Chloe had to go home soon but she wasn’t ready to face her parents.  She’d failed them by her very biology. It wasn’t fair. She was their only child. She was expected to give them grandchildren, wasn’t she? What was her purpose if she couldn’t?

BY EMILY WIELER

IMAGE BY CHESLEY DAVIS

Chloe hadn’t much thought about it yet; it was barely a blip at the back of her mind. She recalled it like a distant dream. In fact, she was sure she’d had such a dream before, in which her stomach swelled and she was deafened by the cries of a baby she didn’t remember conceiving but was so undeniably an extension of her. How could that be?

In the dream, she was gripped with panic. “Cut the cord, cut the cord, cut the cord,” she said, hands shaking in front of her. The baby, faceless, formless, cried on. How could she stop it? Was it even possible? Where were the doctors, anyway?

She woke up before she had any answers, bathed in sweat. She untangled herself from the mess and glared at the clock, whose rudely bright red numbers told her she had thirty minutes to get to her appointment with Dr. Lovett. Perhaps there, she would understand.

The problem was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

After the appointment, Chloe walked in a stupor to the café around the corner. The glare of the mid-morning sunlight made her squint; ominous black spots danced across her vision as her eyes adjusted to the darker café. A small sigh of relief escaped her when she saw Rebecca behind the counter, as though the two had not agreed to meet there as soon as she made the damn appointment with the damn specialist. Chloe ordered a black coffee. At this, Rebecca eyed her strangely; Chloe hated coffee. She knew this because they had been best friends since they were five.

Chloe shook her head at her and gripped the burgundy mug so tightly that her knuckles blanched. She could feel the heat searing her palm, but she didn’t flinch as she lifted it from the countertop.

Rebecca told her to wait ten minutes; she would take her lunch break then, and they could talk. Chloe nodded and retreated to their usual table. The owner of the café, a woman with kind eyes and a crown of spiky blue hair, smiled at her as she walked past. Chloe bit her lip to tame the lump that suddenly rose in her throat. She couldn’t meet Zelda’s gaze today. She didn’t know why, but she knew it would sting.

Chloe didn’t like coffee. Yet, she didn’t grab the sugar dispenser or milk jug or carafe of cream. She sipped at the steaming dark liquid, shuddering as it burned her throat, and trying not to grimace at the bitter taste.

When Rebecca sank into the chair across from her, she was balancing a plate and a mug of what Chloe knew to be Earl Grey tea. It was her friend’s favourite, after all. On the plate was a sandwich and a flaky croissant. Rebecca pushed the food to the middle of the table.

“It’s your lucky day,” she said. “Zelda finally let me try making croissants. This is from my first batch. I was hoping you’d give it a try.” Rebecca smiled, albeit cautiously. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Chloe felt bad. Or, at least, she knew she should feel bad. Rebecca was a passionate perfectionist who aimed to do everything excellently, even if she hated it. And Chloe knew their twenty years of friendship obligated her to support her, even now.

So, she sighed and ripped off a small piece of the croissant. The pastry easily gave way.

When it met her tongue, it practically melted. It was buttery. It was perfect.

But when she swallowed, her throat still burned. The aftertaste of the coffee lingering in her mouth ruined it.

Chloe closed her eyes and inhaled through her nostrils. A single tear dropped into her mug. Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. Chloe tore hers down to the broken croissant on the plate.

“I can’t have kids.”

“What?”

“I can’t have kids, Rebecca.”

“Wait… What?”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“No. I… I mean, I heard you. I just…” Rebecca knitted her brows as she sank her teeth into her sandwich and chewed before gulping it down heavily. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand?” Chloe shrugged and, as her arms fell, the action seemed to deflate rather than inflate her lungs. The air, like the words of Dr. Lovett an hour earlier, sat discontented, withered, sad, at the bottom of her leaden chest. But the words had to come. Rebecca had to know. “I haven’t had my period in a year. That’s the definition of menopause.”

Rebecca’s mug froze midway to her lips. “But you’re twenty-five. Not fifty.”

 “I know how old I am.”

“Well, then, it must be a mistake. Doctors make mistakes, too, you know.”

She took a gulp of her tea, and her eyes flashed, as though she’d had an epiphany. “Get a second opinion. When my mom got diagnosed, she went to three specialists to be sure.”

