Happy Endings

by Sally Quinn

  She jumped up and walked out of her office. Maybe she should go down to the cafeteria and get some tea, talk to one of the boys about the budget, go back to the Living section and raise hell about a profile they were doing that encroached on national’s territory. She was having strange crampy feelings in her abdomen, her stomach was making weird gurgling noises and there was a sense of something quickening in her body. Was that the way it would be until the baby was born? But then there would be the baby. Then it would be forever. Is this what she really wanted? What if she didn’t want to come back to work? Or worse, what if she came back and was distracted and uninterested or preoccupied? How would Des feel about this change in her? The bastard. He’d probably love it. Just keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant. She had to stop this. She was driving herself crazy. Maybe the problem was that nobody knew. Once she’d had the test, once it was out, then she could talk about it and she wouldn’t have to obsess. Des had persuaded her not to tell anyone for three months. That was the danger period for older women for miscarriages. She hadn’t known how hard it would be. Especially since she was going to have the test without telling him. This was when she really missed having a friend like Jenny. She had almost called her several times after she found out she was pregnant, but she had been so hurt at their lunch that she resisted. Oh well. By the time three months were up she would know anyway. Until then she had to get herself together or she would not be able to do her job.

  She looked across the city room to see Walt and Alan coming in from their meeting upstairs. She signaled to Sprague, who was standing at his desk, the phone cradled under his chin, to meet her in Alan’s office.

  They were standing there when Alan and Walt reached the door. Seeing the urgent looks on their faces, Alan told his secretary to hold his calls and ushered them in.

  Allison presented the situation as Sprague had explained it to her.

  “Holy shit!” said Alan.

  Sprague then went into details, explaining why he needed to get to Colombia quickly and who he needed to see.

  “They’re blowing up journalists right and left down there, not to mention Supreme Court justices and presidential candidates,” said Alan. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “This story is too big not to pursue. If there’s danger involved, Sprague is prepared to face it,” said Allison without a moment’s hesitation.

  “You’re tough, Sterling,” said Walt with an appreciative laugh.

  Sprague couldn’t help but smile.

  Alan looked at both Sprague and Allison, then nodded his assent.

  “Okay,” he said, “but I don’t want any dead reporters on my hands. No heroics, Tyson. It’s not worth any fucking prize to get your ass blown away.”

  “Sir, that’s exactly the opposite of what your national editor just told me.”

  “The problem with my national editor, Tyson, is that she doesn’t realize that she’s not a man.”

  * * *

  “The baby’s fine. It’s a girl.”

  Her gynecologist had called her just before story conference.

  She was eleven weeks pregnant. She was having a baby girl. It was real. It wasn’t just a fantasy.

  It was also July 3, her forty-first birthday.

  She was totally unprepared for the phone call even though she had jumped every time the phone rang. She was equally unprepared for the flood of tears that came so quickly. There she sat in the middle of the city room in her little glass box, holding the phone and weeping. She couldn’t control it so she didn’t even bother to hide the fact that she was crying.

  One of “the boys” had seen her and had rushed into Walt’s office. Walt was standing at her desk within seconds. She had obviously never given him her doctor’s report after her blacking out spells, so he expected the worst.

  “Sonny, what is it? Are you okay? Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you next door and we can get a drink and talk.”

  “It’s all right, Walt. It’s… I can’t talk about it yet. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m going to the ladies room and fix my face in a minute. Don’t worry. I promise, everything is fine.”

  She said it with such conviction that she could tell he believed her, but he only reluctantly left her office when she insisted.

  She couldn’t tell him until she told Des.

  She didn’t want to tell Des right away. She needed to sit with it for a while. She needed to be alone with it. She felt an urgent need to get out of the office, away from everybody. As soon as she had pulled herself together she managed to walk through the newsroom and into the ladies room without having everyone staring at her. She freshened up and then just walked out of the office. She grabbed a taxi and went down to the Potomac River, to Thompson’s boathouse. She had the taxi let her off in the parking lot and she walked across the little bridge that covered the end of Rock Creek before it poured into the larger river.

  It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a soft breeze that rustled the leaves and created ripples on the surface of the water. She walked down to the bank and found a grassy spot under a large pin oak.

  She had nothing specific she wanted to think about. She just wanted to be alone. She sat there, her mind blank, staring at the water. She felt as though she had been transported into some sort of impressionist painting. The sky was so vivid and the leaves of the oak tree hung down in front of her so delicate and graceful. They seemed to frame the view of Roosevelt Island across the river, all green and full and lush at this time of year. She always thought of it as Fantasy Island, a place where one could go and hide out from the rest of the world, peering out from the privacy of the undergrowth at the Washington monuments and watching the rat race without actually having to be a part of it. She had always wanted to canoe over to it and get out and walk around. But there was never enough time. The sun flickered on top of the water, casting bright shards of light into her eyes even though she was sitting in the shade, but she resisted getting out her dark glasses. She didn’t want anything to mitigate the colors of her reverie. She was totally alone by the river. It wasn’t lunchtime yet and there were no picnickers spreading their blankets and enjoying the view. Could it be that this was undiscovered, this place? She had never been here before to sit and meditate.

