What We Leave Behind (39 page)

“And I’ve been practically living in your home with him, and I’m telling you, he’s not being unfaithful.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said.

“Even if you have to do this, you should be here with him, and your son, and you should be figuring out a way to reassure him.”

“I’m taking Ari back to New York with me.”

“That’s ridiculous this time of year. Let him stay here where he’s comfortable.”

“I think he’d be most comfortable with me, regardless of the weather. Why don’t you come with us? Michelle can meet her maternal grandmother.”

She mulled it over in her head, watching Ari across the room playing attentively with his toys.

“You go. It’ll get more confusing if I show up out there, but you have to make me one promise.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll bring me back a picture of her.”

The next morning I got my period. Whether it was a sign or an omen or something else deeper, graver, I wasn’t sure, but I knew what the crimson represented—and it wasn’t just a trip to the drugstore. In approximately fourteen days, I would be ovulating, and I could conceive a child with Jonas Levy. I quickly dialed his cell phone in New York, and after he gave me an update on Michelle, I told him the news about the day’s arrival. There was an awkward silence on the other end, yet I felt closer to him than I had ever felt to him before. We were finally, completely on the same page about something, a common goal.

Marty was not seen or heard from until late afternoon. He called as Ari and I were returning from the park. I didn’t care to ask where he had been. My head and my heart were somewhere else. I sent Ari to the playroom, shielding him from our words.

He couldn’t hide the revulsion in his voice when I told him my plans. I could have filed for divorce, and it would have been a lesser blow than the scandalous events that were unfolding.

“This,” he told me, “I
cannot
understand, will
never
understand.” I had to hold the phone inches away from my ear. “My wife,” he said, “with another man’s baby inside of her. Do you get that? Another man’s baby will
be inside
of you,
not mine
. What do you expect me to say, congratulations?”

“It’s not like I’m being unfaithful to you, Marty. I’m not betraying us. You have to believe that.”

“Don’t make it sound so clinical, Jess. There’s more to it, and you know it. Maybe I don’t want to share you with him. Maybe I don’t want you having this kind of bond with another man. Is that so unrealistic of me? You’re my wife, for God’s sakes. What about our family? What about our having another child?”

“I have to do this, Marty.”

When a few seconds passed without a response, I looked at my cell, and the call had been disconnected. I had already set the deed in motion. There was no turning back.

When we reached New York three days later, Ari was full of questions. I tried answering them as honestly as I could.

“Mommy needs to work in New York for a little while, and it’s so close to Aunt Beth. We can see her every weekend if we want.”

“Why?”

“Daddy has to work in his office.”

“Why?”

“Yes, we’ll go home again,” I said, unsure of this one. I didn’t know if home would ever be the same.

Same response. “Why?”

He was inquisitive about the extra layers of clothing, and why a cloud formed when he spoke. He would try to grab it with his mittened fingers, to no avail. And when it snowed that first afternoon, I saw the marvel and delight in his innocent eyes. It made me wish for my own personal innocence to be returned to me, that I could feel that wondrous delight again. And I wished Marty could see Ari’s face too.

We settled into a hotel near Times Square. It was a little too touristy for my taste, but it was nearby a children’s museum and a stone’s throw from the new Toys R Us.  Ari became fixated when he caught sight of the life-size ferris wheel. I could see MTV’s offices from my window, a reminder of Marty. If I turned in its direction, there was a mammoth billboard with Stella emblazoned across the front, a reminder of things gone wrong.

Marty would call to speak with Ari, and I’d give him updates, but he and I never talked for long, the conversation more an exchange of insults—short, empty words meant to hurt. His pricking insults stayed with me throughout the day, further affirmation that he’d given up on us.

