What We Carry Read online

  Before

  November 11

  OPENING MY OWN CONTRACTING company had gone against all the wisdom bestowed on me during my middle-class, midwestern upbringing. How many times had Dad uttered the phrase slow and steady wins the race or Mom told me to play it safe? I’d never doubted their belief in me, but I sensed their fear of failure and change was greater than any dreams they might have imagined for me—or themselves, for that matter. Dad always expected I’d attend State and play ball—like he did. He assumed I’d find a decent-paying job I liked well enough to make a career out of—like he did. I’d start a family here in Kansas where I’d be a respectable, hardworking father who provided—like he did. Declining the baseball scholarship and attending a private college in Boston was the first time I’d ever stood up against their modest expectations.

  Since then, I’d been reinventing myself from the corn-fed Kansas boy everyone saw at first glance into something new and improved. I still subscribed to slow and steady wins the race, but I’d decided I wanted bigger and better things from life than I’d ever get by playing it safe.

  For four years I’d struggled to keep the business in the black, scraping by each fiscal period with a bit more profit than the one before. Certainly not what I’d hoped to gain by leaving my comfortable position as foreman at a contracting company that catered to the upper echelons of suburbanites north of Boston. Although sorry to see me go, my boss had been supportive when I’d told him I intended to start my own company specializing in landscape architecture along with the standard home renovations that were the bread and butter of his own operation. Since then my business had been steady but not yet booming. Without a booming business, I couldn’t afford to hire the extra workers I needed to get the business booming. It was a perpetual struggle I needed to power past. All I needed was my big break, that one account that might push Morgan Contracting and Landscape Art into the major leagues. Without putting the cart before the horse—another of my dad’s favorite expressions—I thought today might be that big day.

  Pulling into our gravel driveway, I let the truck idle in park while Tom Petty finished singing my favorite song. Our stately old saltbox stood tall and proud against a perfect blue sky, an example of why autumn in the northeast was better than autumn anywhere else. When my mom called to lament that I lived so far away, I’d tell her I’d traded the monotonous plains of yellow cornfields for rolling mountains and multicolored leaves. Though there was plenty of beauty in my home state, there wasn’t a more picturesque place than here in the center of New England, especially in the fall.

  Rosie darted across the yard and dropped her tennis ball next to my truck as she patiently waited for me to greet her. My wife rounded the corner a few seconds behind her, smiling and squinting into the sunlight. Cutting the engine, I stepped down from my big diesel truck. Rosie immediately snatched her ball back, teasing it near my outstretched palm.

  “There’s my beautiful ginger girl,” I said, scratching the curly hairs between her ears before she ran back to Cassidy. “I missed my pretty ladies.” I followed the dog and pecked a kiss on Cass’s cheek.

  “You’re home early,” she said, frowning. “Everything okay?”

  I smiled, barely able to hide my excitement. I had planned on drawing out the suspense, but who was I kidding? Surprises had never really been my thing. My mom claimed she could tell I was lying from miles away just by the look in my eye. Some things never changed.

  “Better than okay,” I said, causing her to cock her head and raise a brow at me, eyes twinkling. “I won the bid over at Bourne Mansion.” When I’d gotten the news this morning, I’d wanted to scream and shout it from the rooftops but settled for a quick meeting over coffee and doughnuts with my crew. Although I appreciated their grunts of congratulations and pats on the back, I was eager to tell the one person in the world I knew would jump for joy with me.

  “Oh my god!” she cried, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me tight. This was why I couldn’t tell her over the phone or drag out the suspense. I wanted to see the pure joy on her face as I gave her the good news, her excitement a mirror of my own. For months she’d listened as I hammered out the proposal for revamping the landscaping surrounding the famous grounds. My mind had been so consumed with the project it was all I thought about, all I dreamed about. It was a mammoth job, the biggest my company had ever bid on. It required an exclusive contract and hiring a team of men to get the work done. Although it was a giant undertaking, the payout would be worth all the time and pressure. Most importantly, it would help build my company’s reputation.

