The Art of Losing Yourself (37 page)

C
ARMEN

I rinsed off a green pepper and began dicing it on the wooden cutting board Ben’s mom had given me for Christmas. Quesadillas were about as complicated a meal as I could prepare in the kitchen right now, what with Ben’s question running laps in my mind.

“Will a baby fix everything that’s broken?”

I wanted to reach inside my soul, grab the question by the neck, and yank it out. Yes, it would. Because once we had a baby, the waiting would be over. The winter season would be a thing of the past. And this distance Ben and I kept trying to bridge would float away like mist. I rotated the pepper and brushed away some of the seeds. Gracie came into the kitchen. She grabbed a carrot stick from the bowl I set out and crunched into it. I scooped the diced peppers onto a plate, then removed a can of Mexicorn from the pantry and dug through a drawer for the can opener.

“Where’s Ben?”

“Downstairs, I think.”

“On the pottery wheel?”

I shrugged listlessly. Ever since Sandy called on Saturday, Ben had changed up his routine. Instead of going to his man garage before dinner to throw darts or lift weights, he’d taken to going downstairs to work on the once-dusty pottery wheel we shoved aside years ago.

Gracie took another crunch of carrot.

I opened the can of corn.

“How did your thing go today?” she asked.

“Good.” Not okay. Good. I had been sure of it, at least until Ben had his say. I mixed the corn and the peppers, then pulled out leftover chicken, a pack of tortillas, and shredded cheese from the refrigerator.

“I have to get to work.”

“Okay.” Usually I’d ask if she’d had any dinner, or if she needed some cash
to pick some up on the way to the theater. Tonight the questions slipped through the cracks in my mind.

She took another carrot stick from the bowl. “You’ll be at the match tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, of course.” My attention wandered to my cell phone on the counter. Sandy said that sometimes a birth mother decided right away and sometimes she had to think about it for a few days. So here I was, faced with more waiting. The worst kind of waiting too, like I’d swallowed a ticking time bomb and I had no idea if the explosion would bring celebration or despair.

The front door opened and shut.

Gracie was gone.

I turned on a stove burner and poured olive oil into a pan, replaying the interview, dissecting Missy’s body language, her questions, her tone, trying to convince myself that Ben was wrong. Urging my hope to take flight once again. When the oil began to crackle, I set a flour tortilla into the pan, covered it with cheese, chicken, the vegetable mixture, another tortilla. Ben came into the kitchen and grabbed a drink. I waited for him to return the juice carton to the refrigerator and leave, but he remained. I flipped the quesadilla, wondering if he was going to stand there and watch me.

“I think we should talk.”

We didn’t need to talk. We needed Sandy to call. I glanced at my phone. Once Sandy called with news that Missy had chosen us, we could start getting the nursery ready. I always thought Gracie’s room would be the nursery, but the room on the other side of the hallway would work just as well. Missy was due at the end of April. That was only a little over a month away. Ben and I could start talking about names again, like we did all those years ago. We could ask Gracie to be the godmother.

I moved the first quesadilla from the pan onto a plate and got to work on the second. As I sprinkled the bubbling tortilla with cheese, a sound like a drill filled the kitchen. I turned toward the noise. My cell phone buzzed against the counter. Even from here, I could see Sandy Booth’s number on the screen.

For a millisecond, my heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped breathing. My thoughts stopped churning. Ben stepped toward my buzzing phone and answered it. I turned around. Plugged my ears. Squeezed my eyes shut because
I didn’t want to hear or see. My heart beat frantically—a violent
thud-thud
that punched bruises against my chest. I stood in the center of the kitchen, my body going hot, then cold, hot, then cold like a broken thermostat, and resumed the prayer I prayed earlier. The only prayer I’d been able to pray for days now.

Please, God…Please, God…Please, God…

Ben touched my arm.

When I turned around, his blue eyes didn’t sparkle. They didn’t dance. They didn’t smile. Tears gathered in them, but they were not happy tears. “I’m sorry, Carmen.”

No. This wasn’t happening.

He wrapped his arms around me, but I drifted away to someplace numb, to someplace cold, while dinner burned on the stove.

Rain pounded the pavement of the parking lot outside and fell like pennies against the awning overhead. I gripped the armrests of the Adirondack chair—the one Gracie spray-painted fire-engine red last week—and stared into the onslaught. It came early, it was staying late, and it was much heavier than it was supposed to be. I was sure somebody, or several somebodies, would have something to say about my miscalculation tomorrow morning.

After Sandy’s phone call, I’d told Ben that I needed to be alone. The house and its empty rooms felt too suffocating to bear. Ben understood. He gave me my space. I packed a small bag and drove out here to collect my thoughts, as if they could possibly be collected when they poured through my mind as heavy as the rain.

