Thomas chain smokes in the kitchen, still undressed, clammy and shaky, cold-sweating in the brutal heat. First the shock and then it can’t be true. Out to look at the test again. Back to the kitchen. Later comes an overwhelming fear, but most of all this: Patricia never said a word. She must’ve known for some time. But she hasn’t felt the need or the duty to involve him in such a big and dramatic event. Something so significant. Something so frightening. But then the thought comes to him like a revelation: Of course she’ll have an abortion. Immediately he feels calmer. Of course she will. There’s not a woman in the world who’d run the risk of having a kid possibly conceived during a vile, violent assault. He sits down. And remains seated for some time. And yet another encouraging thought strikes him: Of course that’s why she hadn’t said anything, she’d decided to have an abortion without anyone finding out. She’d wanted to protect him, and as he considers this, he feels a strong sense of tenderness and relief. Poor Patricia. He slurps his cold coffee. He gets dressed. Poor, poor Patricia. “You poor thing,” he mumbles. “That’s why you’re so quiet and tired.” Now I understand everything. The tension between them, her insatiable appetite, and chubby cheeks—he’d wondered about that—this gradual roundedness, her swollen breasts. She’s just pregnant, she must be feeling awful. Almost invigorated, he devours a banana and crackers with ham before gathering his things. A text message dings on Patricia’s cell phone, and he can’t help but read it. It’s a reminder for a gynecologist’s appointment at the hospital today at 4:30. His heart thumps. She’s having an abortion today. That must be the explanation. Tenderness swells in him again. Christ, he thinks, I’m going out there to hold her hand. I won’t let her lie there all alone with her shame. Her terrible, painful shame. Under no circumstances. He imagines her loneliness: Patricia alone and pale in a hospital bed, suppressing tears. The more he imagines how awful her loneliness must be, the more his shrinks. He notes the name of the doctor and the department, then puts the dirty dishes in the machine. He feels a sudden urge to scrub the entire house, clean the windows, arrange bouquets of aromatic flowers in every room. And he’ll do laundry this weekend. He’ll empty the fridge and clean it. We’ll start afresh, he thinks, it seems so easy and obvious. This is an opportunity, a real chance to show how much he cares for her; she needs him now, and he will dote on her, tend to her needs, take care of her. His fear and his anger are gone. As he dries every surface of the kitchen with a cloth, as he strips the old bedclothes, he feels strong and purposeful. He takes out the foul-smelling trash when he finally leaves the apartment. It’s 9:15, and the sun’s already brutal and intense.
Thomas crosses the city on his bicycle. Traffic is sluggish and irritable. Cars are snarled up, and honk at each other without restraint. Rush hour is draining in such weather. His pants cling to his thighs, his swollen feet—slick with perspiration—slide in his shoes, and his eyelashes grow wet as sweat trickles continuously from his hair and forehead. Though he keeps wiping away the sweat, his hands are damp, too, and it doesn’t help much. When he turns down the street where the new store is located, he sees Alice and Luke sitting on the stoop drinking Cokes. They’re both wearing shorts and faded, paint-splattered T-shirts. The roar of the growling floor polisher slips through the open door. While the floors are being polished, Alice and Luke have been painting the façade, the two window partitions, and the entrance. Tomorrow the floor will be stained and varnished. He climbs off his bike and leans against the wall, breathing heavily. The new awnings provide some shade, but zero protection from the heat. “How’s it going?” He almost has to shout above the noise. “You’ve got a lot done already!”
“It’ll just need one more coat once the paint’s dry,” Luke says, looking up at the masonry. “We’ll be finished tomorrow.” They polished and puttied nicely before they began painting. When the floors are done, only minor details will remain. The cabinetmaker figures he’ll be able to install the shelves and cabinets by the end of the week. The first shipment of products will be delivered on Monday morning. “It’ll look awesome,” Alice says, setting her drink down. “That light-green color over there, it’s practically transparent, like water in a pool or something. It’s a good thing you chose that instead of the creamy one. That would have been asinine.”
