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The Happy Hour Miscarriage in Paradise
How many times can you lose a child without even having one before things change?
She grabbed me as if a trap door had opened beneath her feet.
Her hand trembled, and her face, a shock of white, squirmed and twisted like a squall. I felt something like resentment as her gaze went beyond me, out there to the Atlantic Ocean inhaling the last of the evening sun. I turned to see what she was seeing, trying to understand what was happening. All I saw were the crooked smiles of my fellow businessmen as they finished the last of their free drinks, loose enough now to join their wives on the beachside dance floor. These people didn’t seem real. Nothing on Paradise Island was real. The poolside palm trees were plastic. The rocks were decorative and hollow. Artificial rapids pulsed along an artificial river that circled the resort like a moat. It was a place catering to surfaces. Certain stories were not to be told. My wife was having a miscarriage during cocktail hour on Paradise Island.
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We married late. She was 39. I was 40. Prior to meeting Laura I had spent the better part of two decades whittling away at my neuroses, sharpening them, so that certain expertise was developed in naming those things that I did…
