The Rural Diaries

15

I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn’t forget, I’m alive, I know I’m alive, I mustn’t forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.

—Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

After Ghost Stories in October, I let my guard down. I had given up on getting pregnant. Or that’s what I said. It always existed as a nagging desire in the back of my mind. We were missing a family member. I felt it in my bones.

In December, Jeff got a job that would take him to New Zealand, and Gus and I were going along. Before we left, I had a feeling that I was pregnant. I’ve always had really low levels of hormones, so any time my body starts doing something, I know right away. My boobs hurt, and I was nauseated. I tried to keep my heart in lockdown. Having lost one pregnancy, I was gun-shy about making declarations ever again. I didn’t celebrate. I didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t tell anyone other than Jeff, and he also was very hesitant to get excited.

Jeff was playing King Arthur for a commercial, so he was off wearing armor all day while Gus and I toured New Zealand. The place stole our hearts. The people were so kind, and the whole country felt like Mischief Farm—rolling green hills and ponds. Highland cattle and sheep. Maybe we could just move there and do Peter Jackson movies.

Then, one afternoon Gus and I took a walk, and I felt a sharp pain. I thought, Oh, I know what’s going on here. I’ve been down this road before. I could feel my hormones doing all sorts of weird shit. It was another miscarriage. But it had been so early in the pregnancy, and I’d tried so hard to tame my emotions, keep myself from feeling joy or relief, that the loss didn’t cut me in the same way that the first one had. And we were having wonderful family time, and that helped to ease the loss. I thought to myself, I’m well-practiced now. How many times can this happen to me? Am I going to get better with this each time? That was a shitty concept.

Jeff said, “We’re just going to keep trying, Hil.”

We did keep trying, and about six weeks later, in January, I got pregnant again. This time I went to the doctor and got ultrasounds. There was a heartbeat.

I had been working on Lethal Weapon, and while we were in New Zealand the producers asked me to come back. The executive producer and creator of the show, Matt Miller, had been my boss on Forever, and I liked working with him. He had always been fair with me and very kind. When I had trouble finding child care, he found a babysitter in the city. For this new show, he had created the role and flat out offered it to me. But, as much as I loved to work, the offer was the standard base rate—the kind of money you make as a first-time actor.

“You guys aren’t even paying me enough to cover child care and expenses,” I told him, “and I’m doing all the work the boys are doing, but not making near as much money. I want to do it, but I can’t afford to do it.” Matt personally went to bat with Warner Bros. and got me more money than I’d asked for. I respect the hell out of him.

I didn’t want to tell anyone about the pregnancy and jinx myself the way I’d done before, but it would have been irresponsible to not tell Matt. I felt awful throwing him a curveball—“Hey, I’m pregnant. I’m really sorry, but I can’t do stunts.” Then, I had to tell the stunt coordinator, “Hey, I’m pregnant, so let’s be careful.” They graciously hired a stunt double for me so I wouldn’t have to do anything compromising, and they scheduled me so that I’d have ample rest between my scenes. That production couldn’t have been sweeter.

Early in pregnancy, doctors test your hormone levels to see whether they have doubled. My levels were very low, but they had doubled. So I was optimistic but also cautious. With Gus back in New York with Jeffrey, I sat around in my hotel room, not moving a muscle, and finally reading the books my sister-in-law Jess had given me when I had lost the first baby. Learning about the divine feminine and the life of Mary Magdalene blew my mind. I read about the Black Madonna statues in Europe, which are said to possess great power. I was gonna read and read until I was a wise earth mama, a witchy woman in caftans who cured ailments with herbs and faith.

Then I woke up in the hotel early one morning, and everything was gone.

I called Jeff. The distance between who we had been the first time we miscarried versus who we were now helped tremendously. I had my partner back. He said the things I needed to hear. We’d lost again. But we’d also won somehow in the midst of that.

I went to my brother Billy’s house and spent the day with him, which was a good distraction. And my best friend from sixth grade, Erica, happened to be in Los Angeles for work, so we had a slumber party and I pretended that I was eleven again.

