: Part 3 – Chapter 4

This kiwi smoothie is the ambrosia of the gods. I was unaware that anything could taste this good.

Angie asked me a question, but I don’t want to stop drinking to answer her yet. Finally I take my lips off the straw with a gasp.

“It’s not only soldiers. Anyone can have PTSD,” I say.

We’re at a smoothie-coffee shop that recently opened in the next town. Angie suggested we go out somewhere because she’s sick of being at home. She dropped Dave off at community college this morning so that she could pick me up and we could get lunch together. Guinevere is in her carrier on the chair next to Angie. She’s studying the rainbow teether in her hands like it is a Rubik’s cube, her blond hair sticking up wildly, making her look like a tiny Einstein. During the ride here, I’d come clean to Angie about my hospital stay, even though she’d already heard about it as I’d suspected.

“So you’ll be in a group with all sorts of grown-ups?” Angie asks. She picks up her sandwich and takes a bite.

“We are grown-ups,” I remind her before returning to my smoothie.

“Yeah, but how are you going to relate to someone in group therapy who’s, like, thirtysomething?”

I chew on my straw. “I don’t know. I figure Dr. Singh must have a reason.”

Guinevere squawks and shakes her teether with a tiny clack-clack. There’s a satisfaction to her sound that tells me that she’s solved her riddle, and I’m pleased for her. Angie smiles at her and touches her small foot.

“Oh my gosh, Autumn,” she says. “I thought the baby was dead this morning!”

“What?”

“Yeah, she slept in a little, so when it was time to take Dave to school, I went to the crib, and she was so still, I really thought that she wasn’t breathing. When I picked her up, she didn’t stir for a second, so for this horrible moment, I really, really thought she was gone.” She laughs. “But then she woke up and was so grumpy with me! She must have been having a good dream.”

“Why would she be dead though?” I’m confused by her story.

“Sometimes babies just die,” Angie says. “I’m serious. Usually, it’s in the first couple of months, but sometimes”—she shrugs and winces simultaneously—“infants stop breathing, and no one knows why.”

“No one knows why?” I repeat, my brain trying to process. I thought when it came to babies, doctors knew everything there was to know. “How can they not know?”

“There’re theories,” Angie says, “and stuff you can do to lower the risk. It’s rare. It’s unlikely to happen to Guinnie or your baby. It just scared me this morning when she was sleeping so deeply.”

I go back to drinking my smoothie. I also have a sandwich, but I don’t care about the sandwich, at least not right now. Angie is cooing at her daughter, who she had believed to be dead. I wonder if she always carries that fear. It’s probably not at the forefront of her mind. She probably always expects her daughter to be alive, yet that knowledge, that you could be one of the mothers whose baby never wakes up…I don’t think that ever leaves you. I don’t think it will leave me now that I know it.

Angie tickles her daughter’s socked feet. “What were you dreaming about that was so nice?” Her cell phone rings, and she smiles before answering. “Hey babe.” Her smile melts, and she bites her lip. “Well, I have to take Autumn home after lunch, and then it will be time for Guinevere’s nap. I—maybe—” She looks over at me and puts her phone to her shoulder. “Autumn, after we’re done eating, do you mind if we pick up Dave? Both of his afternoon classes were taught by the same guy, and he’s sick.”

“It’s fine. Not a big deal at all.” This smoothie is the only thing on my schedule today.

“Okay, but after that, I’ll have to put Guinnie down for her nap before I can take you home. I can’t mess up her schedule. What, Dave?” She puts the phone back to her ear. “Oh. Or Dave can take you home.”

“It’s all fine.” I’m almost done with my smoothie, and I’m going to ask for a box for my sandwich and another smoothie before we go. Guinevere gurgles thoughtfully, turning her teether over in her hands again.

“Okay,” Angie says into the phone. “Yeah, we’ll be there in an hour. Because we have to finish eating and then drive all the way out there! Webster Groves? What does it matter? Because I thought I was dropping Autumn back and going home to put Guinnie down and then would have two hours before picking you up! Oh my gosh, I’ll see you in an hour.” Angie rolls her eyes at me. “He’s annoyed that he has to wait.”

“It’s not like you knew this would happen,” I offer.

“Yeah, but he’s in a bad mood a lot of the time.”

“Why?” I slurp the last of the smoothie.

She shrugs and looks at the baby. “I mean, we’re both tired. Even when she sleeps through the night, we’re tired. And he’s going to school and working sixteen hours at the burger place on the weekends. I don’t know. I feel like I have more to complain about than him since nobody spits up on him at school or work, but I see why everything is hard for him too.”

“He does get thrown up on at home sometimes,” I point out. “You were telling me that story about his favorite shirt.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Angie says.

“Are you guys okay?” I ask. “Like, relationship-wise?”

“Yeah? I think so? I don’t know. There’s always so much other stuff to talk about. And even after the episiotomy healed, I really didn’t want to have sex. I think we’ve had sex twice since Guinevere was born.” She shrugs.

“How does Dave feel about that?”

