7. Books & Blood

Henry owns a bookstore in my hometown. It is beautiful inside. Books and records and art await your senses. In my twenties, I would linger in the quieter aisles, brushing the spines of books with my fingers and glancing at pages while we tested each other’s boundaries, waiting for Henry to close the store. Then we would tumble into each other’s words, pushing and pulling for the truth but never saying all of it, starting and stopping until it was too late; he met someone, then I met someone, then I was single again, and he followed suit. For five months, we were both finally single at the same time, when we were both thirty. I told him to come after me. He did not. 

Because I didn’t say it to him in those words. Because he was too afraid to try. Because his wounds were too raw, or I was too shy or stubborn to tell him how I felt. I do not know (that is a lie). I should have been more direct. He should have been brave. We have never said it all. We tiptoed too much and for far too long. The wrong dance steps. Still, I remember thinking, there’s time for us to sort it out. Each time we saw each other, it reminded us of what it almost was. Back then, it was sweetness tinged with regret. Then I left for the summer, newly single, at thirty, and when I returned to Chicago, I met Adam.

Henry was still single, and I wanted him, but there had been too much inaction on his part, and I did not pull him to me and say, “Again, please, but stay this time.”

Uncertain of his heart and if it could be mine to wear in the morning. Whereas Adam did not hesitate. He pulled me to him and kept me. I felt loved, wanted, and safe, and I fell in love with him. When I met Henry over a decade before, I felt at home and knew where I should sit, in his heart and lap, on fire with him, rolling in the flames together and loving each other as we laughed. But it was too late, and I decided he did not feel for me as I did for him.

“He’s just not that into you,” I would tell myself, letting the what-ifs roll over my shoulders. It was easier to move forward if I believed that. Otherwise, the pain was too sharp.

Henry was present in the background for the first four years of my relationship with Adam, having been in the foreground of my twenties. We faded comfortably from each other’s lives at that point, resurfacing over the last two decades when we bumped into each other in town or Chicago, sometimes stumbling into each other at a concert or out with our respective dates. Dating others. In and out of committed relationships. Tucked away and behaving ourselves. Still, I waited for Henry to say something; those times that we saw each other, standing in front of a coffee shop or buying a book in his store while gauging to see if he could still make me blush. And he could. It was a razor’s edge. A game I shouldn’t have played with myself, but I always escaped without incident because he did not make a move. Once, at the beginning of Adam and Caroline, he told me he didn’t pursue me further because he was afraid.

“Afraid of what,” I wanted to ask him. I wanted to say it and pull him into a kiss. But he laughed and cracked a joke immediately after, leaving me with the only option not to take his words seriously.

“Yeah, right,” I replied, rolling my eyes at him and smiling back. Everything was a joke, and the pair of us were skillfully humorous. Nothing was real, I thought and backed away. Go to Adam and keep your heart there. 

At night, I wished I had pushed Henry to tell me more. If I could have believed him, I would have looked longer at his eyes and ignored the jokes. I would have listened to what he was not saying as he spoke.

I sought out Adam later that night and focused on him. I fell deeper in love with him. We moved through those first three years together, and he proposed. I said yes. I was happy. He was happy. We were happy. Henry was with someone. He did not tell me congratulations when he learned the news. I did not bump into him for a while during the year that Adam and I were engaged. I was happy and planning a life, celebrating with families and friends. But Henry was a whisper in my mind that made me smile softly when I heard his voice.

After Adam and I were married, we spent our days having reckless sex. Enjoying each other all the more than when we were dating. We played together. Then the months turned into a year, and there was no baby.

“We’re in no rush,” I demurred as people analyzed the size of my stomach at parties, x-raying me with their eyes while I looked behind them and laughed at their urgency. Instead, we crashed into each other and were thrilled at the rush, falling together and spending time on the bed or the floor or the patio or the tables and chairs or, or, or . . .

Then we were thirty-five, and still, there was no baby. We met with a specialist. There were tests. Adam had an abundance of fish in his sea – it was me. I was tilted in the wrong direction. Fantastic for sex (!) but not for getting pregnant, it turns out, with a wink and a nod in my direction.

