Life and Other Inconveniences

by Higgins, Kristan

  I set my shovel to the ground and shoved it into the dirt, which was soft and yielding.

  “What are you doing?” came a voice, and I shrieked a little. “Stop it! Jesus!”

  A man stood behind me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my hands gripping the shovel. “This is private property.” Did I have my phone? Should I call 911?

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I live here.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He looked . . . familiar. Then again, I’d grown up here, so a lot of people looked familiar. But wait. I knew him. “Miller?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Emma. Emma London.”

  Recognition dawned on his face. He ran a hand through his black hair, and a few strands of silver caught the sunshine. “Sorry. How are you?”

  “I’m good. How are you? It’s nice to see you.”

  Miller Finlay was Jason’s cousin, older by five or six years. I’d met him a few times, since Jason and I had dated all through high school. Jason had idolized him—the cool older kid who’d take him out sailing, or to a bar in New London to hear a band. In fact, Jason had been in Miller’s wedding; it was why he hadn’t been at Riley’s birth. Granted, she’d been two weeks early and my labor lasted all of four hours, so I couldn’t blame him for that.

  Miller wasn’t quite as handsome as Jason, but he was nice-looking just the same. His face was angular and somewhat plain and he looked older than . . . what? Forty? On closer inspection, I recognized the boy Jason had loved so much. They worked together at Finlay Construction, the business their fathers had started.

  “I guess I heard you were coming to visit for the summer. I must’ve forgotten,” he said. “How are things? How’s your daughter? Riley?”

  “Yes. She’s great. She and Genevieve are in the city today, so I thought I’d make myself useful and put in a vegetable garden.”

  “Not here, though,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “My wife is buried here.”

  I flinched. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Miller. I didn’t . . . I don’t think I knew that.”

  Had I even heard that his wife died? Did Jason forget to tell me? I think I would’ve remembered something so huge.

  Miller looked away. “Genevieve got permission from the town. She, uh . . . Ashley, that is, she didn’t like cemeteries. And she loved this place. Loved Genevieve, too.”

  Ashley, yes, that was it.

  I had a flash of a memory of a Christmas party at the Finlays’, Miller and Ashley sitting cuddled together on the couch. They’d just gotten engaged, and it made me so happy, the idea that high school sweethearts would end up together, as Jason and I hopefully would. Miller saw me staring at them, the perfect couple, and winked.

  I definitely would have remembered if Jason told me his cousin was a widower now.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again, and my voice was husky. “How long has it been?”

  “A little over three years.”

  I knew better than to ask how it happened. If he wanted me to know more, he’d tell me. The blue jay called again, watching over us, and a seagull dropped into the water, emerging with a small fish in its beak.

  “Do you have any kids, Miller?” I asked, a little surprised I didn’t know the answer.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Tess. She’s three.”

  My heart dropped before my brain caught up with the math.

  His wife must’ve died right after the baby was born. Oh, God! How could Jason not have told me about this? The whole family must’ve been devastated. Ashley—in my limited experience with her—had been really, really great. Funny and friendly, even to someone who was not quite in the family.

  “Well, Riley’s sixteen now, so if you need a babysitter, she loves kids. And, uh, so do I. You know. I mean, I’m sure you have plenty of help, but we’re here! If you need anything! But you’re probably an old pro.”

  Hard to believe I was a therapist.

  “Thank you,” Miller said.

  “It must be very hard,” I said, managing to remember something from all those years of training.

  He didn’t answer for a second. “It is. Well, I should go. I’m sure I’ll see you again. I, uh . . . I come to Genevieve’s cocktail parties sometimes. On Fridays.”

  “Good! Good. It’ll be good to see you.” Three goods. Jesus.

  “Have a good day,” he said. Four.

  “You too.”

  I watched as he walked away, hands in his pockets, head down.

  Broken.

  There, just at the edge of the forest, was a bench I hadn’t seen until this minute. A plaque was mounted on the back.

  In memory of Ashley James Finlay

  Cherished wife, mother and daughter

  Loved by all who knew her.

  CHAPTER 15

  Miller

  Childbirth classes were the most fun Miller had ever had with his wife, and that was saying a lot. Their marriage had been, in a word, perfect. Yes, she ground her teeth at night and it made his blood run cold. Yes, he talked too much about how many laps he swam every time he went to the pool. No, he didn’t really get along with her dad, and yes, she hated Thanksgiving at Uncle Rob and Aunt Courtney’s house and always got a little drunk to counter Aunt Courtney’s endless stream of meaningless chatter.

  Ashley had terrible taste in television, weeping over the schmaltzy and predictable network shows. She hated his taste in music, a genre that was best described as Another White Guy Who Loves Rap. She was a clean freak and couldn’t relax if a pillow was out of place; he was unable to fold shirts according to her exacting requirements.

  But every day, they were so happy together. Every day they touched, kissed, hugged, said I love you, did something nice for the other. Every day, he felt lucky. Miller didn’t understand men who complained about their wives. He couldn’t imagine someone other than Ashley, with her smile that could lift his heart, the way she’d fill up his phone with deliberately unflattering selfies, how she laughed harder than anyone when he cracked a joke at a party.

