus on was that time was slipping through her fingers. The instructor had walked over and repositioned Gabriela’s shoulders, whispering for her to loosen up. Gabriela smiled tightly and wondered, as she bent herself into a downward dog, if she had just given up her entire life to travel back ten years, only to fail at producing a book or a baby.

  “I’m sorry I bit your head off earlier,” Gabriela said, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s the damn drugs. I feel like a crazy person!”

  “I know, I understand,” Colin said carefully, searching Gabriela’s eyes before he continued. “But are you sure—”

  “Yes, I’m sure I want to move forward with the egg retrieval on Saturday,” Gabriela said, turning her back toward him so he could zip her up. “I have fourteen follicles this time, twice as many as last. So the chance of getting more eggs is considerable. Plus I’ve been doing the acupuncture and I’ve eliminated gluten and dairy.” She smiled, thankful she had insight from her previous life to help her, but also scared that it wouldn’t make a difference. That’s how it was now. It was like she was standing in the middle of an emotional scale, able to tip it in either direction at any moment, the only problem being she couldn’t control it, or anything else for that matter—her body betraying her in a way she never thought possible.

  Colin didn’t answer, just kissed her on the forehead and started looping his black leather belt through his pants. She knew he was worried, that he was doing a lot of reading of his own. She’d found his laptop open recently to an article about how infertility could destroy a marriage. Her almost manic desire to conceive frightened Gabriela when she let herself go there, because Colin had been content without a baby, and their marriage had been fine without one, so now by trying to get pregnant, she could be putting their relationship at risk. But Gabriela wouldn’t let that happen to them. She refused to accept that they could end up without a baby and more fragile than ever.

  • • •

  As Colin knotted his tie, he thought about how hard it had always been to say no to Gabriela. He knew the word wouldn’t come easy from the first day he met her on that rainy street corner in London and she’d insisted on trying traditional English Yorkshire pudding, which Colin knew she would find tasteless because most people did—even him. But something about her left dimple, the curve of her mouth, made him acquiesce and then suppress a smile when the bowl of puffy batter was set before her. He’d watched as she scooped up a runny bite, her nose scrunching up just slightly as she swallowed. But she finished the bowl, never admitting she didn’t like it. He spent the day listening to her stories—how she’d convinced a notoriously strict professor to let her take another shot at her midterm after she’d slept through
her alarm; how she talked her way out of a speeding ticket when she’d been going fifteen miles over the limit—and soon realized that not only did she not take no for an answer, from anyone, she also didn’t enjoy being wrong.

  So when she came to him out of the blue to ask for a baby—a baby, he still couldn’t believe it!—saying no was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. Even though he hadn’t actually spoken the word, his silence had. What he couldn’t explain to her was how deeply she’d hurt him when she wouldn’t change her mind. Yes, she’d been clear from the beginning that she didn’t want children. And as a lawyer, even he couldn’t argue with that. It was like they’d had a gentleman’s agreement. He loved Gabs so much more than the child he didn’t have, but still, it had taken him years to get right with it inside. To stop the knots from twisting in his stomach when he saw other dads with little girls riding on their shoulders or tossing a football with their sons.

  He’d dulled the ache of not having his own kids by taking Madison and Morgan swimming or Emily to the park. But it wasn’t the same. They weren’t his. And that’s what he’d tried to tell his mom when she’d brought it up recently. But she’d put her finger to her lips and asked him to open his heart and listen. And because his mom had never been this bold with him before, simply arching an eyebrow his way when Gabriela repeated she wasn’t ready, he found himself agreeing. But he’d still been unsure. Worried Gabriela might change her mind again. It had never occurred to him that she’d become this laser focused, almost manic. The websites he’d been reading were helpful in assuring him they had a problem—gee, thanks—but didn’t tell him how to fix it. He was the type of guy who liked his routines, who liked to keep things simple. He’d worn the same brand of running shoes since college, he liked to eat at the same Thai restaurant every weekend. But there was nothing simple about this.