“It’s a whitewash. That’s why it’s almost transparent.” Thomas sits beside her and takes a pull of her Coke. “Jesus Christ—it’s hot,” he groans. But Alice and Luke don’t seem to be bothered by the heat or the humidity. A thin film of perspiration beads their faces, and they have that special kind of paleness that comes from being in this kind of heat, and it only makes them more attractive, as if they too were painted with whitewash. But their eyes are bright and lively, and they seem energized. They crawl up on the ladders again and continue working. Thomas goes inside to talk with the craftsmen. Particles of fine, yellow sawdust from the floorboards cling to the panels and the baseboard. Inside it smells of fresh paint and new wood. He thinks of Patricia, how he’ll squeeze her hand, stroke her hair. He takes a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the aroma he’s longed to smell: The new store. Just as he’d imagined it. With his eyes closed, he runs his hand over the countertop. It’s smooth and a little oily from the last treatment. The register’s in place. He bought it for almost nothing at an auction; it’s from the 1920s and pretty as all hell. He scans the bright room, absorbs it all, before walking into the back room, where the men are in the process of polishing the floor. They shut off the machine when they see him.
“A package came for you a few hours ago,” one of them says, a young man with sideburns.
“Will you be done polishing today?”
The young man nods, the older man scratches his head.
“We’ll tally up the totals the day after tomorrow, once you’ve stained and varnished,” Thomas says. “I’ll pay cash. The cabinetmaker’s coming Saturday morning. I expect the varnish to be dry by then. Remember to give it five coats, as we agreed. I can tell the difference between four and five coats, just so you know.” The young man gives him a crooked smile. “We’ll stain soon,” he says. The older man snaps on the machine again.
The package contains a ceiling lamp with an enormous, rounded screen of plastic enveloped in linen. It looks like a globe, overcast with clouds made of slender threads or fibers. When there’s a bulb in it, he thinks, maybe it’ll look like a huge belly with a fetus inside, the skin stretched taut over a small light. Thomas shudders at the thought and goes back to Luke and Alice. “Have fun. Call me when you’re done for the day.”
“How’s Patricia doing?” Alice asks.
“Good.”
Luke sweeps his broad brush back and forth across the wall. “Tell her we said hello,” he says, smiling.
“Lock up when you’re done!” Thomas shouts as he traipses down the street. Alice waves.
Maloney’s apparently talking to Jenny, a private and tender conversation consisting mostly of sounds and sighs, but also “I love you” and “I can’t wait.” When Thomas clears his throat, Maloney ends the call, looking rather foolish with his idiotic grin. They start the day’s tasks. Over the course of the summer, Peter set up the store’s website. He seems very glad to be entrusted with the responsibility of webmaster. Thomas designed the site himself, and now he asks Peter to post the announcement of the new store. During the summer there are fewer customers. They drink coffee on the stairs after lunch. Annie and Peter chat about their literature group, Maloney texts with someone—no doubt Jenny. Thomas wonders whether he should take flowers with him, for Patricia. Maybe it’s inappropriate. But he wants to make sure there are fresh roses for her when they get home. She loves white roses. He sighs in relief. He thinks: The nightmare will be over soon. It’ll be like old times with him and Patricia. Everything’s behind them now: his father, the money, the break-in, the rape. All that shit, over. When Alice and Annie are comfortable running the new place, he’ll invite Patricia on a trip. He’ll propose to her. Maybe they can e
ven have a baby. And he’ll suggest that they move, so she won’t have to be confronted every single day by the place where she was assaulted. Because of course she shouldn’t have to. First thing tonight he’ll begin looking for another apartment. Thomas stretches his legs, buzzing with anticipation at this new life, which seems so light, and he thinks about how everything that he wished for at the beginning of the year has slowly become reality: a new store, Alice as part of the new store, Jenny less bothersome and lonely—now that she has Maloney—and his revenge on his father complete. After all, he’s the one who paid for it all, in cash, with crisp new bills, and Thomas hopes Jacques turns in his grave every time Thomas spends some of the money. A new apartment, maybe with a balcony, maybe larger than the one they’re in now, which should be put up for sale as soon as possible.
