Until the Real Thing Comes Along (14 page)

“Pardon me?”

“You faint when you get blood taken?”

“I haven’t yet.”

“Okay, we’ll put you in the big-girl chair.” She raises the arm of the semirecliner, and I sit down, lean back. It feels like a ride.

“First time being pregnant?” the woman asks.

“Yes.” I feel myself blushing.

“I’m Sheila,” the woman says. And then, pushing my sweater sleeve up, “Make a nice fist for me, now.”

I do, and she applies a tourniquet, swabs the inside of my elbow with a cold, brown liquid; snaps on gloves. Then she inserts a long needle very quickly and very nearly painlessly into my vein. “Wow,” I say, watching the tubes fill up with blood. “You’re good. Are you an addict or something?”

She looks up. “You can open your fist.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I always make bad jokes when I’m nervous.”

“It’s all right,” she says. “It’s just that … Yes, I was.”

Oh, God.

“Just kidding,” she says. Then, looking at me, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Uh-huh.”

“You’re a little pale. Why don’t you sit here a minute?” She smiles. Badly matched crown, second molar. I really like her.

Another woman comes in, no belly on her yet, either. “You a fainter?” Sheila asks.

They see a million pregnant women. I will have to be the one to keep it all special. I crook my arm up, hold myself to myself.

“You’re just in time to peel some potatoes for me,” my mother says, when I walk in the door.

“Good, I’m not late, then.” I take off my boots, hang up my coat. “Where’s Dad?”

“Showering.”

I look at my watch. “Now?”

She shrugs. “He likes to shower in the evening lately.”

I put on an apron, push up my sleeves.

“It’s in the top drawer,” my mother says. “The … thing.”

“What?”

“You know, the … slicer.”

“Peeler?”

“Right.”

“Okay. How many potatoes?”

“I think four, huh?” And then, seeing the Band-Aid on my arm, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh!” I take the Band-Aid off. “Nothing. Just … blood work.”

“For what? Just tell me. Oh God, you’re sick, aren’t you? I knew you looked different the last time I saw you. I told your father. I could see it around the eyes.”

“Mom.” I hadn’t wanted to tell her yet, not so suddenly, certainly, but now … “It’s … I had a pregnancy test.”

She stands stock-still, her mouth open. And then, “You and Mark …?”

“No. Me and Ethan.”

“ ‘Ethan and I,’ ” she says, in a shell-shocked sort of way.

“Yes. Ethan and I. You know, I’d wanted to be a little more graceful, telling you. I wanted to tell Dad at the same time, too.”

“Well,” she says. And then, again, “Well. I just don’t know what to say!”

I turn off the water, walk over to her, look into her face. “Are you a little happy?”

She sighs, exasperated. “Well, I … For one thing, is it safe? Has he been tested? And how can … isn’t he
gay
?”

“It is safe. He’s negative. And yes, he’s gay.”

“So did you …? Well, of course, it’s none of my business.” She grabs the dishrag, starts cleaning off the counter.

I say nothing. This moment is huge. I feel like I need to step over it to get back to the sink. I turn the tap on again; start peeling a potato.

“Patty?”

“Yeah?” I don’t turn around.

“I think we need to sit down.”

I take in a deep breath as I see my father entering the room. “What’s new?” he asks, kissing me. And then, seeing my face,
“What?”
He turns to my mother. “Did you tell her already?”

“Tell me what?”

“Nothing,” my mother says. And looking at my father, she tells me, “We’re going on a trip. We wanted to surprise you with it.”

“You wanted to surprise me?”

“Yes, we thought it might be fun to have you to dinner and surprise you. Didn’t we, Robert?”

“Marilyn—”

“But Patty has an even bigger surprise.”

My father looks at me.

“Don’t you?” she says.

“I … Well, yeah, I guess I do.”

“Is dinner ready?” my father says. “Are we going to eat while we do this?”

Nobody around here is ready for anything. That is abundantly clear.

S
ophia comes to my door that evening to borrow tea. She is dressed in her faded blue chenille robe and fuzzy pink slippers. Her black hair net, pulled low on her forehead, anchors the toilet tissue she has wadded up luxuriously over her ears—she calls these soft bundles her “night pillows.”There is little in life more honest than one’s real preference in sleep wear.