I asked Ben if Sandy had given him a reason why. Where did we go wrong? Why did Missy reject us? Sandy told him it wasn’t personal. Missy was simply looking for a couple who was less religious. The irony was too rich for words. Not only was God not answering my prayer, being affiliated with Him was directly preventing me from getting what I’d been begging Him for.

I glared up into the angry heavens—a cloak of rain-soaked darkness and rumbling thunder—and told God what I’d been too afraid to tell Him.

“You aren’t real.” I leaned forward in my seat and let the thought fly. “Do You hear me?”

The shout returned on an echo.

And the tiniest of cracks fissured through the numb wall around my heart. What good did believing in God do, anyway? Aunt Ingrid devoted her life to Him, and look at her now. She didn’t know who she was half the time. I was sitting at the motel she loved more than life, the one that should be ready to open in time for the bulk of tourist season, and Aunt Ingrid didn’t even know. She devoted her life to God, and I followed in her footsteps. I didn’t pass through any wild, rebellious years like so many of my friends did. I truly believed that living His way was best. And yet, look what I’d become now. A barren womb. A bag of dry bones.

My fingers dug into the painted wood. “I don’t believe in You anymore!”

I wasn’t so far gone that I missed the incongruity of the moment, or the inherent fallacy of my declaration. If what I said were true, if I no longer believed in God, then why did I need to say it at all?
Who
was I talking to?

C
ARMEN

Ben reached for me. “Carmen, take my hand.”

But I couldn’t reach him. And he couldn’t reach me.

I thrashed and I flailed. I fought with every ounce of strength in my body—to save myself, to swim, to breathe. But the waves were too strong. They crashed over me. Again and again until I was choking on salt water. I had nothing left. No strength to spare. So I let myself sink. And somehow, in the sinking, I could breathe again.

A loud
beep-beep-beep
sliced through my shocking moment.

My eyelids fluttered.

I inhaled air, not water. Awake. I was not drowning in the ocean. I was at The Treasure Chest, sleeping in one of the motel units. I was here because of Sandy’s phone call last night. I rolled over and slapped at my phone. Outside, the rain had stopped. Inside, the numb wall around my heart stood strong and sturdy.

As usual, I was one of the first to arrive at the station. I went through the motions. I did my due diligence, checking radars and satellites, pinning down the weather’s initial conditions. But what was the point? I’d done the same thing yesterday and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The weather didn’t do what it was supposed to do.

Slowly, the station came to life. More people shuffled in the doors. More lights turned on. I did my best to avoid eye contact while analyzing the last of the data, then recorded some sound bites for local radio stations in one of the editing bays. The falsely chipper tone of my voice as I talked about the stormy day ahead scraped against my nerves. I couldn’t have been any more sick of myself if I tried.

Back inside the studio, the two morning news anchors sat behind the anchor desk. Jason, the male half of the duo, held up a mirror with one hand and messed with his hair with the other. “Hey, Hart,” he said as I passed. “I left
my car windows open yesterday evening. Should I bill you for the water damage?” His voice was lighthearted, teasing.

I laughed an empty laugh.

The cameraman adjusted one of the cameras. “Thirty seconds!”

I uncapped a bottle of water and took a swig. Attempted to rally. Don my Carmen Hart with Channel Three News persona so I could give a few forecasts and leave. Survival mode, that’s what this was. I’d been here before. I could be here again. Let the numbness carry me through today and the next until time dulled the pain. Carmen the Pill Bug.

“Ten seconds.”

The cameraman counted down.

The anchors slapped on straight, white-toothed smiles.

And Jason began reading from the teleprompter—something about petroleum and gas prices. Nancy caught sight of me across the way and hurried over with an appalled expression.

“Carmen,” she whispered, “you look awful.”

“I didn’t sleep the best.”

“Are you okay to go on air?”

“I’m fine,” I said, watching Jason.

“A sailor disappeared after a navy helicopter crashed into the ocean Wednesday morning during a routine training exercise. Four of the five crew members were hospitalized immediately after the crash. One remains in critical condition. Rescue crews have been searching for the missing sailor since Wednesday.” Jason turned to his female counterpart. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families.”

“Yes, they do, Jason.” She picked up where he left off. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the only sad story we have this morning. A two-month-old baby was found dead in an apartment building in Pensacola last night. Police found the child in his crib, after a concerned phone call from another resident in the complex. The mother was apprehended shortly after. Police have stated that the woman was high on methamphetamine.”

A picture filled the screen—of a strung-out mother who’d killed her own baby.

The story was like a sledgehammer to the numb wall around my heart. There was a giant
thwack
that created a spider web of cracks upon impact.

“Come find me after the show.” Nancy patted my shoulder. “I want to talk to you about a blog series idea I had last night. And maybe touch up your makeup.” She walked around the set, leaving me standing alone in front of the green screen.

“And now,” Jason said, “to Carmen Hart with our weather forecast.”

Here was where I needed to smile at the camera and give the weather report. A substantial storm system was supposed to be moving up from the Gulf, scheduled to arrive this evening and produce strong gusts of wind, along with some scattered precipitation. But the truth was, I didn’t know. I couldn’t predict the future, especially when that future was a constantly changing thing.