Late in the afternoon he rides his bicycle to the hospital. The sunlight is thick and golden, and as sticky as melted butter, as dripping honey. Thomas pumps the pedals hard, already out of breath. The air’s so heavy that it almost hurts to breathe. The cabinetmaker has agreed to work the entire weekend; the shelves and cabinet doors were stained at the factory—they just need to be installed—and he’ll suggest to Maloney that they remain closed on Monday so everyone can help tie up loose ends and stock shelves. It’ll be a joint effort. Enthusiastically he thinks about how important it is to strive for a flatter, more elastic company structure, so everyone can shift easily between stores. He’ll talk to Maloney about that, though he’s still keeping his distance and considers the branch Thomas’s project. But won’t that change when he finally sees how successful the new store will be? Thomas is certain that they’ll markedly increase their revenue. He veers from the road and bikes up the hospital’s wide driveway, pebbles leaping into the wheels. His bike skids on the gravel. The lawn is yellow, baked-dry. The sun is harsh. He’s thirsty. His tongue clings to his teeth and the roof of his mouth. He locks his bike to a light pole and pushes through the revolving doors. He finds the slip of paper with the information he needs and asks for the gynecologist’s office. He takes the elevator up to the fourteenth floor and walks down a long hallway, passes through a set of glass doors, and strides from department to department, listening to the faint rumble of the air conditioning. It’s pleasantly cool in here, a waiting room with a small group of people clustered over a newborn baby, visiting hours, apparently, a woman in the last stage of her pregnancy dressed in a bathrobe and supporting herself against the wall as she inches forward in small strides, another set of glass doors, and at last he arrives. The doctor’s office door is open. He’s sitting behind his desk. Patricia’s back is to Thomas. The doctor looks up, sees Thomas. “Yes?” he inquires. And Patricia turns. Startled, she stares at Thomas. Thunderstruck, disbelieving, her eyes wide. “Can I help you?” the doctor asks kindly.
“What are you doing here?” Patricia’s voice is harsh, almost a hiss.
“Do you two know each other?” the doctor asks, surprised.
“Yes,” Thomas says, entering. “I’m her boyfriend.” And to Patricia: “You forgot your cell phone, hon, I couldn’t help but notice the message from the hospital.” He puts his hand on her shoulder. “And I don’t think you should be alone with this.”
Patricia glowers at him, her mouth agape. She shakes her head. “I know what’s going on,” Thomas continues, gently. “I found the pregnancy test this morning.” He sits in the seat next to Patricia.
“That sounds a bit dramatic,” the doctor says, chuckling as if it were funny. “But I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been discussing the advantages of having an abortion in Patricia’s situation.”
The older, dark-skinned man has kind brown eyes. Patricia looks down, slumps in her chair. The doctor says, “I can only repeat what I said last time, Patricia. You need to consider this thoroughly. Consider the consequences of a pregnancy possibly stemming from a rape. You may think this way now, but later you might have serious issues to contend with. Also for your child. Even if you weren’t impregnated during the assault, perhaps your child will always remind you of it.”
Thomas doesn’t understand. He glances searchingly at Patricia, but she looks away.
“What?” he says. “I don’t quite follow.”
“Patricia hasn’t decided whether she wants to have an abortion or not,” the doctor responds, eyeing Patricia earnestly. “But I strongly recommend it.”
She lifts her head and says to the doctor, “No.”
A short silence. “What?” Thomas says. “No to what?” Thomas turns wildly from Patricia to the doctor—who tilts his head almost in apology before cocking it to the side—then back to Patricia. “Are you saying . . . that you want to go through with the pregnancy?” He feels sucker-punched, and it practically knocks the wind out of him, because now it occurs to him that he might soon be a father. Head spinning, he clutches the armrest. No one answers him. “But can’t we can take a test to find out if I’m the father? That’s possible, right?”
The doctor leans back in his chair.
Patricia shakes her head.
“You want to keep it?” Thomas’s voice is shrill and thin. “Why haven’t you told me? Patricia! You need to have an abortion.”
She shakes her head again. “No,” she repeats in a firm voice.
“But it is possible, right,” Thomas glances urgently at the doctor, “to take a paternity test and find out who the father is?”
“We’d need to do a amniocentesis,” the doctor says. “And Patricia doesn’t want to do that.”
“What?” Thomas says, taken aback, turning to Patricia again.
The doctor continues: “We couldn’t even do the test until the fifteenth week, and then it’ll take another two or three weeks before we have an answer. By that point in a pregnancy, abortion can be very traumatic, especially if one is already a little vulnerable.” He gives Patricia a friendly glance, then folds his hands in his lap. “Patricia has known about her pregnancy for some time, and during that time she has chosen not to do an amniocentesis. But the problem of course,” he emphasizes, “is that once the baby is here, well, it’s here. Regardless who the father is.” Patricia shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Thomas stares darkly at the floor, blood swishing through his ears, thinking he’s going to faint. “In other words,” the doctor goes on, “the problem, right now, is that you need to make a decision based on this uncertainty.”
