But perhaps she had chosen wrongly. Perhaps she was not ordinary, nor meant to be. Her strangeness somehow exceptional, powerful. A beckoning mystery, a life that would have nothing to do with her family and their claim on her, nothing to do with love, even. Only its own imperative, as when you moved a rock in a garden and beneath it found a growing thing, pale, curled, greedy for sunlight.
It confused her to be thinking this way. Did she have some prepartum depression craziness? Should she go back to Dr. Cohen and ask to be chemically sedated? Should she start reading St. Teresa of Avila?
Jane said, “Really, I know you’re trying to be funny, but it comes across as defensive.”
“It is defensive.” Bonnie picked up the remote and cycled through the channels. “And disarming. People can’t insult you if you beat them to it.”
“I wasn’t insulting you.”
“But you worry about me. Thanks, Mom.”
Jane stayed silent. It seemed like the edge of some kind of argument, and she didn’t want to blunder over it.
After a moment Bonnie said, “I’m good at my job because the crazies love me and I love them. I’ve found my niche. Feel free to disapprove.”
“It’s not disapproval. But the way you live scares me.”
For whatever reason, this seemed to put Bonnie in a better mood. “You know the secret of our success? You and me? Neither one of us wants to be the other.” Just then Robbie woke up from his nap and started calling for her, and Jane didn’t have to respond.
Eric was home for dinner that night. Jane fed Robbie early, and then the three adults sat on the back patio with drinks (iced tea for Jane, gin and tonics for Eric and Bonnie), while they grilled shrimp and corn and baked potatoes in foil and kept watch so Robbie would not upend the hot coals over himself. Bonnie was leaving the day after tomorrow and it was their last dinner together, since Eric had to cover for another resident tomorrow evening. Jane made a green salad and sliced a bowl of strawberries, and they set out plates on the picnic table under the thin early shade of a pecan tree. The air was mild and blue, the smells of smoke and cooking food were good smells. Her little boy was playing with a handful of grass he’d torn up, serious and charming. The baby inside her dreamed watery dreams. Here was ordinary life at its best, a pause in the round of worries and chores. Only a fool, or an unbalanced pregnant person, would consider turning her back on it.
Eric took the food off the grill and they filled their plates and everyone agreed it was a fine meal. Bonnie said it was nice they had a yard for the kid. Kids. Eric said yes, for sure they’d want that in their next place. The next place would be wherever they’d move for his fellowship in cardiology, a little more than a year from now.
“Would you go back to Evanston?” Bonnie asked. She was peeling shrimp and heaping up shells on her plate. “Or do you want to go farther out into the classier zip codes?”
“Evanston?” Jane said. “Why are you talking about Evanston?”
“Because of the Northwestern fellowship, duh.” Eric gave her a good-natured elbow check.
“What about it?”
“I think it’ll work out. Though, you know, nothing’s a sure thing.”
Bonnie said, “False modesty, Eric. So unbecoming. You know they’ll take you.”
“When did you decide this?”
“Come on, honey, we talked about it. We decided. You thought it’d be good to go back to Chicago. Of course it wouldn’t be until next May or June. You said you didn’t want to spend another whole summer here if you didn’t have to.”
“No, when did we talk about it?”
They thought she was joking, and then they did not. A pause or hitch in the air around the table, although Eric and Bonnie kept on buttering corn and peeling shrimp. Eric said, “Oh, I don’t know. Three, maybe four weeks ago? I forget where we were.”
“I must have been tired,” Jane said. She shook her head, smiled. Humorous.
“We were probably in bed. You weren’t talking in your sleep, were you?”
“No, you’re right. Of course we talked about it. Another summer in Hotlanta. Killer.” They were going back to Chicago. She could not for the life of her remember Eric bringing it up. “Robbie, don’t put grass in your mouth, sweetie.” Chicago was fine, she guessed.
It wasn’t like she’d wanted to live somewhere else instead. But what condition had she been in, that she’d discussed and agreed to it without memory? What else was wrong with her?
The next morning she said to Bonnie, “I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Come on.”
“I mean it. I space out. I don’t remember things. Like last night.”
“OK, that. It was a lapse. Is it a pregnancy thing? Part of your brain goes on maternity leave?”
“It didn’t happen with Robbie. I felt tired and sick a lot, but I wasn’t . . .” Jane tried to say exactly what she was. “In another world,” she offered.
“You space out,” Bonnie suggested.
“Way out.”
Bonnie rubbed at her eyes with the heel of one hand. “I’ve been having some eye problems. I guess it’s from computers. Or age. Do you feel old yet? There’s times I feel like, if I was a package of hamburger in somebody’s fridge? I’d get thrown out. Well whatever you are, you don’t seem deranged or anything. Maybe it’s just the mind-body connection. Your body’s on this amazing ride, I mean I can’t even imagine what that’s like, pregnant, and your mind’s trying to follow along. Like, your body’s a speedboat and your mind is on water skis.”
That made Jane yelp with laughter, and Robbie came running up to see what that alarming sound was, his mother laughing out loud, because when had he heard such a thing? Then Jane had to leave off laughing and speak soothingly to him.
