Beyond the Blue

by Leslie Gould

“If the fetus is in a horn of the uterus, everything should be fine. You may need a C-section when the time comes. If it’s an ectopic pregnancy, we’ll try to save the fallopian tube, but there are no guarantees. There’s no way to save the fetus if it’s in the tube.” The doctor paused and glanced from Gen to Jeff. “We’ll know by tomorrow morning.”

  That evening Gen put the ultrasound photo on the refrigerator while Jeff talked with José in the yard. Jeff would miss another day of harvest. Wed better tell Dad. And Jeff’s parents. She was well into the second trimester after all. Better to let them know why she was going into the hospital tomorrow than try to explain it later.

  Gen opened her eyes; a mauve blanket covered her. She turned her head. Jeff sat with his head bowed. Was he praying?

  “Hi,” Gen whispered. He looked at her with red eyes. “Tell me,” she said.

  “We lost the baby—and the tube.”

  Lost the baby. She closed her eyes. She wanted to float, to float away to somewhere safe, with her baby, with that little baby who would never race to the top of the knoll, never climb the oak tree, never learn to read.

  “Genni, it was a boy,” Jeff said. “I asked the doctor.”

  Hot tears rolled from her eyes. Jeff put his head against hers. The little boy baby floated on without her, away from the river, over the town, toward their little house, above the knoll, beyond the orchard, toward Mount Hood. I couldn’t keep you safe. I couldn’t keep you with me. Know that I love you, she silently called after him. Would her baby, her little boy baby, be with her mother? Was she waiting for him? Waiting for Gen to let go?

  She reached and touched Jeff’s curls, wound her fingers through them, held on. In her mind, clouds floated by, turned dark, began to rain. She didn’t ever want to let go, but he was already gone. A naked boy baby floating in the clouds, floating away to be with God. She sobbed and sobbed, and Jeff, with his face pressed against hers, mixed his tears with hers, and together they soaked the pillow.

  “All I wanted was to be a mother and for you to be a father.”

  “I know, Genni,” he said. “I know.”

  A week later Gen watched the doctor leaf through her chart. “You can try in vitro.” He glanced at Gen and then at Jeff.

  “We’ll have to think about it.” Gen took a deep breath after she said the words. She’d eyed a credit card application that came in the mail just yesterday with a ten-thousand-dollar limit. She had thrown it in the garbage.

  The doctor stood. “Think about it. I can refer you to a specialist in Portland.”

  “What do you want to do?” Jeff asked as he pulled his pickup out of the doctor’s parking lot.

  “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

  They rode in silence for several minutes. The late morning sun bounced off the hood of the truck.

  “I talked to your dad last night after you were asleep. He wants to come out soon. He’s worried about you. Aunt Marie sends her love too.” Jeff accelerated up the hill, leaving the city limits behind. Soon dust rose from the gravel road as they drove up the lane. He slowed as they approached his parents’ house. A new white BMW sat in the driveway.

  “Looks like your brother’s here,” Gen said. Jake would stay a few days. Janet and her husband were flying in tomorrow and staying a week.

  Jeff stared at the Beemer. “Must be nice for Jake to have all that extra cash, huh?” Jake had graduated from law school two years earlier and worked for an international firm in Portland.

  “We should go in and say hello,” Gen said, though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “You don’t need to, not if you don’t want to.” Jeff stopped the pickup in front of his parents’ house.

  She closed her eyes against her pain. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll come back this evening. Maybe I’ll feel better then.”

  “I need to get back to work.”

  “I know.” She wanted to be alone. She would ask her dad to wait a few more days until he came out—and not to bring Aunt Marie. Her aunt had called two days ago to say she had heard about Gen’s “little problem.” Gen couldn’t handle the thought of a face-to-face conversation with Aunt Marie right now.

  “I’ll take you home first.” Jeff smiled at her.

  Gen shook her head. “I’ll walk. I need the fresh air.” She climbed out of the pickup and started toward their house, slowing after the first few steps. She’d had a migraine the day before. Hormones and stress, the doctor had said.

