What Alice Forgot (33 page)

Dear Doctor Hodges,

You know what? I'm going to give in and call you by your first name. I was remembering today how you made such a point of it at our first session. “Jeremy,” you said firmly each time I said “Dr. Hodges.” You probably don't like your name. I don't blame you. Hodges is a plump, greasy name, and you're not plump and greasy. You're actually quite good-looking, which I find distracting. Your nice looks keep reminding me that you're a real person, and I don't want you to be a real person. Real people don't have the answers. They make mistakes. They say things with great authority and they're
wrong
.

But anyway, whatever, I'm officially taking you off your pedestal.

How are you, anyway, Jeremy? What are you doing this Sunday night? Are you drinking red wine with your pretty, fertile wife while she prepares a roast dinner and you help those fair-haired kids with their homework? Is the house warm and toasty and smelling of garlic and rosemary?

There is no roast dinner in the oven here. There is no conversation. There is only the sound of the television. There is always the sound of the television. I can't stand to turn it off. I can't stand the silence. “Couldn't we just play some music?” Ben says. No. I want TV. I want gunshots and canned laughter and dog food commercials. Nothing seems too tragic when the television is blaring. (I lived for two years without a television when I was in my twenties. How did I do that? Now it's like a narcotic.)

So, what did I want to tell you? Oh yes. Ben. We're fighting.

On the way home from Alice's place today, Ben started telling me about some man he'd met at last night's party. I'd seen them talking while I was chatting with Alice's new boyfriend, who, by the by, is sweet and awkward. It made me feel a bit weird. As if I was being unfaithful to Nick. But I liked him. Anyway, I thought, oh good, Ben's found someone to talk about cars.

But no.

They were talking about infertility and adoption. Suddenly Ben is the sort of guy who reveals details of his personal life to strangers at kindergarten cocktail parties. I've had him wrong all these years. He's not the silent, strong, damaged type at all. Oh no.

This guy's sister went through eleven failed IVF cycles before adopting a baby girl from Thailand and the little girl is a talented violin player and they all lived happily ever after.

Ben got this woman's number. He's going to call her. My husband has a zealous new look in his eyes. It's as if he's discovered religion or golf. Mr. Never Ever Adopt has become Mr. I Can't Wait to Adopt.

I asked how many years it took, but Ben didn't know.

I changed the subject.

Then, tonight, we're watching the news and they're showing the cyclone in Burma.

There was a woman wearing a red dress a bit like Alice's. She was standing in front of a pile of rubble that had once been her daughter's school. She had a photo of a solemn-faced girl. She looked about Olivia's age. The mother talked politely in good English to the reporter and explained that the local authorities were doing everything they could. She seemed fine, almost businesslike. The camera moved away. Then it came back and now the mother was writhing on the ground, wailing and biting her knuckles. The reporter explained that she'd just heard that there would be no further rescues from the school because it was too dangerous.

I was eating corn chips and watching a woman experiencing the worst moment of her life.

I have no right to be sad about anything. No right to have therapy from expensive doctors like you for losing children who never existed. There is real grief in the world. There are real mothers losing real children. I make myself sick.

And that's when Ben said, “Lots of children must have lost their parents.” He said it solemnly, but also with a definite hint of cheer. As in, hey, how handy! Lots of dead parents! Lots of spare kids up for grabs! Maybe a cute little violin player is crawling out of the rubble right now. Jesus.

I said, “Yes, isn't this cyclone
great
!”

He said, “Don't be like that.”

And suddenly I was screaming, “I would have adopted! I would have! I would have! But YOU SAID NO. You said you were psychologically damaged by being adopted, you said—”

And he interrupted and said, “I never EVER used the words ‘psychologically damaged.'”

Which is true. But he implied it.

I said, “You did so.” I mean he might as well have said it, Jeremy.

He said, “Bullshit.”

I really hate that word. He knows that. And it doesn't even make sense. A bull's shit.

Then he said, and this is the kicker, Jeremy, he said, “I thought it was
you
who didn't want to adopt.”

After my head stopped exploding, I said, “Why would you think that?”

He said, “Whenever people asked us about it, you'd get so angry with them. You'd say we want our own biological child.”

I said, “But I was saying that because of you. Because you'd been so against it in the beginning.”

He said, “I was against it, but then after we kept losing the pregnancies, it seemed the obvious thing to do, but I didn't want to bring it up because the idea seemed to upset you so much.”

So there you go. How's that for great communication in a marriage?

It reminds me of that television show where they investigate airplane crashes. Sometimes a major disaster happens because of the tiniest, most stupid error.

I said, “Anyway, it's too late now.”

He said, “It's not.”

I said, “I'm not adopting. I'm too tired.”

It's true, Jeremy. It has occurred to me recently that for the last few years I have been in a permanent state of tiredness. I'm so tired of trying and trying and trying. I don't have anything left. I'm done. I would like to go to sleep for a year or two.

I said, “We're not going to be parents. It's over.”

And after a while of him munching corn chips (energetically grinding them with his teeth like a guinea pig), he said, “So are we just going to sit around and watch TV for the rest of our lives?”

And I said, “Suits me.”

He got up and left the room.

Now we're not talking. I haven't seen him since. But I know when he comes back, we won't talk. Or if we do, we'll talk very, very politely and coldly—which is the same as not talking.

Right now, I feel . . . nothing.

Nothing at all.

A huge, empty, endless nothing that I am filling up with corn chips and
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.