She follows me into the kitchen, and I hand her a box of Sleepytime. She inspects it, then asks, “You have some else?”

I rummage in the cupboard, hand her a box of Mandarin Orange. She smiles, shakes her head no. I pull out Wild Berry Zinger, Lively Lemon. No and no. “What are you looking for?” I ask. “Do you have something particular in mind?”

“Red Rose.”

“Well, you should have said so!”

“Ah. Good. So you have.”

“No, I do not. But you should have said that’s what you wanted. It would have saved us both some time.”

She takes in a breath, nods. “So. I am sorry to be inconvenience. A good night to you.”

“Sophie,” I say. “Wait. I’m sorry. I’m just in a bad mood.”

She looks at the literature on pregnancy I have spread out over the kitchen table. “Some worries is start?”

“No. It’s a little overwhelming, that’s all. But I told my parents tonight, and they … didn’t react the way I’d thought they might.”

“How are they react?”

“I don’t know. Reserved. Disappointed.”

“You tell them Ethan is father, yes?”

“Well, yes. Of course.”

“So. They want happy marriage, is all. And Ethan …”

“My mother has been telling me for a long time to just have a baby—without marriage!”

“Still, in her heart, is want for more. You will see, Patty. When there is baby, must be perfect. When is daughter, is more so.”

I look at her carefully. “Do you have a daughter, Sophia?”

She looks away. “On this, I will not like to talk.”

I say nothing.

She looks back at me. “I hope this is not hurting on your mind.”

“Hurting my feelings?”

She nods.

“No. It’s okay.”

“All right. I tell you. I only
want
daughter. All in my life, this is what I want and never get. Or son, too.”

“Oh, Sophia. I’m sorry.”

“So. What can you do?”

I don’t know what to say. The notion of someone still feeling the pain of not having children this late in life is amazing to me. And yet, when a want is so strong, why should it be surprising
that it never entirely leaves? Sophia says, “You have baby come. And I can be to enjoy, too. Also help. You go out, I sit on baby. With pleasure.”

“Well, I may take you up on that.”

“I have honor if you do.”

After Sophia leaves, I sit at the table and look through some more literature. One photograph, in a pamphlet that talks about bodily changes in pregnancy, shows what is called a
linea nigra
, a dark line running down from the belly button, which occurs in some women. I stare and stare at it, cover it with my finger, then take my finger away. I hadn’t known about this. I thought the only change in pregnancy would be a gloriously rounded belly—pearlescent, perhaps. A gloriously rounded belly, and pinker cheeks, and an improved disposition. And some wisdom. Now I look at enlarged and darkened nipples, stretch marks. I lift my shirt, look around. Nothing yet.

I go to the phone, call Ethan. Again. Still not home. I had expected him to be there, to want to hear all about my doctor’s visit. I liked Dr. Carlson. He was thorough, and gentle, and fine with the fact that the father was a gay man. He suggested I bring Ethan next time. He wore a beautiful, jewel-toned tie. I saw a bag of M&Ms in the pocket of his lab coat, and he shared some with me. He told me, sympathetically, that the pink vitamins he had to prescribe for me were about the size of Mary Kay Cadillacs.

I pick up the booklet called “Your Baby, Month by Month.” I flip through the pages, watching the fetus develop, then turn to the very end and read a little about what to pack for the hospital. Lollipops, for a dry mouth. An outfit to bring the baby home in.
This part kills me, that you go in without a baby, and come home with one. No matter how long I’m pregnant, I don’t think I’ll ever believe that there is really a baby inside me until I see it. What I need is a little window right below my belly button so that I can witness the completion of an ear, the growth of real fingernails, the coming of the delicate whorl of hair at the back of the head.

Oh, I want to pack right now, fold up a tiny, soft sleeper decorated with panda bears, a yellow receiving blanket, a knit bonnet. I want to be lying in a hospital bed surrounded by flowers, holding my breathing baby, its eyes closed in sleep, its fists smelling of new flesh. I want to examine and reexamine the lineup of toes on the plump foot, the perfect arrangement of ribs and sternum protecting the working heart, the effortless bend at the very small elbow. I think pregnancy should last about three weeks, not nine months.

