The Birthdays

by Heidi Pitlor

  As the car drew closer and then stopped, she saw to her surprise that it was him. He pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the ignition and stepped out. She was suddenly embarrassed to be sitting outside alone in her pajama pants late at night.

  “I had this strange sense that I should check in on you. I just finished up at work,” he said.

  “What if I hadn’t been sitting out here? Would you have rung the bell?” She gestured toward the dark house.

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “Lucky I’m out here, then,” she said. He came closer and sat down on the ground next to her. “Were you on your way to see that girl?”

  “What? Who?”

  “The girl you work with?” She didn’t want him to have to cover something up.

  “No,” he said. “You know what? I’ve been a little worried about you since you came into the store last night.”

  “You have?’

  He nodded. “How’s your brother?”

  “He’s managing, I think.”

  “Does it make you scared that, well, something might happen to your baby?”

  She smiled. “Not really. Maybe it should. But I guess I’m just not letting myself think that way.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her ankle and held on as she swung it in the air. “What happened between us,” he said, “you know, at my place—I’m sorry about that. I really am. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

  “You weren’t alone. It wasn’t only your decision.”

  “I guess you’re right. But still, I mean, you’re pregnant. You’re, what, six months’ pregnant? And we’d just met? It’s not exactly Boy Scout behavior.”

  “Do you do this all the time? Sleep with people you’ve just met?”

  “No. Do you?” he asked.

  “Every day.” She glanced down at him and smiled. “I enjoyed it, to be honest.” What was the point in lying now?

  “You did?”

  “I really did.” She rested her hands on her belly.

  “Okay,” he said, and let go of her ankle.

  “You didn’t? You thought it was too weird.”

  “No, I liked it too. I promise. But Hilary, you know, I can be an asshole. I’m completely unreliable. I’m selfish, I tend to leave people in the lurch, and you deserve better than that.”

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I get the sense that you’ve said this so many times, it barely means anything to you anymore. You don’t need to break up with me,” she said, and set her hand on his shoulder. “And you don’t need to apologize for sleeping with me. You certainly shouldn’t apologize for that.”

  He kicked a pebble onto the road.

  “And one more thing, just for good measure. I don’t do this sort of thing all the time either.”

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Really?”

  He looked up at her, and though she could barely make out his face in the darkness, she thought she detected a smirk. He stood, turned to her and said, “Hi, I’m Alex.”

  “Hi, Alex, I’m Hilary.”

  “Do you need a ride somewhere? Is that why you’re sitting out here on a tree stump in the middle of the night, Hilary?”

  She considered suggesting that they go for a drive and then maybe, just maybe, they’d end up at his place again, but then she thought of her family just feet away from them, of Daniel and Brenda, of her father, her now-seventy-five-year-old father, and said, “No thanks. I just came out here to clear my mind, and I think I should head back inside now.”

  “All right,” he said, and shoved his hands inside his pockets.

  “Oh, and I have a bit of news for you,” she said. “I’m going to stay here on Great Salt for a while. I kind of like this place, and my brother offered me his house—well, my sister-in-law did really, but that’s another story.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re staying.”

  “You’re glad, but you’re a little worried that I’ll want too much from you.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  She laughed. “I don’t want anything from you. I promise.”

  “Hilary, right, that was it.”

  She moved closer to him and rested her head against his arm. He stepped behind her, slipping his hands around her stomach. “I’m not worried,” he whispered, his lips against her ear.

  They stayed like this for a few moments, until Hilary said, “I should go.”

  “How long do you think you’ll stay on the island?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll see how it goes, and whether I can find any work.”

  “You want me to ask if they need anyone else at the store?”

  “Sure,” she said. “But I’ve got a little saved, and my folks are going to help out. I’ll be all right for a while.”

  “Hil?” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sleep well.”

  “Good night,” she said, and reached forward to take his hand. She kissed the top of it, probably longer than she should have, and headed back to the house. Maybe they would sleep together again—a part of her hoped they would—or maybe something more would happen between them. Most likely, though, they would become some version of friends in the end. The thought wasn’t entirely unpleasant. They could see each other every once in a while for dinner or a drink and talk about the others on the island, the latest gossip, and their own gossip, whom they were currently seeing or wished they were seeing. They could give each other advice about these women and men, they could discuss where they hoped to travel, what they hoped to do with their lives, as Hilary suspected this was a subject she would never tire of, even after the baby was born. In the end, it was the imagining alternate futures more than living them that seemed so necessary. The reminding herself of the many options for a person in this world. And she thought that Alex would agree.

  *

  She tripped over a pair of shoes by the front door, and Daniel shuffled in his bed. “Larry?”

  “Sorry, go back to sleep,” she whispered.

  “I can’t. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

  “Is she up?” Hilary asked, motioning to Brenda.