  All those years together, and he still felt his heart rate kick up when he pulled into the driveway every night. Sex, which had always been great, only got better the more years they spent together. They loved to travel, strolling hand in hand through strange towns, whether it was an hour away or on the other side of the planet. Every time he cooked her pad thai, she lit up like a little kid on Christmas morning.

  That was what made marriage great. The ease of it, the connection, the appreciation. The companionship. She was his best friend bar none, and she told him everything, every bit of gossip about her friends, her job—she was a civil engineer who specialized in water runoff, and the way she talked about it made Miller wish he’d gone into it himself. She would laughingly torture him with the details from her grandmother’s phone calls—how many times the old lady had pooped, what she ate, how gassy the dog was.

  He loved their life. He loved it. Every frickin’ day, he was grateful.

  Their only sorrow was not being able to get pregnant. They’d put off trying a few years; they’d gotten married young—twenty-three, both of them—and wanted to travel, have sex in the living room, drink a bottle of wine on a Saturday night without having to get up at dawn with a baby. They were young and healthy. Infertility? It never crossed their minds.

  Until they learned they were infertile. They’d expected Ash to get pregnant in the first few months. After eight months without so much as a late period, they went for workups. Nothing was wrong, the doctors said. Nothing that they could find. Try not to stress over it. It would happen when it happened.

  The months of trying turned into a year, then a second year, then a third. Ashley went on Clomid; Miller had his sperm coun
t checked three times. And even then, with that sense of failure starting to loom, even then they felt lucky. They loved each other more, because in not getting everything handed to them . . . well, Miller thought it brought a depth to their love. After all, the stars were most brilliant against the darkest sky. Their infertility was the darkness, making every happy moment all the more brilliant for it.

  And there were so many happy moments. Simple, unfettered, easy moments. The way he’d put Luigi the cat in their bedroom, since he got up first, and she’d smile without opening her eyes and say, “Thank you,” and the cat would curl against her stomach and purr. The way she’d bake just before he came home sometimes, so the house would smell like bread or cookies. How they held hands without thinking, how she always invited him to feel her freshly shaved legs, which always led to sex. How she was so grateful that he set the timer on the coffeepot so she’d have her cup seconds after stumbling out of bed.

  The failed adoption was the darkest time. Well, Miller thought it was the worst. He was still naive back then. They’d come within an hour of being parents. An hour. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, clutching hands, trying not to bolt into the room to see the baby who’d been promised to them. He could still hear Ashley’s wail when the social worker came out and told them that the teenage mother had changed her mind.

  Their hearts broke, but they broke together, and when one of them lost it, the other would comfort, and they’d take turns in their grief, putting on a brave front for the world, fielding the stupid, well-meaning comments about what was meant to be and next time and all that shit.

  And then God smiled on them. In a month that was no different from any other, long after they’d stopped doing temperature charts and checking cervical mucus, Ashley’s period was late. It was six days before she even wondered, and he failed to notice she wasn’t power-eating Ben & Jerry’s, as she always did on the twenty-ninth day of her cycle.

  Without telling him, she just went into the bathroom, peed on one of the old pregnancy tests, and came out, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, and showed him.

  After years of telling himself that it was just fine if they never got to be parents, Miller’s knees almost gave out at the wonder, the miracle, the perfection of what that stick showed him.

  They would be a family. Not just a couple, though that was everything—but a family.

  Though it had taken years to get pregnant, Ashley was clearly great at gestating. She really did glow. Her cheeks were pink, her hair was shinier, her stomach was beautiful, her breasts even more gorgeous than usual. She felt great, had more energy, and when he tried to take care of her and pamper her, she’d laugh and swat him away. Still, he insisted on nightly foot rubs with peppermint lotion. He cooked for her—kale and salmon, roast chicken and new potatoes. He assembled sundaes piled with real whipped cream and hot fudge he made himself, sent her to the spa for prenatal massages, rubbed coconut oil into her beautiful round belly and worshipped her amazing, miraculous body that could grow an entire human. Their daughter. Their little girl.

  The childbirth classes were like an exclusive club they’d been longing to join for years, and unlike most clubs that make you wait to join, this one wasn’t a disappointment. They sat on the floor in a yoga studio with the other blessed couples, Ash between his legs, leaning back against him, Miller’s hand on her stomach. He could feel the baby rolling and pushing, and if that wasn’t proof of God, he didn’t know what was.

  The class covered things like physiology and pain management—“Manage this, pal,” Ashley had whispered, shaking her fist at him with a grin. Positions and transitions, massage and relaxation, breathing and Kegels. After class, they’d go out with the other three couples—Sasha and Joe, Victoria and Maggie, Dominic and Hannah. They’d drink nonalcoholic beers or seltzer water and laugh and talk, and it was the happiest time in his happy life.

  Ashley and he made their birth plan. They decided that it would just be the two of them in the delivery room; her mother would fret, her father would faint, and his mom had moved to Arizona after his father died. The thought of a crowd in the waiting room . . . it just wasn’t them.