The next day I had to go to work and tell everyone who had been so lovely and so accommodating that I had lost the baby. They were kind. Members of the crew had just heard the trickle-down good news that I was expecting, and as they congratulated me, I had to admit that I had just miscarried. Clayne Crawford, the male lead of the show, was between setups. We had a short scene outside with a car stunt—my character was casually supposed to hit a bad guy who was trying to escape. Clayne walked up to me and asked, “How we feeling mama?” He’s a dad. His wife Kiki and I had become good friends. I just shook my head, and he knew. He pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

I had to tell Matt. That sweet man had bent over backwards tailoring this role to fit to Gus’s school schedule and my availability and then my pregnancy and now this. “Okay,” Matt said. “Will you come back next year and work?” My character had essentially been written off the show out of respect to my and the baby’s well-being.

“Yes, absolutely.” He gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

When I got home, I promised myself to be more present and to focus on what I had, rather than on what I felt I was lacking. Sharagim had given birth to a gorgeous baby girl in August, so I’d made a habit of taking her older boys, who were Gus’s best friends, so she could get a night off here and there. One night, when the crowd of boys were over, making bed forts and whooping it up, I checked my phone.

Bill Paxton had died unexpectedly from complications after surgery.

Jeffrey was away at a convention. I knew he’d hear the news, and I didn’t want a bunch of people watching him when he found out. I texted him.

Call me please. It’s important.

Bill was a guy who lived life right. He adored his wife. He delighted in his children. He loved his industry. He spread joy with such ease. It all felt like so much to endure in so short a span of time: Ira’s death, Bisou, the miscarriages, and now Bill. This had been a period of incredible loss for our family, and as I heard Jeff choke back tears, I just wanted to find a way to stop it. It was especially difficult for him. A number of his friends had passed in the previous year, and he realized that he had hit that age when people aren’t getting married anymore, people aren’t having babies anymore—people are having funerals. He made it home after the convention and we sat in our room. “I’m sad, ma,” he said.

“I know babe. Me too.” Sometimes there’s nothing to do but let the tidal wave of grief hit you and wait for the next break in the waves.

* * *

There had been so much sorrow in the previous few years, but Jeffrey and I had made it through together. That spring was filled with celebration. In March we went to Barcelona where Jeffrey and his best friend, Norman Reedus, were filming an episode of Norman’s show Ride. Jeffrey was clinging very tightly to his friendships.

While the boys filmed, Gus and I wandered the cobblestone streets of Barcelona, exploring markets and the zoo and wax museums and all the curiosities the city had to offer. I fell in love with Barcelona and was excited for Jeffrey’s day off so we could all roam around together. Hand in hand in hand, we walked aimlessly, stopping to watch street performers do magic or blow huge bubbles for the kids. We stopped in every beautiful deli, jambon sandwiches calling to us from their glass cases. Turning down a windy street, we found ourselves entering a large square. Little café tables lined the block, and people casually milled about. At the end of this square was a building so remarkable, I stopped and stared. I didn’t have to say anything. Jeff just knew. Before us was the Barcelona Cathedral. He’d seen that look on my face before at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, a mix of awe and elation. “Come on buddy. Your mom wants to see this.”

A gothic masterpiece, the church was exquisite, all ancient stonework and elaborate carvings, and the air was cool and smelled of incense. I breathed it in as Jeff, Gus, and I stood in a long line of pilgrims. When we were ushered in, we moved to the left, exploring the statues of the saints that lined the cathedral. It quickly became apparent that I was moving at a much slower pace than Jeff and Gus, so they peeled off. “Let’s give Mama some space.”

I wandered across the stone floors worn from hundreds of years of worship. Not growing up Catholic, I had no idea of the protocol. Do I cross myself? Kneel? I walked and walked until I reached a smiling statue. This one beamed, far different from her stoic neighbors. Mary Magdalene. Of course. Those books Jess had given me had provided a framework for how I felt about this woman. I’d been raised to believe that she was a woman of ill repute. But religious research disputed that, and even the Catholic Church had just given her a feast day, essentially apologizing and announcing that the Magdalene had never been a prostitute. For the first time in my life I lit a votive candle. Not for a baby necessarily. It wasn’t a wishing well. I asked for the strength to be a better woman, however that manifested. I don’t know how much time I spent there, but I felt moved. I cried.