  A plane lifted up from National Airport and soared above her. She could see from behind the bushes the people beginning to take their seats on the terrace of the Sequoia restaurant on the waterfront to her right. The cars whizzed past the Kennedy Center to her left, out of hearing distance so that they seemed a hasty blur. Where was everyone going in such a hurry?

  The sightseeing boat, the Dandy, went by in front of her, with gay little flags strung around it. You could have dinner on board and cruise up and down the river. They had never done that. Always too busy with more high-powered things.

  One lone man in a scull rowed up the river on the side closest to the island. A few speedboats passed by. A man came out of the boathouse and went down to the ramps to sweep. He was whistling and he seemed happy, content to do just that. The wake of the speedboats left the waves lapping up against the shore.

  She felt totally calm, totally serene. She always felt spiritually renewed by being near water. Rivers, lakes, oceans, beaches. Especially beaches. Des had God. She had water.

  She wished she could feel this way forever. All the baby books talked about how important it was to stay calm during your pregnancy, that anxiety was not good for the baby. She wondered whether she would be able to do that. There was so much she felt anxious about in her everyday life. Except at this moment she had never felt more peaceful. Was this what it was going to be like? Being pregnant, having a baby? Maybe that’s why so many women had babies all the time. If it was like this it was better than any drug, any high she’d ever had.

  A girl. She had wanted a girl. To replace the mother she had never had? A little child-mother. She had an image of her daughter—beautiful, blond, blue-eyed—taking care of her in her old age. But that wasn’t f
air. She’d had to grow up so fast herself as a child that she never got to be one. Sam wanted her mother back and she had felt obligated to transform herself into a wife for Sam instead of being his daughter. Now she was going to try to do the same thing to her own child? They both wanted her mother back but she would have to guard against letting that happen.

  She would call her Katherine. She needed to honor her mother at any rate. To assuage her guilt at being angry at her. Angry because her mother had left her to go abroad for a story. Angry at her for caring more about a story than her daughter. A story she had died for. And left her alone. Nana had instilled that in her enough times, this hostility for her mother. Nana hadn’t believed women should work in the first place, much less be foreign correspondents, much less go abroad on assignment with a two-year-old child at home.

  Suddenly she was infused with sadness. Sadness for the loss, for missing someone she had never really known and yet knew intimately. She leaned over and began to rock herself. She heard herself whisper “Mommy, Mommy,” words she didn’t remember ever having said until now. Soon she would be somebody’s mommy. Then she would hear the word and it would make her happy instead of making her ache with emptiness. At least now she didn’t feel empty. She felt full. How Sam would have been thrilled at the news. How he would have looked forward to having a grandchild, a beautiful granddaughter named Katherine.

  What would she call her? Her mother was called Kay but that would be too painful a reminder. Katherine sounded too formal and too grand for a baby. Kitty was too old-fashioned. Kate, no, it was a great name but too popular now. Kay Kay maybe. That sounded better with Shaw as a last name anyway. She wasn’t going to go the hyphenated last name route.

  Oh, she would have such fun dressing her in beautiful clothes with pink lace and frills and smocking and little flowers. She had been haunting baby and maternity stores in the last few weeks.

  What would she look like pregnant? She wondered if Des would still find her sexually attractive though he seemed even more turned on by her than before. She couldn’t wait for her breasts to get big. Lungs. Knockers, melons, jugs. All her life she had longed to have them. Now she would. She would nurse her baby, too. She hadn’t thought she would before she got pregnant. There had been something sort of bovine and disgusting about the idea of it. Now that she was actually pregnant she couldn’t wait.

  She wanted to bask in her joy before she told Des. He would be upset that she had had the test without telling him. He would always suspect she might have had a secret abortion. He would be thrilled that the child was healthy. He would be disappointed that he was to have another daughter. Thank God she had had the early test, so that she knew her child was normal and healthy. That would dilute some of Des’s anger.

  More than that, it would give her a chance, knowing the sex, to bond with her daughter.

  It was such a good omen, even though she wasn’t the least bit superstitious, to find out about it on her birthday. She was sure it was good luck, that good things were going to happen to all of them.

  A buoy was bobbing in the water as another speedboat went by and the wake pushed the waves up again on the banks. A helicopter, probably the President’s, whirred overhead, toward the White House.

  She felt completely at peace with herself.

  She rubbed her stomach in a round, soothing circular motion.

  “Happy Birthday, Sonny,” she said. “Happy Birthday to you, too, Kay Kay. You’re the best present any mommy could ever have.”

  * * *

  Forty-one was sort of a nothing birthday. She had told Des she really didn’t care about having a party. She had her baby now and that was enough. Besides, it was the first anniversary of Rosey’s being shot and neither one of them really felt like celebrating. They would stay home alone together and have caviar and… soda water. Des would have his usual Irish. She would tell him about Kay Kay. Then what?