When Bonnie left the following day, insisting once again on taking a cab, they hugged and promised each other to do better at keeping in touch, and they were both genuinely sorry to be parting but also relieved, since they’d had such long practice at mutual exasperation. Although neither of them wanted to be the other, there might be times at which a part of themselves might have wanted to try on some portion of the other, the same as when they’d been roommates and had borrowed each other’s clothes.
Eric started a period of intensive shifts at the hospital, and it was easy for he and Jane not to talk much. Without Bonnie they felt a sense of diminishment, as if with a guest they had been more cheerful, animated, loving, in ways that were not really false but had required some effort. Why did people get married seeking a way out of loneliness? There was nothing lonelier than two married people in a room together, she knew that now.
And yet she would have said she had a good marriage, and she thought Eric would have said the same. Good not precisely the same as happy, although there were times when they were happy. Both of them fighting the same fight, doing their best to shore up the enterprise.
What did couples do if they didn’t have children? What else was worth the enormity of effort?
Here is how it began: In her sixth month, Jane was fixing Robbie’s lunch, trying to make his tuna sandwich look the way he liked it, a tidy square in the center of an otherwise bare plate. No garnishes, nothing protruding from the edge of the bread. Any stray bit of lettuce or celery was an excuse for a food tantrum. Eventually he would be old enough and hungry enough that he could be told to stop fooling around and eat. But for now it was easiest to do things his way, and hope that he would not be entirely and permanently spoiled.
She set the plate on the table and opened the refrigerator to pour his milk. “Robbie, come eat.” He didn’t answer, since he had recently learned how much fun it was to ignore her and make her shout for him, and she readied herself to call him again, in that tone of peevish worry that had come to define motherhood for her.
It felt like rain drumming on a roof, except that she was the roof.
She stood at the open refrigerator, bathed in chill, noisy air. The baby had gone quiet inside her. “What?” she said out loud, or thought she did. Her ears roared. What was wrong?
Once more, the sensation of pounding, scattered rain bearing down on her.
Pay attention.
Now.
Jane dialed Eric’s pager number, and when he didn’t answer, she left a message for him to call her. “Robbie, you have to come with me. Where are your shoes?” She hoisted him up barefoot. In the garage she strapped him into the car seat and jammed his shoes onto his feet. Went back into the house for her purse and his sandwich, poured the milk into his toddler cup. “Here,” she said, giving him a section of sandwich. “Can you eat that? Can you hold your milk too? All right, just eat your sandwich.”
“I don wanna sanwich.”
“Eat it anyway.” She backed out of the driveway and set off, driving as carefully as she could, since the car was behaving so oddly, as if it was floating just above the road surface.
Or no, she was not registering the feel of the tires, as if she had been wrapped in soundproofing. Here was the baby driving itself to the hospital, but that was foolish, since babies did not know how to drive.
Of course she knew the way to the ER from all her visits with Robbie. The clerk at the desk remembered them. “Oh no, what’s he up to this time?” Smiling down at Robbie, who Jane was half-dragging, half-pushing. He still held a portion of sandwich in his fist and was bawling about having to walk, loudly enough for anyone to think he’d needed stitches.
“It’s me, it’s the baby.”
The clerk’s face took on a new, brisk expression. “You have your insurance card?”
Jane did. There were questions to answer. Was she in pain? Had there been any bleeding?
“Not really,” Jane said, then, realizing she needed to use more guile, said, “Yes, some. Yes.”
“I’m sorry honey, what did you say?”
She was having trouble talking, as if she’d been punched in the mouth. The clerk’s face was round and she’d dusted it with some kind of yellow powder, like the full moon. “Moon,” Jane said. Then, “Some. Sure.”
She sat down to wait, holding Robbie between her knees to keep him from running off, and tried to reach Eric again. She called her obstetrician and was on hold when they came to take her back to the curtained-off exam room.
The doctor, a woman, was one they had not seen before. She was not enchanted by Robbie’s presence, though she tried smiling and speaking to him in a loud, arch tone that at least made him stop fussing and stare at her. To Jane she said, “Tell me about the bleeding.”
“I’m not sure,” Jane said. She knew it was the wrong answer. She hung her head, embarrassed. She felt the doctor looking at her, deciding.
“What are your other symptoms?”
“Just that, I know something’s wrong.” With one arm she tried to corral Robbie, who was reaching for the cabinet top where they kept supplies. She noticed that she had put his shoes on the wrong feet. She tried again with the doctor. “It’s the mind-body connection.”
“Mrs. Nicholson, I really think you should make an appointment with your obstetrician so you can discuss your concerns.”
“Please don’t make me leave here.”
The doctor decided, visibly, not to say anything. She took Jane’s blood pressure and listened to her heart and put her hands on Jane’s stomach. “I can’t feel her,” Jane said.
“She’s asleep,” the doctor said, soothing now.
“Will she wake up?”
“That depends on you.”
“It isn’t fair that it’s all on me,” Jane said, but by then the doctor had gone away.
