Land of Last Chances

by Joan Cohen

  Vince crouched and ruffled Bricklin’s fur. “Hey, buddy, got a sports injury? Have to listen to the team trainer.” They strolled down the center of Birch Brook’s curving access road, admiring the chrysanthemums and pumpkins adorning the front porches. The crimson blossoms were the most striking, but Jeanne’s porch was bare. She was too busy to commit to watering a pot of her own.

  The wind whipped their clothes as they crossed Route 30, and Bricklin raised his wet nose into the air. Scents seemed to come to him from afar on windy days, bringing information from the wider world. How useful, Jeanne thought. How much more efficient a use of time than reading a newspaper. A hint of smoke from burning leaves reached her nostrils but nothing more. So rare that signature smell of autumn was, now that burning leaves was illegal without a special permit.

  As she and Vince started down the trail into the woods, Bricklin tried to pull away. “Sorry, boy. Not today.” They walked single file on the narrow path, giving him all the sniffing time he desired to compensate for his tethering. When the path widened, Vince pulled even with Jeanne. He looked as though he were about to speak but thought better of it.

  She was sure he wanted to know if she was keeping the baby, but for some reason he seemed as tethered as Bricklin. She thought about his reaction at the Grand Grille—first dismay and then what had seemed genuine pleasure. Was he dishonest or just ambivalent? If the latter, could she, in fairness, blame him?

  They climbed the winding trail in silence until they reached its highest point, where the path looped around a craggy outcropping of rocks and led back toward the park entrance. Vince surveyed the woods below. “Wind’s out of the northwest. If we get a storm, that color won’t last. Looks like a lot of the leaves are down already.”

  The spectacular but ephemeral New England autumn—it was autumn for Jeanne too, her last-chance season. She found a rock flat enough for sitting and stretched out her legs, providing a leafy bed between her feet, where Bricklin promptly settled. Vince turned from the woods and, crouching as close to her as he could with Bricklin in the way, took her hands in his. “Have you made a decision?”

  “I’m leaning toward having the baby.” She winced at the tentativeness of her own words.

  He frowned. “Leaning?”

  “What do you want to hear? If I tell you I’m having the baby, it may only be the decision du jour.”

  She’d been afraid he would take her words as a verbal commitment, contract to follow. He did, yet she could have sworn she saw an instant of panic, a momentary widening of his eyes, a twitch of the lips, eclipsed in a flash by a radiant smile. “I’ll settle for ‘leaning.’ That’s awesome.” He pulled her up into a hug, which included Bricklin positioned between them. “I was afraid to say anything more than I did in the restaurant, but I’m really glad.” He released her but held on to her hand as they circled back toward the entrance.

  He was full of questions about her pregnancy and plans, each one prefaced by “assuming you go forward” or “if you have it.” He even asked which room in the condo would be a nursery. He sounded like a father, even a husband. For a moment, she thought he was leading up to a proposal and felt a pang of panic. They had an understanding, never articulated, that theirs was a relationship with no project milestones, no engagements, no rings. Steady state. He flambéed in the kitchen, and she kindled a flame in the bedroom.

  When the path narrowed, the questions ceased. Vince grew thoughtful and began to trail her. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up a legal agreement covering our respective parental rights and responsibilities.”

  “What?” She stopped and looked back at him. She’d heard him perfectly, but if Vince weren’t suddenly backing away, why couldn’t he meet her gaze? In spite of his smiles, he wasn’t ready to be a father. Did she want him orbiting her and the baby like a planet, never approaching, never departing?

  “My lawyer—”

  The leash jerked in Jeanne’s hand as Bricklin took off after a squirrel. “Bricklin, no,” she yelled. “Come.” The squirrel scrambled to safety high on the trunk of an oak, and the dog limped back, his leash trailing. “Son of a bitch, look at his leg. Now he’s worse.” She pulled off the leaves stuck to the leash and held it tight in her hand. Though her impulse was to hasten home, there was no quickening the pace. Bricklin couldn’t keep up.

