Between Husbands and Friends (18 page)

There are toys in the lab room where we sit, but Jeremy wants to know about the process, wants to hear the real, grown-up words about what’s being done to him.

“Pilocarpine stimulates the sweat glands,” Allen tells him.

“Pilocarpine,” Jeremy repeats, syllable by syllable.

“We’ve already weighed the gauze pads; when the time is up, we’ll weigh them again to see if there’s any change; this difference would be in sweat, from which we measure the salt content.”

“I have
salt
in my body?” Jeremy asks, eyes wide.

“We all do. Human beings have lots of minerals in our bodies.”

He is such a beautiful boy, with fine gold-glinting brown hair that curls in loose lazy
swirls and huge eyes, thickly lashed. (“Not fair, Mom!” Margaret has often chided me. “Why did you give Jeremy those long lashes and not me?” As if I had some control over their genetic inheritance!)

Now his eyes widen in response to the electric currents.

“Feels like when your foot falls asleep, doesn’t it?” the lab tech asks.

“Like when I hit my crazy bone,” Jeremy tells him. He looks up at me. “It kind of itches.”

“Good boy.” I nuzzle a kiss into his hair. His scalp smells clean and slightly salty, as if we were still at the sea.

“Time’s up! You did great, Jeremy.” Allen detaches the electrodes. “I need you to keep the gauze on for about thirty minutes, okay? You don’t have to stay here. In fact, you ought to go check out our entertainment center. Just come back in about half an hour.”

Jeremy holds my hand as we find our way back through the corridors to the elevators and then down to the main floor. The entertainment center is a large open area with a stage. Several children are playing in the long stage curtain, hiding in its folds, and Jeremy runs over to join them. I sit down at one of the low tables. Whenever Jeremy looks for me, I wave, as if we’re at a playground.

Abigail Alison Cunningham was born three nights after Maxwell Junior was born. Kate was in labor less than three hours. Abby weighed eight pounds, one ounce, and had a full head of sleek, nearly white hair. She was perfect.

Kate told me all this over the phone. I went home the day Kate went into the hospital and while I could have summoned the energy to return to the hospital, I had no inner resources of strength left which would have allowed me to see her new baby without weeping for the loss of my own. It seemed that I wept all the time.

My body craved its baby, my arms yearned to hold my child, the milk in my breasts pushed and swelled, wanting to be sucked. My body, which had been blooming and blushing like a full summer rose, seemed blighted. Now it was only a skin full of useless fluids and tears. Alone behind a locked bathroom door, I dug my fingernails into the skin of my traitorous belly, my moans hidden by the noise of the shower. Hideous body. Vile body. Evil body. To have carried a little boy for nine full months and then to choke the life from him at the moment of his birth! My body was abominable. I was detestable. I thought I would go mad with my grief-driven thoughts trapped beneath my treacherous shell.

I let my daughter observe some of my sorrow. It seemed appropriate to do so. She should know that this baby was loved, that his death was something of great significance. She was only seven, though; it was hard for her to understand. Impossible for anyone of any age to understand, really. She didn’t cry when we told her. But she was subdued over the next few days and weeks, and she watched her father and me closely. When I lay in bed weeping, she would come and lie next to me, studying my face. After a while she would pat my hair or my arm. “It will be all right, Mommy. It will be all right.”

She was my living child. I owed it to her to agree with her, to show her that life could go on, that she was loved, that I was happy in her presence.

“Yes, Pudding,” I would reply. “It will be all right.” And I would pull her to me, and the warmth of her small perfect body against mine soothed me for a while, and for her sake I would talk of other things: her school, Brownies, ballet lessons.

Life had to go on. Laundry had to be done. Food had to be bought and prepared and eaten. Margaret’s schoolwork, words written in huge crayon letters, pictures of flowers and bunnies, had to be admired. I had to wash my hair and clothe myself and leave the house to drive my daughter to visit friends. I had to answer what seemed like hundreds of well-intentioned phone calls: “Yes. Thank you. It’s very kind of you to call.”

I had to pretend that I wasn’t furious with Max, who left for work early in the morning and stayed there until late at night. He was using the paper as a refuge from his grief, and I felt abandoned, left to suffer on my own. He did spend a dutiful amount of time with Margaret, taking her off for little forays to the library or to buy an ice cream cone. In front of our daughter, he did a sufficient job of behaving as if all would be well. But I needed him to weep with me.

As time went on, I ceased being angry at Max and instead became worried about him. He stopped shaving and his beard grew in, a motley mixture of black, brown, and red, coarse and unattractive. It didn’t suit him, and it bothered me. It was like trying to kiss thistles, and I knew that was one of the reasons he’d stopped shaving, to put up this rough barrier between us. He became busier and busier, as if hiding from his grief, like a frantic animal trying to cover over a well of sorrow that lay open beneath him, an endless dark pit growing deeper with each day.

For a few days after Abby’s birth, Kate phoned me again, and we talked briefly, until I cut the conversation short, pretending I had chores to do. After that, I kept the answering machine on and blocked all Kate’s calls. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with her sympathy or with her joy.

Perhaps in every close friendship there is an element of, if not competition, then comparison. Perhaps that is one of the things that makes a friend belong especially to us. Somehow, in the secrecy of our hearts, a scale must balance. Kate was more beautiful than I, and much wealthier, but I was smarter than she was, and happier in my life.

Now the balance had been destroyed forever.