Continuing along my path, I descended a small flight of stairs. A few people were milling about, looking through intricate metalwork at something in a shrine. A Black Madonna. I couldn’t believe it. I knew there was one at Montserrat, an hour outside of the city. But to see one here, so unexpectedly, caught me off guard. Finally, when I got to the virgin, I was overwhelmed by the kindness of her face and the joy of her son. More than a reverent depiction, she felt like a real mother. It felt like a sign.

Years before, during the filming of The Secret Life of Bees, the head of the art department brought me a present. “I thought you might like this,” he had said, handing me a prop jar of honey with a Black Madonna label on it. The story of the Black Madonna had been a plot point in the book and movie—female empowerment and belief in the divine feminine. I still had that jar of honey on my special shelf of first-edition books. I treasured it as a memory of my favorite work experience, surrounded by women. And here it was, manifesting in my real life so many years later. For the second time in my life, I lit a candle, sending up a prayer for grace.

* * *

Back home, spring was frisky. All the alpacas that we inherited from Sunny are boys and are gelded, with the exception of Zeus. He’s a pure black alpaca, and even though he’s a little guy, he’s real sure of himself; he’s always the first one to the trough. He’s the Joe Pesci of alpacas. When I give them their monthly shots, Zeus is the one who likes to make it tough for me. He’s antagonistic, and when I’m not careful, he backs me into a corner. He’s not any nicer at shearing time either.

The boys’ fleece goes to Sunny, who sends it off and gets it made into the softest, most beautiful yarn you’ve ever seen, and then she just gives it back to me saying, “Oh, well, you knit more than I do. You take this.”

The first couple of years shearing the alpacas was terrifying because the shearing business around here is a cutthroat game of who you know. Shearers are booked up from early spring through summer, and if they don’t know you and they don’t recognize your phone number, they’re not coming over. The first spring on the farm I called around and got recommendations from local farmers, but no one would return my calls. Not a single person. Once, I actually got a guy on the phone and he said he’d come out the following Thursday. He never showed. Finally, we found somebody to help us. He barely spoke. He was in a hurry. It wasn’t fun.

It’s all hands on deck for shearing, and the animals don’t like it one bit. Alpacas, for the most part, won’t spit at you the way llamas do; they’re pretty hard to piss off. But boy, when they’re getting sheared, it’s a shower of bile. So while two guys are shearing the animal, I go through and pick up all the fiber that’s being sheared before it gets a spit shower. And this spit is no normal drool; it’s the nastiest, greenest vomit you’ve ever seen. There was no way Jeffrey and I could handle shearing on our own.

The second year, the shearer who had helped us before disappeared, and we had another bad experience finding someone. So that spring when we got a call from our contractor-hero, Mark McEathron, about some alpacas, I was intrigued but knew I needed to play hardball.

He and his wife, Jess, had an elderly neighbor who was looking to downsize her farm. “She has these award-winning beautiful alpaca girls,” Mark said. “Would you guys be interested in taking them? She wants them to go to a good home.”

These girls Mark was talking about were really pretty, with great pedigree, and their fiber was fancy. But adding more alpacas with no shearer contact in sight wasn’t the smartest plan. “I’d be happy to take the girls,” I told him, “but only if your neighbor shares her shearer contact with me.” It was like a drug hookup.

The deal was made.

Not long after, these gentlemen drove up in a big white pickup truck with their name—Twist of Fate Spinnery–on the side of it. They were pros. The animals stayed calm. There was minimal bile. The process was fast. And not only did they shear the animals, they also had the ability to process the fleece for you so you could get it turned into felting or yarn, or you could have it washed and then spin it yourself.