“I don’t consider that a problem,” she says. “I don’t consider it an uncertainty. It’s not important to me who the father is. I never saw his face. I have no idea who he is. But this is my baby.” She puts her hand on her belly. “And I want to keep it.”
Thomas can’t believe his own ears. He tries to get her attention, but she stares stiffly out the window.
“I know you think it’s an advantage that you never saw the rapist’s face, and of course I understand what you mean,” the doctor says calmly. “You won’t necessarily be able to recognize him in your child’s features. But I still think that it’s very troublesome. And you,” he nods in Thomas’s direction, “how do you feel about Patricia’s decision?”
“Me?” Thomas looks unhappily at the doctor. “I’m extremely shocked! Patricia,” he says. “This is insane! You’re not at all yourself yet.”
“I’m absolutely myself,” she answers coolly. Thomas’s head aches and there’s a corrosive, icy chill running up his spine. He implores the doctor as if the doctor could help: “But this is absurd! I can’t . . . we haven’t even discussed this! I didn’t even know that you were pregnant! She never said a word! Why didn’t you say anything? For God’s sake!” Thomas shouts. Patricia ignores him. The doctor clears his throat, visibly uncomfortable. To Patricia he says, firmly, “You’ve gone through counseling, right?”
She nods.
“Did you discuss the pregnancy with your therapist?”
She nods again. “Of course I did.” Then she says nothing more. The silence hangs heavy in the anonymous office. Thomas wants to say a w
hole lot more, but he can’t. He feels his blood pounding in the large vein on his forehead, like light, fast clouts with a hammer, his headache intensifies, he glances about desperately and sees a stuffed owl standing on a cabinet beside the door, near the ceiling. The glossy black eyes stare across the room, at once sharp and dead. “Well,” the doctor says. “If you’ve made your decision, then you’ve made your decision. But you can still call me if you change your mind. We have some time yet.” He slides his business card across his desk. “Call my cell phone if I’m not here.”
Patricia starts to get to her feet. “I just hope you come to a consensus on the best way forward,” the doctor says. “I understand you two have wanted a baby for some time.” He looks at Thomas and smiles, but his eyes are not smiling. “Good luck.” And Thomas wants to scream that he never wanted a baby at all—and certainly not one some monster of a man may be the father of, a kid conceived during a violent assault against the woman he lives with, a kid who carries that violence inside even before it’s born. But he doesn’t say anything, he just nods at the doctor and follows Patricia out. She’s already on her way down the hallway. “I hate hospitals,” she mumbles when he reaches her. “It smells like illness and death here.” And still he can’t talk. Everything’s spinning around in his head, the rape, the pink and goopy little creature that’ll be pulled out of Patricia, and all of it happened behind his back, and why? She walks faster every time he catches up with her, and that provokes him. “Stop,” he snarls, grabbing her arm. “Look at me!” But she pulls free and continues without looking at him. He marches in front of her and forces her to stop. “Could you fucking look at me? What’s going on?” A nurse in white clogs passes them, a stack of folders in her arms. She frowns disapprovingly at Thomas. “Why won’t you look at me? It’s one thing that you didn’t tell me you were pregnant, but another thing entirely that you just sit there and . . . and . . . and say out of the blue that you don’t care who the father is! That you don’t care. What do you mean by that? You say it means nothing to you! So you don’t care about me? Do you not care about me?!” That last part he nearly screams. “Stop shouting,” she says measuredly, shoving him aside. She keeps walking hastily forward. The elevator is filled with people. Going down, the butterflies in his belly nauseate him, and for a moment he almost throws up. He stumbles after Patricia through the foyer, and when they exit the hospital, it’s as if they slam into a wall of unbearable heat. Thomas gulps for breath. “You need to talk to me,” he says, almost tearfully. He grabs her hand. “We need to talk.” He guides her to a bench, she sighs wearily. Reluctantly she sits at the far end. She raises her eyebrows a little. “What do you want?” she asks, indifferent.
Rock, Paper, Scissors Page 31