They had left her quite alone. It was peaceful, as before. Limitless, luminous, like the inside of an infinite pearl. She floated, she flew. And it came to her that she could choose to leave everything failed and sad behind and stay here, and there would be no fear in it. She’d had no real gifts besides this remarkable one. She could step easily out of her life.
She had been so very tired. The whiteness buoyed her like water, lifting and cleansing. She had pushed and pushed, trying to fit herself into the shape that was expected of her. It had left her bruised and raw. And now there would be no need to keep trying. The whiteness blessed her. It forgave everyone for everything.
But the doctor had returned. She had a face like a moon, and like a clock also, a moon clock, and she said, You are forgetting something.
Go away, Jane told her. Leave me be.
Tick tick tick, the doctor said. How can she be born without you? Are you that selfish?
I am that tired.
You came asking for help. You wanted to save her.
I wanted someone else to save her.
But there is only you.
I am tired of me.
Yes, but it’s not as easy as you think it is. Dying.
“Jane? Honey?”
They were dragging her back. She would not open her eyes.
“Honey? Can you hear me?”
The inside of her head had been scraped dry. Light beat against her eyelids. She tried to speak but her mouth was parched.
“What? I can’t understand you.” Eric’s voice was right in her ear. She raised a hand to swat him away. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”
How fine? How not to worry? How to live in the world and not worry? “The baby’s all right. There was a tear in the placenta. We’ve got it under control. You were bleeding internally. It’s just amazing that you knew something was wrong.”
She opened her eyes to a slit. Painful light blurred the outlines of the room. Eric’s face hung over hers like something large and inflated. He said, “How are you feeling? Can you talk? It’s all right, just rest. I have to tell you, it was touch and go there for a while. But you hung in there, thank God.”
Was he crying? Would he have been sad to lose her? Of course he would. Her little boy too. She felt the baby inside her shift. Everything that tied her here, strand by strand.
Eric wiped at his eyes, smiled. A crooked smile, still wobbly at the edges. “Robbie’s fine too. Well, he ran smack into a cart and put a gash in his scalp, but we were right here in the ER, so it’s all good.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Hang in there, you’re incredible. You’re the absolute best mother in the world.”
No she was not, but she would have to be. She would remain here, and the lives of her children would be her life. There could be no more escape into the extraordinary, into bliss, into delight. “That’s my girl,” Eric said. “You’re a trouper. You’re the best, I mean it. You’re like Supermom.”
accident
Bonnie’s brother Charlie crashed his SUV into a bridge support on Lower Wacker with a blood alcohol of .22 and landed in the hospital and a whole lot of trouble. The woman who was riding with him was also seriously and expensively injured. One of Bonnie’s cop friends called her and told her Charlie was at Mount Sinai. Bonnie drove herself there through the glassy, predawn streets. It was October and already cold enough for frost. She blasted the defroster and ran the windshield wipers in an attempt to keep the ice from creeping up like dread.
Charlie was still drunk. He’d cut his face when the airbag inflated. He had dislocated his shoulder. He had a lacerated liver and a shattered kneecap. “Hey Sis,” he greeted her. “I hadda accident.” His face was swollen and they’d painted his leg with iodine and put his knee in a brace. He’d vomited onto his gown, but they’d cleaned it up. He looked bloated, clammy, dissolute, shockingly bad.
“I guess you did.” Although if you drank yourself blotto and then got behind the wheel, that was a different order of accident than getting hit by a meteor in your backyard. “How do you feel?”
“My knee hurts like sin. They screwed it up, I’m serious, it fe
els a whole lot worse now that they, what is it they do? It’s bullshit. None of these people speak English, I’m all ‘What? What?’ Hey, how’s Kelly? How bad’s my car?”
“They’re taking care of Kelly. Don’t worry about the car right now.” Charlie wasn’t going to be driving anything for a long while. The party was over, he just didn’t know it yet. “I have to make some phone calls, OK? Hang in there, be right back.”
Claudia came from Wisconsin the next day and then there was what she and Charlie used to call Mamma Drama. No one did it better than Claudia. She buttonholed doctors and nurses, orderlies and housekeepers, vigilant for lapses in the standard of care. She wanted to read charts, she wanted to talk to the dietician about meals. Charlie, who would have otherwise laughed her off, turned piteous. Unpleasant realities were crowding in on him. He had surgery for his busted kneecap and the pain drugs further unmanned him. His friend Kelly was discharged from the hospital after her own repairs. Ominously, she would not respond to Charlie’s calls.
“You don’t think he’ll have to go to jail, do you?” Claudia asked Bonnie, and Bonnie said he would at least have to go to court. She wanted to stay noncommittal. People went to jail for DUIs, it happened. It should probably happen more often. A good lawyer, the kind Stan and Claudia could afford, would no doubt be able to grease things so that Charlie would end up with probation and fines. But there would be lawsuits, and going ten rounds with the insurance companies, and money paid out, probably a lot of it. Stan wouldn’t want to help. Claudia would talk him into it. It wasn’t going to make for any happy family reunions. And Charlie? At least he hadn’t killed himself or anybody else. There was a bleak sort of comfort in that.
She Poured Out Her Heart Page 14
