What We Have by Amy Boesky Read Free Book Online Page B

walk away from his life and someone else just take his place? How is such a thing possible?
    “Didn’t they know it wasn’t him?” one student objected. “How could he just pretend to be someone he wasn’t?”
    “We don’t always get to choose,” I told her. “We like to think we always stays the same. That we’re the same person, all our lives. But it doesn’t always work that way. Some things are beyond our control.”
     
    LIFE GOES ON. WHEN YOU’RE pregnant, that fact is doubly true. I was getting bigger by the week. I could mark the passage of time by my outgrown maternity clothes— that was August, when the blue jumper still fit. That was September, when I wore those black leggings every day . The baby moved now and I could feel it all the time. I could see it moving when I looked in the mirror. We were getting ready. In October, Jacques and I started working on the nursery. We were moving on—we had to. But with each thing we did, each plan we made, I thought about Emily.
    The tree they planted for her was less than two feet tall, with only the slightest furring of leaves. They had to stake it on all sides so the wind wouldn’t blow it over. They made an appointment with a geneticist at Johns Hopkins—an expert. They were “moving forward,” my mother said, and she made that sound like a good thing. Better than moving backward, I guess, but back was what I missed. Every morning, around the time Julie and I always talked, I tried to stay busy so I wouldn’t listen for the phone to ring. My mother took it on herself to keep me up-to-date. She told me I needed to understand that Julie was “wrecked.”
    “It’s life-changing for them,” my mother said. “They’re rethinking everything. Why they live where they live. Why they work where they work.”
    Everything .
    I felt a little like Martin Guerre, pacing around in a life that no longer felt completely like mine.
     
    IN LATE OCTOBER, JACQUES AND I started prenatal classes. We learned how to pant during labor and how to choose a focal point to stare at during contractions. Jacques tried rolling a tennis ball, hard, into the lower part of my back. We sat in a circle with people we didn’t know and practiced diapering a plastic doll. “Parenthood,” our teacher told us, “is a journey. As with every journey, you have to start with one small step.” I couldn’t believe she could say that with a straight face. I took a deep breath, passing the doll to the lobbyist on my right. When he stared at me, I realized I was holding it by its ankle.
    I threw myself into teaching. In November, Lori and Dave gave Jacques and me a baby shower. Even though I knew Julie wouldn’t come—she’d called, choked up, to apologize in advance for not being there—I couldn’t help looking around for her, the whole time I was opening boxes with tiny outfits and ingenious baby devices. Once the doorbell rang and I looked up, hopeful. But it was only one of the twins from next door.
     
    AFTER THANKSGIVING, JACQUES AND I went back to the hospital to take a tour of the prenatal wing.
    “Has your pregnancy been uneventful?” the form asked. All I could do was check a box for Yes or No. There was no space to write about Emily.
    I checked the box for Yes— uneventful . But I knew it wasn’t true. There had been these things: This tiny lost cousin. This danger skirted, this ineluctable will to survive.

Ninth Month

    THE LAST STAGE OF PREGNANCY, according to my What to Expect book, is a time to think and plan ahead. But you shouldn’t forget to “reinforce romance.” The authors recommended going out at least once a week together to do something “special (and unexpected)”—like miniature golf. Or hitting the flea market. You weren’t supposed to forget your partner. “At dinner,” they advised, “spend at least some time asking about his day, talking about yours, discussing the day’s headlines . . .”
     
    THIS SOUNDED LIKE GOOD ADVICE, but in our