by Sue Miller
She went inside now and up the stairs to the bathroom. She rinsed herself off. She got a clean hand towel from the cupboard and went into the bedroom. There, she tossed her panties and the old towel into the laundry basket, and put on a clean pair of panties. She slung the towel across her crotch, then pulled the panties back up, the towel held loosely in place by them, a kind of diaper. She'd gotten used to treating her body this way—casually, scornfully.
She went back down to the front door and finished sliding the box into the house. She shut the door. She got a sharp knife from the kitchen and cut the many places where tape was holding the box together. When she was done, the front flap of the box unfolded slowly away and wafted to the floor, revealing one of the side panels of the slatted white crib, its frame wrapped in a plastic covering.
She cut through the string holding this plastic on, as well as the string holding the side panel to other pieces of the crib behind it in the box. She lifted the panel out. It wasn't bad. She could probably do this, get the crib upstairs and assemble it, the whole thing, if she did it one piece at a time. It seemed a good project for this first empty day alone, a way of definitively turning from her life at work to her new life, with this baby.
She lifted the side panel against her hip, her left hand gripping the bottom rail through the opening between the slats, her right hand steadying things. She carried it upstairs, stopping for a long moment to rest on the landing. She took it down the hall to the littlest bedroom, which Nathan had painted a sunny yellow over the semester break after Christmas. They'd bought a bureau, and Nathan had painted that too—white, like the crib they'd ordered. The baby clothes and bedding they'd been given were stacked in its drawers. Some were from Nathan's mother, and some were from a shower Jane had organized at work—true to her word, she'd never mentioned her anger at Meri again, and the shower had been a kind and conciliatory gesture on her part. Meri and Nathan had yet to tally any of this stuff, yet to figure out what else they might need. In fact, most of the presents were still tied in ribbon or encased in plastic.
Before she went downstairs for the next piece, Meri looked around, appraising. It was fresh and pretty, but it also did look a little eggy in here, with these colors. But maybe that was just the mood she was in.
When she'd got everything into the baby's room, including the screwdriver and wrenches the instructions for assembly told her she would need, she went to the linen closet and got a fresh hand towel for between her legs. She could feel that the effort of doing all this had fairly soaked the towel she'd been wearing.
Just as she came back into the baby's room with the dry towel snugged into her panties, there was a motion out the window that caught her eye. Ah, it was Delia! settling into one of the Adirondack chairs in her yard in the weak sunlight. Meri stepped back into what she assumed was the black of the window from the old woman's perspective, and watched her.
She was reading a letter—its envelope lay on her lap and she was wearing her glasses, holding the white paper close to her face. After a moment, she set the pages down in her lap too and leaned back in the chair. She took her glasses off. She held her hand up to the bridge of her nose and massaged it gently. Then her hand fell and she sat utterly still, eyes closed, her face slack, the sunlight glinting off the glasses in her lap.
She'd been home for several weeks. Or back from France, anyway. Not exactly home. Tom's stroke had kept her in Washington most of the time. Meri had hardly seen her, and though she knew it was childish, she couldn't help feeling neglected, cast aside.
MERI HAD WALKED slowly back from work the afternoon that Delia unexpectedly arrived home, looking at the pale green of the tight leaves of the trees overhead, of the shrubs. Here and there a magnolia flared in bloom, and Meri could catch its beery smell as she passed. The first tulips were up.
In her dreamy mood, she came inside. It took her a moment after she started to pry her shoes off to realize that she was hearing voices from Delia's side of the house. Women's voices, rising, falling.
She was confused. Could it be Delia so early? Perhaps something had happened—she'd fallen ill and had to return ahead of schedule. But Delia and who else?
Meri had done the house-sitting chores at Delia's again this spring, though she'd spent less time there than she had in the fall. She'd been busier at work and staying later for one thing, but mostly she was ashamed of her earlier behavior.
