I'll Bring Myself Home Safe

"Get out. Call me when you've learned how to trust me." I was eight weeks pregnant.

On the way to the hospital for our baby's first heartbeat scan, Joel put me out of the car because I asked about the little Kuromi bead figure hanging in it.

When I climbed out, the bead figure fell into a puddle, and he picked it up like it was the one that got hurt, and told me I had just ruined four nights of her work.

But the thing that used to hang in that spot was a safety charm. I got it for him after his accident, at a Chinese Buddhist temple up in the mountains.

I climbed all nine hundred stone steps to get it, one at a time. I didn't argue. I went to the hospital by myself. By the time the ultrasound was over, the baby had no heartbeat.

The baby had gone at some point, and I never knew when.

In the waiting area beside me, a little girl was playing a cartoon. "Daddy loves Mommy, so Squish wants to come live in Mommy's tummy…" Chapter 1 When the doctor lifted the probe off my stomach, I was still staring at the screen.

A moment ago the cartoon had been so loud that the words "no heartbeat" came out sounding almost weightless next to it.

The doctor pulled two tissues out of the box and handed them to me. "Do you want me to bring someone in for you?" I shook my head. "He didn't come." It was only after I said it that I remembered he actually had come.

He'd just come halfway. The nurse wiped the gel off my stomach, then asked quietly, "Do you want to wait a little longer? Some people can't take it in right away.

You can come back in a few days and we'll look again." I kept my eyes on the small graywhite smudge on the screen. Eight weeks.

I'd already downloaded three pregnancy apps onto my phone. Every morning, before I was all the way awake, the first thing I did was open one to see how big it had gotten.

Just yesterday the app was still telling me the baby was the size of a little blueberry. Today it wasn't going to get any bigger.

I pulled my shirt down. "No." "When can it be taken care of?" The doctor looked at me for a second, then wrote up the orders. "Finish the rest of your tests today.

If nothing else comes up, we can schedule you for tomorrow morning." I nodded and walked out of the exam room. The little girl with the cartoon was gone.

All that was left on the plastic chair was a crumpled sticker. It had a family of three on it. A dad holding a mom's hand, and the mom holding the hand of a little girl in pigtails.

I looked at it for a few seconds, then walked around it. My phone rang right then. Joel. I answered.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke first. "You made it to the hospital?" "Yes." "Are you done?" "I'm done." He must have caught something different in my voice, because he paused. "What did they say?" I looked down to the end of the hallway. "There's no heartbeat." The line went silent.

I thought he had understood. Then, a few seconds later, Joel just let out a tired sigh. "Isn't eight weeks still too early?

Didn't the doctor say some people don't hear it until later?" I didn't say anything.

His voice eased, the way you'd talk to somebody who had been unreasonable for a long time and was finally willing to let it go. "Okay." "We're both worked up today." Chapter 2 "And don't wreck your health over a bead toy." "I'll come home tonight and stay with you." I held the phone and suddenly had no idea how to tell him.

It wasn't my health I'd wrecked. It was that our baby was dead. Maybe yesterday, maybe the day before, maybe earlier than that.

She had stayed there quietly inside me, and when she left, not even I, her mother, knew. Someone on his end called out to him. A woman.

She was far enough away that I couldn't make out what she said. Joel answered her, then said to me, "Something came up.

I'll talk to you later." "Okay." I was about to hang up when I remembered something. "Joel." "Where's the safety charm?" There was a pause on the other end. "What?" "The one from the car.

After you took it down, where did you put it?" This time he was quiet longer. "I gave it to her." My hand tightened slowly around the phone.

He must have been afraid I'd get the wrong idea, because he explained fast. "She just got her license last month.

She's nervous behind the wheel, she's already had two little fender benders. That charm's been hanging there for years anyway, so I let her use it for a few days.

I'll get it back once she's more comfortable." I didn't make a sound. Joel's voice started to lose patience. "Cecilia, it's just a charm.

You're not going to make a thing out of this, are you?" I looked down and saw the mud from that road still speckled across the toes of my shoes. "No." "Good." He sounded relieved.

Then I asked, "Does she know where it came from?" "No. Why would that come up?" Fair enough. The nine hundred steps were something I climbed alone.

That winter there was ice on the mountain. I fell somewhere past the four hundredth step and split my knee open, and it stayed swollen for a week after I got home.

Joel never knew any of it. All he knew was that on the day he was discharged, I gave him a safety charm. He took it and laughed at me for being superstitious.

Then he hung it under the rearview mirror himself, and it stayed there for six years. So I always thought it meant something to him. It didn't.

Keeping a thing hanging there for years and not being able to give it up were never the same. I said quietly, "Got it." I hung up, and the front desk called my name. "Cecilia?

Come on over to window two and we'll get your procedure scheduled." I stood and started toward the window. Two steps in, my phone buzzed.

A text from Joel. [You'll get the charm back in a few days.] I looked at it for a while and didn't answer. It wasn't mine. What I asked for was his safety.

From the very beginning it belonged to him. Who he wanted to give it to was never something he had to ask me about. Joel's accident happened in our second year of marriage.

