Caroline Swicegood

EASTER

Daniel places his hand on the knee where her jeans cover the scar she got on their first date, the smooth white line from when she drank too much at the Labor Day barbeque and fell down on the sidewalk. Carly listens to him talk, listens to him explain that he just landed his first post-graduation job at that big law firm down South, the one that his father’s friend is a partner in. He starts as soon as he graduates in May. Carly herself has had a post-graduation job for two years now, but Daniel chose to go to law school instead. He spends his time studying while she sits in a cubicle from nine to five. He is telling her how important this job is to him, how rare it is to work for such a prestigious law firm right out of school. How it is time for him to get serious about his life, his goals, his future. Serious, it seems, does not involve her; Louisiana does not involve her. He is telling her, in as many words, that his future does not involve her.

They are sitting on a jetty that juts into the Atlantic Ocean, perched on top of the large granite rocks meant to protect the beach house should another hurricane hit. The house they are staying in for the weekend belongs to Daniel’s parents. It is a place they have escaped to many times in the almost three years they have been dating. In Maryland, it is too cold to go swimming in April and they have not so much as touched the water since they have been there, just stayed in the house under blankets. This is the first time they have ventured outside at all. The night air is cold, and even though the water is calm, occasionally a surge sends the seawater higher on the rocks and the spray mists them. She shivers and he takes off his sweatshirt and gives it to her, but makes no move to put his arm around her, to warm her up himself. She thinks that they should have just stayed in the city for Easter, done a quiet dinner at one of their apartments or maybe gone to church with his family—but now, now she knows why he wanted them to be alone, why he brought her to his parents’ seaside cottage.

She can’t stop herself from placing a hand over her stomach as she listens, even though it will be about two more months until she’s showing, and even longer than that until she will be able to feel it move. The doctor told her most babies start to kick sometimes in the fifth month, about halfway through the second trimester. Three more months. She has not told him yet, has been thinking for almost three weeks about when would be a good time—as if a good time exists for such a thing. She has been thinking about maybe not telling him at all and just handling it herself. She can feel her abdomen tightening as he talks, feel it knotting into itself. She pulls the sweatshirt tighter.

They have been together since their senior year of college, since that Labor Day cookout where she fell and hurt herself. It was at the house that Daniel shared with some other members of the lacrosse team. There was a keg on the front porch, beside the grill, and they had boxes of sparklers left over from Fourth of July. He lit one for her and she spun around in a circle, laughing as the sparks blazed a trail through the dusky evening, before the beer caught up with her and she stumbled. Even then she had laughed, and he brought her a paper towel to stop the bleeding and kissed her knee. But now, she is not laughing, and his mouth is too busy telling her all the reasons he cannot be with her anymore to kiss her. He stops talking for a moment, and she refuses to look at him, focusing instead on the lighthouse on the horizon.  The light spins slowly in the tower, first toward them, then away, then toward them again; the steady rhythm reminds her of a heartbeat.

They are usually careful but not always. She thinks she knows when it happened, given the probable dates that the doctor gave her. His parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was in February, and they had shown up for the celebration at the Georgetown brownstone that Daniel grew up in, cocktail attire on and presents in hand. It was there that Daniel met the partner from the Louisiana law firm. Thinking of it now, Carly is surprised that Daniel made such a good impression on him, given the amount of champagne that everyone at the party had drunk. They stayed for the night rather than go back to one of their apartments in the less wealthy part of the city. As always when they visited his parents, Carly was assigned to share a queen bed in his little sister’s room—something that irritated Carly, but Daniel insisted was necessary to keep the peace. The little sister, now a freshman in high school, fell asleep on the couch during the party, leaving Carly alone in her room. Daniel snuck in, giggling from the champagne and at the licentiousness of it all, holding a finger to his lips and whispering through his giddiness that they had to be quiet. There were purple flannel sheets on the bed, and pictures from football games and the homecoming dance on the shelf above the headboard. They accidentally knocked one over, a framed photograph of the sister posing in a sparkly dress with her date in front of a trellis laden with fake flowers. Luckily, it landed on the bed and didn’t break; after they were finished, Daniel picked it up and placed it back on the shelf.

She is amazed that he has not noticed by now, not figured it out, or that he has not at least wondered if something was wrong. She creeps out of bed quietly in the mornings to be sick; sometimes, if they are staying at her apartment instead of his, she will set her alarm early and move to the couch, since it is closer to the bathroom. Sometimes it does not hit her until she is already at work and she has to slip out of her cubicle and hope that no one hears her in the office bathroom. Lately, she has been thinking about asking him about moving in together, but now is glad that she never mentioned it.

She takes multivitamins now, in case she decides to keep it. She likes to think that she would be able to support it if she wants to, even though her entry level position does not pay all that much. She has not been able to give up her morning cup of coffee like the doctor suggested, but she has not touched alcohol since the silver wedding anniversary celebration.