Still, she had thought of the letters often, particularly after she met Tom at Christmas. She had thought of their language—the language of deep desire, of yearning and loss—and tried to put it together with the image she had of Tom and Delia from the hour or so she and Nathan had spent with them, the gracious, amusing, poised elderly couple, flirting with each other, flirting with their guests, even as they skillfully managed their visit and then the arrival of their son and his family.
And she always felt a sense of something like hunger every time she walked through the door of Delia's house, though she couldn't have said what for. She'd actually spent a few minutes just the day before sitting in Delia's living room, watching the light fade from the late-afternoon sky through the mostly bare branches of the oak tree in the front yard, her hands on her belly where the baby was restive, elbowing and kicking.
Over dinner that night, she and Nathan had speculated on the voices she'd heard. The next morning Meri had gone across the porch and rung Delia's bell.
A tall, slim woman about fifty answered the door. Her voice was chilly, with a jittery, impatient quality to it. “Yes?” she said. She held the door only partially open, as though she thought Meri was a salesperson, or a Jehovah's Witness. She wore an expensive silk blouse, and her hairdo was expensive too, with carefully frosted highlights.
Meri introduced herself as Delia's neighbor, gesturing at her own side of the house. She asked if Delia was home.
“No,” the woman said. “She's out, doing errands. I'm Nancy Naughton. I'm her daughter. Maybe I can help you?”
Meri explained that she'd been taking care of things while Delia was away, that she'd noticed Delia was back, early, that she hoped everything was all right. Also she wondered whether she should stop her chores.
“Ah,” Nancy said. She looked more like her father than like Delia, Meri thought. She was tall, with his long face. But she had neither of her parents’ charm.
Though now she said, “Come in for a few minutes, why don't you?”
She stepped back and gestured into the hall. Meri came across the threshold and followed her into the living room.
“Mother's fine,” she began as they were sitting down. “It's my father, Tom Naughton . . .” She stopped, looking hard at Meri. “Do you know anything about him?”
Meri nodded. “I actually met him once.”
“Oh,” she said, eyebrows raised, as though surprised by this. But she went right on. “Yes. Well. My father's had a stroke, so she came back from France ahead of time.” She paused. “To take care of him,” she said with heavy irony, as though Meri could easily see the absurdity of this.
“Oh!” Meri said. She was thinking of him as he'd been the night she met him, she was remembering him in the photo. “I'm so sorry to hear that.”
Nancy nodded.
“Will he be all right?” Meri asked.
“Oh, who knows?” Nancy Naughton said. “No one can say yet. It's possible that he may be able in the end to manage on his own. But he'll need care for quite a while certainly, and my mother imagines that because technically they're still married, that she's somehow . . . obligated to give him that care.”
“I see,” Meri said, taking it in slowly—the news about Tom, the news about Delia, and then Nancy's attitude toward all of it too. “So she's been with him—Delia—in Washington, then?”
“Yes. She went there straight from France before telling any of us a thing about it. This was Wednesday, three days ago. Stepped off the plane, completely jet-lagged, and started in.” At the end of almost each sentence, Nancy's lip
s pressed together, a kind of physical punctuation mark. “When I heard, I came out immediately, and I've persuaded her to come home for at least a few days.”
“Ah-ha. To rest.”
“Well, yes. And, I hope, to see the folly of this notion that she's going to be in charge. I mean . . .” She paused and looked hard at Meri. “How well do you know my mother?” she asked abruptly.
Meri lifted her shoulders. “We're neighbors. My husband and I moved in last September. I enjoy Delia. I can't claim to know her well.”
“But you know about her and my father.”
“Well . . . I've surmised a bit. I mean, he doesn't live here with her, obviously.” Meri was blushing.
Nancy's hand moved a little, dismissing any of Meri's conclusions. “My mother is a very loyal person,” she said. “Which is too bad, as my father isn't. He left her years ago, left her for a completely inappropriate choice—a very much younger woman. Which didn't work out, of course. And since then there have been many others.” Her eyebrows rose. “Many others. Who also, as it happened, didn't work out. But my mother—and here's the loyalty thing. I mean, they've always stayed friends. She's helped him politically.”
