Morning (23 page)

She was terrified that he was changing. She did not know what to do.

Mick drove the group crazy in the summer. He showed up at every get-together with a different girl, some rich college girl with a tan and a trust fund who was there for the summer to have fun and get laid. When Mick and one of his girls came around, everyone else felt suddenly shriveled with age and responsibility; they saw themselves trapped and dull and fat. And they were, compared to those gorgeous girls, who sometimes drove him to their parties in their Porsches, who came from the south and said that “Daddy” was, oh, off in Italy now, or Daddy had taken Mummy on a cruise. On their own ship.

In August one of Mick’s girls invited the gang to a party on her parents’ yacht, which was anchored in Nantucket Harbor. It was as long as a battleship, with its own captain and butler and maids. Music of one’s choice was piped into the bedrooms below, which were larger and more luxurious than the ones the group had in their houses. There were almonds coated in silver leaf for guests to munch on. Mick’s girl had a thick braid of silver-and-gold hair that swung down to her waist. She wore a gold chain around her tanned, sleek ankle. She smiled with white teeth that would have dazzled any dentist. Her stomach was flat and she couldn’t keep her hands off Mick. When the group went swimming together one Sunday afternoon, taking coolers of beers and sodas, she swam far out into the ocean, unafraid, and lost the top to her bikini, and didn’t mind, but came casually, unaffectedly, out of the ocean, water dripping and glittering from her full, upward-pointing breasts. Men and women alike groaned aloud, with different kinds of envy.

Later, when Mick had gone off somewhere else with his Venus, the men played volleyball and the women sat in a cluster, watching their children make sand castles or wade in the surf. Here and there the youngest babies lay on beach blankets under umbrellas, naked, sucking bottles, their eyes closed, drowsy from the heat and bright
light.

“I remember the days when my stomach was as flat as Mick’s girlfriends’s,” Jamie said, sighing. “Never again.”

“Maybe Mick will knock her up,” Carole said with a nasty grin. “Let’s sneak into his house some night and poke holes in his condoms.”

“Nice talk,” Annie Danforth said, laughing. “Listen, my stomach isn’t that flat and I haven’t had any babies. Lord, my stomach wasn’t that flat when I was eight!”

“We’re the pizza generation,” Carole said. “My parents told me that when they were growing up no one ate pizza. No one knew about it. I’m convinced that’s the reason I’m chronically overweight.”

Mary had just covered her two-year-old daughter’s bare skin with a light cotton blanket, shielding her from the sun’s rays. Mary was wearing a bikini, her breasts swelling, so that the top looked several sizes too small. “Well,” she said, smiling, “I’m going to get to forget about dieting for a while. For the next few months I can get away with looking fat—I’m pregnant again.” She grinned at the group, triumphant.

There were squeals of surprise and pleasure.

“Mary! How great! When is the baby due?” Jamie asked.

“March,” Mary said. “A nice little spring baby. It’s about time, my other two have been early-winter ones. But I’m going to need some winter maternity clothes.”

Everyone talked at once, offering clothes, asking questions, everyone but Sara, who sat falsely smiling, shocked, caught in a rage of envy that made her feel wild. She had to use every bit of energy to control herself, to control her face, her voice, to hide her trembling.

Not fair! Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!
something inside her was screaming.
Why does she get three babies and I get none?

“Did you plan this baby?” Jamie asked Mary.

Mary laughed. “Jamie, come on. Are you kidding me? I’ve never planned any baby. In fact they’ve
all
been accidents. I just
think
about sex and get pregnant.”

“You mean you get pregnant even if you use birth control?” Annie Danforth asked.

“The first time I was using a diaphragm, if you can believe it. I guess it was just worn out. It was super-old. And I took it out after about four hours; you’re supposed to leave them in for six. But I was filled up with that spermicide goop. And Heather
happened when I was nursing Blaise. They’ll tell you you can’t get pregnant when you’re nursing, but believe me, you can. And with this one, I was using foam. I still don’t know what happened. It’s just the way I am, I’m just basically an old breeding sow, I guess.” Mary leaned back on her elbows, looking down at her stomach, which still stretched sleekly between the two tiny strips of bikini. She smiled, a smile Sara had seen often before on others, a smile that reeked of secret pleasure and superiority.

