A Beautiful, Terrible Thing Page 10

  Beautiful, today I take you to be my wife.

  My promise to you is to be with you wherever life takes us,

  to unconditionally love you,

  to respect you, to protect you from harm—

  I finished the vows in my head and opened my eyes to a blurry Seb and Marco.

  “Do you think you should take a break?” Marco asked, eyeing my stomach.

  “No,” I yelled over the music, dizzy but happy. “I want to keep dancing.”

  AFTER

  WE drive to my parents’ house. Back at the hotel, Louisa woke up right as we were getting ready to leave. Marco picked her up out of the stroller and placed her on the bed between us. We spent an hour cooing at her. She laughed for the first time at the funny faces Marco made.

  Please God, I think now, please let Marco get better. Glancing into the rearview mirror at the tuft of light brown hair peeking over the car seat, the thought fills my head, Please let Marco love us again.

  We pull into the icy driveway of my parents’ rambling white farmhouse. Candles glint in the windows, and snow hangs from the trees nestled around the house. Marco lifts Louisa out of her car seat and turns to me. “Well, this is gonna be awkward. I’m sure your parents hate me now.”

  “No, that’s not true,” I say. My voice comes out too high. “They’re really worried about your health.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he says, crunching along the driveway to the front door.

  My mom greets us at the door and hugs Marco warmly. I give her a smile. Thank you, I say with my eyes.

  A fire roars in the fireplace, and orange flames lick crackling wood. Marco and I sit side by side on the couch. Louisa sleeps in her car seat across the room. My mom offers coffee.

  “No, thanks,” Marco says in the monotone he has been using since January 20. “Coffee makes my migraines worse.”

  “You’re getting migraines?” my mom says with interest, and settles into the white chair facing us. “I used to get them, too. The only thing that ended up working was acupuncture.”

  “Maybe you could try that,” I say eagerly.

  “Maybe,” Marco says.

  “So, are you invested in trying to make this work?” my mom asks, looking intently at Marco.

  “Make what work.” Marco’s voice is a flat line. My face heats up, and I laugh nervously.

  “The marriage . . . ,” my mom says.

  “Oh, yeah. Of course,” Marco says quickly. He grabs my hand and rubs my palm with his fingers. The feel of his touch is foreign, and I almost shrink away.

  “Of course,” I murmur, and smile brightly.

  —

  A FEW days later, I take the first leg of the drive back to New York. We switch at a rest stop in Connecticut, and Marco drives the rest of the way, insisting that he feels well enough and that the pounding in his head decreased substantially in Maine.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go back to New York at all,” Marco says, lacing his fingers through mine. “I feel sick just thinking about work, our apartment, the city. . . .”

  Marco’s health seemed to steadily improve over the three days he spent in Maine. Each morning I picked him up at the hotel, and we walked around the Old Port, pushing Louisa’s stroller over the cobblestone streets and talking. We discussed the past few months and agreed that we failed on the communication front. Marco told me that work and the city were eating him alive and he kept it all inside because he didn’t want to stress me out while I was pregnant. Each night he pleaded with me to come back to the hotel and stay overnight.

  “I’m not ready,” I said each time, “and where would Louisa sleep?”

  The last night in Maine my parents babysat Louisa, and Marco and I had dinner at a beautiful restaurant in Portland. At the end of the meal, Marco took my hands in his across the table.

  “Baby, let’s move to Maine. This never would have happened if we had moved last year.”

  I thought back to last summer, when Marco had pleaded with me to move to Maine.

  “I’m so tired of New York. Let’s buy a small house in Portland and start new,” he’d said.

  “But what about the restaurant? I know we’re trying to cut ties, but I don’t think we should up and leave before we get our investment back. And my career? I need to be in New York. Let’s give it another couple years. I want to move from a good mental place, not because we’re struggling.”

