by Leslie Gould
The periwinkle brocade drapes were drawn; the living room, painted a bluish-gray with a white alcove ceiling, was cold and dark. She pulled the drapes, switched on the Tiffany lamp in the corner, and turned up the heat.
“Where are your mama and daddy?” she asked.
“Back there.” Hudson pointed through the doorway.
Caye heard heaving as she headed down the hall. She tapped quietly on the bathroom door and said calmly, “I’m here.”
“We’ll be out in a minute,” Rob answered.
Hudson, Liam, and Audrey tumbled off the couch when Caye walked back into the living room.
“Go get dressed.”
“We’re hungry,” Hudson whined.
“You can eat at our house.” Caye shooed the boys and Audrey up the cherry-wood staircase and followed with Simon. All three of the boys slept in the turret room, or castle room as they called it, Liam and Hudson on bunk beds and Simon in the crib. The other upstairs rooms were used for a playroom, a guest room, and Rob’s office.
Jill thought it was good for the boys to share a room.
Caye yanked the rings on the three eggshell-blue shades and zipped them up the windows. Simon startled each time. The neighbor’s cedar tree across the street filled most of the view, but around the edges she could see the east side of the Rogue Valley.
Jill had painted white clouds on the faint blue ceiling. A mural of a stone wall with turtles, butterflies, frogs, and dragonflies on a sage-green background surrounded the room.
Caye rummaged through the boys’ drawers. No clean socks for Hudson or Liam. The dirty-clothes hamper was full. Caye put Simon in his crib; he started to cry again as he pulled himself up against the rail and thrust his foot through the slats.
“Come down,” Caye said to Hudson and Audrey, who had perched on the top bunk. Hudson jumped from the top rung of the ladder.
“Don’t you do it,” Caye told Audrey, her eyes leaping the distance to her daughter. “Come down the ladder.”
Audrey rolled her eyes. Caye ignored her.
Caye gave Hudson his clothes. “Put them on.”
“I can’t. Mommy does it for me.”
Caye knew this wasn’t true.
“Give it a try; Audrey will help you,” she said, thinking that offering Audrey’s help might inspire him to be independent. It didn’t. He wiggled out of his sleeper pajamas and then lifted his arms for Audrey. She yanked the shirt down over his head and knocked him over. They both fell on the floor giggling.
Caye peeled off Liam’s mushy Pull-Ups, turning her head from the acrid smell. She put a new Pull-Ups on him, not wanting to hassle with big-boy underwear, and then his orange shorts and yellow T-shirt. He needed a bath, but it would have to wait. He walked to the closet and pulled out his yellow rubber boots. “Like Audrey,” he said with a smile and sat on the floor in front of Caye.
Audrey wrinkled her nose. “No, Liam. Mine are black.”
Caye pulled the yellow boots on Liam’s bare feet.
Simon continued to cry as she changed his diaper and then lifted him out of his crib. He banged his head against her chest and pulled on her shirt. “Poor baby,” Caye cooed, kissing his head, the fine strands of hair caressing her lips. She wiped the tears away from below his big blue eyes with two swipes of her index finger.
Rob threw a tea bag in the garbage as Caye and the kids paraded into the kitchen. Last night’s dishes sat in the sink with half-eaten corn dogs, mustard, and ketchup dried on the plates. Rob had obviously fixed the meal. He must have stopped at the store on his way home from work. It wasn’t the kind of food Jill kept in the house.
“How is she?” Caye asked.
“Not any better.”
“Maybe you should just take her to the doctor’s office. Don’t wait for the call back. Especially if she’s getting dehydrated.”
Rob’s blond, bushy hair was uncombed. His gray eyes were dull. He hadn’t shaved. His white T-shirt was wrinkled. He didn’t answer.
“What about the dog?” Caye asked. “Should I take him?”
“He’ll be okay,” Rob answered. “We won’t be gone long.” Rob started toward the door.
“I need the car seats,” Caye said.
“The Suburban’s unlocked,” Rob answered, looking over his shoulder.