  Besides, it had been just the two of them for so long, always a little separate from everyone else, first because they’d gotten married the year after college, then because they truly liked each other more than they liked anyone else . . . and then by the sorrows of infertility.

  So just the two of them it would be.

  They went through the downloadable checklist for a happy birth, snorting over terms like squatting bar and hot therapy. “Sounds like how we made this baby,” Miller said, and Ashley laughed so hard she had to run to the bathroom.

  Her death was not discussed. There was no check box for “Please choose if you would like to be in the room when your wife is given CPR.”

  In the ninth month, however, as they were lying in bed—or, rather, as Miller was lying in bed and Ashley was stuffing pillows under her stomach, between her knees and against her chest, she suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

  “Yes, my empress?” Miller said.

  “If something goes wrong in there, I expect you to pick the baby over me.”

  “You got it. I’ve had my eye on a younger, hotter wife anyway, so thanks for making it easy.”

  “I’m serious, Miller. Promise me you will.”

  “I’m not going to have to choose anyone, honey. Nothing will go wrong.” As if he had any right to say that. He had no knowledge, no authority, nothing. God, the fucking arrogance of that statement. “And even if there are complications,” he added, taking the old whistle-past-the-graveyard approach, “the odds are huge that you’ll both be fine.”

  “I know,” she said cheerfully, and went back to punching her pillow. “Just wanted it out there.”

  She went into labor at three fifteen on a Tuesday afternoon, a day after her due date, and called him right away. In a rush of adrenaline and fear and joy, Miller drove home, fast but not dangerously, and found her beaming and deep-breathing at the door. “No hurry to get to the hospital,” she said. “Why go there when I can torment you here? Oh, God, here comes a contraction! Honey! Feel!” She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her stomach, and Jesus God in heaven, it clenched like a rock, and Ashley’s expression became sharp and focused as she inhaled slowly, held her breath and then exhaled as the contraction released.

  “Amazing, right?” she said.

  “You are,” he agreed.

  At first the contractions were erratic—every fifteen minutes, then every ten. After a couple of hours, they got stronger and more regular, though not closer together. But Ashley was sweating and making low moaning noises, so he called the doctor, was instructed to come in, and got the smaller suitcase, which had been packed for a month. For a second, he paused, touching the baby’s outfit. A little white fuzzy thing with lambs on it.

  By the end of the day, his child would be in this world. The thought made his heart ache with love. His baby. His little girl. He already loved her so, so much.

  “Let’s go meet our little one,” he said, and her beautiful eyes filled up with tears of happiness, and she gave a wobbly smile. He hugged her gently, breathing in the flowery smell of her shampoo, and kissed her neck.

  It would be the last time he held her.

  The ride to Westerly Hospital took fifteen minutes. Ashley’s contractions hadn’t changed much.

  At the hospital, Dr. Dunn met them cheerfully, checked for dilation. Only three centimeters. “It’s gonna be a long night, kids,” she said. “Ashley, do you want anything for the pain?”

  “I’m good,” she said.

  “Okay. If you change your mind, there’s no shame in that. Anything that makes this easier on you is a win.”

  There were terms discussed by the nurse and doctor: fetal monitoring, advanced maternal age (Ashley was thirty-seven), but Mill
er was locked in on his wife. She held his hand and stared into his eyes as she breathed and he counted, riding out the contractions, smiling when she could. She rolled on her side; he rubbed her lower back. When a few tears slipped out of her eyes, he brushed them away and kissed her forehead.

  “You’re a superhero, you know,” he said. “I love you.”

  Labor became more painful, the contractions stronger, and Ashley’s moans were low and guttural. Miller wondered why everyone was so calm, why his wife had to go through this, why it was taking so long. The soundtrack they’d made had played four times already. Every time her face whitened with pain, his heart felt like it was being pulled apart.

  When Ashley dozed off around eleven p.m., Miller asked the doctor if everything was okay. If the baby was doing all right, stuck in there for so long.

  Dr. Dunn laughed gently. “The baby is just fine. This is Ashley’s first delivery, so I’m not surprised it’s taking so long. No two babies come the same way,” she said, patting his arm. “It’s normal to worry.”

  He was normal, then. Maybe he was just paranoid, but it felt like something was . . . off. That the baby wasn’t going to be okay, that the ultrasound has missed something, and even though the fetal monitor showed a fast, regular heart rhythm, a sense of doom had crept into Miller’s bone marrow.

  Please, God, let the baby be healthy. Please. They’d waited so long. If she had special needs, that would be okay. Ashley had a cousin with Down syndrome; Miller had grown up with a kid who had brain damage from a car accident. They’d talked about this. It would be fine.

  So long as the baby lived, they could handle anything.

  It never occurred to Miller that his wife was the one who’d needed the prayers. He figured they’d put in their time, their heartache. Ashley was healthy and strong. She’d done yoga all the way through, even this morning. Truly, it had been a beautiful pregnancy unmarred by morning sickness or heartburn or swollen ankles. Her hips were wide, perfect for pushing out babies. Or, if they needed to do a C-section, that was okay, too. Ash was in great shape.