Come Pour the Wine

by Cynthia Freeman

  “Let’s indulge her a little. It means so much to her.”

  “You’re going to regret this, honey. Set a precedent and people take you for granted. My mother is going to be an albatross—”

  “We’ll work it out …”

  And so they went.

  They had just opened the door on their return from the first of their Sunday visits when they heard the phone ringing.

  It was Nat, telling them that Kit had just gone into the hospital in labor. Charles and Carol were with him but he wondered if they might not come too.

  They found him pacing the hospital corridor. Charles, who was pacing in the opposite direction, was little comfort, and Carol had long since given up trying to calm either one of them. If her husband acted this way over his sister, God only knew what he’d be like when her time came.

  Janet and Bill did their best to ease the tension, but finally they too fell into silence.

  They waited….

  Meanwhile, Kit in the delivery room refused to take anything. Not Kit, she wanted to be awake when her children saw the world for the first time. At the end she let out a scream, but the pain carried more than its own reward as she saw her newborn babies being held up and smacked on the buttocks. Drenched in perspiration she laughed euphorically. “Welcome to the world, my precious darlings …”

  At long last the doctor came out of the delivery room. He looked from Charles’s anxious face to Nat’s, not sure which was the father until Carol intervened.

  When Nat heard the news he braced himself against the wall for a moment, then let out a war whoop. “By God, I don’t know how Kit knew we were going to have a boy and a girl.”

  Janet’s thoughts were very different, though on the same subject. Like a few million women before her, the gift of a newborn child to another women stirred the most profound yearnings in her, at this moment striking her like a living thing … a living person…. She looked involuntarily at Bill, then quickly away, as though not to give her message away before he was ready to receive it….

  “Did you ever see anyone so happy as Nat and Kit?” Janet asked as she curled against Bill that night.

  “Never. With the exception of thee and me.”

  “Think of the times they’ll have with their children, watching them grow up and become their own people. When I went shopping for a gift for the baby shower, I looked at all those tiny things and suddenly realized how easy it would be to spoil a child …”

  Bill had withdrawn imperceptibly at her side, and she was unaware of the effect her words had had on him until he said, “Slow down, Janet. I think I know where this is going, and the answer is that I don’t want to share you with anyone. Not for a few years, anyway. Let’s hold on to the freedom to do what we want. Children are wonderful, sure, but they can also tie you down …”

  Janet felt terrible … and scared … Yes, she had assumed that children would be part of their marriage. Yes, of course she had. And he’d never indicated he didn’t, and yet here he was, saying wait a few years. She felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her, as if they were suddenly back on the rocky ground of their early relationship. Bill and his freedom … She was grateful of the dark so that he couldn’t see what she was feeling.

  The next day she sat in Kit’s room admiring her babies.

  “Are they fantastic?” Kit said—rhetorical question, Janet thought, if she’d ever heard one—“I’m so nuts about them I can’t wait from one feeding time to the next. And Nat’s passing out cigars like Havanas are coming back in style. You should see the way his mother and father are carrying on. It’s like the second coming of … what’s wrong, Janet?”

  “Nothing, why do you ask? I’m just listening … no one’s more happy …”

  “What’s wrong, Janet?”

  When Janet finally told her about the previous night’s conversation with Bill, Kit shook her head knowingly. “He’s still on the freedom trail, right?”

  “Something like that. It wouldn’t bother me so much if he’d just said we should wait a while. But he was so set against it, talked about years …”

  “Well, screw him…. I mean literally and figuratively.”

  “A woman can’t plot to have children, Kit, and you know it. Or at least shouldn’t. They have to be wanted mutually.”

  “Agreed … but Bill still has the same old problem. You just take the initiative. Ever hear of an accident?”

  “I can’t do that. Children have to be wanted—”

  “Listen to me. There’d be damn few kids around if it weren’t for a few little mishaps. Whether or not a child is wanted in the beginning, the minute it’s born something happens. It’s your flesh and blood. Tell me, do you think Bill could resist holding his own child?”

