Sing You Home

also had submucosal fibroids. Max had male pattern infertility-which is genetic. We started trying to get pregnant when I was thirty-one, and nothing happened for four years. So we started IVF when I was thirty-five.”

“How did that work?”

“I followed a medical protocol with various hormones and injections, and they were able to harvest fifteen eggs from me, which were injected with Max’s sperm. Three weren’t viable. Eight got fertilized, and of those eight, two were transferred to me, and three more were frozen.”

“Did you become pregnant?”

“Not that time. But when I was thirty-six, those three frozen embryos were thawed. Two were transferred and one was discarded.”

“Discarded? What does that mean?” Angela asks.

“The way the doctor explained it to me, they’re not pretty enough to be considered viable for pregnancy, so the clinic chooses not to save them.”

“I see. Did you become pregnant this time?”

“Yes,” I say. “And I miscarried a few weeks later.”

“Then what happened?”

“When I was thirty-seven we did another fresh cycle. This time I had twelve eggs harvested. Six were fertilized successfully. Two were transferred and two were frozen.”

“Did you get pregnant?”

“Yes, but I miscarried at eighteen weeks.”

“Did you continue to pursue IVF?”

I nod. “We used the two frozen embryos for another cycle. One was transferred, and one didn’t survive the thaw. I didn’t get pregnant.”

“How old were you at the time?”

“I was thirty-nine. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left, so we scrambled to squeeze in one last fresh cycle. When I was forty, I had ten eggs harvested. Seven were fertilized. Of those seven, three were transferred, three were frozen, and one was discarded.” I look up. “I got pregnant.”

“And?”

“I was the happiest woman in the world,” I say softly.

“Did you know the gender of the baby?”

“No. We wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Did you feel the baby moving inside you?”

Even now, her words evoke that slow roll, that lazy aquatic somersault. “Yes.”

“Can you describe how you felt, being pregnant?”

“I loved every minute of it,” I say. “I’d waited my whole life for it.”

“How did Max react to the pregnancy?”

She has told me not to look at him, but magnetically, my gaze is pulled toward Max, who is sitting with his hands folded. Beside him, Wade Preston sporadically writes notes with a Montblanc fountain pen.

How did we get here? I wonder, looking at Max.

How could I not have seen this coming, when I looked into your eyes and vowed to be with you forever?

How could I have not known that one day I would love someone else?

How could you have not known that, one day, you would hate me for who I’ve become?

“He was excited, too,” I say. “He used to stick the earphones of my iPod into my belly button so that the baby could hear the music he liked the most.”

“Zoe, did you carry that baby to term?” Angela asks.

“No. At twenty-eight weeks, something went wrong.” I look up at her. “I was at my baby shower when I started having really bad cramps, and bleeding. A lot. I was rushed to the hospital and put on a monitor. The doctors couldn’t find a fetal heartbeat. They brought in an ultrasound machine and tried for five minutes-but it felt like five hours. Finally they told me that the placenta had sheared away from the uterus. The baby…” I swallow. “The baby was dead.”

“And then what?”

“I had to deliver it. They gave me drugs to start labor.”

“Was Max there?”

“Yes.”

“What was going through your mind at the time?”

“That this was a mistake,” I say, looking right at Max. “That I would have the baby and they’d see how wrong they were, when it came out kicking and crying.”

“What happened when the baby was delivered?”

“He wasn’t kicking. He wasn’t crying.” Max looks down at the table. “He was so tiny. He didn’t have any fat on him yet, not like you see on other newborns. And he didn’t have fingernails yet, or eyelashes, but he was perfect. He was so incredibly perfect, and so… so still.” I find that I am leaning forward on the witness chair, perched with my hands held in front of me, as if I’m waiting for something. I force myself to sit back. “We named him Daniel. We scattered his ashes into the ocean.”

Angela takes a step toward me. “What happened after your son died?”

“I had more medical complications. When I stood up to go to the bathroom, I got dizzy and short of breath. I started having chest pains. It turned out that I had a blood clot that had developed postpartum, which had settled in my lungs. I was put on heparin, and during blood tests, the doctors learned I had a genetic condition called an AT III deficiency-basically, it means I’m susceptible to blood clots, and the pregnancy probably made it worse. But the first question I asked was whether I’d still be able to have a baby.”

“What was the answer?”

“That this could happen again. There could be even more severe complications. But that ultimately if I wanted to try to conceive again-I could.”

“Did Max want to try to have another baby?” Angela asks.

“I thought so,” I admit. “He always had been on the same page as me before. But after the visit at the doctor’s office, he told me that he couldn’t be with me because I wanted a baby more than anything in the world-and that wasn’t what he wanted.”

“What did he want?”

I look up. “A divorce,” I say.

“So you were still reeling from the death of your child, and dealing with all these medical complications, and then your husband told you he wanted a divorce. What was your reaction?”

“I really can’t remember. I think I went to bed for about a month. Everything was a blur. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t do anything, really.”

“What did Max do?”

“He moved out, and went to live with his brother.”

“Who represented you in your divorce?”

I shrug. “We represented ourselves. We didn’t have any money or property, so it didn’t seem as if it was going to be complicated. I was still so numb back then, I barely even remember going to court. I signed whatever papers came in the mail.”

“Did the three frozen embryos at the clinic ever cross your mind during the divorce proceedings?” Angela says.

“No.”

“Even though you still wanted a child?”

“At the time,” I explain, “I wanted a child with a spouse who loved me. I thought that was Max; I was wrong.”

“Are you married now?”

“Yes,” I say. “To Vanessa Shaw.” Just saying her name makes me feel like I can breathe easier. “She’s a school counselor at Wilmington High. I’d met her years earlier, when she asked me to do some music therapy with an autistic child. I ran into her again, and she asked me to work with another child-a suicidal teenage girl. Gradually,