“But don’t worry,” the man with the white coat said.

There’s a pill for that, bloodwork, a needle or two, and a giant turkey baster. If we give you a big stir inside, then voilà, sperm will meet egg, and egg will bear fruit. “Where did your feet go?” my mother quipped as I rested my hands on my stomach, firm and round with life.

Then there was the celebration of life carried inside, and for a long time, it was joy, and I was calm. Sex while pregnant was fun. Until – if you could just bleed alone for us on the bathroom floor before you call your husband at work, please, then for hours in this hospital bed while we whisper about the risks and benefits of miscarriage or surgery, that would be delightful. Your husband will stand silent sentinel. He’s just outside, in the waiting room. You don’t mind, do you? How accommodating of you, sweetheart. Now rest. Poor thing; it is her first, you know. She doesn’t know everything yet. Don’t tell her what happened in the next room. Eat some salad and practice your stretches.

If you push a little harder now for me, Caroline, let me reach inside you to pull her out of you. Just breathe through the pain and watch the sun kiss the moon. See how beautiful the solar eclipse is as she slips out of you? It has to be a sign. But just breathe through it and relax. Don’t worry about what’s wrapped around her neck. She will cry out to the sky soon. There. See? Now she sings.

Does she have a name? Let’s wash her and cast off the unwanted bits. Isn’t she a beautiful raisin?

Pay no attention to the looks on our faces or the doctor kneeling before you again. Please scream for us while the doctor pulls your insides out since it won’t spill out alone. We need your nightmares. Is there a drink that will make her forget what’s happening to her – this time? Nurse, find another needle and dull her senses. Is there something to make her forget my fist inside of her as I claw and scrape out the placenta? No? Alas. Thank me for saving you [thank you for saving me]. Forget about those last five minutes; shush, take these pills, so you can be pretty and numb while we fold you back into place. Corners tucked back into place. Here, Caroline, hold your baby now. I’ll sew you shut, just three tiny stitches to remind you of what you’ve survived when others have not. Would you like to eat it? Just blood and tissue. The placenta, not your baby. We’re not cannibals. Let’s laugh together. A sharper sound. Like crows at a feast. No? You don’t want it? Very well but our disappointment is noted in your files. Ignore what came out of you just now. The nurse will take it away. Hands to wave it off. Poof. Are you good? Are you happy? Time for a shift change and coffee. See you tomorrow for five minutes. Ignore the way that it feels inside of you; that will fade. You won’t think of it until you are buying groceries or debating which position to fuck in again, but that will fade until it only haunts you in your dreams or an invisible twinge here and there while you’re talking to your family and feeling ignored. Here, take my card. I’ll see you in three months. Are you good? Are you happy? Pretend with us.

Then we were parents and in it. No time to think about what happened. My body put itself back together, forming something new over the next two-plus years, until it was time to do it all over again, but this time, entirely on its own. The miracles of sex and life. The nightmares hid in shadows. I dreamed of blood on the doctor’s and nurse’s mouths. I heard them chewing. I grew my nails and sharpened them as I grew again.

Henry saw me when I was pregnant both times and made me blush. I wanted my cheeks to stay pink. I bought books to read, and we fished alongside each other for compliments, occasionally staring at each other for too long. He was still with the same woman, but something about their relationship was off. I saw how and where his eyes lingered, and the heat remained. It was delightful and heady. He loved the shape of me. Being wanted when I was unsure of myself in those years between two babies helped pull me out of my dormancy. I wanted to be touched with the lights on again, to be taken in the sunshine, and I channeled that in bed with Adam, who was patient and quiet, waiting for me to come back to him. To let him in again. Too patient and too quiet, perhaps. Did he wait too long? I knew that Adam wanted me, but there was a change there. The sheets were tucked in too tightly. Sometimes he snored and I kicked him.

Though Henry and I could converse politely about the weather and the conditions of the sidewalks in town, those feelings had never left my heart. They had only receded to a quiet place where I could keep my secrets, tucking them into bed when I was alone. I had pushed them into a corner because I loved Adam. Which was how the trouble began. Push too hard; it boomerangs back to you. Everything comes back to Henry’s letter. The one I saved.