The Year We Turned Forty (16 page)

“How's the market?” Mona asked a few minutes later. “Are you really going to buy
two
properties? Aren't you worried the bubble will burst?” Mona frowned.

“I think we have a few more years,” Claire said expertly. She'd always loved her job, but when she'd watched so many of her clients get strapped with mortgages they couldn't afford, with lines of credit they'd regret later, eventually losing their homes and savings, she'd blamed herself and almost left the field altogether.

Before, she'd always let fear hold her back from investing in the market, her mother's conservative voice ringing inside her head. But now, with her gift of foresight, and her plans to buy and flip two houses, she had a chance to make enough money to actually be able to afford the Lexus she knew she'd have to purchase soon. She thought of Blair's warning, that they couldn't use time travel to make easy money. But she still had to see the right investments, manage any necessary renovations, and be able to sell them—and that all required expertise.

Claire slowed as she approached her mom and dad's peach
stucco town house, noticing how the roses planted out front were beginning to burst into bloom. “When is your next doctor's appointment?”

“Oh, let's see,” her mom said, fumbling through her purse for the appointment card the nurse had given her. Claire thought how much easier it would be if Mona had a smartphone with a calendar, knowing she'd lose the card and have to call the office, which was precisely why Claire was asking her for the date now. “Next Tuesday. He wants to do a CT scan and some bloodwork. Seems like a lot of rigmarole for a bad cough,” Mona said, but Claire noticed a flicker of concern in her mother's eyes. Her mom had always put up a tough front, but Claire knew she was hurting, that the pain in her chest was worse than she was letting on.

“I'll come with,” Claire said, and laid her hand on her mom's shoulder, remembering how her life had been divided into two categories after Mona's diagnosis:
before
and
after
. Before, when she'd send her mom's calls to voice mail. After, when she'd fumble to take her call. When she would have done anything for just another day together. She would have let her smack her gum as loudly as she wanted.

“You don't need to. You should be working, right?” She opened the car door. “I'm a tough cookie. I'll be fine. I love you,” she finished before blowing a kiss and walking toward the house.

Claire put the car in gear quickly and drove away, tears crashing down her face. Her mom had uttered the same words to her the day she died.

“I've got it,” Gabriela snapped, and Colin threw his hands up and went into his walk-in closet, letting a long exaggerated sigh pass through his lips on the way in.

Gabriela twisted her right arm over her shoulder and tried with all her energy to reach the zipper on the back of her dress, her pride now refusing to let Colin help, even though she knew it was physically impossible to accomplish without him. She gave up and plunked down on the bed. She had so many fertility drugs coursing through her she felt as if she could fly into a rage or break down in sobs at any given minute. Just yesterday at Target, she'd seen a plaque about motherhood and started bawling, deserting her cart and ducking into a restroom before anyone spotted her.

In the six months since Colin had agreed to try to make a baby, she'd already undergone one intrauterine insemination and one IVF cycle and neither had resulted in a pregnancy. And despite Gabriela's fertility doctor's
cautious optimism
, that after she adjusted a couple of drugs, her odds of conception would
increase, Gabriela was concerned. Time was running out. She knew from the TTC (trying to conceive) message boards she scoured nightly that she was ahead of the curve, that you weren't supposed to start seeking help until it had been a year of trying naturally, but she didn't have that kind of time.

Colin had raised his eyebrow when Gabriela insisted on starting a second round of IVF immediately after the last cycle failed. “Don't you want to give it some time? You're putting so much pressure on yourself. Remember, Dr. Larson said stress can actually make it harder to get pregnant.”

Gabriela squeezed her hands into fists. She knew Colin had tried to deliver his sentence as gently as possible. Even still, she felt that anger start to burn inside of her and she had to shut herself in the bathroom so she wouldn't lash out at him. Gabriela hadn't been prepared for the snowball effect of devastation that happened after she had to tell everyone there was still no baby. With each phone call to her father and her mother-in-law, the sad words exchanged as she delivered the news to her friends, the pain inside her grew larger and larger.