  “No. Hear the breathing? Sit with me awhile. I can’t fall asleep.” He gestured to an easy chair.

  Hilary crept to the chair. “You sure we won’t wake her?”

  “Nah. What were you doing outside?”

  “Just had a moment of claustrophobia in here. I needed some air,” she said. “One thing they don’t tell you about being pregnant is that your body temperature goes haywire. I’m always either hot or freezing.”

  “I’m not sure she ever got to that point.”

  She moved a few pieces of clothing from the chair and sat down. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Daniel said. He pulled himself up in bed and adjusted the pillows behind his back. Hilary couldn’t quite see his face in the darkness of the room. “She did have other things, a lot nausea and headaches, mostly in the beginning.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “I used to think that her being pregnant would put us on a more similar footing, you know, physically. That we’d both be at odds with ourselves. To be honest, it drove me crazy that although she had all these aches and pains and morning sickness, she remained basically happy.”

  “You were a miserable wreck before your accident, Danielle. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ve never been ‘basically happy.’ Or maybe you were, I don’t know—were you? Maybe that’s me I’m talking about, never fundamentally content about anything.”

  “I don’t really know. But I must have assumed that the discomfort and all the changes that come with pregnancy would in fact bring us closer. We needed that after the accident and after I’d begun to hate everyone and everything. Here’s something: I think that deep down I wanted her to suffer like I had.”

 
“That’s probably normal.”

  Daniel whispered, “No one should want another person to suffer, especially his wife.” Brenda let out a short sigh. “Let’s try to keep it down.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Hilary said as quietly as she could. “Nothing can operate by shoulds after that.” She tried to think of something more comforting and specific to say about the matter.

  “I suppose. But now, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m making her feel any better after what just happened to her. I’ve tried, but I don’t think it’s worked.”

  “Maybe she just needs to feel like hell for a while.”

  “Maybe. But I wish there was something I could just say or do or give her that would help just a bit.” He twisted a corner of the sheet in his fingers. “She’s so far from home over here.”

  “What do you mean?” Hilary looked at Brenda, her small thumb beside her open mouth.

  “She’s so far from London, from her mother and her family.”

  “But she’s lived here for ages.”

  “I know. Still, at a time like this. You should’ve heard her talking to her mother and how relieved she was just to hear her voice. I know that I needed you all around after my accident.”

  “You just needed the distractions of liquor and stories of my pathetic love life,” she said. “You know you’re lost without me.”

  “Oh, I think it’s the opposite, Larry.”

  Brenda turned again and Hilary stood. “I’m going to let you two sleep.”

  “Don’t leave me,” he half joked.

  “Oh, Danielle, dahling, what do you want me to do? Should I crawl into bed between you two?”

  “Okay,” he said sadly.

  Hilary touched his shoulder and turned to leave. She stood a moment, unsure whether she should actually leave, and if she stayed, then what? Could she sleep in the easy chair? She considered it, but then glanced at Brenda, a tiny heap next to him. She would wake the next morning and wonder when Hilary had joined them, and why.

  She crept down the hallway and into her small room, where she lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes and shuffled beneath the sheets, but remained unable to drift off to sleep. How did her brother’s marriage continue day after day? How did anyone’s, for that matter? In general, it seemed a strange institution to have lasted so long. In this time when babies could be created by joining chemicals in a glass tube, when divorce was at an all-time high, ye olde institution of marriage was alive and well, and not just for dogged traditionalists: gays and lesbians sought the right to marry, artists married, musicians and loners and sociopaths and geniuses—virtually everyone. Smart, funny, creative people like Daniel fell in love and believed that this heightened, blissful state of attraction and adoration would last forever (for if they didn’t believe this, what was the point?). And then slowly, surely, the bliss began to fade—the adoration became affection, then comfort, then stasis, then irritation, and these people clung to each other long after anything good between them had slipped away, and why, what for? Hilary turned over and faced the ceiling. Surely there had to be a reason all these people stayed together.

  11

  A Completely New Experience

  After Hilary left, Brenda began to twist and turn in her sleep. She kicked Daniel and flopped onto her back, then shot her arm into the air. “You okay?” he whispered, but she just sighed restlessly. What a sight they were right now, Brenda thrashing about in her sleep, Daniel sitting upright and scrunching the sheet into a ball. And what if she had heard the conversation he’d just had with Hilary? What if Brenda was incorporating it into some nightmare? But they’d spoken quietly. She couldn’t have heard them—and anyway, it might not have been such a terrible thing if she had. After all, he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. He’d merely spoken of his growing concern for her. He let go of the sheet and lay back down.

