Shatter My Rock (3 page)

Then
came Ricky, like yellow oleander: delicate and toxic.  Our old lives withered
and fell away, a desert landscape in the rearview. The only thing that survived
was Dukate Disease.  

It
wasn’t Dukate that stole our mother, though. She bore well the cross of Ricky’s
death. What destroyed her was our father, how he disintegrated and fled,
leaving her pregnant for the third time and in mortal terror. She went directly
from the abortion clinic to the asylum, where she passed two decades in a
drug-induced fog. Now she fills a slot at a nursing home, with even better
pills and less give-a-damn.

I
make the trip to Meadow Haven two or three times a year, more for me now than
for her. Despite such infrequency, the place takes more than I can give. But I
don’t want our mother to die alone, even if she’ll never know, dementia having long
ago blended my face with the crowd.

“I’m
here to see Charlotte Ross,” I tell the receptionist, a knot in my stomach.

She
shoots me an obligatory half-smile and nods at an open book on the counter. “Go
ahead and sign in.”

I
do.

She
gestures toward the waiting area. “Have a seat.”

This
always happens: I work up enough nerve to get through those doors, and then I
panic in the lobby. I have left here more times than I have stayed.

But
today fate smiles. I no sooner sit than a genial-looking orderly appears.
“Visitor for Charlotte Ross?”

I
pop out of my seat and become his Siamese twin. If only I can get a look at
her, I know I’ll stay; I’ll have to.

“She’s
almost finished with lunch,” the orderly tells me as we walk.

I
relax a bit and let him take the lead, small talk not my strong suit—especially
in a place like this.

“Macaroni
and cheese today,” he continues. “Her favorite.”

I
wonder if this is true or if my mother has simply forgotten her taste
preferences, each new meal an opportunity to fall in love all over again.
“That’s good,” I say.

He
slows his pace as we approach an open door, through which the unmistakable
sounds of a TV game show spill into the hallway. He steps aside. “After you.”

I
remind myself to breathe. Every time I see her could be the last. Through force
of will, I penetrate her world, the window side of a fifteen-by-fifteen cube she
divides with another lost soul.

The
orderly follows me in and watches as I hesitate, always uncertain how to begin.
I have tried to force her to remember, but it’s no use. I am no more
significant than the maintenance man who sweeps the floors or the pretty young
anchor who delivers the evening news. Probably less so.

“Hi,
Charlotte,” I chirp, taking the seat beside her bed. I conjure a youthful smile
I hope she will recognize. “How are you today?”

The
orderly is more in tune with my feelings than my own mother is. He pats me on
the shoulder. “Do you want me to…?”

“I’m
fine.”

He
nods discreetly and heads for the door, leaving me to muddle through. “Mom,” I
murmur, almost hoping she doesn’t hear. “It’s me. Claire.”

But
she does hear. The sounds, at least. An unwelcome distraction from
The Price
is Right.
“What?” she snipes, unwilling to pry her eyes from
The
Showcase
Showdown.

This
is not how I want to begin. Once when I caught her in a particularly irritated
mood, she bit me. “Nothing.”

I
settle for nonverbal communication, her physical form telling its own story. A
story I am loath to confront: hollow cheeks; sunken eyes; the teeth of a
junkyard dog.

I
look closer. It’s hard to see, but there’s a wisp of my mother left in this
scooped-out shell. A wisp that makes me long to claw through her flesh until
all that remains is her amorphous essence.

The
twelve o’clock news begins, and I move to the windows. If she wants me, she’ll
say so.

I
stare out at a snow-encrusted bench and think of Ally, glad I have left her
home despite her avid pleas. My mother is the only family member on my side Ally
knows, even if such knowledge is deceptive.

The
truth is, I have come here to tell my mother about the baby, a trial run with
someone whose mental state is so tenuous I may as well be talking to God.

And
so I do.

“It’s
happening,” I whisper to the stray crows that populate the ledge. “We did it.”

As
soon as the words escape, I wish to snatch them back, fearful they may jinx the
pregnancy.

But
I push on, speaking to the baby. “I love you,” I say, certain the life-force
within me reciprocates. “Just six more months. Everything will be okay.”

Based
on the embryo transfer, I know the exact date the baby should be born: August
15th. And I know the child will be as disease-free as modern medicine allows,
having been screened for a plethora of genetic anomalies before ever getting a
shot at the womb. Beyond that, I hope for Ricky’s gentle spirit, Tim’s diehard
optimism, Ally’s proclivity for music and the arts. Of me there will be heart
and lungs, bone and blood.

I
consider my mother, wonder if she perceives the path of life vanishing from beneath
her. At forty-six, I sense it already: time loosening its grip, preparing to
set me free.

