Mirrors and Missing Pieces

Content warning: Contains brief themes of pregnancy loss and infertility.

I saw her on the train. She looked like me, but her face was sharper, more defined. Dark hair slicked back into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. She was dressed smarter, flowing black trousers and a fitted sage-green top underneath a knee-length coat. She carried an expensive-looking leather laptop bag. A lanyard was draped around her neck with a badge attached.

I felt like a slob looking at her. My ripped jeans and worn-out jumper covered my body in an unflattering way. My hair wild and untamed from sleeping on it wet because I couldn’t be bothered to blow-dry it after my shower. The old bum-bag I always carried strapped across my chest. I wanted to hide. But instead, I squinted at the badge on her neck. I could barely make out the job title next to the modelesque photo. “Managing Editor” it said. I felt a stab of jealousy run through me. It was everything I always wanted. A good career, put together, but most importantly, doing something that didn’t make me want to jump in front of this train.

I work at the hospital, just admin stuff, and I’ve definitively decided I can’t work with the public anymore. I take things too personally and end up daydreaming of ways I’d just quietly disappear into the wilderness. I cry in the staff toilet sometimes. But instead of disappearing, I sit on the train five days a week with the other commuters, AirPods full blast, avoid eye-contact, especially with the occasional junkie, wait for my stop, walk the rest of the way to my sparsely furnished flat, make dinner for my boyfriend and me, watch TV, shower, bed. Rinse, repeat.

It’s not the monotony I mind.

She exited the train at the next stop. I watched her as she walked past the window, high heels clicking on the pavement. I looked down at my own worn-out Nikes and cringed. My mind drifted, thinking about where she must be going or where she had come from. Was it some important meeting with fellow editorial staff, or perhaps an author luncheon? How many things crowded her to-do list? What did her desk look like? Was it piled with manuscripts in organised chaos, or was it neat and tidy with everything following an invisible grid? She seemed like the neat and tidy type. But as the saying goes, don’t judge a book by the laptop bag it carries or whatever.

The following day, I saw her on the train again. I was taken aback slightly as her appearance had changed entirely. This day she wore a long flowing skirt and a semi-sheer blouse. Her toes were painted bright red, visible in her worn Birkenstocks. Her hair was curled tightly and held in a claw clip, with curls falling around her face. Her face was recognisable by her distinct grey eyes. A mirror of my own. I remembered then the day my boyfriend told me he couldn’t wait to give me a baby. He said he wanted her to have my eyes. He had a feeling we’d have a girl.

She looked free in that Patagonia hippie way. I thought this time she was an artist. A writer maybe, as her hands were clean and her nails were carefully filed. One that’s managed to make a name for herself or gave lectures at universities to aspiring creative writing students. She would read her poetry or short fiction in the local coffee shop to a group of pretentious intellectuals who clap quietly at the last word and turn to the person next to them saying, The way she wove metaphors into the shape of grief was nothing short of masterful, don’t you think?

She reminded me of my creative writing professor. The one who told us that all creative writing students could probably use the support of the mental health services the university provided. She wasn’t wrong. And one day, she made us sit through a six-minute video of Janice Joplin performing “Ball and Chain” live. I actually quite enjoyed that day and I later added the song to my Spotify playlist.

This time she exited the train at a different stop, and I wondered if she was on her way to a reading.

I didn’t see her again for another week. But I had become familiar with the round grey eyes. Again, so much like my own, but prettier I thought. This time, she was wearing a tailored cream dress, her long hair carefully curled down her back. I noticed the diamond ring on her finger that hadn’t been there before. It was a beautiful emerald-cut, solitary on a white-gold band. Her eyes were lit with an otherworldly happiness, and I wondered who the lucky guy might be. I looked down at my own bare fingers and felt a twinge of sadness.

As I sat there and watched her from the corner of my eye, trying to be discreet, I wondered if she felt loved. If the smile on her face and light in her eyes was genuine. I wondered if her fiancé was loyal and never made her doubt her beauty. If he stood next to her in the kitchen and asked her if she needed help preparing dinner, which she would politely decline. If he still kissed her passionately, or if the spark had disappeared and he kissed her only out of obligation.

I thought I must be wrong about that last thought.

When she got off the train, she was greeted by a handsome man. She hugged him and he picked her up and lifted her off the ground. The way his eyes lit up I knew I had been wrong about that last thought. I imagined they would go home, hand in hand. They would put on some music and dance in the kitchen. Make love before bed. I thought of the way he would cry happy tears on their wedding day when he saw her in her white dress, and his best man would pat his shoulder in a masculine display of affection. He would think we’ve made it and share his devotion in well-thought and beautiful vows. Not a dry eye in the house. I thought it strange no one else seemed to notice them or spare them a passing glance.

I heard a voice that wasn't mine echo in my head. I don’t ever want to get married. It’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it? I looked away from the couple as the train pulled away from the platform and felt a sting at the corner of my eye.

A few days later, I saw her again. Only this time, her stomach pushed out in cotton overalls. Unsure of what I was seeing, I did a double-take. I saw her only a few days before, and she definitely wasn’t pregnant. She was one of those beautiful pregnant women, glowing and perfectly round. Pregnancy looked good on her. I touched the tattoo on my arm for my unborn baby. I felt a deep ache in the pit of my stomach. The tears didn’t come this time, and I sighed with a guilty relief.

I thought about what it must have been like when she found out. Pure unadulterated surprise and joy. I thought she must have gone to the shops to put together an announcement basket for the handsome man on the platform, still shaking from adrenaline. It would have had a onesie, some baby shoes, maybe a card with a I can’t wait to meet you Daddy scrawled across the front, and the positive test she’d peed on only hours before. The typical stuff. She’d have thought to perhaps record the moment on her phone but thought better of it. The moment was entirely their own. He would have cried again, so excited to be a father.

My infertility doctor told me I need to have a procedure where they stick a catheter in my cervix and inject me with dye to see if my tubes are open. It sounds painful. My boyfriend’s test consists of spunking into a cup. I was too embarrassed to tell the doctor I don’t think he wants kids with me anymore. So, I went along with it anyway and I didn’t correct her when she called him my husband.

This time, I got to my stop before the woman got off the train. I stepped onto the platform, and I looked back as the train pulled away. She looked at me then, through the window of the train and waved to me, a bittersweet smile on her face. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I turned around and walked off the platform.

That night when I was lying in bed, my boyfriend already asleep, I felt the tears start. Quiet at first, and then deeper and uncontrollable. I knew somewhere deep in myself I would never see that woman again. My boyfriend stirred next to me.

“Babe, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

I turned my face away slightly, just so he couldn’t see my tears. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I can’t sleep.”

“Okay,” he said, and pulled me closer. I melted back into him, shut my eyes, and drifted into sleep.