What We Carry Read online

  What We Carry

  ♦     A NOVEL     ♦

  KALYN FOGARTY

  To Kevin and my girls, Hayden and Hunter.

  It’s what we carry together that’s everything.

  Angel Baby Fogarty, 10.13.17.

  Carried in my heart, always.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my wonderful editor, Tara Gavin. Your belief in this novel has made it what it is today. Your guidance and wisdom gave me the confidence to bring What We Carry into the world.

  Thank you to the amazing team at Alcove Press. Melissa Rechter and Madeline Rathle—thank you for always answering my questions and putting up with my annoying type A personality. Your assistance and support throughout this process will not be forgotten.

  Rachel Keith, my fantastic copy editor. If only you could sit by my side while I write and fix all my tense and comma issues! My book is better because of you.

  Thank you to the members of the WFWA and the 2021 Debut Facebook group. I learned so much from all of you, and your encouragement kept me going when times got tough.

  To Kenny, Lindsay, and Amelia—thank you for reading early drafts of the book. You have no idea how much it meant to me for you to even read it, and your comments and advice were invaluable.

  Thank you to all the women who shared their stories with me. I see you. I hope this book makes you feel heard.

  Horses. Just like Cassidy, I’ve always found comfort in the barn. I’m thankful for a life surrounded by these majestic creatures. Just being in their presence makes me feel better. I’m lucky enough to be able to do two things I love for a living—horseback riding and writing. It was a joy to combine my two passions in the pages of this book.

  My family and friends. Thank you for your endless support. It’s always a little embarrassing telling people you wrote a book, but all of you were so excited to read it and willing to help make my dreams come true. I’m blessed to have such an extensive network of amazing people surrounding me. Hopefully I’ve come a long way from making up stories of ponies behaving like people—but we all have to start somewhere!

  Kevin and my girls. You are the reason I wrote this book. I began writing What We Carry a few months after my first daughter was born. After endless drafts and revisions, I sent my “final” manuscript out days before I was due with my second daughter. The rest—the publishing deal, more revisions, marketing—was all done with two under two and a full-time job running my own business. I wouldn’t have had the time or resolve to follow this through without you, Kevin. You’re an incredible husband and partner and your belief in me was absolute—even when I didn’t believe in myself. Everything I do, I do for you three.

  Angel Baby Fogarty. 10.13.17. You will never be forgotten.

  ♦   1   ♦

  CASSIDY

  May 22

  HOPE SLIPPED AWAY AS my water broke all over the emergency room floor. I steadied myself against Owen, clutching his shoulder with all my strength, afraid I too might slip away if I didn’t catch hold of something solid, something strong.

  “I think my water just broke,” I said to no one in particular. My voice echoed in my ear, unfamiliar and hollow. I was suddenly unsure if I’d even spoken aloud. Perhaps it was some other woman saying those words, feeling the warm wetness seep through her yoga pants, soak into her sneakers. I opened and closed my mouth, testing the hinges of my jaw. A shallow moan escaped my lips, and I snapped it closed once again. Owen pulled me closer as though he might consume my pain and fear through osmosis. His touch anchored me in the moment, my fears confirmed. This was happening, and it was happening to me.

  In the movies, these scenes always played out in slow motion. People rushed around, their lips and feet moving, but I didn’t hear a sound. The world was starkly in focus but somehow blurry and removed all at once. I was trapped in a moment I’d replay for the rest of my life, not realizing it was merely seconds for everyone else. I’d always assumed it was some Hollywood camera trick, an illusion designed to magnify the drama. As I stood in the ER with my own tragedy dripping around my ankles, I realized the movies were closer to reality than I’d ever cared to be.

  “I’m making a mess,” I whispered. Owen and a nurse were talking about me as if I weren’t right beside them. The nurse frowned and nodded in my direction. I could only stare blankly back. Her black hair was pulled back severely in a bun, secured with a velvet scrunchie. The skin around her eyes was stretched so tight I wondered if such a style gave her a headache. Her forehead was already so high and her brow so stern it erased any softness from her expression. She’d look nicer with her hair loose around her shoulders.

