Zoe blinked. Her lips parted. She looked away from Remi. “Oh.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Zoe shook her head, eyes locked on the blank television screen, as if it were on. She seemed to know exactly what Remi was referring to.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to disappoint you and Daddy. There was already so much going on—with school and everything. I was scared you’d think I wasn’t going to finish. That I might drop out.”
“Zoe.” Remi’s voice caught. “You lost a baby.”
“I couldn’t even say it out loud, Mom. Not then. Not even to Bas at first, not really. We didn’t even know what we were doing. We were irresponsible.” Her voice cracked. “I just … wanted it to go away.”
Remi moved closer, but not too much. “You didn’t have to go through that alone.”
Zoe’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t cry. She hugged her knees tighter.
“I didn’t feel like anyone would understand. You always look at me like I’m that little girl with the scraped knees and Glitter Glue. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Zoe was wrong about one thing: Remi would’ve understood—all too well. It was raining the day she had found outshewas pregnant—a baby boy—before she and Gerard were even married, long before Zoe. She was just a freshman at LSU. Warm Louisiana rain, heavy and slow, slid down the windows of Gerard’s apartment. She sat on the edge of the tub, arms wrapped around her stomach—not protectively, but just anchoring herself. The test stick lay on the bathroom counter showing two lines, blunt and unapologetic.
Gerard had gone for beignets. She hadn’t asked him to. He just said he’d be back in twenty, and he kissed her cheek like it was a normal morning.
It wasn’t.
She kept staring at the pink lines like they might change if she waited long enough.
Gerard’s phone rang—his landline. She thought it was probably him, wondering if she wanted coffee with the beignets.She didn’t answer. Her throat was dry and her skin felt tight. She hadn’t pictured herself holding a baby or telling anyone. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around it.
Gerard came back with a white paper bag and two cups of coffee.
“Brought extra. They’re fresh too,” he said, smiling.
Remi remembered having really looked at him. The crooked grin. The way he always leaned too casually against the doorframe. The smell of beignets that lingered in the air mixed with the cold bite of realization that had just settled in her lungs. She was thankful his roommate wasn’t there. She might’ve come unglued had he been.
“I need to tell you something,” she said just above a whisper.
He sat beside her on the bathroom floor. She didn’t cry and neither did he. He just pulled the test toward him and stared at it as if it were a language he didn’t understand. When he finally looked up, he didn’t say anything profound. Just, “Okay, baby. We’ll figure it out.”
But the truth was, they didn’t need to figure it out. Because all too soon, it was over. They both cried the day they lost Gerard 2.0, the nickname they had both agreed on for the baby boy who would never make it into the world.
Remi was never the same after that.
She let Zoe’s words settle.I didn’t want you to worry. Didn’t want to disappoint you and Daddy.Then she reached over, slowly, and placed a hand over Zoe’s.
“I don’t need you to be okay. I just need you to be honest with me. When I know what’s going on, I can help you. And you don’t have to protect me, sweetheart.”
There was a long pause between them.
Finally, Zoe whispered, “I thought if I came back here to Napa—maybe if I saw Bas, we could forget it happened. Maybe I could get past it. But I don’t think I can, Mom.”
Remi gave her daughter’s hand a tight squeeze. “No, you won’t ever forget. But you don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
Zoe didn’t say anything, but she didn’t pull away either.
Remi wouldn’t tell her about Gerard 2.0. Not yet. Not tonight. But one day she would.
Chapter Eleven
Bianca