She is drinking now, though. He brought out a bottle of red wine with him for the talk, even though that is his drink of choice and not hers. She does not even really like wine, but she keeps it, not handing it back to him after she takes a sip. He does not reach for it.

He explains that really it is for the best this way, now they can both do what they want with their lives without feeling like they are holding one another back.

We are so young, he says.

If she wants to go to graduate school, she can, or if she doesn’t, that is okay too. The point is, Daniel elaborates, she can do whatever she wants. She is guessing that he is just using empty lines now, saying things that sound good, talking without conviction. Carly has felt that way before, about him holding her back, but not for years. She has already made the sacrifices. She stayed in DC after they graduated from college, took the entry level job that allowed her to move into an apartment closer to him instead of that one in Philadelphia that would have looked so good on her resume.  She did it willingly enough; it might not have been her choice had he not been in the picture, but she made her decision years ago, and it is a little late to be setting her free now. She thought that they were growing together, from that girl that laughed and spun and split her knee open and that lacrosse player who helped her stop bleeding, to two people who were going in the same direction. If she is being honest with herself, which she is tonight, she does not know what direction that necessarily is—but she thought they would figure it out together.

He mentions that she could move back home to Richmond if she wants, live with friends. She does not bother to point out that she has lived by herself for two years and has no intention of going back to having roommates. She barely goes to Richmond anymore anyway, mostly just to see her family on occasion. Her life isn’t there anymore. She spends more time in DC with his family than with her own. The tide is slowly rising on the rocks and the moon is climbing higher; she does not know how long they have been out there, how long his explanations and their silences have lasted. The bitterness of the wine makes her mouth dry and sits heavy in her stomach. He calls her baby and she flinches, her midsection tightening.

He reaches for her hand, the one not holding the bottle, and tells her that this is really about her, for her; he does not want her to feel like she is tied down. She is not convinced. He never once asks her if she would consider moving to Louisiana. She has heard nice things about Baton Rouge. If this is really about her, he would have given her the choice. She lets him grab her hand but does not squeeze back, brings the bottle of red wine to her lips and swallows.

He stops talking after awhile, running out of things to say, excuses to give. He does not say if he loves her, or if love was ever a factor, in anything. She doesn’t think she wants to hear him say anything about love, anyway. She wonders where they will sleep tonight. They have been sleeping in the master bedroom of the beach house, the room where his parents sleep when they are using it during the summer. It has a king sized bed, a nice difference from the double in her apartment and the twin bed in the three tiny rooms above a garage that he rents from one of the law professors. There are two other bedrooms at the beach house, full of bunk beds, made for the kids and cousins of the family. She does not think there are any sheets on them, since it is off-season and no one else has been using the house, but she does not really need any sheets. Tomorrow they make the hour and a half drive back to the city, back to her apartment and double bed and multivitamins, where she will sleep on the couch because it is closer to the bathroom.

He asks if she is okay. She speaks for the first time and tells him that she is. He kisses her cheek and lets go of her hand, rubs her back, and gets up to go inside. She is cold and the wine is not doing much to keep the ocean breeze away, but she does not follow him. She imagines that her stomach is a little warmer than the rest of her body, that it is a nice home for something, even if only temporarily. She reaches out the hand not holding the bottle, the one Daniel was just holding in his, and touches the rock that she is sitting on. Sand has gathered in the crevices and she runs a fingertip over it, the small grains rolling under her graze; she likes how smooth it is. The high tide is coming in, almost to the top of the rocks now, and she slips off the sandals she is wearing, her feet numb, and tentatively dips a toe into the water. The frigid water stings, sensation spreading back into her foot; she quickly pulls it out and rubs it.

She stands up with her sandals in hand, wobbling unsteadily, the stars spinning in the faultless, clear sky as she drinks the last of the red wine. With a scream, she hurls one sandal into the ocean. It breaks the smooth surface reflecting the moonlight and disappears into the water; the second one soon follows. She throws the empty bottle against the rocks and it smashes. Her gaze turns towards the house. The light is on in the bedroom and Daniel is probably getting ready for bed, putting on his pajamas and brushing his teeth. She thinks again about the empty bottle, looks at the stars spinning, and knows that she will be sick tomorrow morning, both from the wine and from the baby. She will just tell Daniel that it is the wine making her nauseous, the wine causing her to throw up; he will believe her. She steps carefully over the broken glass, trying not to let it touch her bare feet which have once again gone numb. A shard has scattered further out and she does not see the dark green glass against the rock, just barely feels it as she places her numb foot on top of it, feels the heat of it cut into her sole as she stumbles her way towards the house.

Caroline Swicegood is a Virginia native who currently lives in Boston, MA. She is an administrative assistant with degrees in English and Italian from the University of Mary Washington and writes in her spare time.