Sara sat in the sun and listened to the others talk. She could not rouse herself to join in the conversation. She could not trust her voice not to shake, giving away her emotional state. And what could she ask? What could she say?

How do you do it?
she could ask.
Can you tell me how you do it? Could you loan me some of your power, some of your luck?

The sun shone down on them all, on the men yelling and falling in the sand as their volleyball game got wilder, on the babies toddling and sleeping around the group of women, and on the women, who sat focused now on the new queen of their group, the one with the secret, the power, the age-old triumph, the unknown baby growing in her belly. The sun shone down hotly, making the ocean throw off shards of light that sliced at their eyes. It was a good excuse to put on sunglasses, and Sara slid hers on gratefully, glad to cover her eyes, which she felt must be vivid with pain. When she put her glasses on, she realized with a shock that her hands had gone icy cold.

That night she said to Steve as they lay together in bed, “I’m going to go ahead and schedule that laparoscopy.”

They had already turned off the light, and she could not see his face, or he hers.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked, turning toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s the end of August,” Sara said. “I know I’m going to get my period tomorrow, for the twenty-first month since we stopped using birth control. I think I really should do it.” She kept her voice matter-of-fact and pleasant.

“But you told me you were afraid.…” Steve let his voice trail off in a question.

“Well, I suppose I still am, a little. But Ellie promised me that I’ll be okay, and she’s a nurse. She says the risk of getting killed in a car accident on the way to the hospital is higher than the risk of anything happening in the hospital.”

“Well, don’t feel like you have to do it,” Steve said. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Oh, I know,” Sara replied. She could feel his hand on her arm, he was kneading her arm, and she was grateful for this sign of concern. “But I’ve been thinking, now that I’m through with
Jenny’s Book
, and almost through editing another romance novel, we aren’t rich, but we have enough money for the operation. So that’s okay. And—and I just think it’s time to schedule it. The doctor told me it has to be done between the time I’ve finished my period and before ovulating. So that they’re sure when they cut into me that I’m not pregnant. I know they won’t be able to schedule it this month, so I’ll have a month to finish editing
Love’s Golden Clasp
before I go. I feel good about it, Steve, really I do.”

That was a lie, of course. She did not feel good about it. She simply felt desperate, in a strangely numb way. It was as if that afternoon on the beach, when The Virgin made her announcement, something had happened to her, to her entire body and soul, that caused her to go cold, blankly cold, like something dead. And she carried death within her now, she was in her period, she did not carry life. It was a relief, this cold, this blankness, for the heat of grief was so searing, so painful. She felt her husband stroking her now, and wondered that he did not mention how cold she was, wondered why he did not pull his hand away in surprise. She knew he was making love to her, and she knew she was responding acceptably, but she felt nothing at all, nothing at all.

Chapter Eight

“You’re in luck!” the nurse said, as cheerfully as if she were from
Wheel of Fortune
. “We can schedule you for a week from Wednesday. According to what you’ve just told me, that should be your twelfth day. You’ll be through with your period, but you won’t have ovulated then, right?”

The nurse babbled away at Sara. The operation would take place at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Wednesday. She would need to come into Boston on Tuesday to get consent forms at Dr. Crochett’s office and then have lab work done at the hospital. She would have general anesthetics; the day before the operation she would have a consultation with the anesthesiologist. They would do a laparoscopy, with a possible laparotomy if she had endometriosis. They would do a tubal lavage and an endometrial biopsy. Possibly a D&C. If the doctor did only a laparoscopy, Sara could leave the hospital that day—probably. If he had to do a laparotomy, which required a major abdominal incision, she would be in the hospital for five days more and should plan on spending four weeks after that resting and recuperating. She should get her insurance information ready for the hospital. She should plan to have someone drive her home from the hospital; she would not be allowed to leave the hospital by herself.