  The sky seemed grayer to Jeanne, as though Vince’s declaration on contractual obligations had altered the light. If he was going to focus on the pragmatic, she would too. Did he think he was the only one with practical issues? “I need to consider how my pregnancy will affect my position at Salientific. A couple of people are already aware we’re seeing each other, so I’m thinking I’d be better off keeping your fatherhood quiet. I don’t want people gossiping about how I’m wired to our investors.”

  He stiffened. “Seriously? Executives are always wired to their companies’ investors, even the very investors who sit on their boards’ compensation committees. When you’ve been in the industry as long as you have, competing loyalties are inevitable.” He kicked a stone down the path, and only Jeanne’s grip on the leash kept Bricklin from pursuing it.

  “Okay, so maybe conflicts of interest abound, but I’m not sure that for me, at this time, at this company . . . Look, let’s not argue right now. I’m worried about Bricklin’s leg. See how he keeps stopping and holding his paw in the air?”

  When they returned to Birch Brook, Vince didn’t go in with them, much less repeat his offer of brunch. “Got to get to the office,” he mumbled and took off. Jeanne wondered if he felt as drained as she did.

  After giving Bricklin a biscuit, she instructed him to rest. “Follow my lead, pup.” She pulled off her boots and stretched out full length on the sofa. When Bricklin curled up on the rug beside her, she reached down to scratch behind his ears. Eyes closed, he made the snoring-purring sound that goldens make to show pleasure. So easy to please, she thought. Vince should take a note.

  With her head cushioned by a throw pillow and another folded within her arms, she curled into the sofa back, waiting for sleep that didn’t come. Instead the memory she’d banished from her thoughts pushed its way to the foreground—the summer morning she’d found not Vince or Bricklin, but Jake in her bed.

  Though Jeanne was as well acquainted with lust in the evening and regret in the morning as with the wine and food pairings at her favorite French restaurant, her night with Jake had inspired exponential remorse. On awakening, he’d looked over at her and said simply, “Uh-oh.” A smile, surrounded by morning stubble, creased his gaunt face.

  “Oh my God. Not funny, Mr. CEO. I’m not supposed to be under you anywhere but on the org chart.” Dismayed, she clutched her sheet to her chest and slipped out of bed, exposing Jake in all his hirsute splendor. She groaned and backed out of the room, retrieving her clothes along the way.

  “I’ll be in the powder room till you’re dressed,” she called out, catching sight of the empty bottles in the kitchen as she passed. All that open champagne from the party—she and Jake hadn’t let it go to waste. Had she poured it out, they would have made short work of the cleanup, and Jake would have left soon after the rest of their colleagues. Elation, libation, libido—a troublesome trio.

  When Jake knocked on the bathroom door on his way out, he tried to ease her mind. “As far as I’m concerned, it never happened. A pact of silence—deal?”

  She had agreed, but silencing her inner voice had been more difficult than keeping up appearances at work. Guilty feelings had lodged in her psyche, ever expanding until she’d pushed them down, down, down. What was the big deal about a one-night stand at her age?

  Jeanne’s hand rose to her cheek as though it still stung from her mother’s hard slap. A one-night stand had been a monumental deal to Mother, who’d assumed Jeanne was being deflowered by eighteen-year-old Roy Sax when she came upon the two of them in Jeanne’s bed. Roy, who instantly lost his condomless erection, grabbed his clothes and fled. Jeanne, mortified and furious, was
hauled off to her mother’s gynecologist for a birth control pill prescription.

  Jeanne’s mental hand-wringing was interrupted by Bricklin’s paw. She turned to face him. “What if Jake is the father, Bricklin? I can’t even imagine telling Dr. O’Rourke I need a paternity test, much less telling Vince this isn’t his baby.”

  Jeanne was sure she saw empathy in the depth of Bricklin’s eyes. She’d learned to read his desires from his eyes, their expression changing when he wanted to eat (pretty much all the time) or when he heard terrifying thunder. When he chewed a greasy napkin he found under the table, his eyes betrayed his guilt. He’d taught her the power of nonverbal communication. His sweet temperament more than made up for his lack of intellectual discourse. Canine wisdom had its limits, though. What she really needed at that moment was advice.

