Blessed Are the Wholly Broken

by Melinda Clayton

  “Brian, this is so exciting. You’ll have to bring her here right away so we can meet her.” She shrugged back at me. “Sylvie? What works for you guys? Next weekend? I’ll fix a nice dinner and we’ll celebrate.”

  As it turned out, they didn’t make it that next weekend, or for many weekends after. It almost seemed as if Brian found excuses to keep us from meeting, so many and varied were the reasons he gave for their inability to visit. It was spring before we finally pinned them down, and even then, they could only spare a couple of hours. Instead of meeting at our house, we made the drive to Memphis, where Brian had purchased a townhome near the Racquet Club shortly after landing a job with one of the oldest law firms in Memphis.

  We met at Half Shell, and Anna and I had just been seated when Brian came hurrying in, accompanied by a tall, willowy blonde who looked exactly like someone with whom I would have pictured Brian. Dressed to the nines, lots of jewelry, long nails painted a fire engine red. Beside me I could feel waves of curiosity coming off of Anna. We both wanted to hear when and how they’d met, how long they’d known each other, what their courtship had been like. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the answers to any of those questions.

  Dinner was rushed, with Brian apologizing profusely, explaining that he was working on a big case and scarcely had time to breathe, much less eat. Anna tried to pull information from Sylvie, but her answers were perfunctory, leaving no room for exploration, and the conversations fell flat. We left the dinner with no more understanding of Sylvie, or her relationship with Brian, than we’d had when we arrived. We’d promised to get together again soon, when there was more time, but it never happened.

  I had spoken with Brian occasionally over the following couple of years, but about nothing of substance. He seemed curiously remote and I missed him, we both did, so it was with great anticipation I looked forward to calling him with our good news.

  “Call him now,” Anna said, rousing enough to exchange feet so I could massage the other one. “I can’t wait to let him know he’s going to be Uncle Brian.” She smiled, and I reached over to the end table for the cordless phone.

  “Do you want to talk with him?” I asked, but she shook her head.

  “You tell him,” she said. “I know you’re dying to.”

  I punched in the numbers and waited, only to be greeted by Brian’s prerecorded message on his answering machine. “He’s not home,” I said to Anna. “Should I leave a message?”

  “Just ask him to call us as soon as he can,” she said. “I don’t want to leave it on a machine.”

  Anna called Cathy with the news next, but her reaction was harder to read, as it usually was. Although she’d had a string of unhealthy relationships by that time, she’d remained single. Anna and Cathy had never been close, and the separate paths they’d chosen only took them further apart as the years went by. Neither of us was sure how she’d react to news of Anna’s pregnancy; as it turned out, she didn’t have much of a reaction at all. “Cool,” she said. “So what else is new?” And that was that.

  With our phone calls complete, we spent a relaxing evening watching rented movies and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Anna napped periodically through the evening and I watched her sleep, profoundly moved by the reality of her carrying our child. After the years of worrying and trying, unsuccessfully, to have a baby, our dream was finally coming true.

  Brian didn’t return our call that night, or the next one either. By the time he finally reached us, we had nothing to tell him.

  Chapter 12: June 3, 2012—The Arrest

  “What are you talking about?” Brian asked, running a hand through his hair. “Jeffrey wasn’t born until 2001. Anna couldn’t have been pregnant while I was still married to Sylvie.”

  I said nothing, waiting for Brian to put the pieces together. I knew the precise moment understanding dawned.

  “She had a miscarriage,” he said, once again lowering himself into the chair across from me.

  “Two.” I said, and his mouth dropped open. I cleared my throat. “Anna and I have had four children,” I said. “Two died in the womb. And Jeffrey,” I drew a shaky breath, and Brian, his anger forgotten, reached to put a hand on my shoulder. “And now Peter.”

  “I had no idea, Phillip.” He was silent for a moment before continuing, “That must have been awful, after thinking finally….” He didn’t finish the thought. “I was so caught up in Sylvie back then, and our sham of a marriage. I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you guys through all that. I can’t believe I wasn’t there for Anna.”

