Still Life with Husband (28 page)

“No,” Meg says, shaking her head. “Sweetie.” She rests her hand on the lump under the covers that is my knee. She shakes her head again. “I’ll tell you, I’m at a loss.”

“And David,” I say with a gulp, reliving the whole squalid scene again. I must have started when I saw Kevin; I must have moved or tensed or jerked, because just then I noticed with horror that David was moving toward me on the bench, like he was about to comfort me; he was reaching out for me, and I heard myself say, quietly, sternly, “Please don’t hug me in front of my husband.” And then David looked at me, a cartoon of himself, his features practically rearranged from the shock, and he swiveled around, and his eyes met Kevin’s, and then he looked down, flushed, and right then I knew: that was it for us; it was all over, because nobody can feel that much naked shame and still have desire left over, or even much affection. He whispered, “Oh, my God,” but it wasn’t directed at me; his dismay wasn’t meant to be shared; it was private and horrible, and we were separate.

Meg is silent for a minute, then suddenly smacks her hand against her forehead and says, “Ohhh!”

“What?”

“I never understood quite why it was so awkward when you ran into David in front of the school back in October! Now I get it!” The look of comprehension on her face fades and turns back to incredulity. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

I can’t quite believe any of this, the mess of my life, the aftermath of the hurricane. I’m not even sure if there are any survivors, including myself. Kevin stood against the bank building, his hands shaking, his nostrils slightly flared. There were no other indications that he’d just overheard me, just the subtle, contained variations of Kevin. But he had heard. He stared at David for a long time as if David were somebody he thought he recognized. And then Kevin looked at me and he said, “I thought so,” and then he turned and he left. “He left,” I say to Meg. “He didn’t even wait for any kind of explanation; he didn’t yell at me or hit David or do any of the things you might think a betrayed husband would do.” “Cuckolded,” is the word. What color would that be? An awful orange. A color you could hardly even look at. And at the thought of that, I finally, finally start to cry.

Meg once told me that sometimes, at her school, one student will deliberately hurt another one, hit or bite or scratch another kid, and then, unaccountably, the malicious little rug rat who caused the injury will start to cry. And when that happens, Meg will take that child aside and gently tell her that she has to stop crying, that she hurt someone, and so she has to be a big girl, and stop crying, and say she’s sorry. Because, Meg told me, if you’re the one who inflicts the pain, it’s not fair to start crying. It’s not fair to weep for sympathy when it’s apologizing that you ought to be doing. That’s what I’m thinking about now, as I’m bawling uncontrollably, as I’m sobbing on Meg’s sympathetic shoulder, drenching her pretty pink shirt with my murderer’s tears.

I wonder where Kevin is now, if he’s gone home, if he’s still wandering the streets. If he’s packed his bags and headed back to Oregon. Meg loves Kevin. She’d probably rather be with him, comforting the one who deserves it. But she’s my best friend, so she holds me, she rocks me back and forth a little bit as I cry and cry. After a few minutes, during which the only noise in the room is my pathetic hiccupping and wheezing, Meg gently pulls away from my soggy embrace, then climbs into the bed next to me. “Okay, sweetie,” she says softly, her arm around my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

It’s probably not. But what else can I do but try to believe her?

As much as I’d like her to, Meg can’t babysit me for the whole day. She’s meeting Steve at the doctor’s office for her first ultrasound. And despite the thundercloud over my head, she can barely contain her excitement at the prospect of hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time, of seeing an image of the tiny black-and-white blob that will, months from now, be her baby. After another sympathetic half hour, during which she doesn’t tell me that I’m a faithless slut and I don’t tell her that I’m a faithless slut who might be pregnant, she leaves me to get ready. She hugs me again and asks if I want to come to the appointment, but of course I don’t. I can’t imagine injecting my vile self into Meg and Steve’s beautiful moment. Meg’s been waiting for this ultrasound for weeks. Although the thought does occur to me that maybe the doctor could just glide that contraption from Meg’s belly to mine, and I’d have an answer.

