"What can I do for you right now?" Warren asked again, practically.
"I don"t know," I said. "Maybe a hug."
"A hug?" Warren looked at me with some combination of surprise and contempt. "A hug? Really, Jackie? I"ve been asking you to hug me for a year. And now that"s what you want?"
I kept sobbing, and Warren left the room. He was right. He had been asking me to hug him for months and months, but my heart was too cold and broken to do it. Now that I finally wanted his embrace, could it be that his heart had grown too cold? I had been hurtful for so long that maybe neither of us could get what we wanted.
A few minutes later, I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Laura came in.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Warren called me to come over and help," she said.
"It"s the middle of the night and I don"t want him to call you," I said. "I want him to take care of me."
"You haven"t let him do that in a long time," Laura said reasonably.
"I asked him to hug me," I said.
Laura gave a little smile. "Well, maybe that"s a start. You both just have to learn how to do that again."
With each of my previous pregnancies, I had gained forty or fifty pounds and delighted in my round, fecund shape. But as I moved into the last trimester with Kasey, I had gained only fifteen pounds. I never felt hungry, and having a hard time accepting the pregnancy, maybe I resisted letting my body grow. I tried to eat healthy foods and kept exercising, but I never called the doctor to ask any questions. Why worry when I didn"t believe this baby would ever be real? It seemed too much to hope that she was growing and healthy.
Wherever I went, people came up to me with big smiles on their faces to offer congratulations.
"Oh, I"m so happy for you!" a woman I barely knew said when she saw me in a store one day.
"Thank you," I said, uncertainly.
"A new baby is just what you deserve!" she said eagerly. "Are you feeling good?"
"Yes, fine," I said with a wary smile as I walked quickly away. I felt the usual stabs of guilt. Is this what would happen now? Would everyone forget about Emma, Alyson, and Katie and want to talk only about the new baby?
Warren antic.i.p.ated the end of the pregnancy with great hope and expectation, and he started talking about a baby shower for me.
"I don"t want a shower," I said. "The girls can"t have a party, so why should the baby?"
"Everyone wants to congratulate you. You might as well get it all over with at once."
Warren made plans for a ladies" lunch. I figured it would be like a birthday dinner they"d had for me-a small group of women gathered to celebrate quietly, which had been perfect. For the shower, Warren would pay for the food, and we would use Melissa"s house.
But as the party got closer, I started to balk. I didn"t feel deserving of a party and I didn"t want friends doing anything more for me. People had done too much already. I told Melissa and Isabelle I wanted to cancel.
"We can"t really do that," Isabelle admitted.
"Why not? We"ll save Melissa a lot of trouble."
Reluctantly, she admitted that Warren hadn"t planned a small gathering, after all. He had rented a catering hall-the same one where we"d had Alyson"s Communion party-and more than a hundred people had been invited.
"Are you kidding?" I asked.
"It"s too late to get out of it," Isabelle said. "It"s a luncheon. Everyone"s looking forward to it. Don"t worry. It"s going to be fine."
He had invited everybody.
I felt nothing but anxiety at the thought of a party, and late at night, I wondered, Why can"t he do what I want?
I tried not to get angry at Warren. Deep in my heart, I knew that his motives were good. He wanted to feel as buoyant and eager as any father-to-be. Throwing a baby shower for his wife, he could feel normal. We had always liked parties and celebrations, and this was his way of saying that the baby was worth celebrating. He hoped the baby would bring the end of sadness, and he was announcing that the world could stop feeling sorry for us-we had embarked on a good and happy time. The party was his promise to every friend who had suffered through our sadness that glimmers of sunshine were again peeking through the clouds.
But, of course, he didn"t say any of that.
The day before the party, I got my hair blown out and Isabelle came over to help me decide what to wear. I pulled out a sparkly minidress I had bought a few months earlier. I"d probably bought it in too large a size, and I"d never worn it, because it had just hung on me.
"This one makes me look like a circus tent," I said, holding it up.
"Try it," she said.
I pulled it on and with my slightly bigger belly, the dress swung gracefully. Isabelle grinned. "That"s the one. Wear it."
So I did my makeup carefully and put on the sparkly minidress and a pair of stiletto heels.
"You look really good," Warren said, smiling at me with a twinkle in his eye when I came downstairs.
"I"m eight months pregnant."
"And you look really good," he repeated.
I smiled. The genuine compliment from my husband made me feel unexpectedly good. However much I had trampled on our marriage since the accident, the love and deep connection were still there.
Warren drove me over to the hall and promised that he would come to the women-only luncheon only at the very end. I gave him a kiss and went inside. The room was filled with women I knew from every part of my life-neighbors and close friends, women from my prayer group and my bowling group, relatives from both sides of the family, even some of the nurses from Dr. Rosenwaks"s office. I introduced people to one another and the conversation never stopped. Everyone sipped colorful drinks and ate hors d"oeuvres, and the pile of beautiful gifts on a side table grew higher.
"You look radiant," said the mother of a friend. "It"s so good to see you smiling."
"Don"t worry, the smile is fake," I said with a laugh.
But with all the people around, I giggled and talked and accepted compliments. At one point, I glanced at my watch. I"d made it through the first hour. I slipped out to the ladies" room. Fortunately, it was empty, and I closed the door of a stall, sat down, and cried for five minutes.
I cried for Emma, Alyson, and Katie, and for the life with them that I had lost. Even in the midst of a party, I couldn"t forsake them. I wondered if everybody in the room understood the subtext of the party. Probably. But it is hard to be sad and hopeful at the same time, so everyone but me would be trying hard to put the girls out of their minds.
I dried my eyes, fixed my makeup in the mirror, and went back to the party. All these people had come to celebrate with me, and I wouldn"t ruin the mood. The room swirled with good spirits and goodwill that I wanted to appreciate. A group of women gathered around me and I heard myself laughing happily with them, faking it to make it through.
At the end of the party, Isabelle, Jeannine, and Melissa came back to the house, bringing all the gifts with them. It was overwhelming. On the invitation, Warren had asked that everyone bring presents unwrapped so that I didn"t have to cope with opening packages. He knew that would be painful. People had been generous and creative, putting baby gifts in beautiful baskets with clear plastic and colorful ribbons. Now, as my friends untied the bows, I couldn"t bring myself to ooh and aah at the darling pink outfits that fluttered forth, or at the crocheted blankets and knit sweaters and tulle-skirted dresses that would make any baby (and mom) happy. Melissa took all the clothes to wash, and all the bigger items that we didn"t need right now we put in the garage.
Exhausted by the draining day, I went off to lie down, and when I came back, the three of them were still opening and organizing and arranging. Unexpectedly, Warren"s mother, Eileen, appeared at the house.