Caye put Simon on the slate floor and handed him a rubber spatula from the drying rack to chew on.
“Where are Simon’s sippy cups?” Caye called out, opening the cupboard beside the sink.
“Sippy cups?” Rob stopped in the doorway and turned around.
“And formula?”
“Does he use a cup?” Rob asked. “Isn’t Jill still nursing?”
“No,” Caye said.
“Is she pregnant?”
“She doesn’t think so,” Caye said, feeling befuddled. Why hadn’t Jill told Rob she thought she might be pregnant?
“The test was negative,” Caye blurted out. She immediately regretted her hasty tongue. Heat began to rise under the collar of her sweatshirt and up her neck.
Rob pressed his forefinger against the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know where she keeps the cups and formula,” he said, looking hurt.
“Try over the microwave.”
2
Jill climbed into the Suburban. Rob put the vehicle into reverse and backed out of the parking place at the clinic. They headed toward Medford, over to Rogue Valley Medical Center, a fifteen-minute drive.
“Tests,” the doctor said. “It’s time for more tests.” Two days ago their doctor, a new family-practice doc, said he thought it was a virus. He’d ordered more blood work—the results hadn’t come back yet.
Three weeks ago he thought Jill was anemic. And he was right; she had been. Today he said that it might be her gall bladder, maybe hepatitis C. Had she been exposed in Argentina? But probably just a virus, a liver virus. He’d seen it before—a mild case of jaundice from a virus.
Rob stayed in the waiting room and worked on his laptop during the appointment. He looked surprised when the doctor came into the waiting room with Jill and said they needed to head over to Rogue Valley Medical Center for more tests.
Their doctor had already called an internist in Medford to take her case.
Jill closed her eyes as they sped by the foothills to the west. Mountains covered with trees and topped with spring snow rose above them. To the east, dry, prehistoric hills with spines like dinosaurs stretched themselves out of sight.
She’d felt cradled by the contrasting geological giants these last four years. Nurtured, cloistered, protected. She finally felt as though she belonged, as though Ashland was a place to be from, to say, honestly and proudly, I’m from Ashland. Ashland was where she wanted to raise her family, paint, create a garden. But, as in the original Garden, a serpent lurked here, waiting, scheming, hiding among the blossoms.
All along she’d meant to tell Rob—but hadn’t. She hated to think of it as a secret, exactly. In her mind it was simply a fact she hadn’t yet revealed. She’d come closest to telling Rob when they were in Argentina, when Hudson was three months old. She was exhausted, frightened. They sat on the beach, an umbrella shading their firstborn. “I want to go home,” she had said.
Rob asked why. She said it was the baby. What if something happened? What if they couldn’t get the right medical help? She started to cry.
Rob asked if it was postpartum depression. She’d never been a worrier. What was going on?
She didn’t tell him she was suddenly terrified of dying—of leaving her child motherless.
Two months later, they were living in one of her mother’s rentals when she realized, or more accurately Rob realized, that she was pining for Ashland. She and Rob had stopped in the little town after their wedding on their way from Portland to L.A. Rob wanted to show her the college, Mount Ashland where he’d worked on ski patrol, the Shakespeare Festival, hi
s favorite deli with the outside seating along the creek, the Plaza, and Lithia Park. The town enthralled her.
Even with her eyes closed, she knew—by the timing of when they turned onto the Boulevard—that they were passing under the train trestle. She thought of the purple pansies planted in the median.
A few minutes later Rob accelerated as he pulled the Suburban onto the freeway on-ramp. Jill opened her eyes and fumbled in the pocket of her fleece for her sunglasses.
She thought about the boys with Caye. Safe. Well cared for. Caye was more than an auntie to them. She was a second mom.
The image of her garden rushed into Jill’s mind. She had made the garden wall the focal point—seven feet of weathered bricks supporting purple wisteria. Earlier in the week, when she and Caye sat in the garden admiring the tulips and early tree peonies, she’d wanted to talk about her old fears. But she had held back again. For months, really for years, she’d wanted to mention it to her friend, in passing, as if it were no big deal, which it wasn’t, not really.