When she leaves, I pick up the phone to call Heather. Luckily, Heather had transplanted herself from Kevin’s and my apartment (is it still Kevin’s and my apartment?) to our parents’ house two days ago. So at least she wasn’t propped up on the couch fixing her gimlet eyes on me while I flew through the place gathering my things. At least I didn’t have to face her questions and recriminations, what would surely have been her judgmental response to my situation, born of her newfound monogamous and maternal zeal. I can just picture her steady, passive-aggressive gaze; I can hear her saying, “You must feel really bad about yourself, Emily. That’s how I felt when
I
used to cheat on my boyfriends.” My finger hovers over the last nine in my parents’ phone number, and then I put the phone down abruptly. Ambivalence is the only constant between Heather and me. Sometimes she’s the first person I want to talk to, sometimes the last. I can’t deal with her now. And if Len or Barbara were to answer the phone, I just might break into a thousand tiny pieces. Thanksgiving is in six days, anyway. When I show up at my parents’ door with a bottle of wine and no husband, I’ll have plenty to answer for.

I rub my freezing-cold feet together under the blankets and consider my options. On the surface, I feel like a blind, miserable bottom-feeder crawling around in the sludge. Deeper down than that, I feel like a shameless, guilty wretch who leaves a toxic wake wherever she goes. But deeper down than that? I feel sort of calm. Not good, certainly not good, but steady. For someone whose entire web of relationships has just unraveled, I feel surprisingly un-alone. I still don’t know what I’ll do if there is a baby. But right this second, I don’t need to know that. Right now, there’s only one thing I need to find out. So what else is there for me but to take the test? Meg’s gone; I have the house to myself. I don’t have to work today. And my social calendar is wide open. A small shiver wriggles through my body, up and down my arms and legs: my first sad wave of unrequited desire for David. But the voice in my head that has been, up to now, fairly unreliable, has changed pitch, become recognizable.
Proceed,
it says.
Face this.
If Meg has any pregnancy tests left over from before, I know exactly where they’ll be. She showed me, back before her miscarriage, before everything. She kept them upstairs, in the bathroom cabinet, behind the toothpaste. So I grab a sweater—baggy, with pink and orange stripes and a huge hole in the elbow; I couldn’t have dreamed up an uglier sweater—from my suitcase, wrap it around myself, and trudge upstairs.

