Morning

by Nancy Thayer

  According to the instructions, she had to rinse the dipstick under cold water to the count of ten, then put it in yet another little tube of another solution and swivel it back and forth. She did this, almost holding her breath as she concentrated.

  When she put her stick into the tube and stirred, the solution turned a beautiful bright turquoise blue. In one day the color had dramatically jumped from one on the chart to six. This was the day she was ovulating!

  She hurried into her bedroom. Steve was up, standing near the dresser. He had his jeans on and was pulling a T-shirt on over his head. Sara went to him and put her arms around him.

  “Good morning,” he said, head coming out through the neck of the shirt.

  “Take off that shirt,” Sara said. “Take off your clothes. Get back in bed.”

  In March, the weather settled down. Way down. The swirling white energy of winter whisked back up into the heavens and hid behind a thick cloud of gray that hung over the island and coast for days at a time, dimming the sun, coating the air with a gray monotone as gloomy and dispiriting at the soiled slush that still edged the streets.

  Sara had never been happier. Her instincts had been right: Donald James had read the first half of the Jenny novel and called her the moment he had finished the last word. He wanted it. He wanted to come out with it in January and to do all sorts of publicity that writers would usually beg for. This set off a chain of work for Sara—just the sort of work she loved. She went to Boston to meet with Fanny Anderson’s agent, Clayton Hughes, and was not surprised to find that Clayton had never met Fanny in person but had always spoken with her on the phone. Donald James offered Fanny a good advance for the book and offered Sara a good fee to edit it. Now she could afford the laparoscopy, but couldn’t imagine where she would find the time to take three weeks or three days out of her life. She was doing what she felt she had been born to do.

  She spoke with Fanny daily on the phone, and traveled to Boston to work with her for two days a week. To save on traveling time, she spent nights in Boston with Julia; they went out to dinner and sat up late discussing the eccentricities of life over brandy or Bailey’s. Clayton Hughes called Sara with the news that the British rights to the Jenny novel had been sold for a wonderful sum. Sara tried to get Fanny to go out to dinner to celebrate, but Fanny steadfastly refused to leave the house. So Sara brought champagne, which they drank from platinum-rimmed crystal in the hot blue shadowy living room.

  The novel was to be called, simply, Jenny’s Book. Fanny could not bring herself to let Jenny end up living happily with a man she loved, but she did give Jenny a job with a literary review in Boston, which in turn gave her prestige and colleagues and friends. At the end of the novel, Jenny lived by herself but led an active life in Boston’s intellectual world, going to book publication parties and gallery openings and concerts and ballets. Her friends were poets and critics and artists and professors. This was the life she had escaped Kansas for so long ago.

  Sara was pleased with the way the book ended. She sat with the pages of the manuscript in her hand, feeling a sense of pride in what she had helped Fanny to do. Her period had started and she held on to the manuscript and stared into space, wishing that life could be revised as easily as a book.

  Steve’s parents moved back to their Nantucket house from Florida at the end of April, and came to dinner at Sara and Steve’s the night after they arrived.

  It was warm enough that they had opened the windows, and the fragrant spring air wafted through the house, slipping past the curtains, puffing at the candle flame. Sara had served a leg of lamb with garlic, and asparagus, and fresh raspberries for dessert, and the four sat content around the dining room table, idly gossiping over their liqueurs. Caroline admired the needlepoint pillow Sara had finally finished and offered to help Sara make a set of needlepoint covers for the dining room chairs—if Sara didn’t think it was too intrusive of her. They spoke of patterns, colors, materials, and Sara snuggled her chin into her hand, leaning her elbow on the table, relaxed, wishing she could have shared the same kind of moment with her own mother. Then Caroline changed the subject, and for Sara it was as if the older woman had abruptly pulled a gun and shot her in the stomach.

  “What am I saying?” Caroline said. “Sofa pillows! I’ll have so much sewing to do in the next few months. Erica Evans’s daughter is pregnant, and I promised to knit a blanket and a layette for the baby. And you know—Steve, did you know? The Anderson girl is pregnant!”

