Finding Bliss (22 page)

“Hello?” I answered.

“Chloe, this is Dr. Wilder. I have some good news for you.”

I
hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair. I placed my hands on my flat stomach and smiled. It worked. The candles, the prayers, the IVF. Everything had come together and brought us a baby. I didn’t want to be cruel and make Tyler sweat it out, but I wanted to surprise him with the good news in person. His production offices were in Old Town, about fifteen minutes from mine in the Loop, so I jumped into a taxi and went to find my baby daddy.

I spun through the revolving door of his building and took the elevator to the third floor.

“Hi, Megan. I’m here to see Tyler,” I said to the receptionist. I began to walk right past her when she stopped me.

“Hi, Chloe, how are you? Do you mind waiting one sec while I grab him for you? The Brain Berry clients are back there.”

I glanced over her head. “I really wanted to surprise him. I’ll be very discreet.”

“Um, well, let me just get him for you.”

“Okay,” I said, throwing my arms up in defeat. As much as I wanted to surprise him, I wasn’t going to let her ruin my mood. A minute later, Tyler walked up to me behind Megan.

“Did you hear?” he asked, smiling. “You wouldn’t be here if it was bad news.”

“I might be,” I teased, but there was no hiding the elation on my face.

Tyler lifted me off my feet and spun me around. “Oh my God, I’m so relieved,” he said kissing me on the cheek.

“Me too.”

“Have you called your mom?”

“Nope. I ran straight over here. I haven’t told anyone.”

Tyler latched onto my hand and led me back to his office where we spent the next hour making phone calls—and making people’s day—with our good news.

I texted Cam when Tyler was on the phone with his mom.

The candlesticks worked. We’re expecting!
I hit send and smiled. Every Monday morning for the next four months I got a phone call from my mother at nine o’clock. The conversation was almost always the same.

“Hi, Mom,” I’d say.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good, thank you.”

“Are you taking your vitamins?”

“I am.”

“Are you staying away from alcohol?” she’d ask.

“I am, yes.”

“Are you staying away from caffeine?”

“I’m trying.”

“Is everything okay with the baby?”

“Yes, so far so good.”

“When is the next doctor’s appointment?”

“I have one every few weeks, so I’ll be going back early next month.”

“When is the baby due?”

“Still on April twelfth.”

“And what date are you coming to visit me?”

“I’m coming the weekend of December tenth.” Among the many relationships I’d ignored throughout my quest to have a child,
the one with my mom had suffered the most. She refused to come visit me in Chicago, and I had put off visiting her in Florida more times than I could count. I knew that if I didn’t get down there before the baby was born, I’d never do it.

“Okay, be good.”

“I love you, Mom; talk to you later.”

I battled a mild case of morning sickness for the first couple of months, but once that passed, I felt great—and very fortunate. The only thing weighing on my mind was Tyler. He and I had so much to celebrate, but so little time together. We were both working ridiculous hours, and I hardly ever saw him. He often had commercial shoots that were scheduled at night, and I had early court times in the morning. We communicated through texts and Post-its. As often as not, I found myself walking in the door at nine o’clock at night, hungry and tired, throwing a Hot Pocket in the microwave, leaning against the counter, and wolfing it down by myself.

Tyler had missed two ob-gyn appointments because he never got my messages. So for my twenty-two-week appointment on Wednesday, December 8th, I called him ahead of time to make sure he’d be there. He’d been at work until past midnight working with Mitch on some animation for a new client, and I knew he was exhausted, but my gyno appointments were always at nine o’clock. I routinely booked their first appointment of the day so that I didn’t have to wait, and so that I could get back to work as soon as possible. But at nine fifteen I was still waiting to be called in, and Tyler had yet to arrive.

At nine thirty I was called into the examination room. I dialed Tyler’s phone as I followed the nurse. There was no answer, so I called the house phone. When our voice mail picked up, I called his office, but Megan said he hadn’t been in yet that morning. I shook my head, silenced my phone, and threw it in my bag.