So the boys got sheared, the girls got trailered in, and we gave them a pasture on the opposite end of the farm from the boys, so they wouldn’t get all rowdy. You don’t want your alpacas getting riled up. But I guess that pheromone must’ve traveled across the entire farm, because all of a sudden Zeus lost his mind. He was trying to climb fences just to get the attention of those girls. And they weren’t paying him any mind. It was like watching a high school boy in love.

Jeff asked the natural questions: “What should we do now? Should we breed them? Is that our next step?”

Now, these girls are a big deal. It’s like the difference between getting a mutt in a Waffle House parking lot and getting a purebred poodle that won Westminster. They are supermodel alpacas, with beautiful straight teeth and perfect fiber. Our boys all have crooked teeth and knobby knees, so when I figure out how to get them together, it will be like Freaks and Geeks.

I can envision Zeus hanging out with the girls and then coming back to the other guys, like, “You guys have no idea what you’re missing.”

* * *

Spring also meant it was time to put my money where my mouth was when it came to the renovation of the Astor building. Our fundraiser had been successful, and we now had the money needed to start tackling the first wing of the residential center. Kate and Lawrie and Sonia were all systems go. I’d certainly completed my fair share of home improvement projects over the years, but this was different. If you fuck up at home, no biggie. At a clinical children’s home? Big problem. Huge. I knew I needed a professional skill set to pull this off.

Remember how heartbroken and hurt I was when I came home and found the addition in shambles? It would appear that everything really does happen for a reason. To my absolute delight, Mark and his crew, the Stanhopes, our new plumber, Tim, and a buddy of Ed’s named Frank all volunteered to help with the difficult task of renovating an entire wing of Astor in five short days. We could work on the space only while the kids were in school, so coordinating all the volunteers and doing the labor in a timely fashion was a monumental task. Mark took a tour through the unit and called in a master painter friend, Mike Diblasi. Mike is a quiet guy, and he looked around the space seriously. “Oh no,” I thought. There were huge cracks in the wall and chunks of plaster falling down around the doorways. “He’s gonna tell me this is not doable.”

But instead, he put his hands on his hips and said, “Yeah, I know a material that can smooth all this out.”

Had the original addition plans at the farm worked out, I never would have met most of these guys. It was inspiring to have all these craftsmen who’d helped us at the farm give up paychecks for an entire week because they saw the same thing I saw—a place devoid of hope and childhood liveliness—and they wanted to help fix it.

Kate had called for a meeting, and I presented the design plan to the group. I turned photos I had of the space into black and white and then printed them out and painted over them—the same way I’d worked on the color scheme for Samuel’s. It was amateur, but it got the idea across. The first unit was all boys, so I wanted to do a camping theme. To me, it was frustrating that these kids had been moved to the Hudson Valley, a place renowned for its beautiful outdoors, and they were stuck inside this building. Bringing the outside in made sense. With sky blues and greens, I added tree decals to the design, wanting to create a forest for them to daydream in. All the rugs and pillows and art added to the scene. When I presented the design to the group, I expected clinical feedback or pushback on what was allowed in the space. With the exception of my curtain suggestions, which James the building manager informed me weren’t up to fire code, the plan was met with excitement.

Phase one of fundraising had gone well. Phase two of designing was approved. Now we just had to do the renovation!

I’d drop Gus off at school and then race around town like a madwoman, securing supplies or trying to get donations. The wonderful folks at Davis Furniture in Poughkeepsie had been so nice when I was looking for dressers for the new addition at our house. I sheepishly went back and asked, “Could you maybe spare a desk or chair from your back discount room?” To which they said, “No, no, no,” and pulled out all their furniture catalogues for me to pick out something brand new for the space. It was incredibly generous. Williams Lumber had been my and Jeff’s go-to for everything since we had moved to the area. Sharagim’s husband, Sean, introduced me to one of the owners, Kim Williams. “We’re doing this project over at Astor . . .” I didn’t even need to finish the sentence.