  She had called Walt to tell him she was taking the rest of the day off. She reassured him that everything was fine and arranged to meet him for breakfast the next morning. After she left the river she spent the day looking at baby clothes at the Foxhall Shopping Mall in Wesley Heights. She stood and stared longingly at a blue silk dress in the window of the maternity shop next to the baby store. She decided to wait until she told Des. Then she went home, fixed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—peanut butter and jelly? she hadn’t eaten one of those since she was twelve—a glass of skim milk, and went up to her bedroom where she put on a wrapper and curled up in bed with her baby books. Bliss!

  Des came home about seven. She had the caviar, the toast, and the lemon wedges all prepared. There was chilled vodka ready in case he wanted that. She had bought fresh flowers, which were arranged in the little study on the second floor. It was cool and dry for July, so she left the French doors open and put on a Mozart piano concerto. She sighed deeply. She couldn’t remember ever having been so happy. Seeing him standing shyly in front of her with a box wrapped in pretty papers and ribbons, all she wanted to do was fling herself in his arms and hug him—which she did.

  “Oh Des, I’m so happy. I love you so much.” She could barely get it out, she was choking so with emotion.

  “Hey, what is this? I thought women weren’t supposed to be happy about their birthdays.”

  She had planned to tell him after dinner, after she’d softened him up.

  “Des we’re having a girl and she’s fine. She’s healthy and normal.”

  She had blurted it out.

  “Please don’t be angry with me for having the test. Please don’t be disappointed that it’s a girl. I’m so happy and I love you so much I’ll be devastated if anything spoils it now.”

  She had blurted that out, too.

  She could see Des trying to take it all in, the expressions on his face fast-forwarding a series of emotions as he absorbed the news in segments. In the end, he smiled and she could see that what he had settled on was relief. He reached out and pulled her close to him.

  “Oh, thank God, Sonny. Thank God for both of us.”

  He was holding her tightly and her face was buried in his shoulder. He rocked her back and forth.

  “Yes, I’m angry with you for having the test and not telling me. It makes me crazy to know what you might have done if the news were not good. Yes, a part of me would like to have a son. I can’t deny that. But you must know that I’m overwhelmed with happiness and relief that everything is fine and now I’m glad you did it so that we don’t have to worry anymore. Nothing can ruin this for us. We’re blessed.”

  They stood and held on to each other for several moments until he remembered her birthday present.

  “Great timing,” he said, pleased with himself.

  She ripped off the wrapping to find the blue silk dress she had seen in the window of the maternity shop that day.

  She looked up at Des stunned. “How did you know. I just…”

  “I told the woman you were tall and blond and beautiful and just pregnant and she said she’d seen someone fitting that description staring at the dress earlier in the day. So I bought it.”

  “I’ll tie a pillow on my stomach and try it on later, but first, let’s eat.” She beamed with pride. “I’m suddenly starving.”

  Later that evening, out on their tiny terrace, Allison, against her better judgment, brought up the subject of the test. It was after Des had had several drinks and practically a whole bottle of wine, and after a splendid meal that she all too rarely fixed. She knew it was risky, but it had been weighing on her mind. She had been so undone at the time that she had called O’Grady for lunch. She had needed him to explain to her why Des was as upset as he was. Particularly since he had always claimed to be a lapsed Catholic and had always been prochoice. His explanation had depressed her.

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no such thing as lapsed,” he had said. “You, my dear atheist, are married to a Catholic. You had better get used to it.”

&nbs
p; She brought it up with Des now, but gingerly. She didn’t want to make him angry. She really didn’t want to spoil this perfect birthday evening. They had had such a wonderful time at dinner planning their daughter’s future, talking about what she would be like.

  “She is going to be one little piece of work,” said Des, “if she’s anything like her mother. I can barely handle one of you. I’m not sure I can take on two.”

  “She’ll be a total Daddy’s girl. She’ll wrap you around her little finger. You’ll be hopelessly in love with her and I’ll be completely left out.”

  “Ah, already competitive, are we now?”

  “I’m not, I mean, I don’t want to be, I just want to love her and to love you and for all of us to love each other.”

  “If you love her half as much as I love you then she’ll be the most loved little girl in the whole world.”

  He took her hand and held it, looking at her in the candlelight with such adoration that she was overwhelmed.

  “Oh Des, aren’t you glad now that I’ve had the test. That we know. That we don’t have to worry anymore.”

  He took his hand away and looked down.

  “I’ve told you I’m relieved.”

  “Des, I know I shouldn’t bring this up and I really don’t want to destroy our mood. I don’t want you to be angry with me and I don’t want an argument, I just feel that there’s such a large part of you that I don’t know, that I don’t understand. The whole Catholicism thing. You’ve always said that you were a lapsed Catholic and left it at that. I’ve never seen any signs of religious belief or actions. You’ve always been pro-choice. I’ve talked to O’Grady and he says there’s no such thing as a lapsed Catholic. I’m beginning to believe him. It just seems to me that sometime last fall you changed. Something happened to you and you’ve been different. That whole period right before we were married, when you seemed so depressed and distracted and I didn’t understand it. I thought you might be in love with someone else. Then you snapped out of it and asked me to marry you, but we had to have your brother at the ceremony. Now your reaction to the baby’s test. I feel that we need to talk about this. You’re my husband and about to be the father of my child. I don’t know who you are. I love you and I like you better than I used to, but I don’t know you. Help me out here.”