  Maybe she should talk out her problem with a shrink, clergyman, or friend, but Jeanne had neither of the first two and few of the third. Pathetic, she thought, my best friend is Google. Her study was in the loft, where her desk sat in front of windows overlooking wooded wetlands. Bookcases filled with hardcover nonfiction, mostly on business subjects, lined the wall beside her desk. She flipped open her laptop and searched for “paternity test while pregnant.”

  She’d first thought she’d have to wait for amniocentesis. At her age, the procedure was recommended anyway, to test for Down syndrome and spina bifida, among other genetic conditions. A paternity test could be done at the same time. Some commercial laboratories seemed to be advertising a way to find out sooner through a blood test, but she didn’t quite understand it. Dr. O’Rourke had instructed her to see a genetics counselor. She hadn’t even told the doctor yet whether she was keeping the baby, much less pursued genetic analysis.

  Jeanne closed her browser. Reading about the incidence of birth defects made her stomach tighten. She didn’t need to see the statistics to know the risks were greater for change-of-life babies. Having the baby would be irresponsible. On the other hand, how great was the probability of a defect?

  If she were doing a business analysis, would she consider the risk to be in the acceptable range? She wasn’t sure. Her assessment of acceptable risk, in the instances when she’d been proven wrong, had only erred on the side of excessive caution. She feared the unpredictable future with its power to prove her choices and business decisions imprudent, and she was anything but philosophical about the consequences of being proven wrong.

  The smart business choice, at this point in her life, would be to pursue her goal of becoming a CEO. Maybe as a young woman, she could have figured out how to combine a career with motherhood, but it was too late, unless . . . unless Maggie was right. Jeanne didn’t need to do a cost-benefit analysis. She needed to consult her feelings, a skill she had never cultivated.

  Bricklin was chewing the corner of the time capsule, so Jeanne shooed him away and moved the carton back into the center of the living room. Opening the flaps of her mother’s box revealed contents that rocked Jeanne back on her heels. Her favorite stuffed animals were on top: a dusty Steiff tiger with green eyes and a Winnie-the-Pooh holding a honeypot. She held the bear to her cheek and sneezed.

  At least forty years had passed since she’d cuddled these animals and sought their comfort, hiding her tearful face in their softness. Had she outgrown that need? Was she exploiting Bricklin for his fur? Feeling guilty, she glanced over at him. He regarded her with the same trusting eyes as always, with no sign of resentment.

  Jeanne and her mother, her mother and Jeanne—there had been no one else in the house, no second parent to mediate disputes, no other shoulder to cry on, no pet. The tiger’s fur was off-putting in its synthetic shade of tangerine, yet its ears were so soft, they had been more comforting to her childhood sensibilities than a tissue.

  Beneath the stuffed animals were clothes. Jeanne fingered a pink tulle tutu. Could she really have worn this? She could scarcely remember herself as a girly girl, but, yes, she had convinced Mother to let her take ballet lessons. Curious how Mother had saved that tutu as well as special occasion outfits: Jeanne’s ruffled pinafore from the first day of kindergarten and the red velvet Christmas dress she had worn when she was ten.

  She crossed her legs on the floor. Her task was discarding the last of Mother’s possessions and finishing her spreadsheet, but she couldn’t get herself to stop running her fingers across the netted surface of her tutu. Psychics’ visions were inspired by touching people’s belongings. Perhaps that wasn’t bullshit after all. Jeanne was there—performing in a dance recital. Mother, her blond hair pulled back in a severe knot, her expression anything but severe, sat beaming in the front row. How had that slipped Jeanne’s mind?

  Crafts projects were stashed beneath the clothes: a pot-holder woven with cotton bands, a crude clay dog sculpture, and the wooden word “Mom” Jeanne had carved in shop class. Near the bottom, her childhood books lay nestled together: The Little Engine That Could, Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel, and Where the Wild Things Are among them. She flipped through the pages, releasing the musky smell of mildew, and ran her fingers over the covers and down the spines, handling each book as though it were a rediscovered old master. How she had loved them.

  The Runaway Bunny, so often retrieved and revisited, was the most dog-eared, and Jeanne carried it to the couch, where she curled up against the pillows the way she’d curled up in her mother’s lap. Opening the cover released an envelope. She slit the flap and peered inside. “No way.” A lock of baby hair and a baby tooth lay in the bottom. Sentimentality had been all but a sin to Fay Bridgeton, and Jeanne couldn’t summon an image of her young mother tucking away such mementos in a book.