The
five feet that separate me from her seem akin to the distance between heaven
and hell, but I yearn to bridge them, touch what lingers of her before she
goes.

And
at the right moment, fate grants me the opportunity: She drifts into slumber,
and I slip in beside her, a child once more in my mother’s arms.

The
call from Meadow Haven comes nine days later, during my commute home. As soon
as I see the number, I know.

“Hello?”

“Mrs.
Fowler?”

“Yes.”

“This
is Margaret Skillings, from Meadow Haven.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m
calling because your mother passed this afternoon,” she tells me gently. “I’m
sorry.”

I
don’t know what to say.

“Is
there anything we can do for you? Calls we can make?”

My
mother’s name has been carved in stone since nineteen seventy-nine, the year
Ricky died. My father’s stone goes unused, his body buried in Sonora, Mexico,
where his second wife and their children can visit with regularity.

“I
don’t think so. We’ve made arrangements.”

“We
have a social worker on staff to help with these sorts of things,” she says.
“Would you like her number?”

“Sure.”

She
rattles off a string of digits, but I don’t bother listening, my thoughts
scattered. She closes by saying, “Bless you, dear.”

I
just click the phone off and concentrate on keeping my car between the lines,
the force of what has happened a steel beam across my chest.

Now
I am alone, and I must tell Ally.

The
house is quiet when I arrive, but soon the soft tink of
Chopsticks
on
the piano tells me Ally is home.

“Hey,
munchkin,” I say with a chipper voice and the bravest face I can muster.

Ally
has her back to me, the piano jammed into the far corner of the den. I deposit
my briefcase by the fireplace and hover over her shoulder while she plays on,
undeterred.

I
think about where I was when I got the news about Ricky: the back seat of my
dealer’s car. Somehow my mother had known where to find me. Then again, mothers
always do.

The
news of my father’s death came over Christmas break during my senior year of
college, from an old friend of the family who tracked me down through a series
of couch-surfing stints I’d embarked upon. By then, my mother was already long
gone.

“We
need to talk,” I tell Ally, more serious now.

Her
fingers know to stop; she shimmies over to clear the way.

I
sit. “Something’s happened to Grandma,” I say to the side of her head. If I look
her in the eyes, I’ll crumble.

“Did
she die?”

I
nod. “Yes.”

Ally
goes quiet, thinking. “How old was she?”

“Seventy-one.”

It’s
as if I can read her mind while she does the math on me: twenty-five years to
go. “She should’ve been older.”

“I
know.”

“Are
you sad?”

The
directness of the question catches me. “She was my mother,” I say, lacking the
language to make Ally understand that I love the
idea
of her
grandmother, what she could have been.

“We
should make cookies,” Ally suggests. “Chocolate chip.”

I
can’t help smiling. For all God has taken, he has given more.

My
mother had no funeral service, no visiting hours, not even a squat paragraph in
The Coventry Courier.
Long ago I promised, and I kept my word.

Tim
is worried; he thinks I may be depressed. What he doesn’t know is that I’m
scared about the baby, a child whose existence I have shared with no one,
including Dr. Patel.

I
pull into the parking lot of Wentworth Elementary a few minutes behind schedule
for Ally’s fourth-grade open house. At times like this, I praise God for Tim,
as steady as the rising tide or the setting sun.

He
meets me in the vestibule, takes my coat and then my hand. After all these
years, I expect to tire of his touch, his skin so familiar I mistake it for my
own. Yet a hook remains, keeps reeling me in.

I
kiss him softly. “Where’s Ally?”

The
hallway is so clogged with people that he is forced to release me. “She took
off with Bree and Kelsey,” he says with a hint of an eye roll. “Mr. Becker’s
class has bunnies.”

I
picture Tim in a few years, chauffeuring a gaggle of teen girls to school
dances and on group movie dates. A seahorse in an ocean of angelfish.

The
theme of the open house is planetary. Slogans like “reach for the stars” and
“shoot for the moon” adorn clumsy papier-mâché models of the Solar System and
the Milky Way.

Ally’s
teacher is Miss Abigail, one of those hippy-dippy chicks who wear berets and
populate open-mic poetry slams in abandoned warehouses. I like her well enough
in the fourth-grade teacher sense, but Tim is convinced she’ll turn Ally into a
carnie sideshow. A modern-day version of the bearded lady.

“Come
in! Come in!” Miss Abigail tweets as she buzzes about the classroom, seemingly
propelled by an outboard motor.

I
spot Ally in the back, still glued to Bree and Kelsey.
It’s starting
already,
I think.
Her separation from me.

As
we fight our way to our daughter’s side, I can’t help but notice the eager
smiles and frenetic waves the mothers direct Tim’s way. To me there are
occasional nods of recognition but little else.

