A Hope for Emily

“She’s so beautiful,” I say, and Rachel nods, almost fiercely.

“Yes,” she answers. “She is.”

We look at a few more photos, and soon enough I can see the signs that something is going wrong. Emily with new pink glasses; Emily using a tiny, improbably-sized walker. Still smiling, still Emily, but the losses are encroaching, a tide moving inexorably towards the shore.

After a few minutes Rachel stops clicking the mouse for the next photo. “Let’s use the beach one,” she says, a bit abruptly, and we do.

The page is pretty much set up; all we have to do is click to publish. I tell Rachel about some easy tricks I’ll use to promote the page—the usual social media outlets, like for likes, parenting forums I’ll post on. She nods, looking a bit overwhelmed by it all.

“How do you think James will feel about you doing this?” she asks when we’ve both fallen into silence, and I shift my position on the sofa, unable to meet her gaze.

“I don’t know.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“I should…” I sound so halfhearted, and Rachel shakes her head. “Eva, you really should tell him as soon as possible. If this all happens without him knowing—”

“Yes.” I know that. Of course I do. “I will.”

“Why haven’t you yet?” She shakes her head. “I know you mentioned how you’ve never really talked about… about Emily, and James can be a bit one-sided about this, but… you’re his wife. He loves you.” Her voice wobbles a little at that but her gaze is direct. “Surely he’d understand why you’ve gotten involved? Or at least, I don’t know, accept it?”

“I’m not sure if he would or not.” I blow out a breath. “When I said we never talk about you or Emily, I meant we really don’t.”

“Yes…” Rachel frowns. “But I guess that’s understandable…?”

“I mean, we never do,” I emphasize. “Never, ever. James told me about you and Emily on our second date and then it was as if he never wanted to talk about you again. At least to me.”

Rachel blinks, looking diffident, as if she doesn’t know how to process that information, or what it means. I’m not sure what it means, either. Is it because our marriage isn’t strong enough? James wants to keep our relationship separate from his earlier one? Emily is too sacred a subject for me? I really don’t know.

“Really, never?” she finally asks.

“Pretty much never. He told me everything in one shot—”

“Everything?” She sounds sceptical, and for one heart-stopping moment I wonder if there is something I don’t know. Something James didn’t tell me, when he was being so honest. Something that would change things.

“As far as I know,” I amend, and Rachel does not reply. “Why… why did you divorce? In your opinion? I mean, James said you’d grown apart…” I trail off, realizing what an invasive question I am asking my husband’s ex-wife this, and yet I want to know. I want to hear Rachel’s side of the story.

Rachel lets out a long, weary sigh. Her gaze is distant, hooded, her chin tucked low. “I think,” she finally says, “not many marriages could withstand what happened to us, with Emily. I don’t know who would be able to keep going, faced with all that.”

Which I understand and should accept, yet for some contrary reason I press. “But shouldn’t you, at least in theory, want to support each other through it? Lean on each other in a time of crisis? I mean, isn’t that the idea of marriage?”

“Yes,” Rachel says, a wry twist to her lips, her gaze still settled on something other than me. “In theory, it is. But when you’re both hurting so much…” She sighs. “It felt like we were both on life support. We couldn’t be each other’s oxygen.”

Which sounds so bleak, and yet I understand it. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m asking these questions.”

“I suppose I’d be curious, if I were you. I’d want to know what went wrong besides the usual.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. “So what did go wrong?” I ask. “In your opinion?”

She throws me a look—a bit wry, a bit scornful even, but without hostility. “The easy answer—the one he gave you—is we did grow apart.”

“And the real answer?” I dare to ask, although I’m not sure if I should or even if I want to.

“Who knows what the real answer is? It felt like one day we were happy, the three of us, a family. We were even trying for another baby.” I try to school my expression into neutrality. James never mentioned that. “And then the next our daughter was sick, so sick, and we were barely speaking. We had nothing to say to each other that wasn’t about Emily.” She shakes her head. “But you know I’ve had enough time to think about it now, and I know it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t so quick.” She lapses into silence and I wait for more. “I think we were drifting apart even before Emily got sick,” she says quietly, a confession. “I don’t like to think that, but I think it’s true.”

“Why?” I can’t not ask.

“I don’t even know. Maybe there wasn’t enough to keep us together in the first place. I mean, we loved each other,” she clarifies quickly. “I know we did. But sometimes it felt lik