This Fragile Life

The first day of camp is absolutely sweltering, one of those end-of-summer heatwaves, and the gym where we register the campers is airless and teeming with kids. Jim, the director of the camp, puts me on the welcoming committee by the door, and one little kid comes in holding his big brother’s hand, about five years old and scared shitless. He stops in the doorway, pulls on his brother’s hand as if he’s trying to make him take him back outside.

“Hey there.” I smile and crouch down so I’m eye-level. He’s got the most amazing eyes, huge and dark with long, lush eyelashes. His eyes are glassy with unshed tears. “What’s your name?” I ask. He doesn’t answer and his brother prompts him with a little push on his back.

“Ramon,” he whispers, and I widen my smile.

“Hey, Ramon, I’m Alex. I run the art department. Do you like to paint? Or draw?” He stares at me uncertainly, and I wonder if he’s ever had the opportunity. A lot of the kids who come through these doors haven’t; I love introducing them to paint and clay, freshly sharpened pencils and crisp, thick white paper. It’s like candy to them, or magic.

“Ramon,” his older brother prompts, exasperated, and silently he shakes his head.

“Well, you can try both with me,” I tell him. “Whatever you like. We have clay too, and a kiln.” He’s wide-eyed and I know he probably doesn’t know what a kiln is, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s about possibility.

I smile at the big brother and as I stand up they go past me, to the registration table, and something in me tugs hard at the sight of Ramon’s little hand encased in his big brother’s, that tie of family. It makes me feel as if I’m missing out on something, as if I’m lonely.

I push the feeling away and go to greet some other kids.

The day ends at four o’clock, and I smile at Ramon as he runs towards his big brother. I noticed how quiet he was all day, how shy. During the art period I gave him a big piece of blank white paper and a tub of crayons and he just stared at me, as if he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Then he watched the other kids going crazy with the colors, scribbling and doodling everywhere, and he spent the last fifteen minutes of class very carefully drawing a rainbow.

I sat next to him, giving encouragement, and his shy smile cracked open my heart. I can’t believe how emotional I’m being. I like working with kids, but I also like leaving them at the end of an afternoon. I like being a teacher, not a mom, being invested enough but not too much, but something about Ramon’s quiet shyness makes me protective. Or maybe it’s just the pregnancy hormones, making me see every kid here as someone’s child, someone’s person to love.

It’s close to five by the time we’ve cleaned and locked up, and as I walk outside I realize I have no plans. I haven’t told any of my friends about my pregnancy, and yet I don’t have the strength to hang out with them and pretend life is normal. I could call Martha, but that would be more of a negotiation than a conversation at this point, and just the thought exhausts me.

I stop outside my building, everything in me resisting climbing those steep stairs and sitting in my hot, cramped studio alone for the rest of this glorious summer evening.

I turn around and start to walk back towards the community center, although I know it will be locked up, empty. I suddenly feel the barrenness of my life, wandering the streets of the Lower East Side alone, nowhere to go, nowhere to be. No one to talk to.

I’m used to being alone; I usually like it. I’ve always thought of myself as independent, secure in my singleness, a free spirit. Now I just feel the absence of real relationships in my life, a loneliness I never felt before. I never let myself feel it.

I’m walking down Avenue A but at St Mark’s Place I turn west and start walking across past all the funky clothes shops and tattoo parlors interspersed every so often with the ever-present Starbucks. At Third Avenue I start walking south again until I hit Fourth Street and I’m in front of the Sunflower. It’s busy with customers waiting for their skinny lattes and chai teas, the door propped open to the still, hot air.

I’m not even sure why I’m here, until Eduardo suddenly appears from the alleyway that leads to the back entrance. He’s wearing a white tank top and cargo shorts, a backpack hooked over one shoulder. He stops when he sees me, eyebrows raised.

“Alex?”

“Hey.” I try to smile, although I’m still not sure why I’m here, or why I’m so very glad to see him.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing, really. I just…” I stop, swallow. I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t actually know this man very well. We’re work colleagues, yes, and we’ve joked behind the counter and I’ve seen him dance and we did have that one semi-intense conversation when I told him I was pregnant but added up that’s not all that much. He shouldn’t be my go-to guy, the person I need when I’m feeling lonely or lost, but the truth is I don’t have anyone like that in my life. I just didn’t realize it until now.

Eduardo hitches his backpack higher on his shoulder. “You hungry?” he asks. “You want to grab a bite?”

And it seems like the most wonderful offer in the world. I nod, too desperate and relieved to feel pathetic. “Yeah, that would be great.”

