Grip Trilogy Box Set

“You think the semantics of this situation complicate our decision?” I ask hoarsely. “They don’t. What complicates our decision is that we love this baby as if he or she is already here, already ours. What complicates it is the roomful of nursery furniture we’ve bought, every piece chosen with . . .”

My voice breaks, tears dampening my words.

“With love,” I resume. “What complicates it is that I feel flutters in my stomach, and I’ve been waiting any day now for them to be kicks. This is our baby, and it’s been the center of our world for months, and now you say I may have to end its life or carry it to term and then watch it die in my arms. Please. Just tell us.”

I raise my eyes to her, and a tiny portion of my torture is reflected in her stare. She nods, resignation on her face when she says, “It’s a girl.”

Grip’s sharply drawn breath matches mine, and my eyes, my hands, my heart—every part of me seeks any part of him I can get to. With our fingers tangled together in my lap, we just nod, both of us too cut up to speak, the moment so raw we hemorrhage in the silence.

In a daze, I submit to the needle slowly drawing fluid from my belly. I don’t even hear the things Dr. Wagner and her staff say from then on. Agony unimaginable rises over my head, disbelief muffling all the words around me, muting my responses. My lungs constrict painfully as I go under over and over, drowning but unable to die.

And I want to die. I think I could die without complaint if it meant avoiding these “decisions,” accepting one of these impossible options, if it meant not breathing and living for the next four months growing this child only to watch it die before it’s ever even lived, a manifestation of our malformed hopes.

When we get to the car, Grip and I just sit there for a moment, steeping in hot water, boiling alive in our suffering.

“Fuck,” Grip finally mutters. I glance at him from the passenger seat, unable to even curse. I am a curse. I feel cursed—how can I not with the things the doctor said?

“Fuck,” Grip repeats, slamming his hand on the steering wheel again and again and again. I flinch at the percussion of his fist into the unyielding leather and plastic, flinch every time he strikes it.

“It can’t be . . . we can’t . . .” He stops abruptly, and one tear streaks down his handsome face, the face I dreamt would stare back at me in a little boy or a little girl.

“It’s a girl,” I whisper.

Agony ripples between us where our fingers intertwine, and Grip brings our hands to his lips.

“We can’t give up yet, Bris. There’s still the test. Maybe she’s mistaken. Anything’s possible,” he says, his mouth settling into that firm line I’ve seen every time he’s faced and conquered a challenge.

But this isn’t a tough industry, a ladder to climb. It’s not bias based on the color of his skin. If the tests confirm what Dr. Wagner suspects, this is insurmountable. There’s no climbing out of it or work

ing our way around the impossible choices we’ll have to make.

I can’t help but think of how this day began, with the heat of our lovemaking, with our dreams and speculations about this baby whispered as dawn broke. We were sure it would be just as we wanted, that anything was possible.

Dwell in possibility.

I can’t think of what’s possible as I replay the conversation with Dr. Wagner like a horror movie I can’t un-watch, the word “terminal” clanging like a bell over and over in my head.

Possible? Not when all that is weighing on me, waiting for me, is death.

Bitterness pools in my heart, a fast-filling well of poison choking me. I don’t speak for the rest of the ride home. I think about how certain Dr. Wagner seemed, how she called the test Grip is pinning so much on a formality. I stew in my fear and anger and frustration until it runs over, leaving little room for hope.

Chapter 36

Grip

THE NURSERY IS DOUSED in shadows. The only light comes from Bristol’s phone, illuminating a small sphere in the dark, showing her high cheekbones, stark in the diminished light, and the full curve of her mouth pulled thin with tension. She’s sitting on the floor, her dark brows contorting into a frown as she scrolls down the screen with her index finger.

The last ten days of waiting for the test results have been harder than anything I’ve ever experienced, but not harder than what lies ahead.

Our baby will die.

Whether because we terminate the pregnancy or decide to let it run its course, her death is an inevitability for which I have no idea how to prepare. I can’t, and I have no idea how to help Bristol because I can’t help myself. I thought I could protect her from anything, from anyone. I called myself her first line of defense but I’m blindsided, never suspecting that the enemy—death—had already breached our gates.

We always talk about everything, Bristol and I, but a heavy silence hung over us on the way home, like a rain cloud poised to pour. We were silent as if our words would trigger the storm, and the deliberate, unnatural quiet followed us across our threshold. Maybe by unspoken mutual agreement, we decided it isn’t real until we talk about it, until we weigh our shitty options and are forced to make impossible choices.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask from the door, my voice scratchy from lack of use. I’ve barely spoken since we left the doctor’s office.

At my question, Bristol’s head jerks up, her attention wrested from the phone. With a click of her finger, she turns it off, losing the light and plunging the room into darkness. The overhead light would show too much, would be too bright. I step carefully in the general direction of the lamp on a table in the corner. I fumble under the shade until I find the little button that will show me Bristol’s face, but not much else. Her thoughts will remain a mystery until she’s ready to talk, and as much as I don’t want to, as much as I’ve avoided it for the last few hours, we have to talk.