  “Donna Anderson?” Steve asked. “Are you sure? She just got married last month.”

  Caroline laughed. “Well, newlyweds,” she said. “Yes, I saw her on Main Street today. The baby is due exactly nine months from their wedding date.” She turned back to Sara. “Donna Anderson was Steve’s first girlfriend. Or the first I knew about. When he was thirteen. Lovely girl.”

  “Yeah, lovely, and thick as a brick.” Steve grinned.

  “Well, she’ll make a wonderful mother, she’s got such a calm way about her,” Caroline went on. “And more than half of our friends in Florida have become grandparents this year, or are about to be.”

  “Caroline, my love, you are as subtle as a tank,” Clark said, leaning back in his chair and laughing.

  “Why, what do you mean?” Caroline asked, eyes wide, all innocence.

  Steve was laughing, too. “Mother’s forte,” he said to Sara. “The indirect approach. I think she learned it from the Chinese torture experts.”

  “Oh, Stevie, how can you say such things?” Caroline said, affecting pique but enjoying her son’s teasing.

  “Look, Mom,” Steve said. “Sara and I want to have children. And we will, someday. But right now we’re doing exactly what we want to do, Sara’s busy editing a great new book, and there’s a lot of work I want to do on the house before we even think of having children.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” Clark said, his voice booming. “I have to confess I’m eager to have a grandchild.”

  “Yes, dear, and you know it isn’t good to wait too long,” Caroline said. “You know, the older women get, the more difficulty there is in the entire childbirth business, the more likely birth defects are. Why, a friend of ours in Florida has a daughter who waited until she was thirty-five to start her family, and she had one miscarriage after another and then carried a baby nine months only to have it stillborn. So many older mothers have Down syndrome babies.”

  Sara looked across the table at Steve. Read my mind, she thought. If you don’t get your mother to shut up I will rise from the table like the Devil incarnate and spit fire at you all.

  “Okay, Mom, okay.” Steve laughed, holding up his hands. “Let’s change the subject to something cheerful like traveling to Europe.”

  “Traveling to Europe! My goodness, who would want to do that these days! With all the terrorists and bombs!” Caroline said.

  Steve and Clark burst out laughing.

  Sara rose to clear the table. She took her time in the kitchen, rinsing and stacking the dishes. Trying to regain some composure.

  Oh, I didn’t know, she thought. I should have guessed, but I didn’t know for sure. How much they both want grandchildren. How much it means to them.

  She was so grateful to Steve for not mentioning the problem they were having conceiving; she knew she could not bear their pity, their concern—their scrutiny. She could not bear to have his parents think she was a failure, a defective woman, to wish Steve had married some other woman, the dumb productive Donna. My God, why was it that all Steve’s old girlfriends got pregnant as easily as rabbits?

  “Sara?” Steve called. “Do you want some help?”

  She realized she had been hiding in the kitchen too long. “No, no, I’ll be right there,” she called.

  It took all her strength to pull her mouth out of the downward curve it had been tugged into by her despair. More and more she felt on the verge of losing control. Sometimes she was afraid she would do something violent and dreadful.

/>   She knew she would start her period again tomorrow. In spite of the ovulation test. The sides of her breasts were heavy. She had stained a little. She had cramps. And she was premenstrually nutty. And now, and now she felt that the burden of her in-laws’ desires had been injected into her like a gas that was pushing against her skin, her rib cage, her brain, causing such an excruciating pressure that she wanted to scream from it. I can’t bear it anymore! she cried silently.

  But she closed the dishwasher door, and turned off the hot water, and dried her hands and went back into the dining room to chat with her family.

  That night, when she crawled into bed with Steve, she snuggled up next to him and stroked his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot. For protecting me tonight.”

  “Huh?” Steve said. “What are you talking about?”

  Their eyes met.

  “I mean with your parents. For protecting me from—from their knowing that I’m having trouble getting pregnant. I don’t think I could stand it if they knew.”