When Abby was a month old, Kate phoned. I stood looking down at our answering machine while she said, “Lucy. I want to see you. I want you to see my baby girl. I want to see Margaret. I want her to see Abby. I’m coming over tomorrow. You don’t have to make tea or even get dressed, but you do have to open the door and let me come in.”

I picked up the phone. “All right.” I added, “Come around four. So that Margaret will be here.”

While I dressed for Kate’s visit, my emotions roiled so turbulently that I longed for some kind of valve to squeeze, to let some of the pressure out. Why did I lose my baby? Why didn’t
Kate lose hers? Why did she insist on coming here, to display her perfect daughter in all her newborn glory? Why couldn’t she leave me alone? I never wanted to see Kate again.

The woman who stared back at me in the mirror was a hag. I had lost a great deal of weight and my loose sundress hung on me. Everything drooped, hair, face, shoulders, empty breasts, empty belly. My skin was gray. I put lipstick on for the first time in a month, and the result was glaringly unpleasant, like wax lips on a dummy.

“They’re here!” Margaret was keeping watch from the living room window. She couldn’t wait to see Matthew again; he was her best friend and she’d seen him only at school for the past month. And she was excited about seeing the new baby, the girl baby. “They’re coming up the walk!” Margaret announced. “Oooh, Kate’s got a little bundle in her arms. A little pink blanket. Oooh, I can see a tiny hand!”

Kate knocked. Margaret raced to the door and threw it open, dancing up and down in ecstasy. “Kate! Matthew! Let me see your baby!”

I said hello to Kate and Matthew, and when I smiled, my lips trembled with tension. Kate was more beautiful than I’d ever seen her in all her life. She’d gained weight with her pregnancy, and her full cheeks curved much like those in the old Dutch masters paintings. Her skin was luminous. Her hair shone. She was radiant with happiness.

She settled on the sofa, laid her daughter in the ridge between her thighs, and unwrapped the pink blanket, exposing a small, perfect child in a creamy dress. Abby’s tiny feet were bare.

“It’s too hot for her to wear booties,” Kate explained to Margaret, who pressed close to Kate, looking down with awe at Abby. Matthew sat next to his mother, smiling at his sister.

Margaret asked, “Can I touch her?”

Kate said, “Of course.”

I sank onto the edge of a chair and watched my daughter reach out her hand to gently touch a tiny wriggling foot. I could see that Abby was awake, alert, trying to focus.

“She’s so soft,” Margaret said. Her face was tender with adoration.

“Oooh,” Abby cooed in a sweet high voice and waved her little fists in the air.

Margaret leaned closer to the baby. “Hi, baby,” she said gently. “Hi, Abby.” She reached out to touch the little girl’s hand. The baby responded with another coo and waved all her limbs like a starfish. Her tiny fist opened, then closed on Margaret’s finger.

Margaret looked up at Kate, her eyes shining. “She likes me.”

“She likes you a lot, Margaret.”

Kate gave my daughter a one-armed hug. She looked over at me. It was only when our
eyes met that I realized that tears were streaming down my face. A look of complete understanding fell over Kate’s face. Her forehead furrowed and she bit her lips.

“She needs to sleep now,” Kate told Margaret, even though Abby was obviously wide awake. “Matthew brought you a present.”

“The Lego circus!” Matthew yelped, holding up a bag in his hand.

“Why don’t you and Matthew go play in your room for a while,” Kate suggested. “We’ll call you when Abby wakes up.”

“I could hold her while she sleeps,” Margaret suggested eagerly. “I could sit here and be very quiet and hold her.”

“You go play for a while,” Kate said. “You can hold Abby when she wakes up.”

Margaret knew that tone of voice well. “Okay,” she said, unable to hide her disappointment. “Come on, Matthew.”

The M&Ms left the room. We heard them chatter to each other as they went up the stairs. We heard the rattle of the toys being dumped onto the floor.

Kate put a cushion on the floor. She laid her baby daughter on the cushion. She came over to where I sat on the chair and knelt next to me.

“Lucy,” she said, and wrapped her arms around me and we held each other and sobbed, our tears soaking into each other’s hair.

As the pulmonary technologist gently removes the gauze and plastic from my son’s arms, he asks, “Did you find the entertainment center?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I met a kid who has a brace on his leg.”

“You’ll see lots of kids like that around here. There. You’re done with this part, Jeremy. It’s going to take about another half hour to develop.” He looks at his watch. “If you’re hungry, there’s a great Au Bon Pain.”

“Can we see the aquarium, Mom?” Jeremy asks.

“Sure.” I take his hand and we walk together down the hall, over the bright squares and triangles.

At Au Bon Pain we buy sandwiches, juice, and cookies, but I’m not really hungry and Jeremy is eager to get to the large aquariums in the lobby, so I wrap our food and pack it in a bag; we can eat it later, during the drive back down to Hyannis.

“Wow, Mom! Look at this!”

The fish Jeremy likes is brilliant, nearly fluorescent, yellow, flat, and silky, like a tulip with eyes. Jeremy presses his face close to the glass.

“What kind of fish is this, Mom?”

“I don’t know. We’ll go to the library and get a book and find out.”

He runs and turns, following the fish as it speeds back and forth.

“Are there fish like this at the Jetties?”

“I don’t think so, honey. I think these are tropical fish. They need warm water.”

“Can we get one?”

“Perhaps. We’ll have to do some research. We certainly can’t have an aquarium this large, and it may be that this kind of fish needs a lot of space.”

My voice cracks as I talk. Our half hour is almost up. My throat and mouth have gone dry.