  “She knew you had to live your own life, Brian. We didn’t expect you to come running every time something happened.”

  “But I always had,” he said. “”That’s why I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.

  “I mean,” he rubbed at a scar on the old wooden table, “I had to put some distance between us. Between you and me, but also between me and Anna.”

  “Why, Brian? Why would you do that?”

  He was up again, pacing. “Because I couldn’t stand watching the two of you play house,” he said, a sliver of anger returning to his voice. “The two of you belonged together, that was obvious, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness. It’s not easy, always being the odd man out. I thought if I left, if I settled into my own life, made my own marriage, instead of always intruding into yours….” He stopped, leaning his forehead against the wall. Behind the glass, a guard moved forward, but Brian waved him away. “It didn’t work, of course.” He turned to face me. “All it got me was a nasty divorce and a serious dent in my bank account.” He smiled a crooked smile. “And a lot of lonely days.”

  Maybe I had known all those years that Brian’s words to Anna, though said in jest, were full of truth. I suppose I had. But I hadn’t realized the extent to which he’d had to fight against them, or the extent to which his feelings for Anna had shaped his life. I don’t know what I might have felt at that moment had our circumstances been normal. Jealousy? Anger? What I did feel was sorrow, for Brian, for Anna, for all of us.

  “We have to take care of Peter,” is what I said to him. “I need you to help me get to Peter. He’s all that’s left of Anna.”

  Chapter 13: November, 1999

  There aren’t words in the English language sufficient to describe what Anna and I endured those next few years. We lost our first baby just after Anna’s second appointment with her doctor. “On the next visit,” the doctor had said, “we’ll listen to the heartbeat.” We were ecstatic. Anna called both of our mothers and told them to save the date. Our parents were as excited as we were, and Anna wanted to include not only her own mother, but mine. It was one of the many things I loved about Anna, that she so readily incorporated my mother into our lives. I was not always as thoughtful; luckily, Anna picked up my slack.

  She called to invite them, but it was I who called to tell them it was not to be. The first few weeks of that pregnancy were very difficult for Anna. She was terribly sick, not just in the mornings but throughout the day. She was an adjunct professor at that time, teaching only a handful of classes each week while hoping to work her way up, and she told me she made it through each hour with a handful of loose crackers in her skirt pocket and a can of diet soda on the desk.

  Even then, she was a trooper. Despite the sickness, despite the exhaustion, it was perhaps the happiest I’d ever seen her. “It’ll pass,” the doctor assured us at her first appointment when we asked about the symptoms. “Drink plenty of fluids and rest when you can. Come back in a couple of weeks, just to be safe, and we’ll see how you’re doing.”

  To the doctor’s credit, the nausea had begun to abate by our second appointment. Anna looked much better, her cheeks had some color, and she was holding down food. The doctor gently felt her abdomen and declared all to be well. We had no reason to believe anything would go wrong before we returned at twelve weeks to hear the heartbeat.

  It was a F
riday night, and isn’t it strange how such details embed themselves into our memories? We retired early, Anna because she was tired, and I because I wanted to be with her. We joked about becoming boring, and concluded that was the natural progression for those about to become parents. We talked for a while in the darkness, batting around baby names and discussing the renovations needed to turn the nearest bedroom into a nursery. She asked me to rub her lower back, something she’d often asked, and I did so happily, already loving the changes in her body, determined to be as much a part of the experience as I could. We fell asleep spooning, me behind Anna with my arm around her, holding both of them close.

  It was I who awakened. The night was a cool one, but I felt dampness against my thighs. I thought at first Anna must be too warm, sweating in her sleep; we joked that she’d become a living furnace since becoming pregnant. I moved away from her and pushed the comforter aside to cool her off. I squinted at the bedside clock, noted it was just past midnight, and reluctantly swung my legs off the bed and headed for the bathroom, cursing the beer I’d had before turning in.

