“What is it?” I ask, shaking my head. “It has nothing to do with the work you’re doing for me. I trust you because I feel I know you. Even if you’re not quick to show yourself, I feel like we’re one and the same in so many ways. I feel like we both know loss. I feel like we’re both looking for a connection in this world and we may have found it in each other.”
She’s staring at me like she’s startled, the glass slightly shaking in her hands. She lowers it, self-conscious, and stares at the counter. “What makes you think I know loss?”
“Your eyes,” I tell her. “Because you seemed to sense my loss in some way, from the beginning.”
“My loss isn’t the same,” she says slowly. “I don’t…sometimes I wonder if it’s even loss.” She swallows. “You know how you mentioned a connection? Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m really participating in life. Like it’s just something that’s happening to me but I’m not happening to it. Like I’m a spectator. I felt like that before Stewart and I divorced. Before I found out about the other women.”
She gets up and walks over to the window, staring down at the street below, her face aglow from the streetlights.
I want to follow her, but I also want to give her space. So, I sit back and watch her, wondering if she’s going to start unraveling in front of me. I wonder if she’s going to give me a piece of herself.
“I had been trying to get pregnant for a long time,” she says, her voice subdued, almost dull. “It was never on my radar but Stewart really wanted kids. And I warmed up to the idea. Of course, by the time I was fully invested, I started having fertility troubles. We had tests, there was nothing wrong. It was just…the way it was.” She takes in a deep breath. “Then one day it…took. I got pregnant. I was over the moon with excitement. So was Stewart.”
Since Thalia doesn’t have kids, my heart is aching for her before she even has a chance to tell me what happened.
“I named her Grace,” she says, giving me a tragic smile. “After my grandmother who was my best friend growing up. We didn’t know the gender, of course, but I knew it was a girl. I really thought…and it sounds so stupid to say, God, but it was true. I really thought Grace was my purpose in life, my…connection to the world that I’ve always felt a little bit removed from.”
Her eyes close and she wraps her arms around herself. “Grace was never born. We only had her for three months. I never told my family because we wanted to make sure, you know, they tell you to wait because you could lose the pregnancy and…I lost the pregnancy. I know miscarriages are common. I know they happen to so many women, and mine happened early. But I felt…so alone. So at fault. Because it was my body that my baby was supposed to grow in, my body that was supposed to be a home, and it was my fault that it wasn’t good enough for Grace.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, getting to my feet. “I am so sorry.”
I gingerly walk over to her, stopping close enough to reach out and hold her hand. I give it a squeeze.
She wipes away a tear with her other hand and sniffs, staring out the window. “Stewart was never the same after. That’s where the rift began. I think, I know, he blames me, just as I blame myself. He would never say it but the look in his eyes changed. You know your partner well, and he just started viewing me as someone else entirely.” She lets out a caustic laugh. “Probably helped him justify the cheating. He could pretend I just wasn’t me. Meanwhile, I felt so lost and angry and sad. So fucking sad. And lonely. I had no one to talk to. I didn’t even tell my girlfriends; I don’t know why. I guess I felt ashamed.”
“But you’re telling me now,” I say. “Because you know I will listen to you. Because you know I won’t judge you. Because I can help carry your burdens alongside you.”
“I don’t need you to carry my burdens, Alejo,” she says, her voice cracking. “I just need…someone to…to....”
Another tear spills from her eyes and then she’s crying, breaking down in front of me.