In L.A., right after she and Nathan had returned from Argentina, she went for a checkup and broached the subject with her doctor. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Eat right. Exercise. Go ahead and have another baby. Chances are you’ll be just fine.”
“Is it genetic?” Jill had asked.
“There’s no evidence that it is,” the doctor answered. “And you’re young. Put it out of your mind.”
She also told their first family-practice doc in Ashland, who had just retired. He also told her it wasn’t genetic. Most recently she’d told their new doctor, after she kept feeling under the weather.
So if it wasn’t a big deal, why hadn’t she told Rob? Or Caye?
Caye would have dug and hunted, gone on the Internet, ordered books from the library, asked more questions, made it into a tornado of an issue. Caye would have hounded her, asked how she was feeling every day, pressured her to go to the doctor, then to a different doctor.
And she had gone to the doctor. She’d taken the iron tablets—but they hadn’t helped. She’d only gotten worse.
Rob reached over and patted her leg.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” he said.
Jill squeezed his hand. “Sorry you’re missing work.”
She couldn’t get any more rest than she was getting now—and still take care of the boys. They could hire a nanny. Maybe Stephanie, who baby-sat two mornings a week, could come every morning. Marion, Jill’s mother, would probably pay for the added expense.
Jill had decided to wait a year to landscape the north side garden. And she wouldn’t start trying to get pregnant again soon—as she had planned.
They passed the pear orchards, zipping by the symmetrical rows of trees covered with tender green leaves. The terrain was drier on both sides of the freeway now. A green dusting of spring grass covered the hills. It would soon give way to brown. Although Jill could not see it at the moment, she was aware of Mount McLoughlin, snowcapped and majestic, to the northeast, standing guard over the valley.
Caye sat down in her rocking chair with Simon and the cup of formula. The baby wiggled against Caye’s chest and closed his eyes.
As she rocked the baby, Caye thought back to when she’d first met Rob. She never would have imagined as she sat behind him in econ that his future wife would be her best friend. Nathan and Caye had gone to college with Rob at Southern Oregon State. Rob was spontaneous, smart, and fun. He majored in business with a minor in computer science. After graduation, he moved back to Portland and worked for Intel. Several years later they heard he was living in Buenos Aires.
Nathan and Caye married and stayed in Ashland. Nathan took a job teaching middle school social studies in Medford; Caye took a job in the sales department of a software company. She kept working after Andrew was born, but when she was six months pregnant with Audrey she cut back to part time. They’d gone to a church in Ashland after they were first married, but they attended less and less after the pastor Caye liked left. Soon they weren’t going at all.
They’d just started going to a church in Medford when Caye met Jill. It had been Nathan’s idea to attend—he was determined to find a home church for his growing family.
Caye decided to try the Wednesday-morning mothers’ group at the new church. She put Andrew in the children’s program and then joined the other moms in the social hall. One woman said hello to her. That was it. No one else even smiled.
The next Sunday she sat reluctantly in the same social hall with Nathan during Sunday school. Fifteen minutes into the lesson, Rob entered the room. Beside him walked Jill. She wore a long black skirt, a bright blue silk blouse with three-quarter length sleeves, and strappy black sandals. She carried a blond-haired baby on one hip and a large black leather bag over her other shoulder.
Caye and Nathan raised their eyebrows at each other in one of those unchoreographed moments of acknowledgment. There was Rob. Rob Rhone. Right in front of them. Who would have ever thought?
Rob didn’t notice them—or at least didn’t acknowledge them.
Caye watched Jill. Her wavy dark hair flowed down her back; her blue, blue eyes shimmered as she smiled in a carefree way and stepped around Rob and into the row of metal chairs. Jill was slim and tall, at least five feet nine inches. Caye, at five feet three inches, admired height and envied women who carried it with poise and confidence. Rob was also tall—well over six feet. He wore his blond hair short and bushy.
