Morning (25 page)

“Oh, Sara, oh, sweet,” David said, soothing her. “Sara, you are beautiful, you are a beautiful woman.”

“No,” Sara went on, “you don’t understand. I’m nothing. I am useless. And I’m so fucking helpless in all this! And it’s all so unfair! David, I need a Kleenex.”

David rose, went into the other room, came back wearing a robe and carrying a box of tissues and a soft blanket. He waited until she had wiped her nose and eyes, then wrapped the blanket around her. He went into the kitchen, came back with hot coffee, which he had made sweet and strong and creamy.

Sara drank it, and the warmth of the blanket and the coffee soothed her. She leaned against a corner of the sofa and looked at David, whose dark eyes were sad and kind.

“I’ve got to go into the hospital,” she said, her voice calmer now. “I’ve got to have an operation. A laparoscopy, possible laparotomy. They’ll put needles in my veins and tubes in my mouth and drugs in my body. General anesthesia. They’ll cut my stomach open with a knife. I’m terrified.”

“You never were good with blood, I recall,” David said lightly. “Remember the
night I sliced open my thumb when I was cooking you stir-fry?”

She smiled. “No, I never was good with blood.” She sipped her coffee. “David, do you know the worst thing about me? The very worst thing? Not just that I’m sterile, barren, useless. But I’m so full of anger, so full of a desire for revenge I can’t believe it’s me. David, I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking: I’m going to have this fucking operation, and I’m going to die on the operating table, and then Steve will be free, and his old girlfriend Mary will be there to console him in an instant, and they’ll be in bed together within hours, poor Steve, he’ll need solace, and then they’ll get married and have children together. Sometimes I want to say to Steve, to
scream
at Steve, ‘Why don’t we just get divorced? Then you can marry Mary and have kids and I won’t have to die.’ ”

“That’s a horrible thing to think, Sara,” David said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t know Steve, but I can assure you that if you died his life would be ruined. If he lost you, his life would be absolutely ruined.”

Sara burst into fresh tears at David’s words. “Oh, David,” she sobbed. “What am I going to do? This thing is taking over my life. It’s warping everything.”

“Have you talked to Steve about all this?”

“I’ve tried. He won’t talk. He keeps on being so fucking
cheerful
about it all, he won’t admit he’s feeling any strain, and yet I know he is. I can feel it. Things are different between us. And if I tell him how afraid I am of this operation, he’ll tell me not to have it. But if I don’t have it, I may not ever have a child. Hell, if I
do
have it, I may not ever have a child.”

“But you’ll still have Steve. And he’ll have you. And, Sara, that’s a lot. If you love each other, it’s really everything.”

Sara looked at David. “Not everything,” she said.

“Well, close enough,” he told her, smiling.

“You’re such a nice man,” Sara said.

“Oh, yes, that’s true, I am,” David said. His face took on a slightly angry cast, his voice became bitter. “And I hope I’ve proved to you that you are feminine and desirable and … that your sexuality functions well enough to drive me crazy, even after all these years.”

“I’m sorry, David,” Sara said. “I didn’t mean to be—oh, I don’t know. I need so much now, and don’t know how to get it. But you’ve helped me, in a lot of ways. I wish I could thank you.”

“Just give your poor husband a break,” David said. “Just believe him. If he seems happy even if you don’t have kids, then he probably is. You’re a lot for any man, Sara. You’re enough for any man, all by yourself. You don’t need any attachments to make yourself worthwhile. To make yourself loved.”

Sara’s eyes met David’s and she smiled. “You are so wonderful,” she said. “You always were so wonderful.”

“I think you’d better get dressed,” David said, smiling back. “I don’t think you can trust my ‘wonderfulness’ too far when you’re sitting around wearing nothing but a blanket.”

Sara rose, pulling the blanket around her. “Where did you say your bathroom was?” she asked. Gathering up her clothes, clutching the blanket to her, suddenly shy and embarrassed, she went across the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom to get dressed. When she came out, she found that David had dressed again, too, and was standing by the front door, jiggling his car keys in his hand.

“Where can I drop you?” he asked.

“You’re angry with me, aren’t you?” Sara said.