  Another few steps and Gen saw Marta standing in the yard with her girls. “Señora, “she called. Gen waved. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She didn’t want to hold Marta’s baby. A week ago it had been heavenly. Today it would be unbearable. For years infants had disarmed her. By the time the baby was six months, it was its own person, who it was meant to be, and it wasn’t meant to be Gen’s. But as an infant, it felt like any baby could be Gen’s baby. She felt a twinge of guilt for her desire as Marta and her girls stopped in front of her.

  Marta chatted away. “She says she’s sorry,” the oldest girl translated. “About your baby. She’ll light a candle in church and pray that you will be the mother of many.” Then Marta handed the baby to her daughter and hugged Gen tightly. Gen breathed in the sourness of the baby’s spitup on Marta’s shoulder mixed with the sweet smell of sweat and love and grief, and she began to cry.

  Chapter 14

  Hang quickly loaded bananas into the two baskets. Pain shot through Lan’s lower back as she stood. She straightened the rest of the way slowly and then adjusted her hat. Dust covered her shirt and pants.

  “Go to school now,” she said to Hang. “Study hard.” Study hard. She said it every morning. Study hard so you won’t have to sell fruit on the street. Study hard so you can take care of me when I’m old like Mother.

  Lan hoisted the yoke that held the two baskets onto her shoulders. Her belly pushed against the elastic of her pants. Pain shot up her back again, this time from the weight of her load. She wondered how this baby grew on such a little bit of rice. Hang stood on her tiptoes and kissed Lan’s cheek, brushing against her belly. She was eight now. She didn’t seem to know there would soon be a baby. Of course, Mother knew, but she hadn’t said a thing. Lan had her answer rehearsed. She would say, I understand now what a mother does for her child.

  Hang started off to school. Study hard. For what? What kind of job would she get someday? No matter how hard she studied, she would never go to university. No matter how hard she studied, she’d never get a government job. Or a job with an oil company. Or a job as a businesswoman. Maybe she could work cutting hair or in a factory. Lan could only hope.

  She headed toward the beach to sell the bananas. Her back and feet hurt. One of her molars ached; in another decade she would have a grin like Mother’s. It was Friday, and tourists from the city should be arriving. The baby kicked inside her. One of the young women in the market had taken her little girl to the orphanage the year before, and a family in America had adopted the baby. Lan thought of her own niece, of Chi, who would be a woman now. Perhaps she’d graduated from university in the United States.

  Would Older Brother give Hang a job someday? Lan shook her head—it was pointless to think about Older Brother. They hadn’t heard from Quan since all those years ago when she had been in the hospital. In the two decades since the war, they had never heard from Older Sister. Did she make it to Saigon? to America?

  Lan barely made enough money to feed Hang and Mother. What would she do with this baby? The money from Mr. Doan sent Hang to school, but she had no romantic ideas about Mr. Doan acting as a father to Hang or this baby. He had a wife and children of his own.

  Lan thought ahead to dinner. They had enough charcoal for the stove and a handful of rice; perhaps she could get a fish at a good price at the end of the day. She never enjoyed a meal. If they had enough to eat, she worried about how she would pay for the next meal. If they didn’t have enough to eat, she gave her portion to Hang and Mother. She stumbl
ed going down the sand embankment to the beach, catching herself before she fell forward, the baskets swinging against her hips. Girl or boy? It was a wild one, that was certain. If the baby was a girl, she’d take her to the orphanage. If it was a boy? She would wait and see.

  Lan pulled the money from her pouch and counted out seventy-five percent from the sale of the bananas to Mrs. Le. “I need to talk to you, Lan,” the old woman said, tucking the money into her shirt. She nodded at Lan’s belly. “My niece is humiliated. She says everyone knows your baby belongs to her husband.” Lan bowed her head. “My business is owned by my entire family. I can’t have you work for me anymore.”

  Lan glanced up into Mrs. Le’s face.

  “I know, I know,” Mrs. Le said. “You’ve worked for me since you were a child, but I must do what’s best for my family. I have a friend in the fishing village, Mrs. Hien. She needs another girl. Go talk to her.”

