As we continued to prepare, I got bolder. I rubbed the seeds and leftover jam on the counter with my hands. Bits dropped to the floor. Clara hoovered them up with her tongue. I licked chunks off my own fingers, off her fingers. The whole kitchen smelled sticky-sweet. My mother would have fallen over if she’d walked in. The mess. The germs. The bugs we’d attract. Everything would have to be sterilized. And yet I smiled at Clara like we were getting away with murder.
Clara’s firsts became my own. First finger painting. First ice cream for breakfast and eggs for dinner. First middle-of-the-day dance party. First time she went to bed without cleaning up all her toys. As a mother I learned to loosen the reins. I no longer needed to be perfect, because now I was loved. And I never looked at my daughters like they were disgusting in any way. I knew the shame of that look all too well.
This is what becoming a mother did for me. It allowed me to reparent myself, alongside my girls. It healed me. But I can’t tell Margot any of that without making her feel worse about what she doesn’t yet have. And I don’t need to give her another reason to hate me.
MARGOT
I walk away from Rini’s Sun Worship, not to be rude, but because she made me realize I have been paralyzed. Even on this vacation. So I left to go inside, sit down with my brother and talk. Really talk.
But on the walk home from the cliff, I feel the telltale wetness of my period, and my dreams disappearing again with it. Month after month, year after year, the same cycle. Anxiously watching for signs of ovulation. Checking mucus: Is that thick or stringy? Cloudy or clear? Having sex every third day to optimize Ted’s sperm without missing any potential fertilization days.
Then after sex, joking with Ted. You put the best swimmers in there, right? He wants kids as much as I do. I’m lucky to have a partner like him. He encourages me when I need support and gives me space when I have to shut down during two weeks between ovulation and testing. Ted and I don’t talk about babies or family or logistics at all. I close myself in an emotionally sealed-off room. No fantasizing about a positive result. No mitigating a negative one. I pay very close attention to my body during this time, but the signs of pregnancy and period are deceitfully similar.
Inside the house, I grab a banana from the kitchen and head upstairs to our bathroom. I hear nothing but the thoughts in my head. What went wrong this month? Did I pick the wrong days? Tests found nothing wrong with my ovaries or fallopian tubes. I’ve resisted fertility drugs, but maybe it’s time. Could Farah help me?
I open the door to our bedroom and root around in my suitcase for a fresh pair of underwear and a panty liner. For the first few months of trying to conceive, this spotting was an unexpected mind trick. Was it my period or was it the spotting common with implantation of the egg in the uterus? Spoiler alert: it’s my period. Why would this month be different?
I take my phone out of my back pocket and see a text from Ted checking in on me. I type a sad-face emoji and that I likely have my period. Ted types back, Too soon to say I’m looking forward to another month of trying? Too soon.
I appreciate Ted’s attempts to cheer me up, but it doesn’t work as well as it did earlier in the process. For the first two years, I bounced back quickly and declared next month would be our time. Now I’m not so resilient. Sometimes I want to give up, but in reality I only want the pain to stop. Unless a doctor told me it was impossible, I could never stop trying to have a child of my own. Until then, I have to focus on the family I have.
After the bathroom, I leave the phone on my nightstand and make my way to Adam’s room. I gently knock on his door.
“Hey, you in there?” I ask. His laptop sits on the small bedroom desk, but the chair is empty. On the nightstand, I see the flowers Rini must have set out from the dumbwaiter.
“Adam?” I call out.
I move out to the hallway. Through the windows over the staircase, I see Rini wrapping up with Aimee and Farah.
“Adam?” I yell louder.
I’m shuffling down the stairs when I hear a door on the other side of the hallway open. I reverse my downward momentum to investigate.
“Hey, there you are,” I say. Adam keeps walking toward his room. He tosses me a hasty “Hey” in return. I pursue him. “How’s the writing going?”
“Pretty good,” he says, opening his bedroom door.
I catch a sudden flash of color from the other wing, someone poking their head out into the hallway.
“No one is supposed to be in that wing. Is there someone here? Hello?” I call out. The shadowy figure ducks back into the bedroom and closes the door. I stop.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Nothing, Margot.”
I look at Adam. His untucked shirt, his tousled hair, and it clicks immediately. I want him to tell me I’m mistaken. Explain this all away.
“Adam, what is happening? I know this isn’t nothing. Is someone here?”
“I’ve been writing.”
I step closer to my brother and whisper.
“Adam, stop it. Are you having an affair? Is that possible?”
Adam shakes his head.
“It’s so much more than that, Margot. I’m in love.”
My stomach drops and I feel dizzy. None of this makes sense.
“How is she here?”
“She’s been here the whole time,” he says.
“Rini?” I ask. Adam shakes his head.
“You’re the one that brought her,” Adam adds.
I can’t say if it takes me two seconds or ten minutes to process because my mind goes blank. I didn’t bring anyone. That’s when I fall forward into Adam, my legs weak.
Adam is having an affair with Eden. Ted’s best friend’s wife. Eden. A woman who is under this roof, sharing this house, invited on our vacation. The woman who was awful to me last night. Whom my brother defended when he told me to calm down as she attacked my infertility.
“You’re so stupid,” I cry. “So stupid.”
“Margot, nothing has changed. This has been going on for months,” Adam says. He tries to help me stand but my legs are jelly. I lean against the wall for balance.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? This is insane.”