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The long silence. The spring is spent in almost complete retirement from our normals worlds. We accept visits from friends, make a few trips, and eat and drink as much as we want. And we cry an awful lot.

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May 2001

Asian small clawed otter at the Cleveland Metroparks Rainforest.

Tuesday, May 1

We visit the Rainforest.

Friday, May 4

We learn that Toni's play "Angst:84" has been accepted by the New York International Fringe Festival, which is in August.

We attend the "awards & recognition day" ceremony at Toni's school. Toni won her second Plain Dealer writing contest award this year. It is very difficult to attend, Toni hadn't seen a lot of these people since she took time off from her studies, and no one says anything at all about the baby. Her boss is there, of course, and I do my best to avoid her. I think of all kinds of horrifying things I might say to her if pressed, the most obvious being "you killed my son."

Saturday, May 5

Toni announces she is going back on the pill. We cannot begin trying to get pregnant again any time soon, but the hard fact of this causes me great distress.

Brian and I go to see "Closer" at Dobama.

Monday, May 7

We attend our first support group for survivors of neonatal death. We are the only people in attendance, apart from the moderator. She's very nice, but the conversation tends to run towards how she has coped in the sixteen years since her child died. Fortunately she has four other children, who she talks a lot about, to help her along.

Wednesday, May 9

We are hoping for the autopsy report when meeting with our midwife, but only get the pathology report on the placenta. We learn the following vague things:

+ It is very possible the placenta was never attached very well.

+ It is possible that Toni was having wild fluctuations of high blood pressure - her blood pressure was normal when we were in the hospital March 4, but maybe it was high before or after we were in.

+ He may have been malnourished from the beginning, possibly brain damaged from lack of oxygen, this would explain his size at birth.

+ He may, it turns out, never have survived under any circumstances.

Friday, May 11

We go to Athens for Mother's Day weekend.

Sunday, May 13

Mother's Day

Saturday, May 19

We return to Athens to see Toni's sister perform in a dance concert.

Sunday, May 20

Second Month.

Bad Epitaph presents "The Alchemist" by Ben Jonson.

Friday, May 24

Bad Epitaph's "The Alchemist" opens at Cleveland Public Theatre.

I was not supposed to have a great deal to do with the opening of this play, expecting a child and all when it was scheduled. However, Bad Epitaph is a small company and I always did a large share of the work promoting the productions, as well as often directing or acting in them. Once Calvin died, I spent as little time as necessary tending to those things which no one else knew how to do, especially in the p.r. department.

Christine (who I have known for years, and yet not terribly well) was helping run concessions at the show opening night, and she asked me how we were doing, and asked me to tell her about what happened. She was perhaps the first person ever to be so direct with me about it, and since then she's held a special place in my heart.

Tuesday, May 29

Calvin's Memorial.

That night we see "Shreck" with Harris.

Wednesday, May 30

We rise early for a live promo on a local t.v. station for "The Alchemist." Afterwards, Toni, Harris and I go to Cedar Point.

June 2001

Our backyard neighbors have put up a spite fence. Ironically, we have finally started taking care of our garden, one which is dedicated to Calvin.

Also, sometime this month, though I didn't make a note of it, I quit smoking for good. We had each been pretty cavalier about our health since we got out of the hospital, but one day Toni looked at me and asked me to stop smoking. So I did.

Wednesday, June 6

I audition for Great Lakes Theater Festival's education department.

Friday, June 8

Toni and I attend "Piece of My Heart" at Beck Center.

Saturday, June 9

"I had a vision (can I call it that?) not too long ago. I think I was falling asleep. I was feeling sorry for myself, for us, for poor Calvin. I thought of us, in bed, at Niagara Falls, ringing in the New Year's. Toni was pregnant, starting to really show. She says New Year's Day was the first day she really felt him kick. We were going to have a baby, that's what 2001 was going to be all about. 2001 was going to be the year our first child was born.

"2001 has become the year our child died, out son. 2001 - of 'space odyssey' fame - is our annus horibilius (sic)."

"But what if we die this year, too? Maybe of cancer, maybe a car accident or something else. One, then the other, or both at once? And we are none the wiser. Others will look back and say, oh dear, David and Toni died, they're gone. And to us, it was first child, then parents all very fast, we lay in bed on New Year's Eve, dreaming of a bright year ahead, one we would never complete, all three of us, the end.

"This just seemed sad. Not horrifying, not really, really sad, just sad. Pathetic. Quiet. Oblivion.

"Did I mention the fact that I got the job at Great Lakes? That makes me very happy."

Sunday, June 10

We depart by train for New York City, spend the night at Harris'.

Monday, June 11

Protesters at Tim McVeigh's execution.

Timothy McVeigh is executed by the Federal Government.

We visit the Central Park Zoo.

We depart via Virgin/Atlantic for London.

Tuesday, June 12

We arrive at Gatwick.

"No real chat about Calvin today ... but we'll get to it."

Wednesday, June 13

Henrik and I pick Denny up at Gatwick. We all spend the day visiting a few art museums. Later, we attend a performance art performance in the London International Festival of Theater.

