She lost the second baby on a bright spring day while working in Our Garden. Concetta Monteleone had come by as she did every Tuesday afternoon, lugging her granny cart. On this day, she’d brought a fig tree, the roots wrapped in burlap. She’d grown it herself from a cutting her father had brought back from the motherland. May the Madonna care for his soul, she whispered, and kissed the crucifix hung around her neck.
The tree was not heavy. No more than the plants Leslie lugged and hoisted every day at the garden. Not wanting to bother Jules, and, also, wanting to show she could do the work. She was no prima donna.
She heave-hoed the little tree out of the cart, the sticky three-pronged leaves slapping her chin. She felt the twinge low in her belly. She let out an Oh! and Concetta’s withered face twisted in concern. Like she knew the baby was doomed. In the way that old Italian grandmas, real-life white witches, know.
The bleeding started that night. Trickled down her thigh in the shower so it diluted pink. She was numb. She knew it was coming. The cramps had come in waves (the way the midwife had described labor) all evening. She could only eat half the homemade ice cream Jules had made for her cravings. She’d devoured bowl after bowl of his mint chocolate chip all through the first trimester.
She waited to tell Jules. Because then she’d have to tell him about the first baby. From college. The baby she hadn’t wanted but whose loss had hurt so she had stayed in bed for three days. Until Sister Mary Bartholomew threatened to call her parents. Worse, she’d have to tell Jules that his baby, their baby, was dead. The baby they’d wanted so bad they’d spent three years trying, making lists of names, imagining his or her future (Astronaut? Artist? Accountant?) and how they’d decorate the “nursery”—the bedroom closet Jules would dismantle, tearing down the shelves to make a cozy space Leslie would paint marigold.