At one in the morning, a phone call woke me up. A man I didn't know asked, "Is this Joel Chen's family?" I sat up holding the phone, wide awake all at once.

By the time I got to the hospital he'd already been through his scans. Seven stitches at his temple, a broken left hand, nothing else serious. The doctor said he'd been lucky.

A little more to one side and it would have hit the driver's seat. I sat by his bed and didn't close my eyes all night.

The next day Joel woke up, and the first thing he said was, "Did I scare you?" I ignored him.

He hooked his fingers around mine with his good hand. "I'm not dead, am I?" Chapter 3 I yanked my hand away.

The tears came first, before anything else. "Joel." "Say that again." He shut his mouth immediately. After a moment he reached over and wiped my tears away. "I won't.

I won't ever say it again. Don't cry, baby." Back then he knew how to talk me down, and he was afraid of my crying.

After he was discharged, I heard about a Chinese Buddhist temple in the mountains north of the city. People said that praying there for someone's safety really worked.

You had to climb nine hundred stone steps. I didn't tell Joel. I went alone. It had snowed that winter, and the higher I went, the more slippery the steps got.

Some people turned back halfway up. I didn't dare. I kept thinking these things only counted if you really meant them.

Skip one step and the bodhisattva would look after him one step less. By the time I reached the top, the legs of my pants were shredded and my knees were covered in blood.

The old monk at the temple asked me, "Who are you asking for?" I said, "My husband." "Asking for what?" I thought about it for a long time, and in the end I only said four words. "Bring him home safe." I wasn't asking for anything else.

Not for him to get rich. Not for him to love me the rest of my life. Not even for the two of us to grow old together. Only for him to be safe. Alive. That was enough.

The day I brought the safety charm home, Joel was changing his dressings.

I tossed it into his lap and made my voice as flat as I could. "A friend gave it to me." He glanced at it. "It's that ugly?" I reached to grab it back. "If it's ugly, give it back." He laughed and lifted his arm out of reach, then pulled me in against him with his good hand. "Nobody takes a gift back." The next day, that ugly charm was hanging in his car.

A friend riding with him laughed about it once. "Since when do you believe in this stuff?" Joel leaned back against the driver's seat and flicked the red cord with one finger. "My wife gave it to me." Six words, that was all.

But he looked awfully pleased with himself. We went through three cars after that, and the charm got older and older. The red cord faded, and the edges frayed.

I told him once, "Let's replace it. I'll go get you a new one." Joel wouldn't have it. "This one's fine. It's been with me all these years.

Why would I replace it?" Back then I really believed that once a thing got old enough, you couldn't bring yourself to throw it away. At eight that night, Joel came home.

I'd already showered. Every page from the hospital was in a paper bag in the bottom drawer of the bedroom dresser. He pushed the door open carrying a clear acrylic case.

The Kuromi that had fallen in the puddle was sitting inside it. The broken part had been put back together, and the edges were even neater than before.

I looked at it. "You fixed it?" Joel set the case on the table. "I had somebody iron it back together." Then, as if he was worried what I'd read into that, he added, "It was wrecked.

I couldn't hand it back to her like that." I nodded. "Okay." His eyes moved to my face, like he wasn't used to me being this calm.

Any other time, I would have asked a lot of questions. Why she made it for you. Why you hung it up. Whether the two of you had been seeing a lot of each other lately.

And by the end of all that, Joel would get fed up. He'd say I had everything and still went hunting for unimportant little things to fixate on. Today I hadn't asked a single one.

So he was the one who came and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Are you still mad?" "No." "Then why aren't you talking?" "I'm a little tired." He reached over and touched my forehead.

Chapter 4 "What did the hospital say?" I looked at him. "They didn't hear it." "Didn't hear what?" "The heartbeat." Joel's hand stopped for a second.

Then, as if that came as a relief, he ruffled my hair. "See, I said eight weeks was probably too early. We'll go back next week." I didn't correct him.

He picked up his phone. "I'll come with you next time." The screen lit up right then, and a new message dropped down. [!!!] Three exclamation points, all in a row. [This charm is unreal.] [I drove myself home today and didn't scrape anything the whole way!] Then a photo.

A small white car. Under the rearview mirror hung a faded old safety charm, and tied on next to the red cord was a brandnew purple bow. Joel killed the screen without thinking.

I'd already seen it. He looked over at me, getting ready to explain again, probably.

I smiled first. "That's nice." He frowned. "What's nice?" "That it still works." I pulled the blanket back and lay down with my back to him.

My own phone lit up on the nightstand at the same moment.

The reminder from the hospital sat there quietly on the screen. [Reminder: please arrive before 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.] [Your D&C is scheduled for tomorrow morning.] I looked at it for a long time, then reached over and turned the phone face down.

Joel was still talking behind me. "I have a meeting tomorrow morning. You took the day off, didn't you? Stay home and get some rest." I closed my eyes. "Okay." He didn't know.

Tomorrow I really didn't have to work. I was going to go say goodbye to our baby. At seven thirty the next morning I got to the hospital.

The nurse finished checking my information and asked, "Is anyone with you?" I hesitated. "No." She frowned. "You can't leave on your own after general anesthesia.

