Lost Along the Way (12 page)

“I don't even know what to say. Meg's wanted kids for as long as I can remember. I can't imagine what it's been like for her to accept that it won't ever happen.” Jane stared out the window for a minute and then fiddled with the radio again while she tried to process the information Cara had just given her. If her guess was accurate, then Meg would be devastated. It would explain why she left her marriage, but Jane still couldn't figure out what it had to do with Cara. Finally, she asked. “I still don't really understand why you guys aren't talking anymore, though. What does that have to do with you?”

“I don't want to talk about it, Jane. I really don't,” Cara answered, a bit too aggressively.

“At some point you're going to have to tell me. You can trust me. What did you fight about?”

“Everything and nothing.”

“Well, that's specific. Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

“It's complicated. Anyway, I've blocked out most of it.”

“Come on. Just tell me.”

“I don't want to tell you. I'm not the one who started this pilgrimage for friendship atonement, you are. You're too smart to have gotten wrapped up in a criminal investigation. I don't understand how you let him drag you into his mess,” Cara said.

“Says the woman who's explaining buying too much Uncle Ben's to her husband. Do you really think you're in a position to judge?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Me neither. If you don't want to tell me what happened, do you want to talk about Reed?” she asked.

“Not even a little,” Cara answered.

“Okay then. I give up . . . for now.”

Jane turned up the volume on the stereo, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

M
eg couldn't remember when she'd started baking bread. She'd always enjoyed cooking and baking, much preferring to spend her time in the kitchen than anywhere else. In college she had a part-time job at a specialty foods store near campus where she learned about different kinds of cheese and imported coffee beans, and soon she discovered that food was her passion. She took an internship at a gourmet magazine the summer between her junior and senior years of college and immediately knew she never wanted to leave.

She started out as an editorial assistant and went to culinary school at night right after graduation. Now she spent most of her time testing recipes for the magazine, tweaking the spices or cooking time so that it worked best for home cooks. At some point over the past year, she'd begun to find the specific tactile nature of bread baking cathartic, and had asked her boss if she could focus on bread recipes that even a novice baker could master. She enjoyed the smell of the yeast as it fermented and worked its magic on the flour and water and sugar in a bowl, coming alive. It was chemistry that worked the way it should. She appreciated that dough required patience, time to rise, a warm environment, and a gentle hand to punch it down and reshape it and let it rise again. She loved that when it finally went into the oven it filled her entire house with comforting aromas that made her nostalgic for friendship and company. She hadn't actually had company in a very long time, but somehow baking made her feel a little less alone.

When she and Steve had bought the house back in 2010, they knew they had their work cut out for them. It was a fixer-upper in every sense of the word—a neglected, outdated beach shack that they just knew could be a perfect spot to spend summers and holidays over the next sixty years if they took the time needed to fix it up. Steve's uncle had left him a little bit of money when he died, and they decided to take advantage of the real estate market collapse and invest in a second property they'd otherwise never be able to afford. It took about two years, but they accomplished exactly what they had set out to do. They'd gutted the inside, ripping out ancient fixtures, broken tiles, and linoleum flooring in favor of farmhouse sinks, bamboo floors, and white subway tiles. The parochial green paint in the kitchen had been stripped off and the space redone with white cabinets and butcher-block counters. There was an old office on the right side of the first floor that Meg had hoped would be a playroom one day, and they managed to furnish the entire home with items they found at flea markets and tag sales all over the Hamptons. She had scoured
Coastal Living
magazine for more than a year looking for inspiration, knickknacks, and new uses for refurbished wood. The old aluminum siding had been replaced with gray clapboard shingles, the dead plants had been dug up and carted away, and new cherry trees and rhododendrons were brought in to redo the landscaping in the front. When they were finished, she and Steve sat on the porch out back with glasses of wine and talked about how lucky they were to have everything. At that point, Meg was still hopeful that things would work out for them. She hadn't given up yet.

Now she was living in the house alone, separated from her husband, and that office on the first floor was still an office. It's
a sad day when you accept that all of your childhood dreams are dead.
I've made my peace with it,
she told anyone who knew anything about her and had the indecency to ask. Then she went home and baked bread, and soothed her soul with the rhythmic pulses of her kneading.