Chloe gritted her teeth and picked up the croissant, if only to keep her knee-jerk response from erupting. Scenes of Rebecca’s mother, Celia, ran through her mind in a dizzying montage. The crow’s feet framing her bloodshot eyes as she smiled through exhaustion. Her laugh as the three of them browsed through boutiques for the perfect wig. The long scar on her lopsided chest—evidence of her survival.

As she nibbled at the croissant, Chloe puzzled over what to say. The anger brewing in her chest bubbled, sat like acid at the base of her throat, begging for release. But aiming it at Rebecca felt wrong. She didn’t know where it wanted to go. She just knew it was there—unignorable.

So, rather than delve into Celia’s four-year battle with breast cancer that dominated their high school days, when she put down the croissant, she said, “Do you remember when Jenny Parkinson had her sweet sixteen party?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Chloe stared into her coffee. “I didn’t even like Jenny. I don’t know if I would have gone if I had been invited.” Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. “But it felt like everyone else was. You were.” There was a question in Rebecca’s eyes, but as she opened her mouth, Zelda called over her shoulder. Her break was over.

The two stood at the same time, and Chloe fell into their parting hug.

“It’ll be okay.” Rebecca smiled as she pulled away. Chloe’s was a blank expression.

As she pushed open the door and confronted the chilly autumn air, all she could hear was the hoarse voice of Dr. Lovett cutting through the wind. The woman was incessantly clearing her throat and then rolling her muddy eyes, as if the information with the potential to ruin the lives of her patients was a mere nuisance. Chloe had zeroed in on the tiny brown mole above her plum-painted lips, if only to have something else to think about.

“It’s rare for women your age, but it happens.”

Then, she heard her own shaking voice, demanding just how rare it was, followed by Dr. Lovett’s answer in the wake of another obnoxious cough.

“Well, studies I’ve read say about 0.1 percent.”

0.1 percent. That wasn’t a whole percent. Not even a whole person.

Chloe couldn’t go home. She couldn’t talk to her mother, who would cry. She couldn’t talk to her father, who would avoid her gaze and the topic altogether. Her mother would mourn, and her father would be flustered. Which was worse?

Her feet carried her to a park. Winding the worn denim of her jacket tightly around herself, like a brace, Chloe flopped onto the icy metal bench overlooking the playground. She could see her breath; exhale after deep exhale emerged in a plume of smoke.

Suddenly, she thought of Jenny Parkinson. Flaming red hair. Too-sharp emerald eyes. A smile that always looked forced. She thought of Rebecca’s casual tone when she asked Chloe how they’d be getting to the biggest party of the year. Her mother couldn’t drive due to a particularly nasty round of chemo. She wanted to know if Chloe’s mother might step in.

Chloe’s stomach sank now, as it had then. She remembered Rebecca’s confused look when she confessed that she hadn’t been invited. Just as she had earlier at the café, Rebecca insisted it had to be a mistake. She offered to talk to Jenny herself. Surely, it was a misunderstanding—an accidental oversight.

But Chloe shook her head firmly, mouth set in a straight line. She could hear her own voice, sheepishly saying, “It’s okay. Jenny just doesn’t like me. But you have fun, Rebecca. I heard Kayla is going. Maybe you can get a ride with her.”

Chloe smiled slightly to herself as she recalled Rebecca’s vow not to go without her. Then, a laugh erupted from her in a cloud. The fancy cocktail wieners served by the fancy cocktail waiters at the fancy cocktail party had given every guest food poisoning. She could still see the greenish tinge of their friend Kayla’s face as she told Chloe and Rebecca of her weekend spent curled on frigid bathroom tile.

And yet, she couldn’t help but think that she had been robbed of something. Rebecca had chosen not to go to the party. And though Chloe knew she didn’t have the right to attend a party where she wasn’t wanted, she wished she’d had that choice, too. A chance to decide. To have a say.

Chloe’s fingers were getting cold. She hadn’t considered wearing gloves. It was early October, and it had been warm that morning; the sun had been shining, and the wind hadn’t been nearly this intense.

She wished she had another cup of hot coffee. She wished she’d known this was going to happen. She wished for a lot of things.

The shrill cry of a child pierced the air. Chloe’s head shot up. A little boy was curled in the sand, cheeks flushed, tears pouring. He looked no older than four. The swing behind him swayed. His hands were fists. Chloe marveled at his lung capacity as he screamed away.

