Before, During, After

by Richard Bausch

  “You’ll—you’ll watch for him?”

  “The type tends to repeat the behavior, yes. And I’ve made a note of it. If you wait I can put it in right now and see if anything comes up for him.”

  “Yes,” Natasha said, sniffling. “Please.” She waited, sitting on the bed and looking out into the living room and at the front door.

  Officer Lorraine came back on the line, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Iris, but there’s no record of anything. Not even a traffic violation. So we either have to wait, or you can decide to press charges.”

  “But—you’re saying—it wouldn’t do any good to press charges.”

  “Well, maybe it’d shake up his world—who knows. But then you’ll have to shake up your own world pretty good, too. And as for getting any kind of justice, I’m afraid the chances of that now are between slim and none. I mean, he could have a change of heart and make a confession, but I’d bet you the farm and the land, too, that that won’t happen. Like I said, under the circumstances the case would’ve been pretty weak even the day it happened. I wish I didn’t have to tell you all this.”

  “Thank you,” Natasha said. “You’ve been very kind.”

  “I’m only giving you what the lawyers will think and do. You want to press charges?”

  “I’ll decide and call you back.”

  “I guess it’s not going to be helped or hurt by waiting a little longer. But let us know.”

  She set the receiver in its cradle on the nightstand. She felt strangely vacant, exhausted, even apathetic. Nothing to be done. The idea of trying to paint anymore seemed dreary and negligible, an indulgence. Something from another life, far gone. She went into the little room and looked at what she had, then took it down and put it in the stack of other attempts. Then she went back into the bedroom and lay down again.

  The doctor’s appointment was for eleven-thirty, but she had slept very little in the night, and so she put her arms around herself and looked at the room.

  Once again she had to fight off the images: Nicholas Duego, untouchable by the authorities, arriving at the Memphis airport, renting a car, and driving into Midtown, taking a cheap motel room. Duego looking up the address she had written in the sand on the beach and finding his way there to watch her come and go, hunting her, planning something. Possessing the indemnity provided by her history and by the circumstances. But he would see that she was telling no one. Except that there was his craziness and his need to explain, his wanting her to say that what had happened was not what it was. I do not take what has not been given. His hands shoving the sand in her mouth, packing it there, trying to fill her throat.

  Every passing car was peril.

  She got up, went into the bathroom, brushed her hair, and said into the mirror, “I will not be a victim. I am not a victim. I am not. I’m not.”

  Then she was sitting on the sofa in the small living room, crying softly and waiting for the time to pass. She did not even remember how she got there.

  When the shadow appeared in the window of the front door she took in a breath and stiffened. The knock brought a little yelp out of the back of her throat. She rose and moved with stealth to the window in the small dining room and peered out.

  Marsha Trunan.

  She went to the front door and opened it.

  “We were supposed to go for a walk,” Marsha said. “Remember?”

  It was just past nine o’clock.

  “I didn’t remember,” Natasha said to her. “Give me a minute.”

  The other woman entered and sat at the table, refusing the offer of coffee but taking a clementine from the bowl there and peeling it and eating it. Natasha put her tennis shoes on, and a light sweatshirt.

  “Ready?” Marsha said, chewing. Then: “You really don’t remember telling me to come by at nine today?”

  “I remember now,” Natasha told her.

  They walked up the leaf-strewn sidewalk. Neither of them spoke for a few paces. There was a cool breeze blowing intermittently, but the air was warm, still summery.

  “I think I might be pregnant,” Natasha said.

  The other looked at her and kept walking with arms folded. “And?”

  She shrugged and repeated, without inflection, “I might be pregnant.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “I think I’m happy.”

  “You think you’re happy.”

  “Well, it’s—scary. A little scary.”

  “You always said you wanted a baby. You’ve been saying that for a while.”

  “I know. I do.”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know for sure what he wants. I mean—he’s about to be fifty.”

  “You don’t know how he’ll feel about it?”

  “Not for sure—no.”

  “You’re married. What do you talk about, anyway, that you can’t be sure what he’ll think about the fact that you’re pregnant?”

  “He’s said he wants a family.”

  “Well, then.”

  “But that’s talk.”

  “Well, hey—I mean—Jesus, if you can’t trust that kind of talk—I’m sorry—but what the hell.”

  “Stop it, Marsha.”

  They went on a little without saying anything.

  When Marsha spoke now, it was in a quiet, almost chastened tone. “I just mean I bet he’ll be fine with it.”

  A car went by with the radio loud, a voice speaking in Spanish. Natasha shrank back a little, watching it go by. A woman sat behind the wheel.

  “You seem a bit jumpy,” Marsha said. “Part of being in your condition?”

