The Photographer by Mary Carter (best summer books TXT) 📕

in the baby’s life, but I also knew it was important to make certain. When the time came, I would clarify what my needs were.

I did recognize, without it ever being articulated, that if I didn’t succeed in carrying the child, everything would disappear. Like Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and women throughout history, my value had all to do with my body, whether I could carry a baby to term. I knew very well that if I lost the pregnancy, I would lose my new apartment, my new neighborhood, my new family. I would lose all of it if I lost the baby. I was paying for all of it with my womb.

Amelia and Fritz were supporting me with low rent, nutritious meals, and health care. I turned down several jobs in order to prioritize my sleep and my health. My income was going to drop and that was perfectly OK. The baby was going to come first.

In weeks four and five, I didn’t have any signs or symptoms of the pregnancy. It was a terrifying sensation, as if the baby were a figment of my imagination. But in the sixth week, morning sickness kicked in. My days began and ended with retching. The extreme nausea gave me confidence—tangible evidence of the life inside me.

Amelia was excited, bordering on frantic, busying herself with activities to channel her energy. One Sunday evening in late August, she and I were talking in her kitchen. “I want you to eat as many meals here as you’d like to,” she said. “I plan to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and steak, organic yogurt and milk, all the things you really need when you’re pregnant.” During the lowest points of Amelia’s despair, I’d noticed that the Straub refrigerator was often empty. Now, however, Amelia considered the unborn baby’s health an acknowledged priority.

She poured us each a glass of seltzer. “It’s odd that Ian hasn’t returned my calls,” she said. “Do you know if anything’s wrong?”

“Well…” I paused and counted to three.

“What?” She sat down at the counter next to me.

I sipped my seltzer, enjoying the carbonation in my throat, which temporarily relieved my nausea. “He’s mentioned a desire for growth … something like that.”

She looked at me like we couldn’t be talking about the same person. “He’s not happy in his job?”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to put words in his mouth.”

In early September I was seven weeks pregnant and Amelia was soaring. She texted to ask me to babysit and to come upstairs before Natalie arrived home from school, so we could talk. She had returned to the glamorous woman I’d met months earlier. Today she answered the door wearing black pants, a low-cut red silk blouse with no bra, and a very large clunky amethyst necklace. I envied her effortless Katharine Hepburn figure.

I was soaring too, maybe higher than Amelia, but even so, I was aware of Natalie and didn’t want her to feel unappreciated, whereas Amelia’s attention was fixed solely on “the new baby.” In other words, it was fixed on me. Her attention was what I’d been pining for, only, I didn’t want it at Natalie’s expense. I found myself covering for Amelia at times, distracting Natalie, changing the subject of conversation, when her mother was being particularly insensitive.

At this point, I found it easier to spend time with Natalie or Amelia, as opposed to both of them, so I was pleased for Amelia to invite me upstairs early, before Natalie arrived home. “How I wish I could pour you a glass of wine right now. After the baby is born, we’ll have cocktails every day.” She held her arms high in the air in a gesture of triumph. I imagined our future with evenings together around the fire and coffee together every morning.

Amelia filled her wineglass and poured me a glass of filtered water.

“Do you mind if I drink in front of you?” she asked solicitously.

“Of course not.” I did mind, actually. I found it challenging to watch Amelia drink. Over the last few months, I’d noticed a significant uptick in her drinking, and it hadn’t leveled off with the news of my pregnancy. But her body wasn’t the sacred vessel. Mine was.

I looked more closely at her amethyst necklace and noticed that the links were soldered together, an indication of twenty-four-karat gold. I breathed in her intense lemon-and-bergamot perfume. It was too much for my heightened sense of smell.

“You know,” Amelia said, “Ian’s like our family.” The subject of Ian had come up a couple of times over the last week, with Amelia using me as a sounding board. She clearly didn’t want him to leave the firm, but supporting Ian’s ambitions was in line with her self-image.

“I suggested he should talk things through with you,” I said, “but he says he can’t … desert you.”

“Desert us?” She laughed weakly and set a plate of green grapes, cheese, and crackers on the kitchen counter.

“You know … starting his own firm.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. I could tell it was an effort for her to maintain an expression of equanimity. “Ohhh.” She took a large sip of wine.

“I told him you’d support him.”

She hesitated for a split second. “Of course, we would.”

“Whether that’s clients, referrals, infrastructure,” I said. “Because I know how much you care for him.”

“Anything … of course.” Amelia smiled with her mouth, but her eyes betrayed something akin to resentment.

I was twelve weeks pregnant with a confirmed fetal heartbeat. If Dr. Krasnov recognized that I had never carried a baby to term, he hadn’t ratted me out thus far. I felt that he and I had reached a truce of sorts. He explained that I’d passed a critical milestone and the likelihood of miscarriage had significantly diminished. Upon hearing his words, a sensation of expansiveness and levity moved throughout my body and filled me completely.

Amelia was standing by in the waiting room at my request. I did take some secret pleasure in these moments, when she was the outsider who