Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian (17 page)

The pink one looks at me. “Whose baby you waiting on?” she asks.

“He's with me,” Donna says.

“You here for a baby that ain't even yours?”

“That's correct,” I say, thinking to myself, she has a point.

The two women sit between Kate and Jack. The younger one points at Joe and says to Donna, “Who's he waiting on?”

“My sister's baby,” Donna says. “He's our daddy.”

“And her?” She points to Kate. I expect Kate to say something nasty but she doesn't.

“Aunt,” Donna says. “My mother's dead,” she adds, like she's enjoying “20 questions.”.

Suddenly Jack jumps up, looks at his watch, crams his hands in his pockets, then sits back down. “He must be the father,” the pink one says.

Donna nods.

The woman in purple speaks up again. “At least they know who the father is!”

“Y'all want some chicken,” Donna says offering the bucket. “We had some left.”

“Thanks,” the pink one says, then to her mother, “Tina knows. And so do we. She ain't been with but no one but Brian. She just don't want to marry him.”

“It ain't what she
wants
to do, Mary Beth,” the purple one says, “it's what she
should
do.” She reaches in the bucket and pulls out a thigh.

“I married Marvin,” the pink Mary Beth says. She bites into a drumstick. “And look what it got me.” She turns to Donna. “Got any napkins?” She chews a few times. “Spent every penny we had on that stock car, replacing this, adding on that. Never won a race in his life. Not that paid anyway.” She finally swallows. “I raised her by myself and she turned out just fine.”

“I helped raise Tina, too. Alls I'm saying is a baby needs a father.” She looks to us for support. We all nod, even Joe.

Then both blonds sit there eating MY chicken, but in silence. Just as I'm thinking “Thank God, for the quiet,” Mary Beth starts to coughing. “Dear Jesus!” I shout, “She's choking on a chicken bone!”

As I jerk her up and commence the Heimlich Maneuver, she starts sputtering, “My little Tina's just a baby herself!” I let go. She collapses into her mother's arms. “My baby's having a baby,” she cries. “Seems like just yesterday she was playing with Nadine!” Her mother holds her close and rocks her as best she can on the upholstered seat. The vinyl squeaks back and forth.

The purple Mama looks at Donna. “Nadine's her cabbage patch doll. I give it to her when she was seven.” Donna's eyes fill with tears. She starts to sniffle.

“Donna,” I whisper, “what's wrong with you?”

“That could be our little Scarlet or Charlotte in just a few years,” she says. The thought is alarming. My chest feels tight. More babies. More women all around.

“Maybe it'll be a boy,” the purple Mama says.

Joe turns around. “Sarah?” he says, “a boy?”

“No, Daddy,” Donna says, “Tina.” He turns back to the television.

“Tina was carrying low,” the purple Mama says, “low and out.”

Mary Beth quits crying, “I carried her high and around.” She holds out her sweat shirt to demonstrate. Jack watches in rapt attention. He holds his hands out and shapes a pregnant abdomen in front of himself.

“I carried low and out and high and around,” Donna says, caught up in their pregnancy trivia. They look at Donna. “Twins,” she says, smiling proudly.

“Twins!” shouts Mary Beth. She's crying again. No one else seems bothered. Joe has finished “Perry Mason” and is engrossed in an old episode of “Cannon.” Kate's still drinking out of her coffee cup but the coffee is long gone.

I'll go stark raving mad if I don't get out of here, I think to myself. I start to stand up when an adolescent boy bursts through the doorway. He's wearing a block C jacket studded with various balls and bars. “What have you done to her?” he shouts.

“You idiot!” Mary Beth shouts back. “It's what you done to her! Now she's in the labor room.” Then to her mother, “My baby's in labor!” Her crying reaches new intensity.

“Where's it at?” he demands, looking around the room as if there may be a secret passage.

“Brian, you can't go in there,” says the purple Mama. “She don't want nobody with her.”

“It's my baby!” he shouts, his voice cracking. “She needs me!”

