Just Like Other Daughters (24 page)

I liked Dr. Alvarez. I felt confident in her ability and relieved that Jin had found her for us. At least I wouldn’t be worrying about Chloe’s health during the pregnancy. At least not too much.

“A January baby!” Margaret exclaims.

I try not to be angry with her. She’s very excited by the prospect of a baby. Of course, my guess is that she won’t be the one up in the middle of the night with an infant . . . and neither will her son. Neither will my daughter, for that matter.

Randall clears his throat. The Eldens make him uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s just because they’re different from his circle of friends and acquaintances, or if it’s something to do with the fact that their son has sex with his daughter. I had to threaten to tell the department he was going to be a grandfather to get him here tonight. “Chloe’s health insurance is good, through the university, so at least we don’t have to worry about that.”

“Any more tea, anyone?” I indicate the teapot in the middle of the coffee table. There are cookies, too. Peanut butter, that Thomas and Chloe made all by themselves. Slice and bake. Thomas has learned to man the timer and is pretty darn good at it, although he has to stand there and watch it. “Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?”

No one takes more tea. Nor does anyone address the obvious: testing for mental disabilities. I know we all have to be thinking about it. How can we
not
? Obviously, the decision has been made that Chloe and Thomas will be having this baby, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want information.

I look at the three of them. Randall is sitting beside me on one of the couches; Danny and Margaret are sitting across from us. Everyone is obviously uncomfortable. I plow forward. If they’re already uncomfortable, does it really matter what else I say?

“Dr. Alvarez says she’ll run a series of blood tests around fourteen weeks. To look for possible genetic anomalies . . . like Down Syndrome.”

“Is that necessary?” Danny asks. It’s the first time he’s initiated the conversation since they arrived. “I mean. We’re keeping the baby. If the baby has Down’s, we don’t really care, do we?”

“She’ll test for other things too: sickle cell, cystic fibrosis. There will also be routine ultrasounds to follow the formation of bones, the heart, that sort of thing. It’s to give the OB and the pediatrician a heads-up, as much as anything.”

“Thomas was a healthy baby.” Margaret nibbles on a cookie. “And such a happy boy.”

Randall looks at his wristwatch. “Well, I think we’ve covered everything here.” He gets up. He hasn’t touched his tea. “If you’ll excuse me, I have an evening meeting to attend at the university.”

He lets himself out without calling upstairs to say good-bye to Chloe. I look at my teacup and wonder if the Eldens partake, because I could use a hit of whiskey in my Earl Grey right now.

“So!” Margaret says, clasping her hands together. “We’re going to have a baby!”

C
hloe’s pregnancy progresses uneventfully. Unlike the rest of our lives. Thomas becomes increasingly despondent. He misses his parents, his home, and his bed. Chloe just isn’t enough for him. I’m not enough.

At my insistence, Margaret and I and Chloe and Thomas go to several sessions with Dr. Tamara for family counseling. He’s not much help. He gives us
homework
and family-building
exercises
; he talks about the difficulties of any new marriage. But Thomas is uncooperative. The sad fact is (but no one wants to say it), Thomas thought he wanted to marry and live with Chloe and he doesn’t. Thomas doesn’t like change. He wants his mother. He wants things to be the way they always were, and not even the excitement of sex with my daughter is enough to make up for not being in his parents’ home, in his own bed, with his own familiar possessions around him. The truth is that Thomas remains more child than man. I think he always will.

Margaret is beside herself. She wants so badly for this to work. We all do, at this point. She tries, but like me, she’s at a loss as to what to do to help the unhappy couple. The thing that’s hardest for me is that Chloe isn’t all that unhappy. She’s only unhappy when Thomas is. But out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Chloe doesn’t protest anymore when Thomas wants to go home. She doesn’t like the changes that have taken place in her life because of the marriage, either. She helps him pack his bag. Maybe, like me, she secretly sighs a breath of relief when he goes overnight to stay with his parents. I’ve come to love Thomas, I truly have, but the fact remains that it’s hard to have him here with us all the time. Like Chloe, it can be mentally and physically challenging to take care of him day after day. And sometimes it’s nice to have a break.

Chloe begins to show, even in her chubby state, by twenty weeks. I take off the whole summer, no classes, even though we could use the extra income with the coming baby. I try to do things with Thomas and Chloe that I think he’ll like. I can occasionally get him to laugh or smile, but he’s most happy when I pull up at his parents’ house to let him out.

Thomas starts spending a few nights a week with his mom and dad, on a regular basis. Chloe flat-out refuses to stay overnight with them. She can’t be reasoned with, coaxed, or bribed. If I try to make her stay with her husband at the Eldens’, she throws a temper tantrum. Margaret doesn’t know how to deal with her. Twice in the last month, Chloe and Thomas have gone to the Eldens’, or somewhere with the Eldens, and Margaret has called me to come get her early.

On an August evening, Chloe goes up to bed after dinner to watch TV and rest her swollen feet and I’m left to do the dishes alone. Thomas has been with his mother for three days.