Once I had finished with Dr. Wilder and his staff at the fertility clinic, I had gone back to my ob-gyn, Dr. Leonard. He walked in that morning with the ultrasound technician after I’d changed into the robe that was left for me. Open in the front. I knew the drill by then.

“Good morning, how have you been?”

“Pretty good,” I said, my mind sullen and elsewhere.

“Everything seems to be progressing nicely; nothing out of the ordinary for you, I hope. Any pains or spotting?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“All right then, I’m going to have Avery do the ultrasound and take a few pictures. We should be able to get a gender for you today if you’d like. Let her know if you’d rather she keep it a secret.”

I sighed. I’d completely forgotten that we were going to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl today. The thought made me even angrier with Tyler than I already was. I wanted to strangle him for ruining that moment. I had pictured myself lying there, holding Tyler’s hand, our eyes gazing at the screen with anticipation—a nail-biting, cinematic-worthy event—waiting for what I thought would be a highlight of my pregnancy. As we’d endured the arduous process of fertility treatments, the last thing we’d focused on was the sex of our baby. We just wanted a baby. Any baby. All we dared to dream about was having one that was healthy. But I knew that Tyler wanted a son more than anything. There had always been so many things I wanted for Tyler. For him to be happy with himself. For him to love his job. And for him to have a son. I still wanted nothing more than to bring that joy into his life. But this still wasn’t how I’d imagined finding out. All alone with a random technician.

“Let see here,” Avery said as she began the ultrasound. “It looks to me like there’s no question with this little one. Would you like to know the baby’s gender?”

“Yes,” I said.

A
fter braving the snow in heels and brushing my car off, I returned to the office and called Hollis. She and Mitch had eloped in Las Vegas the weekend before, and I’d set up a dinner at NoMI, a swanky restaurant nestled in the Park Hyatt on Michigan Avenue, for the four of us to celebrate that night. But since my mood had taken a nosedive after sitting at the doctor’s office alone all morning, I called her to cancel.

“I’m so sorry, I’m just not feeling up to it tonight. I’m supposed to leave Friday morning to visit my mom, and I haven’t even begun to pack.”

“Of course,” she said. “Don’t be silly, we can get together anytime.”

I’d purposely left my cell phone at the bottom of my tote bag and in vibrate mode all morning, so I wasn’t shocked when Rachel popped her head in my office around noon to tell me that Tyler was on line one.

My heart ached as she waited for my response. I wanted so badly to talk to him. Being silent and stubborn was difficult for me, but I had a point to make and couldn’t think of any other way to make it. His absence that morning had emptied me of the joy that was rightfully mine. Robbed me of celebrating with friends and toasting to love and life.

“Take a message,” I said.

Rachel left without hesitation but came back a moment later looking apologetic. “He really wants to talk to you.”

I shrugged. “Then he should’ve shown up to our appointment this morning,” I told her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t put you in the middle. Tell him dinner’s canceled tonight and that I’m leaving for court and will call him from my cell.”

She smiled. “Will you?”

“Hell no.”

Tyler never called back, which only intensified my resentment. I had wanted and needed—and expected—him to grovel. I was already asleep when he came home that night, and gone at the crack of dawn the next morning. By the time I left the office the next day at four o’clock, it had been over thirty-six hours since we’d spoken.

Thursday evening I was upstairs in our bedroom packing a bag to leave for Florida in the morning, and it was still snowing. Half of the flights out of O’Hare had been canceled, but mine was still on schedule. A weekend with my mother had never looked better.

I heard Tyler enter the house around seven o’clock. My car was in the garage, so he knew I was home. He walked into the master bedroom carrying flowers. I knew from experience that he didn’t do apologies very well. The sight of him crushed me. I wanted to forgive him in that instant and run into his arms. But I didn’t move.

“I fucked up,” he said profoundly.

My breathing intensified.

“Chloe, I’m sorry, but avoiding each other isn’t going to do any good.”

I stared at him, barely recognizing the look on his face. He was apologizing, but his eyes were inscrutable. His words did not match his cool demeanor. I had so much to say, yet so little faith that any of it would have an effect on him.

