when I see Paul fumble off of her, clearly knowing he’s been caught, if not by who, I turn away. I head to my desk and start opening drawers. I don’t keep a lot here, but I grab what I don’t want to leave behind because I am more certain of this than I’ve been of anything lately: I am not coming back.
“Denham,” Paul says as I’m shoving things into my bag, and hearing his voice turns my stomach. I can’t make myself look him in the eyes. “Denham, it’s not—” I slam one of the drawers shut, beyond words, shaking with rage. “Christ, Denham, will you look at me—”
I look at him and he stares at me, his shirt hanging around him, pants buttoned at least, belt still undone. Lauren is a blurry form in the background.
A little advice from a former assistant.
“I quit,” I say and Lauren says, Lo, come on.
The shame permeating the room feels disproportionately mine. I hate that I saw them like this. I hate them seeing me like this. I never want to see them again.
“Denham,” Paul says at my back as I leave.
* * *
At my apartment, I take off my shoes and jacket, leaving them in a wet pile on the floor. I keep the light off, stripping out of my clothes as I make my way into the bathroom, where I study the silhouette in the mirror over the sink. The face and scar kept to shadow, the tangled outline of rain-soaked hair. If she’s no sister, no daughter, no writer—no more than her accident—who is she? What’s left? I press both of my palms flat against the glass and I wait and I wait, but she never tells me who she is.
2013
Bea misses her mother.
There are so many questions she never thought to ask her. Everything that’s happening to her now was supposed to happen to her years from now, and in that vision of the future her mother was alive, the wisdom of two children behind her to assure Bea that, yes, this is how it’s supposed to feel. This is all how it’s supposed to feel.
There’s nothing Bea has been through that compares to being pregnant. Time marches forward and she measures it in symptoms of life. The exhaustion that comes with the making of it. She sleeps and sleeps just to have enough energy to open her eyes in the morning. She crawls from her bed and moves through the day, awake, by sheer force of will alone. And then there’s the morning sickness that doesn’t just occur in the morning, and doesn’t always end in the relief of vomiting, but follows her throughout the day, keeping her on the brink of tears because she can’t remember what it feels like to feel well.
There’s a grief she didn’t expect and doesn’t know how to put to words. She never got a chance to say good-bye to herself. She stares at her body, naked in the mirror, and she’s sorry she never made note of it before it belonged to anyone else. She can feel all the ways this child has claimed her even if not all of it is visible yet. She knows it’s there and that’s enough. She wants to go back in time and really see herself before its conception. The flatness of her stomach, the soft curve of her breasts, all of her only, gloriously, her own. Her breasts hurt all the time and she finds herself obsessing over their future function.
She heard a heartbeat. Lev was there, his hand wrapped around hers. She thought that was the part that would make it real, but staring at the ultrasound screen, watching the soundwaves jump as the hectic rhythm filled the room—it sounded strange, like a message from some far-off planet, distorted by the space it had traveled through to reach her.
Lev comes in when she’s studying herself in the mirror. As soon as she sees his reflection join hers, she moves to cover herself up.
Don’t, he says, and she stands still as he walks to her and they witness her body and the miracle forming within it, together. She breathes slowly in and out, willing her heart to be calm. He reaches forward, putting his hands on her shoulders, then traces his fingertips over her collarbone. She shivers. He leans forward, bringing his mouth to her neck and he kisses her neck, whispers against her neck: You’re beautiful.
He rounds her, lowering himself slowly to