Jason cleared his throat.

The cameraman waved his hand.

I was on the air. I’d been on the air, for a few seconds now, staring off into space. I needed to pull myself together. Recite the forecast I’d prepared in advance like a professional. But when I opened my mouth, that wasn’t what came out. That wasn’t what came out at all.

“I don’t know.”

Stillness filled the studio.

“I could tell you there will be storms, but I don’t know.” A squeak of laughter escaped—deranged in its pitch. “Nobody really knows, and if they say they do, they’re lying. It’s all a crapshoot.”

The stillness gave way to a flurry of panic. The cameraman pounced into action, panning back to the morning anchors, who attempted to recover my horrendous fumble. I stood there, in front of the screen, every bit as shocked as the rest of them. Because what had I done? What in the world did I just say?

Nancy’s eyes met mine.

Before she could reach me, I snagged my purse and ran out of the station.

As soon as I walked inside the house, Ben came out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box, his hair sticking up every which way as though he’d pushed his hands through it too many times to count. Apparently, he either heard about or watched my unraveling on air, since he should have been at work.

“Where have you been?”

“Driving.”

“All day?”

I set my purse on the bench.

“I’ve been calling you every five minutes.”

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t answer Ben’s phone calls. I couldn’t answer my producer’s phone calls or Natalie’s phone calls, either. All I could do was keep both hands on the wheel and my foot on the gas pedal and drive, as if enough distance might erase everything that had happened. I didn’t ease off until I reached Baton Rouge.

“You’re sorry?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know—that we should talk?”

“I don’t want to talk.” I’d be happy never to talk again. I turned away from Ben’s distress and climbed the stairs.

He followed.

I pulled my suitcase out from our closet and laid it open on the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“For where?”

“The Treasure Chest.” I began snagging tops off hangers, stuffing them inside. I didn’t even bother folding them. The wrinkles could be dealt with later. “I can’t be here anymore.”

Not here, in this house, where life unraveled. Not here, in Bay Breeze, where everyone would whisper about the weather girl and her second public meltdown—this one all the worse, since it wasn’t on YouTube but live television. I lost it on live television and then I walked out of the station in the middle of the newscast. I didn’t even know who’d covered for me the rest of the morning.

Ben stood there for a long moment, unmoving in the doorway, watching as I dropped a couple pairs of jeans inside the suitcase. This was it, I thought. He was done fighting. I was done fighting. We’d reached our end, with nothing left to hold on to except broken dreams and a whole world of hurt feelings. I grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the bottom drawer of my dresser. And then Ben retrieved a suitcase of his own and set it on the bed next to mine.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing for The Treasure Chest.”

I shook my head. “I need some space.”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“You asked for space after each miscarriage and I gave it to you. You asked for space last night and I gave it to you. I’m done giving you space, Carmen. We don’t need any more space.”

I continued my head shaking and stepped away.

“You are my wife.” With a single stride, he ate up the distance I created. He stood so close, it chipped away at more of the wall—the one I wanted left intact, even thought it was already damaged. I was afraid of what I’d find behind it. He placed his hand along my jaw and curled his fingers around the back of my neck. “I’m not going to let you drown.”

The declaration undid me, because how could he know? How could he know about my dreams when I’d never told him? “You shouldn’t have waited.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you not to wait for me—when I left for UVA.” Maybe if he wouldn’t have waited, we could have avoided all this pain and heartache. No broken marriage. No miscarriages. No dying dreams. “You should have listened.”

“You regret marrying me?” Ben’s hand fell to his side.

A tear rolled down my cheek. Followed by another, then another. I stepped away. Looked away. “We’re never going to have children, Ben. This house is empty. It’s always going to be empty.” The certainty I felt squeezed my lungs. Ravaged my heart. Burned my eyes. “I can’t give you babies!”

He picked up my suitcase and hurled it against the wall, his eyes blazing like blue fire. “I don’t want babies!”

I flinched.

The luggage fell to the ground with a thud.

“I want my wife.”

His words reached down deep inside and smashed into the wall, crumbling enough of it to expose the ache behind. No matter how hard I scrambled, I couldn’t hold it up anymore. I couldn’t rebuild it. And my tears were no longer tears but a sob. “But I do!”

Oh, God, I do
.

With every single pregnancy, the desire had grown stronger. With every single loss, the ache had grown larger. I wanted to be a mother more than I
wanted anything. I wanted it more than I wanted The Treasure Chest. I wanted it more than I wanted Aunt Ingrid to return. I wanted it more than I wanted Gracie to get through this year.

I wanted it more than I wanted my husband.

Do you want it more than Me, beloved?

The question was not even a whisper, but a silent query straight from God that stretched up from the depths of my soul and slapped me into stillness. The truth fell from my deadened, desperate heart.