Fallen: A Trauma, a Marriage, and the Transformative Power of Music by Kara Stanley
Authors: Kara Stanley
Ads: Link
pregnancy test.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
We drove on for another fifteen minutes, silent.
“What will happen...,” I said finally. “What will happen if we have a baby?”
“If we have a baby,” Simon said without hesitation, “it will be our best friend. We’ll be fine.”
It was exactly the right thing to say. But after we returned to Canada, things—big life things—swiftly became much more complicated. While I went to my mom’s new place in Kitchener, Simon went on to Montreal and prepared to start his first year of university.
“You
say
we can figure this out together,” I complained on the phone during one of our epic long-distance talks, “but what you
do
is a different matter. You’re out partying and moving on with your life. I’m just sitting here... pregnant.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was young and lost with no idea of who I was, where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do.
“I don’t know what to do,” Simon said.
“Well... neither do I.”
“I want to not know what to do together,” Simon said.
“So do I.”
And so the gold van took one last trip before she retired, delivering me from Kitchener to the neighborhood known as Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, NDG , in downtown Montreal.
On October 30, 1991, at the stroke of midnight, we read out loud handwritten vows and celebrated by eating avocado, crushed almonds, and red pepper in a garlicky dressing. The news of our pregnancy had not been well received by our family or friends—we were, according to the world at large, too young, too unformed, too irresponsible, too stupid, and too poor to have a baby, all of which we acknowledged was, to some degree, true—and there were no other people we wanted to invite. And so we set a third plate at the table for our midnight feast and invited the spirit world, an impromptu gesture meant to include every ghostly emanation, from Halloween spooks to our unborn child. There was no minister or justice of the peace, there were no flesh-and-blood witnesses, and I didn’t change my name, but none of that lessened the commitment we made to one another that night—young, stupid, and poor as we were—to entwine our lives and raise our child together.
On March 7, 1992, a month early, I went into labor. At the hospital, hooked to a fetal heart rate monitor, I was cramped and scared, unable to get up and move around, and the only source of distraction was watching the tiny blips of Eli’s heart rate. In the middle of the night, I realized that every time Simon entered the room and spoke, Eli’s heart would speed up, as if in anticipation of their upcoming meeting.
Twenty-four hours later I was rolled into a birthing room, the bloody world inside me rupturing. Then, the sound of church bells. They were ringing for Sunday service, and the air in the delivery room trembled with resonant song.
“Hello, Eli,” Simon said and held out our new best friend—milky white and wet, full of new breath—for me to see.
SIMON AND I have traveled a great distance together since the day we met in history class. We moved from Ontario to British Columbia to Quebec and back to BC , to the place where we have made our home, in Halfmoon Bay, not far from the site of our original kiss. There have been times, the good times, when we have embraced the need for compromise and constant reinvention, and there have been times, the tougher times, when we have resisted, even fought against it. But, always, we made the decision to put in the work. There were, of course, tangible benefits for doing that kind of work over the years—greater stability, security, steady forward motion—but the real reward is not so easy to articulate, residing as it does in the wordless late-night blending of bodies that had, ultimately, less to do with sex and more with the synchronized switching of spoons that occurred even as we slept.
What, I often ask my writing students, are the Horses of your piece? It was a question asked of
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
We drove on for another fifteen minutes, silent.
“What will happen...,” I said finally. “What will happen if we have a baby?”
“If we have a baby,” Simon said without hesitation, “it will be our best friend. We’ll be fine.”
It was exactly the right thing to say. But after we returned to Canada, things—big life things—swiftly became much more complicated. While I went to my mom’s new place in Kitchener, Simon went on to Montreal and prepared to start his first year of university.
“You
say
we can figure this out together,” I complained on the phone during one of our epic long-distance talks, “but what you
do
is a different matter. You’re out partying and moving on with your life. I’m just sitting here... pregnant.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was young and lost with no idea of who I was, where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do.
“I don’t know what to do,” Simon said.
“Well... neither do I.”
“I want to not know what to do together,” Simon said.
“So do I.”
And so the gold van took one last trip before she retired, delivering me from Kitchener to the neighborhood known as Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, NDG , in downtown Montreal.
On October 30, 1991, at the stroke of midnight, we read out loud handwritten vows and celebrated by eating avocado, crushed almonds, and red pepper in a garlicky dressing. The news of our pregnancy had not been well received by our family or friends—we were, according to the world at large, too young, too unformed, too irresponsible, too stupid, and too poor to have a baby, all of which we acknowledged was, to some degree, true—and there were no other people we wanted to invite. And so we set a third plate at the table for our midnight feast and invited the spirit world, an impromptu gesture meant to include every ghostly emanation, from Halloween spooks to our unborn child. There was no minister or justice of the peace, there were no flesh-and-blood witnesses, and I didn’t change my name, but none of that lessened the commitment we made to one another that night—young, stupid, and poor as we were—to entwine our lives and raise our child together.
On March 7, 1992, a month early, I went into labor. At the hospital, hooked to a fetal heart rate monitor, I was cramped and scared, unable to get up and move around, and the only source of distraction was watching the tiny blips of Eli’s heart rate. In the middle of the night, I realized that every time Simon entered the room and spoke, Eli’s heart would speed up, as if in anticipation of their upcoming meeting.
Twenty-four hours later I was rolled into a birthing room, the bloody world inside me rupturing. Then, the sound of church bells. They were ringing for Sunday service, and the air in the delivery room trembled with resonant song.
“Hello, Eli,” Simon said and held out our new best friend—milky white and wet, full of new breath—for me to see.
SIMON AND I have traveled a great distance together since the day we met in history class. We moved from Ontario to British Columbia to Quebec and back to BC , to the place where we have made our home, in Halfmoon Bay, not far from the site of our original kiss. There have been times, the good times, when we have embraced the need for compromise and constant reinvention, and there have been times, the tougher times, when we have resisted, even fought against it. But, always, we made the decision to put in the work. There were, of course, tangible benefits for doing that kind of work over the years—greater stability, security, steady forward motion—but the real reward is not so easy to articulate, residing as it does in the wordless late-night blending of bodies that had, ultimately, less to do with sex and more with the synchronized switching of spoons that occurred even as we slept.
What, I often ask my writing students, are the Horses of your piece? It was a question asked of
Similar Books