The day before the procedure, I had been visiting with Michelle—she was completing the second week of chemo using one of the newer anti-cancer medications. She was tired, her joints ached, and all of her hair had fallen out. I brought her a baseball cap, the Yankees, her favorite. Her maturity on many levels astounded me. I didn’t remember ever being as brave, though I’d never faced the battle that she was caught in. “I’m not so brave,” she’d tell me, and the commonality between us grew more apparent. We had grown close to one another in such a short time. She knew what I was sacrificing for her. But I was as insistent as she was defiant and not nearly as optimistic.

“There’s a one-in-four possibility this baby will have the identical tissue type necessary for the transplant. The odds of matching an unrelated donor are one in a hundred,” I’d tell her, having studied the donor registry, memorizing the essential statistics.

She’d listen to the numbers, and I’d remember she was just a kid, a fragile bird with a lot more than a broken wing. Her loyalty to her parents was admirable, yet the friendship she offered me filled the twelve years we were apart. My daughter was a deeply intoxicating person. I wished for more years to share with her, to learn all I could.

“Tell me about Ari,” she’d ask. “Do we look alike at all?” And before I’d finish describing him, before the picture was out of my wallet, she was asking about her grandmother, wanting to know if she could meet them, if it would be okay. We left out the parts about the man I was married to. I didn’t bring him up and neither did she.

Jonas entered the room as I was walking out the door, explaining how he had to see his girl. I heard Michelle whisper, “Which one?” and I shot her a look before walking out. We were both pretty taken by our daughter. Neither of us could escape the remnants of that summer when the end result, this precious child, was the reminder of what we had once shared.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, when he stepped from her room and saw me there with my hand cupping my mouth. I always laughed when I saw Jonas in his fatigues with his Looney Tune stethoscope around his neck. Today he looked even more grown-up and more handsome in his getup. Whether it was cheerfulness or Michelle’s stable status, I wasn’t in the mood to be distant. “You look cute,” I said.

“Then why don’t you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

Beth and Paul had offered to take Ari to Washington, DC for a couple of days to test out their parenting skills, and Ari couldn’t have been more excited. I wanted to say no. Everything told me to resist, but I answered, “Okay.” The alternative would have been room service, which I was growing tired of. Besides, Jonas was going to be a part of my life. We were publicly stepping out, addressing the world with our association. There was no more hiding what we once felt for each other.

“Good,” he answered. “I just need a little time with her. Why don’t you meet me downstairs in the lobby in fifteen minutes?”

“Make it thirty,” I said. “I need to make a call.”

After settling downstairs, I found my cell phone in my bag and checked my watch for the time. It was two o’clock in LA. I needed to hear his voice. Maybe he would be calm. Maybe he would reason with me. Marla answered on the first ring. She never had a reason to be discreet with me before, and now she was dancing around something that sent warning bells off in my head.

“He’s out of the office for the next two days,” was all she said.

I knew better than to ask the poor woman for more. She was already uncomfortable enough. So I dialed his cell phone, but he didn’t pick up.

As further confirmation of what I’d already believed to be true, I got up from the chair, found the nearest bathroom, and prematurely threw up.

Jonas found me pale and upset in the lobby. I contributed it to nerves, and he believed me, but then he became worried. I wasn’t up for dinner, but he was adamant, dragging me to his car, taking me to the hotel, and insisting that I get cleaned up and changed while he waited downstairs.

“Miracles don’t happen that fast,” I told him.

“Get going. I’ll take a ride around the block if I have to. With this traffic, you’ll have plenty of time.” He was probably right. I felt too depressed to care.

I went upstairs and tried Marty again. No answer. I called Beth and Ari in Washington and found them in good spirits, which peaked my mood, somewhat.

I headed downstairs, unaware of what the night would bring. How could Marty do this to us? Even though I’d always known what he was capable of, jealousy and distrust never interfered with the life we built together. When we found each other, two halves became whole, and it was always enough. Had I pushed him to it? Losing Joshua had cost us a lot. I guess some people grieved in one way, others grieved in another.