  “Oh, Sara,” Steve sighed, and she could tell he was almost exasperated. “I wasn’t protecting you. That didn’t even enter my mind. I just said what I meant, what I think, that we want children, and we’ll have them sooner or later. That’s the truth.”

  “Maybe,” Sara said. “Oh, Steve, I’m sure I’m going to start my period again. I’m sure I’m not pregnant again.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” Steve said. “I’ve said it before, we’ve got lots of time to try.”

  “Steve,” Sara said, pulling away from him in order to get a clearer look at his face, “be truthful. Aren’t you upset about this? I mean that I’m not getting pregnant after all these months? Aren’t you secretly upset?”

  “No,” Steve said. “I’m not.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sara said, pulling up to lean on one elbow, almost angry. “Don’t pull this macho stuff on me. It makes me feel awful, Steve, it makes me feel that I can’t express all my sorrow to you because that forces you to play the optimist and keep your sorrow hidden in yourself.”

  “Sara, I don’t have any sorrow, for Christ’s sake,” Steve said. He looked up at the ceiling, his jaw clenching the way it did when he was angry.

  “None?” Sara pressed. “None at all?”

  “None at all. I’ve told you time after time. I love you, I love our life, if we have children, fine, and if we don’t, fine. I’m sure we will have children, in time, I don’t see what the rush is. I don’t see why you get so upset and dramatic about it all.”

  Sara lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, too.

  “Men and women are so different,” she said, sighing.

  “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing,” Steve said, and turned toward her, grinning now. He began to unbutton her nightgown.

  Sara wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. But she was thinking: How can he do this? How can he be so untouched? How can he go from anger to sex in a second? I thought we were as close as two people could be, I thought we were practically one person. Oh, I’ve heard that crises often pull couples apart, oh, God, I don’t want to lose what I have with him—

  Then her body interrupted her. Shut up, it told her. Stop thinking. Enjoy what you can have with him right now, right now.… And she obeyed.

  Now Walpole and James had the finished plans of Jenny’s Book, which was scheduled to go to the typesetter’s in June. There was no business reason for Sara to go to Boston to visit Fanny, but she had become close to the woman and called her often, almost daily, to chat, and traveled up to spend the day with her every other week or so. It was soothing to sit in the dusky blue room where cats purred and dogs groaned in their sleep and the grisly Eloise wheeled in the tea cart laden with gourmet delights, then slipped, ghostlike, away.

  Even when the weather grew warm and Sara found vases of daffodils, iris, tulips, here and there around the living room, the heavy peacock blue draperies were still kept closed to admit the least possible yellow spring light. In May a large embroidered floral tapestry on a dark wooden screen was placed in front of the fireplace, indicating that there was no more need for a fire, the season had changed. The flowers, the screen, brought a touch of reality to the room, which Sara began to feel was otherwise unconnected to the harsh outer world. She had a sense of being protected when she was in this room, of being able to rest, to drop her guard, to forget for just a while all her hopes and fears.

  They talked about everything. Without ever actually announcing it, Fanny finally let it be understood that her life and Jenny’s were the same. So they were able to talk about failed desires and unachieved longings, about old lovers, about moments of triumph and moments of despair.

  Sara’s period started again at the end of May. She had thought it would; there had been all the signs. Still, when she awoke on the morning of the twenty-ninth day to find that scarlet savagery of blood, she was wild with grief. Needing desperately to escape the house, where she could spend the day weeping, she called Fanny and asked if she could come to see her that day. Fanny said yes, and Sara was able to catch a plane and be at the writer’s house by eleven.

  She arrived to find that Fanny had asked Eloise to prepare a special little brunch to cheer her up. There were hot flaky croissants filled with chocolate or strawberry jam or cheese waiting on silver plates, bowls of fresh fruit, covered dishes of bacon and sausages and ham. And Fanny had asked Eloise to make icy drinks, which the housekeeper brought in tall crystal glasses with long silver spoons for stirring.

  The drinks were Bloody Marys.

  Sara sank down on the sofa and looked at the drink in her hand. She looked up at Fanny, questioning.

