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Joanna woke up early the next morning, Christmas Eve, to a thickening snowfall, one which didn’t stop until late morning on December 26. The cottage lost power during the first evening of the snowfall, and Joanna and Erik ate PB&Js by candlelight and then settled in for the night before 7:00. Under any other circumstances, it would have seemed magical—a white Christmas! An old-fashioned, romantic evening! Instead, Joanna marveled at how perfectly the dark rooms of their cottage and the dark silhouettes outside matched her mood: black and craggy.
They’d planned to have brunch with Poppa and Mrs. Donovan late on Christmas morning, but Erik called them both and told them that Joanna wasn’t feeling well. With that white lie, they made the decision not to tell anyone—not about the miscarriage and not about the pregnancy.
There were eight or nine days between Christmas and Joanna’s return to school and work. During that time, Erik vacillated between indulging her, avoiding her, and cajoling her. He had little maintenance projects here and there that kept him busy and out of the house for an hour or so most days; other than that, he took marathon walks on the beach (Joanna joined him for the first couple, but she was still sore and so tired, so she said no after that), undertook unnecessary cleaning or repairs inside, or sat with her on the couch with a stack of DVDs and heaping servings of comfort food—mashed potatoes, buttered rice, fluffy mounds of bread.
Even Josh’s death hadn’t hit Joanna this hard. Intellectually, she’d understood that this was a risk. Huge swathes of women lose their babies in the first trimester—there really wasn’t anything special about her or her situation. She shouldn’t be so undone, she thought to herself a thousand times a day. But the desolation had settled itself, heavily, upon her shoulders. The baby had been made out of her; now it, and that part of her, was gone. She felt like a bowl whose contents had been scraped out.
The night before Joanna was to return to work, she asked Erik to call Mike and tell him… “Just tell him whatever,” she sighed, too tired to figure it out. Erik left a message for him with Lara, who must have suspected, because Mike called back an hour later and said that Joanna should take as much time as she needed. “We have two months before hell week for the festival,” he said, “when I’ll really need her.”
+++
Over the coming weeks, Erik’s schedule began to ratchet back up. He left earlier and earlier each day and came home later and later, until Joanna was spending hours alone every day. Mostly, she sat on the couch, sometimes imagining that the fibers might begin to adhere to her body. She wasn’t sure whether that would be the worst thing in the world.
Every once in a while—every ten days or so—Joanna would have the feeling that this was enough now, and she would endeavor to change things up. She’d walk on the beach or stop by Poppa’s office for a chat or go for a drive or give Mary or Shoshana a call. Once, she even planned a nice dinner for her and Erik that night, but she didn’t think about the fact that he wouldn’t get home before dark, and her chicken cutlets ended up in the trash. These efforts inevitably tired her out to the point that she needed several days to recover.
And then there were the nights that Erik decided—always unbeknownst to Joanna—to make an effort. He’d come home earlier than she expected, carrying a bottle of wine, serve her an actual meal on actual dishes, clean up the kitchen, and then come sit with her on the couch. She never had anything to say to him in these moments; she could feel his want like a palpable force. She felt more alone with him in these moments, unable to meet his desires, than she usually did without him. He would kiss her on the forehead, rest a hand on her thigh, tuck her hair behind her ear—all things that anyone would respond to. A few times, his lips or his fingers would linger, and he would try to go further, but she always pulled away.
He only got angry once; after that, he started giving up more and more easily, until, sometime in February, Joanna realized that his efforts had dwindled away completely. It was a relief—beyond the fact that she now had rolls of fat in places she never had before was the heartbreak of what sex with Erik had wrought. She couldn’t imagine ever enjoying it again.
With Joanna sleeping downstairs and Erik working as many hours as he could, they didn’t see much of each other. Joanna cared, but she didn’t.
+++
On the first Monday in March, Erik came downstairs in his work clothes, early in the morning, and asked Joanna if she was planning to go to work that day. She looked at him in surprise—she’d barely moved for two months. Why would she plan to go anywhere today?
Erik exhaled sharply through flared nostrils and faced her with his hands on his hips and a tense look on his face.
“The one act is coming up soon, isn’t it? Mike would probably love your help, don’t you think?”
“It isn’t until the end of the month,” she countered. “Hell week isn’t for a couple more weeks.”
“So you’re just not going to go in until then?”
Joanna didn’t look at him. “I…Erik, my…my head hurts, and my stomach still hurts, and I’m so tired. Mike told me to take all the time I need. I just feel like I might as well get as much of a rest as I can, you know?”
Erik knelt down on one knee in front of her. “Joanna,” he said, his tone softer now. “You’re depressed. Which makes sense. But I think that working, and getting back to a routine, might help. We could start to get things back to normal with…you know, with you and me, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know—you could move back upstairs, and—” Erik placed a hand on the outside of each of her thighs. Joanna shifted her posture until he dropped his hands onto the couch cushions and sighed. She was too tired to have this conversation right now.
“It’s easy for you to say all that, Erik. You don’t have any idea what I’m going through,” she said softly.
