The Unfinished Child (4 page)

“I can see them now,” Elizabeth had laughed. “Little girls with freckled faces who’ll refuse to wear dresses and run around with bed-head.” Her enthusiasm was infectious. It
would
be great. Their kids would grow up closer than sisters. And when Nicole was born, it seemed as if Marie was fulfilling a pre-ordained script, except that Elizabeth’s pregnancy never followed. Twelve years had passed and Marie had had two children while Elizabeth had had none.

Back then, Elizabeth would flip her dark hair in a gesture of impatience. “We’re still trying,” she’d say. Marie didn’t really want to think about them going hard at the sex, even though she was happy with Barry, because every now and then she couldn’t help but feel a slight stirring when she remembered how she and Ron had enjoyed each other in bed.

But as the years went by and Elizabeth “failed” to conceive, “trying” changed to mean they were making trips to the fertility clinic. “No luck yet,” Elizabeth always added.

Marie closed her
novel, which was a simple tale of love and regret. She’d read two pages without taking in a word, while Barry remained engrossed in his book. Would he never notice her silence? If she stayed downstairs much longer, he would get to bed before she did. But that never happened, did it? She used his predictability to his advantage and always made it upstairs before he did.

She walked to the kitchen, rinsed her cup, and put it in the dishwasher. Upstairs, she quickly washed her face, applied cream with gentle upward strokes on the thinning skin around her eyes, and brushed her teeth. A few strands of grey hair stuck straight up like antennae from the part in the middle of her scalp. Grey hair and pregnancy. In Marie’s world, the two did not go hand in hand. Back in her bedroom she undressed, slipped her flannel nightgown over her head, and climbed into bed. Above her nightstand, the frost on the window reminded her of the puffy white mould that grew on food left in the fridge too long. Marie closed her eyes and tried to slow her heart. She imagined the mountain ash swaying in the icy blasts of wind outside her window and wondered how, in these frigid temperatures, the branches didn’t snap clean away from the trunk.

Finally, Barry quietly came upstairs. Marie regulated her breathing and pretended to be asleep. They had performed this scene so many times in their married life—she pretending to be asleep, and he pretending to believe she was sleeping. But maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time he would apologize for his remark and seek some kind of reconciliation. It wouldn’t take much, just a light touch on the small of her back, or a brief kiss on her cheek. Just a small acknowledgment that this pregnancy was not simply hers to deal with, nor was it a way to measure her life against her best friend’s. Why didn’t he ever just say that she was doing a good job, that she was a good mother? But when he emerged from the bathroom he slid slowly into bed, careful not to bounce the mattress. Then he turned over, his limbs contained to his side of the bed, and within minutes began to snore.

Sometimes loneliness was a physical pain that was worse than any cramp or contraction she’d ever had. She fought the urge to get up and steal quietly down to the kitchen to make herself something to eat, just to take the edge off the dreadful ache of feeling isolated from people who were supposed to love her. Barry might as well be sleeping alone.

Their conversation had settled nothing; they had talked around the baby as if it wasn’t there, but another baby had no place in her ordered life. It wasn’t only Barry who loved his routines. His love of order had rubbed off on her too. Over the years, she had become a careful list maker, the kind of person who didn’t wait for the ketchup to run out before buying another one. One look in her pantry confirmed the orderliness of her mind. She and Barry had life insurance, house insurance, car insurance, dental insurance, they even had disability insurance. Nothing would take them by surprise.

No, it wasn’t right at all. She felt as if someone had gotten a hold of one of her lists without asking and added just one word:
baby
.

In the morning,
Marie awoke to find the bed beside her empty. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was an hour later than her usual time to rise. The chill coming off the wall confirmed that the cold snap continued.

She could just make out the sound of her husband’s voice downstairs, but the words were lost in the clinking of cutlery on dishes. At the thought of food Marie’s stomach heaved. She reached for the box of saltine crackers on her bedside table and slipped one from its crinkly sleeve. The coarse salt crystals dissolved instantly on her tongue, and soon her mouth was moist enough that she could even lick her chapped lips.