Jill carried the baby in an effortless manner. The little boy looked to be around a year old. He was perfectly balanced on his mother’s hip, supported by one arm. It looked as if she could carry him that way forever without growing weary.
They sat just ahead of Caye and Nathan. Caye watched as Jill pulled brightly colored Discovery Toys out of the bag for the baby and then retrieved them from the floor after he threw them. Unable to keep him occupied, she lifted her blouse, and the baby began to nurse.
Too interested in the people around him to keep his head under his mother’s blouse, the little boy kept pulling off to shriek. Finally Jill gathered him and the large bag, smiled at Rob in defeat—or perhaps victory—and walked out of the hall.
“I have to go to the rest room,” Caye whispered to Nathan.
Caye caught up with Jill in the foyer and introduced herself. “I’m Catherine,” she said with a dimpled smile, and then added, “but my friends call me Caye.”
Suddenly she realized, as Jill offered her hand, that she was famished for a friend.
“Pleased to meet you. My name is Jill. And this is Hudson.”
“Jill and Hudson Rhone—I presume,” Caye responded as she shook Jill’s slender hand. Instantly she felt embarrassed. Was she being too forward? Too overbearing? She could feel patches of red crawling up her neck.
Jill laughed. “How did you know?”
“My husband and I went to college with Rob. In Ashland.” Caye’s embarrassment somersaulted into self-consciousness. Jill’s chic leather sandals and bag looked foreign—Italian—and expensive. Her clothes had a designer look. Caye was wearing a red, long-sleeve maternity top that Nathan had given her for Valentine’s Day, blue leggings, and a frumpy pair of scuffed black flats. Her brownish-red hair hung limply around her chin, accenting how fat her face was with the added pregnancy weight.
Jill smiled a full-bodied, embracing smile. “I’m so, so happy to meet you,” Jill said. “I’ve been praying for a friend.”
Caye wanted to sit down on the gray industrial carpet and cry.
Before the church service started, Rob and Nathan joined them in the foyer. Rob and Jill had moved to Ashland because he’d taken a job with a computer-consulting firm that had its headquarters in town. A computer friend of Robs from college worked there and gave him an “in.” Rob was the kind of person who always had an “in.”
He and Jill had met in Buenos Aires. “It was love at first sight,” Jill said.
Caye wondered if Jill knew how many different girls Rob had dated during college.
Rob asked Caye and Nathan if they liked the church they were visiting. Caye wrinkled her nose; Nathan nodded. Rob and Jill laughed.
“We’re trying a home church next Sunday. It’s called the Fellowship,” Rob said. “The couple who lead it were friends of ours in Argentina. Thomas and Joya are their names. Want to come with us?”
Simon finished the formula and then threw the cup before Caye could stop him. It bounced off the river-rock fireplace in Caye’s living room and landed on the flagstone hearth. Caye kept rocking, willing the baby to sleep.
He turned his face, with his eyes closed, toward Caye. She thought of how tired Jill had been. Her weight came off quickly after Simon was born—in fact it looked as if she’d lost more than she’d gained.
“Mama,” Audrey said. Hudson and Liam stood at attention behind her in the doorway to the hall.
“Mama,” Audrey whined again. “We’re bored. Will you play with us?”
“Maybe later,” Caye said, knowing she wouldn’t. “Go play in Andrew’s bedroom. Play with his LEGOs. I’m going to put Simon down for his nap in your room.”
Caye fed the kids peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on white bread for lunch. Audrey pulled her sandwich apart and ran her index finger through the goo.
“Don’t eat your sandwich that way,” Caye said.
Audrey licked her finger. Caye imagined the peanut butter under her daughter’s fingernail and the yeasty way her hand would smell. “Stop it,” Caye said.
Audrey put the sandwich back together and smashed it on the table with her palm. The dark-purple and brown mess oozed out of the sides of the bread and onto Audrey’s hand. Caye resisted the urge to yank her daughter off her chair and give her a swat.
“Eat,” Caye said.
She was beginning to worry. Why hadn’t Jill called? Caye picked up the phone and tried Jill’s cell. No one answered.