“Whatever you need,” she responded. Then, going the extra mile, she referred me to Rob Hunter, the local Benjamin Moore rep. All of a sudden we were getting all of our paint donated! Samuel’s sent over coffee, and one of my favorite crystal shops offered to do chakra cleansing for the staff and volunteers. Friends picked Gus up at school so I could stay later with James and get more done. Our community rallied and connected over this heartfelt effort to improve the lives of these kids.

Mike Diblasi single-handedly rebuilt and painted all the walls in that wing, carrying around a tray of heavy cementlike compound as if it were nothing. Mark and his team created shelving for every bedroom so each kid could put together a little shrine of their prized possessions. They built benches for the dining room and replaced all the molding in the unit, sanding down all the edges to make everything safe. Tim, the plumber, tore out and redid the rundown kitchen and repaired the bathrooms. The Stanhopes came in early in the week and replaced every lighting fixture with bright new LED units that transformed the space. And then they returned every day after to help with odd jobs like decals and painting trim.

Each night I wrote a note to the kids. I figured it must be odd for them to have strangers in their space making a mess and moving everything around. I hoped it wasn’t traumatic for them.

Late in the week, while the army of moms, led by Kate and Lawrie, made beds and treated each child’s bedroom as if it were their own kid’s, I talked with Sonia. “I’m not sure the crew should stay for the reveal with the kids,” Sonia said, gently. “Some of them have a lot of emotional walls up. I’d hate for any of them to have a bad reaction and the crew to not understand.”

“I totally get it,” I said. I knew some of these children were nonverbal. It wouldn’t be like those makeover shows on TV. The chances of someone being upset by the change were high.

So we had a private reveal on Friday, with our entire crew and our donors and members of the press. Astor had been shrouded in secrecy for so long, it was important that we spread the word about the good work being done there.

The space looked amazing—with animals and inspirational sayings covering the walls. With Mark’s wife, Jess, the local artist Tom Cale had painted a fabulous mural in the living room. The unit shined with the love that had been put into it.

Everyone hugged and shed a few tears. I thanked them after the cameras left. “For those of you who don’t know, I got involved with Astor because I’d had a miscarriage, and it left a big gaping hole. Working on this with all of you has meant so much to me personally.” I was having trouble getting the words out. But I wanted them to know. They didn’t just fix this space for the children. They’d done me a great service as well. From the guys who worked on my house to Lawrie and Kate and the staff, I’d made a whole new circle of friends. Good people.

After everyone left, I stayed and wrote notes for each of the kids who lived on the unit. For each bedroom, we asked them about their favorite colors, favorite sports teams, favorite cartoons. Gus had helped me pick out rugs and sheets and pillows and stuffed animals. I was nervous as I waited for the kids to come up. James and Sonia waited with me. Then suddenly, from the staircase in the hallway, I heard whooping and laughter and little boys shouting. “Oh man!” “Lookit, lookit!”

I peered around the corner, and the group of boys who lived in the unit were darting from room to room. They were bursting with excitement like it was Christmas morning. Sonia and James and I all looked at each other. We hadn’t been expecting that. One by one, the boys came up with pillows or toys they’d found on their beds. “Is this really mine?”

“That’s all yours, dude.” And then they wrapped me in hugs. They pulled me down to hang out in the living room on the camping-themed carpet we’d put in. It was a dog pile of affection. I cried the whole way home.

Jeff made it back home for a short weekend toward the end of May. He’d been tapped to drive the pace car for the Indy 500, so we were going to make a family adventure out of it. I have a picture of Gus greeting him when he got home that day. We were all so happy to see each other.

In the midst of all our busy-ness, we had another project up our sleeves. The year before had been a test for our relationship. I had been the worst version of myself. Jeffrey had been distant and unreachable. And yet somehow we had found each other again, and we wanted to seal the deal.