  “I guess. Yeah, you’re right. I do want to open my own place in New York. No partners. Just us two,” he said thoughtfully. “OK, another couple years. Let’s go out with a bang.” He kissed my hand. “You’re so amazingly wise.”

  I guess I hadn’t been so wise after all. A year later, sitting across from him in the dimly lit restaurant, I squeezed his hand and said, “Yes. Yes, let’s move. I can’t stand New York anymore either.”

  “Really? Are you serious?” he asked.

  I nodded, and he said, “OK, I’ll finish out my two weeks at the restaurant and then we’ll sublet our place.” He took a sip of water. When he set down his glass, his eyes were wet. “I can’t believe I let it get to this point. I held so much inside that I almost broke our family,” he said as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

  That night, I texted him good night from under the covers of my childhood bed.

  “Good night,” he responded right away. “I love you both so much. This is cheesy, but this is how I feel right now.” A link came in, and I clicked it. Aaron Neville’s voice filled the air as a live performance video of “Don’t Know Much” filled my iPhone screen. I smiled and texted back, “I love you, too. But it’s time to let actions speak louder than words.”

  Sitting in the passenger seat of the car now, I drum my fingers against his hand and look out the window. “I don’t want you to have any kind of relationship with that girl during your last two weeks, Marco,” I say seriously. The New York City skyline looms ahead us.

  “Well, I work with her, so I’m going to have to see her, but I promise you, as soon as I leave that place, I will never, ever see her or speak to her again.” He sighs. “I’ve told you a hundred times, there was never any physical attraction. She wears so much makeup that she looks like a clown half the time. You know I’m afraid of clowns.”

  This shouldn’t make me happy. I’ve never been catty. But I allow myself a little snort.

  —

  THE first night back in New York does not go well. Marco had put a picture of my sunglasses on his Instagram account while we were in Maine and tagged me in the photo. Normally, I wouldn’t have even noticed, or I would have teased him about tagging me in all his pictures, but when I got the alert on my phone a couple of days ago, I was ecstatic. Marco hadn’t put up any pictures of me or Louisa since January 20. I was in a good place when he left for work, but when I noticed that the tag was removed from the photo, my whole body clenched.

  “Why did you remove that tag?” I text him immediately.

  “What are you talking about?” he replies ten minutes later.

  “The sunglasses picture. What the fuck, Marco?” It is small and stupid and shallow, but I am enraged.

  “Wow. I didn’t untag it. And you sound insane.” I start to write back more expletives and stop. Maybe I do sound insane. Maybe his phone untagged it somehow. Maybe he never tagged me in the first place. I try to remember back to the exact moment I received the alert. I can’t think. Everything is blurry. I decide to drop it.

  The next few nights are worse. Every day we spend a few nice hours together before he has to leave for work. Every night, as soon as the sun sets, I start to feel nervous, jittery, like a hyena circling prey. “Are you sure she’s not there tonight?” I text before I can stop myself.

  “Babe. Stop,” comes his reply.

  We just have to make it ten more days, I think to myself. I have rented a storage unit for our belongings.
We leave for Maine at the end of the month. My parents have moved back into their sublet. They will drive back to Maine the last day of February and we will follow them in the Subaru. We decided that we will spend a couple of months on Peaks Island, in my parents’ summer cottage, which is empty every winter. Just the three of us. We will cook together, cuddle with Louisa, sip coffee by the fire. Ten more days.

  —

  BUT I cannot wait ten more days. A sickness has been spreading through my body. I’m infected, consumed. I have to know for sure. I know what I have to do.