  “We need to celebrate,” she insisted, standing on her tiptoes and kissing me on the lips. Rosie danced around our ankles, eager to get in on the action. “I’ll call and make reservations at Sarentino’s.” She led me into the house.

  Cassidy headed toward the small kitchen table and started scrolling through her phone. In the den, the television blared and I rolled my eyes. Cassidy would leave every light and television in the house on if left unchecked. It was one of the few things we’d ever argued about since we’d begun dating almost ten years ago. Maybe turning things off saved only a few dollars a month, but that was a few dollars we wouldn’t have otherwise.

  The den looked more like a kindergarten classroom than a living space inhabited by two grown adults. Three bins, overflowing with every crafting material known to man were tipped on their sides, spilling markers and construction paper everywhere. A hot-glue gun was stuck to a piece of cardboard beside two tubes of red and green glitter—both closed, I was pleasantly surprised to notice.

  I leaned over to pick up one of the projects Cassidy must have been working on before I got home. A Santa Claus, made of clay and an obscene amount of glitter, with the words Congratulations, Grandpa! written in Cassidy’s neat script across a banner below Santa’s boots. I turned the figurine in my hand and saw there was a ribbon attached to the top. A Christmas ornament.

  “Seven thirty is perfect, thank you,” Cassidy said from the kitchen. I picked up another ornament, this one of Mrs. Claus. Congratulations, Grandma! it read. I put the ornaments back down and clicked the television off. Cleary my wife was more talented in the secret-keeping department than I was. Good things occurred in threes, my mom always said, and I was giddy with excitement. Wondering what the third charm might be, I headed back into the kitchen, smiling at Cassidy. How long would she wait to tell me the news?

  “I’m sooo craving their rigatoni,” Cassidy said, looking up at me from the table.

  “Is there anything else you’re craving?” I asked, as visions of pickles and ice cream danced in my head.

  Cassidy laughed, but I saw a small look of panic cross her face. Overcome with guilt, I realized I was ruining her surprise. Her eyes darted toward the den and then back to me. She hadn’t been expecting me home until much later, which would have given her plenty of time to clean up and hide the ornaments until she was ready.

  Biting her lip, she looked on the verge of tears. “I can explain,” she stammered. I followed as she rushed to the den, nearly knocking over her chair in the process. “It’s nothing,” she muttered, falling to her knees to shove the markers back into the bins. “I was just preparing.”

  “Cass, you don’t have to explain,” I said, confused about where this conversation had gone wrong. “This is amazing news.” I was unable to hide the question in my tone. It was amazing news—wasn’t it?

  Cassidy looked up at me and scowled. “I know I say it every month, but this time it’s different,” she said, still tossing markers into a bag. I watched her scoop everything else up and close the container. When I reached out my hands to help her up, she flinched and clutched the ornaments tighter to her chest. Still clueless, I waited, desperate for an explanation. “I have all the symptoms, and we did everything right last month. A woman can tell,” she added, shrugging her shoulders. “I can feel it.”

  My heart fell as I sank onto the edge of the couch. New month,
same story. For the better part of the last year, Cassidy had scheduled sex so it coincided with her monthly cycle. Some months she was better at hiding her motive than others, but I always played along. At first, I looked at it like I was winning either way, but the pressure to perform had made it nearly impossible to feel the same level of passion we’d once had. Spontaneity had become a thing of the past after she informed me I needed to save my swimmers for game day. I tried to ignore the idea that she was only going through the motions, telling myself she wanted a baby but she also wanted me. She thought it went unnoticed when she pulled up the tracking app on her phone and checked off a box after we did the deed.

  Like clockwork, ten days later she would complain about some obscure pains and insist she was nauseous, convincing herself she was pregnant. She would take a pregnancy test and I wouldn’t hear anything about it until the next time we needed to schedule our special monthly meetings. This was the first time I’d seen anything that might lead me to believe there was more to her phantom symptoms.

