Shark Heart: A Love Story

Wren returns to her and Lewis’s home in Dallas and is reminded of him by the drawings of treehouses strewn about there. She also begins to read his manuscript, attempting to go through it slowly but finally giving up: “[O]ne night, after treating herself to two sentences, she binged the whole play. Wren was disgusted with herself and then devastated. His work could no longer be discovered. She had lost him all over again” (384). She realizes that she is pregnant with Lewis’s child. Seeking support, she reaches out to Tiny Pregnant Woman but discovers an online obituary that announces her former friend died in childbirth.

Wren decides to get an abortion but backs out of the appointment the night before, remembering that Lewis told her she would be a “wonderful mother” when they parted on the beach. Throughout the pregnancy, she longs for Lewis, and when she discovers the baby is a girl, she decides to name her Angela. After the birth, however, she makes the split-second decision to name the baby Joy.

As Joy begins to grow, Wren and Lewis’s parents see parts of his personality peeking through in the toddler.