Mark taps on the back door about the time that Jin is walking in the front.

“I got those screens for the faucets.” Mark stands in my doorway and jiggles a little paper bag in front of me. “I was in the neighborhood, so . . .”

I chuckle. I’m glad he’s here. He’s become a good friend, and I can use as many as I can get these days. The more pregnant Chloe becomes, the more scared I become. How am I going to do this? I’m fifty-three years old. How am I going to care for a newborn? A toddler? How am I going to take care of a baby, and Chloe and Thomas?

The prenatal screening blood tests have all come back negative. The baby doesn’t have Down syndrome, which I think scares me more than if that blood test had just come back positive. I know how to deal with Trisomy 21. Thomas’s type of retardation is harder for me; I guess just because I’m not as familiar with it. Jin keeps reminding me that the chances the baby will be handicapped are only 50 to 70 percent. Which means there’s a 30 to 50 percent chance, maybe even higher since the baby doesn’t have Down’s, that the baby will be of average intelligence. I remind her regularly of the odds Chloe could have even gotten pregnant in the first place. Obviously the odds are against me.

“Iced tea or booze?” I ask Mark as we walk into the kitchen. Jin is already there, opening a bottle of wine.

“Gotta beer?” he asks, taking a stool at the counter.

“One beer, coming up.” Jin grabs one out of the refrigerator and slides the unopened bottle across the granite countertop toward him. They’re actually his beers, that he put there a few days ago. “Ally?”

“Let me finish loading the dishwasher and then I’ll decide.”

“Thomas back?” Jin pours herself a glass of shiraz.

“One more night, Margaret said. She called just before dinner. Chloe had made him hot dogs. We thought he was coming home.”

Mark frowns as he opens his beer. “Chloe upset?”

“Not really.” I think about it. “A little bit. I think she’s hurt that he wanted to spend every waking moment with her in the beginning, and now . . . he doesn’t. Of course she was also upset that I didn’t let her eat his hot dogs.”

Mark takes a sip of his beer. Nods with empathy.

Jin slides onto a stool. I’m on the other side of the counter, loading the last of the dirty dishes. I’m still debating whether I want the caffeine-free brewed iced tea or wine when the phone rings. I check the display before I pick up. It’s Margaret. I wonder if Thomas has changed his mind and wants to sleep with his wife tonight. I haven’t had anything to drink. If Jin can stay here with Chloe, I can run over and get him and save Margaret the gas. I know she worries about the money she spends driving him back and forth.

“Margaret?” I’m actually happy to hear from her. She’s become part of my family, crazy skirts, T-shirts and all.

“Alicia! You’re not going to believe the good news! Danny got a job!”

“Oh, Margaret, that’s wonderful news. I know you’re relieved. Please tell him congratulations for me.”

“It is wonderful news, isn’t it? The only downside is that it’s in Canton,” she bubbled on. “But our daughter Ruthie lives in Canton and it won’t be a problem at all for him to stay there during the week.”

Canton.
As in Ohio
. All I can think of is that Margaret and Danny are going to move away and leave Thomas with me to deal with on an everyday basis. “So . . .” I pace the kitchen. Jin and Mark watch me. “So, Danny will be in Ohio during the week—”

“And home on weekends!”

That doesn’t sound realistic to me, but Margaret sounds so excited that I’m excited for her. And they’ll work it out, won’t they? I know that, in the present economy, there are plenty of families who live in less-than-ideal situations. They make it work. Danny and Margaret will make it work.

“Is Chloe available?” Margaret sings in my ear. “Thomas wants to tell her the good news.”

“Hang on just a minute.” I take the phone upstairs, knock on Chloe’s door, and go in. She’s lying on top of her bedspread on her side, a fan blowing directly on her. She’s hot all the time now. No matter how low I set the thermostat on the central air. She’s watching a movie:
101 Dalmatians
.

“Phone’s for you, hon.” I look at my daughter’s pregnant belly, pushing against her kitty and balls of yarn T-shirt. She’s going to have to go into maternity shirts soon. Luckily, her shorts have stretchy waistbands and she’s just wearing them under her belly.

Chloe looks up. Cruella de Vil is singing. It’s the Glenn Close version and not animated—a pretty wild step outside Chloe’s box.

“It’s Thomas.” I bring the phone to my ear. “Here she is.”

“K . . . Koey!” I hear as I pass her the phone.

“Thomas, honey,” she says.

The tone of her voice makes me smile to myself. Neither Thomas nor Chloe have had much to say about the fact that they’re going to have a baby. They just don’t understand the impact it will have on their lives, on all our lives. But I can hear in their voices that they really do care about each other.

Maybe they’re going to be okay. Maybe we’re all going to be okay. Maybe I’m going to take to parenting this new baby, my grandchild, in ways I was never able to parent Chloe. A part of me is excited about the second chance. Now that I’ve had some time to get used to the idea. The first time I let too many people, too many things, influence me: Randall, my mother’s death, Chloe’s disability, the way people looked at me in the grocery store. I truly do feel that, with age, has come wisdom. It’s not that I have any big regrets. But don’t all parents, with adult children, sometimes wish they could rewind their lives?

