Morning (24 page)

The silence when Caroline left the room was more painful than her loud comments had been just moments before. Clark Kendall sat red-faced, uncomfortable with the entire subject, and Sara was close to weeping. How horrible to be such a daughter-in-law, who brought these kind people sad instead of joyful news.

Steve broke the silence. Sara sat looking out at the ocean, sipping her drink, sick with grief. Somehow they managed to smooth over the riff in the evening and the dinner went on well enough. Sara thought the worst was over.

But when she was in the kitchen, helping her mother-in-law with coffee and dessert, Caroline surprised her by grabbing Sara’s hands in hers. She looked Sara in the eye.

“Sara, my dear,” she said, “I can’t let you go home without saying this to you. I’ve never wanted to be an intrusive mother-in-law, I’ve never wanted to interfere—and I
think you’d agree that I really haven’t been too nosy. And now I just have to say my piece or I won’t rest.”

Sara smiled encouragingly. She could see in Caroline’s face how upset she was.

“I know you think I’m old-fashioned,” Caroline said. “And yet I think you would admit that Clark and I have a fine marriage, a happy marriage. Well, we have this happy marriage because he’s the man and I’m the woman. What I mean is, he works, and I take care of the home. Sara, dear, if only you’d stop working, I’m sure you’d get pregnant. It just isn’t
natural
for a woman to work as hard as you do.”

Oh, no
, Sara thought.
Oh, please, not this
.

Sara gently pulled her hands away. “Caroline,” she said, “it’s true that when I worked in Boston I was under some stress, or at least I worked hard, and my days—and nights—were very busy. But now I’m only working part-time, only freelance editing, some days I work only a few hours, and some days not at all.”

“And many days you go to Boston,” Caroline said accusingly. “It’s not just the time, don’t you see? It’s your attitude. It’s where your
heart
is at. Sara, to be honest, I’m not sure you
want
to have a baby. I’m afraid that in your heart of hearts you’re afraid to have a baby because it would interfere with the work you think is so important to your life.”

“Oh, Caroline,” Sara said, both angry and hurt, “that’s not true. That’s simply not true. I can’t tell you how much I want a baby.”

“Then you should stop working and try to live like a real wife, a real woman,” Caroline said. “If you’re going to go on living as you have been, half woman, half man, why of course you’ll never get pregnant.”

Sara felt sick with despair. What could she possibly say to this woman that would change her mind?

“Will you at least think about what I’ve said?” Caroline asked.

“Yes,” Sara replied. She began to place coffee cups and saucers and spoons on the tray. She wanted to get it over with, the dessert, the evening, the relationship, which was now ruined beyond repair. She had not known how Caroline felt about her working. She had been so naive, so simple-minded. Now her horrid infertility was stretching its grim death-dealing coils to this part of her life, too. Where there had been trust, there was now distrust; where there had been friendship, there was now enmity. If she had been able to present her mother-in-law with a fait accompli—a pregnancy, a baby—then Caroline
would have had no power, no right to criticize her working.

But as it was, who could say that she was not right?

During the drive home, Sara told Steve what Caroline had said.

“Oh, Sara, don’t pay any attention to her,” Steve said. “She’s so old-fashioned.”

“But do you think she’s right?” Sara pressed. “Do
you
think she’s right? That I’m not getting pregnant because I’m working? Do you think I’m too success oriented?”

“No, Sara,” Steve said. “I think you’re fine. I think you’re wonderful. I think my mother is an old fogy who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

Sara looked at Steve, amazed. His tone of voice had been neutral, and so was his expression. But he never had criticized his mother before—Sara couldn’t recall a time when he had ever spoken against her. She felt sick. Had she forced Steve to take sides with her against his mother?

Would there be no end to the damage her infertility could do?

It was a beautiful summer evening, warm and bright with moonlight. As they parked the car and walked to their house, they could hear laughter drifting from the backyards and patios of other houses. It seemed everyone else in the world was carefree and happy.

