by Liz Fenton
And now, as he watched Gabriela slipping into her heels, he wondered what his yes was costing them. The seemingly endless fertility treatments were taking over their marriage, taking over Gabriela’s work. When they did talk about another subject—a rarity—he could tell by the vacant look in her eyes that she was barely listening. Somewhere, in the corner of her mind, she was tracking her ovulation or thinking about the size of her follicles. He didn’t recognize his wife anymore. She used to be a spark plug. Up without an alarm clock, writing a thousand words before the sun rose. Now she slept all the time and he could tell by the dust collecting on her laptop that she wasn’t writing. And by the clean soles of her Nikes that she wasn’t running. Her desire for a baby had trumped her want for anything else—even him. Their sex life was practically nonexistent. The last time was over a month ago and he could tell she wasn’t into it. She’d been sleeping in the guest room most nights, claiming she was up late writing. But he knew that was a lie. He could tell she just didn’t want to be near him. That he reminded her of what they weren’t creating.
He wondered how much more of this he could take, how much more they could handle. Gabriela was the most competitive person he’d ever known—once holding up a game of Scrabble for twenty minutes, challenging the couple they were playing on their use of the word quo, and ultimately winning because she was able to convince them it was not a word used on its own, only as part of a phrase, and therefore not allowed. The lawyer in him had beamed with pride at her unwillingness to back down, finally Googling the answer to make her case. But now, this need to win was bordering on recklessness, and that scared him. What if they couldn’t get pregnant? What would that do to her? The woman he loved more than anything in this world, the woman he knew he was going to marry from the first moment he met her, was slipping from his grip right in front of him, and there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it.
• • •
“Gabriela, over here.” Jessie waved at Gabriela and Colin through the crowd and they made their way to where she, Grant, Claire, and Mason were standing near a display showcasing several copies of Gabriela’s third book, Back to You, which had recently been released. Gabriela felt a wave of gratitude that her friends had all come to support her tonight, at a holiday party a popular independent bookstore was throwing for Gabriela and a few other local authors who wrote books in the same genre. It was Sheila who’d convinced the owner of the store to include Gabriela in the event even though she’d failed to show up to a signing at the store two months prior. It had been the day after she found out she wasn’t pregnant and she couldn’t pull herself out of bed, Colin pleading with her to try, Gabriela looking up at him with bloodshot eyes begging him to please leave her alone.
“Sorry we’re late,” Gabriela said, giving Jessie a look that she understood instantly. Jessie had been fielding calls from Gabriela at all hours, Gabriela wanting her advice on what she could do to calm her hormones. Jessie asked Gabriela if she thought she was an expert because she’d been a beast during her pregnancy with Lucas. Gabriela offered only a hmm in response. Jessie had hung up wondering if she had been wrong not to tell Gabriela the truth about Lucas, that as Gabriela shared the rawest parts of herself, that Jessie should too. But after seeing Gabriela’s emotions rise and fall like a roller coaster, she convinced herself that now was definitely not the right time to confide in her.
“Don’t even worry about it. We just got here ourselves,” Jessie said, pulling Gabriela toward her and Claire. “Sorry, girl talk for a minute,” she said to Colin, Mason, and Grant, who shrugged, already engaged in their own conversation about some basketball player who was out for the rest of the season. “I got so lost trying to find this place. Grant just stared at me and asked why I hadn’t printed the directions off the computer. I wanted to say I haven’t done that in like ten years! I know it’s already been six months, but I’m not sure I will ever get used to not having my apps. I miss my smartphone—it was so much smarter than me!”
“It sucks, doesn’t it? Having to rely on ourselves again makes me realize how stupid technology makes us!” Claire said and laughed, thinking about how her daughter barely looked up from her portable video game, knowing full well what would happen when the iPhone hit the market. “But even so, I really miss Facebook. Now I have to actually call people to find out what’s going on with them!”
“I miss my Yelp app the most,” Jessie countered. “I can never decide where to eat!”