We had called each other “husband” and “wife” throughout everything. But we had never actually gotten around to getting married. In the English language there is not a word for what we are. I’ve always felt like “fiancé” is a pretentious word. I most certainly wasn’t gonna call him my boyfriend. “Baby Daddy” felt like I was trying too hard. He wasn’t my husband, but the title would have to do. We did all the legal stuff. We were each other’s next-of-kin. We could pull the plug on each other. (That’s romantic, huh?) We owned property together. We owned businesses together. We owned homes together. We had a child together. We’d literally done everything together except have a wedding. I kept saying let’s just go to the courthouse, but Jeffrey is a romantic person, so we planned a wedding—a destination wedding on St. Maarten in the Caribbean.

We planned the whole thing that weekend. I found a dress. We picked flower arrangements and food. We invited a very small circle of friends who all RSVP’d yes and booked their villas at a beautiful resort on St. Maarten for January the next year. We put down a deposit. We were getting married!

A few days later I was at a dinner for Lawrie’s birthday. I had a glass of wine and thought, this doesn’t feel good. The next day I took a pregnancy test. It was June 4, 2017, and I was pregnant again. I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I didn’t even go to the doctor. But I sent Jeff a picture of the positive test.

“Okay,” he responded. “Let’s see what happens.”

He felt that after I’d gotten pregnant before and he’d told me how badly he wanted a baby that he had jinxed it. So, we’d developed a weird report:

I’d say: “I’m pregnant.”

He’d say: “Oh, babe, you’re so pretty. Let’s see what happens.” And then he’d change the subject. It was like he was afraid to put any pressure on me. I could appreciate his sensitivity.

For Father’s Day in June, I got Jeff three mini-donkeys. He had wanted donkeys forever, and I like to tease him about being an ass man. There was a pregnant mother donkey who was due in a couple of weeks, a yearling named Princess, and the mother’s best friend, Ally. The donkeys’ owner wouldn’t sell me the mother without selling me her best friend too. So the three donkeys showed up.

A week later, the mama donkey gave birth. We watched as the big-eyed baby with a fuzzy Mohawk of hair teetered around, taking his first steps. He was enormously cute, and we wanted him and Mama to have some quiet time together away from Princess and Ally. We waited till he seemed steady on his legs, and then we carefully harnessed his mother and walked the two of them over to the barn, where a fresh bed of hay was waiting for them. We stood in the barn, leaning on each other and watching Mama and her baby for a good long while. This is why we moved here. The foal was stumbling around on new legs. When he started to nurse, Jeff took my hand and we walked back up the driveway talking about what to name him.

“What about Paxton?” I asked.

He turned and smiled, “I was just thinking that.”

I laughed, “Bill would have the biggest chuckle about us naming an ass after him.”

When we visit the donkeys, they’re like big dogs, bursting with affection. They’re such lovers. It’s like a Puppy Bowl, with the animals piling on top of each other, only the animals weigh 150 to 180 pounds and have hooves and teeth. But they still want to crawl all over us and have their heads and bellies scratched.

Paxton and Jeff have a very deep bond. They are wild about each other, and Paxton is obsessed with Jeffrey. He can hear his voice from across the farm, and he’ll come running up to the fence. A couple of weeks after Paxton was born we were swimming, and I saw a huge, god-awful black bruise on Jeff’s ribs. “Jeffrey, what happened?!”

“Uuuhh, Paxton bit me. He wanted a kiss, and I was petting one of the other donkeys.”

* * *

Gus finished up school for the year and then we went off to Los Angeles, where I was shooting another season of Lethal Weapon. They had an awesome storyline written for me, and I was going to be doing all these cool stunts, but now I had to sit down with sweet Matt Miller and do the whole pregnancy song and dance again.

Cooking for Martha Stewart

While I was pregnant with George, Allrecipes magazine asked me to do a presentation.

I said, “Okay.”

A few days later they called back: “Oh, by the way, it’s going to be a cook-off with another person.”

I said, “Okay.”

They called again: “Oh, by the way, we need you to do a recipe that’s totally your own.”

I said, “Okay.”

They called yet again: “Oh, by the way, the other person is going to be Dorinda Medley, of Real Housewives. Famous for her elaborate dinner parties.”

And I still said, “Okay.” But now I was nervous.