There was no response; she felt the air between them expand and, when she looked up, there was a look of fury on Erik’s face that shocked and stilled her. He let a long, slow minute go by, staring at her, and then he walked out of the house.
+++
Joanna was still for a long time after Erik left that morning. She felt a shame so profound that she was afraid to move, to bump up against it.
Something is really wrong with me, she thought.
At about 10:30, she sighed, deeply exhausted, and pulled herself off the couch and stumbled into the bathroom. Without looking in the mirror, she stripped and took a shower. After drying herself off, she climbed the ladder and dug through her things before settling for a pair of black yoga pants, a turtleneck, and a duster cardigan. All of it was old and faded, and the pieces didn’t make a cohesive whole like she wanted, but they were the three most forgiving articles of clothing she owned, so she pulled them on slowly. She sent a text to Erik, knowing that it would go through to his phone somewhere en route: You were right. I’m going to work.
Her stomach was churning by the time she got downstairs, but it felt more like nausea than hunger, so she just walked through the kitchen and out the door. With trembling fingers, she drove down the road slowly, gazing at her surroundings as she went. A whole season had gone by, and she’d hardly noticed.
At the end of the beach road, she turned right toward town. Her heart was beating progressively harder, and her limbs felt ephemeral, like they would float away if she didn’t concentrate hard enough. She took deep gulps of air and tried to keep her eyes focused on the road ahead of her, but the lines kept blurring.
The feeling got more and more unsettling until, about halfway to the school, she had to stop. She pulled over to the side of the road, shifted into park and then laid her head on the steering wheel, panting loudly. Eventually, she just broke and began to weep. She was racked, rocking back and forth, when her phone dinged with a new text message. Her text to Erik had just gone through, and he’d sent an immediate response: Proud of you, baby. She moaned and cried some more, feeling inconsolable.
When she was finally empty, her eyes stung and her hair and face were a mess. She sat, waiting for her breathing to normalize, and then she finally shifted back into drive and pulled onto the road. She headed in the opposite direction, toward home.
+++
Joanna tried, she really did, for the rest of that week. Every morning, she took a shower, put real clothes on, brushed her teeth and her hair, and headed out the door. And every morning, about halfway to the school, she broke down and had to go home, so thoroughly worn out that she would sleep until evening came.
Eventually, at the end of the week, she succumbed to what was growing more and more obvious. She sent Mike a brief text, saying simply, I have to quit, Mike. I’m sorry. and then ignored his phone calls, which tapered off over the next couple of days. With that pressure relieved, she gave herself over to what she really wanted—lying on the couch, without a soul around.
But Erik thought she was going back. And he was so proud of her and gone for so much of the day that she never had the heart or found the time to confess. As long as she seemed asleep when he left in the morning—earlier and earlier—and seemed asleep when he got home in the evening—later and later—she felt like she’d figured it out. Erik was pleased with her, she was comfortable, and eventually, the year would end and Mike would stop calling and maybe even find a new assistant who was more capable than she’d turned out to be anyway.
+++
For the time being, Joanna’s plan seemed to work, but then, one day in June, she woke up and she’d had enough. She didn’t know what was suddenly different about this day, but she’d had it. She had to get out.
She went to the bathroom and then, without letting herself dwell on it, she stood in front of the mirror and began to strip. A moment later, the sweatpants and t-shirt from Erik’s pile were crumpled at her feet, and she was staring at her reflection for the first time in months.
She was doughy—that was the first thing she noticed. There were dimples on her thighs and silvery stretch marks on her hips, her breasts, her upper arms. She looked, she realized with a start, about six months pregnant. Adding to the insult of that realization was the lack of any sort of pregnancy glow. Her skin was pasty and washed out. Her hair was lank and greasy, stringy. Her eyes were hollow.
Was this what Erik had had to look at for the last six months? Shame, like an oncoming train, almost bowled her over. She saw him in her memory, reaching out to her or picking up after her or checking on her—again and again and again. And she had repaid him with this? She looked like a monster. She looked dead—as dead as the baby.
She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t even do that. She was empty.
“I have got to get out,” she said. She racked her brain, trying to think of all the places she could go. All of Grace was out, being too touristy. Portland wasn’t far enough away. She couldn’t think of any other day trips off the top of her head.
And then it hit her—New York. It was more than a day trip, obviously. It would take her almost the day, just to get there. But Erik was never home anyway. What would he care if his shell of a wife wasn’t sitting on the couch during the four hours he’d be home sleeping over the next couple of days? And she could clear her head and then come back to him, refreshed, the way she should be. She could walk all day, like she used to on her weekends in the city, and, after a few days, she’d be able to come back home, on her way to strong again. And Erik might see something familiar in her.
Fingers tingling, she jumped in the shower, washed up quickly, and climbed the ladder so she could get dressed. She put on a skirt and a t-shirt, both of which were too tight to really be comfortable, but they technically fit. She threw a few extra things into her backpack and left a note on the table for Erik—I need some space. I’ll be in the city for a few days. I love you.—and then she was in the car, driving down the road. She found a station playing the Indigo Girls and sang along. She rolled her window down and let her hair fly in the breeze. She laughed.