Sara went to the bathroom as soon as she was in the house. Her pad was soaked with blood. She sat looking at it, so rich and thick and red, so deep and huge that it spread across her life, blotting out life and joy.

She hated herself enough to do herself damage. She hated herself so much that if she could have done it with a simple word, she would have chosen to vanish from the earth. But it was not so simple, and so she put on a fresh sanitary napkin and got ready for bed—for
bed
, which once meant only joy and rest but now meant, at the best, confusion.

Ten days before her surgery, Sara ran away from home. That morning, Tuesday, September 12, was vivid with glancing lights, as if the buildings of Boston held separate suns that splattered silver from every skyscraper. The tiny whining plane that had carried Sara up the coast from Nantucket swooped low over Boston’s glittering harbor and landed smoothly on a runway that unrolled before them like a sheet of aluminum foil. The taxi that carried Sara to her destination was new and smelled of leather and success and it ticked speedily away through tunnels and over bridges without a single hitch or
pause, as if the world were efficient and new. The Charles River sparkled, windows winked light, everything was clean and metallic and joggers slipped by effortlessly along the paths, propelled by their robot hearts.

Sara’s heart was slick, too, her body sleek, she stepped from the taxi, admiring herself as she moved: such sophisticated high heels, patterned hose, slender figure in svelte suit. Her hair glittered all in a piece, like a helmet, and her face was flawless, a beautiful mask. She felt like a woman from the twenty-first century.

In the waiting room, she unbuttoned the camel suit jacket to reveal the blouse she was wearing, which in turn revealed her. It was a red silk blouse with full sleeves. She had turned the collar up high to further accentuate the way the neck plunged, unbuttoned, so that when she moved the rounded tops of her breasts were teasingly exposed. She knew what she was doing; she did not know what she was doing.

“Tell Mr. Larkin that Sara Blackburn Kendall would like to see him,” she said to the secretary, and when the secretary asked politely if Mr. Larkin was expecting her, she smiled arrogantly and said, “No.”

The secretary spoke on the phone to David Larkin, and in a flash he was there, opening the door into his office, looking out at her, his face beaming with surprise and delight.

Her old lover. And it looked as if he still loved her. At least as if her presence, her simple presence, brought him pleasure.

“Hello, David,” she said, smiling. “Do you have a minute?”

He was a successful architect, she knew that, and she knew he was a busy man, but she knew also that this was his own firm, he was his own boss. So she felt no qualms about bothering him at work; he couldn’t get fired or hassled. She moved about, admiring the plush rug, the spotless glass-and-chrome furniture, the cool serene Japanese prints that adorned the otherwise bare walls. She was just as cool and serene as she talked to her old lover, her heart was as slick as the glass, as cold as the chrome, she enticed her old lover, she lured him. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this. It was like swimming after years away from the water; she slid through the morning like a seal in the sea. Cold was her element. But at least in some way, this way, she could still move, and her body still mattered, and had powers.

David took her to lunch. They had champagne. He told her about the condominiums he was designing and the wing for the university. She told him, at length,
about
Jenny’s Book
. He asked her if she would like to come see his new apartment. She said she would.

His apartment was as sleekly modern as his office. There were pictures of a beautiful brunette all over the apartment, by his desk, by his bed, on the kitchen wall. David told her that her name was Cynthia and he thought they would be married. Sara thought,
Good, a challenge
. She needed a challenge, she needed to win a contest, she needed more proof that she existed, that her body worked.

“You’ve changed,” David told Sara as they sank down into his dark leather sofa. He had brewed strong coffee for them, insisting that they had both had more than enough champagne for the day. “You’re quite different.”

“Oh?” Sara laughed. “Does that mean you don’t like me?” She had taken off the jacket to her suit. She was aware of the way her breasts moved against the red silk of her blouse, and her perfume filled the air.

“Oh, Sara,” David said, a gentle chiding tone in his voice, “you know I could never not like you. But I don’t understand you. Perhaps it’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Seven years? At least seven years.”

