the following is a public service announcement:
At least once a month someone asks me if Evan is our only child. Maybe they can't believe one child could have worn me out so thoroughly.
I never quite know what to say.
There are so many questions we ask each other without realizing how the easy answer can be so hard.
Do I say yes, because technically he is the only one who is living.
Or do I tell them about Riley?
Riley Jane Borowiec loved the Foo Fighters. She loved bagel sandwiches with the cucumber heavily salt-peppered and she woke me up every night at midnight so I could read a book in the bathroom, sitting in front of the toilet, waiting for the remnants of the pound of cherries she insisted on to come back and look like someone was trying to flush away a murder.
Riley Jane came after four miscarriages. At the end of the first trimester I was optimistic, when she got to 9 months I was ecstatic. When the doctor said I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat, I was numb. A knot, an accident, a delivery for no purpose other than expulsion. Do you want to hear about it when you make your inquiry?
It may seem like small talk at the park or a party, but it's really an invitation for me to think of something really horrific. Lots of women have dead children and we don't all wear T-shirts because that would be AWKWARD.
So stop asking. How would you you like if I got all up in your vag and asked how you planned to throw down with it for the next ten years?
That's what I thought.