Thursday, June 14

We visit the Courtald Gallery, we do "The Eye."

"You won't believe this one - we saw the world premiere of a new play at the National Theatre by this hot, British playwright. It's about this complete, showbiz asshole who has this mid-life crisis and loses everything he owns or cares about in a desperate attempt to find some kind of meaning in life. It was part King Lear, part story of Job, and the climax, the very end of the play, this broken, destitute, shell of a man, he finally grasps his reason for living as he recounts, in glorious, passionate detail (I sh*t you not) every beautiful, exciting moment of the day that his first son was born.

"We had a fun train ride home that night, let me tell you. Thank you, Patrick Marber."

Friday, June 15

We do Covent Garden, and see "Noises Off" with Vanessa Redgrave.

Saturday, June 16

A pissing rainy day, Toni, Denny and I have an excellent time walking up on down the South Bank. Whenever we get tired we stop in somewhere (the OXO Tower, Shakespeare's Globe Cafe, All Bar One) have a drink and complain about the United States.

We also visit the Design Museum, and have dinner at this great Thai place.

I finish reading Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow."

Sunday, June 17

Father's Day. We visit the New Forest Owl, Otter and Wildlife Conservation Park. We have dinner at an Outback Steak House, which is an American restaurant chain, pretending to be Australian, in England, staffed by a bunch of Germans.

Later, after we phone Mom and Dad, my two brothers and I sit around and compare notes about our childhoods, possibly for the first time ever.

Monday, June 18

A day around the house. Toni is feeling crappy so I do laundry, buy groceries and make dinner.

I read Neil LaBute's new play (which had just opened at the Almeida) "The Shape of Things." "Honestly. What is wrong with that man?"

Denny, Henrik and I go to see "Blue/Orange," which turns out to be the best show of the week.

Tuesday, June 19

Toni and I walk Lydia to school, then have a long stroll through Battersea park and on into Chelsea. We take a train to South Bank to meet Brenda and Denny for "Macbeth" at Shakespeare's Globe.

Wednesday, June 20

Third month. First day of summer.

Toni has run down from the activity - and because no one is talking about the baby. We spend a leisurely day, which includes picnicking in St. James Park.

We see "Feelgood" which is crap.

Thursday, June 21

We check out Camden Town, but Toni says it's no different than St. Mark's Place in NYC.

That evening we have a big cook-out in the backyard.

Friday, June 22

Kew Gardens. Toni's favorite day on the entire trip.

"Babies. Wailing baby in the gift shop at Kew. I bore through that one. There was a crying baby at the tube yesterday, a little black baby in a carriage. I almost had to get off the train, but it did first. We've been having a good time, but it's tough."

Toni, Lydia and a few friends at Hamley's

Saturday, June 23

We take Lydia to Hamley's, and talk to her about Calvin. Later we see "School Play" at Soho Rep.

Sunday, June 24

Last day, a day for buying last minute presents and Toni is in a seriously off-kilter mood. We have a crisis in Marks & Spencer over which biscuits to get.

Monday, June 25

We depart for NYC. I have too much to drink on the plane and throw up.

Tuesday, June 26

Second Wedding Anniversary. We are staying in New York for a few days with Harris - the idea was to do some catching up with old fiends, but it is very hot and Toni and I just want to be home.

Today we take a bus to Toni's old stomping grounds, Washington Heights. We walk up to Fort Tryon Park, where I proposed to Toni in 1998, and visited the Cloisters.

Wednesday, June 27

We visit the Met. Toni simply doesn't want to do anything, doesn't even have an interest in looking around. It is all very familiar to her anyway, she spent a great deal of time here when she lived here. But I haven't, and once I make sure that it is okay (or that nothing is okay, regardless of what I do) I leave her in the cafe and walk around by myself.

The Studiolo

I am disoriented, myself, some of the galleries are terribly full, and I find myself in this little room I have never been in before - the "Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio" - they have relocated this private study that you can enter, and the walls are made to resemble bookshelves and desks and astrolabes and such but it's all two dimensional. And it's peaceful in there, it's private, in the midst of this vast collection of art and people. I felt like I had made a very special new discovery.

That evening, while Toni spent time with her friend Andrea, Harris takes my to an opening at the Whitney and afterwards we have sushi. A friend who used to work with Harris there, and took classes at City College with Toni and he, has brought a present, thinking Toni would be joining us. She gives it to me, a very handsome, very fine teddy bear. She says it's not for Calvin, it's for Calvin's younger brother or sister. It is a lovely present.

Thursday, June 28

The three of us see "Measure for Measure" in Central Park, which is lame.

Friday, June 29

Trying to beat the heat, and find something to do where we don't have to do anything, Toni and I go to see "A.I." - a movie about a toe-headed little robot named David who is searching for his mother. What were we thinking?

I take a subway by myself to meet Hank, a friend from high school, to have sushi in Times Square. That short subway trip is the first time I have ever been on my own in New York City.

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