Laughter filtered up from downstairs, and she smiled as she pictured Sophia telling her older sister a joke. Or maybe the two girls were laughing as they tried to get their dad to solve a riddle.

She reached for another cracker and nibbled tiny bites, beginning with the corners and then working her way around the edges to form a neat and uniform circle. Crumbs spilled onto her chest and settled in the bony hollow between her breasts. She stared at the dried bits of cracker for a moment, and then at the stretch marks on her breasts, silver minnows that mapped the terrain of breastfeeding.

Her nipples were sore. Her breasts were tender to touch and felt heavy and fibrous. The obvious signs of pregnancy that she had once so eagerly courted she had recently tried to ignore.

More crumbs settled between her breasts. When her kids were small she had lived for years with crumbs and sand in the bed and the feeling that she would never again have clean sheets. Once, when Nicole was three and Sophia had just celebrated her first birthday, Elizabeth had dropped by after work. The house looked as if a bomb had gone off inside of a toy store. Dolls and stuffed animals and small plastic knick-knacks were strewn all over the floor, mixed up with the pots and pans that had been dragged from the kitchen cupboards. Marie felt the sting of inadequacy that had shadowed her since having children. Normally she kept a clean house. Even when Marie was a child, her mother had never had to tell her to clean her room. She knew it was useless to expect any kind of order when the kids were so young, but she couldn’t stop caring about the mess. She tried to laugh it off, but she was exhausted. Her sleep-deprived eyes burned when she closed them tight. Her shoulder-length hair no longer had any shape or lustre. Her waist had yet to reappear from the pregnancies. Her skin felt dry, her breasts overused. Just the day before she had discovered that her nipples no longer pointed straight ahead as they once had. Now they drooped downward as if looking for lost coins. How sad. Her breasts had been lovely once.

In contrast, Elizabeth looked neat and crisp in her summer pantsuit and sandals. Elizabeth’s dark hair had recently been streaked with golden highlights. Her toenails were freshly painted, her clothes weren’t stained, and her breasts weren’t leaking. Everything about her was proper and trim. When she stood up, her hips were high, narrow, and compact. She had the most shapely arms too, firm and muscular. When Marie raised her arms to point at something, she could feel the skin beneath her arms swinging from the bone. Batwings, someone had called them, and she’d hated that term with a passion. No, sleep-deprivation hadn’t aged Elizabeth. She looked ready for anything. Marie looked forward to the possibility of an afternoon nap.

Sophia moved from Elizabeth’s lap and flung herself at the box of crayons on the floor next to the table. Marie saw a look of longing cross her friend’s face. Look at me! she wanted to shout. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three years, and I haven’t showered in three days. I can’t even remember if I brushed my teeth this morning. I’m not doing this well!

Just then, Elizabeth confided, “We’re off to the clinic after this. Round one.”

“Really? That’s great.” At least she thought it was. Was it?

“We’ve been waiting for over a year,” she’d said. “Apparently Ron and I aren’t the only ones having trouble populating the planet.”

Marie had crossed her fingers and held them up for luck. She wracked her brain for something encouraging. “Good luck,” she finally said. “Let me know how it goes.”

The doorbell rang. “That’ll be Ron,” Elizabeth said, standing. “He dropped me off.”

Before Marie knew it, Ron was inside her house, saying hi to the girls and kissing her cheek in a chaste greeting. She felt grubby and overweight under his gaze. If she’d known he was coming she would have showered and made an effort to look good. Marie wanted to cry for the lost opportunity and for the way Ron looked at Elizabeth with a mixture of passion and pride. Almost immediately he had his arm around her, as if he’d been off balance without her by his side.

Marie smiled ruefully
at her younger, vainer self. She’d spent so much time wanting to tidy not just herself, but her house as well. And now her girls were well past the stage of crawling into her bed, day or night, trailing the playground and their last snack along with them. She’d gotten used to having clean sheets; was it wrong to be happy those days were gone? To not want to repeat them?

Barry was right—she did feel guilty. Why else wouldn’t she have told Elizabeth at dinner the previous week that she’d missed her period? Those were conversations you had with your best friend. Instead, Marie had circled the baby and ordered dessert instead. She’d even licked the plate clean. If she’d been alone, she might have ordered another slice. It would be Elizabeth’s fault if her weight was up again.

