The Unfinished Child (8 page)

“I’ll take your coat.” Marie laughed, rolling her eyes as the girls raced back to the kitchen. “Who knew a water main would break? Hopefully they’ll busy themselves after lunch.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Elizabeth said. “You know I love to see them.”

“I know,” Marie replied. “But I also love
not
to see them sometimes! Come on in. The coffee’s on.”

Marie followed Elizabeth into the kitchen, noting how snugly her jeans hugged her slight form.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said as she handed Elizabeth a cup of coffee. “The days go by so fast. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since we had supper. I swear I wake up and it’s Monday, and I go to bed and it’s Friday.” Marie paused to take a breath, conscious that she was talking too fast. It was a bad habit she’d developed since having kids—the belief that if she talked quickly she might finish a thought before being interrupted. “You look great,” she continued. “I like your hair all one length like that.”

“Slow down.” Elizabeth laughed. “You’re making me nervous. And, yes, I just got it cut last week.”

“Well, it suits you. You look very stylish. As usual.”

Marie envied Elizabeth’s ability to wear straight-legged jeans without looking like she’d been poured into them. Too many women wore them who shouldn’t. When she and Elizabeth were teenagers they’d developed their own code for assessing women’s clothes. If one of them spied someone in an unflattering outfit, she’d surreptitiously elbow the other and quietly say,
Somebody lied to her
.

“And I like your sweater,” Marie added.

A brief silence followed. The girls had gone downstairs with a cookie in each hand. Instinctively, Marie cocked one ear to listen. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Frances gave me a new cookbook, and I made some wacky tuna recipe out of it. I hope you’ll like it.”

Elizabeth smiled knowingly. “Still trying to change you, is she?”

“Always,” Marie said as she nodded. “Nobody knows how to do things like Frances.”

“It must be hard being right all the time,” Elizabeth said.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No, me neither.” Elizabeth picked up her coffee and moved to the sitting area beside the kitchen. The leather loveseat sighed softly when she sat down.

“I’ll put the fire on,” Marie said. “This weather makes it impossible to heat the house.” She walked to the fireplace and flicked a switch. Flames immediately appeared around the logs.

Marie nervously searched for a topic of conversation. She never used to have to fill in the silences because there had never
been
any. Best friends were always comfortable together, even if they didn’t tell each other the truth all the time. Some things just had to be overlooked and forgiven, for the sake of friendship.

No friendship was ever entirely equal—Marie knew that. In all relationships, someone always had the upper hand. In the early years, Marie had been the one in charge; later, though, when boys became interesting, things flipped. She had never told Elizabeth how much it had stung to see the way men’s eyes always slid quickly over Marie’s plump figure to linger on Elizabeth’s lean yet shapely one. In university, when they’d walk into a bar, Marie had seen the raw hopefulness in men’s eyes when they saw Elizabeth, and she’d also seen the shadow of disappointment when they saw her tagging along behind, even though she pulled in her stomach and stood straight to make herself look slimmer. It was hard to be second fiddle all the time, to be the one men settled for but didn’t really seek out. It certainly hadn’t helped when Elizabeth had ended up with Ron.

But Marie had sucked it up because that’s what friends do. Isn’t it? Every friendship had its small jealousies and irritations. And sometimes the tables turned and the person who’d always been doing the envying was suddenly the one who was envied. It happened that way when Marie had her children. Then it was Elizabeth’s turn to suck it up.

“Aren’t you having
any coffee?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, not now.” Marie dropped her gaze and felt her friend’s eyes studying her.

“You look kind of tired. Are you sleeping well?” Elizabeth asked. “You’ve got circles around your eyes. How’s work?”

“Work’s fine.” Marie shrugged. “You know, the same old stuff. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about accounting. I certainly don’t.” She had completed a course by correspondence, working on it when the girls were in school. It certainly wasn’t a passion of hers. In truth, she’d never really had a strong desire to do anything. Not like her sister, for example, who had always been driven and already had two degrees.

Having children had freed her from finding the perfect career. What a relief that had been. But even when her kids were small, the idea that she would be expected to go back to work one day was a black cloud on the horizon.

