It Started in June

by Susan Kietzman

  Bradley spent the rest of the day catching up. While he had been able to handle the most urgent work issues from home, he hadn’t spent more time at his computer than was absolutely required. He was, after all, supposed to be on parental leave. And Bradley, unlike many of his peers, took his time off seriously. Yes, he checked his e-mail. But he didn’t confuse vacation time and weekends off with working from home, like Kevin and Jada did. If they all met for brunch on a Sunday morning, both Kevin and Jada spent some of that social time on their phones. They weren’t communicating with other friends or family; they were responding to messages from their bosses. Bradley would kid them about this until their defensiveness made him stop. But he was convinced that if they weren’t so available, they wouldn’t be so busy, and their bosses wouldn’t be so demanding. Bradley had to work the occasional weekend, everyone did. But those who were continually available worked more of them.

  On his way out the door at the end of the day, Rachel appeared, her body blocking the exit. She put on a pout. “You haven’t talked to me all day.”

  “I’ve been busy today, Rachel.”

  “But you haven’t even commented on my outfit, on my sweater.”

  Bradley had noticed the sweater and its contents when Rachel stopped by his desk that morning. It looked as though it was made from cashmere, like most of her sweaters. It hugged her body; all her clothing hugged her body. And its V-neck allowed him a glimpse of her breasts, pushed up and available. The same breasts he had seen without the sweater and without the bra on his phone. The same breasts he had jerked off to. Bradley looked at her face when he said, “What you wear to work is your prerogative. What you do while you are at work is becoming mine.” He stepped to one side. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  In the car, Bradley thought about Rachel and the mistakes he had made with her, wondering, as he had before, how much of it was her fault and how much of it was his. He was not delusional enough to blame it entirely on her, but he was convinced she shared blame. She had been openly, boldly flirting with him and flaunting her physical assets since the day she started. And he had resisted—well, mostly resisted—because he was with Grace. Plus, he wasn’t interested in her kind of game; he had played it too often. But her availability, her insistence tempted him.

  His allowed his thoughts to drift to a place he routinely blocked them from going. On this drive in the dark, he let them linger and then fill his brain. If Grace hadn’t gotten pregnant, would he still be with her? Or would his infatuation with her poise, discipline, and beauty have faded out by now? Perhaps she would have moved on to another lover, citing their age difference or her lack of interest in having children. (What happened to that resolve?) Or perhaps he would have tired of her, become bored by the calm demeanor he was once attracted to. And if he had tired of Grace, or she of him, would he be dating Rachel right now? Would he want to date another colleague? Would he have decided that, after dating an older, mature woman that he desired a young, willing nymph like Rachel, if only for a few months? And what glorious months they would be! Rachel seemed like she would be willing to have sex with him every day of the week; maybe more than once a day!

  Bradley firmly pushed these thoughts out of his head as he drove off the exit to the house he shared with Grace and Hope. He was vulnerable to Rachel’s charms right now because Grace was withholding. And she was not withholding because she was playing a game or being controlling. She was not having sex with Bradley because she had just had their baby. And the doctor had told them to wait six weeks. Could he not wait six weeks? Of course, it had been longer than this, due to Grace’s complications during the pregnancy, meaning he had endured more like four, going on five months of abstinence. Yet, she was willing to satisfy his sexual appetite in other ways. And he had told her when she had recently asked him if he was satisfied, that it was enough. But was it? Or was he questioning his relationship with Grace only because Rachel was coming on so strong?

  Bradley pulled the car in the driveway and cut the engine. The lights were on inside the house, and Bradley could see Grace and Hope through the front window. Grace had Hope in the chest carrier. She was stroking Hope’s tiny head and saying something to her, or maybe she was singing. She had been singing to the baby since her arrival. How could Bradley question this beautiful woman with whom he had made a baby, with whom he was sharing his life? Grace was a good, kind, smart, and sexy partner. And in a month, twenty-eight short days, they could be together as they had that very first night in Grace’s car. Bradley looked at the Subaru parked in front of his Honda. He’d fold the backseats flat, and they would reenact and relive that heart-stopping, hot summer night in the car.

  CHAPTER 40

  Ever the diligent student, Grace pored over parenting books and magazines for advice about child rearing. She read every chapter, every article: breastfeeding tips, bathing techniques, sleeping patterns and predictions, activities to stimulate baby’s developing brain, strengthening exercises for baby’s tiny muscles, how mothers function on very little sleep, power foods for super energy, napping when your baby naps. She subscribed to three magazines and routinely sought additional guidance online. She had called Dorrie a few times with questions. But Grace didn’t often want to invest the sixty minutes it would take to get an answer.

  She was interested in the opinion of other first time mothers, too, but she didn’t know any. She’d thought about joining a Moms and Infants class offered at the local YMCA, but decided that Hope was too young. One of the articles Grace read advised limiting the demands placed on a baby’s immune system whenever possible. What this meant was that, aside from the walk Grace took every day with Hope strapped to her chest, both of them were housebound. Grace often waited until the evening to get groceries or run other errands, so she would not have to expose Hope to the germ-filled world out there.