  She looked away from me and back to Owen, who gave her the information I was too distracted to share.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” I said, louder this time. Both Owen and the nurse turned toward me. An orderly appeared out of nowhere and placed a hand on my elbow, helping me into a wheelchair.

  “Don’t you even worry about it, Cassidy,” the nurse said. I noticed her name tag read Patti and the i was dotted with a heart sticker. Maybe she wasn’t as hard as her hair suggested. “Someone will take care of it. Let’s just worry about taking care of you, mama,” she said as she grabbed the handles of the chair and pushed me quickly toward the double doors of the elevator.

  I bit my tongue against the surge of rage that arose, bubbling up to the surface, desperate to escape my throat. No doubt Patti was simply doing as she was trained, offering kind words and comfort to a nervous patient. Following protocol. Mama. The word taunted me. Mama. It repeated itself over and over in my head as we ascended the three floors toward the maternity ward. Mama.

  I wasn’t anyone’s mama anymore.

  ♦   2   ♦

  CASSIDY

  Before

  October 13

  “COME ON IN,” I said, opening the door a little wider for Rosie to scoot through. Like the obedient dog she was, she’d been waiting patiently in the hallway with one ear cocked in my direction until I gave her the okay to tag along. “We’re basically the same,” I murmured as she padded in and made herself comfortable on the bathmat. I remembered how surprised I’d been at the similarities between human and dog estrus cycles. I’d never fully grasped my own fertility until I learned about animal cycles in vet school, despite the many anatomy and physiology classes I’d been forced to take along the way. Only recently had I realized how little women were educated about their own bodies.

  Rosie rested her soft muzzle on her paws and looked up at me with inquisitive eyes. I’d been talking to the dog more and more since she’d become my coconspirator in Operation Make Baby Morgan. “Well, not you,” I laughed. “No babies for you.” Rosie cocked one ear toward the sound of my voice as if she were contemplating a response. Trying not to glance at the stick perched precariously on the corner of the sink, I replayed the facts and figures related to my rising and falling hormone levels, a soothing biological mantra that always calmed my impatient mind. It’s just science, I reminded myself. Science was my jam. Science was my life. The stick loomed ominously in my periphery as the timer on my phone ticked off the minutes. Ninety more seconds to go.

  To keep my restless hands occupied, I picked up the box and tried to focus on the small writing on the back. The instructions were simple enough, but the promise plastered on the front was far less clear. Results five days before your missed period. How could one know for sure the date of something that, by definition, would be missed? From my extensive—bordering on obsessive—research of the trying-to-conceive (TTC) blogs, I knew some women claimed to get their positive result as soon as seven days early. On the flip side, there were women who didn’t get their plus sign until a week after the fa
ct. Some women had a consistent twenty-eight-day cycle and ovulated on day twelve like clockwork. If only I were so lucky. Instead, I varied from month to month. At the suggestion of a cyberfriend, I’d started an herbal supplement and begun rubbing progesterone cream on my wrists every night, which helped to regulate things a bit. Since setting out on this TTC journey eight months ago, I’d come to realize I knew much more about an animal’s cycle than my own. This revelation had caused me to throw myself into learning everything there was to know about my body, as if I were back in vet school studying for finals. No detail was too trivial or gross for me. I needed to know it all.

  Rosie whimpered. She knew me better than my husband. “I know, I know,” I muttered, resisting the urge to peek. Twelve more seconds. “I said I would wait longer this month.” Rosie closed her eyes and looked away. Apparently she’d had enough of this too.