So my mother came and we hit the local farm stands and bought in-season local ingredients. Adding in my own eggs and jalapeños and blueberries from the garden, we laid everything out before us and brainstormed.

Allrecipes reached out one more time.

“Guess who’s going to be judging? Martha!”

Say what? Martha Friggen Stewart would be judging the contest. (Side note: I was the teen who did not subscribe to Vogue or Cosmo; I had Martha Stewart Living delivered to my college dorm.)

Martha Stewart was everything I dreamed she would be. Immaculate, formidable, and gorgeous. I swallowed any pride I had and asked for a photo with her. Dorinda made me do it.

Sweet Hot Corn Cake

FOR THE SYRUP

1 cup blackberries

¼ cup honey

½ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (I used a tangelo)

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 teaspoon cornstarch

FOR THE CORN CAKE

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup yellow cornmeal

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1¼ cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons honey

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 ear fresh corn, kernels sliced off and cob milked (to milk the corn, after you slice off the kernels, run the blunt edge of your knife down cob and reserve any leftover pulp and liquid)

2 jalapeños, seeds and ribs removed, chopped

½ cup blackberries

Zest of 1 orange

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Butter for frying

Start the syrup first. In a saucepan, combine blackberries, honey, and orange juice. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Let simmer so the berries cook down for 10 minutes while you prepare the corn cake.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients—flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix your wet ingredients—buttermilk, honey, eggs, melted butter, corn, corn milk, orange zest, thyme, and jalapeños.

Combine wet and dry ingredients.

Slice blackberries into small chunks, removing any thick cores if needed. Gently fold blackberries into cornmeal batter.

Pour blackberry syrup mixture through a fine-mesh strainer. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons orange juice with cornstarch. Combine well. Add small amounts of blackberry liquid to cornstarch mixture to bring the temperature up. Then add it all to the remaining blackberry liquid in a saucepan. Bring the mixture back up to a boil to thicken. Remove from heat; let cool.

Melt some butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. For each corn cake, add ¼ cup batter to skillet and cook until golden brown on each side.

Plate warm corn cake and top with a tab of butter. Drizzle with blackberry syrup, serve, and ENJOY!

“Do you remember that yearlong plan you had for me?” I asked him. “Well, I’m about to fuck it up again. I’m so sorry.”

But Matt and his team couldn’t have been more gracious. The stunt team got an amazing body double who made me look like I was in really good shape, and she did all the heavy lifting for me. Clayne Crawford took incredible care of me. All these people had been working with me on the day I had miscarried, so they knew what it meant for me to be pregnant again and were very gentle with me.

After I’d started showing, I went to the doctor fully prepared for her to give me some kind of awful news. I white-knuckled my way through my regular ultrasound, and the doctor said, “Hey, kid, everything looks good. The heartbeat is really strong and you’re in your second trimester.” I was amazed.

Then, she added, “But, you’re over thirty-five now, so you’ve got to go to the high-risk doctor in Poughkeepsie.”

I was afraid for that appointment, and I’d learned my lesson, so I waited for Jeff to come home to join me. I knew that when things went badly and we were separated physically, everything was worse. This time, I wanted him with me if there was bad news. When advanced paternal age is added to advanced maternal age, the probability of frightening things occurring is higher. I had asked worst-case-scenario questions during my first trip to the doctor, and she had prepped me for bad news. All I could think was that Jeff was right: we had our perfect boy, and I should call it a day. But I had wanted this baby so badly for so long.

I was edgy on our way to the appointment in Poughkeepsie. I’d heard the heartbeat. I’d seen movement. We’d gotten the blood work back; we knew the baby was a girl. I had ultrasound photos showing her growth. But I couldn’t let myself enjoy it. During the high-risk ultrasound, they checked every single inch of the baby. They measured everything while I looked up at the screen showing our baby inside of me. You can see everything. Her profile, her little hands. The tech knew that we were scared and said, “She’s perfect. If I were having a baby, this is the ultrasound I would want.”

But I was so untrusting.