There
are no empty seats near Ally or anywhere, the classroom at triple capacity. Tim
and I squeeze against each other in a spot half our size, warm air from the
ventilation system tugging at the back of my blouse.

“Thank
you all for coming,” Miss Abigail begins, struggling to overcome the din of
ongoing chatter.

A
few conscientious parents attempt to shush their rogue counterparts with meager
success.   

Miss
Abigail beams. “It’s wonderful to see your lively faces here tonight.” She
pauses to survey the crowd, as if she must achieve eye contact with each and
every one of us. “As I’m sure you know…”

Without
as much as a twinge or a cramp, I become aware of unexplained wetness between
my legs. It’s a feeling I’ve had before, when an out-of-sync menstrual period
struck or when my water broke with Ally.

I
want to believe this is nothing more than a fluke bout of urinary incontinence,
which I know to be common among older women, especially those who are pregnant.
But my gut tells me otherwise.

“I’ll
be right back,” I whisper to Tim, whose expression inexplicably reflects my
concern. I mouth the word
bathroom.

He
knows me too well, reads the way my muscles tense and pupils dilate, follows
me. “What’s wrong?”

I
stop a few yards short of the girls’ restroom and assure him, “Nothing.” I
cannot inform him here and now that I am pregnant and fear for our baby.

A
perplexed scowl tells me he disbelieves what I say, but I’ll make it right
later. Now I must go.

Usually
I make a point of avoiding places like this: century-old lavatories that have
seen little renovation since the Nixon era and are intended for children half
my size. And rightly so. The restroom down the hall from Ally’s class is balmy
and unkempt, a human chicken coop.

I
wait my turn with the patience of a six-year-old on Christmas morning until a
stall opens up. In need of a good cleaning and some lubrication, the bolt
groans as I wiggle it into the chamber.

As
soon as I get my stockings down, I check my underwear and find blood, the sight
of which buckles my throat and stills my lungs.

The
toilet paper is as coarse as a stale crust of bread, but I tear a wad from the
roll and blot around, searching for a source. Yet all that remains is the
suggestion of pale pink, whatever blood there once was now coagulating in my hi-cut
French briefs.

I
breathe a weak sigh of relief and begin preparing myself to explain to Tim and
Ally. It’s time they knew.

Somehow
I have been able to talk Tim out of a trip to the emergency room despite his
panic over the baby’s safety, but I do not escape the first available
appointment with Dr. Patel.

Tim
opens the car door and offers me his hand, ever the gentleman but even more so
now. “You don’t have to…” I feebly object, not wanting to become an invalid so
early in the pregnancy.

He
grins. “Are you kidding? I live for this.”

I
have no reason to doubt him and no will to disagree. The pride he feels in us
and this baby is palpable.

He
guides me from the parking lot to Dr. Patel’s waiting room, where he checks us
in as I sit, a steady peak of anxiety building in me for what we are about to
learn.

Within
minutes, Dr. Patel’s nurse, Marci, swings a heavy glass door open and leans
into the holding area. “Claire?” she says, her gaze finding me quickly, her
lengthy blond hair cascading over her shoulders in soft waves.

Tim
lays a hand on the small of my back as we trail her into the inner sanctum, a
homey labyrinth of corridors and alcoves with wood paneling and earthy
carpeting, a surface that squishes supportively under my feet as we walk.

Marci
gives a wave at an open doorway, steps aside and says, “This is it.”

The
pre-exam room is tiny. I squeeze into the hot seat, and Tim lingers in the
doorway. Marci slips by him and shimmies into a chair kitty-corner to me, our
knees banging from the lack of space. “So how’s everything going?” she inquires
lightly as she readies a blood pressure cuff.

I
can’t shake a queasy feeling that has taken root in the pit of my stomach.
“Pretty good,” I say with an uneasy smile at Tim, whose expression is blank
with fear.

Marci
has five children, their freckled, broad-nosed faces staring out from a cluster
of snapshots and school photos tacked to a corkboard over her shoulder. “You
guys must be excited,” she says. She straps the cuff around my arm, slips a
stethoscope into place and starts pumping.

“Uh-huh,”
I say with a confirmatory nod.  

The
pressure on my arm increases and then gradually subsides. “One fifty-two over
eighty-five,” Marci reports. She notes the numbers on my chart and clumsily
removes the cuff, its Velcro closure fighting her.

“That’s
high for me,” I say, feeling like a child who has just scored a D on an
important test.

“It’s
a little elevated,” she agrees.

Tim
suddenly interjects, “Is that causing the bleeding?”

Marci
cocks her head and awaits an explanation, which I deliver briefly and in an
even voice. When I’m finished, she tells me, “It’s probably nothing.” She lays
a reassuring palm on my thigh. “A little spotting is more common than you’d
think.”  