She drew her chin in, doubling it. “Anyway, you can see, I think, how disastrous it would be for her to get sucked into this unattractive proposition—being his caretaker or nurse or whatever, now that he's incapacitated.”
“Yes, of course. Well.” What to say? “Well, I can see that of course that would be . . . upsetting, to you.”
“No, it's not upsetting, because it's just unthinkable.” She breathed deeply. “I shouldn't be boring you with all this. Just, that's the story, for the moment.”
“Well, it's not boring, of course,” Meri said. There was an awkward silence. “So Delia's home . . . for a while, then?” she asked finally.
“No, no. Just a few days. Then she insists on going back to Washington. Meanwhile, I'm on the phone, madly trying to make arrangements behind her back, that's how crazy this is. Good enough arrangements that she'll feel comfortable leaving him there.”
“In Washington.”
“Yes.”
“But, in a nursing home?” Meri was thinking of the VA hospital her father had been in at the end of his life. When you came in, you were assaulted by the smell of urine and the braying of men in wheelchairs in the hallways, next to the nurses’ stations, crying out for help—to be changed, to be fed. To go home, now.
“Well, or a retirement community with some nursing care. But a place that will have a rehabilitation center for people like him.”
“But is Delia . . .? I mean, is that what she wants? I can't imagine . . .”
Nancy's hand dismissed Meri again. “I'm good at persuasion. And it's so clearly the only reasonable choice.”
“Well.” Meri got up. Nancy got up too, and they started out of the living room, down the front hall. “Good luck, I guess,” Meri said. “Maybe I'll see Delia before you go back. But please, if you could tell her I stopped by. And to let me know when and if she wants me to take up my chores again.”
As they said good-bye at the door, Meri was struck again by something hard, something embittered in Nancy's face. But maybe, she told herself, it was just the presence of the fierce, deep lines around Nancy's mouth that unfairly made her look that way.
As she talked with Nathan about it that night—talked about what Nancy had told her of Tom's stroke, what Nancy had said about Delia and Tom and their marriage—Meri was gradually conscious that she was feeling relief. Relief in being able to discuss with Nathan the things she'd known all along from reading Tom's letters; relief that she could be honest, with him at last about all of that.
Or partially honest, anyway.
WHEN MERI STOPPED working on the crib for a minute and looked out the window again, Delia was gone from her backyard. The chair was empty. She resolved to ask Nathan about a time they could have her over for drinks or dinner, if she was going to be around for longer than a day or two.
It took her more than an hour to get the crib set up. When it was ready, she put the mattress in it. In the bureau drawer she found a stack of rubber-coated pads covered in flannel and she laid one on the mattress. She unwrapped the plastic from around a crib sheet. It had little figures printed on it, animals—rabbits, kangaroos, sheep. All the sweet ones, she thought. None of the killers.
She made the bed, and stepped back. It looked nice, actually. It looked as if they were people who'd planned for this baby, organized themselves around it, instead of the slackers they were. She went downstairs to start supper.
When Nathan came home, she took him upstairs. He was impressed, but he was also worried about her having done it by herself. “Should you be doing this stuff? Working so hard this late in the pregnancy?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “It was like mild exercise. It was probably good for me.”
Over dinner, they talked about what else they had to do—Nathan was taking the weekend off, just to focus on baby-related chores at last. Meri had a pen and pad by her place at the dining room table, and while they talked, she jotted down what they'd need to buy, what had to get done.
As they were clearing their places, she said, “I saw Delia today.”
“And what's happening with her?”
“I don't know. I just saw her. We didn't talk. She was out in the backyard when I was up in the baby's room.” She set her dishes on the drainboard. “She looked tired.”
“I'm sure she is,” Nathan said. “We should have her over.”
“My thought exactly,” Meri said. And then she said, “I wonder how he is.”