  “I guess.”

  Presently, she said, “So how far along are you?”

  “I don’t know exactly. They’ll tell me. Eight weeks?”

  “Must’ve happened wedding night, huh?”

  Natasha looked at her. “Whatever. Whenever.”

  “If there was something really wrong between you guys, you’d tell me, right?”

  She stopped, and Marsha stopped, too. They were standing on the corner where a light flashed red numbers, the seconds they had to cross. She thought of a countdown toward some disaster. She faced her friend. They were two women, paused at a crossing. Natasha had the thought that there had always been something absent in the other. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “You’re happy with him.”

  “Yes, I’m happy with him. What a question, Marsha, for God’s sake.”

  “Well, I mean he is older than you are. I don’t want to pry. But something looks not right. I’m sorry. You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  Natasha crossed the street. Her pace was that of someone walking alone. She turned and headed down to the next block, so they could come back to the house. Her friend walked along at her side, without saying more.

  “I have a doctor’s appointment,” Natasha told her.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She stopped. “How about you, Marsha. How is your love life?” Marsha had been seeing a pharmacy student at the university, someone she’d spoken about in rather cold terms as being good looking but not very interesting.

  “Oh, let me tell you,” she said, looking down. Natasha saw something uncertain in her eyes. “That’s over. I sent him packing. I’m free. And loving it.”

  Natasha touched her shoulder. “You said he was a bit boring.”

  “Deadly. But he was pretty. I guess he thought that was all he needed. You should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. Like a kid being told there’s no Santa Claus and for a few seconds refusing to accept the knowledge. I swear his lower lip stuck out. It about broke my heart. I almost told him I was kidding.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “Look, I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

  They walked on. “It’s okay. Really.”

  “Just trying to help. I mean I know depression when I see it.”

  “And you
think you see it.”

  Marsha frowned. “Well, yes.”

  “I’m not depressed.”

  “Constance told me what she saw that night in Jamaica.”

  They had reached Iris’s street. Natasha halted again and looked at her. “I should’ve known.”

  “I told her it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “When did she tell you?”

  “That night before the wedding.”

  “Oh, God. My friend Constance.”

  “She’s just worried about you.”

  “Yes, the same way she was worried when she told you about Mackenzie and me.”

  “She really didn’t know what to do. She told me about—it was about messing things up that day. How she wanted to let you know she believed you about it, and she got it all wrong. She was worried.”

  “And she told you about it.”

  “Please don’t be angry with her, Natasha. She was really worried, and it was about what she might have done to hurt you. Really. And then Michael seemed to know something.”

  “Michael doesn’t know anything unless she told him something. And there’s nothing to know. It was a kiss. One fucking kiss. And I was drunk and I thought Michael was dead and he was needy and crying and I gave him a goddamn kiss.”

  “Okay,” Marsha said. “Okay.”

  They went on to the end of the street, past Iris’s, and turned up Swan Ridge. Neither of them spoke as they approached the house.

  “Don’t be mad at me, too,” Marsha said. “I don’t have any interest in this except worrying about you, like Constance. And Michael. All of us. Everyone who loves you.”

  At the entrance to the house, Natasha faced her. “Don’t worry about me.”

  The other waited.

  “Don’t worry, okay? I can handle myself. Iris doesn’t worry about me the way you and Constance have. So stop it.”

  “How do you stop that? How do you stop worrying about someone you love who’s in trouble?”

  “But we’re all in trouble,” Natasha said. “Aren’t we.”

  “You know how I mean that,” said Marsha, plainly annoyed now.

  “I love my husband,” Natasha told her, and as she said the words, the truth in them startled her. “I love my husband,” she repeated. “And we are still in shock from what happened—like everyone else in this country. And Constance can take her imaginings and go straight to hell with them.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Please.”

  “Now I’m going in and have a cup of green tea. You’re welcome to join me if you promise to stay off the subject of my mental state and my marriage.”

  “I have to go,” Marsha said in a small voice. She reached for a hug, and Natasha accepted it, without speaking.

  4

  She drove to Germantown, to the doctor’s office, which was in a tall white building on Poplar Avenue. At the first-floor elevator she waited with a heavy, elderly black woman in a blue scarf, tank top, and jeans. There were darker places on the woman’s large dark arms. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped in with a lumbering slowness and turned. “Where you goin’, young lady?”

  “Second floor,” Natasha said.

  The old woman pushed the button. “Baby doctor.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know her. Good doctor.”

  Natasha heard herself say, “This might be my first.”

  The door opened. “Yeah, I remember that. Coulda been earlier this mawnin’, way it feels. Time goes so fas’.”