  “I don’t know, Kit. I just feel a baby has to be something we both want.”

  “Okay, keep working on him.”

  “How would you feel, having to beg Nat?”

  “Not too good, I guess…. Look, you’re only married six weeks, for God’s sake, Bill will change his mind, take it from me.” And in the midst of her own glow she believed what she’d said.

  “I hope so, Kit.” …

  Janet sat alone in the kitchen on Monday morning after Bill left for the office.

  The previous day they had attended Mark Weiss’s circumcision and then gone to a reception at the proud grandparents’ Sutton Place home, where everyone had made the customary fuss over Mark and his twin sister Deborah. Janet had been uncomfortably aware of Bill’s eyes on her as she’d picked up one of the infants …

  Now she sat at the breakfast table, stirring her coffee and feeling … empty, at loose ends. What was she going to do today? For the first time she almost wished she had a job again to occupy her time. Apparently there were to be no children in her future….

  Bill had made that clear enough. And Kit had announced she and her family were moving to Westchester, which would leave another void in her life.

  She picked up the phone and called Bill.

  “Hi, darling,” he said cheerfully.

  “Hi,” she answered, trying not to let her voice betray her feelings. “How about lunch?”

  “Sweetheart, I’d love to, but I have a business lunch. Meet me at the office and we’ll go to dinner.”

  “Okay … have a nice time.”

  She sat for a long moment, then went slowly down the hall to the bedroom to get dressed, but couldn’t make up her mind what to wear. Momentous decisions …

  By noon she found herself sitting alone in the same restaurant she and Kit used to go to. Echoes of conversations came rushing back at her as she picked at her salad. Bill will never get married, Janet … but I love him so, Kit … I’d be the happiest woman if … I only want Bill, that’s all I want … She paid the check and hurried out of the restaurant.

  She walked for blocks, then browsed through Bloomingdale’s. There wasn’t a thing she wanted … not true, Janet. You want the works, marriage and a baby. Not now necessarily, but at least eventually. At least the hope of it …

  She walked to Rockefeller Center, sat on a bench. Just what was she going to do with her life? She wasn’t an idiot. She’d worked and been a success at it. She would do her damnedest to be the same in her marriage. But she was a woman too, and needed, craved a woman’s fulfillment. All right, enough of that now … The apartment didn’t require much attention. And truth to tell, she didn’t much like the apartment. Well, she liked it, but it was so relentlessly masculine. She wondered what Bill would say if she suggested they refurnish it. But even if he said it was okay, what then? She couldn’t make a lifetime project out of furnishing an apartment. What did other married women without children do with their time? Well, her mother was president of the garden club, did charitable work, was involved with the League of Women Voters, the historical society, the March of Dimes … you name it, she did it. But Janet wasn’t interested in any of those things. Maybe later, but now none of it appealed to her. And besides
, what did it matter what other women did? She was herself and her desires were her own. Sure, she could develop a circle of friends, play bridge, go to lunch, shop for clothes, but that seemed so, so meaningless….

  That night at dinner Janet was so quiet Bill wondered if she were feeling well.

  “You okay, honey?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “What did you do today?”

  “Just … Bill, I want to go back to work.”

  He put down his fork and looked at her. “You mean modeling?”

  “Yes …”

  “I’m sorry, darling, but I really don’t want you to.”

  “You don’t? Why?”

  “Because it’s too hard on you, the hours are crazy. I’m kind of surprised you’d even suggest it—”

  “You didn’t seem to mind before we were married.”

  “Well … I do now.”

  “Oh? It’s not dignified enough? I don’t do lingerie, so you wouldn’t have to be embarrassed—”

  “Janet, this isn’t like you—”

  “How do you know?” She was shocked, surprised at the anger in her voice.