Ten days after the only viable embryo created had been implanted in Gabriela, she'd rushed to the drugstore and bought several boxes of pregnancy tests, her hands shaking so much as she hovered over the first stick that she'd peed all over it. Dr. Larson had narrowed her blue eyes and cautioned her to wait until the blood test to get the most accurate results. The store-bought test had been negative and so had the three she'd taken after that, but still, she'd felt hopeful as she waited for the nurse's call, sure she could feel something different was happening inside of her. When her phone rang, she answered breathlessly, only to be told by Jan, a nurse she'd come to know fairly well after countless office visits for everything from blood
work to ultrasounds, that she wasn't pregnant. Gabriela cried for hours, because it hadn't worked, because Jan didn't seem sympathetic, because of so many things, until the tears finally dried up and she felt numb. Colin tried to find the right words, but nothing he could say would change things. He didn't understand, he had no idea what she was feeling. The fear, the loss, the failure.

“Are you sure you're okay going tonight? Maybe you can tell Sheila you aren't feeling well? She'll understand,” Colin said, emerging from his closet as he buttoned his blue dress shirt.

Gabriela shook her head. “I can't do that to her. She's already been incredibly patient considering I haven't sent her the pages I've been working on. I know she's nervous that I'm not going to deliver my manuscript on time.” Gabriela thought about her last call with her editor, how Sheila had taken a long pause when she'd told her she missed her deadline because she'd been trying to conceive, no doubt shocked by Gabriela's change of heart, remembering the many times Gabriela had told her she was never having children for this very reason—they made life more complicated, and suddenly things like book deadlines seemed less important than your ovulation.

Colin's eyes asked the question he wouldn't.
Well, are you going to meet your deadline?
She didn't know the answer.

And it didn't help that she'd stopped doing the one thing that would help her when she had writer's block—running. Her once taut body had slowly become softer. Some of the women on the message boards had convinced her that yoga was a better option, so she'd purchased a mat and carried it down the street to the serene-looking studio and tried to blend in with the lithe women who were twisting themselves into pretzels while taking deep breaths and thinking about their intention. But all she could
focus on was that time was slipping through her fingers. The instructor had walked over and repositioned Gabriela's shoulders, whispering for her to loosen up. Gabriela smiled tightly and wondered, as she bent herself into a downward dog, if she had just given up her entire life to travel back ten years, only to fail at producing a book or a baby.

“I'm sorry I bit your head off earlier,” Gabriela said, wrapping her arms around him. “It's the damn drugs. I feel like a crazy person!”

“I know, I understand,” Colin said carefully, searching Gabriela's eyes before he continued. “But are you sure—”

“Yes, I'm sure I want to move forward with the egg retrieval on Saturday,” Gabriela said, turning her back toward him so he could zip her up. “I have fourteen follicles this time, twice as many as last. So the chance of getting more eggs is considerable. Plus I've been doing the acupuncture and I've eliminated gluten and dairy.” She smiled, thankful she had insight from her previous life to help her, but also scared that it wouldn't make a difference. That's how it was now. It was like she was standing in the middle of an emotional scale, able to tip it in either direction at any moment, the only problem being she couldn't control it, or anything else for that matter—her body betraying her in a way she never thought possible.

Colin didn't answer, just kissed her on the forehead and started looping his black leather belt through his pants. She knew he was worried, that he was doing a lot of reading of his own. She'd found his laptop open recently to an article about how infertility could destroy a marriage. Her almost manic desire to conceive frightened Gabriela when she let herself go there, because Colin had been content without a baby, and their marriage had been fine without one, so now by trying to
get pregnant, she could be putting their relationship at risk. But Gabriela wouldn't let that happen to them. She refused to accept that they could end up without a baby
and
more fragile than ever.

