Page 94 of My Favorite Lost Cause
The breeze blows my hair, and I look up at all the identical graves. Two thousand American boys whose stories all ended unhappily.
Two thousand boys who broke their parents’ hearts.
Maybe those Greek myths I read obsessively as a kid were trying to prepare me for the hardest truth in adulthood: most of our stories are sort of unhappy ones, in the end.
“I hope you were right about Hero and Leander,” I tell him. “Maybe you had to wait for another life. And I guess I’ll wait for the next one too.”
I wanderthe streets of Barcelona, which is every bit as lovely as I remembered, but I think I prefer a crumbling mansion, nearly obscured by live oaks. I think I prefer a place, any place, whereCharlie’s smile is the first thing I see. And that isn’t happening here.
I wander the tiny alleyways of El Born for hours. An ambulance comes through, and I flatten myself to the wall so it can pass, then walk in back as it moves at a snail’s pace behind the crowd.
Maybe it will lead me somewhere, somewhere that makes sense of things.
I love Charlie. I’m so in love with Charlie.
If he’d ever once said,“Can’t you just be happy with what we have?”before I discovered I was pregnant, I’d probably have said, “Yes.” But he didn’t say it then, and really…he never made it clear that he’d be in this for the long haul, even when he did say it, which was way too late.
A sign on the garage door of an art gallery says,
JUST IN CASE NO ONE
TOLD YOU TODAY:
HELLO!
GOOD MORNING.
YOU ARE DOING GREAT.
I BELIEVE IN YOU!!
GREAT BUTT
This faceless person behind a garage door is attempting to be kinder to me than I’m capable of being to myself. I don’t know why that makes my eyes sting.
God, I’ve fucked up so badly. I’ve gotten my fondest wish only to discover that I want something else just as much. A couple months ago I’d have been overjoyed by this turn of events, and a part of meisoverjoyed, but I’m also so sad at the same time. Because I once only wanted one thing from the world: a baby. And now I want two mutually exclusive things: this baby I might be carrying and its father, and I can’t have both.
I stumble upon an old church. You can barely turn a cornerin Barcelona without bumping into a cathedral more magnificent than anything at home. Inside, lining each wall, are these amazing tableaus for the saints. Not paintings but actual carved and painted saints. In front of one, a woman is on her knees weeping, clutching a candle.
You have no idea how much a child can break you, Maren.
Charlie was right. Perhaps this woman prays for a sibling or a spouse, but most likely it’s a child. My hand rests on my abdomen. I already love this baby enough to die for it.
Of course it will break me if something goes wrong down the line, if I lose her. Of course that’s terrifying. But doesn’t he understand that when you love someone that much, the terror is worth it?
I’ve only been aware of her existence for a handful of days, and already the terror is worth it. I just wish I wasn’t going to be bringing her up alone.
I go to a restaurant, determined to ignore the sense that I have failed my child already. Trying to ignore this paralyzing loneliness. If I act as if I don’t care, then maybe I won’t. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? I’ll experience all the pleasures of the city in order to let it fill that empty space inside of me, then return to New York slightly less broken?
“Uno, por favor,” I tell the hostess.
She says something too quickly for me to understand, but I’m fairly certain it wasno husband?Apparently, New York isn’t the only place where they will treat you like a pariah for dining alone.
I shake my head. “No. Uno.”
She leads me to a table out on the street, and though I want to enjoy this meal, I sort of feel as if the damage is done—I now feel heartbreakingly, conspicuously alone, which is ridiculous. How many people have come here for business and had to dine alone? I certainly cannot be the first. Will it be lonely for my daughter or son, though? Will it be enough to only have me?
Or would she be better off with a father of some sort? A kind man, like Andrew, who will smile when she speaks, and admire her crayon drawings, and give her away at her wedding?