  She read slowly, savoring each word and illustration, although she could have recited the story from memory. The resourceful bunny challenges his mother and threatens to run away, but no matter how many identities he plans to assume—a fish, a rock on a mountain, a bird, a sailboat—she insists she will follow, as a fisherman, a mountain climber, and even as the wind. She will catch him in her arms, hug him, and bring him home. Did he hope to hear anything else? Of course he will stay and be her little bunny. Jeanne closed the book and clasped it to her heart.

  This box could not have been packed by the brainy, laconic woman who’d raised her. It shouldn’t even exist. Mother’s mouth might as well have been taped for her habitual reticence, yet she must have required a physical space, a repository for her keepsakes. She needed to know they existed in a place outside her memory, even if that was the attic’s deepest shadows, where her daughter feared imaginary bats.

  She had to have known the adult Jeanne would not be deterred by tape and cardboard. She had meant for Jeanne to know but not until now, not until Jeanne had stayed her little bunny, grown up, become successful, and remained childless.

  Jeanne felt the heat of her rage rising in her chest before it exploded. She hurled the book across the room. Bricklin jumped to his feet, eyes wide with alarm. “She lied, Bricklin! She lied!” As tears burned her eyelids, Jeanne covered her face with her hands. Bricklin tried to nuzzle in behind them, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Why couldn’t I have known she’d loved bringing up a child? Was my success so important to her, was she that selfish, she couldn’t risk my becoming merely a mother?” Bricklin pushed in closer to Jeanne, offering what comfort he could, but it wasn’t enough.

  CHAPTER 5

  Bricklin trembled at Jeanne’s feet as they waited for the vet to come into the examining room. She stroked his head, patted his side, and assured him everything would be fine, and they’d soon be on their way. Bricklin, she knew, wasn’t buying it. He’d spent enough time at the Wayland VetStop to know his visit would be longer than a stop. If he could have protested the false marketing, he would have.

  These appointments were never like pulling up at a 7-Eleven to grab a quart of milk. Even when the vet tech took him in the back for a quick vaccination, something untoward happened, like having his blood drawn or his nails clipped. He a
lways returned to Jeanne with reproachful eyes.

  At that moment, her concern was more his worsening limp than his anxiety. Dr. Chu, a lean, round-shouldered man in scrubs and a white coat, opened the door and removed the medical chart from its plastic sleeve. When he crouched and reached out to Bricklin, the dog went to him with a tucked-under tail that twitched at its end, as though, under the right circumstances, it might wag. “What did you do to your leg, Bricklin?”

  The vet’s deft fingers worked themselves into Bricklin’s fur and traveled the length of his leg and through his shoulder region. His frown alarmed Jeanne, who asked if the shoulder was dislocated. “It just happened this weekend, but maybe I should have had him seen sooner at an emergency facility. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Screening symptoms is tricky. I’m going to sedate Bricklin and X-ray his shoulder. You can sit in the waiting room till I come get you.” He picked up Bricklin’s leash and led him through the rear door of the examining room. Bricklin looked over his shoulder at Jeanne as he limped dutifully at the vet’s heel.

  Since there were several vets in Dr. Chu’s practice, the waiting room was packed. Jeanne squeezed in between a woman whose enormous cat was too big for its carrier and a teenaged boy whose Jack Russell terrier paced nervously at the end of his leash. Mounted in front of her was a rack of pamphlets on health issues, sure to push an anxious owner over the edge: fleas and ticks, obesity, diabetes, heartworm, periodontal disease . . . She looked up at the wall clock instead. Its second hand annoyed her with its metronome-like jerks, exacerbating her own jumpiness. Why couldn’t it sweep the clock smoothly? She pulled out her phone and began perusing emails, but concentrating was difficult.

  After both the king-sized cat and the Jack Russell had departed, Dr. Chu emerged from the back and asked Jeanne to join him in one of the examining rooms. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you, Ms. Bridgeton. Bricklin has what appears to be an aggressive tumor in his shoulder.”