She was waiting for the timer on the oven to count down the final ten minutes of cooking time on her Pullman loaf when there was a knock at her front door. She wiped her hands on a striped kitchen towel, threw it on the counter, and casually opened the door. She couldn't have been more surprised to see the ghosts of her past standing there next to her potted plants.

“Hey, Meg,” Jane said.

She had seen pictures of Jane on the news and in the tabloids over the last few months, and she more or less looked the same in person. Truth be told, Meg had thought about reaching out to her. She wasn't sure why they had stopped speaking. It was more like Jane had just decided that she didn't want to be friends with Meg and Cara anymore and simply disappeared. Meg couldn't possibly understand how they could've been as close as sisters and then just have her walk away for no reason. She'd felt abandoned, and it was something that she hadn't ever really gotten over. The part of her that still loved Jane had wanted to call her and tell her that she was sorry her husband did what he did to her, that she knew without a doubt Jane had nothing to do with it, and that she would be there for her, whatever she needed. She never called. The scab that had formed over the part of her heart that loved Jane wouldn't let her dial.

“Hi,” she said back. “It's good to see you.”

“It's good to see you, too,” Cara answered.

“No,” Meg answered, turning an icy glare in Cara's direction.
“I wasn't talking to you. I told you I never wanted to see you again, and I meant it.”

“I . . . I knew this was a bad idea. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come,” Cara said quickly as she walked back to the car and got in the driver's seat. Her white button-down nipped in at the waist, her jeans were perfectly cropped, her driving loafers were immaculately clean. Meg felt rage begin to build as she realized that Cara hadn't changed at all. She was still pretending to be some perfect Stepford something or other when they both knew that wasn't the case. The fact that Cara had the nerve to come anywhere near her made her so angry that she had to quell an urge to stomp her feet on her own doorstep.

She hadn't seen Cara since her last miscarriage, three years ago. The pregnancy had been progressing perfectly, and Meg had finally let her guard down, believing that this time, things would be different. She was thirty-four and had been through it enough times to know better, but still, she'd made herself believe that she'd paid her dues. When she found out that she'd lost the baby, she didn't have the heart to call Steve at work and ruin the tenuous happiness he'd allowed himself to feel over the past few weeks. Instead, she just got in her car and drove. She wound up at Cara's house, without any recollection at all of getting there.

June 2010

Meg knocked softly on the back door and entered the kitchen, finding Cara sitting at the table staring out the window. She walked over and sat down next to her, not really stepping outside of herself long enough to notice that Cara uncharacteristically looked like shit.

“It's gone,” Meg said. She followed Cara's gaze out the window, but there was nothing there. It was like she was staring at the wind.

“What?” Cara asked, turning to look at her. For the first time, Meg noticed that Cara was very pale, and her eyes were vacant. Still, there she was, in her white shirt and jeans, her hair brushed, her nails done. Just once Meg wanted to feel like Cara wasn't an android—like she was capable of sitting around the house all day in her pajamas or going out without a full face of makeup and a strand of pearls. Just once Meg wanted to know that Cara knew what it felt like to unravel. She knew that her anger was misguided, that lashing out at Cara for anything when she had shown up at her house unannounced wasn't fair.

Until it turned out that it was.

“I lost the baby. Again. I'm never going to be a mother,” Meg said quietly. There weren't even any tears left.

“Oh my God, Meg,” Cara said. She was struggling to look at her, but Meg didn't know why. Cara reached over to grab Meg's hand and when she did, the cuff of her shirt nudged a piece of paper out from the stack of mail on the table. A magazine had been thrown on top of it, but Meg saw the headline.
WHAT TO DO FOLLOWING YOUR PROCEDURE
. Meg pulled the paper from the stack and began to read, her brain computing only a few words on every line:
sporadic bleeding, no exercise for seventy-two hours, doxycycline. Meg would be handed a similar sheet after her next doctor's appointment, she knew, because the same instructions were given every time a surgical procedure was necessary to finish off what nature had started. But Cara had never told her she was pregnant. Meg saw her all the time and she never mentioned it, plus
she still had glasses of wine with dinner and steams at the gym. There was only one explanation, but Meg's brain was having a hard time processing it.