  “You took a test?” I asked, knowing the answer but afraid to hear her response. She’d started making gifts. This time must be different. Otherwise, this was crazy, and Cassidy wasn’t crazy. In fact, she was the most sensible woman I’d ever met. There must be an explanation. She refused to meet my gaze and just sat there, holding the stupid ornaments.

  “Cass,” I repeated, my face growing hot. “Don’t you think it’s a little presumptuous to be making gifts for our parents until we know for sure?” I tried to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice but failed. I didn’t want to embarrass her, but what the hell was she doing?

  Cassidy lifted her green eyes at me, wrought with shame and contempt. “I just wanted to get started on things,” she said, tossing both ornaments into the only open container. “Whatever. If we don’t need them this year, we will eventually,” she said, her voice high and on the verge of hysteria. Her lip trembled and she looked close to bursting into tears. Maybe she was pregnant. It would take a huge hormonal imbalance for Cassidy to cry over a minor argument. She looked miserable, and I didn’t have a clue how to comfort her. The stress of getting pregnant was breaking her.

  I sighed. Today should be about celebrating the bright future we’d always dreamed of. Hadn’t we always wanted to wait until we were settled and successful in our careers before having a baby? There would be plenty of time to start our family. We were both young and healthy. Maybe this was the key to it all, some small blessing in disguise. I knew how to lift the incredible pressure off her slight shoulders.

  “I think we should wait,” I said, confident I’d figured out the way to make Cassidy happy again. There was no rush. We had a lot left to do before we started the next phase of our life.

  Cassidy rolled her eyes as she pushed herself to her feet. “Fine, I’ll wait until I get the positive test. Should be any day now,” she said.

  I shook my head. She wasn’t understanding me. “No, I mean we should wait to have a baby,” I whispered. This was all my fault. She’d thrown herself into making a baby because she thought it was what I wanted, and it wasn’t in her nature to do things half-assed. “Let’s stop trying for a while and focus on each other. We don’t have to rush,” I said, standing and reaching for her elbow. She flexed against me and I loosened my touch, unsure. “I want a baby made from love.”

  Retracting as if slapped, she froze. Wishing I could rephrase, I tried to backtrack, but stumbled to find the words. What I’d meant to say was I didn’t want to schedule sex anymore. I didn’t want to worry about ovulation and discharge and all the other words I cringed at each month. What I meant to say was good things happened when you weren’t looking for them. Unable to get the words out, I withered under her scornful gaze and said nothing at all.

  Cassidy nodded once and allowed me to pull her into a hug she didn’t reciprocate. The confidence I’d felt earlier abandoned me as I held her limp body against my own. “Are you okay?” Maybe I’d misread the situation. Was she sad or relieved?

  “I’m good,” she said, her forced smile not touching her eyes. “Let me finish cleaning up.”

  With her back turned, I refrained from asking her again if she was okay, knowing it would only irritate her. Sometimes Cassidy needed space to regroup and recharge. I’d learned that lesson the hard way over the years. Pushing her was pointless; she was an immovable force.

  I headed back through the kitchen to the hallway bathroom to wash my hands, still covered in dirt and debris from the fire pit I’d built this morning. As I turned on the faucet, I knocked a plastic stick into the sink. Picking it up between my thumb and forefinger, momentarily grossed out at where it had been, I squinted at the small window in the center. Negative. My heart sank a little lower. Setting it back on its perch next to the soap, I turned the water off and backed out of the room. I’d just wash my hands upstairs.

  ♦   5   ♦

  CASSIDY

  May 22

  THE TRUTH WAS HIDDEN somewhere in the words the technician didn’t say. Even after my water broke and the cramping stopped, I’d allowed a sliver of hope to wedge itself into my brain. Even after the ultrasound was silent, I reasoned that maybe the volume was turned off. Maybe the absence of a heartbeat was a mistake and not the silent sound of my own heart breaking into a million pieces. Through all of this, I kept my thoughts to myself, resisting the urge to ask questions and insert useless medical facts learned from Google and veterinary school.