Her eyes darted around, wondering if anyone else had heard the commotion. Sure enough, a woman rose from a nearby bench and ran towards him. She was flanked by two others, and a fourth woman looked on from beside a stroller that she rolled slowly back and forth on the pavement—to soothe the baby inside, Chloe assumed.

“Lucas!”

The boy looked up. The speaker knelt to his level, while the others hovered.

Immediately, they began fussing.

“Oh, my goodness. Is he okay?” one said.

“I told you he wasn’t ready for the big swing yet, Lana,” the other said.

Lana scoffed as she helped Lucas sit up in the sand before examining his palms, looking for scrapes. Battle scars. Blood. Apparently finding none, she pulled the boy to his feet. He teetered and sniffled, though the tear tracks on his face were dry. As he panted, Chloe watched the vapor flow from his little mouth. She thought of a fire-breathing dragon.

“Well, he isn’t your son, Agnes. He’s mine.” When Lana looked to the woman on her right, her eyes were venomous. Even from her distant vantage point, Chloe felt it.

She frowned. Children weren’t possessions, were they? She thought of her dream, of the umbilical cord anchoring the mystery baby to her. Did growing a human in your body mean you owned it? Even then, making the baby was not a one-person job. Did the baby belong to its parents? And if so, at what point did it usurp that ownership?

She was still thinking of this when the four mothers, three gripping their respective children by the hand, and one purposefully pushing her stroller, decided to leave. As Lucas passed her, he smiled. There was a gap in the grin; he was missing one of his top teeth.

Chloe waved. He waved back. Lana scolded him for talking to a stranger, though neither had said a word. “Just wait till I tell your dad about this,” she said.

His smile flipped into a pout. Then he was dragged away, leaving Chloe alone.

Chloe had to go home soon but she wasn’t ready to face her parents.  She’d failed them by her very biology. It wasn’t fair. She was their only child. She was expected to give them grandchildren, wasn’t she? What was her purpose if she couldn’t?

And what man would want her if she couldn’t? If she didn’t even have the potential, the ability, to give him a child? Yet another failure to which she had never consented.

She tried to tell herself she was being silly. She was single—and besides, there were men who didn’t want children. Hell—Chloe didn’t even know if she wanted children. She didn’t know what she wanted at all. All she knew, at the moment, was that she didn’t want to freeze to this park bench.

Chloe sighed as she stood; it would be dark soon. Her wristwatch told her it was nearly four o’clock. She had an hour to make it home before sunset; if she walked, it would take longer.

So, she decided she would go back to the café and ride home with Rebecca. She could use a hug from Celia, anyway. Celia wouldn’t mourn. She wouldn’t be mortified by, or ashamed of, the news. She would clutch Chloe to her scarred chest, and Chloe would be able to feel the stubborn thud of her heart beneath the thick scar tissue that used to make up her left breast, and everything would be okay.

Soon after the mastectomy, Chloe had gingerly asked Celia if she planned to get her chest rebuilt. As she walked, Chloe could still hear her booming laugh amid the leaves crunching beneath her feet.

“What? You mean, am I going to get a boob job? Why would I do that?”

Chloe remembered balking and blushing. She hadn’t thought it was so ridiculous. Of course, this was nearly a decade ago; back then, her classmates with flat chests frantically stuffed their bras to appear more womanly. Chloe couldn’t imagine having to cut one of her breasts off, even to save her life.

She could still see Celia’s gentle smile as she said, “Sweetheart. My breasts don’t make me a woman. I do.”

Chloe looked down. A brilliant red maple leaf had caught her eye. She laid her foot delicately on its stem to keep it from blowing away. Then, she bent down and picked it up. Holding the leaf by the stem, she twisted it between her thumb and forefinger. At that moment, a thin sliver of sunlight broke through the clouds, and she could see the veins in the bright leaf that was somehow dead.

She smiled, carefully placed the leaf in her jacket pocket, and kept walking.

Emily Wieler is currently pursuing a graduate certificate in Professional Writing and Communications at Humber. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Trent University, where she was awarded the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize two years in a row. She is happiest in a used bookstore, a café, and spending time with her beloved lionhead rabbit, Edgar (full name: Edgar Allan Poe).

Image: Paradise Alley (Chesley Davis, 2023)

Edited for publication by Paula Telizyn as part of the Creative Book Publishing program.

HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation and the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts.