1929 (61 page)

“Oh, yes. I’m pregnant,” she snapped
sarcastically. “How nice of you to remember.”

“I didn’t forget, Ava. You haven’t been
talking to me, remember?”

“I’ve been pretty sick to my stomach.” She
watched the passing landscape with little interest.

“Morning sickness, huh?”

“Among other things,” she said, her voice
cold again.

They were silent the rest of the drive to
Boston.

Jonathan went into a hardware store,
searching for a few things his father had requested. He made idle
small talk with Ava as best he could while she followed him around
numbly. She simply stared at him or through him; Jonathan wasn’t
quite sure which.

Next, they went to a department store and Ava
wandered off to pick out a gift for Arianna. Jonathan used the time
alone to look for a present for her birthday, which was only a week
away. He found a bottle of perfume that he loved and was fairly
sure she would like, and with pink-faced embarrassment, wandered
into the department for women. He bought three pair of silk
stockings and had all of it wrapped in a beautiful box. He found
Ava in the baby department, holding tiny outfits in front of her
with a grin.

“That’s adorable. We should buy it,” Jonathan
said, sidling up to her.

“This is a girl’s outfit. We don’t even know
what ours will be. And since when did we have so much money to
spend?” She stepped away to a display of blankets and swaddling
cloths.

“Well.” Jonathan followed her. “Since we’re
staying with my parents a while longer, we can use a little of the
savings. That four-day trip was very profitable, and we’ve been
saving so hard for so long. We deserve it.” He touched her
shoulder. She glared at his hand and then up at him. He removed it.
“Sorry.”

“I found this for Arianna,” she said, putting
a lovely red, silk sleeping gown in Jonathan’s hands. “I need to
find something for the baby, and I’ll be finished.”

“Their baby or ours?” he asked quietly.

She looked at the piles of gowns and outfits.
He was almost sure he saw a flicker of emotion and one or two of
the bricks crumble from the wall she had built around herself.

“Theirs,” she whispered.

He prolonged their time in the city by
suggesting they get something to eat before heading home. They sat
across from each other in a booth by the window of a small
restaurant.

“Hungry?” he asked cheerfully, even more
determined to break through the rest of the fortified barrier that
was keeping her from him. He now knew it was penetrable.

“A little.” She hunched over the table
peering at the menu. He ordered a Reuben and soup, but she only
wanted soup.

“I know it’s early, but have you thought
about any names yet?” he asked. She shook her head and focused her
eyes across the room. “What are you hoping for? A boy or a girl?”
he asked. Her eyes rolled back to him with a slow, irritated
blink.

“What are you hoping for, Jonathan?” There
was no right answer and he knew it. If he said a boy, she would
call him a liar because he'd already gotten his boy; claiming he
only wanted to make her feel better that she could produce a child
equal to what Elyse had produced. If he said a girl, she’d call him
a liar as well; claiming he only said it to avoid a riff with
wanting a boy and to avoid being forced to choose who produced the
better boy.

This was his fear anyway. Since she had been
so emotional and irrational lately, it wouldn’t surprise him if his
fear turned out to be well founded. He went with both honesty and
diversion.

“I want a healthy baby and a quick delivery
with as little discomfort as possible for you.” She nodded at his
acceptable, albeit safe, answer. They were served lunch and it was
left to Jonathan to break the silence once again.

“Tell me more about Maura,” he said quietly,
cooling a spoonful of soup. “You said things were getting bad.”

“They are.” As soon as the subject of Maura
came up, her voice softened and she spoke easily. “She said that
there are a lot of people out of work. She sees bread lines every
day now, sometimes over a block long. Families are moving in
together to save money. There’s also a bunch of people living in
Central Park. She said it’s like a city of tents and shanties. The
city doesn’t like it, but there’s nowhere else for them to go. They
shoo some of them away, but they show up again in a few days.” She
crushed crackers into her vegetable soup with a furrowed brow,
worried for Maura.

“How are she and Ian doing? I mean, is it
that bad for them?”

“Not yet. Maura is still working for the
family she went to after us, but they’ve shortened her workdays.
Her aunt lost her job at the library, so she’s home every day to
tell Ian how poor a job he’s doing of raising Scottie. To make ends
meet for now, they are dipping into the money saved to bring
Maura’s mother over. She’s heartbroken over that.”

“I wish there was something we could do.” He
stared at the table, his soup growing cold, trying to brainstorm a
solution to help. Several moments later he sighed, resigned to
helplessness.

“How about Shannon and Patrick? Have you
heard from them?”

“Yes. It’s getting rough for them, too.
Patrick still has his job, but every day he wonders if it will be
his last. I guess they're laying off men every week. And Shannon is
worried she’s pregnant again.”

He looked up with raised eyebrows. “Lord,
that’s the last thing they need.”

“I guess Patrick has a new hobby of yelling
at the radio, especially when the President says things are okay
now and continue to get better every day. He yells that maybe His
Highness should take a stroll down to Central Park or any number of
alleys in the lower east side to see the people huddled in them or
to the factories and docks to see how many men continue to walk
away without a job every Friday.”

Jonathan laughed at her attempt to
impersonate Patrick’s thick, Irish brogue. “I miss them,” he said.
“I wish there was something we could do.” It was all they could do
to save a bit toward their own future home and contribute to living
expenses; but now with another mouth to feed and yet another to
come the end of the year, she wondered if they would ever be able
to move out.

“I was thinking about planning a picnic next
weekend,” he said, abruptly changing the subject.

“Why?” Her eyes glazed again as her smile
faded.

“Well, for one, I like spending time with
you, for two, the weather’s been beautiful, for three, Jean asked
if we could have one. The three of us.”

“I’d rather not,” she said curtly and went
back to her cold soup.

“Ava, he’s just a child. He has no idea–”

“He’s your child with
her
. And I don’t want anything to do
with him. I thought I made that clear.”

“I’m not asking you to love him, just–”

Her eyes flashed full of anger as she leaned
toward him.

“You made this decision without even
consulting me. You chose her wishes over mine. And I will never
forgive you.” She gathered her hat and gloves to leave.

“Ava, wait!” He grabbed her wrist and she
jerked it away. “You’re right. I should have talked to you first.
I’m sorry, all right, a thousand times, I'm sorry.” His voice was
hushed. “I was in shock–completely stunned, I couldn’t breathe . .
. I . . . .” He leaned his elbow on the table, held his forehead in
his hand, and looked at her pitifully. “I miss you,” he
whispered.

She looked away quickly, but not quick
enough; he saw one more brick fall. He ordered tea for both of
them, and they sat quietly for a long time. “I need to know,” he
said, sitting up straighter and running his hand through his hair.
“Are you leaving me?” Her head jerked and for a brief second, she
looked insulted.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked
spitefully.

“No. Of course not. I just thought, under the
circumstances of you writing Maura so much, you might be thinking
about it.”

More silence. He sighed and let his hand fall
onto the table with a thud. “Jesus, Ava, just tell me yes or no. I
need to know.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said quietly. “I
just don’t know if I can do it, Jon. If I can look at him every
day. You have no idea how I feel or what goes through my mind. And
I don’t know if I can look at you every day. I don’t even know if I
want this baby.” His eyes widened and dread balled up in his
stomach.

“What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.

“I don’t know,” she whispered with tears in
her eyes. She reached for her hat and gloves again, and this time
he didn’t try to stop her. He walked a few paces behind her to the
car.

∞∞∞

After a silent ride home, she went directly
to their room, closing the door behind her. Jonathan sat on the
couch, and Jean scrambled up to sit beside him, showing him several
drawings he had done that day.

“Wow.” He looked at Jean and back to the
drawings. “You did these?” Jean grinned shyly and nodded. “They’re
very good.” He studied the drawings, stunned, and glanced at his
mother.

“Jean drew those for you,” she said,
confirming Jonathan’s questioning look. He shook his head and
rubbed his chin, amazed. “You’re a good, little artist. I bet you’d
enjoy meeting Claire. She’s an artist, too. She paints.”

“I love to paint!” he said and smiled widely.
“When can I meet her?”

