I could not believe it. I said, “Really?” And she rubbed her nose and nodded, and said, “Yes, really.”
I kept stroking her hair. Then Chrissy said, “You know, I feel so ashamed somehow.”
I said, “About what, Chrissy?”
And she said, “Miscarrying. Like why doesn’t my body work right?”
“Oh honey,” I said. “Honey, millions of women miscarry. It probably means your body was working right.”
“Huh,” she said after a moment, “I didn’t think of it that way.” She snuggled against me as though she was a small child, and I kept stroking her hair.
Then she finally sat up and said, “I know it’s been awful for you having David die.”
I said, “Thank you, honey. But don’t worry, I’m okay.”
Becka came into the apartment then, and she wept as well, which is something Becka does easily, and Chrissy said, laughing, “Okay, stop crying now.” I stayed for lunch, and by then I thought Chrissy was doing better, and her husband had lunch with us and Becka too, so I said, “Okay, everyone, I’m going to get going, I love you all,” and they said, “Bye, Mom, we love you—” as they always do when we part.
Walking down the sidewalk I thought how my mother had never said I love you to me, and I thought how Chrissy had been going to call the baby Lucy. She loved me, my daughter! Even knowing this, I was surprised. In truth, I was amazed.
* * *
—
On the subway home I sat next to a calm-appearing woman with a small child, a little boy. I watched them both; she loved this child. I wondered if she had ever had a miscarriage and, if so, if she had been ashamed. She seemed wonderfully self-contained, only her containment included the boy. He had a small workbook that said Getting Ready for Kindergarten on it, and the woman, I assume she was his mother, was very patiently spelling out orange, black, red, as he found the colors inside the book.
* * *
—
That afternoon I called William, and he said that he was afraid he had not responded right when Chrissy had called to tell him earlier. “I told her not to worry, she’d get pregnant again, and she said, Dad, Jesus Christ, is that all you can say? That’s what everyone says, and I just lost my child!” And William said to me, “But it wasn’t a child yet, why can’t she cut me a break?” So I tried to tell William that to Chrissy it had been practically her child. I almost told him that she had been going to call the baby Lucy had it been a girl, but for some reason I did not tell him. And we hung up.
* * *
—
I thought about Chrissy’s tears. And Becka’s.
When I was a child, our parents would become absolutely furious if my brother or sister or I cried. My parents, my mother especially, would often become furious with us even if we were not crying, but if one of us did cry they both became almost insane in their anger toward us. I have written about this before, but I mention it here because a few years ago a woman I know spoke of a nun telling her that she had “the gift of tears.” And this is what Becka has as well. And even Chrissy has the gift when she needs it. Crying, for me, has often been difficult. What I mean is I will cry, but I will feel very scared by my crying. William was good about that; when I really cried hard he did not get frightened the way I think David might have; but with David I never cried as I had in my first marriage, not the gasping sobs of a child. But since David has died there are times when I will sit on the floor near my bed—between the bed and the window—and weep with the utter and horrifying urgency of a child. I always worry—living in an apartment building—that someone will hear me. I do not do it often.
* * *
On William’s seventy-first birthday I texted him in the afternoon: Happy Birthday you old thing. And within just a few moments my phone rang. He was calling from work. I said, “How are you, William?” And he said, “I don’t know.” We spoke of the girls briefly—Chrissy seemed to be managing—and then he told me that Estelle had confessed that morning that she had not bought him a birthday present but if there was anything he wanted he should let her know, she had just been too tied up with Bridget and all that was going on with her. So I said, “What’s going on with Bridget?” And William said she had some concert at school and that she hated the flute even though Estelle was trying to get her to stick it out one more year, and I felt, as he said this, that I—and maybe he—didn’t really know what was going on with Bridget. But I said, “Well, I get it. About the present. You’ve been married a long time. Is there anything you want?” And I was thinking, Oh William, let’s make this quick, you are such a baby. This is what I was thinking. Dear God, I was thinking, you are just such a child.