XIX

When I came to, the sun had already come up, but I wasn’t sure exactly what time it was. I did know, however, that I was in a hospital. I couldn’t remember exactly what happened, but when I looked around and saw the looks of concern and distress on Eric and Adam’s faces, it all came flooding back to me.
They both jumped to their feet at the first rustle of my paper thin sheets and rushed to my side. I smiled weakly, lifting my arm to examine the IV in my right hand. My left hand was in a splint and heavily bandaged, and as I took that in visually I began to notice the throbbing pain coming from beneath the makeshift cast. I tried to speak, but was interrupted by the entrance of what appeared to be my doctor. The older gentleman looked concerned, but friendly.
“Well, glad to see you’re awake.” He addressed the whole room. “I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?”
“Bad,” Adam said quickly. Simultaneously Eric chimed in.
“Good.” The doctor looked at me for the tie-breaker.
“Bad,” I said, and sighed deeply.
“Well you’re wrist is definitely broken, and we’ll need to have a cast put on for about six weeks.”
“And the good news?” Eric was a glass half full kind of guy.
“Well the baby should be just fine. Are one of you the father?” Adam and Eric exchanged confused glances, and then both looked at me, awaiting an explanation. I was a deer in headlights, and quickly looked back to my broken wrist, examining the bandages that had been carefully wrapped around it. The doctor just looked confused.
“Yes,” Eric and Adam answered simultaneously after a long pause.
“Alright then,” the doctor said before a long pause. “I’ll leave you three alone for a few minutes; let you wake up a bit. Is there anyway that one of you two could come downstairs with me in a short while and identify the body?”
With that I began to hyperventilate again, and the panic attack I’d had the night before seemed tame in comparison. I didn’t feel like I was crying but the tears soaking my hospital gown were a good indication that I was. Everyone around me was a blur and the voices sounded like a copy of a copy of a copy of and old record. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, and I wanted to get out of this wonderland, go back home where things were a little confusing, but we could get through them together. I didn’t feel like I had a together anymore.
It was two days before they let me go home. They said that the observation time would give them an indication of whether or not I could live on my own again. Basically, they wanted to find out if I’d off myself too.
The doctors thought I could live on my own, but my parents weren’t so sure. Since my father had co-signed my lease with me, it was within his power to break it and move me back home. That’s just what he did, at least the breaking the lease part. While I was in the hospital, my parents had all of my things brought back to the house and had Carrie’s put in storage for her parents and me to go through when we were in a better state. I practically begged the hospital to let me stay longer, if only so I wouldn’t have to go back to my parent’s house.
Adam and Eric came to my rescue once again, however, and somehow convinced my parents to let me stay with them for a while. I think that my psychiatrist helped with that process of coercion, knowing full well that my parents’ home would not be at all conducive to my recovery.
As it turns out, neither was Adam and Eric’s apartment. They were both wonderful, and were both too worried about upsetting me to question me about the pregnancy too much. Both of them wanted what was best for the baby, which I’d decided to keep, mostly because of losing Carrie. They moved into the same bedroom, and gave me the second room to myself. Every week or so they’d somehow finagle a few more of my possessions away from the clutch of my parents.
While I appreciated their attention and care, being the constant center of attention and being treated like Waterford crystal was beginning to wear on my nerves. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but at some point I stopped knowing who these two men were. I still loved them both, but felt somehow completely removed from the situation. I didn’t want to kill myself, even though I know that’s what they were most afraid of. I wanted to live, and I didn’t know if I could do it with them.
Somehow Carrie’s death had made me realize that I didn’t need to have a man in my life to be complete. Maybe someday I’d find another man that made me feel that way, maybe I wouldn’t. Right now I knew that I couldn’t think about myself. There was something much more important at stake.
A few days before I moved out, I went to the cemetery to visit Carrie. She’d wanted to be cremated, but her parents couldn’t bear the thought. My mother told me that the ceremony was very nice. I had still been in the hospital. I brought her some lilies, which were really hard to find that time of year. They had been her favorite. I spent the whole afternoon talking to the shiny marble headstone with the too-close together dates, only crying a few times.
I told her that I was keeping the baby, that I’d been staying with Adam and Eric, and that some crazy old couple had rented our old apartment. I told her how I was thinking that maybe I’d go out west, to California like we’d always talked about, but only she’d had the balls to do. I told her that I admired her and I missed her, and I’d never forget her and that she’d been the most important person to me, even if she didn’t know it. I told her that her parents and her older brother had visited me in the hospital and brought me the Mass card and that it was in the back of my notebook with Adam’s picture and the ticket stub from a Jazz show that Eric and I had gone to see a while ago. By the end of the afternoon, she’s helped me figure out what I was going to do next.
By that weekend I’d packed up all of my smaller things, and had written explicit instructions about what to do with the rest. I still had a check from my grandmother for the upcoming semester. It was written to either me or the college. I deposited into my checking account and bought a plane ticket the next afternoon. I bought fancy paper at the art store and thought I’d right Adam and Eric a very long letter explaining how I loved them both but really needed to do something on my own. I was going to tell them how I knew someone working on a film out West who said they could get me a job as a PA, and that maybe I could even work on some re-writes of the script. I was going to tell them how I’d write and they could visit and maybe even move out there when they graduated. I thought I’d never have enough time to write all of the things I had to say to the two most important men in my life. As it turns out, however, I couldn’t think of anything at all to tell them. In the end, the note I left said simply, “I love you both more than you’ll ever know. I promise I’ll write. Goodbye.”
Since all I took with me was my purse and a few pairs of clothing, I was able to slip out pretty easily without arousing their suspicion. I’m sure that a twenty one year old woman who is clearly seven months pregnant raises a couple of eyebrows traveling by herself, but I didn’t care. I called my mother when I got to Los Angeles and told her not to worry, and that I’d send her pictures of Caroline when she was born. She insisted that she had to come right out there, and that I needed to come home right away. I told her not to bother and that I wouldn’t come back to Boston if she doubled my trust fund.
When Caroline was born, I had her picture made into a postcard and sent one each to Adam, Eric, my parents, and Carrie’s parents. She was six pounds, eight ounces, and had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. When the doctor handed her to me, the love that I’d felt for Adam and for Eric multiplied itself by itself, and I knew I could never give her up.
At two years old, Caroline has her father’s bright blue eyes and her mother’s golden ringlets. She talks in full sentences and, stubbornly, refuses to play with the other children on the set, and would rather sit with me at the small table in my trailer. She sips at her juice and flips contentedly through her picture books while I type away at hours on my laptop.
When she gets old enough, I want Caroline to know all about how she almost wasn’t born, and how glad I am that she was. I want to tell her all about Adam and Eric and Carrie and even Brady and Greg, and all of the mistakes I made. I hope that she doesn’t make the same mistakes, but also hope that I can accept it if she does, and be there to listen instead of reprimanding her. Of course I want to protect her, but I don’t want to shelter her from life. I want her to love and to lose and to find herself. I want her to have a best friend like Carrie, or maybe even be a best friend like Carrie. I want her to resent me as much as I have my mother, but to realize in the end that maybe I was right a few times, and that everyone is human, even her mom. I hope that growing up on back lots and in editing rooms doesn’t mess her up as much as I’m afraid it will. I hope she can be as happy on her own as I am with her, but finds someone who makes her even happier. I hope that someday she has her own story to tell, and a daughter to love as much as I do her.