From There to Here: Lucky

by Amy L. Hatch

I used to think I had bad luck.

And for awhile, it did seem like a black cloud was following me around. It made its presence known when my father was diagnosed with cancer; one minute I was sitting at my desk doing my job as a junior marketing manager and the next minute my mom was calling and saying that my dad had six months to live.

The Gut, Wellfleet, Mass. Photo by michealannb, flickr

Turns out he had considerably longer than that, but that black cloud … it stuck around. When we moved to Chambana, I sat in the family room brushing Emmie’s hair when our kitchen cupboard fell off the wall. Yup, fell off the wall. Out of the blue.

And so on, and so forth. My streak of spectacularly terrible karma culminated in the 34th week of my pregnancy with Henry, when I had a bad reaction to a medical treatment. It took several long, terrifying minutes to locate Henry’s heartbeat — and my own heart, so weary, felt about to burst from fear.

I carried that bad luck around with me, clutching it like a malignant talisman. I held it close, used it as a crutch. This could only happen to me, I’d say, a cynical, down-turned grin on my face.

It could only happen to me.

***

Today, my husband, Henry and I went to the beach alone. The big girl was off with her cousins doing big-kid doings. It’s rare, indeed, for Channing and I to have the boy alone, especially for such an adventure.

The road to this particular town beach, called “The Gut,” is long. There is no parking lot; you park your car along the road, even though you still need to have a beach sticker to park there. You walk on pavement, then hard-packed sand and then up a steep dune lined with tall grass.

We trudged up, towels and a blanket slung over our shoulders. Henry held my hand and pushed forward on his sturdy little legs. When we were in sight of the summit, he broke into a grin.

“The top!” he yelled. “I see it!”

Below us lay the water, and a vast beach with only two or three groups of bathers. The trek, it seemed, kept the masses away.

The walk down to the shore was easy, momentum carrying us now. We reached the flat sand and Henry ran to the water, hollering with delight.

Henry, the boy whose heartbeat couldn’t be found almost exactly two years ago to this day. Henry, the boy whose beauty, humor, innate sweetness and grace stops my heart nearly every day.

In that moment, I felt that bad-luck charm, the one I’ve carried so close for so long, floating out to sea.

I’m lucky, indeed.

Amy L. Hatch is a co-founder of chambanamoms.com, and she still has sand in her underwear. She writes about her journey as wife, mother, writer and northeastern transplant every Tuesday in her column, From There to Here. You can reach her at amy@chambanamoms.com.

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