  Lan’s stomach roiled at the smell of rotting fish. She sat under the blue tarp that trapped the afternoon heat; rows and rows of screens layered with fish covered the sidewalks for blocks. A dog urinated a few feet away from Lan. Mrs. Hien said that the fish would be turned into pet food, but Lan wondered.

  She needed to find a different job. The walk was long and exhausting and too far to check on Hang and Mother during the day. Lan missed the women in the market. Working in a rice field or tending a shrimp pond would be better than turning smelly fish. She thought of Hang and then thought of the baby. She didn’t want a daughter to have to scramble this way to feed a family. She imagined a daughter growing up in America, going to school, well dressed and well fed.

  The early light of day crept into the yard. Lan dried her face on the tails of her shirt, lifting it over her belly.

  “When will the baby come?” Mother stood in the doorway.

  “A month … or so.”

  “What do you plan to do with it? Take it to the orphanage?” Mother walked slowly to the stove and then bent to light the charcoal.

  “I’ll wait and see if it’s a boy or a girl,” Lan said.

  “So you would take a daughter to the orphanage but not a son?” Mother scowled at Lan, squinting against the rising sun.

  “This sort of life with no future for one daughter is enough. I couldn’t bear it for two.”

  Lan woke Hang and braided her hair. “Be a good girl,” she said. “Study hard.” Study hard because I don’t know if next year I’ll have enough money to send you to school She hadn’t seen Mr. Doan in two weeks, not since she’d left the market. She made less money drying fish than she had selling fruit.

  The pains started as she walked from the fishing village toward home. She had to stop every few minutes in the fading light. She began to fear that she would deliver the baby alongside the road. “Please help me,” she called out to a woman, a stranger, on a scooter. “I’m to have my baby very soon.”

  The woman stopped, and Lan climbed on the scooter and shifted her weight backward on the seat, aware of the strong smell of fish on her clothes. She directed the woman to the shack. “Thank you, thank you,” she panted as she climbed from the scooter. Hang played in the dirt with a neighbor girl. “Don’t come into the shack,” Lan called out, trying to relax her face. “I need to talk to Mother.”

  She stopped in the middle of the yard to let a pain pass. The baby pushed against her, determined to escape. “Mother!” she called out. “Help me.”

  Mother stood in the doorway. “So soon? Isn’t it early?”

  Lan nodded. “I think so. But it’s coming. Now.”

  “Take this one to the orphanage, Lan.” Mother took her arm and led her to the sleeping mat. “You can’t support another child. Promise me you’ll take it to the orphanage.”

  “Mother, hush. The baby is coming.”

  “Mama?” Hang stood at the door.

  “Go away,” Mother called out.

  “Mama, are you okay?” Hang asked.

  “Go play,” Lan said. “Come back in an hour.”

  Hang turned and left the doorway. Lan staggered out of her trousers and felt for the baby. “The head is coming.”

  The baby flew into Lan’s hands in a flood of water before Mother could help. Lan knelt and took in her son, gazed into his dark, frightened eyes, ran her hands over his tiny, skinny body He began to cry. She held him to her chest and felt the wet fluid and blood soak through her shirt to her skin.

  Hang curled up beside Lan and patted the baby’s head. “A brother,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a brother.”

  “He’s going to the orphanage,” Mother said.

  “Why?” Hang frowned at her grandmother.

  “We can’t afford to keep him.”

  “Shh,” Lan said to Mother and patted Hangs head. “Don’t talk about that now.” The baby slept. Lan held him against her breast. She would work hard; she would wait and see; she would do everything in her power to keep him, to keep her son, Binh, as long as she could.

  Chapter 15

  Are you against adopting?” Gen rose from the table, leaving half a muffin on her plate. Were they at an impasse? They planned to attend an information meeting on domestic adoption that evening even though they hadn’t decided for sure what to do.

  “No, I’m for adoption.” Jeff folded the sports page.

  “What is it then exactly?” Gen wore running pants and a windbreaker. She planned to go for a quick run before getting ready for school.

