It is another Saturday morning and Wren’s husband is doing the best he can to try and help his wife walk through her pain and move forward. He misses the smile and vibrant spirit of the woman he married, the woman who dances in the kitchen. Lord has cooked breakfast this morning: scrambled eggs and toast that he delivers on a platter to their bed, along with some advice.
“You need to start creating again,” he tells her. “You haven’t even used the new kiln I built for you and that worries me. You were so excited about it when we started building.”
Wren abruptly replies, “I need to tell you something, Lord.” She finally tells her husband that not only has she carried the heartbreak of Raven’s disappearance, she has also been coping with the loss of a baby. Their baby.
“I didn’t tell you because I thought you might reject me if you knew I wasn’t capable of carrying a child,” she sobs. Lord holds her tightly while she tries to explain further. “And I didn’t want to tell you about the pregnancy because everyone knows the first three months are the crucial months, but baby left me after only two and a half months. It happened late one night while you were sleeping.”
Wren wipes the tears from her face but she can’t look into her husband’s eyes, afraid they are too sad. He squeezes her tighter.
“Not your fault, my love. You had your reasons for wanting to keep the news to yourself. And then, Raven’s disappearance. I love you and you’ve been through too much.” Lord holds his wife and absorbs what she’s just told him. They lost a baby. He begins to weep and pulls his wife even closer. Wren buries her head in his chest.
“We can try again,” he promises. “We will try again.”
Lord feels guilt about the Magras family curse, or at least what he was told was a curse. No one can pass this threshold. They might carry disease. An irrational thought passes through his mind: Could the curse have caused the miscarriage? He spent his whole childhood without friendship and new experiences. He never had a sleepover or a movie night with friends. No hot dog roasts around a campfire in the backyard.
Lord goes downstairs to the kitchen to fetch two Perrier waters. This cannot be the reason why Raven disappeared. This cannot be the reason my wife worries she is infertile, why our child has gone away. Lord sobs into his hands, which he wipes on a tea towel before bringing the water upstairs to his distraught wife.
Lord gives thanks that the curse didn’t apply to his wife. He’s been allowed to let Wren into his life and over the threshold into his heart. Before handing her the glass of water, Lord holds her again, as tightly as he can.
“I love you so much,” he says. The couple sits in silence. Then, “You need to start creating again.”
At this point, Wren cannot bring herself to admit that she incorporated the baby’s remains into the last pottery piece that she did fire. It’s a beautiful flower vase that now sits where that wretched photo of his dead mother used to be displayed. Late one restless night, Wren moved the photo from the mantel into a rarely used spare room at the far end of the farmhouse. That upstairs bedroom was used as a guest room, even when Wren was a girl. She looked around the room for a suitable spot.
But who wants to share space with a dead woman in a coffin? Wren hid the photo away, deep in a dresser drawer where no one could see it—out of sight and out of mind. Lord didn’t seem to notice the displacement of the photo. Or at the very least, he didn’t mention that it was no longer prominent on the mantel in the family room. When Wren had buried the photo in the drawer, she thought of Lord’s description of his childhood, about the Magras curse, about how no one could pass the threshold. Could it have migrated here with the photo, to her childhood farmhouse?
“I will start working again, my dear Lord,” she promises.
“Maybe you can start by doing some volunteer work. It’s unpaid but I think it might help you move forward,” Lord suggests. Lord tells her about a project his firm is working on: an outdoor play space in an abandoned lot behind one of the downtown women’s shelters.
“The kids who stay there need to have a safe space to play so we’re designing a greenspace constructed with mostly recycled materials. Some of them need someone to look after them while we’re doing the work.”
Wren knows that since Raven disappeared, she’s doing nothing more than filling up space. One day just seems to blend into the next and some days it’s an ordeal for Wren just to get out of bed. What her husband is suggesting now means she’ll be creating something with a purpose again, something that will witness the joy and laughter of children, and that’s a good start.
“It is too quiet here with nothing but my thoughts,” Wren responds, “and I do like to be around children.”
“My firm will even throw in for the cost of materials if you choose to do something… perhaps teach the kids pottery.”
Lord can see the idea resonates with his wife. He also knows it’s good medicine for her broken heart. His, too. He’s always wanted a family, but things happen, he realizes, and neither he nor his wife are responsible for the common reality that not all babies are carried to term. This one went away. They will try again, when times are not so turbulent. The sun will shine again.
“I’ll do it,” Wren proclaims. “I will fire those children’s work in my outdoor kiln.” Then turning to Lord she says, “These sweatpants need to be thrown in the wash. Want to help me take them off?”