Now, sitting with her third child growing inside of her, she wondered if she could buy another ten years at home with this baby. By then she’d be forty-nine, almost ready to retire. The thought did not bring much relief.

“Are you okay, Marie?”

Marie startled. How beautiful Elizabeth looked with her dark hair fanned gently off of her face, her lipstick perfectly highlighting her complexion. No wonder the boys had always been drawn to her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I was somewhere else there for a minute.” She leaned back and put her feet up on the coffee table. Sunlight filtered in from the kitchen window illuminating the wood floor in wide shafts. The clock ticked loudly on the wall above the sink where the smell of tuna hung like fog over the countertops.

“I was just sitting here thinking that you look a bit piqued,” Elizabeth said. “A bit green around the gills, if you know what I mean. It seems to me that I’ve seen that look on you before.”

Marie made eye contact before quickly looking away.

“Are you
sure
you’re feeling okay?”

Marie nodded again.

“Look at me.”

Marie lifted her chin to be examined.

“I’ve got a funny feeling something’s going on here,” Elizabeth said. “And from the look of things, I’m going to take a wild guess.” She gave Marie the once-over with her eyes. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

The air escaped from Marie’s lungs.
It was an accident
, she wanted to say.
I didn’t do it on purpose.

“And you’re not even bloated or bruised from trying.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Lucky you.”

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” she whispered.

Elizabeth turned away and stared outside the sliding glass door to where sparrows flitted in and out of the densely gnarled hedge.

“What are you sorry about?”

I’m sorry it’s not you.
“I don’t know. I’m just feeling like I’ve messed up.” Marie splayed her hands out onto her thighs. “I think I’m a little old for an unplanned pregnancy, don’t you?”

They sat quietly for a moment. From downstairs came the sound of the television and the girls’ laughter.

“Remember when you found out you were pregnant with Sophia and I’d been trying for two years to get pregnant, without any luck?”

Marie nodded. A cloud passed before the sun and the room fell into shadows.

“And do you remember what you said? You said, ‘Am I going to have to stop seeing you for nine months?’ As if we could have gone nine days without seeing each other!”

Marie smiled weakly. But something
had
changed once she’d had the girls. They still talked on the phone regularly, but sometimes months went by and they didn’t see each other. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I can’t help it. It’s just not fair. I know you’ve always been happy for me, but I can’t help thinking that it should be you.”

The sun came out again and the room grew to twice its size.

“When’s the baby due?” Elizabeth asked.

“Late August, early September.”

The phone rang. Relieved, Marie jumped to her feet and ran across the kitchen to the desk against the far wall.

“Sorry,” she said, returning a minute later. “That was Frances. Again. She says to say hi.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Well, you know Frances. She says she’s fine, but I don’t think she’d tell me otherwise. I think she’s finding it a challenge being home alone all day with Max, especially since Craig is back at work full-time. As you know, Frances likes to be in control, and one thing being a mother teaches you is how little control you really have. If you don’t like a job, you can quit. If you’re unhappy in your marriage, you can get a divorce. But you can’t walk away from your kids. Once you have them, you’re stuck with them.” Marie ended abruptly, suddenly self-conscious. Her friend looked ready to bolt from the house.

“Not
stuck
exactly but . . .” She’d done it now—delivered a double blow to Elizabeth. Upper cut one—her birth mother had given her up. Kidney blow two—she’d never had her own children. “Lunch should be ready,” she said hurriedly, hoping to hide her gaffes.

She felt lighter now; her breath came more easily. What a relief that Elizabeth had guessed. How much easier than trying to find the right words.

She sliced thick pieces of bread from the whole loaf and set them aside on the cutting board. Bickering voices rose from downstairs and become more shrill.
Mom!
Marie walked over and closed the door to the basement. Let them fight their own battles, she thought.

“How’s Ron?” she asked.

Elizabeth pulled out one of the stools next to the island and sat down. “Well . . . funny you should ask.” Then she told Marie that she’d signed a lease on a downtown apartment that morning.