Sara hung up the phone weak with terror. She did not know why it was that her sister loved hospitals, while she grew sick with fear at the thought of them, but it was an instinctive reaction she couldn’t help. Perhaps it was that her imagination was too vivid and that she remembered every medical mistake ever mentioned on television or in the newspapers. Perhaps she had a basic mistrust of people and knew how easily even the most careful person could make mistakes. Perhaps it was simply that this was her phobia, almost everyone had at least one special fear. But there was no way to explain it away. She did not know how to handle it. She would go ahead with this surgery, she would not back down, but she would go into it filled with dread.

She called her sister. Ellie tried for a few minutes to be sympathetic and reassuring, but then interrupted herself. “Oh, Sara,” she said, “I’m so sorry, I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you this and I just can’t wait any longer—I’m pregnant again! I’m almost five months pregnant. Yes, I was pregnant when I was with you this
summer, but I didn’t want to tell you. I knew it would upset you.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Ellie, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad for you,” Sara said. It took all her energy to infuse her voice with enthusiasm. She was consumed with jealousy. It was as if something had just grasped her heart and twisted it.

“You should see Joey,” Ellie said. “He’s so adorable now that my tummy’s sticking out. He goes around sticking his fat little tummy out and saying, ‘I’ve got a baby in my tummy just like Mommy!’ ”

Sara laughed dutifully. And, just as dutifully, Ellie turned the conversation back to Sara’s operation and reassured her once again.

When Sara hung up, she went out the back door and stood for a moment in the dark yard, looking at the empty blue sky.
Why Ellie? Why not me?
she asked whatever force it was that ruled the day and night, that caused the patterns of seasons and constellations and birth and blood. But whatever force it was did not answer. Sara knew it would never answer her, and she felt rejected by it, ignored. She wanted to sink into the ground, crushed with shame.

That weekend Sara and Steve were invited to dinner at Steve’s parents’ house. They had decided to tell the older Kendalls about Sara’s forthcoming operation—it would be too difficult to disguise what was going on, especially if Sara had to stay in the hospital for five days. And Steve was going to take three days off work to go up with Sara on Tuesday and come back with her on Thursday; or, if she had the laparotomy, would come back after five days to pick her up. Sara and Steve spoke to his parents daily when they were on Nantucket; they couldn’t just disappear for a couple of days without worrying them.

Sara had a stiff drink before facing her in-laws with the news of her inability to get pregnant. She loved Clark and Caroline and knew they cared for her, but still she worried what their reactions would be—concern, pity, bewilderment? The reaction, to her surprise, was impatience, even anger, from Caroline.

As they sat in the living room, looking out at the Atlantic, Caroline Kendall became uncharacteristically bold.

“Sara, this is ridiculous!” she said. “A young woman like you scheduling herself for surgery. Steven, how could you let her do such a thing? Really! You should never schedule surgery unless it’s absolutely necessary! Unless it’s a life-and-death matter! It’s
so dangerous! Besides, this is an issue for the Lord to handle, not for surgery. I’m sorry if you’ve had trouble getting pregnant, Sara, but really I think you’re going about it the wrong way. Surgery! I think you should
relax
. Everyone knows if you just relax, you’ll get pregnant. Relax and trust in the Lord. If He wills it, you’ll have a baby, and if He doesn’t, no amount of surgery will help. You should trust in the Lord.”

Sara was so shocked at her mother-in-law’s outburst that her breath seemed knocked out of her. She looked at Steve; his jaw was clenched.

“Look, Mother,” he said, his voice hard and formal. “There’s no point in arguing about this. We’ve made up our minds. We’ve been trying for quite a while now, and since ‘the Lord’ hasn’t come through for us, we’re going to try a little intelligent medical help. This is the twentieth century, you know.”

“How long have you been trying?” Caroline asked.

Oh, spare me this, spare me
, Sara silently pleaded. Still she could not answer.

“Almost two years,” Steve said.

Caroline was obviously shocked by this news. “Oh, dear,” she said, and looked at Sara quickly, as if trying to see through her clothes and skin into her flawed belly. Then she looked quickly away. “Well,” she said, and then she was speechless. Her hands fluttered up to her hair and her eyes blinked, then her entire face sagged. It was as if suddenly it occurred to her that this was serious, this was final; she was not to be a grandmother; she was not to have a grandchild. Her face almost crumpled. “I’d better go check the roast,” she said, her voice quavering.