•  •  •

As Colin knotted his tie, he thought about how hard it had always been to say no to Gabriela. He knew the word wouldn't come easy from the first day he met her on that rainy street corner in London and she'd insisted on trying traditional English Yorkshire pudding, which Colin knew she would find tasteless because most people did—even him. But something about her left dimple, the curve of her mouth, made him acquiesce and then suppress a smile when the bowl of puffy batter was set before her. He'd watched as she scooped up a runny bite, her nose scrunching up just slightly as she swallowed. But she finished the bowl, never admitting she didn't like it. He spent the day listening to her stories—how she'd convinced a notoriously strict professor to let her take another shot at her midterm after she'd slept through her alarm; how she talked her way out of a speeding ticket when she'd been going fifteen miles over the limit—and soon realized that not only did she not take no for an answer, from anyone, she also didn't enjoy being wrong.

So when she came to him out of the blue to ask for a baby—
a baby, he still couldn't believe it!
—saying no was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Even though he hadn't actually spoken the word, his silence had. What he couldn't explain to her was how deeply she'd hurt him when she wouldn't change her mind. Yes, she'd been clear from the beginning that she didn't want children. And as a lawyer, even he couldn't argue with that. It was like they'd had a gentleman's agreement. He loved Gabs so much more than the child he didn't have, but still, it had taken
him years to get right with it inside. To stop the knots from twisting in his stomach when he saw other dads with little girls riding on their shoulders or tossing a football with their sons.

He'd dulled the ache of not having his own kids by taking Madison and Morgan swimming or Emily to the park. But it wasn't the same. They weren't
his
. And that's what he'd tried to tell his mom when she'd brought it up recently. But she'd put her finger to her lips and asked him to open his heart and listen. And because his mom had never been this bold with him before, simply arching an eyebrow his way when Gabriela repeated she wasn't ready, he found himself agreeing. But he'd still been unsure. Worried Gabriela might change her mind again. It had never occurred to him that she'd become this laser focused, almost manic. The websites he'd been reading were helpful in assuring him they had a problem—
gee, thanks
—but didn't tell him how to fix it. He was the type of guy who liked his routines, who liked to keep things simple. He'd worn the same brand of running shoes since college, he liked to eat at the same Thai restaurant every weekend. But there was nothing simple about this.

And now, as he watched Gabriela slipping into her heels, he wondered what his
yes
was costing them. The seemingly endless fertility treatments were taking over their marriage, taking over Gabriela's work. When they did talk about another subject—a rarity—he could tell by the vacant look in her eyes that she was barely listening. Somewhere, in the corner of her mind, she was tracking her ovulation or thinking about the size of her follicles. He didn't recognize his wife anymore. She used to be a spark plug. Up without an alarm clock, writing a thousand words before the sun rose. Now she slept all the time and he could tell by the dust collecting on her laptop that she wasn't writing. And
by the clean soles of her Nikes that she wasn't running. Her desire for a baby had trumped her want for anything else—
even him
. Their sex life was practically nonexistent. The last time was over a month ago and he could tell she wasn't into it. She'd been sleeping in the guest room most nights, claiming she was up late writing. But he knew that was a lie. He could tell she just didn't want to be near him. That he reminded her of what they weren't creating.

He wondered how much more of this he could take, how much more
they
could handle. Gabriela was the most competitive person he'd ever known—once holding up a game of Scrabble for twenty minutes, challenging the couple they were playing on their use of the word
quo,
and ultimately winning because she was able to convince them it was not a word used on its own, only as part of a phrase, and therefore not allowed. The lawyer in him had beamed with pride at her unwillingness to back down, finally Googling the answer to make her case. But now, this need to win was bordering on recklessness, and that scared him. What if they couldn't get pregnant? What would that do to her? The woman he loved more than anything in this world, the woman he knew he was going to marry from the first moment he met her, was slipping from his grip right in front of him, and there didn't seem to be much he could do about it.