  As strange as it may sound, I didn’t immediately understand the meaning of the blood smeared across my crotch and thighs. It shames me to remember it now, but initially I thought it must have come from me; all sorts of ridiculous scenarios flew through my groggy mind until I realized I felt no pain, just the mild discomfort of a full bladder. When I finally comprehended, when I finally understood the source of the blood, I slammed the bathroom door open and literally leapt across the room to Anna, shaking her awake while simultaneously turning on the lamp on her nightstand.

  A thousand times over the intervening years, I’ve wished I could relive that moment. It marked the beginning of a very difficult time for Anna and me; I’m not sure we ever fully recovered. Actually, I’m sure we didn’t.

  If I could relive that moment, I’d lower myself onto the side of the bathtub and wait. I’d allow her a few more moments of happiness, and when I had to tell her, when I absolutely couldn’t wait any longer, I’d kneel in front of her and wake her gently. I’d smooth her hair from her face and kiss her cheeks and wrap my arms around her and tell her I loved her. I’d hold her close and tell her we had our whole lives, we had the whole world, and we had each other; that was all we really needed. But I didn’t know, so that’s not what I did.

  When it was all over, when Anna was back home and her mother was in the kitchen puttering around making soup, I sat on the side of our bed and cried. Anna was sleeping, helped along by a prescription from the doctor. I cried for our baby, and I cried for me, but mostly I cried for Anna.

  Later, when her mother had retired to our extra bedroom for the night and I held Anna close, she turned to me. “Phillip,” she said. “As awful as this is, as unfair and heartbreaking and terrible as it is, there’s something positive about it, too.”

  I searched out her eyes in the darkness, waiting for her to continue.

  “At least I know I can get pregnant, Phillip. If it happened once, it can happen again. At least I know we can.”

  How I wish I’d told her then that we only needed each other.

  Chapter 14: June 3, 2012—The Arrest

  Brian and I sat silently as he digested all I’d told him. He’d been there less than an hour, but it seemed much longer. The guards outside the glass looked bored, and I wondered if the look was affected after so many years dealing with criminals, or if it was genuine. Perhaps, after witnessing countless stories of human tragedy, one becomes immune.

  “You’re killing me, Phil,” he said after some time, and I looked away. He no longer paced; instead, he sat quietly across from me, seemingly resigned to hearing my tale whether he wanted to or not. I had never before seen that look on Brian’s face, not even when his marriage ended. I think he may have known then, or at least suspected, what was coming.

  I’ve wondered since my arrest, during the months of my incarceration and through the long days of my trial, if I should have spared him. No doubt it was selfish of me to unburden myself at Brian’s expense, but as I’ve relived these events over the past year, I’ve come to understand that I was always selfish where Brian was concerned. I hadn’t meant to be; I hadn’t even realized I was, but in hindsight the truth is inescapable. While Anna and I, or perhaps just I (Anna did, after all, try to understand Brian) smugly defined life as married versus not married, or settled versus not settled, Brian unfalteringly supported me in whatever decision I felt compelled to make at the time. I like to think I supported him, too, but the truth of the matter is he never asked for support, and I was so caught up in my own life I rarely thought to give it.

  In my defense, if such a thing exists, I must say that in the beginning, on the day of my arrest, I wanted nothing more than to be free to be with Peter. When I’d placed the call to Brian, I hadn’t been calling an attorney; I’d been calling my friend. But I’ve wondered since then if some part of me, some small part that wasn’t shocked numb with grief, knew that Brian could better help me in his professional role. I’d been desperate to tell him our story; I needed him to understand, but was it because I longed for comfort from my friend, or was it because I needed his help in getting to Peter? In the end, the answer didn’t matter.

  “It kills me, too, Brian,” I finally said, because it did, all of it, my shame suffocating me behind the locks and bars.

