Chapter 15: Zygote

 

“Is she asleep?” Tom asked without looking up from the couch.

“Yep. Took her awhile. But she finally gave in,” Serena said and sunk into the couch cushion next to him.

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“I just scratch her back. She’s different with me. She relaxes easier.”

“Yeah, I know. I hate that.”

“You hate that she relaxes?”

“No, I hate that she’s different with you,” said Tom, scrunching up his eyebrows.

“I’m her mom. It’s supposed to be different,” Serena said and picked up the remote, flipping until she found a cheesy romantic movie that they used to watch in college.

“Ha, I remember this. Remember that crappy old theater?” asked Tom.

“Yeah, with the slimy popcorn.”

“I liked the popcorn. I thought it was good.”

“Of course you did,” said Serena.

On screen, the couple embraced. All hands, fists, and lust. Serena watched for a second and got up. Tom grabbed Serena’s hand before she could leave the room and looked at her with intensity.

“What if?” he asked.

“What if what?” Serena asked, and she glanced down, evading the strong, pleading look in his eyes.

“What if we were that for each other? What if we tried harder? What if we looked at the other person and said, ‘I’m going to make this work and put this person first in all that I do?’ What if we chose each other? Every day.” Serena opened her mouth to talk but couldn’t decide what to say. “We spend all this time looking around and wondering about life, other people, if things could be better, worse. I don’t know. What if we stopped looking and just focused on each other? What if what is good is right here? We just have to try harder. What if us is the answer?”

“What if us is the answer?” Serena let the words linger on her tongue.

“I just want . . .” Tom stopped and pulled Serena in for a deep hug. “I just want this. Love doesn’t have to be perfect to still be love,” Tom said.

Serena played those words over in her head, softly turning them over like pancakes, examining the edges. “Love.” She held on to it.

“Love is our truth. We just need to believe in it.”

Wrapped up in Tom’s emotions and arms, Serena wrote on his arm the letters O-K.

Tom sighed with relief.

Serena let him hug her, longer than she liked. She counted in her head to fifty-eight seconds to distract herself from the impulse to move. And in those seconds, she let go. Really, let go. And let her body relax like Maggie’s. She let Tom’s love overtake her, and for a moment, her world felt different. She knew where she had to go.

“There’s something I have to do. To clear my head.”

“Okay,” Tom said. He held on to her hand hard as if this were goodbye for a long time.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Serena teased, but she could see in Tom’s eyes there was no room for teasing.

On the drive to the graveyard, she passed a car with a window down. She followed suit and put her window down just to let the air remind her to breathe. In the car next to her, a dark brown dog’s shaggy head was sticking out. His tongue and ears were flapping in the wind. Serena put her head out the window and let it blow her hair and stress away.

Serena walked quietly up to her mother’s grave. She could feel every grass blade bend at her feet. She paused, shifted her body to turn around, and then twisted back. Uncertainty confused her movements.

Serena stood at her mother’s grave for a long time and said nothing. Her face turned wet before she realized she was crying. Tears streamed down her face as her internal voice talked with her mother. I loved you. And all I wanted was for you to love me.

And then real words escaped into the air. “I needed you,” Serena said. She felt like her chest was going to explode. She took a deep breath and continued the conversation. Each word felt like it was going to bust out of her heart. “I still need you. I hate it. But I do. You should have loved me. I was your daughter. I was your baby, too!” The words escaped from her mouth. “Did you love me? Could you love me?” Serena stared at the ground and kicked a pebble with her foot. Too ashamed to make eye contact with the grave. “You tried,” she said quietly. As if the words in the air made her final evaluation true. The wind kicked up and seemed to agree with her. There is no stopping a mother’s love, Serena knew it deep down. Maggie had taught her that. And she knew, somewhere in Barbara’s confused and angry heart wrapped in bands of sadness, there was also love.

“Love doesn’t have to be perfect to still be love,” she could hear Tom say. Was Serena going to carry her mom’s years of hate forward? Or could she carry the spark of love that made her mom lie to her in the first place? That lie came from love.

“I can’t change you. Or the past. But I’m going to change myself. And I’m going to change a lot of women’s futures. Moms who deserve to love their kids for as long as possible.”

The breeze blew and reminded Serena of all that was awaiting her. She stared at the hard rock of the cemetery stones around her and took a breath. She knew love was the right choice. What Serena didn’t know was that deep inside her, tiny cells had begun to multiply and divide. But it would be weeks until her baby would have a heartbeat.