I leave Chloe alone to talk to her husband. Downstairs, someone has finished the dishes for me. And poured me a glass of wine.

I lean against the counter and sip my wine. We’re all quiet for a minute. It’s nice to have friends that you can sit with in silence and not feel uncomfortable.

“So, Danny got a job,” Jin says after a while.

I nod. “Canton.”

Mark sips his beer. Takes his time. I like that he can do that. He isn’t like me. He doesn’t have to react to things immediately. “They moving, Danny and Margaret?”

“She says not.” The wine is good. I pick pretty bottles, but Jin picks wine that tastes better.

Jin reaches across the counter and covers my hand with hers. “It’s going to be fine.”

Mark just sips his beer.

 

The days continue to fly by on my iCal. I measure their passing by the ever-increasing girth of my daughter’s belly. She’s a good sport about the whole thing. She tries to eat healthier and she’s willing to gag down the enormous prenatal vitamins her OB has prescribed. I question her extensively about taking the little pink pills, because it still bugs me, but she never cracks.

“I ate them so I didn’t get a baby” is all she ever says.

Just the same, I decide I’ll dole out the prenatal vitamins myself. When Thomas is here, which turns into only three or four days a week, he gets a vitamin, too, because he insists he needs one to make the baby strong. It’s easier than arguing with him, and multivitamins are cheap enough at the drugstore.

Danny starts his job in Ohio in late August. Jin and Abby make plans to move in together in September. Thomas continues to be unhappy at our house, but not any unhappier than he’s been in months. I keep telling myself that things are going to change, that Thomas is going to get used to the new living arrangements.

Then he gets sick the first week of October. His cough is awful, his nose is running, and he runs a fever. It’s a virus, according to his doctor. There’s nothing to do but keep the fever down and let it run its course.

When Margaret suggests he come home to recuperate, I don’t argue. At seven months pregnant, Chloe is robustly healthy. Pregnancy seems to agree with her: no morning sickness, no heartburn. Her doctor’s only concern is an occasional elevation in her blood pressure. As healthy as she is, there’s no need to risk having Chloe get sick. Sharing the same bed, not being extra careful with hygiene; it just makes sense for Thomas to go and Chloe to stay. I know Margaret is lonely, anyway. Danny can’t come home every weekend, as they had anticipated; it’s an eight-hour drive. But he likes his new job, and I know that Margaret is relieved not to be so worried about money.

We start buying things for the baby; we’ve chosen not to know its sex. I buy a crib that matches Chloe’s bed. There are only two bedrooms upstairs because we made the third a laundry room, and the baby is certainly not sleeping with me. (At least I hope not.) Margaret gets a great deal on a changing table. I start picking up tiny T-shirts and sleepers. I look at diapers and wipes at the grocery store. I begin to take an interest in infants I see out in public. I even buy a book at a St. Mark’s yard sale about what to expect in the first year of life. I know, I’ve had a baby before. But Chloe is twenty-eight years old. That was a long time ago.

I also do Internet reading about how to parent babies born with mental disabilities. Things have changed a lot in that area, I know, since Chloe was a baby. I find several online social networks dealing with parenting the mentally challenged. I realize I don’t have to feel as alone as I did the first time around.

Thomas recovers from his illness, but he doesn’t come back to our house. Chloe and I visit him at the Eldens’. She even stays for an afternoon. Finally I just come right out and tell Margaret that I think Thomas needs to come spend a few days with us. It’s probably more me than Chloe; I feel he’s neglecting my daughter. So Thomas comes home with us, but his reluctance is obvious.

I tell Jin and Abby about it that night. We’re sitting around my kitchen table having a cup of herbal tea. Chloe and Thomas are in the living room. They’re supposed to be choosing a movie, but so far, I don’t hear anything coming from the TV.

I keep my voice low to prevent them from overhearing our conversation as I tell them how I manhandled Thomas and Margaret to get him here tonight.

Abby asks me an interesting question: “Why do you care?” Jin looks at Abby, then at me, then stirs some more organic honey into her tea.

“Pardon?” I say, cupping my hands around my warm mug.

“Why do you care if he sleeps here?” Abby asks. She’s sitting across the table from me, beside Jin. “Why do you care if he moves back in or not? You’ve said he’s a lot of extra work. If they’re happy living this way, why can’t you be happy with it?”

“They’re
married
,” I argue. “He should be here with Chloe. Especially considering the
circumstances
.”

Abby smiles at Jin. I see the emotional connection between them, and I’m just a little bit jealous.

“So this is about convention?” Abby asks.

I roll my eyes. “Is she like this all the time?” I ask Jin. “Is every conversation a courtroom argument?”

Jin chuckles and reaches for Abby’s hand. “Pretty much.”

Abby looks across the table at me. “I’m not trying to pick on you, Ally. I’m just saying that this doesn’t have to be a conventional marriage. They don’t have to sleep in the same house every night. Everyone has to make their own relationship work for them.”