We forget, as often as we can, that childbirth can be as cruel as it is miraculous.

This is the most polite way to say this: A college classmate just lost his beloved wife due to complications during labor. Complications is a kind word for pain, fear and horror leading to loss beyond imagining.

Their newborn daughter—and only child—will never know the mother who’d been so eagerly awaiting her birth. Family and friends are in shock, trying to come to terms with this loss that should not be, this terrible turn of events. In one day, my classmate becomes a single father and a widower.

There are no words for this, nothing original to be said, nothing that can be said to make any of this right or better or easier.

I knelt and said a prayer for my classmate and his baby daughter. My hand went to my belly, unconsciously, wanting to protect, all over again. I don’t know the circumstances.

In 2001, my then-husband was at risk of losing me, our first daughter, or both of us to severe preeclampsia. Induced early, our daughter was born at only four pounds. The only details that matter now: she made it; I recovered.

I don’t understand why this could not also have been their story. It should have been their story.
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“So you’re a novelist?”

I realize the question is for me. I turn away from the airplane window to the woman on my right, who is studying my face intently. Several hours ago, we’d exchanged pleasantries and I’d mentioned that I was a writer.

“No, not a novelist,” I say.

She and her husband both look terribly disappointed.

“What do you write, then?” she wants to know.

“Whatever people will pay me to write,” I say. “I’ve written for magazines, papers—”

The husband perks up considerably. “Anything we’ve heard of?”

“Uh, well, let’s see. I wrote for the Boston Globe, the Sunday Magazine,” I say. “And I’ve done a lot of marketing materials.”

He nods, but he is not impressed. I am seriously wishing I had ordered the gin and tonic.

“But no book?” says the wife.

“No book. I write plays, though. And poetry. But they don’t pay the mortgage.”

“No. I imagine they wouldn’t,” says the wife.

The husband clears his throat. “So…are you part of a pool? A team of writers?”

I just want to read my book, the book on my lap, the book written by a real writer. I want that gin and tonic very, very, very badly. “No, no team. I have a parenting blog, and what work I do find often comes through that. But there’s not a lot of work right now. Freelancers are in a tough spot.”

They continue staring at me, as if I am an exotic zoo specimen, and they are not quite sure they like what they see.
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I walk into my bedroom. Sitting on my bed is a short, thin, dark-haired woman. She’s hunched over one of the cats. I have no idea who she is. In the span of several milliseconds, I wonder how she got in, what she wants, and what I should say to her.

“Oh,” is what I say, finally. My daughter swivels on the bed, her fingers still buried in our tortoiseshell kitty’s fur.

“What?” she says.

“You…you just…you get taller every day,” I say.

This is not exactly what I am thinking, but I can’t find the words. Not right then.

She’s just come home from four days in Indiana, without either of her parents. AS IN, MY BABY FLEW ON A PLANE WITHOUT HER MOM OR HER DAD TO CRADLE HER TIGHTLY AS TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENED, LIKE SCARY HIJACKERS AND DRUNK LECHEROUS BUSINESSMEN AND TURBULENCE AND AT LEAST THREE FIERY CRASHES, ALL WITH STOPOVERS IN LAS VEGAS.

She survived none and all of these things, depending on your point of view.

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I may be a misanthrope, but occasionally, I notice when my iPhone goes missing.

The other day, I realized it had been hours since I’d thought of it or heard it buzz. I went hunting.

Green tote bag, where had I put it? Ah, yes. Got home, plopped said bag on couch. There it was.

I reached inside and came out with a wad of soaking wet tissues and receipts.

This was bad. This was very, very bad. What the hell?

I dug frantically for my phone and hit plastic: a mostly empty water bottle. Cap, still on. Yet somehow it had leaked. Effity eff eff.

I fished and came up with my phone, finally. It looked fine, just a few drops of water beading on its orange plastic case. I pushed the button. Nothing.

I pushed again. Uh-uh.

Maybe I turned it off, I thought. I pressed the top button, the one that generally is not part of my life.

A BIG EXTRA-LOUD NOTHING.
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