“I feel used,” David told her. “I feel humiliated, like a naive little sophomore who’s just made a fool of himself.”

“Oh, David, I never meant to make you feel that way. I never meant, I never thought … well, that’s it, isn’t it, I didn’t think of you, I was so selfish, I only thought of myself. But if it’s any comfort, I don’t feel like you’ve made a fool of yourself. I think you’ve been—”

“I know:
wonderful
,” David said. “Sara, do me a favor? Don’t come at me again like that unless you mean it. Unless you want me.”

He drove to the art gallery on Newberry Street where Julia worked, and Julia, surprised and delighted to see Sara, invited her to spend the night. They took wine and quiche Lorraine and fruit to Julia’s apartment, got into their robes, and curled up on the couch to talk. Sara called Steve, told him she had had a good visit with Fanny Anderson, and that she would be home tomorrow. It was the first time in their marriage that she had really lied to him, and she felt sick with guilt. But Steve sounded his normal cheerful self, and she both loved him and felt irritated at him for that.

Sara told Julia everything: about Mary being pregnant again, effortlessly, about her mother-in-law’s urging her to stop working, about her fear of the operation, about
feeling more and more unreal, unworthy. She had woken up this morning knowing she must find someone who saw her for herself, not as a failed baby-making machine. She told Julia about her afternoon with David, and about his kindnesses. She felt so pressured and hurt by it all that she just wanted to escape, to run away somewhere—but where? And how could she, when she loved Steve?

Julia wore a heavy black silk Oriental robe embroidered with crimson birds, azure flowers, emerald leaves. Her thick red hair swirled around her head and over her shoulders. She was strangely silent when Sara finished, then got up and walked across the room, looked out the window, and came back and sat down.

“That’s a shitty thing you did to David,” she said at last. “Leading him on that way. I bet he felt like a fool.”

“Oh, Julia …” Sara began.

“Well, think how you would have felt if he had suddenly showed up to use you as an ego-testing ground. And Steve. What a thing to do to Steve! How would you like it if he went to his old girlfriend with his troubles?”

“He probably does, in his mind, at least!” Sara said. “You think I don’t imagine that he wishes he had married Mary, that he thinks about her when he sees her with her children?”

“Oh, shit, Sara,” Julia said. “Steve loves you. And if he says he’s not upset about having kids yet, then he’s not. Steve’s always told you the truth. You don’t have any right to think such things about him. Listen. I think I’m getting mad at you. I love you, but I’m getting mad at you, too. I just can’t stand to see you getting so soggy about everything. You aren’t the tragic case you’re building yourself up to be. You’ve got a fabulous husband who loves you. Do you have any idea how many women there are who would give all their teeth for what you have? Sara, you are
really lucky
. And you have work that you love and that has a good amount of glamour—how many women have that
and
someone they love who loves them? Maybe you won’t get to have a baby instantly, or ever, maybe you won’t get every single thing you want, but who does? That doesn’t give you the right to get so fucking maudlin or to screw Steve around by going off and sexing up with your old lover. You would be in a
fury
if he did that to you. I can’t believe you did it, I just can’t. You’re letting yourself get too spooked about this operation; everyone’s told you you’ll be fine, statistically you don’t have a chance of
not
being fine. Be a big girl. No one’s making you do it, you want to do it, you
aren’t
going to die,
you’ll come out of it just fine, and you might get a nice little baby Steve or Sara out of it. So why not do it with some grace? And if you don’t get pregnant, do that with some grace, too. For God’s sake. Get your shit together.”

Julia was silent then, glaring at Sara. Sara glared back at Julia, amazed. Then both women grinned at each other.

“You look like an oracle in that robe,” Sara said at last. “You look like, if I don’t take your advice, you’ll clap your hands and lightning and thunder will streak out from your fingers.”

“They will, too,” Julia said. She raised her hands dramatically, then let them fall in her lap. “Oh, honey, what do I know?” She sighed. “I just had to tell you how I feel about all this. But you know I am sorry you haven’t gotten pregnant yet.”