Kate sets down her cup. She refills it from a bottle in her purse. “Down the hall to the right,” she says. He disappears through the doorway. Kate lifts her cup and toasts the air. “To a spunky kid,” she says. “Goddamn spunky kid.”

JACK

How long can this labor thing go on? It never took this long to miscarry. Maybe it's a good sign. Or maybe not. They had me sign a release in case of surgery. They may not tell me right away if they have to operate. What if she needs blood? She's A-positive. I could be out getting donors right now down at the car lot. If I could just do something. I feel so damn useless in here.

Sarah never told me she was pregnant, never came right out and said, “Jack, I'm going to have a baby.” She didn't put old sheets on the bed or try to stop our lovemaking. But I got suspicious early on. After you've been through it as many times as I have, you know. Things start to feel different.

Still, I didn't say anything about it until the kicking started. One night we were settled in bed, me outlining Sarah's back with my chest, my hand across her abdomen, when I felt a bump. I felt it again right against my wrist. I thought it was my pulse at first, then it bumped again, this time in my palm.

“Sarah!” I shouted, “Wake up! Did you feel that?” But she was already awake.

“A week,” she said, not looking at me, “it's been kicking a week.” Out of all the others we lost, she'd only felt one of them kick. I never felt it though. This was my first. I couldn't get it off my mind. It was like those hot-cold chills I used to get in high school right before a game, still get the morning of a big sale.

We didn't talk much about it for a while. Sarah seemed hesitant and I didn't want to jinx anything. Her obstetrician, Dr. Fleming, suggested tests because of her age and to see how far along she was. She wouldn't let him. I think she was right. I looked it up in a medical book, and there's a slight chance, about one in 250, the tests could cause a miscarriage. With her history, we agreed, even that was too high.

I looked up something else too. The chances of conceiving after a vasectomy. Less than one on one hundred and that's if the operation is botched. Not very good odds. But still possible. I've learned one thing in the past year—nothing's absolute.

But, Dear God, I don't see why she won't let me be with her right now. She says she doesn't want me to see her like that, but she needs me. I need to be there.

Things can go wrong. Last time she miscarried, the doctor said she could bleed to death if she had another one. Sarah and I didn't talk about that either, but it's been on my mind right along with feeling that baby move. She doesn't realize how badly a baby needs its mother. I do. And so does Tommy.

When I told him Sarah was pregnant again, Tommy said, “Be there for her no matter what.” Then he put both hands on my shoulders and said, “But remember, she's a lot like your mama.”

How can I be there for her, damn it, if she won't let me in the labor room?

I first met Sarah in, of all things, a poetry class. God only knows why I took it. My advisor said it'd do me good to get away from figures. He meant numbers, but there was Sarah with a figure I couldn't stay away from. It wasn't just her body that attracted me. She would talk with such passion about poems that didn't mean a thing to me the first time I read them. But after I heard her, I'd go back, reread them, and see what she meant. About the only one I remember now, though, is “Do Not Go Gentle” by Dylan somebody. It was about a son talking to his dying father, telling him not to give in to what life was dealing him, to fight back. I read it to Tommy. “I like it, Jack,” he said, “good advice for living fathers as well as dying ones.”

All semester while most of us struggled for meaning, Sarah and a few other artsy types seemed to live the lines. That was what I loved about her. Her knack for riding passion like a wild horse to some unknown destination. I wanted to be there to watch her ride and to catch her if she fell. When I was feeling especially poetical I told that to Tommy, hoping he wouldn't laugh. He didn't. He just said, “Poetry class may be rubbing off on you, Jack, but make sure Sarah's fall doesn't bring you down too.” Then he said something else I thought about over and over last year when Sarah left. “She's hungry,” he said, his voice shaking, “just like your mama was.”

There sits Donna Jean chatting like her sister's having a tooth filled instead of maybe bleeding to death. Damn hair brain. I could choke her. If I hadn't come home for lunch and found Sarah missing, no telling when Donna would have called. I was afraid Sarah had left again. Thank God, I called Dr. Fleming's office and found out.