“Well, you know that picnic? Maybe we could
invite Claire and her husband and our other friends, too?” That way
Ava would have to go, he thought.

“Oui, can we please?”

“We can,” Jonathan said with a tired
smile.

Jean scooted off the couch, announcing, “I
have to go to bed now.” He headed toward the stairs, pausing to hug
his grandmother on his way. “Good night, Grand’Mere.”

Jonathan had just placed his bedding on the
couch when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Ava went to the
kitchen for a drink of water and then stopped at the landing of the
stairs, gripping the rail tightly.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch
anymore,” she said. Her voice was strained, as though the words
were forced at gunpoint. “I know you work hard, and I won’t be
responsible for causing someone pain.” She glared at him pointedly.
“But mind the line.”

When he walked into the room, he saw she had
taken a pen and physically drawn a line down the center of the
white sheet.

April 7th 1930

“So, did you make any headway Saturday?”
Aryl’s pace was slowing, tiring from the repetitive hand-over-hand
motion of pulling up the heavy pots.

“Yes and no.” Jonathan took a large bite of
apple and then tucked it in his pocket as the first pot emerged
from the water. He leaned to haul it up and over as Aryl began
pulling up the next pot. “I’m off the couch. But she still barely
talks to me.”

“What about the kid? How is she around him?”
Aryl paused to wipe sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. “Damn,
it’s getting warm,” he muttered and went back to his tug of war
with the sea.

“She ignores him. I guess it could be worse.
She’s not outright mean to him. She spends a lot of time with
Claire and Arianna and when I’m home, she spends a lot of time in
the room or the garden.”

“You’re getting the next string,” Aryl
grunted as he pulled up yet another pot swollen with a red mass of
black beady eyes, claws that snapped with a tight sinister pop and
antennae that wildly poked out of the pot in all directions.
Jonathan opened the pot and grimaced as he carefully transferred
them to the water hold, occasionally throwing one back
overboard.

“I still say these are the ugliest things,”
he muttered.

“Well, feel free to trade me places. My arms
are killing me.”

“I will, next string,” Jonathan said and
grinned. “Anyway, I hope the picnic this weekend will go all right.
She didn’t like the idea of just the three of us having one.”

“Do me a favor,” Aryl said as he pulled
another pot over the edge. “Go over there and kick Caleb. Nap time
is over.” He glanced over his shoulder at Caleb, who slept curled
on his side with a coat over his head. Jonathan nudged him on the
shoulder.

“Hey, wake up. Wouldn’t want you to miss all
the fun.”

Caleb pushed the coat off his head and
squinted in the sunlight.

“How long was I out?” he asked groggily while
rubbing his face.

“Couple hours.” Jonathan went back to sorting
lobsters. Caleb wobbled to his feet.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he grumbled.

“Arianna still keeping you awake?” Aryl
asked. Caleb nodded mid-yawn.

“She can’t get comfortable. Her back hurts,
her feet are swollen, and she has to use the bathroom every hour.
And she’s having more and more of those practice pains. I guess
they don’t hurt that bad, but they wake her up, which wakes me up.
I’ll be glad when this is over,” he said, rubbing his eyes
again.

“Aw, you can’t stop now. I’ve always pictured
you with at least a dozen kids running around that farm,” Aryl
said. Caleb glowered at him as he started unloading a pot.

“Just you wait,” he warned.

“I can’t wait to have kids.” Aryl smiled.

“You say that now, but I think you’ll be
singing a different tune when Claire is,” he paused, and even
though they were in the middle of the ocean, he lowered his voice
to a whisper, “as big as a house and crabby and crying and throwing
things.” Caleb shuddered. “But that’s not what bothers me the
most,” he continued, setting aside the empty pot and dragging
another away from the wall. “There isn’t a damn thing I can do to
make it better.” He shook his head in frustration. Aryl pulled the
last pot up and sat down hard, completely spent.

“It’s almost over, Caleb. Couple more
months.” Caleb nodded, yawned again, and finished working. “Let’s
go in after this,” Aryl said. Jonathan stopped working and stared
at him for a moment.