  I pace around the apartment all night and at around 2:00 A.M., I start getting ready. I gently lift Louisa from her swing and strap her into the car seat. She stirs for a moment and then settles back into a deep sleep, her mouth slightly open, her eyelids twitching. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I whisper. “This will be over soon.” I put my coat on and then lace up my boots. I feel a cold sweat trickling down my sides, but I keep moving. I lug Louisa down the stairs, out the front door, and march to the car. There is a cold, hard ball in my stomach, and my bowels feel loose. I click Louisa into the backseat; I climb into the driver’s seat, turn on the ignition, and yank the car into drive. I wait for the car to warm up and then blast heat into the icy, still air. “Please stay asleep,” I whisper into the rearview mirror. The streets, a few hours earlier teeming with people, are empty, and I make good time. Sallow yellow light illuminates patches of deserted sidewalk. I stop at a red light and stare straight ahead. “Give me a sign, and I’ll turn around,” I whisper. The pit in my stomach grows as I near my destination.

  I circle, finding a good spot to park. I dim the headlights and wait. The car grows chilly. I focus on the blood pumping through my body and into my ears. I rub my hands together and check on Louisa. She is toasty warm beneath a soft blanket. I turn back from watching her peaceful breathing and see two people exiting the restaurant. I am close enough to make out his crisp dark-blue suit and her messy, long blonde hair. My heart starts to thud. He locks the restaurant door, and they stand there for a moment chatting. He puts his arm around her shoulders and then takes his arm away quickly. She folds her arms across her chest. They start to walk down the street. I wait for them to disappear around the corner, and then I start the Subaru. My leg is shaking so badly that I hit the gas hard and jolt forward. I crunch along the cobblestone street, hunched forward, gripping the steering wheel. When I roll to the end of the street, I look right. My eyes strain, and I see the dark figures two street blocks away. I put on my blinker even though I am the only car on the street and start to turn and then see a ONE WAY sign telling me to turn left. Fuck. I am going to lose them. I jam the blinker stick in the opposite direction and hit the gas.

  I turn left and go as fast as I can on the small, twisty downtown streets, until I reach a street that I can turn right onto. I turn right and then turn right again and drive straight for a few blocks, praying that I am traveling parallel to the couple. I turn right again and come up to the one-way street. I turn my head side to side, wildly, trying to spot them. The street is deserted. There is no one. Fuck.

  I pull out my phone and quickly bring up Find My iPhone. Marco and I know each other’s passwords in cases of emergency, and I type in his login information quickly. Come on. Come on. Load. A map appears and a dot shows me Marco’s phone. I zoom in. I look at the dot, and then I glance at the street signs surrounding me. He is here. He is right here. I turn my head again wildly from side to side, straining my eyes. No one. My breathing escapes my body in haggard spurts, and I squint at the buildings, trying to find a bar, a lit-up window, anything. There is nothing. The buildings are dark. I don’t understand. I take a deep breath and think. Something is wrong. I push a button on my phone and press it up to my ear.

  “Hello?” Marco’s voice rises above background noise of loud music and people talking.

  “I know where you are right now,” I say, my voice shaking.

  “Jesus Christ, babe. You need to cut this out, seriously.” He sounds far away.

  “I saw you,” I say, steadying my voice.

  “What? What are you talking about?” I imagine him pressing his finger into his ear, straining to hear me over the loud music.

  “I saw you put your arm around her,” I say clearly. “I’m here.”

  “What do you mean you’re here?” His voice is calm.

  “I sat outside your work. And now I’m at West Broadway and Chambers Street. Your phone says you’re here, but I don’t see you.”

  “Stay where you are,” he says quickly. “I’m at a bar up the street. I’m just dropping off the restaurant keys with the opening bartender. I’m coming out. Stay where you are.”

  I feel strangely calm. This is it. This is the moment I will finally know the truth.

  Marco climbs into the passenger seat and quickly turns to look at Louisa.

  “She’s asleep,” I say. It comes out normally, as if we’re a family about to head to the park for a picnic. “I know now, Marco,” I say just as smoothly. “I saw you put your arm around her.” I put the car into drive and pull out into the street. A feeling of deep calm floods my body. “I finally know,” I say serenely.

  “Babe. Did you also see that I took my arm away fast and we didn’t touch at all after that? Sweetie, she was cold and she shivered so I put my arm around her shoulders without thinking and then took it off really quickly. Just like I would do for your mom . . . or Nat. I didn’t even think about it.” His voice is steady. “I’m not having an affair. You want it to be true, but it’s not.”