We
press on, slog through a list of routine medical questions until Marci is
satisfied with my responses. “Okay…” she says, tapping a ballpoint pen against
the edge of her child-sized desk, “…we just need a urine sample to confirm the
pregnancy.” She stands, and I follow. “You can use the bathroom around the
corner. Label the cup and leave it in the window.”

I
know the drill. Soon I am finished and back in the hallway, where Tim, Marci
and I trod along to one of the exam rooms. I take my place on the table and Tim
remains standing, arms crossed over his chest, an expectant look fixed on his
face.

Marci
shifts a neatly folded gown from the counter to my lap. “Go ahead and change,”
she says, giving the gown a little tap. “Opening in the front. I’ll let Dr.
Patel know you’re here.”

“Do
you want me to…?” Tim asks, gesturing at the door as Marci exits.

His
respect for my modesty is endearing; he never assumes. I shake my head and say,
“Stay.” If only he knew how much I need him.

It’s
a matter of seconds once I’ve donned the gown before Dr. Patel appears,
prompting me to wonder about the use of video cameras in this place. “Good
morning,” she says when she enters, her tone more subdued than I expect. “I
hear we have some news.”

“I
think so,” I say.

“That’s
quite a surprise, no?”

I
prickle at her wording but chalk it up to the fact that I’ve already told her I
tested negative. “I know.”

“So
why don’t you tell me what happened,” she prods, directing the inquiry more at
Tim than at me.

“We
did the embryo transfer on November 25th,” I remind her. “Four blastocysts.”

She
flips through my chart with determination and lands on the page she seeks,
which she scans across with her index finger. “And you tested negative for pregnancy
on December 19th, according to your self-report,” she states, eyeing my
abdomen.

“It
must have been a false result,” I offer. “The one I took recently was
positive.”

“That
can happen, right?” Tim asks. “A test error?”

“It’s
certainly not unheard of, but let’s put some facts behind our theories, okay?
We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

I
wonder what has put Dr. Patel in such a foul mood, but then it dawns on me: She
feels undermined and duped. Because of my professional status and the fact that
I out-earn her, she has allowed the balance of power to tip my way. The
self-testing is a concession she regrets, and now she must rein me in.

There
is a soft rap at the door. Dr. Patel excuses herself and steps into the
hallway, then returns momentarily with a sly smile. “Well, you’re right,” she
says, as if she’s surprised at having lost a bet. “It’s positive.
Congratulations.”

I
look to Tim for guidance, his reaction more important than my own. “Now what?”
he says, sounding petrified.

I
want to stay calm for him, but I’m worried too. Pregnancies in women my age
don’t always end well.

Dr.
Patel slides a cabinet drawer open and retrieves a colorful cardboard wheel
with the days of the month and the months of the year stamped out in bold black
print. “So the embryo transfer was November 25th,” she says tentatively,
manipulating the wheel to account for this information. “Which means your baby should
arrive on…August 15th, providing we don’t have a multiples situation.”

I
have never heard a twin, or triplet, or even quadruplet pregnancy referred to
as a “multiples situation,” much less considered that such a thing could happen
to me. The way we struggled for Ally—and the countless failures since then—have
convinced me to aim low and be thankful.

“I’m
going to do a quick manual exam, just to be sure everything is progressing
normally,” Dr. Patel says. She flips the stirrups into place, extends the
table, and gently leans me back.

From
the corner of my eye, I see that Tim does not watch this part, preferring
instead to memorize a diagram of the female reproductive system that plasters
the wall behind my head.

“Good,”
she says, true to her word about being brief. “No problems here.”

This
news turns Tim’s frame to Silly Putty; I smile to myself, a thin stream of
tears spilling from my cheek.

Dr.
Patel drags a rolling cart to her side and readies an ultrasound machine, then
squirts a mass of cold jelly on my stomach. “Let’s see,” she says, sliding a
transducer around and spreading the goo from hip to hip.

In
an impossibly short amount of time, I hear it: the rhythmic whoosh of our
baby’s heart. Proof I am not dreaming, after all.

“How
does it look?” Tim asks, staring at the screen with the intensity of an air
traffic controller.

Dr.
Patel taps a few keys, ignores Tim’s question. I wonder if it
may
be
multiples, the way she’s studying, taking her time. Finally, she says, “Single
fetus. Vigorous heartbeat.” She reaches for the due-date predictor. “Is there
any chance this could be a natural conception?”

The
words fail to make sense when they reach me:
natural conception?
“No,” I
say, still working to process the idea. “Tim had a vasectomy when Ally was six
months old.”

“Because,
based on the size of the fetus, I’m getting a due date of September 5th.” She
squints. “Not August 15th.”

I
am at a loss to explain this discrepancy but fear it may signal that the baby
is not developing normally. “How could that be…? Is there something…?”