Or the baby’s.

She did the math again. A late summer baby meant she’d be heavy and hot through July and August. She’d gain at least fifty pounds. Her ankles would swell. Sweat would bloom beneath her heavy breasts that would flagrantly flop onto her damp stomach. She’d been through two pregnancies; she knew exactly what to expect, and much of it wasn’t in the least bit attractive.

Another cracker slowly softened on her tongue. Nicole would soon be thirteen; how embarrassing to have a pregnant mother. It was hard enough going through puberty; did Nicole need living proof of what lay ahead? A daily reminder that her parents were still
doing
it? Likely she would want a different mother. A slim mother. One who didn’t so visibly flaunt her sexuality. Not a mother who lumbered about, swollen and sporting damp odours and fatigue. Marie could well remember her own thoughts about her mother when she was Nicole’s age. How disgusted she’d been to know she’d come out from the small, dark space between her mother’s legs.

Yet at times she’d also secretly admired her mother, who sometimes sang at the kitchen sink and who waited in the foyer to take her husband’s coat and kiss his cheek when he returned home from work. There were sensuous secrets about her, and, for a time, she’d made becoming a woman attractive.

Now Elizabeth would fulfill that role for her girls. She’d stand straight and thin beside Marie’s bulbousness. And who would be envious then? There had definitely been times when she’d envied the freedom of Elizabeth’s childless life.

Marie pulled her knees to her chest beneath the duvet. No, it wasn’t guilt she’d felt in those early days of mothering, it was envy. Still, she wouldn’t trade her kids for anything.

Outside, the neighbours’ dog barked. Winter had submerged the city into a prolonged darkness. It would be almost another hour before daylight. She surveyed the room. The sheets needed washing, the carpet vacuuming, and the dresser dusting. The girls needed new pants and more socks. Nicole’s wrists were sticking out of the sleeves of her winter jacket. The fridge was almost empty. The kitchen floor needed to be scrubbed. The neighbours’ dog howled to be let in. Tiny caps of snow fell from the red berries on the mountain ash outside of her window.

Marie closed her eyes. There was too much to do. Too many people depended upon her.

Downstairs at last,
she kissed her girls and placed a hand on Barry’s head, a conciliatory gesture that wiped clean the silence of the previous evening.

“Guess what?” the girls said in unison. “There’s no school today!”

Marie looked at her husband. “Didn’t you hear the phone ring?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“The school called after seven o’clock.”

“A pipe broke,” Nicole said.

Barry nodded toward the counter. “Coffee’s on.”

Marie raised a hand to her mouth. “I can’t stomach it.”

She ducked her head into the fridge and started making a grocery list. “I’ve got to nip to the store,” she said. “I invited Elizabeth for lunch today.”

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“The sooner I tell her, the better.”

“Tell her what?” Nicole piped up.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Miss Big Ears,” Marie said, ruffling her daughter’s hair.

The telephone rang as she kissed Barry goodbye. She ran back into the kitchen.

It was her sister, Frances.

Marie inwardly rolled her eyes and glanced at the clock. Frances was a lot of work. She did all the talking and Marie listened. Yes, her sister was exhausted. Yes, the baby had kept her up all night. Yes, she could understand why Frances wasn’t taking Max out today, not in this deep freeze. Marie made all the right conciliatory sounds and agreed with everything Frances said. It was quicker that way.

“I can’t drop by today,” she finally said to her sister’s invitation. “Elizabeth is coming for lunch.”

“What’s the occasion?” Frances asked.

“Why does everyone think there needs to be an occasion to see a friend? I just have some news to tell her, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Relax. What news?”

Marie juggled her options. “Promise you won’t tell Mom?”

“Oh yeah, like Mom’s the first person I go to,” she said.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Good one.”

“No, I am.”

“I thought you and Barry were done having kids.”

She grimaced. It was like the grand inquisition with Frances, and Marie didn’t feel like defending herself. “Yeah, well, so did I.”

“So you forgot birth control, or what?”