Then the doctor came in and said, “She’s perfect. There’s not even one yellow flag here.”

“I knew it,” Jeff said. “Awesome. Just awesome. Thank you, doc.” And then he got real huggy with this man he had only just met. The doctor left the room, and Jeff saw my face. The terror of letting yourself feel joy after great loss can be overwhelming. My chin got tight as it does when I’m fighting emotion. He pulled me into his chest and whispered, “It’s gonna be great.”

All of a sudden we thought we should pick out a name, we should get ready for this little girl.

We sat in the backyard, watching Gus splash in the pool during one of those hot early autumn days. I’d written up long lists of girl names, combinations of names I liked from books and old family names. Jeff was polite about it, but I could tell they were all rather stuffy and old-fashioned for his liking. Anne—from Anne of Green Gables—was a front-runner. Virginia, an homage to my home. Liesel, Elise, and various other versions of my mother’s name, Lisa. Dolley, derived from my fixation on Dolley Madison. But nothing was clicking.

“To hell with it. Let’s just name her George,” I said.

Jeff lit up. “I was gonna say that yesterday, but I thought you’d hate it!”

“I was gonna say it earlier, but I thought you’d hate it!”

To this day, I still have no idea how we separately and simultaneously arrived at the name George.

Later, while diving into my divine feminist studies, I looked up the area in Spain where I’d lit the votive candles in Barcelona. The patron saint? St. George.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t communicated any of this to the wedding planner in St. Maarten. She kept asking me questions, and I kept putting her off, but she was holding our money and all of our friends’ money and there was a no-returns policy. Our wedding was scheduled for January 4. The baby was due February 11, and while all of this was unfolding, the Zika virus had taken over the island. So once I had the ultrasound, I called the wedding planner and told her we had to cancel. “We’ll do anything we can to help on social media to promote your venue, and you’ve got months to book the rooms, so is there any way we get our money back?”

When I hung up the phone, Jeff said, “I’m out a shit ton of money aren’t I? And all our friends are out thousands of dollars.”

I felt sick about it, but I had to send an email to all our friends. “There’s good news and bad news. Good news is we’re having a girl! Bad news is St. Maarten has Zika. We are so grateful that every single one of you was willing to celebrate our wedding with us. Jeff and I will absolutely cover any costs from the resort that won’t be reimbursed.” I groveled. I felt so horrible.

Without fail, everybody wrote back: baby trumps wedding.

But Jeff was still holding out hope. “Hilarie, we could make it work. I’ve looked into planes to crop dust the entire island of St. Maarten to kill the mosquitoes. We’ll put you in a net; you’ll be fine.”

He so badly wanted this wedding. He had his heart set on it.

But I dug in. “Honey, we’ve tried so long to get pregnant, we aren’t risking anything.”

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to get married, and I was frustrated that we couldn’t get our money back. But I would’ve paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a baby. Millions. This baby was priceless. We agreed to go to the island and get married after our baby was born.

Then Hurricane Irma hit, and the island was decimated. The hotel was swept away, and all our intimate misfortunes were thrown into perspective. The hotel wrote to us to say that they would return everyone’s money. They didn’t exist anymore. I’d been so irritated with them, and now I was heartbroken for them. Life is about constantly changing perspective.

With the wedding canceled and the doctor’s stamp of approval, I finally gave myself permission to daydream about my girl. I didn’t want to deprive myself of joy because I was so scared of losing the baby. Pregnancy with Gus had been stressful because I was a first-time mom and Jeff was always gone, and there were so many logistical issues. So my pregnancy with our daughter was kind of a do-over. Now I had a home. I knew where Jeff was. Our life had a routine. I wanted to move forward and remove all the negative shit. I was very conscious of the fact that I was creating someone else’s cells, I was creating the chemistry of her brain; so if my body was a cauldron of negativity and adrenaline and stress, then it would affect the baby. I devoted myself to serenity. No more Dateline. No more spinning wheels and anxiety. It was gonna be all sunshine and rainbows from that point on.