  Female fertility was fundamentally a math equation, and I’d always succeeded at math. It had taken some trial and error with the ovulation strips, but I’d finally figured out I ovulated early in my cycle. All those months of doing the deed too late in my cycle made me cringe. So many wasted opportunities. The big “O” held new meaning when you were trying to conceive. I’d quickly recognized Owen didn’t have the same gung ho attitude for “ovulation” as for its sexy counterpart, so I’d learned to shut my mouth against all the baby-making banter and readjusted our calendar accordingly. Some new lingerie and red wine didn’t hurt, either.

  By my precise calculations, I could get a positive pregnancy test by day eighteen of my cycle. That happened to be today. All signs pointed toward positive this month. I could feel it. There was no such thing as oversharing when it came to fertility tracking, and it had thrilled me to report to my online support group two days ago that I’d seen a little blood, which had to be a sure sign of the elusive implantation bleeding. Only the most vigilant of moms-to-be on the support groups noticed it. I’d horrified poor Owen when I called him into the bathroom to confirm my suspicion. He nearly tripped over his own shoes as he ran from the room after I showed him the small brown spots. Each month he acted like I was conducting some elaborate science experiment when, really, I was securing our future. God forbid he had to examine a little blood without getting all squeamish. Just one of the many differences between a man and a woman.

  My phone alarm buzzed, and I grabbed it before it fell into the sink. Rosie stood from her spot and moved next to my knee, rubbing her soft red coat against me. I scratched the top of her head as though she were a talisman of good fortune and silently wished for luck. I didn’t want much, just a baby.

  A single horizontal line. My chest tightened with the familiar force of disappointment. Rosie stared up at me and I nudged her away with my knee, ignoring the small look of hurt in her big brown eyes. I held the stick up closer to the vanity light, twisting it side to side and willing a second line to appear. The overhead light was dull; that was the problem. This was the month. It had to be. I squinted, every fiber of my being hoping for at least a faint pink line, but even in the bright glare of the mirror light, it was negative.

  I dropped the test in the trash and braced both hands on the counter, staring at myself in the mirror. My high school boyfriend had once told me sad looked pretty on me. Brushing my fingertips across my cheeks, which were flushed a peachy pink, I had to concur that my reflection wasn’t entirely unpleasant. My green eyes glittered with tears that would never fall. Sad did look pretty on me. But I wished I were crying ugly tears of joy, my face twisted and contorted with happiness.

  “Come on, Rosie,” I said. Perking up, having forgotten I’d pushed her away only moments before, she followed me into the living room. She jumped up next to me on the couch and curled into my hip as I stroked her muzzle and started the second phase of my monthly ritual.

  Every month I’d promised myself I wouldn’t test early—but I always did. I’d vowed not to test every day—but I couldn’t resist. I’d tell myself everything would be okay, there was always next month—but waiting thirty more days seemed impossible. Eight months. Eight cycles. Zero pregnancies. Thirty early-detection tests at $13.99 a pop; countless cheapie ovulation and pregnancy test strips bought in bulk online and discarded daily. Every one of them had shown only one line. Negative, negative, negative. Picking up the remote, I flipped through Netflix, settling on something I’d seen countless times. I won’t test tomorrow, I vowed. It wasn’t the truth, but it was the lie I had to tell myself to get through the day, the week, the month. Rosie lifted her head and licked my hand before settling back to rest. She knew as well as I did we’d be back in the bathroom tomorrow, but she was telling me everything would be okay. It’s all okay. Everything’s okay.

  ♦   3   ♦

  CASSIDY

  May 22

  “YOU SEEM BETTER NOW,” Owen murmured. He hovered beside my bed, one hand rubbing my shoulder and the other clenching and unclenching in time with my heart rate monitor. He kept looking at the machines as if he understood what the numbers meant. “Are you still in pain?” His eyes searched my face, looking for any sign of hope. I wished I could give it to him, but I’d left it in the lobby, spilled on the floor.