“Right now, if we said app, that waitress would offer us pigs in blankets or a shrimp skewer!” Gabriela said, and rolled her eyes. “This is so fucking weird, isn’t it? In a few minutes, I have to go up there and talk about a novel I wrote over a decade ago. I had to reread it just to remember everything so I’m ready for the Q and A with the audience. I really wish I’d had Goodreads earlier, so I could’ve cheated and gotten some awesome reader’s synopsis of the whole story!”
“I’ve almost called Mason Jared so many times lately and I’m terrified he’s going to accuse me of having an affair!” Claire whispered, then caught Jessie’s eye, instantly regretting her choice of words. She knew Jessie was finally feeling better about running into Peter and his wife. She’d been worried for months that she’d be getting a phone call from Cathy, demanding to know why Jessie’s son looked so much like her own. But Claire had assured her that wasn’t going to happen, even though Claire wasn’t entirely convinced herself.
“Well, I never thought I’d say this, but I have to admit a lot of good has come out of this for me. Things I didn’t expect,” Claire said as she plucked a puff pastry off a passing waiter’s tray.
“Like with your mom?” Jessie asked. Claire nodded. Since Mona’s diagnosis, there had been many tears shed, but there was also hope. They’d caught the cancer an entire six months earlier, and Mona’s doctor seemed much more optimistic than he had last time. But Claire was still scared to get too attached, to have to go through losing her mom all over again, so she didn’t let herself read too much into it. Instead she was focused on making the most of their time together. Claire had started joining her in the garden, letting some overzealous but gorgeous Lowe’s employee named Jake, with dimples for days, help her spend a fortune in the gardening department. The money had been worth it when Claire surprised her mom. She’d told her the story of the hunky employee as she’d emptied the contents of her shopping bag where Mona was kneeling by her rosebushes, and then retrieved her final purchase from the back of her car, Mona roaring with laughter as Claire pushed it into the backyard.
“You actually bought a wheelbarrow? Even I don’t have one of those!” She’d put her hands on her hips as she studied its cherry red finish. “That, combined with these knee pads, will at least give me a good chuckle as we work side by side back here.”
Claire couldn’t help but laugh at herself as she looked at the pads adorned with a ladybug print that hadn’t seemed so ridiculous when she was in the store.
“The sales guy must have been even cuter than you said!”
Claire smiled at the memory—she couldn’t remember the last time they had been that happy together.
“What about you, Gabs? Are you still glad you came back?” Jessie asked tentatively, already knowing part of the answer—that trying to get pregnant had been tearing her apart.
“Things aren’t going exactly the way I thought they would. But we still have plenty of time.” She looked at her watch as she said it, as if it held the answers to when a baby would form in her belly. “It’s all going to work out.”
“It will.” Claire grabbed her hand and squeezed it, trying not to think about how she hadn’t been completely honest with her friends, that there was no way she was staying here, in this life, that once she did what she needed to do she was determined to return. “Just stay positive. We’ll get through this together,” Claire said, and smiled before walking over and draping her arm around Mason’s shoulders.
Gabriela found herself wondering what i
t must be like for Claire, to be with Mason after two years of no contact with him. Gabriela had always liked Mason and was bothered when Claire let him walk away. She’d always questioned why Claire had let Emily come between them, when it was clear he was good for both of them. But she already felt so bonded to the idea of a baby that she knew she could imagine what being a mother actually felt like. She smiled as she watched Mason kiss Claire lightly on the lips, hoping it would work out for them, and for her.
It had been a long time since she’d been with anyone but Colin, but there were so few boyfriends before him, they were easy to remember. There had been Tim in high school, with burnt orange hair and freckles, fluent in French and a water polo player. And then there was Murphy, a stocky frat boy studying engineering whom she dated on and off for her freshman and sophomore years of college. And then she’d met Sam, a quiet chemistry major who used to take her to English pubs that served authentic fish-and-chips and was probably the reason she ultimately wanted to travel abroad, where she would meet Colin. The boyfriends before him had all tried so hard to get to know Gabriela. But after her mom died it was as if the elevator door closed and she was trapped inside. She would go through the motions of being the girlfriend, but struggled to understand the things her friends talked about, the way they’d feel a kiss down to their toes or how their stomachs would flip when their boyfriend would walk into a room. So she’d always been careful to end things just when she could see the change in their eyes, when they started looking at her differently, as if they were beginning to fall for her.