When she came to bed with Nathan, late, she'd slung another towel between her legs. She'd explained to him earlier the genius of this arrangement. Now she wondered aloud why she hadn't thought of it earlier.
“Because, of course, it's so attractive too,” he said.
They laughed, and Nathan switched the lamp off. He touched her face, he kissed her quickly, bringing her his swimming pool smell—and then he fell back away from her and both of them turned on their sides. They hadn't made love in almost a month, it seemed by mutual consent. Certainly Meri had no interest.
Maybe it was the exertion of the previous day, but Meri slept through until almost five in the morning. This was unprecedented in her life of late. Usually the pressure on her bladder got her up several times in the night.
When she woke, it was with the first easy contraction of her labor. Even as she realized this, even as she was taking it in, she was also taking in the fact that the bed was soaked. Nathan was snoring lightly. The wet towel between her legs and the sheet under her were clammy and cold. What a disgrace, she thought. What a disgrace I am.
She eased out of bed and stood, feeling liquid gush out of her. In the bathroom, she removed the towel. It was soaked and there was a faint, pink smear of blood on it. For a moment she was startled, and then she realized: this had to be her waters. Not urine, then. Perhaps not urine yesterday either, though she wasn't sure of that. She stood, looking at herself in the mirror for a minute. What came now? What was the next step here? She put the bloody towel into the hamper. She washed her legs, her crotch. She got a clean towel and put it between her legs. She brushed her teeth, and her hair. She washed her face. Bending over the sink to rinse the soap off, she felt another tightening of her body.
She was frightened, suddenly. She wasn't ready for this. They'd been to only a few birthing classes, they'd both been so busy. She hadn't packed a bag with any of the things you were supposed to pack a bag with. She didn't even remember what those things were. Somewhere in the house was the book they'd bought that told them all that, she could see it in her mind's eye—a fat yellow book with a happily pregnant woman on the front cover, her hands resting lovingly on her belly. Now was when they'd been planning to read it carefully, now that they were done with work. Now was when they'd been going to do everything.
She went downstairs. She searched the shelves in the
living room for the book, the book that would tell her what to do next. It wasn't there. She went back upstairs, to her study. It wasn't there, either.
She sat down in her desk chair for the next contraction. It was almost five-thirty. She noted the time, and went downstairs again. She would time the contractions, time the intervals between them—she remembered that this was important information, information the doctor would need. She made coffee for herself and she had some toast. She ate a banana too. She had another contraction, like a terrible cramp, while she was doing all this. The interval had been twelve minutes.
At a little before seven, when the intervals were still about ten or twelve minutes, she called the doctor and got her answering service. She gave the woman at the other end of the line the timing, and told her she thought that her waters had broken too.
Ten minutes later, as she was stopped with another contraction, her coffee cup set down on the counter, the doctor called back. She asked Meri about the contractions, about the blood, about exactly when her waters had broken. Meri said this morning sometime, while she was asleep. That she woke to a wet bed.
And then she said she wasn't sure, but she thought they might have been leaking since yesterday morning, actually. The doctor's voice sharpened. She asked Meri what made her think so, and Meri described it, the liquid leaving her body, the damp towels through the day and overnight.
The doctor told her to come in to the birthing center now. “I think we may need to get that labor going,” she said. “I don't like a baby to be high and dry for too long in there.” Meri said she'd be there within a half hour and hung up.
Nathan was coming down the back stairs—she heard his footsteps. She turned to see him step into the kitchen barefoot, wearing his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. His hair was scrambled, his eyes puffy. “Who called?” he asked, frowning. “What's going on?”
IN THE BIRTHING CENTER, everything happened quickly, too quickly for Meri. There was the ugly hospital johnny she had to put on, and the exam with Nathan standing right there while the doctor's hand went inside her. There was the frowning, serious, pretty doctor, peeling the glove from her hand, wanting to know why Meri hadn't called her yesterday. Meri felt in the wrong, as though she hadn't lived up to her part of some bargain.