  But Grace was lonely, something that took her six weeks to self-diagnose, something she hadn’t felt this deeply since her childhood when she had spent so much time in her room. Where were they all now—her grandparents, whom she hadn’t seen or spoken to in more than twenty years, and her mother, whom Grace last saw at her wedding to Kenny? Grace reached for her cell phone.

  Kenny picked up on the second ring. “How are you, Grace? Are you calling me with news?”

  “I am,” said Grace. “I had a girl six weeks ago. Her name is Hope.”

  “I like it. I was going to call you a month or so back, but I didn’t want to bother you. I figured you were either a couple weeks late in delivering or you were overwhelmed by motherhood.”

  “The latter,” she said.

  He laughed. “Did everything go okay?”

  Grace smiled at his question, at the concern in his voice. “It did. I won’t bore you with my labor story, except to say it was pretty quick and pretty painful. But she came through with flying colors, and she is an absolute love.”

  “There’s nothing quite like being a mother—or a father, I guess.”

  “I never expected it to be this way,” said Grace. “I never expected to feel this close and this responsible for another human.”

  “You didn’t feel close and responsible with me?” He was teasing her.

  “Oh, you already knew how to take care of yourself by the time I came along.”

  “Still, you did a pretty good job of it for a while.”

  Grace inhaled. “For a while.”

  “Hey Grace, you didn’t call me to open old wounds. You called me to tell me about the baby, about Hope. And I’m happy for you. I really am. And hey, it’s Mother’s Day. Did you know that?”

  “I did not know that,” said Grace. “But maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about my mother.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about my mother, about trying to contact my mother.”

  Kenny was silent for a moment. And then he said, “Maybe you did call me to open up old wounds.”

  “You think this is a bad decision. I can tell.”r />
  “No,” said Kenny. But then Grace could hear him take a long drink from the thermal mug he drank coffee from every day of the week, whether he was in his car or in the house. “I don’t.” He took another sip before saying, “I think it’s natural for new mothers to want to contact their own mothers. Because once you become a mother, you look at the world in a new way. You are more forgiving of your own mother because you now realize what she went through. But you had a pretty difficult upbringing, Grace, with a mother who didn’t particularly care for you, and who never tried to contact you after you left the house when you graduated from high school.”

  “She came to our wedding, Kenny.”

  “That she did,” said Kenny, “because you reached out to her. Because you tracked her down after the first invitation you sent came back in the mail. She came to the ceremony and then she was gone. And you haven’t heard a word from her since. Is this who you want to contact?”

  “I don’t know, Kenny. I told you I was thinking about it.”

  “Have you talked about this with Bradley?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve only just begun to think about it, about my mother. And I wanted your advice. You’ve known me longer. You know me better than Bradley knows me.”

  The silence returned, and then: “Grace, I’m going to run,” said Kenny. “I’m thrilled about the birth of Hope. I think you ought to think a bit longer about contacting your mother. And I think you should talk to Bradley. He’s not your husband, but he’s Hope’s father, and he should have a say in this.”

  Grace put the phone down on the kitchen counter. She was aware now that she had been pacing around the living room while talking with Kenny, something she did during phone conversations with him. She didn’t know why she did this, but she knew that if someone observing her behavior were asked about it, that person would say that she was nervous or excited. And it was true. She was both nervous and excited when she talked to Kenny, something she hadn’t admitted to herself before now. Grace walked into Hope’s room, saw that she was still asleep, and then returned to the living room and sat down on the couch. She hadn’t told Kenny the truth when she said she’d started thinking about her mother just recently; Grace had actually been thinking about her since the day she birthed Hope. Her mother must have been so afraid, with no one but her judgmental parents to coach her through the process. They probably hadn’t done any coaching or encouraging at all; she could almost picture Rick, with his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw firm and immoveable, his thin lips pressed tightly together. And Laurie? Well, she did everything Rick did or said. So she would have offered her daughter the mirror image of her husband. When Robin had cried out in pain, she would have had no one to comfort her, no one to tell her it would be all right.

  Bradley had been Grace’s coach and comforter. And he had done a phenomenal job, surpassing Grace’s expectations. He had been both present and engaged. And he had gazed at Grace with such love and admiration in his eyes when Hope emerged after seventy minutes of pushing. So why, Grace wondered, had she not talked with Bradley about her unexpected interest in contacting her mother? Was it because she thought he was too young to understand or to offer the perspective she needed? Was it because she knew he would ask his mother what to do? Dorrie could easily make what Grace might label a “federal case” out of Grace’s interest in contacting Robin, the other woman whose sex in the car resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. Maybe that was why she didn’t want to talk to Bradley about this—the potential for Dorrie’s unwelcome involvement.

  Grace heard Hope’s waking up whimpering noises and quickly got up off the couch. She walked into the nursery and reached into the bassinet given to them by Dorrie and Bruce and lifted Hope to her shoulder. She brought her back to the couch to breastfeed her. Grace didn’t need Dorrie’s advice on this matter. And she didn’t need Kenny’s or Bradley’s. It was her decision whether or not she would contact her mother, and she decided she would.