Jonas was waiting for me downstairs, as promised, a grin stretched across his face. I wanted to accept the smile and send him one back, but the suspicion I was holding onto prevented me from having any control over my facial muscles. Instead, he helped me with my coat, and we took off in his car through the streets of the city.

Dinner was at a quaint restaurant in Chelsea. The food was delicious, and I even allowed myself the luxury of a glass of wine to loosen my stiffened body. We discussed Michelle at length, and then turned our attention toward the supremely “out of the ordinary” mission we would be embarking on the next day.

Jonas began. “I know I said I wanted to raise the baby, but I don’t think I can do that to you. Listening to the way you talk about your son, watching my patients with their mothers, a bond between a mother and a child is sacred.”

“What about you? Dads are just as important.”

“We’ll figure out visitation, weekends, summers, whatever it is.”

“Should I be hiring an attorney?” I laughed. “We sound like a couple that’s getting separated.”

“Only there’s no requisite sadness.”

“We had that first…”

“It won’t get contentious,” he said. “I promise.”

“It can’t,” I said. “This baby represents too much hopefulness.”

“And she’ll be loved by both of us, no matter where we are.”

“She?” I asked.

“I’m a sucker for my girls. You know that.”

Sitting there at that table, we were sorting out the leftover questions thrown at us—Would we tell her what she did for her sister? Why her parents are not together?

“Who needs to know?” he asked.

I said, “She will, people, the press.”

The important questions had already been asked through the handful of articles we pored over—skeptics challenging us like we were harvesting corn and not a live human being. Condemning our decision only united us further in the pursuit to save our child. If there was any doubt on either of our behalfs, we hid it well. Understanding the ramifications of our actions, we were prepared to defend our cause publicly—if it got to that point. The broad spectrum of issues spread out before us. The moral and social implications raised all kinds of red flags. “Selective breeding,” said one article, “is debatable, even for married couples. Divorced couples producing a child to save the child from their previous marriage exceeds the definition of unethical.” Jonas and I didn’t fall into this category either. Imagine what they would think of us then. And yet, other articles supported what we were doing. “What better reason to bring a child into the world than to save a life? People have children to save bad marriages or by accident. Aren’t those reasons for conceiving just as questionable?”

There was also the issue of prenatal testing. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity had the strongest argument. When I pulled up what they had to say on their Web site, it opened up the whole debate between viable and non-viable: “Prenatal genetic diagnosis involves the intentional destruction of nascent human life and is therefore contrary to the principle of the sanctity of human life. It cannot be disputed that the embryo is human and is a human. To destroy an embryo is to cut short a human life that has already begun.”

A number of psychologists in the fertility office outlined the long-term effects, one being the burden the children carry with them when they are told of their conception and the role in their sibling’s life. Others expressed concern over the possibility of Michelle’s relapse and how the new child would be further burdened with the responsibility of partaking in another medical procedure to save their sick sibling a second or even third time.

And still we moved forward with the testing.

The response I found the most interesting was a baseless remark by a hospital staffer who said that we were treating this child as a pawn, acting selfishly and “Orwellian.” Jonas looked at this woman and said, “Reproduction between me and my future wife has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Then he put his arm around me and we walked away.

That’s when it became impossible for me to continue living in denial about the harder questions, the ones I wouldn’t discuss with anyone. Was this child the beginning of something more between Jonas and me?

After dinner, we decided to go for a walk. Jonas said, “You’ll have to have that serious mother/daughter conversation with her to explain sex and relationships and why protection is a must.”

“You’ll have to explain to her why sometimes loving someone isn’t enough.”

“Maybe she’ll never have to go through that,” he said, before adding, “You’re very brave to do this.”

“So are you.”

“I don’t have a husband and another child at home,” he said. “You’re making a tremendous sacrifice.”

If it were on my tongue all those years, I hadn’t been aware of it, but it slipped out simply and without reservation. “I would have done anything for you.”

“This is for Michelle,” he said, a casual arm thrown over my shoulder.