  He took her hand across the table. “You miss Kit, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but she has a life, her children and her house … I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Bill,” she lied.

  “I do,” he said.

  She looked up quickly. “Do you?”

  “Yes … it’s adjusting to marriage. I’m told all women go through that. It’s not the same for men, they go back to their jobs …”

  She’d never felt so much anger, never known it was in her. He didn’t understand it at all. It was okay for him to go back to his job, but not for her. That was some equality. Everything had to be his way, when he was ready for it. First, no marriage … then no baby … now no work.

  “You’re wrong, marriage hasn’t been …” She bit down on her lip. “Well, if not a model, at least I’d like to take a sales job—”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d like to do something, to feel worthwhile.”

  “Sure … well, I can understand that … how about becoming a guide at the museum—?”

  “Because that’s not what I want to do.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, what do you want?”

  She looked at him, too angry now for words. Hadn’t she just told him what she wanted?

  She grabbed up her pocketbook, walked out of the restaurant, hailed a cab and went home.

  When he got back to the apartment he found her sprawled across the bed. What had he said to bring this on? Damned if he really knew. He did know, though, that it bothered him to see her like this…. He took her in his arms and held her close. He heard himself saying, “I’m sorry.” Though just what he was sorry for was still a mystery.

  “No you’re not,” she said, fighting back tears of frustration. “You’ve got our lives all arranged, haven’t you, Bill? But it’s all got to be your way. You deny me the one thing I’m happy doing, the one thing I know how to do, after you marry me and after you tell me we won’t have any children. What about me? What am I supposed to do while you’re running around all day being—”

  “What am I supposed to do, give in to every one of your—”

  But she had gone to the bathroom, slammed the door. Well, he wasn’t going after her. He took a blanket out of the closet and threw it on the living room sofa. Two whole months of wedded bliss … He poured himself a Scotch. No, damn it, he didn’t want to be saddled with children, if that was what really had Janet upset. Didn’t he have a right to his feelings? Damn it, he was just getting accustomed to being a husband and now she wanted him to become a father and …

  His second drink eased the anger … the old fear … a little. The third found him taking on a sort of boozy, self-satisfied perspective. He sat on the sofa, drinking more slowly now. Okay … let’s take a look at things … why had Janet gone off like a rocket? That wasn’t her style, she wasn’t spoiled, didn’t throw tantrums. All right, now be honest, he instructed himself. True, you’ve been married only a few months, but it isn’t as though you rushed to the altar after a whirlwind romance. You lived together almost a year before you got married. Sure, Janet’s going to be only twenty-two this birthday but she’s a mature woman. Up to now her life has been me or her profession, so what she wants now is to settle into a marriage … start a family. I wouldn’t care if we never had kids but I suppose a family is a part of marriage and I guess I’d like to have kids eventually … Still, when I think about it something happens to me … I want to head for the hills … But look at the change Janet has made in my life. It wasn’t all that great being a bachelor, was it? Was it? … Well, it had its compensations … but no one gave a damn. Right? Right … Your life was empty, sweet little Janet filled the void … Now let’s take a look at me. I’m twenty-six. I’d be twenty-seven if we had a baby right away and they say that’s about right if you’re going to have fun with your kids … Much as I loved my dad we couldn’t do a lot of things together. Not fair to kids, or parents. My mother was too old to have a baby, no wonder she thought I was the little Lord Jesus … Right … little Janet’s right … what am I holding out for? Should be grateful I have a wife who wants to settle down instead of being like some of the wives I hear about … Ted’s always bitching about his marriage, just the other day he said, “I want a kid in the worst way but she doesn’t want to louse up her precious figure, three years I’ve been asking.”