“I’m not looking for any advice,” she added. “I have no idea if I’m doing the right thing or not. Who knows, maybe I’m even making more of a mess of things. All I know is that I just need some time on my own to figure out what I should do with the next phase of my life.”

Marie buried her face in the refrigerator to hide her shock. Thirty years of friendship! Is this what it resulted in? Neither of them had
ever
made any big decisions without consulting the other first. Yet Elizabeth was leaving her husband and had signed a lease on an apartment? She blinked back tears as she mashed the tuna onto the bread before adding sliced tomatoes and lettuce.

“And wait until you see the view! I think that’s why I took the apartment, because it looks south, over the river valley. Right now the river’s frozen, of course, but it’ll be especially lovely in the fall when the leaves are turning. And I’ll be able to walk to work. That’ll be nice. It’s only about twelve blocks.”

“How’s Ron handling this?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“You haven’t
told
him?”

Elizabeth winced. “I know. I wanted to tell him yesterday, but I just couldn’t. I don’t want to hurt him,” she added, “but I just can’t stay in that house right now.”

“But you love that house. You’ve worked hard to fix it up. What’s changed?”

“I worked hard to get it ready for a family. It was supposed to be a
family
home.”

“Can’t you and Ron be a family?”

“We’re a couple, not a family. There’s a huge piece missing, and sometimes I feel like that house just mocks me. It’s an old house. Who knows how many babies might have been born in it. Healthy babies. Happy babies. Stupid, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ll tell Ron. Probably tonight. Signing that lease certainly gives me the incentive.”

Marie tried to imagine how he’d take the news. She hadn’t seen him in some time, mostly because she didn’t see as much of Elizabeth anymore either.

“Well, I guess there’s no more putting it off,” she said.

Elizabeth didn’t appear to register the pain in Marie’s voice; she had returned to the sliding doors and was once again staring into the backyard. Her figure was a dark skeleton in the full sunlight. “The apartment’s empty right now, so I can start moving in any time.”

Marie called Nicole and Sophia for lunch, and they pounded up the stairs like a herd of elephants to see who could get to the table first.

She had set the table herself, taking great care to make it look lovely. A navy blue tablecloth dotted with yellow stars and planets hung halfway to the floor. Yellow cloth napkins lay over each plate. A glass pitcher filled with iced tea sat in the centre of the table.

“Aren’t we lucky?” Elizabeth said as she took a seat. “While the wind gusts outside, we’re inside having a summer picnic!”

The girls grinned widely. Nicole ran off and returned to the table wearing a sun hat and sunglasses. “Remember not to go swimming for at least an hour after lunch!” She laughed.

“And watch out for sharks!” Sophia added.

“It’s not the ocean, stupid,” Nicole said. “We’re at a lake.”

“How do
you
know? We could be at the ocean! Are we at the ocean, Mom, or at a lake?”

Marie was only half listening. The girls laughed so easily with Elizabeth. Her own role too often involved nagging the kids to do the things they were supposed to do, like homework and chores. She
tried
to have fun with them, to be light, but lately her timing was off. She took small bites of her sandwich and chewed each one until it was pulp in her mouth. She wished she could lie down.

Elizabeth asked the girls about school and their friends. She seemed to know about the latest videos they’d watched. Marie was thankful that she didn’t mention her impending move. Nicole and Sophia would be envious of her downtown apartment with a view.

And then suddenly it was two o’clock and Elizabeth needed to leave. She turned down dessert because she was full, so the girls filled a container with cookies for her to take home.

“Can you take us to a movie soon, Auntie Elizabeth?” Sophia asked as she followed her to the foyer.

Elizabeth pulled her winter coat on and slipped into her fur-lined boots. “I sure can. You guys let me know which one and when, okay?”

The two women smiled at each other across the children.

“Will you call me soon?” Marie asked. “I’d like to help, if I can. Packing, shopping—whatever you need. Just let me know. Okay?”

Elizabeth nodded. “You bet. Thanks for lunch. Take care of yourself. And say hi to Frances for me.”

A gust of cold air entered the house when Elizabeth slipped through the door. It swirled around Marie’s bare ankles in tight circles and then spread out low over the tiles before gusting into the four corners.