The crackle from the microphone jarred Gabriela out of her thoughts. She heard the owner of the bookstore make an announcement to welcome her and the other authors and guests. As Colin’s warm hand wrapped around hers, she couldn’t imagine any of those boyfriends standing next to her now, couldn’t picture herself with anyone else but the man with the British accent and the raunchy sense of humor who had pried those elevator doors open and taught her to love. She began to walk up to the podium, hoping she wouldn’t make a mistake when answering questions about her novel, not wanting to disappoint her loyal readers, who were the reason she loved writing so much. It was their support, more than anything else, that drove her to keep creating stories all these years. She turned around and smiled at Colin, who was clapping along with the rest of the crowd, and found herself wishing that her love for him would be strong enough to outweigh everything else, especially if she failed to get pregnant again and it was just going to be the two of them for the rest of their lives.
• • •
“Did you have fun tonight?” Jessie asked Grant as she pulled her sweater over her head.
“I did,” he said simply as he got into bed. “I’m just tired.”
“So I noticed.” Jessie thought about how she had to nudge him during Gabriela’s talk, his eyelids drooping.
“I’m sorry. The library remodel is killing me.” He laid his head on the pillow and reached for the remote control. Jessie walked over and put her hand over his. “What?” he asked. “You don’t want to watch TV?”
“I want to finish talking to you.” Before, she would have silently steamed as he cut her off to turn on sports highlights, only to fall asleep minutes later, still gripping the remote. She would have let him off the hook, and given herself license to feel like a victim. But she understood that by letting him do that, she was just as much at fault. She crawled into bed, laying her head on her pillow and turning toward him. “I get that your job is stressful. And I’m thankful your business is thriving.” She tried to find the right words. “But sometimes, it feels like you aren’t really participating in your own life. In my life,” she corrected. “Tonight was important to me, to someone I love, and you fell asleep during her talk.”
“I’m so exhausted, Jess,” he said warily. “Look, I’m sorry I dozed off. But I think Gabriela will get over it.”
“She will. But this isn’t about her. It’s about us.”
His head shot up. “What do you mean?”
Jessie held her breath before responding. “Don’t you ever worry that we could grow apart? If things don’t change?”
“What do you mean? Are you unhappy?”
Jessie thought about his question. The truth was that she was happier now than she had been in ten years, years she’d wasted bemoaning the loss of Grant. But as much as Jessie was thrilled to have him back again, their problems hadn’t magically disappeared.
“I’m not unhappy,” Jessie started. “But we hardly see each other, and when we do, you can barely keep your eyes open. We need to remember to take care of our relationship and ourselves just like we do the kids.” Jessie looked down as she said the last part, thinking about how she’d stopped nurturing her love for Grant before, focused on the girls and not much else. “One day, they’ll all be gone and it will just be us. I want to make sure we still like each other when that happens,” she added, and prayed she’d still be with Grant when the twins left for college, instead of having to go back and forth via email about their tuitions and logistics, to stand next to Grant and Janet as they waved good-bye to the girls in the driveway of the home she used to share with him.
“What, are you saying you don’t like me?” Grant asked teasingly, but there were shards of worry in the back of his eyes.
“No, silly. But life is busy, and is only going to get busier. I just want to make sure we don’t lose each other along the way.”
“Come here,” he said, and pulled her face to his. “I’m sorry about tonight. I’m going to try harder, okay?” He placed a soft kiss on her lips. “And for the record, I still like you.” He smiled.
Jessie kissed him deeply, sealing their connection. “Let me show you how much I like you too,” she whispered before reaching her hands underneath the sheets that separated them. She hoped that even if the truth eventually came out again, they’d have a stronger foundation—one that would keep them together.