  Less than an hour ago the cramping had been so bad I’d thought I was dying. Since our twenty-week ultrasound was scheduled for this afternoon, Owen had already been on his way home when I called him. We’d been looking forward to this scan for weeks, since we’d finally find out the sex of our baby. One minute I was getting dressed, daydreaming about what names we might choose for a girl versus a boy; the next, pain knocked me to my knees and I barely had the strength to crawl down the stairs to find my phone.

  “Cass?” Owen lifted his brow. I shrugged and patted the space next to me on the hospital bed. His nervous energy was making me crazy.

  “It’s better since we got into the waiting room,” I said, refusing to acknowledge out loud what was so obvious to me, if not to Owen. The pain had lessened after my water broke. I didn’t need a veterinary degree to know it couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Owen sat, but his entire body thrummed with pent-up nerves. He looked down at me expectantly, and I wanted to scream but mustered a weak smile instead. How could I be mad at him for relying on me to help him with all the medical jargon? He was out of his element, and the least I could do was calm his fears.

  Before I could say anything else, a young nurse in hot-pink scrubs marched into the room, tennis sneakers squeaking on the white floors.

  “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, my name is Liv, and I’ll be asking a couple questions before the doctor gets in,” she said, settling herself on the stool in the corner of the room. I missed Patti with an i and her stern hair already. It took incredible self-control, but I resisted the urge to correct the Mrs. to Doctor. I knew it irritated Owen when I did that; he always insisted it made me sound pompous. However, he hadn’t spent almost a decade working his ass off for those letters after his name.

  With her pen and clipboard ready, Liv started asking me a list of prepared questions. I wondered how many times she’d witnessed women experiencing their worst nightmare while she checked boxes and filled in the forms. Describe the pain. Any bleeding in the first trimester? Any changes to your diet or routine? I closed my eyes, the dull throbbing in my womb a mere echo of the discomfort I’d felt earlier. Placing my hand over the ever-so-slightly rounded mound of my stomach, I started answering.

  As we finished, a faint glimmer of something almost like hope lodged itself in my mind. Nothing else about my pregnancy was out of the ordinary; maybe, just maybe, this was a fluke. Owen squeezed my shoulder, and I realized it was already too late for him. He wanted to believe things were okay.

  Liv capped her pen and smiled again. I’d misjudged her when she strode into the room with her swinging ponytail and pink, glossy lips. Her face was unreadable, a perfect mask. “We’ll send you up for an ultrasound, and then the doctor will see you.” Liv stood, placing the file on the table. “Hang in th
ere, sweetie,” she said. Just when I was starting to like her, she called me sweetie. Owen caught me rolling my eyes as she left. I knew I should’ve insisted on Doctor.

  He let go of my hand and started pacing around the room like a caged lion once more. Stopping as he passed my file, he let one hand hover above it like he might try to sneak a peek inside, but he decided against it and continued to stalk the perimeter.

  “Please sit down,” I asked, trying to keep my voice from rising. “You’re making me nuts.”

  “Sorry.” He took a seat on the nurse’s stool. “It’s good they’re doing an ultrasound, right? They wouldn’t do that if something was wrong with the baby.” He said it as confidently as he could, but I heard the hint of a question in his voice. I loved him for trying to be strong, but I knew him too well to be fooled by his bravado.

  Still, I wished for once I was the one being comforted. For our entire relationship I’d been the calm and rational one in a crisis. I was the one you called when things got rough and you needed a steady hand and dry eyes. How many pet owners had I consoled after their beloved animal was euthanized? How many times had I calmly explained to a client what such an illness meant to their pet’s life expectancy? It was no wonder Owen was looking to me now, expecting me to soothe his fears and tell him just what he needed to hear.

  “Maybe,” I managed, the only word I could muster that wasn’t a sarcastic retort. He looked at me, his eyes already wet with tears on the brink of falling. It was too soon for crying. “I’m sure it will be fine,” I added, my voice betraying all the doubt I felt. I didn’t have the power to change what was happening, but I had the power to make Owen feel better a little bit longer. And that was better than nothing.

  ♦   4   ♦

  OWEN