Graham volunteered to take me to my follow-up visit with Dr. Whale the
week after my surgery. I hadn’t left my house the entire time. I hadn’t
answered my phone. The curtains stayed closed. I didn’t even turn the lights on
most of the time after the sun set. Kathryn finally forced herself in the day
before my doctor visit to make sure I was eating and made me promise to meet
her on Monday. It was her doing that Graham was taking me to the doctor in the
first place, as I had taken his heart from under my bed once I was home from
the hospital and alone, brushed it off, put it back in its box and left it
alone ever since.
But on the drive to the hospital, Graham spoke as though nothing
bothered him. And nothing did, even if I ordered him to be bothered by
something. He stopped the riot single-handed, without any of the violence
upsetting him. My miscarriage didn’t upset him either, or the fact that he
couldn’t be there thanks to the riot. He spoke as though they had all been
casual things that had happened last week, and spoke of our engagement the same
way.
“No!” My protest was enough to get Graham to stop the car in the middle
of the street. “We’re not getting married. I don’t even know why I said yes,
but now that there’s no baby—“ My voice stopped working for a moment and tears
threatened to come. I got out of the car and took a deep breath before leaning
back in to see his confused face. “We’re not meant to be married, so just go
back to work, Sheriff.” I turned and walked the rest of the way to the
hospital. I could hear Graham obeying me as his car drove off behind me.
I’m doing better, physically. Dr. Whale said I was in good enough
condition to return to work on Monday if I wished. Before I left, he prescribed
me birth control pills. His very words were that they were to help avoid
something like this from happening again. Things were starting to make sense.
The line I stood in at Mr. Clark’s drug store was full of women who all shared
a look of resignation in their eyes.
The walk back to work was a quiet one. The air was still thick with the
shock and disappointment of what had happened at the television station. I let
Storybrooke be as I recuperated and grieved the loss of my baby, so I only had
a vague idea of what happened. Sidney was waiting for me outside my office when
I arrived. We went inside and he informed me of what had happened at the
television station. He spoke as though he’d been a general watching a battle
from the horizon. As the wall was coming down in Berlin, a disguised reporter was
planted in the Storybrooke crowd as an instigator while Leroy spoke. After a
whisper or two into people’s ears and a few well-placed shouts, it didn’t take
long to sway the crowd into believing the problem was actually television
itself. They made their way to the television station and protested outside.
Sidney’s plan worked and the mob became violent. Soon the morning news show was
invaded by the protesters. There were lots of injuries and one fatality. A
camera was pushed over onto a co-anchor and she died from her injuries. Sidney
didn’t need to tell me her name; everyone in town loved turning their
televisions on in the morning so Dory Zimmer could be part of their day.
As soon as Sidney had finished, one of my assistants came in and
prepared me for Ms. Zimmer’s memorial we were having that afternoon. Before he
left the room, he handed me a speech that had been written in my absence, but
Sidney asked if he could proof-read it. He took the sheet of paper and scanned
its only paragraph before he sat down and pulled out a pencil. Sidney scribbled
as fast as he could and handed the speech back to me.
That afternoon, before a crowd of people along with reporters for the
same newspaper and a lone camera and television reporter, I spoke of the lessons
Dory Zimmer’s death taught us. First, how we need to respect one another and be
rational. The second lesson, thanks to Sidney’s pencil, was that too much of
what we were watching was negative and unhealthy. Had there been more positive
television, like what is shown on our local station, Miss Zimmer might still be
alive. There was no disagreement from the crowd before me, so I announced that
as of today, all television stations would be turned off except for ours.
After work, I met Kathryn at Granny’s. She was standing outside and
informed me we were going to the hospital. At first I was worried about her
seeing David, but she hadn’t said anything since picking me up last week. As
soon as we got in, we met the nurse at the reception desk. She seemed to be
familiar with Kathryn and wrote out two “Volunteer” name tags for us. I told
Kathryn I didn’t want to volunteer; it was too soon to be back here, and I did
not want to work alongside Mary Margaret. Kathryn insisted we’d be fine and
walked us down the corridor I’d seen her in two months ago. Instead of turning
right at the end where David was, we turned left to a kind of meeting room.
Metal folding chairs had been arranged in a circle on the tile floor, and there
was coffee and cookies on a small table along an empty green wall.
We weren’t the only ones in there. Eight other women were waiting with
us. Some were sitting in the chairs. Some were standing and chatting. All of
them I recognized as the other volunteers from two months ago and most of them
I also recognized from the line at the drug store.
“Would you like a cookie?” Kathryn started to go to the table, but I
made her come back and stand with me. With cookies would come conversation with
these other women, and I had no desire to talk to them.
Before long, Dr. Hopper came in and we all sat down. In his quiet but
respectful voice, he welcomed us and invited us to take turns talking about our
experiences.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” Kathryn leaned over and
whispered to me.
One by one, the women shared their experiences, and they were all the
same: every one of them had miscarried by their fourth month. Most were
resigned to their one experience, but a few still held out hope.
“We have our daughter, Paige, who we adopted.” This fourth woman was
smiling, but had started by saying she’d been coming to these meetings for as
long as she could remember—everyone’s favorite amount of time. “We love her,
but I still want us to have our own children. I’ve miscarried four times now
and Dr. Whale is very insistent that I go on the birth control. So is my
husband. But I want to give birth to a child. So we keep trying.”
Most of the women were on birth control, but some didn’t see a need for
one reason or another. There was plenty of shoulder patting, head nodding and
hand squeezing. I was counting the minutes for when it would end.
“My name is Kathryn. I’ve been here a few times and just listened. All
of you are so brave. My husband left me some time ago. We got into an argument
and he was gone the next day. But before he left, we were trying to make it
work. We had a moment of intimacy and several weeks after he was gone I
discovered I was carrying his child. I chose to keep it, but I lost it. Dr.
Whale prescribed me the birth control, but I didn’t see a point.”
“I want you all to know it’s not your fault.” Dr. Hopper reinforced
after Kathryn spoke.
But he was wrong. It was their fault. They were on the side of Snow
White. If they had sided with me and helped me destroy her, maybe I wouldn’t
have been swayed to cast this curse? Then all of my subjects could have all the
babies they wanted.
I left the meeting with things making sense: I’d fallen victim to the
curse. This was something I could have avoided had I seen it. No children are
born in Storybrooke because nothing
changes here. And that’s exactly what I wanted. I walked past Mary Margaret
on my way out and held my head high, and I went home with the knowledge that I
was still victorious.
But once I was home alone in my dark house, something didn’t feel right.
I suppose a week isn’t enough to recover, even though I know what’s never meant
to be. I felt lonely. I turned every light on in the house, but nothing. I ate
dinner, but the emptiness was still there. Finally, I grabbed the box that held
Graham’s heart and ordered him to come to me.
A man in control of himself would not come, not after being treated the
way I treated him a few days ago. But Graham came and got into bed with me. I
moved close to him and just tried to fall asleep.
“Don’t you want to turn off any of the lights?” He asked.
“No.”
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