“Well, I think what you said is right.” Sara stretched on the sofa. “I am lucky. Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how lucky I am. I think I’ll feel luckier when I wake up from the operation—and even luckier when my in-laws go back to Florida and I don’t have to get a daily neighborhood pregnancy report from Caroline. But you are right, Julia, I have been getting obsessed. It’s just that not being obsessed when it’s something that’s going on with your own body is so hard. It’s sort of like trying not to be in love with someone you’re in love with who doesn’t love you.”

“Or like being in love with a married man,” Julia said, smiling wryly.

“How is Perry?” Sara asked.

“How is he? He’s with his wife tonight, that’s how he is.” Julia sighed. “Maybe
I
should go see David Larkin.”

“He’s got the brown-haired Cynthia,” Sara said. “And you’re too tall for him.”

“No, I’m not. We’re the same height. You just don’t want me to have him.” Julia grinned. “Oh, balls, Sara. In five years I’ll be married to Perry and you’ll be pushing three kids in a baby carriage, right? But for now we’d better go to bed. It’s after midnight and I have to work tomorrow even if you don’t.”

Sara watched Julia swank off in her opulent robe, her red hair swirling behind her. Julia had such energy, such force. Sara wished her friend
were
an oracle, a magician, a witch, and could use her powers for Sara’s sake. Although perhaps it was enough simply to have Julia as a friend; perhaps that was magic enough.

Sara arrived home the next morning to find Steve off at work, a note on the table telling
her he loved her, and a packet from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital lying in wait with the rest of the mail.

The packet held a preadmission guide, complete with maps of the city and surrounding area, floor plans of the hospital, and pictures of healthy patients smiling as they sat with needles in their veins and blood pressure cuffs around their upper arms.

A special sheet for day surgery patients had been included for Sara. She was
not
to eat or drink anything from midnight on the night before surgery,
not
to wear any makeup, hairpins, or fingernail polish (
Fingernail polish!
Sara thought.
Why ever not? How could it cause a problem?
),
not
to wear any jewelry, including rings. She looked down at her wedding ring. She had never taken it off. Would they make her take it off for surgery?

As she read the information about surgery, certain words jumped out at her and held her captive: “anesthesia,” “intravenous,” “mask”—“
sleep.”
She could almost smell the acrid antiseptics she had inhaled as a child visiting the gruff and fractious doctor with his piercing needles, his total control over her helpless body.

Trying to counteract her fear, she made herself think of Julia. This morning when Julia drove her to the airport, she told Sara about a D&C she had had a few years ago. As she was being wheeled into the operating room, Julia had said to the anesthesiologist, a handsome smiling Oriental man, “If I wake up with brain damage, I’ll sue you.” And he had smiled ever more handsomely and said, with a lovely lilt to his voice, “If you wake up with brain damage, you won’t know.” Julia had thought that terrifically funny. Sara was not quite as amused. But she was determined to approach all this cheerfully, with, as Julia had said, “grace.”

Steve was quiet when he came home from work, but that was often the case: he was working hard during the good weather. After dinner, to Sara’s surprise, he said, “Let’s leave the dishes till later. It’s still light out. Let’s walk down to the Jetties and look at the water.”

“What a lovely idea,” Sara said. She stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss him, her clever husband. Her body, under her cotton slacks and sweater, was taut and healthy, her husband was tall and affectionate, the night was luminous and warm, promising eternal summer. How could she be unhappy?

The ocean was dappled with dark and silver blues. Far out, a white sailboat slipped like scissors through the waves. They sat in the sand, still warm from the day, and
listened to the summer sounds: the gulls calling, the sea sighing, the laughter skating across the smooth water from sleek anchored yachts in the harbor. Sara stretched and leaned against Steve, rubbing her cheek into his chest.

“Mmmm,” she murmured, affectionate, in love.

“Sara,” Steve said, “I need to talk to you.”

His tone of voice alerted her; something serious was going on. Her heart dropped like a rock in a shaft.

He was going to tell her he wanted a divorce. So he could marry someone else and have children. She knew it. She had been waiting for this.

For a moment she could not speak.

She pulled away from him. She did not look up at him. “What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking about something for a while now,” Steve said. “A major change in my life. Our lives. It’s something I think I have to do. I can’t go on any longer this way.”