We go to Veselka’s on Tenth and Second Avenue, the Ukrainian diner that is a fixture of the East Village and has the best pierogis in the world.

“So,” Eduardo says as he bites into his huge burger and I slather my pierogis with sour cream. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

I don’t pretend not to get what he’s asking. “I’m not having an abortion,” I say quietly, and he nods in what feels like approval, or maybe just acceptance. For some reason I don’t say any more. I don’t tell him about the adoption or Martha; I don’t want to go into all that right now. Instead I take a bite of pierogi and ask him about his dance rehearsal. For a few hours, a single evening, I don’t want to be this sad pregnant woman whose life feels like a jumbled mess. I just want to be a woman in Manhattan enjoying the company of a guy friend who happens to be incredibly attractive.

And maybe Eduardo gets that, because he starts telling me about his rehearsal and neither of us mentions pregnancy again.

Chapter 9

MARTHA

I don’t call Alex for a week. I think about it all the time, and twice I start to scroll through my contacts to call her number before I stop myself. I am not going to micromanage her. It’s going to be awkward enough without me seeming like I’m checking up on her all the time. I know that, but it feels weird—abnormal, somehow—not to call her. We’re friends, after all. Admittedly, we only saw each other every couple of weeks if that, but not calling her now isn’t just about being busy or forgetting; it’s a choice.

Still, I obsess in other ways. I can’t bring myself to buy a pregnancy magazine, but I surf the Internet constantly. I find so many websites, more than I’d ever imagined, because I’ve never allowed myself to indulge this way. I’ve never had so much hope. I read about the development of the fetus, and I wish I knew exactly how far along Alex is. I didn’t even ask her the due date.

I also find message boards for adoptive parents. I resist these at first, because there is a part of me that doesn’t want to admit that’s what I am. If I hold my child the day she is born, the minute she’s born, how can I be an adoptive parent? It’s just a matter of genetics, really, and a little pain.

Yet as the week goes on and I don’t hear from Alex I finally break down and read the message boards one evening after work. I’m horrified, and yet I can’t stop. There is story after story after story of canceled adoptions, heartbroken parents who now won’t be parents. I read about a birth mother who met the parents and loved them and shared Christmas cards and barbecues and then the day after the baby was born she changed her mind and sent a social worker to tell them.

I read a story where parents took their son home and had him for six weeks. Six weeks, and then a social worker came and took the baby away and they never saw him again. Their son.

“Hey.” Rob sits down next to me on the sofa, puts an arm around my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

I quickly close the browser window. My fingers tremble and I feel sick.

“Adoption forums?” he says, frowning.

“Just reading some different stories,” I say lightly and Rob squeezes my shoulder.

“Don’t get your information from the Internet.”

“I’m not sure where to get it from at this point.”

“I know.” He’s silent, and so am I, because this is so big and strange and neither of us knows how to deal with it. “Sometimes I wonder if this is a good idea,” he says slowly, and I freeze, fighting a frustration at his typically flip-flopping attitude. What happened to not wanting to fuck this up?

“Of course it’s a good idea,” I snap, and he sighs.

“Eight months is a long time, Martha.” We both know what he’s really saying. “I wish we could just fast forward through everything,” Rob continues quietly. “Till the moment the baby’s ours.. Everything signed and sealed.”

I nod, my throat tight. I know how he feels, and yet I also feel cheated. If this is the closest to pregnancy I’m ever going to get, I’d like to enjoy it. I’d like to feel the wonder of the first kick, the ultrasound photo, all of it, without the ever-present fear.

“I mean, you hear about adoptions falling through all the time, don’t you?” Rob asks, and, since I’ve just read of dozens, I have to agree with him, even though I don’t want to. I want to hear the good stories, the happy stories, the stories where the birth mother handed the baby to the adoptive parents with a teary smile and then—

And then what? Disappeared?

I close my laptop and lean my head against the sofa.

Rob rubs my shoulder, my arm. “There’s another part of me,” he says, “that wants to start getting excited now. I mean, that’s the normal thing, right? You tell your families, you buy the nursery furniture, you pick out names. You get excited, that’s part of it, you know?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I know.”

“I want to be excited. Now that it could be real…” He stops and I look away. I feel that churning of guilt and fear, as if I’m the one who’s got to make this happen. It was my idea; I’m the one who is forcing this through. Rob might get excited about it, he might want this baby, but he’s still going to be laid-back about it. I’m going to be the one to manage everything, to make it work.

It’s always been that way between us, and I’ve never minded because we know we’re different, and we play to our strengths. But right now part of me wants Rob to man up and tell me everything’s going to be okay, that he’ll make sure it is.