“I hardly know what to say to you. My anger has been festering for nearly two days. You have no idea how upset and disappointed I am. Do you? What could you possibly have been thinking? How could you miss the appointment and then ignore me for a whole day afterward!?” My voice rose at the end.

He threw his head back and began to walk toward the window. “I said I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I tried calling you yesterday, and you wouldn’t take my call, so I figured you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I stood up from the floor where I was folding clothes to better convey my rage. “Are you kidding me?!” I yelled. “We are not in high school, Tyler. This is a marriage, a partnership, a goddamned commitment! We’re having a child together, and you’re running around acting like one. I have
never
been so angry with someone in my life, and it kills me that it’s you of all people! How could you behave like this?”

“Don’t freak out at me; I got stuck in a conference and tried to call you, but you wouldn’t take my
fucking call
!” he yelled. Then he stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

I sat down on the bed, sobbing, thinking, this can’t be happening. We’d come so far and overcome so much together. Why was it breaking down during what was supposed to be our happiest time? Weren’t we supposed to be rubbing cocoa butter on my stretch marks and laughing over celebrity baby names as we chose the perfect moniker for our own little one? I was no good at living with hostility, and there was no way I could leave town with things like this between us. At that moment, I didn’t care about being right. I didn’t care about making a point and watching him suffer. I just wanted to move forward and make amends with my husband.

I took a hot shower and went downstairs to find Tyler in the kitchen, opening a box of pizza. He looked at me when I entered the room.

“This is ridiculous,” I started quietly. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Can we at least have dinner together?” I asked.

“I’ll be in the den,” he said over his shoulder as he left the room.

I sat at the kitchen island with my laptop and inhaled four slices of pizza without tasting a single bite. I hated arguing with Tyler almost as much as I hated following him around trying to make things right between us. I argued for a living and preferred to leave it at the office. Tyler was stubborn, and regardless of whether he was the instigator or not, he often made it seem like everything was my fault.

Once I’d finished eating, I joined him on the couch with my computer. While the noise from the TV was a welcome distraction, it also served as a reminder of how little we spoke to each other. At ten o’clock, Tyler’s phone rang, and he walked into the kitchen to take the call. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, and I could see him pause near the sink to finish his conversation. He didn’t return until he’d hung up.

“Who’s calling so late?” I asked when he returned.

Tyler took a sip of his beer. “It was Mitch. He and Hollis are in Atlanta, and he wanted to make sure I had the call times for tomorrow,” he answered. “The extras need to be there two hours early to get into makeup for the zombie cereal thing, and the three principal actors don’t need to be there until noon. Mitch wanted to make sure I had the correct schedule because he’s usually the one to send out the call sheets, and they need to be e-mailed tonight. So I’ve got to take care of it, and then I need to be on set in Hinsdale by six thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Mitch and Hollis are in Atlanta?” I asked. “What for?”

“I’m not sure. I think maybe his mom is sick. She lives there. They probably went there to see her,” he said, thumbing a message on his phone.

“His mom is sick?”

He looked up at me abruptly with an annoyed expression on his face. “I don’t know, okay? All I know is that he’s in Atlanta, and I have to get these call sheets done and get to bed.” He turned back to his phone.

I closed my laptop, grabbed my glass of water from the coffee table, and began to head upstairs. “I’m going to bed, too. My flight is at ten tomorrow morning, so I guess I won’t see you until Monday,” I said over my shoulder. “Good night.”

“G’night, Chloe, love you,” he said, looking over at me. “I’m sorry, I really am. Things are crazy at work, and I’m just…planning for this shoot tomorrow is really working me over. There are so many balls in the air, and I just want to make sure everything goes well.”

His eyes were heavy, and I could see that he was anxious to be left alone. I nodded and went to bed.

Tyler was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. The snow was still falling. I checked my flight from home to confirm that it was still on schedule, but by the time I got to the airport, it had been delayed due to the storm. Two hours later, it was canceled altogether.