“Why do you have this?” she asked. Cara looked at the paper and the little color she had in her face quickly drained. “Why do you have this, Cara? Answer me.”

“It's nothing,” Cara said, snatching the paper out of her hand.

“It's not nothing. I know what this is. If there is anyone on earth who knows what this is it's me. What did you do?”

“Nothing, Meg. Leave it alone.”

“You had an abortion,” Meg said, stunned that the sentence had come out of her mouth. Never in a million years would she have thought it was possible.

“Meg, please,” Cara said, as if Meg was annoying her by asking the question. What did she expect her to do? Ignore it?

“Oh my God. Why? How could you do that? You've seen what I've been going through for years. You have a normal pregnancy, and just end it? You just give that away? How could you be so selfish?”

“This has nothing to do with you, Meg. What I choose to do with my personal life is none of your business. I'm sorry that you saw this. I never meant for you to know. And I'm sorry that this happened to you again. But our situations are different. Our lives are different, and the last time I checked, I don't have to consult you or anyone else before I make decisions concerning my body and my life.”

“You didn't even tell me you were pregnant! Why? I don't keep anything from you! Why would you hide this from me?” Meg was shouting, but she couldn't help herself. She and Cara never
fought; in fact, she couldn't remember the last time they'd disagreed over anything.

“Because I didn't want to have this conversation, that's why! And you know what, Meg? Just because you can't keep your mouth shut and tell everyone everything there is to know about your reproductive system doesn't mean that I'm the same way. I'm allowed to have a private life.”

“I do not!” Meg said.

“Oh, please! You tell me when you have fucking yeast infections, Meg! Why does anyone need to know that?”

The words hurt Meg. She'd always thought that best friends shared everything, and now Cara was making her feel like she'd been boring her with the details of her life. Or worse, that she'd been a burden.

“What does that have to do with anything? You've never once mentioned not wanting kids, and it's not like the topic of conversation has never come up between us. How is it possible that through all of these years, you never once said anything about it? How could you have an abortion? How could you do that?”

“What, are you political now? Why are you choosing this moment to pick a side?”

Meg couldn't believe that she was insinuating this argument was at all academic. It was emotional, pure and simple, and if Cara were better attuned to her feelings, she'd get that. “I don't give a damn about the politics of it! I care that it hurts me. I'd give anything, anything, to be able to carry a normal, healthy baby, and you just gave your chance away? Why, Cara? You're in your thirties, you're married, and you have money. There's no reason for you to have an abortion. You've seen firsthand what this whole
experience has done to me, and that's the decision you made? I don't know how to handle that. I don't.”

“There's nothing for you to handle! It's not the right time for me, and that's all you need to know!”

“Are you kidding? That's all you're going to say? It's not the right time?”

“Look, Meg, you came to my house to talk about your problems, not to quiz me on the decisions I make for myself. You don't have an all-access pass into my personal life just by virtue of being my friend. You've been like this your whole life, you know that? You have no filter, and you expect me to be the same way. I'm not. You're not entitled to know everything. I'm sorry if that hurts you or if you don't understand it, but it's true, and if you want to stay friends with me, you're going to have to accept that there are parts of my life that I'm not going to discuss with you or anyone else. This is one of them. You can either be okay with that or not. Either way, this conversation is over.”

It was crazy. How could Cara possibly think that they'd just go back to pretending everything was normal? It was like all the advice and sympathy Cara had been giving her over the years was tainted, like she'd never cared at all. Meg was enraged, and maybe jealous in some way, that Cara could have what she wanted so badly and not value it at all. She looked at Cara sitting across from her at the table and somehow felt like she didn't know her. There was no longer a reason for her to stay there that afternoon, and as it turned out, no reason for her to ever go back.

“I don't have anything to say to you. This is unforgivable,” Meg said.

“I don't know, Meg. There's nothing I can do about it now. And even if I could, I wouldn't. So you're going to have to find some
way to forgive me. I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't want you to find out this way.”

“How'd you want me to find out?”

“I didn't want you to find out at all,” Cara admitted.

The words stung. She was insulted that after years of telling Cara everything about her struggles, her friend had kept this secret from her.

“I have to go,” Meg whispered as she stood and grabbed her purse off the back of her chair.