  Owen watched the screen, the black-and-white static alien to him, nothing more than an abstract visual of the baby inside me. The technician left us to wait for the OB/GYN on call tonight. The five-minute wait felt like an eternity, but it wasn’t long enough. At least in this limbo there was some chance my baby was alive.

  The doctor walked in and, like a vacuum, sucked all the air from the room. I recognized the look on her face. Wasn’t I adept at that same look? Owen and she exchanged names and some pleasantries, but I barely heard. I couldn’t stop looking at her face.

  “I’m sorry, the baby has no heartbeat,” the doctor said, her voice echoing in the compact exam room. No preamble, no placations. No one had invented a better way to deliver bad news. The walls closed in around me. A machine wailed, the keening so loud I gripped my hands against my ears, desperate to quiet the sound. It took Owen shushing me and rocking me against his chest before I realized the horrible noise was coming from somewhere deep inside my soul.

  “We’ll leave you for a few moments,” the doctor said, head bowed to her chest. “A nurse will be in shortly to prepare you for what comes next.” She backed out of the room, the technician right behind her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Owen whispered against my ear, his breath hot and wet and alive. I tried to pull away, but he hugged my stiff body against him, digging his hands into my shaking back. The air was too thick, and I dry-heaved against his shoulder, choking for oxygen. I ripped myself away, but not before seeing his handsome face a mess of tears. He’d never hidden his feelings well, and this was no exception. But beneath the sadness, I saw pity in his blue eyes. A wave of anger flared to the surface. Anger, so much easier than anguish, settled into my core. How much easier to be mad at the way Owen looked at me then to let it break me down. I rejected his pity.

  Wiping the tears from my cheek with the back of my hand, I steeled myself against the agony threatening to overwhelm me. I took a few deep breaths, tearing myself from Owen’s gaze and grasped for the last semblance of reason I had left.

  I avoided hysteria by resorting back to science, something that made sense. “Something was wrong with the fetus,” I said, unable to call it a baby any longer, knowing I’d break if I uttered the word. “This was nature’s way of balancing the scales.” My voice was brittle and unyielding, like the biology textbook I’d recited from memory. Owen pulled back, shocked. Slapping him would have been kinder. “It wouldn’t have been healthy,” I reasoned, shaking my head back and forth, over and over. “It’s bett
er this way.” I looked up at Owen, daring him to argue. His shoulders sagged as one last tear fell from his eyes. Before he could take my hand, I pulled it beneath the covers, folding it across my lifeless belly. Looking away, I pinched the exposed skin, relishing the sharp pain.

  ♦   6   ♦

  CASSIDY

  Before

  February 10

  I’D ALWAYS BEEN A creature of habit. My mom had loved to tell anyone who’d listen how I ate only oatmeal for breakfast or how my hair was always crazy in the morning because I showered only at night and refused to brush my hair before bed. There were so many unflattering anecdotes she loved to embarrass me with that I’d lost track of them, even though they used to infuriate me. But the joke was on her. My daily rituals led to productive days, which wasn’t embarrassing at all.

  Despite her gross exaggerations (I did in fact eat things other than oatmeal and my hair never looked that bad), all her little stories only showed how I preferred routine and order. God forbid I didn’t crave chaos and uncertainty, the recipe for my mom’s specific brand of “creativity” she insisted I lacked. What she called artistic, I called undisciplined. Tomato, tomato, right?

  For eight months my morning routine had comprised a predictable chain of events. My alarm went off at 6:45 AM. Before anything else, even using the bathroom, I took my basal body temperature, since you garnered the most exact reading upon waking. While waiting the ninety seconds, I scrolled to one of three apps on my phone dedicated to fertility tracking. Here I’d record my temperature and any other data pertinent to making a baby—usually whether Owen and I had made love the night before or if I’d observed any discharge or abnormalities. After noticing Owen sigh and roll over the few times I’d recorded the deed the night of, I’d decided to dedicate my first waking moments to data collection. My alarm would sound again at 7:00 AM, so I spent the last few minutes browsing the TTC blogs and forums I’d bookmarked before jumping up from bed to prepare for work.