  CHAPTER 41

  Robin was still living in the same town that she was living in when Grace and Kenny got married. Robin, too, had married, just five years ago and subsequently bought a house with her new husband. George Poole managed Robin’s accounts at the local bank and had become over the years an informal financial advisor to Robin. George had lost his first wife to cancer, a revelation made when he and Robin met for coffee one afternoon. And Robin had never married, even though she’d been asked twice, a declaration made that same day. Their time together had been strictly business at first, with George explaining various financial options and the benefits of Robin waiting until she was sixty-six to retire from her job as the administrative assistant to the academic dean of the technical college. But her attraction to him, which she felt from the very first time they met, continued to intensify over the months of their friendship, on about the same schedule as the dissolution of George’s intention to never marry again. And it was only a matter of weeks after their first kiss under a shared umbrella in a downpour that they marched up the granite steps of the courthouse and became husband and wife. George had no objection when Robin, citing the fact that she had lived her entire life with the name Taylor, had decided to keep her maiden name.

  The sex, at first, was difficult for Robin, not that she let on. But for the first year or so, the act itself resurrected images of herself and Bryan in the backseat of his car. With time, however, Robin’s grown-up sex with George became pleasurable, mostly because he was so eager to please her, and he was kind and generous in their day-to-day lives. Every weekday morning, he toasted her English muffins and poured her coffee. In the car, he tuned the radio to her favorite easy listening station. He held her hand when they walked around the block after dinner, and told her he loved her in a sincere way every day. Never before had she received this kind of attention and affection. She was as drawn to him as a child is to an outstretched hand holding a piece of candy. Eventually, she was able to mentally block out the strict rules about sex and the conditional love of her childhood and to focus on loving George back.

  This transition to what Robin called a normal life, this acceptance of herself for who she was and what she believed, taxed Robin physically and mentally. Because she so desperately wanted her relationship with George to forever be loving and good, she had little room in her life for anything outside of making a nice home for him and her job. She played bridge once a week with some of the women in her Tuesday evening Jazzercise class and she watched her favorite daytime television shows, recorded by George, when he was out of the house at evening civic meetings. But this was all she could handle.

  So Robin had let the message from Grace sit on the answering machine that George never looked at. She didn’t return the call, and she didn’t tell George. And she told him just about everything, bodily functions aside, because they were working, as a couple, on her allowing him to be intricately involved in her life, to know what she was thinking or how she was feeling. She knew she was wrong to ignore Grace’s call and to hide it from George. But she didn’t want to tell George because he would probably tell her to call Grace back. And she didn’t want to call Grace back because she had shut the door on that part of her life, and she was afraid of what would happen if she opened it. Even though her parents were both dead, they’d had power over her from the grave before and could certainly have it again, if she let them.

  * * *

  And so the days went by. On Grace’s end, she at first questioned her research, wondering if she’d found the wrong Robin Taylor. The chance of this, given the particulars of her search, was slim. But she entertained this thought anyway—until she allowed herself to consider the only other alternative: that her mother had received the message and chosen to disregard or even delete it. Grace thought her mother had lost the ability to disappoint her, but she realized that this wasn’t true. The level of this disappointment approached despair in the early hours of the morning when Grace was nursing
Hope in the dark. But Grace was able to talk herself down to what she considered a reasonable level of anxiety during the daytime, when the sun shone through the windows and the water glistened in the distance. It is not my fault, Grace said to herself. It’s my mother’s choice not to be in touch with me, and I need to let it go.

  As is the case more often than not, this was easier to say than to do, to believe. And because Grace had chosen to keep her attempt to contact her mother from Bradley—and from Shannon, who would give her fifty reasons why she shouldn’t have made the phone call—she had no one to talk to. She could call Kenny again, but she knew this was a bad idea if she were looking for positive reinforcement. And so she alternated between stewing about it and forcing her mind into thinking about something else, however briefly.

  Robin, too, experienced waves of anxiety. She knew she should get back in touch with Grace, but she was petrified. She had been nervous, too, about going to Grace’s wedding. But she had forced herself to go, telling herself that it was the right thing to do. And with God as her personal witness, she was well schooled in what her parents thought was the right thing. But the wedding was years ago, when she was still caring for her parents who, both closet smokers, had suffered and then died from lung cancer, and this was now. Her parents were dead. She had George in her life and was as happy as she had ever been. If she did return the call, agree to meet Grace and her granddaughter as Grace had suggested in her voice mail, would the past come crashing back in?

  Five days after Grace left the message on Robin’s home phone, Robin broke her self-imposed silence and talked about it with George. And the next day, buoyed by George’s optimistic view of life and by his words that this was Robin’s opportunity to reconnect with her daughter, Robin called Grace. She called close to lunchtime, hoping that Grace was busy with the baby, that she wouldn’t be able to pick up. And she was right; Grace didn’t answer the phone.