Although then my parents would be in Italy when the baby was born. Italy, they’re going to. Or
Italia
, as my father has begun energetically calling it. They’re going there because they always wanted to go and because they never had a honeymoon. I never knew that—I always thought surely they went to Niagara Falls, kissed rapturously to the thunder of the water. I was so sure about this I never even asked them about it. Now I picture them in Rome, my father saying my mother’s name on some street Augustus walked on. My father is wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and shiny blue pants and one of his golf hats; his camera bumps rhythmically into his belly. My mother is wearing what she would call a decent pants suit, a sweater draped over her shoulders. She has on her prescription sunglasses and carries a map which neither of them consult.

My mother needs a vacation. She couldn’t even remember my brother’s phone number the other night. Of course, she was probably still upset with me. She was upset and my father was quiet. Just … quiet.

The phone rings, startling me. When I answer it, Ethan says, “How was the doctor?”

“Where have you been?” I say angrily. And then, hearing loud music and voices in the background, “Where are you?”

I had not meant to say that. I had not meant to feel that. He does not live here. We are not married.

“Can you come over?” I say, in a revised tone of voice. “I want to show you what they gave me at the doctor’s office.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I was going to. I just wanted to check first. It’s … a little late.”

I look at my watch. Eleven. “I’m up.”

Actually, I wasn’t going to ask him to come over, either. But now I want him to see everything, to read it cover to cover, to memorize it. I want him to take a pink vitamin so large there is a breathless moment after you swallow it, when you wonder if it’s going to make it down or if it’s going to lie like a hammock in your esophagus. I want him to think about how he would feel if some dark line suddenly appeared on his belly, if his nipples spread out like flying saucers.

Later, lying in bed with me, Ethan says, “I can’t stay here at night all the time, you know.”

“I know.”

“Okay, so … Good night.”

“Good night, Ethan.”

“Patty? I hope you’re not offended, that I … that we … ”

“No. I’m not. It’s just nice to have you here. I’m not used to all of this yet, it’s nice to have you to share in it.”

“I do want to share in it.”

“Yes.”

“But … I still … you know.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Ethan.”

“I know.”

“Or … anything.”

Neither of us bothers to point to the obvious falsehood of that remark.

“Have you started getting sick yet?” Ethan asks.

“What, are you looking forward to it?”

“No.”

“Not everybody gets sick.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I won’t get sick.”

“Maybe not.”

“Although, I’ll tell you one thing. Coffee smells pretty bad to me. Also green pepper.”

“Well, that’s no problem. You can’t drink coffee anyway.”

“No.”

“Okay, so … ” He turns onto his side.

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you have a date tonight?”

“I … Well, I met someone for a drink.”

“Oh.”

“It was just, you know, casual—someone wanted me to meet someone—Steven, his name was.”

“Uh-huh. Did you like him?” My right hand is squeezing my left pointer to death.

“It was okay. You know. No lightning bolts.”

“Do you think you’ll see him again?”

“Yeah. I thought I might.”

“Are you going to tell him about … us?”

“No, I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”

“No lightning bolts.”

“Right.” He sighs. “There hardly ever are.”

“I know.”

He turns toward me. “Could I feel your stomach?”

“There’s nothing to feel yet.”

“Well, maybe not. But I want to feel when it starts, when there is something there. I need … a baseline.”

“Sure.” I turn on my back, lift my pajama top, feel his warm palm over my stomach. I close my eyes, hold my breath, frame the moment.

“Thanks,” he says, and turns back onto his side.

“You’re welcome.”

A few minutes later, I say, “Ethan? The only change so far is that my breasts are tender. And bigger, I think.”

Silence.

“Ethan?” I whisper.

He’s sleeping. Or pretending to. I move close enough to feel the heat from his body, but I am careful not to touch. You don’t get everything all at once. You wait.

“C
urly always said he’d take me to Italy,” my mother says. We are standing at the window in my parents’ living room, watching my father load suitcases into my car. I’m going to drive them to the airport.

“Who’s Curly?”

She looks at me. “You know. James Wilkinson. We called him ‘Curly’ because of his beautiful blond hair. He was one of my boyfriends in high school.”