“I don’t know. I probably should ask him, but I feel kinda guilty about it,” Angie says.

“Why would you feel guilty? Doesn’t everybody know that happens after people have babies?”

“Yeah,” Angie says, “but we had been joking the whole pregnancy about how there was no way that would ever happen to us because we were like, well, rabbits. Now here we are. Honestly, he’s probably upset but trying to be nice by not bringing it up, but I don’t bring it up because I’m just too tired.”

I can’t let her leave it unsaid. What if something happens to Dave?

“You should tell him that you care,” I say. “That you’ve noticed him not complaining and that it means a lot to you. ’Cause how much worse would it be if he was complaining?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Angie says.

“Definitely, tell him,” I say. “I mean it.”

Angie cocks her head to the side and starts to say something, but then her face goes pale. Her mouth drops open.

“What?” I look over my shoulder at Sylvie Whitehouse waiting in line at the counter. She’s studying the menu. “Did she see me?” I ask.

“Definitely,” Angie says. “Do you wanna go?”

“I wanted another smoothie.” I’m so sad about it that I want to cry and really might. This smoothie was the best thing to happen to me in a long time. I wanted to have another, and now I can’t, because I obviously can’t wait in line behind the girl whose boyfriend I slept with right before he died.

Angie’s face hardens. She glances at her baby and looks back at me.

“Wait here with Guinnie.” She leaves our booth and walks to the counter and gets in line behind Sylvie. They both stare straight ahead, but by the set of Sylvie’s shoulders, she knows Angie is behind her.

“Meh?” Guinevere asks, and it truly is a question. I can hear it. “Meh? Meh?”

“It’s okay.”

Her gaze had been wandering around the room, but it latches on to me. “Meh,” she tells me.

“She’ll be right back,” I say, and the baby bursts into loud sobs. I launch out of my seat and around the table. “Shh,” I soothe, though it comes out too high-pitched. “It’s okay.” I fiddle with the straps on the seat, trying to unbind her from the carrier’s rigorous safety features. “I’m here,” I say, as if that is comforting.

Once she is free, the baby stops crying, but seemingly only out of confusion. “Beba?” She waits for me to do something, but I don’t know what to do, so I continue to hold her from under her armpits out in front of me. “Meh?” she tries again and whimpers.

I start to swing her back and forth in a tick-tock motion. A series of emotions passes over her face: surprise, pleasure, and then annoyance. I think she likes what I’m doing but is annoyed that I’m distracting her from her mission.

“Baby swing, baby swing,” I sing to her for some reason, and that makes her laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sylvie waiting for her drink. I’ve honestly tried not to think about how much Finny and I hurt her. She and I were never friends, yet what happened is too similar to what Jamie and Sasha did to me for me to be comfortable thinking about it.

Guinevere regards me distrustfully, like she knows people would say I stole another girl’s boyfriend.

“Life is really complicated, Guinnie,” I tell her, still swinging her back and forth. She isn’t very heavy, but my arms are getting tired. Still, I keep rocking in fear she cries again. “Baby swing,” I sing again, but this time, she is less impressed.

“Looks like you’re a natural.”

Angie’s reappeared with my smoothie in a to-go cup and a box for my sandwich.

“Thank you, Angie.” I feel like crying again, and I realize, for the first time, it might be a pregnancy thing.

“I saw the look on your face, and I remembered that feeling,” Angie says. “I wasn’t going to let you leave without one.”

I stand up and trade the child for the to-go cup and take a big drink.

“Thanks,” I say again.

“It’s not a big deal,” Angie says. She straps the baby back into her carrier. “She said something to me.”

“Sylvie?”

“Yeah.” She looks up at me. “She said to tell you that she’s glad you’re feeling better and congratulations.”

I feel my mouth open, but no words come out.

Angie finishes strapping in her daughter and looks at me. “How does she know?” she asks me.

“Jack probably told her,” I say. “You remember Jack Murphy, Finny’s friend? He came to see me in the hospital.” I haven’t seen Jack since that visit, but he texts me every three days or so. He’s checking in on me, which would annoy me, but I know he’s doing it for Finny. Usually, he asks how I’m holding up and sometimes he sends a knock-knock joke. My answer to how I’m doing, like the quality of his jokes, varies widely.

“Yeah, I remember Jack,” Angie says. “Are you ready, by the way? I didn’t know you were close with him.”

“We’re not,” I say, standing up to leave with her. “He came to see me for Finny’s sake, I guess.”

“Huh,” Angie says. “And he told Sylvie, and Sylvie doesn’t hate you?”

“I don’t know. Did it sound like she hated me? Was she being sarcastic?”

Angie pauses. “I don’t think so. She sounded solemn. I don’t think she’s thrilled, but she genuinely sounded glad that you’re better.” She shoulders the diaper bag, and we head to the parking lot.

“I guess it’s good for both our sakes if she doesn’t hate me,” I offer, and Angie only nods, because like so many things in my life right now, there’s nothing to say.

At least I have this smoothie.