  Chapter 15: January, 2000

  We took a trip to Chattanooga after Christmas, a long weekend to relax and regroup. It was nice to be outside, engaged in physical activity. We took a tour through Ruby Falls, hiked through Rock City, and enjoyed a late picnic lunch of cold chicken, potato salad, and iced tea at the precipice of Lover’s Leap. The wind was cold, but the sun was warm on our backs as we took in the view and tried to identify the seven states supposedly visible from the top of Lookout Mountain.

  I held Anna’s hand as we walked the trails, taking her arm in the most treacherous spots, aware of her tendency to trip over her own feet even without the added danger of rocks and tree roots. I enjoyed this quiet time away with her. In the earlier years of our marriage we’d traveled frequently, but the last few years we’d been so focused on starting a family we’d neglected nearly everything else. We passed several families along the trails, parents cautioning young children as older children ran ahead, and while the thought crossed my mind that that could someday be us, their presence didn’t stir up any feelings of sadness at our lost chance. We had time, I told myself.

  Anna, too, seemed optimistic about our future. “Thanks for this, Phillip,” she gestured at the view as we packed up the remains of our lunch. “This is exactly what we needed. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Not as beautiful as you,” I told her, a play on an old line. I expected—and received—a good-natured eye roll at the cheesiness of the compliment. I was serious, though. Anna looked beautiful, well-rested and fit, her cheeks pink from the cold. She seemed to have recovered quickly physically—she actually looked healthier than she had in weeks—and if her expression was at times wistful, the thoughts she expressed to me were hopeful. She put an arm around my waist on our hike back to the car, and I hugged her shoulders.

  “When we do have a baby, we won’t have moments like this,” she said. “I guess we’d better enjoy them while we can.”

  “Sure we will,” I said. “We’ll just have to get one of those baby backpack things these people all seem to have. It’ll be good for us. Like walking with weights attached.”

  She smiled. “What if we have a baby who hates the outdoors? It’s possible, you know.”

  “Then little Poindexter or Genevieve can sit in the shade while Mommy and Daddy hike,” I said, and she laughed.

  I took it as a good sign that despite what we’d been through Anna spoke so easily of our future children. She had said she was relieved to know she was capable of pregnancy, and she seemed to be holding on to that thought. I’d spent so much time worrying about her since the miscarriage it was reassu
ring to know she was okay.

  Looking back, I don’t know if I can honestly say I was as eager to have children at that time as I had previously been. Vacationing with Anna, hiking and exploring as we’d always loved to do, was serving to highlight exactly how isolated we’d been the past few years. Some part of me was beginning to chafe under the constant worry over the issue. That’s not to say I didn’t want children; it’s just that at some point during the years we’d spent trying to get pregnant, the desire for having a baby had somehow gotten lost in the desire to produce one.

  That wasn’t something I could say to Anna, because it wasn’t something I was fully aware of, myself. What I did know was I felt more at peace than I had in a very long time. We spent a leisurely evening wandering through the shops of downtown Chattanooga until the sun began to set and the air became too chilly to enjoy.

  On the way back to the rustic little cabin we’d rented we stopped for firewood, a nice bottle of Chardonnay, a small block of Gruyère, and some chilled crabmeat. I built a fire while Anna spread a quilt in front of the fireplace and laid out the fixings of our meal. We were quiet as we worked, but it was a comfortable quiet, both of us pleasantly tired after a long day of sun, wind, and hiking. We drank a toast to our future and reminisced about our past. Later we fell asleep in each other’s arms, and although I can’t speak for Anna, I was happy, for once, that neither of us had seemed to entertain any thoughts of baby-making.

  Chapter 16: April, 2000

  Anna did not bear up as well after the loss of our second baby, and neither did I. She turned her grief inward, sitting quietly for long stretches of time, gazing out the window or staring into space. “Give her time,” the doctor said. “She’s been through a lot these last few months, both physically and emotionally. She needs time to heal.”