6. Cliff-Diving

Where to go next. How honest to be. When I stare at my face in a mirror, it seems stiff. Frozen where it is usually at ease. It’s been six months of controlling the message. Keep it silent. Keep it secret. Until finally, I let every word spill from my lips. Adam is stone and soap and all things quiet and clean. His mouth a lock; mine a cavern. He buries as fast and deep as he can, leaving me alone, wanting to unearth myself. I watch him and am trapped by his silence and my fears, soon to erupt. I can feel it in me. When I watch the wind start to blow, hours before a storm, I understand. Mothers need to rage and weep. Adam will too, but he’s not ready yet, and I have been trying to be patient. To wait for him to catch up to me so we can do this together.

When the pandemic started – after it had really started. But when the switch was hit, and the world said, “Oh no, now we are in it, now it is real,” we hid in our homes, with fortresses of purchases lining the walls of our garages, conveniently tucked into our middle-income-and-above caves, with our two cars and our Prime accounts. When that happened, we pulled Jane out of daycare, worked, and lived in our home, with Atticus resting his paws on our feet. It was worrying. We were concerned. We protected. Jane was only two and a half years old. We kept her as unaware as possible. Snow was on the ground, and we built forts around the house with armies to protect us. We filled the house with toys and games and blanketed ourselves for the first two months, distracting her with hot cocoa and Sesame Street. It was an extended holiday for Jane. We kept things light for her and had quiet conversations in another room after she fell asleep. The news was not watched unless it was from our phones.

The spring came. Sparrows sang, calling us out of our hibernation. The world was still dying, and we were still safe. Adam kept his beard neatly groomed. Our colleagues and bosses no longer took video calls, but humor remained in our voices. Everyone from our team was working from home, and we laughed as we heard each other chasing children and pets while we discussed performance metrics and projects. Jane planted seeds with me. We tended to our gardens. She stroked the petals of the flowers and whispered to them.

Summer was mild and beautiful, contradicting the horrors in hospitals, schools, and plants. Our meetings at work had taken a grim turn by June.

“Did you hear about Joe?”

“Yes, I heard about Joe.”

“Shall we start a GoFundMe for his wife?”

Yes, put HR on it. It turned into messages via Teams eventually. No one could stomach hearing the words said aloud.

I worked for a company that was rolling out tests for Covid. I hired chemists and other scientists for their infectious diseases division, which was full of products meant to test for countless other diseases, so it was logical that we would become involved. The company dug its heels in, and I watched as people decided whether or not to give their lives to their research, as most of those roles had to remain in a laboratory environment, or they were working at one of our manufacturing plants. A phrase began to be used when there was a need to hire someone for a position, because someone had left without meaning to do so.

“This is a thin red line backfill.”

It was a grim reason to recruit. By then, the manufacturing teams were the hardest ones to hire for. COVID ripped apart the plants without remorse, leaving people haunted by the losses. By the time we made it through a year of the pandemic, the divorces had begun. We lived in a fog; our ears were full of it. No one wanted to listen to the sounds of people dying. Asphyxiation was no longer a phantom of our imagination.

Jane wanted to be back in daycare with her friends. The school remained closed, except for families of first responders, teachers, and those considered essential. We were lucky to be optional in many ways. Her birthday came, and I overcompensated, shoving my guilt into toys and books and every bit of magic that I could make for her. Adam understood and watched as Jane lost her mind over everything. I played music loudly in our house of three and we had a dance party with all of her stuffed animals, pulling Adam into the fun. Family and friends had shipped presents to our front door. We waved at them on our screen while Jane blew out her candles. Still, we were lucky.

“Did you hear about Nancy?” Yes, I heard about Nancy. “Should we start a meal train for the kids?” Yes, put HR on it.

Adam and I had just been getting better about having sex more than sporadically. Before Jane, we were relentless and always covered in sweat, showering and loving and fucking. Then the first two years after Jane, the sex was less frequent and mostly enjoyable. Exhaustion and opposite work schedules. Yes, that was it. And the convenience of both reasons. The teeter-totter between reason and excuse. And learning to love this new person my husband had become, because something had shifted when we became parents. Both of us. Still, sometimes I would watch Adam as he ate a bowl of cereal before work and would wonder who he was.

By the time we were into the spring of 2020, in that first year of Covid, we had found our way back to each other. We were ducking into rooms with each other and covering our mouths as we came. One morning in May, Adam went outside to cut the grass. I was dancing with Jane in the family room. She was turning in circles and laughing, grabbing my knees and asking me to swing her around in my arms. We fell onto the rug when we stopped and pretended to be ladybugs lying on our backs. She asked me for water, so I walked into the kitchen to pour her a new cup, and I saw Adam from the kitchen window. His chest was wet with sweat. Shirtless and slick with the labor of his work. He looked up at me and smiled, waving. My heart smiled for him. I worked to put Jane down for her nap while I thought of the salt on his skin. I pulled him into our room when he came upstairs before he reached the shower. It was urgent and sweet. I stayed on top of him afterward, watching his eyes. He looked lighter than usual. There was love still. We took turns soaping each other up and down in the shower, laughing like a young couple, as Jane’s nap remained uninterrupted.

By July, I learned that I was pregnant. Our surprise. We hadn’t expected her as Jane had taken some extra work. By then, we had donated toys and clothes, happy to have our “Turkey Baster Miracle”. Why not have a baby during a global pandemic? Despite hearing stories from family and friends who had already labored in hospitals earlier in the year, we laughed to ourselves. Nervous, yes. Worried, yes. But happy. A quiet and surprised bliss. So much could happen in seven months. Things could be better.

I had almost four months to enjoy being pregnant. Though I was still nervous about what that could look like in February, with no apparent immediate end to Covid, I was just pregnant. Familiar changes. My body adjusted as she grew. Jane was excited. A new adventure was to be had. We were carefully visiting with siblings and parents when we could. Masks and cleaning supplies and sitting outside. All of these things became unwanted but familiar. We talked about Christmas together. Then, in the beginning of November, just before I turned forty and before the first snow, it changed with Beth’s heart. I stood on a cliff in the quiet of a perfect fall day and screamed at God before diving into the waters with her. I begged without shame.