  “I want to be sure of what God wants us to do, without a doubt.” They’d had this conversation several times. Without a doubt. It was so unlike Jeff. He usually made decisions quickly. She was the one to hold back, to want to wait. This time she just wanted to do something.

  “Is it the biological thing?” She took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water.

  “Wouldn’t you like to have our own baby?” Jeff brushed crumbs from the tabletop into his hand and then onto his empty plate.

  She nodded. “But adoption seems like a surer option. It’s our only chance to be parents for sure.”

  “We should keep praying about it,” Jeff said.

  Gen took a drink of water and dumped the rest into the sink.

  “I’d better get going. We’re pruning today.” He stood and gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll pick you up after school.”

  “See you then.” She headed down the hall to their room and tore the last page out of her journal, folding it into fourths and then shoving it into her pocket. She still had time for a quick run through the orchard before heading into town to prepare for a day of teaching twenty-nine third graders, all antsy for Halloween.

  When Gen and Jeff first married, she loved the symmetry of the trees—the rows, the life, the yearly cycle. After they lost the baby, she hated the orchard. For months she didn’t run through it, didn’t marvel at the spring blossoms and summer fruit. Now, over a year later, she had come to peace with the life-bearing trees. She breathed in the cold, cold air, held it tight, then blew it out, and watched the vapor disappear into the darkness. The acrid hint of wood smoke from Don and Sharon’s chimney spiced the air. Her favorite time in the orchard was fall. Orange and red leaves crowned the trees, filled the crisp autumn days with color. She knew the beauty was fleeting, that it would soon give way to the damp, dull fog of winter.

  After the tubal pregnancy, they decided to wait a year until they made a decision. Should they try in vitro? Should they adopt? They’d gone to the specialist in Portland, then to a support group for infertile couples. “I don’t ever want us to be like that,” Jeff had said when they drove away from the meeting. Gen agreed. Some of the couples, at least the women, seemed overly obsessed with getting pregnant. And it had taken a toll on some of the marriages. One couple confessed they were near divorce. “I’ll keep trying to get pregnant even if our marriage fails,” the wife had said. After the meeting, Gen and Jeff began talking about adoption.

  She struggled to pull out the piece of paper from the pocket of her jacket.
She had jotted down two lists in her journal last night. Clumsily she shook open the paper.

  She’d scrawled “reasons to adopt” and “reasons not to adopt” across the top. Under “reasons to adopt” she had written:

  1. We’ve always wanted to be parents.

  2. There’s a child out there who needs a home, who needs us.

  Under “reasons not to adopt” she had written:

  1. Money.

  2. Small house—would social worker approve us?

  3. Risks—drug affected? Birth mom might change mind.

  Having enough love for an adopted child had never been a concern for Gen. She knew from loving her students that she could love a child who hadn’t been born to her.

  The biggest drawback to in vitro was the money, the physical and emotional pain, and the low rate of success. The benefit was that the child would be their own biological baby. She hadn’t written the in vitro pros and cons down. They were cemented in her head. She knew Jeff wanted a biological child for them. So did his mother.

  When they had brought up the idea of adopting, Sharon said, “But what if the baby doesn’t look like either of you?”

  “Oh well,” Gen had responded flippantly.

  “It wouldn’t matter,” Jeff had said respectfully.

  Immediately Sharon had added, “Don’t get me wrong! I think adopting is a wonderful idea.” Gen knew having a baby that resembled them did matter to Jeff and to his mother. She also knew that Sharon was growing more desperate for a grandbaby. Jake had broken up with his latest girlfriend, and Janet had declared last Christmas that she wouldn’t think of becoming a mother for at least another decade.

  She folded the paper, put it back into her pocket, and began to run. Light shimmered down through the nearly bare branches of the trees. She jogged up the knoll and stopped to stare at the sheets of granite exposed on Mount Hood; only the glacier showed white against the baby blue sky. She turned toward Mount Adams. God, she prayed, show us what to do. She took a deep breath of frosty air and exhaled slowly. She wondered how important it was to her father to have a grandchild who favored Jeff or her.