You really should have someone come get you." I opened my phone. Joel was still the first name in my favorites.

Last night, right before bed, he'd told me he had a meeting this morning. I scrolled a long way down and stopped on Toni. After college the two of us worked together for two years.

Then she changed jobs and I got married, and we drifted. The phone rang three times before she picked up. "Cecilia?" "Are you free today?" "Sure.

Why, what's up?" I was quiet for a few seconds. "Could you come pick me up from the hospital?" Toni didn't ask why.

She just said, "Send me the address." Half an hour later, I was in a gown on a gurney outside the surgical wing. The TV at the end of the hall was playing a cartoon.

The volume was low, but I still recognized that round head. BigEar Squish again. I stared at it for a while.

A nurse came over to push my bed. "Nervous?" "I'm all right." I was, a little. Not because of the pain.

It was that it had just hit me: when I came back out through that door, the small thing that had been inside me for eight weeks would really be gone.

My phone buzzed against my palm.

A message from Joel. [In the meeting.] [Done around noon.] [What do you want for dinner?] I read it, then handed the phone to the nurse. "Can you turn it off for me?" When the anesthesia went into my vein, the lights overhead got blurrier and blurrier.

And I thought again of the line I'd heard the day before— Chapter 5 "Daddy loves Mommy, so Squish wants to come live in Mommy's tummy and be a family with Daddy and Mommy." It was a line from a cartoon.

That was all it was. But when a person is at her lowest, she really will believe stupid things. Because I actually thought it.

I thought maybe she'd heard me and Joel fighting from in there. Heard her dad put her mom out of the car over another woman. Decided this wasn't a good home. And quietly left again.

Right before I went under, I knew how ridiculous that was. The tears slid out the corners of my eyes anyway.

When I woke up, Toni was sitting beside the bed with my chart in her hands. Her eyes were red.

I looked at her. "What are you crying for?" She folded the paperwork closed. "Don't talk until the anesthesia's all the way out of you." "Okay." A nurse came in to change my dressing.

Then Toni asked, "Where's the baby's father?" I closed my eyes. "In a meeting." She didn't say anything for a while. She didn't curse him out either.

She just pulled the blanket up around my shoulders. When I turned my phone back on, there were two photos from Joel. One of a conference room.

One of a trophy. [The student project I've been helping on won.] [Celebration dinner tonight, might be late.] I looked at the second photo.

Half a hand showed at the edge of the trophy. The nails were painted a purpleblack, and there was a tiny Kuromi sticker on the ring finger. All of a sudden it struck me as funny.

So the meeting he'd been talking about was the final review for the thesis project of the girl who made the Kuromi. Her name was on the trophy, too— Nina Vega.

Joel didn't get home until ten that night. I'd already slept once by then. Toni had made congee and sorted my medication out by the hour before she left. Keys in the entryway.

Then Joel came in carrying a cake box with the logo of the restaurant they'd celebrated at printed on the lid.

He swapped his shoes at the door. "You're still up?" I was propped against the couch. "I woke up." He came over and set the cake on the dining table. "They insisted on celebrating.

I barely drank." Then he looked down at me. "Why do you look so pale? Did you not rest today?" I didn't answer.

Joel reached out to touch my forehead, and the hospital band on my wrist caught his eye first.

His hand stopped. "What is that?" "It's from the hospital." His eyebrows pulled together. "You went to the hospital again today?" "Yes." "I thought you were staying home." I looked at him. "I had a procedure." For a second nobody said anything.

Joel acted like he hadn't understood. "What procedure?" "A D&C." The cake box dropped out of his hand and the frosting slumped over inside it.

He stood there with no color left in his face. "What did you say?" I said it again. "The baby stopped developing. I had the procedure today." Joel didn't move for a long time.

Then, a few seconds later, he strode straight at me. "Who told you to do that?" I blinked at him. His voice climbed. "I'm asking you. Who told you to have the surgery today?

Yesterday was your first scan. It's common not to hear a heartbeat at eight weeks.

Why wouldn't you wait and get rechecked?" I looked at the man in front of me, and all of a sudden he seemed like a stranger. "The doctor confirmed it." "That's not possible." "The report's in the drawer." He went into the bedroom in long strides and dug the paper bag out.

The ultrasound report. The bloodwork. The surgical consent form. Chapter 6 One page, then the next. By the last one his hands had started to shake.

It was spelled out plainly at the bottom of the report. No fetal cardiac activity observed. D&C recommended. Joel sat down on the edge of the bed and didn't speak for a long time.

I thought he'd finally understood.

Then, after a while, he asked quietly, "Why didn't you wait for me?" I looked up. "What?" "Even if it really couldn't be saved." His eyes were badly bloodshot. "You should have at least told me you were having surgery today.

She was my child too.

Cecilia, you wouldn't even let me see her one last time?" I looked at him for a long moment. "Joel, yesterday, after you put me out of the car, I went to the hospital.

When the scan was done, I called you.

I told you there was no heartbeat." His lips moved. "What you said was that they didn't hear it." "Is there a difference?" "Of course there is!" He came up off the bed. "Not hearing it and our baby being dead are not the same thing!" I went quiet