  “Is something wrong?” Fanny asked. Then she exclaimed, “Oh, my dear! How could I have been so stupid? Lord, Lord. Oh, Sara, I am so sorry. I didn’t think. Or, rather, I did think, I was trying so hard to be helpful. When you called this morning and were so upset, I said to myself, now I must have something nice and delicious and alcoholic for Sara when she gets here, something soothing. And I always think of Bloody Marys as the drink to serve before noon. Oh, dear me, oh, my. Sara, let me have Eloise get you something else—some champagne? Oh, I don’t know, what else does one drink in the morning? Sara, please, forgive me.”

  Sara shook her head and smiled at Fanny. “Oh, it’s all right, don’t be upset,” she said. She looked at her drink, which was so weak and orangeish-looking, nothing at all like the thick purple-tinged blood that was flowing from her now. “It was kind of you to have all this waiting. And I’m always hungry when I’m in my period, and if I ever needed a drink, now’s the time.” She sipped her Bloody Mary, then smiled again at Fanny. “It’s delicious,” she said.

  “I’m a fool,” Fanny said. “I really am an idiot.”

  “No, it’s fine, really,” Sara protested. “My friend Julia—I’ve mentioned her to you—would roar with laughter over this.” Wanting to put her hostess at ease, she sipped her drink again, and again, making little humming noises of pleasure. And the drink was excellent, spicy and tangy and satisfying. In no time she had finished it and started another. Fanny urged her to eat some of the food, and Sara ate, but even so, the alcohol relaxed her inhibitions and she became openly emotional.

  “It’s unbelievable how my life has changed,” Sara said. “I used to be an optimistic person, a rational person, calm and kind. Now I’m absolutely self-centered. All I think about is becoming pregnant and how I’m failing. The slightest thing can send me spinning off into a fury or a depression—an ad for diapers on television, a woman pushing a carriage. My God, Fanny, last week, when I was sure I was going to get my period, I was coming out of a store and I knew there was a woman pushing a stroller right behind me, I knew she had a shopping bag in one hand and was having trouble maneuvering the stroller, and I went out the door and let it slam behind me, I didn’t hold the door for her, I didn’t help her get the stroller out. I think I even wanted to hurt the woman or the baby somehow, letting the door slam behind me tha
t way. You see, I’m going mad, I really am!”

  “Oh, my dear,” Fanny said.

  “And now my in-laws are on the island, and I can scarcely bear to speak to them!” Sara said. “Every single time we get together, there’s a sort of expectant pause, they sit there waiting, almost holding their breaths, as if they’re thinking: Today Steve and Sara will tell us that Sara’s pregnant. And Caroline calls me every day with a news bulletin about some other friend whose daughter or daughter-in-law is pregnant, and sometimes after I hang up I just sit and weep with despair. I hate letting them down so much. I’m letting everyone down, I’m failing everyone!”

  “You’re not failing me,” Fanny said. “I don’t give a damn if you get pregnant or not. Oh, that sounded cruel, I suppose. What I mean is that I hope you get what you want, I hope you get pregnant because it obviously means so much to you. I want you to be happy. But I think of you not as a potential mother but as a fabulous editor—and a dear friend.”

  “Oh, I know,” Sara said. “I know, and that helps, it helps so much. That’s why I wanted to come here today, needed to come here. Here, I am Sara the editor, the friend, not the miserable unsuccessful baby-making machine. More and more, Fanny, I dream of escaping, of leaving everyone I know and love, because I am so tired of failing them and I know they’d be better off without me. I dream of just going off somewhere—England, perhaps, I could probably get work there—and not telling anyone where I am, divorcing Steve, never seeing him again, never seeing anyone again, never inflicting my barren self on those I love.”

  Fanny looked at Sara. Today her white-streaked chocolate-brown hair was parted in the middle and swooped up and back like wings from her face. She was wearing a long-sleeved high-necked dress of flowered blue silk, and pearls. She was elegant, but now her small pointed chin trembled. “Yes,” she said, in her lilting voice, “I understand exactly how you feel. You may count on that. But, Sara, you pay a heavy price for isolating yourself from those who know and love you. I know.”