Chapter 43
My need for you disappears quickly. It was misplaced, it was habitual—something you’ve created, fashioning yourself as the solution to issues you’ve manufactured. It was shameful.
I wrap the baby in a washcloth—it’s too small for even a hand towel—and I put the little bundle into a box. I don’t know what to do with it. How can the loss of something so tiny be so staggeringly huge?
I’ve taken four Tylenol, and the pain in my stomach has begun to subside. I didn’t have any pads, so my underwear is full of wadded toilet paper.
When you finally try returning my calls, my phone is switched off.
It’s dark by the time you rush into the house.
Your eyes are wide and wild, and I’m on the family room sofa, feet propped up, heating pad across my abdomen to ease the cramps that still occasionally crash over me.
The toilet is flushed, the spatters of blood cleaned from the bowl and seat.
The underwear and pants I was wearing are in the trash.
I’ll call my doctor in the morning, as soon as the office opens.
I buried our baby—a makeshift grave in the back garden. Overgrown with weeds now, mulch growing sparse. There was a smooth rock at the edge, and I placed that on top. Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s what I wanted to do.
I’ve taken care of everything. I didn’t need you after all. I never have.
“Klara,” you say, rushing toward me. “Why didn’t you pick up? I’m so sorry, I was in a meeting. I didn’t have my phone. I was so worried.”
You crouch on the ground beside the sofa, drop your head to my lap. “What happened?” you repeat. “What happened?”
“The baby’s gone,” I say softly.
“What?” you ask. You lift your head, eyes searching mine.
I stare straight into yours until you look away.
I know you’re lying to me, but again, I don’t confront you.
I’m gathering a little collection, like a toddler putting the most special rocks into his pocket.
Things to hold. Things to use. I’m just not yet sure how.
“Are you sad?” you ask.
I look away. “Of course I’m sad. How could you say that?”
“You just seem so cold,” you say, your fingers grasping for mine. Your head drops again, your cheek against our hands, and it’s damp. You’re crying, and I’m impressed.
“But you’re in shock,” you continue. “Of course you’re in shock. And you had to go through it all by yourself. I’m so sorry.”
I’m glad I can’t see your face as you lie. You do it so convincingly. You always have.
My doctor’s office squeezes me in the next morning. You don’t go to work, instead buzzing around in the kitchen, bringing me a coffee, a bagel, far more deeply toasted than I like.
When it’s time for my appointment, you drive, left hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh. I cross my arms and stare out the window. Already the nausea is lessening, slowing to a trickle I only notice when I’m searching for the sensation.
You park as close to the doors as possible, reach for the keys, your seat belt.
“You don’t need to come in,” I tell you. “This isn’t an ultrasound. I’m not pregnant anymore.” What I don’t say: This has nothing to do with you.
You wouldn’t accompany me to my annual pap smear, would you?
Your face darkens. I fling my car door open, and I’m out.
You’re angry, and I don’t care. There are things the doctor will say, and I don’t want you to be there to hear them. We could have the fetus tested, to try to determine the cause of the miscarriage. My period should return within four to six weeks. We could start trying for another baby soon.
This is now, again, my body. You can wait in the car.
There’s still tissue in my uterus, as I feared.
I don’t want to wait for it to pass, and I don’t want to wait for the surgical procedure necessary to have it removed.
The doctor sends a prescription to my local pharmacy.
The nurse gives me a flyer with information about mental health services, about support groups for women and couples who have suffered from a miscarriage.
I fold it again and again, a neat little square, and tuck it into the pocket of my shorts.
You’ve reigned in your anger, tightly controlled again, and your car coasts to a stop in front of the medical pavilion seconds after I step through the sliding doors.
“I was circling the parking lot,” you explain once I’ve opened the door. “I ran out and got you a smoothie while I was waiting.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, accepting the cup, holding it between my palms.
“How—how did it go?” you ask, faltering, unsure.
“It was awful,” I tell you; then I turn away, looking out the window again.
I camp out in our bedroom. The smart bassinet is still waiting near my side of the bed. Waiting for the baby who no longer exists.
“You can go to work,” I tell you after the second time you come in to ask me if I need anything. “I’ll probably just try to get some sleep.”
“No,” you say firmly, shaking your head.
“Oh.” I’m looking at my phone. “I just got a text. My prescription is ready. Could you—”
“I’ll get it,” you say, nearly bounding out of the room. “I’ll go and get it.”
I wait until I can hear the squeak of the garage door as it drops closed behind your car, then I wait more.
I’m not sure what I’m doing, what I’m looking for, only that I don’t have long to figure it out.
Your laptop is on the kitchen table, still open. You didn’t go into work today, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t been working in between playing the role of grieving and doting husband.
You didn’t lock the screen before you left—a rare act of carelessness—and not enough time has passed for it to have locked itself. A gentle graze of my fingers across the pad, and I’m in.
You have two different browsers downloaded, and I quickly discover which one you actually use. I pull up your search history, then scroll and scroll. I scroll back to the fall, when I first met you. That bar association event, my instincts. I pushed them aside. Handsome and perfect you. Foolish me.
And then I freeze, fingertips hovering. Because there it is: my name, nearly buried within your work-related searches.
You searched for me. And this wouldn’t be disturbing—before I decided to go on a date with you, I searched for you, too—if it weren’t for the date of the search. It was at least three weeks before the event when we met.
I continue scrolling. Your plan unfolds in the form of words you typed into a plain white box.
Klara Martin
Ann Taylor locations
Which medications interfere with birth control pill
How to get antibiotics online
How to buy liquid antibiotics online no prescription
Rifampin
Tetracycline
Ovulation tracker
How soon is a pregnancy detected
Tiffany & Co. locations
Top local real estate agents
Blocking a number on an iPhone
Tracking another person’s iPhone activity
It’s taking too long. I don’t have time. It feels as though my stomach has dropped to the floor. This taste of stolen information—I’m starving for more. But I force myself to close the browser. I lock your laptop screen and watch it go dark.
I nearly have to crawl up the stairs, back into bed.
My heart thunders, exhalations quick. I try to take a steadying breath.
Now I know. The coffees you were bringing me every day.
Even when I didn’t see you, when I needed space, you’d show up outside my office building, waxy cup in your hand, smiling that brilliant smile. My perfect boyfriend.
I pick up my phone, think of that term you’d recently searched—Tracking another person’s iPhone activity—and drop it again.
You’ve been miles ahead of me this whole time, ever since we first met.
I always knew, didn’t I? There is something wrong with you. Oil-slick and lurking. Dark and hidden, disguised and confusing for so long, but now, too late, I know for certain it’s there.
You did this. You created this thing that I never wanted. That I grew to fiercely love. That I never should have had, that I never should have lost.
I am, I realize suddenly, alone again. I place a hand on my belly, know there’s nothing there. Just remnants, tissue, nothing.
The garage door begins to creak upward again, a rumbling from below. You’re back, and I want to scream.
I feel blinded by grief. For the baby I never wanted. For the baby that’s gone. There is only one thing I can see, and I see it with startling clarity: It should have been you.