Yes, it had been seven years since they had been together. They had been lovers. They had almost married. They would have had a good marriage, two ambitious professional people with their work centered in Boston; they would have been chic and clever and successful together. Sara had broken off the relationship; she had stopped loving him. She had not stopped caring for him, but she had stopped loving him, and after she met Steve she realized she had never been wild for him, not in the way she was wild for Steve. She had always liked David, though, and had liked having him in love with her, for he was an intelligent, thoughtful, handsome man, compact and well dressed, and as kind as he was brilliant.

Now, looking at him, she saw signs of age—inevitable, of course. She was certain he could see them in her. His black hair was thinning, his immaculately clothed body had thickened slightly, and there were crow’s-feet around his eyes. The skin on his hands had roughened. But still he had beautiful hands, supple, long-fingered pliant hands. And there were other parts of his body that were beautiful, that she had loved. Looking at him, she could easily remember his naked body. As she knew he could remember hers.

They had done things in bed with each other that all lovers do with one another. They had loved each other, but she had left him, unsatisfied. It had not been the right love
for her. Still he was a desirable man, one of the most desirable men she had ever met. It mattered to her a great deal that he desire her, too, now, still, that he desire her enough to betray the brown-haired Cynthia.

Sara moved closer to David on the sofa. “Sometimes it’s easier to remember what happened seven years ago than it is to remember yesterday,” she said, smiling. “The good memories last.” She reached out her hand. She touched his cheek.

David reached up and took her hand in his. “Sara,” he said, “what are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” she said, moving closer to him. Her breasts touched his arm.

“Is this what you want?” David asked, and put his arms around her, and kissed her.

She replied by putting her arms around him and kissing him back with a real but deflected passion, which like the light of the day around them came glancing off something else. She kissed him with great need.

“Oh, sweet Sara, you’re still so sweet,” David murmured.

His hands were on her breasts, her waist, her stomach, her hips. He took off her clothes. He took off his clothes. He was lying on her on the sofa, both of them naked, his erect penis stabbing against her thigh as they maneuvered together. She remembered how she had once teased him about being a gorilla because of the hair that ran down his back and his chest and stomach.

But when he tried to enter her, she twisted away with a cry. “No, David. I can’t!” she said.

“Sara,” David said. His voice was angry. “For Christ’s sake.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Sara said, and to her surprise as much as his, burst into body-racking sobs.

David, always the gentleman, drew back immediately. The leather sofa squeaked vulgarly with their movements. “Sara?” he asked.

And Sara, her white flesh vulnerable against the dark leather, pulled herself into a sitting position and looked at David with her wrecked tear-streaked face. “Oh, David, would you hold me, please?” she begged. “Would you help me?”

Puzzled, but kind—David was always so kind—he pulled her to him. He put his arms around her and pulled her over so that she sat on his lap, childlike, and he leaned back against the sofa and held her as if he were her father and she were his child. He held
her and loved her as she was, naked, singular Sara. And at this kindness, Sara’s heart burst through the cold walls that had entrapped it. She cried and cried, her tears and mascara streaking down David’s naked shoulder, leaving trails of black. He held her, and smoothed her hair, and stroked her arm, and said nothing. Finally she was able to speak.

“Oh, David,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I’m such a bitch. I’m such a failure. I’m a horrid bitch failure. I’m nothing. I’m not even a woman, you are so lucky I didn’t marry you, I would only bring you misery, David, I’m cursed, or I am a curse, David, I wish I could die. I want to die.”

“Sssh, sssh,” David said. “Don’t say such things, Sara. They’re not true.”

“David, I can’t make a baby,” Sara said. She said this to his shoulder because it was too painful a thing to say while looking him in the face. “I can’t get pregnant. There’s something wrong with me. I feel like such a piece of
trash
. I feel so worthless. As if fate and God scorn me, disdain me, as if I don’t matter to whatever force it is that brings life into the world. And I’m making everyone close to me miserable. Steve, his mother, his father—how they must secretly pity me and hate me and wish they could be free of me. David, I can’t get a grasp on anything anymore. I can’t see myself. I can’t think straight. I don’t feel like a woman. I don’t feel feminine,
female
.”