  They would wake tomorrow, say their goodbyes to everyone and head off to the ferry. When they arrived on the mainland, Brenda would help him into the car, and later into their house (his hands always got stuck between his wheels and that blessed doorjamb—he’d been meaning to have the door widened for months). She would check in on Morris Arnold, do their laundry, tidy up the place since they’d had no time to clean it before they left, make dinner, and later she would help him out of his chair, into his pajamas and eventually into their bed. Daniel adjusted the pillow beneath his head and tried to get comfortable, but the pillow was too soft, the mattress too hard. The waves pressed against the beach again and again. Before they dropped off to sleep, he would tell her that he’d been thinking about starting to lift weights again and build the strength to manage better on his own. He wanted to at least be able to get in and out of the car by himself. He’d tell her that tomorrow, he planned to call the doctor Tammy Ann was working for and ask about his research, then volunteer to help him. Maybe the man was close to finding a cure—maybe he could tell Daniel about some of his discoveries, if nothing else. Daniel pictured himself and Brenda beside each other in their bed at home, beneath those heavy cotton sheets she’d bought at that British housewares store, and he tried to imagine what her reaction to these things might be. Would she be relieved? Would she even care? After all, minimizing his burden on her was not the same as tending to her. He tried to imagine what tending to her might actually entail—trying to clean the house himself? Cooking her favorite foods? Chatting up the neighbors in her stead? The overall task seemed much larger than these superficial things, more nebulous and permanent and, he began to fear, next to impossible.

  She sighed again. The waves seemed to whisper, shh, shh, and he fell into a fitful sleep. A while later, he woke to a fully formed thought: on the other side of this ocean was her mother, starting her morning, undoubtedly worried sick about her daughter. She, more than anyone, would know how best to tend to Brenda.

  *

  She folded the crisp white sheets and set them in a small stack on the coffee table. Her back to Daniel, she began tidying the room, adjusting every pillow and frame and book. He kept finding himself directly in her path.

  “I’m thinking …” he finally said, and drew the deepest breath he could. “I’m thinking that you should go home to visit your family for a while. It might be the best thing for you right now.” He’d rehearsed the words in his head the night before. He thought of gentle, convoluted ways to suggest the trip, then sharp, aggressive sentences; bloated, melancholy pleas. In the end, he’d decided just to be direct and honest.

  “Oh?”

  “Maybe for a week or two. Play it by ear, see when you’ve had enough. I think it’d be good for you to be back home. Don’t you?” A heavy sense of doubt crept through him, but no, he was doing the right thing for her.

  “I don’t know if the doctor will let me go just yet,” she said tentatively.

  “Well, whenever he gives you the green light.”

  She held her eyes on the floor. “You could come too?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re trying to get rid of me?” She forced a smile. “Anyway, I can’t leave you alone, you know that. You’d do nothing but let yourself lie in bed all day. You’d grow bedsores and go completely mad.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, love,” he said.

  “I’m just saying what’s true. And don’t be sarcastic with that word.”

  “You’ve gone away before, Bren.”

  “But not since your accident,” she said.

  “What word? What word are you talking about?”

  “Love,” she said. “All right? Love. I hate that you only use it these days when we’re arguing. We both do. Like it’s some sort of ammunition.”

  “I hadn’t noticed that. You’re right, though,” he said, and then, more quietly, “What a terrible thing.”

  “It is a terrible thing.” She stood and pressed her hands over her face.

  “I’m so sorry, Bren.” His eyes began to sting.

  She sank into the co
uch. “Are you just saying that, or do you really believe it?”

  “I’m sorry for all the sarcasm. I’m so sorry.” He brought his fists to his eyes. “Please believe me.”

  She leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling, and Daniel felt a tightening at the bottom of his stomach. He wanted to take back his suggestion that she go home.

  “I guess I would like to be with my family for a while,” she finally said. “I do miss them right now.”

  “I know,” he said, trying to sound strong and empathetic. Decent. “I can imagine.”

  “You sure you wouldn’t mind?”

  He managed to shake his head. He thought of her struggling to help him out of his chair and into their bed. Then he thought of their house without her, of lying in their bed alone, his empty wheelchair next to him. He pictured Morris Arnold next door, waving hello and looking around for her. And then Daniel had an idea. “Maybe I’ll just stay here and let you have our place to yourself for a while if the doctors don’t want you to fly home right away. Maybe I’ll just stay here with Hilary, at least until you get back.”

  “But what about your work? Don’t you have that book jacket due this week?”

  He said that it could wait. Once everyone learned what had happened this weekend, they would extend his deadlines.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Hilary appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “Danielle. Brenda. Morning.”

  “Larry, what do you think of me staying here with you? Just for a little while?” He briefly explained that Brenda might head home alone.

  Hilary nodded slowly, clearly trying to decipher what this news might actually represent. “Sure. The company would be nice,” she said. She stood with them for a few awkward moments, then shuffled off to the kitchen.

  Daniel glanced back at Brenda. He wheeled toward her, reached over and linked his fingers with hers.