Page 62 of Summer Longing
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The second-floor office had become Elise’s least favorite room in the house. The furniture—desk, file cabinet, Eames chair—seemed to mock her. She couldn’t even take pleasure in the paintings on the walls, vibrant fields of poppies by a Cape Cod artist named Anne Salas. She and Fern had found such joy in collecting them, but now they seemed like relics from a long-ago time—a time before disappointment and loss.
The room was not supposed to still be an office. It was supposed to have been their nursery.
Now, a baby had finally arrived, and the only infant-friendly item in the room was the bassinet Elise had borrowed from Amelia.
The nesting instinct had kicked in one night when she couldn’t sleep. She’d slipped out of bed, brought her laptop downstairs to the couch, sat in the dark, and shopped online until her eyelids finally grew heavy.
Today, the boxes were waiting for her on the doorstep when she arrived home from work. It was like Christmas morning—she couldn’t wait to open every one of them.
The only obstacle to getting Mira’s room fixed up was, well, Mira. She looked alert after her feeding, with no yawns or the contented coos she’d started to make that suggested a nap might be imminent. Elise needed an extra set of hands to free hers to do some decorating.
She knocked on the door to the den that had become Olivia’s bedroom.
“Come in,” Olivia called. She was sitting on the couch, tapping on her phone.
“Hey, sorry to bother you. I need help with something and I was wondering if you had a little time.”
Olivia looked at the baby, then at Elise, with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Clearly, she did have time. But she wasn’t eager to volunteer it. “Um, sure,” she said.
“I just need a half hour or so to get a few things done in her room. Do you think you could take her out for a walk? I’ll put her in the stroller—all you need to do is push it up and down the street. She’ll probably drift off.”
“Okay,” Olivia said, looking nervous. “But I can’t lift her. My back…”
“You don’t have to take her out of the stroller. I’ll do everything.”
Reluctantly, Olivia followed her into the mudroom behind the kitchen. Elise gave Mira one final burp, then secured her in the stroller and kissed her on the forehead. The baby’s small hands fluttered up to her mouth.
“Her eyes are really dark,” said Olivia. “I thought all babies had blue eyes.”
“They were gray and now they’re turning darker,” said Elise. “Please keep this hooded part adjusted so the sun is off her. Thanks so much. Oh, let me put my number in your phone in case you need me.”
She felt a pang letting Mira go but told herself she would be fine. Olivia was a responsible adult. Still, she watched until the stroller was out of sight.
The boxes.
Elise wondered, looking at the stack on the dining-room table, if she’d gone a little overboard. But, really, it was all necessary. Okay, maybe not the four plush blue dolphins. Or the yellow-and-cornflower-blue blanket with Mira’s name hand-stitched in navy-blue Monterey Script lettering. But certainly the marine-themed mobile, with its felt seahorse, whale, octopus, and starfish, was essential. This was a developmental tool as much as decoration. And of course, Mira needed clothes.
Elise opened the box from Baby Gap first and unfolded the onesies in yellow and pink and white, some with cute sayings on them likeFUN IN THE SUNandMAMA’S GIRL,and others with hearts and flowers. She’d also bought half a dozen lightweight dresses with little matching bloomers and sun hats.
Elise put the clothes in the laundry and carried the remaining boxes up to the office.
When Elise and Fern had first embarked on their attempt at motherhood, they’d sat in bed planning their dream nursery. The walls would be painted a soft, pale yellow. The crib would be classic white wood with a matching changing table and dresser. In the corner, there’d be a cushioned rocking chair. Their vision was completely a shared one.
They had always been so in sync over everything—their taste in art, architecture, food. Where to live, how to live. Everything—until they had problems conceiving.
Relationships—strong, enduring relationships—were in some ways one long negotiation. Elise and Fern had always found a way to meet in the middle even if they did not agree entirely about a course of action, the distribution of labor, the spending of money, or whatever issue was at hand. They talked directly and honestly. This was the case when they began the process of IVF. Fern was entirely on board for parenthood on the condition that she was not the one to carry the child.
“I have zero interest in experiencing pregnancy,” she’d told Elise. “I’m just missing that gene.”
This was not a problem for Elise. She wanted to become pregnant, couldn’t wait to experience a life growing inside of her. When the time came to sign all the consent forms, they had done so indicating that either mother could carry the baby. Neither one of them believed that the option of Fern trying to conceive would ever be necessary. Until it became clear that Elise was not physically capable of carrying a pregnancy to term, and it was time to renegotiate.
“You won’t even consider it?” Elise said. She knew it was a lot to ask, maybe too much. But the alternative—giving up—was just unthinkable to her. They still had two perfectly good embryos.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” Fern said. “The technical circumstances have changed, but my feelings haven’t.”
She had been so maddeningly businesslike about it, as if they’d been debating how much to bid on a house.
