A Hope for Emily

And that’s when I realize I’m going to tell her. I’m going to tell her something I’ve never told anyone else—not James, not my family, not a single friend, not a counselor or doctor. No one. But Rachel, of all people, deserves to know. And, I realize, she’ll understand.

Either that or she’ll judge me, just as I’ve judged myself.

I take a quick breath, willing the tears back, the emotion that threatens to consume me now more than ever. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay.” Rachel gestures to the room, the bed. To Emily. “I understand complicated.”

“But it’s always been so simple for you,” I say with a sniff. Rachel looks as if she’s going to object and I hasten to clarify. “With Emily. What I mean is, you’ve always been so sure about what you’re willing—what you need—to do for her.”

“That’s not true.” Rachel’s face takes on a pinched look. “I’ve second guessed myself a thousand times. Even today…” She gives a kind of gulp as she shakes her head. “But we’re not talking about me right now. God knows I’ve talked and thought about myself way too much recently. What’s going on with you? Why aren’t you happy about this pregnancy?”

“I am happy,” I insist. “So happy. More than you or anyone could possibly know.”

“Okay.” Rachel waits for more, because of course there’s more.

“It’s just…” Where to begin? How to explain? I stay silent, trying to order my thoughts, control my feelings. It’s so hard.

“Eva, whatever it is,” Rachel says. “I can hear it. I can listen.”

“I’ve been pregnant before,” I finally say. “A long time ago.”

Her face has that carefully bland look people get when they don’t know what you’re going to say, only that they have to brace themselves for it.

“Okay,” she says again.

“It was during my junior year of college. I was so in love. With a guy called Lucas.” My mouth twists with the old hurt, the angry cynicism that covers it like armor. Sixteen years ago and I still feel it all, as fresh as ever. Will it ever fade?

“So what happened?” Rachel asks quietly, because of course something did.

“We were going to get married. I had it all figured out. He was a teaching assistant, doing his graduate work at one of the Claremont Colleges. I was at Pomona. Far from home for the first time, so full of myself. I hadn’t meant to get pregnant, of course, and I knew it wasn’t ideal. My family would be horrified, I knew—they’re pretty strict Catholics, and I was always my dad’s little princess.” I sigh as the memories and regrets rush through me in a weary river. “Lucas wasn’t thrilled at first, but he wasn’t… you know, actively opposed.” Or so I’d thought. “We had it worked out. I would take a year off while he finished his graduate work and I stayed home with the baby. Then I’d finish my degree—I was studying joint business and English—and we’d both find jobs, back in Boston, maybe. My mom would love to help with the childcare, once she got over the shock.” She grimaces. “And yet I was too nervous to tell her I was pregnant, that I’d gotten pregnant in college, without being married. That wasn’t… that wasn’t how it was done in my family.”

Rachel frowns. “But surely she would have understood…”

“Yes, I think she would have, in time.” I have to admit that, even though it hurts. “The truth is, Lucas wasn’t on board enough to make me trust what we had. Part of me was just waiting for it all to go wrong.” And then of course it did.

Yet even so I remember dreaming about how it was all going to work out, so confident that I could have everything—the man, the baby, the job, the life. All mine for the taking, simply because I wanted them. I tried to make myself believe it, and yet I never quite could.

“So what happened?” Rachel asks when it seems as if I’m not going to say anything more, and the truth is, I don’t want to.

“I had an ultrasound at twenty weeks. You know the one—where they count the fingers and toes, tell you if you’re having a boy or girl?”

“Yes.” Rachel’s face has that pinched look again, and I know it is hard for her to hear this. What if she hates me, for what I did? After everything we’ve shared and been through together, it would hurt. However complicated our relationship, I would call her my friend.

“They flagged up a concern at that ultrasound. They didn’t tell me what it was right away.” My throat grows tight as the memory flashes through my mind like a video replay. I can see myself, my shirt pulled up, my precious bump so neat and round. The technician is poking and prodding me with the metal wand, and the black and white image on the screen dances and blurs. A baby.

Even though I’d started to feel fluttery kicks, even though my clothes were getting tight and I’d thrown up for six weeks, it amazed me, that image on the screen. I had a baby inside of me.

Lucas didn’t come to the ultrasound. He was teaching, and I couldn’t reschedule it. Maybe that should have been a warning sign; couldn’t he have missed one class? But I was lost up in the clouds back then, determined to believe in my happily-ever-after. Even though I hid my pregnancy from my family, since I wasn’t married, and even from my friends, who I knew would be shocked and disapproving. Baggy sweatshirts and saying I had the flu helped, and I didn’t see my family on the east coast until it was all over, buried deep down inside.

“I had more tests,” I tell Rachel. A blur of needles, scans, the frown of the ultrasound technician as she stared at the screen. Her murmured ‘excuse me’ as she left the room without an explanation. The panic creeping over me with icy fingers, the sudden sensation of how cold and exposed I was, with my top up, my belly shows, my baby kicking. “And my baby—my daughter—was diagnosed with a fatal heart condition.”

Rachel’s eyes widen. “Oh, Eva…”

But I have to explain, because it’s not that simple. “One side of her heart hadn’t developed properly, and most likely never would. The doctor told me she’d need open heart surgery as soon as she was born, and it was extremely high risk. Based on the severity of the defect, she was likely to have a shortened life span.” I recite the facts as I remember them, each one emblazoned on my brain, my heart. I can see the cardiologist’s compassionate look, hear his careful recitation. “Most children with the defect, the doctor told me, only lived a year at most, sometimes only a few months. Even if they’d had the surgery.” But some lived longer. A precious few lived compromised lives, lives with lots of medical intervention and surgeries, but they made it to adolescence or even beyond. But he’d told me the percentages, and they hadn’t been good. They’d been overwhelming.

“I’m so sorry.” Rachel’s face is creased with pity, and I wonder if it actually helps her, to focus on someone else’s pain. Not everyone is living a charmed life, even if it may sometimes seem that way, especially to her.

“I told Lucas about the defect.” He hadn’t come to any appointments, saying he had class, and I hadn’t let myself care. I can’t really remember those weeks of waiting, of endless doctor appointments, my mind a blur as I pushed myself through the days. And then the verdict, given with such devastating kindness, followed by a question I hadn’t even realised could be asked. What do you want to do?