Our Fragile Hearts. Buffy Andrews

what she was going to do the rest of the day. It made me sad to think she was all alone in that big old house. It was obvious she loved children and I wondered why she apparently had none.

       Chapter 6

      Mary

      I watched as Rachel pulled away from the house. I really liked her. It sounded like the poor girl had had it even worse growing up than I did. I’ve always been a decent judge of character, and she seemed like a hard worker. It was a shame she’d had to drop out of college, though. But I admired her for giving up her dreams to take care of her little sister.

      And it was nice that she and Claire had maintained their friendship. I wished June and I had. It bothered me that I allowed us to drift apart. We chatted off and on over the years, but it was never the same. Life sometimes unfolds in ways we’d rather it didn’t, and before you know it too much time has passed to go back to the ways things were.

      I carried the tea set into the kitchen and washed the dishes. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out the paperwork I’d picked up at the hospital. I had to fill it out and return it in order to volunteer in the neonatal intensive care unit. I learned that when nurses are busy with other patients and parents cannot make it to the hospital, volunteers step in. They hold the babies, sing and coo to them, rock them and treat them as if they were their own. It sounded like a volunteer position I’d love. But first, I had to fill out the paperwork and undergo a thorough background check. I hoped it wouldn’t take long because, after seeing the teeny tiny babies in the NICU, I wanted to be able to help right away.

      I knew James couldn’t have children. He’d told me that the day he proposed to me. We were sitting on the bench in front of the fringe tree.

      “Mary,” he had said. “We’ve been going out for months and I know you don’t love me, but I can give you a comfortable life. I need a wife, someone who will be by my side in public and take care of this house and grounds. I promise I’ll be good to you. You can have anything you want. New furniture. New wardrobe. Anything.”

      It wasn’t how I’d imagined being proposed to. It was more like a plea or an offer. While James and I were fond of one another, it was obvious neither of us was in love. He continued making his case for why getting married would be advantageous to both of us.

      “I’m not home much and I work a lot, so I wouldn’t be in your way and you’d have your own space. As long as everything is taken care of, I’ll be happy.”

      I looked into his eyes. “What about children? Can I have children?”

      James sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you. When I was young, I got hit hard in the groin. I’m unable to father children.”

      I gulped. “But you can, uh…?”

      “Yes. But I can’t give you what you most want.”

      “But we could adopt, right?”

      James nodded. “If that’s what you want, of course.”

      That night, as I lay in bed, I weighed my options. Father had been nice to me ever since I’d started dating James. James did have a beautiful house and I really believed he’d take care of me. I didn’t love him, but I doubted I’d ever love anyone as much as I loved Teddy. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. And if we adopted children, I could give them a chance at a better life.

      Still, it saddened me to think I’d never lie in the arms of someone I loved. And I was desperate to feel a baby growing inside of me again. Night after night I tried to remember that first tickle, the first time I felt the baby’s little fist poke through my abdomen. I constantly wondered about my daughter. She was nearing her first birthday and I wondered if her parents would have a big party for her. Would they make her a special cake and shower her with presents?

      I thought about James’s proposition for a few days before accepting. I went back and forth, weighing all my options. In the end, I thought that someone was better than no one and James was nice enough, so I settled. I shouldn’t have. Never in my wildest imagination could I have predicted what was to come. In a few short months, my life would never be the same.

       Chapter 7

      Rachel

      “Can I have dippy eggs for dinner?” Piper had asked.

      “Would you like bacon?”

      She nodded.

      I made Piper’s dinner and arranged the dippy eggs on the plate so they looked like two eyes and the bacon strips so they looked like a mouth, just like Miss Evelyn used to do for me and Claire. I smiled at the memory of Claire seeing the smiley face on her plate. She’d started to cry.

      “What’s wrong, Claire,” Miss Evelyn had said. “Don’t you like your breakfast?”

      Claire’s chin wiggled. “It’s too cute to eat.”

      “Do you want me to change it so it doesn’t look like a smiley face?” Miss Evelyn asked.

      Claire shook her head. “No, I just want to keep it. No one’s ever given me a smile on a plate before.”

      That morning, Claire had refused to eat her eggs and bacon so I shared mine with her. It was the last time Miss Evelyn arranged Claire’s food in a smiley face. Instead, she bought Claire a smiley face pin. Claire never took it off, even when she went to bed. She still wears it today. Usually it’s pinned to her bra next to her heart.

      “Piper! Your food is ready.”

      Piper ran into the kitchen and sat down. She looked up at me and smiled. “Two eyes and a mouth!”

      “Do you like it?”

      She nodded. “Thanks, Rachel.”

      I was glad Piper’s reaction wasn’t like Claire’s. Piper gobbled down her food and I took her to the park afterward. I sat on the bench while she swung.

      “Look how high I can go!” Piper pumped her legs and went higher and higher.

      “Be careful!” As soon as I yelled it she jumped off the swing midair. My heart flipped unexpectedly and I jumped up and ran over to her. “Are you okay?”

      She stood up and grinned. “I think that’s my best jump yet!”

      A part of me was angry she’d done something so dangerous and a part of me was relieved she wasn’t hurt. But she could’ve been. She could’ve broken a leg or badly twisted her ankle when she landed. What would I do then?

      That night, after putting Piper to bed, I went through the photos on my phone. There was Claire and me at last year’s Halloween party at the bar. You were supposed to come as a drink. I came as champagne. I found a cheap sparkly dress at the thrift store and blew bubbles. Claire was a bloody Mary. She dressed as the Virgin Mary using a sheet and covered herself in fake blood. We had so much fun that night.

      There were photos from the New Year’s Eve party and the long weekend at the beach with Claire. I looked so much younger in the photos, but it was only a few months ago, before I got The Call. I remember it as if it were an hour ago. I had just returned from shopping for a pair of sandals because the strap on mine broke while we were at the beach. Judy, a friend of Mom’s I didn’t know, called and told me Mom had passed away suddenly. An aneurysm. Poof! She was gone. Two passersby saw her slumped over in her car in the mall parking lot. When they didn’t get a response, they called 911. Turned out she’d been dead a couple of hours and missed picking up Piper at daycare. Judy was the emergency contact and the daycare called her.

      A lot happened quickly. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death. I met Piper and moved in with her, making Mom’s bedroom my own. I would’ve preferred staying in the apartment I shared with Claire, but there wasn’t enough room.