Jessie stayed awake long after Grant’s heavy breathing had turned into a light snore. She heard Lucas gurgle on the baby monitor and smiled, scooting herself into the crook of Grant’s strong arm, nudging him until he opened up to embrace her, the warmth of his body enveloping hers. Because now that she had the life that she wanted, she’d do just about anything to make sure it never slipped away from her again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
Claire pressed the damp washcloth lightly against Mona’s forehead, avoiding her cheeks that had sunken from her weight loss. Mona had her good days, but she also had her bad ones, usually directly following the chemotherapy treatments, which were destroying not just the cancer cells but also her appetite.
“No?” Claire said, motioning toward the carne asada burrito with guacamole and cheese seeping out of it, resting on the plate in her lap. Claire had sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for over an hour to get it, because Mona had a craving, one that Claire had been desperate to fulfill. But when she offered it to her mom, Mona had made a face like she’d smelled something sour.
“I can’t.” Mona turned her head and Claire placed the plate on top of Mona’s dresser where Shaggy tried unsuccessfully to jump up and retrieve it.
“At least someone wants it,” Claire joked as she watched the dog, but Mona didn’t smile.
Claire grabbed her mom’s hand. “Does anything sound good? I’ll drive to San Francisco if that’s what it takes.”
Mona shook her head. “Sleep. Sleep sounds good.”
“Okay,” Claire said, watching as her mom drifted off and pulling the comforter up around her.
Later, Claire and her father sat in the kitchen, the plate with the uneaten burrito resting on the table between them. They’d absentmindedly picked at it with their forks, both of them refusing to discuss how Mona’s body was quitting on her.
Since the diagnosis, Claire had been a permanent fixture at her parents’ house, her and Emily regularly sleeping side by side on a sofa bed in the guest room, Mason coming by occa
sionally to take Claire to dinner, but always returning her to her mother’s doorstep as if she were sixteen. Each time he kissed her good-bye, she could see him strain to see past her through the slightly ajar front door, knowing he wanted to come inside and have a beer with her dad or say hi to Emily. But things were different this time. Even though there was a strong chemistry between them, she knew they weren’t going to end up together. And she needed to focus on the precious little time she had left with her mom. And then there was Emily, who seemed to be rebelling even more than she had the first time they’d lived through this.
More than once, Claire had berated herself for Emily’s behavior, usually as she sat in the Los Angeles traffic that refused to move, Claire trapped with her self-degrading thoughts as the cars inched along the 101 freeway. Last time, Claire had shielded Emily from Mona’s suffering, partly because she was in denial about the prognosis and hoped she’d make a full recovery, but also because she was afraid Emily wouldn’t be able to handle watching her grandmother slowly succumb to the ravages of cancer. She’d often regretted her decision after Mona died. Emily hadn’t really understood how dire the prognosis was until the doctors had said things like “make her comfortable” and “hospice.” So this time she’d involved Emily more, letting her know the truth about her grandmother’s disease, hoping it would motivate her to try to connect with her family, but that too seemed to be backfiring. She’d only retreated more.
At first, Claire attributed it to Emily being sad about her grandmother, but the more time that passed, the moodier Emily became, saying she was bored—complaining they didn’t even have HBO, that she missed her friends, that she felt like she was being held hostage at an old folks’ home. Claire would often catch her having hushed conversations on Mona’s home phone, quickly hanging up when she heard her mother enter the room. Claire wondered if she was talking to Anna, whom she’d followed through on banning from Emily’s social circle. Emily had also lied about not having homework on several occasions, then Claire had received phone calls from two of her teachers asking why she hadn’t turned in not one, but multiple assignments. She had just listened to a voice mail from a teacher today that she needed to return, hesitant to hear the disappointment in her voice that her daughter wasn’t delivering academically. Claire had already begged Emily to finish her assignments, to study for her tests. But short of doing the work for her, she didn’t know how to form the words that would convince her daughter to care about her grades, especially now that her grandmother was sick. She knew she needed to sit down and talk to her, really talk to her, but between taking care of Mona and trying to sell the several houses she had listed, she hadn’t had the time or energy for another argument.