  Oh no. No. My stomach twists and the calm seeps out of me. Tears trickle into the collar of my coat. Please. Please just tell me. “I can’t do this,” I say. “I can’t do this.”

  “Pull over, baby. Let’s switch. You’re shaking.” We switch places, and Marco steers the car toward the bridge linking Manhattan with Queens. I lean my head into my hands and say again, “I can’t do this.”

  “I know. The fact that you were spying on me, that you brought Louisa out in the middle of the night . . .” Marco’s voice is soft and sad. He pulls one of my hands from my face and holds my hand tightly. “I never touched her, Jen. Never.”

  I stare straight ahead through the windshield. The lights lining the sides of the bridge blur my vision into a twinkling mass. I am going slowly insane.

  BEFORE

  “PLEASE tell me you’re close.” I sucked in my breath and closed my eyes as a wave of grinding pain wrapped itself around my midsection. “I really think this is it.”

  “I’m leaving work right now, baby.” Marco’s voice traveled quickly through the phone.

  “Please hurry.”

  At the hospital we filled out paperwork, and I changed into a thin blue gown.

  “They’re going to send you home,” I heard the receptionist tell Marco as he dropped off the clipboard. “I can see it on her face; she’s not ready yet. Trust me, if that baby was coming any time soon, her face would not look like that.”

  The doctor said the same thing as she pulled on her gloves. “I’m going to check your dilation and we’ll do a swab to see if there’s any amniotic fluid, but my guess is we’ll send you home for the night. Take a nice bath, relax, and see how you feel tomorrow. Sometimes Braxton-Hicks can feel like the real deal and then suddenly they just go away.”

  “Ugh, I really thought this was it,” I said with a small laugh. “Maybe it’s the full moon.”

  “See,” the doctor said warmly, her head blocked by my huge belly, “if you were really in labor you would not be able to laugh. Trust me.”

  She left, and I tried to relax. A wave of pain rolled through my body. A few minutes later the doctor came back in with a young resident. “So, actually—oh OK, that’s a face I recognize.”

  “She started having really bad contractions as soon as you left,” Marco said.

  “Well, what I was going to say i
s that the test came back positive for amniotic fluid. Your water hasn’t broken completely but it’s leaking, so I was going to admit you anyway. You were right. This baby is coming soon.”

  Within an hour the contractions were so intense that I pressed the call button for the nurse. “I need the epidural,” I moaned through gritted teeth.

  “The doctor would really like you to wait till you’re at least a six, honey. It’s only been an hour so you’ve got a while to go,” she said calmly in a rhythmic Jamaican accent. “But I’ll check you again, OK?” she added as I let out a long, guttural growl.

  “Oh,” she said slowly from between my legs. “OK, you’re ready for the epidural. You’re between a six and a seven!” She let out a loud laugh.

  “Thank God,” I groaned as a contraction wrapped itself around my insides like a bicycle chain and squeezed.

  —

  THE epidural kicked in instantly. “Baby, this is amazing. I’m floating.” I smiled at Marco. “Ha-ha, that’s awesome, babe. I’m going to get some food and some fresh air. Do you want anything?”

  “No thank you,” I said, my eyes closing. “I’m perfect.”

  —

  WHEN I woke up, the doctor was in the room. “Good morning! So. The epidural slowed things down quite a bit, but you should be ready to push now. Let me just check you.”

  “Babe?” I searched for Marco groggily. “Are my parents here?”

  “They’re here, baby. They’re in the waiting room.” He took my hand. “How do you feel?”

  “Good. The epidural is amazing.”

  “You said that, babe.” Marco laughed.

  “OK,” the doctor said, motioning to the resident to stand beside her. “Let’s do this.”

  I squeezed Marco’s hand. “Are you ready?”