Meg and Steve’s bathroom is the best room in their house. It’s huge and inviting, with an enormous claw-foot bathtub and a big purple plush rug a person could sleep on. Hell, maybe I will. Maybe I’ll move into their bathroom, make it my new home. With a hot plate and some new curtains, I could be very comfortable here. I dig out some apple bubble bath from Meg’s side of the medicine cabinet and turn on the water. Then I root around a bit more, and sure enough, there’s an unopened package of Easy One-Step Early Pregnancy Test. As the room fills with steam, I peel off my clothes. The last time I undressed in the middle of the day, it was for a different reason. Naked, my clothes in a heap on the rug, I sit down on the toilet. The test instructions are complicated, or maybe my brain is just frozen, but it takes me a few minutes to figure out exactly what to do. Hold the indicator stick under the stream? What stream? I picture a babbling brook filled with tiny swimming babies gurgling and clamoring to be noticed. Here I am! Pick me! I’m the one! If Kevin had written these instructions, they would be simple and elegant, clear but with respect for the enormity of the task. If Kevin had written them, I believe I would know exactly what to do. Finally, after reading the same three sentences a dozen times, I understand. I maneuver the little plastic stick under myself. It’s an ignominious way to determine a pregnancy, really: a whole new life announces itself in the splash of urine. The test is supposed to be “mess free!” but of course in one second my entire hand is wet, and the tester stick, which is supposed to stay dainty and dry except for the tip, is dripping. With my dry hand, I grab a tissue and spread it out on the edge of the tub. Carefully, I lay the wet stick on top of it, and I climb into the warm water. A song we played on the ancient record player the day I helped Meg at school pops into my head, replete with cheery bells and whistles: “Engine, engine, number nine, rolling down Chicago line. If that train goes off the track, do you want your money back?
Yes! No! Maybe so! Yes! No! Maybe so!
” Of course you would want your money back if your train derailed. What kind of idiot wouldn’t want her money back?
Yes! No! Maybe so!
The Easy One-Step Early Pregnancy Test requires three minutes for the results to appear in the “indicator window.”
Yes! No! Maybe so!
Three minutes. I’m not wearing a watch, but I am determined not to stare at the stick. I close my eyes and start counting. I lean back against the tiles and sink as low as I can into the deep tub. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three. Dr. Miller has already offered me full-time employment, in the wake of Dick’s death. So I know I’ll be okay financially. I suppose I could move back in with my parents for a while. Barbara would surely get over her disappointment in me when she holds her grandchild in her arms. I can picture Len in the early morning, the baby resting against his shoulder. “Look here, little baby, out the back window, at the maple tree. Did you know that the earliest settlers in Wisconsin, approximately two hundred years ago, used the same technique for procuring sap that maple syrup manufacturers use today?” Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Is it really over with David? I can practically feel the texture of his skin, his thick hair, taste him as if I’m running my tongue lightly over his lips. Did Kevin actually find out? Jesus, was he really standing there? The hugeness of this reality explodes like a volcano in my brain, creating an ugly new landmass there. Kevin
found out.
Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. There’s a billboard on Capitol Drive that advertises DNA testing for the general public. “Daddy, Daddy, Where Are You?” a fat cartoon baby pleads, in bold black letters. I’ve always scoffed at this sad, bizarre advertisement as I’ve driven past it. What kind of mother needs a DNA test to determine her baby’s paternity? Seventy-four, seventy-five. The bubbles make white peaks like frothy waves on my knees and my stomach. One hundred two, one hundred three. There’s no way I’m pregnant. Surely I’m the kind of woman who will need complicated hormone treatments to get pregnant someday, injections and patches and petri dishes, not the type who accidentally gets knocked up when she’s not looking, not the type whose body wantonly gives up its eggs to the highest bidder. I straighten my legs, rest my feet against the tiles. I’m starting to feel a little bit relieved. One hundred forty-four, one forty-five. This is just the last hurrah of the dream that was David. I’m such an idiot. I miss Kevin. I’ve been married to him for five years; I’ve loved him for nine. And now, my God, I’ve
ruined
him, ruined us. One hundred eighty. My eyes are still closed. Two lines mean yes, one means no. Yes, no, maybe so. Three minutes are up. One hundred ninety-two, one ninety-three. I have to stop counting now and open my eyes. I squeeze them shut, try to take a snapshot of everything this moment holds: the heat of the water on my body, the lingering apple scent of the bubbles, the pulsing in my veins. My eyes don’t want to open. I breathe, and breathe some more, and then I open them. Eight lines dance in a blur as I try to focus—eight? The instructions said nothing about eight—and slowly the eight dwindle to four, then to two, and then one, but then two again, and two lines squirm in and out of focus, yes, no, maybe so; two lines, two lines like tiny pink minnows swimming toward me, yes, no, maybe so, yes, yes, yes.

When the phone rings, probably no more than ten minutes later, but I don’t know for sure, since I stopped counting at 193, it doesn’t even occur to me to answer it. I’m still submerged up to my chin in water that has grown tepid. I’m thinking about nothing. I’m thinking about the chipped grout on the bathtub tiles and the way the apple scent of the bubble bath is beginning to make me nauseous. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to emerge from the tub soon, at the very least because Meg and Steve will be home before too long. So I’m only half-listening when the machine picks up.

“Hey, Emily.” Meg’s voice is crackly and distorted. “Are you there? If you’re there, could you please pick up?” Is she calling to tell me that they found out the baby’s sex? Is it too early to know that information? I can’t remember. For the first time, and surely not the last, I imagine the tiny tadpole swimming around inside of me. A boy, I think, and then,
Oh, crap,
because I don’t want this, my God, I don’t want this. I realize I have no idea what he might look like at this moment, just a few weeks from his sordid beginnings. I’m picturing a tiny, fully formed, fully clothed little man, a homunculus, a small sprout of a human wearing a top hat and tails and twirling a miniature cane: Mr. Peanut. A tiny flame of tenderness lights in me; I douse it, fast. I hoist myself out of the bath, wrap a towel around myself (it’s slightly damp; I decide not to think about it), and grab the phone just as Meg is saying, “Okay, I guess you’re not there….”

Is she calling to describe the sound of the heartbeat, the feeling of hearing it for the first time? I don’t want to steal her moment, but I’m going to have to tell her my news, too. I won’t be able to wait. “Don’t hang up! I’m here!”