  The more an alcoholically reborn Bill thought about it, the more attractive the prospect seemed. In his fantasy he saw himself taking his son fishing, skiing, hunting, to baseball games at Yankee Stadium … Damn right, and no son of his was going to military school … he’d see his kid every day—Suddenly he was brought up sharp. Poor Janet, he’d said a lot of lousy things, not, of course, that he really meant any of them … he just hadn’t understood. Right? Right. Kit was right. He was a selfish s.o.b…. And now suddenly he wanted the baby maybe more than she did. He wouldn’t tell her tonight, though … it would only make her feel she’d forced him and he didn’t want that. He’d apologize, but he’d wait for the rest for a week or so, when things had simmered down … He took another sip, feeling much better….

  He was about to get up and tell Janet how sorry he was when she came into the living room. Her eyes were still swollen from crying. “Bill,” she said quietly, “I went too far … God, I love you so much …”

  He got up and put his arms around her, burying her head against his chest. “I just hope you can forgive me. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”

  Oh yes, he felt much, much better.

  The next morning, the blow-up seemed all but forgotten. Before she had apologized to him last night she had told herself it was time to grow up, to respect the fact that he had a right to his feelings and to be happy with the love they shared. The lovemaking that night was a delicious way to make up, to come to one’s senses …

  She was smiling as she poured him another cup of coffee. “Darling, I’ve come up with a brilliant idea.”

  “I was sure you would.” Her excitement heightened her color. God, she looked beautiful. She was beautiful.

  “I’m going to take ballet lessons again, brush up on my French at Berlitz, be a volunteer at a hospital …”

  “You think you’ll find time for me?

  “You just keep on acting like you did last night and I may never let you out of the house.”

  Which wasn’t, of course, exactly what he most wanted to hear.

  Janet had come to her senses.

  That afternoon Janet came home with a package from Capezio and eagerly took out her new leotards and ballet slippers to put them on. Looking at herself in the mirror, she almost laughed as her childhood fantasies came back to her. She was seven, nine, twelve, fifteen … and she was the black swan in Madame Colette’s recital. She hadn’t exactly been Dame Margot Fonteyn, but the applause still rang in her head … Well,
enough memories for now. Time to start dinner. The phone rang just as she was putting a spinach casserole into the oven. She closed the oven door and picked up the wall phone.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Kit. How’s the bride?”

  “Kit! I’m so happy to hear your voice.”

  “Likewise, cookie,” Kit said, wondering from the sound of Janet’s voice if she’d made points with Bill on the baby parade. Her thoughts were interrupted as Janet asked, “How are my gorgeous godchildren?”

  “Let’s not get started on that subject unless you’ve got forty-eight hours. They’re positively heavenly—especially after those 3 A.M. feedings. How’s Bill?”

  “Do you have forty-eight hours?”

  “It’s all paradise, I take it.”

  “And more.”

  Should she ask? No. “Are you busy this weekend?”

  “No, nothing special.”

  “In that case, Nat and I would love to have you come out and see the old homestead. Stay for the weekend.”

  Janet paused. “Gee, Kit, I promised Bill’s mother …”

  “For Sunday dinner, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Listen, sweetie, I’ve warned you before and I’ll do it only one more time. Don’t let her hook into you, Janet.”

  “She doesn’t really. To tell the truth, she’s been great, and she loves seeing Bill. She’s an old lady, Kit. One day a week doesn’t seem too much to give her a little happiness.”

  “You’re a pushover, Janet. No use trying to reform you. So what’s the answer?”

  Janet hesitated. She very much wanted to visit Kit. Still …

  “Let me talk to her and I’ll get back to you.”

  “You do that, Florence Nightingale.”

  Janet had butterflies in her stomach when she called her mother-in-law … “It’s sort of a housewarming at Kit’s, mother …

  A heavy silence. “Well,” Violet finally said, “if you think it’s more impor—I mean, I wouldn’t want to stand in your way … not for the world, you know that, Janet. I did plan a sort of rather special day but … Alice’s daughter Gwen is getting ready for her coming out and I … well, never mind, you go and have a good time, and for heaven’s sake don’t worry about us …”