No quarter! Not even Donna Jean can be that stupid. Maybe Sarah told her not to call me. No, Sarah wouldn't do that, not my Sarah. Who the hell am I kidding? She's not my Sarah anymore and no telling what she'd do!

She hadn't been home a month when she got on this job kick. One morning out of the blue she said, “Jack, I need a job.”

“You're not well enough,” I say.

“I need a job,” she repeated, stabbing her grapefruit.

“Why?” I asked.

She laid down her spoon. “Because I need the money.”

“Your name's still on the checking account.”

“I know.”

“Well?”

“I need my own money.” She said “own” like the word was sacred.

“Doing what?” I asked, playing along.

“Office work.” A note of excitement in her voice.

“I could probably find you a spot in the salesroom,” I said, warming to the idea, “or the service department.”

She shook her head. Her hair stood out like it was charged. Then she got up and left the table like I'd insulted her, offering her my money and a job in my business. Damn! She's hard to understand. After the baby started kicking, she gave up on the job idea. I convinced her it might be too much of a strain. So she goes on this housecleaning binge. Starting with our closet. She threw out arm loads of my old stuff. Then she went out and bought me something new for everything she got rid of. Especially underwear. She bought me a huge stack of Hanes. I swear, I think I could go a whole year without having to wash a single pair. She sewed back on buttons I didn't even realize had come off. And she had all my loafers reheeled.

Cid, down at the lot, said it was “nesting instinct.” He said when his wife was pregnant she bought a set of World Books, and zebra-striped bed sheets, and Franklin Mint miniature Russian music boxes. Then she bought a jogging outfit for every day of the week. To get back in shape, she said, after the baby came. Cid said she never could get into the little shorts.

Steve said his wife was the same way only with leotards, all colors, to do yoga, meditate, be calm around the baby. Didn't work, he said, she cut an outfit into tiny little pieces every time the baby had a bad night. Even the tights. Left little stretchy shreds all in the carpet.

But Sarah did the opposite. She gave away all her dresses except a few loose ones. Kept a denim skirt, a few pairs of jeans, some shirts and sweaters. That's about it except for some moccasin-like shoes and a pair of sandals. I know because I checked her side of the closet. First time ever my side was fuller than hers. When I asked why most of her stuff was gone she said it was old or didn't fit or out of style.

Just kidding, one day I said, “Sarah, did you clean out your jewelry box, too?”

She was fixing sandwiches. She got a funny look on her face and didn't say anything right away. “Why do you ask?” She stared at the bread.

“I was just kidding,” I said, “but did you?”

“Just a few things to Donna's girls,” she said, tossing some chips on my plate. “That's all.”

That night while she was taking a shower I looked in her jewelry box. Practically empty except her wedding band, some gold earrings I gave her for our tenth anniversary, an opal ring of her mother's, some silver loops, and a turquoise bracelet I didn't recognize. That was it!

I wasn't positive what should have been in there but I knew the important pieces that were missing, ones I'd given her. A Kruggerand necklace, a string of pearls—real pearls—and a sapphire and diamond ring. I don't know if she sold them or gave them away or lost them or what the hell she did with them. Maybe she really was desperate for her “own” money. Hell! That damn Krugerrand was probably worth $400 at least. I could check the market to find out exactly. God, I hope she didn't give it away!

Another day when I came home for lunch, Sarah was balanced up on a chair in front of the bookshelf, raining down books into two loose piles. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Guess,” she said, her back to me.

“Cleaning out the bookshelf.”

“Bingo!”

“All of the books?”

“Most,” she said. “I've already read them and you're not going to. There aren't any
Consumer Guides
up here.”

“So what are you going to do with them? Throw them away?” I knew that'd get her.

“Of course not,” she said, an edge to her voice. “I'm giving them to Scarlet and Charlotte.” She stopped dropping books and turned around. “One pile's classics. The other's modern.”

“Who gets what?” I asked. “Let me guess. Charlotte gets the classics and Scarlet gets the fun stuff.”

“That's what I had in mind.” She stared across the room at the fireplace. It held a small flame. “But maybe I should do it the other way around. It might help both of them. What do you think?”