Chapter 5
The next morning—after I tidy up our flat, clean out the small amount of food in the fridge, and toss the garbage—Hannah and I are ready to hit the road.
As we leave town, I see the runners, bicyclists, power walkers, and one skateboard enthusiast on the paved path along Lake Michigan. It’s a familiar sight.
When I first visited Sean in Eastridge, I was surprised how much the Midwest suited me, considering I grew up out West. There was no ocean, but Lake Michigan seemed an apt replacement, without the salt and massive waves of the Pacific.
There was no redwood forest, per se, but there are forest preserves aplenty.
In Chicagoland, the trees are so formidable, deep rooted and large, they create a protective canopy over many a neighborhood street, adding an umbrellalike charm I didn’t anticipate.
The land is mostly flat, but to me, it was far from boring. It felt sturdy. Comfortable. Stable.
Everything I loved about Sean.
The Maps app navigates me west, away from the water toward the interstate. My shoulders relax once I see the lake in my rearview mirror.
While I still appreciate its beauty—expansive blue-green waters dotted with sailboats—I can only look at the water for so long before its splendor fades, replaced by a memory I don’t want to revisit.
It was early May, and Sean and I sat on a blanket on the beach.
It was unseasonably warm, and I had packed a picnic—cold fried chicken, quinoa salad, cubed gouda cheese, and green grapes—and we sat and ate and talked and silently looked at the turquoise depths of the lake.
This massive body of water, at least to the human eye, ends in a horizon.
You can’t see the other side. Staring at that line of vast possibility is like looking up at a starry sky. What is out there?
Anything and everything.
I was seven months pregnant with Hannah, so much of our conversation was about her, or the idea of her. We knew she was a girl from an ultrasound a few months prior, but we didn’t “know” her yet. We did spend a lot of time daydreaming about her, especially whom she would look like.
She was an unopened gift.
Sean and I had decided that, after Hannah was born, I would extend my maternity leave at the museum indefinitely.
I wouldn’t work full-time. Instead, I’d devote my attention to being a mother, raising a child, creating a home for our growing family.
I was going to cook homemade meals and make baby food from scratch, fully immerse myself in the two things I really truly loved: food and family.
Maybe I’d start a food blog, write a cookbook, and eventually, once Hannah started school full-time, attend culinary school like I’d always wanted to.
Without a baby at home to care for, all this domestic work would seem like frivolity.
A twenty-first-century woman can’t quit her job to cook and bake and play house if she doesn’t have kids to care for at home.
Sean was one hundred percent behind the idea.
He was traditional that way. But the existence of the baby also made the idea palatable to my colleagues, to my mother, to the world.
To me.
As we sat there, the weather shifted. Not dramatically at first. But the temperature dropped a few degrees, and the light breeze we enjoyed an hour earlier morphed into a gust. The clouds hid the sun.
It was like sitting in a once bustling restaurant that had suddenly grown quiet.
Lights dim. Closing time. Pay your bill and leave, please.
We started packing up the remains of our picnic.
I shook off and folded the blanket, while Sean tossed the garbage in a nearby bin.
We walked back to the car, and by that time, the wind had really picked up.
The sky grew black, rolling and ominous above the parking lot.
We couldn’t get to the car fast enough. But just as we did, we heard a woman scream.
“Help! Somebody save her. Somebody save my baby! She can’t swim. She can’t swim!”
It took us only a second to ascertain that a little girl—the same little girl we had fondly watched frolicking in the sand and throwing rocks into the waves earlier—had fallen into the water from the cement pier.
And it took only one more second for Sean to snap into action.
He ran to the pier, dove into the water, and brought that little girl back to the surface.
It all happened so quickly and so slowly.
I saw the girl’s mother lift her onto the pier, and then I expected to see Sean—a muscular man with broad shoulders and remarkable balance and athleticism—climb up too.
But the waves, like the clouds and wind, had grown ferocious, and I watched his hand slip on the edge of the pier, saw his temple hit the cement.
Witnessed him disappear into the now gray water.
And that’s when I started shouting frantically.
Because I grew up in coastal California, I’m a decent swimmer.
I wanted to jump in and save Sean, but the raging waves kept my feet planted on the pier.
I was seven months pregnant, and nowhere near as strong as Sean.
What if the waves pummeled me, pushed me off course, tossed me around?
The safety of the baby growing inside me superseded everything else.
Soon, two twentysomething guys who’d been out jogging heard my cries and rushed to help. They dove in but couldn’t find Sean. A rescue team later pulled Sean’s lifeless body from the water.
That day, and in the slow, dreamlike days and weeks after, my mind couldn’t unravel what had happened. Everything was fine. Good. Perfect. And then, Sean had been noble and brave and saved another person’s life. And suddenly, my whole world ended.
Not my whole world. Rubbing my swollen belly was my only solace.
Naturally, after Hannah was born and my maternity leave ended, and the bereavement period was supposed to be over by most people’s standards, I didn’t stay home to care for her as I had originally planned.
Sean’s life insurance was enough to pay the initial bills and provide a few months’ financial security, but it would not last indefinitely.
So I went back to work, to a job I mostly enjoyed.
Hannah went to a safe, highly rated day care for the first years of her life, and later, April began watching her full-time.
We managed. We survived. But maybe I never stopped yearning for that other life.
“Sometimes, Maggie, when you’re a mom, you can’t be the person you want to be,” my mother told me, patting my back.
“You have to be the person you need to be.”