  “Take care,” Natasha told her.

  “It goes fas’, honey. Make sure you ’preciate it.”

  The doors closed. She made her way into the waiting area of the doctor’s office feeling as though the world had sent her this message through the kindly old woman. There were messages from the world around you if you paid attention. She signed the sheet at the window and thought about learning to appreciate things more.

  The doctor was a short, blocky, red-haired woman with straight shoulders and an erect carriage as if she were trying to look taller than she was. Her name was Bass. She came in with the nurse, who looked no older than a high school student and had blond bangs that came down to her eyebrows.

  During the exam, Dr. Bass spoke to the nurse, who took notes. Then she went out, and the nurse drew blood. And after a short wait, Natasha was led into the small office off the corridor. “Well, we’ll know for sure in a few days, but from our little urine sample and the feel of your uterus, you’re expecting.”

  Natasha put her hands to her mouth for a second and had to fight for breath a little.

  “This surprises you?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “You’re a little pale.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “We’ll set you up with some vitamins and prenatal instructions.”

  “Doctor—is it possible to have a … is it possible to be impregnated and have a period just after?”

  “Well, some women have bleeding episodes.”

  “Like a heavy period?”

  “Well, yes, actually. I’ve known it to happen that a woman has what she believes is a period or even a miscarriage. Enough blood to think that. And then three weeks later shows up still pregnant, with a healthy and viable fetus. Why?”

  Natasha couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Have you had a bleeding episode? Did you think you had your period?”

  She shook her head. “But it’s not common. You haven’t seen that sort of thing a lot—it’s rare?”

  “I’d say it’s quite rare. What’re we talking about, honey?”

  “Is there a test that can tell when conception took place?”

  “Well, to calculate your due date, we count forward forty weeks from the first day of your last period. And we can make a pretty good guess at it from the amount of HGC in your blood, but that can vary from woman to woman, and so none of it’s absolutely certain. It’s all estimation mostly until we get a look at a sonogram—and even then we’re really only guessing. Educated guesses, you know.”

  Natasha took a long breath, looking down at her own hands.

  “Why?”

  “When is the latest time for aborting a pregnancy?”

  “Excuse me?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Just—look. I want to know.”

  “You’re married, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t—you don’t want to have this baby?”

  “I want to want it.” The tears came.

  “That’s a normal kind of feeling, honey. It is a big thing, and a little scary for some.”

  Natasha heard her own low sigh.

  “How does your husband feel about it?”

  “We both—we want children.”

  “So—”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready.” She sobbed and coughed.

  “A lot of us feel that, the first time.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, sniffling. “I don’t know.”

  The other stood closer and put a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, do you want to talk?”

  Natasha put her hands to her face, covering her eyes, and looked into the dark her palms made. She couldn’t speak. She heard the door open and shut. The nurse had gone, and she and the doctor were alone.

  “Tell me,” the doctor said, handing her some tissues.

  “I’m sorry,” she burst forth. “I’m so sorry. I’m okay. Really.”

  There was a long space while the doctor waited for her to gain control of herself. Then: “This is a happy thing, sweetie. And it’s quite normal to feel scared about it. But it’s gonna be perfectly all right. You have to trust it.”

  Natasha nodded, wiping her eyes and her nose. “Really. I know.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being worried.”

  “Just—really scared.”

  “It’s all going to work as it should. You’re very healthy. Nurse’ll give you a bottle of prenatal vitamins and a pamphlet. There�
��s a good book called What to Expect When You’re Expecting. And there’re others. We’ll call you with the results of the blood test, but I’m pretty sure. You come see me again in two weeks, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And congratulations. Really.”

  “Thanks. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for. Now you take it easy.”

  She was in a kind of daze walking out to the counter and taking the card with the date for her next appointment.

  Out in the warm sunlight, she walked to her car and got into the very hot interior and felt sick. She opened the door and put her legs out and sat there for a few minutes, breathing deeply and holding her arms over her stomach.

  At last she turned and closed the door and got the car started and drove with all the windows open to Iris’s. When she got out she looked up and down the street. Parked cars. Nothing moving. She daubed at her eyes and nose with the tissues, then got back into the car, left the door open, and used the rearview mirror to put on some lipstick and make sure of her eyes. She walked up to the door and let herself in. Someone was talking in the kitchen. She heard a man’s voice.

  “Iris?” she said, suddenly filled with the urge to turn and run.

  “In here, baby,” Iris said.

  Natasha made her tentative way in, imagining Duego sitting in there with his polite overly formal air and his speech that was so much like rehearsed phrases. But it was a man Iris’s age or older. He was seated across from her at the kitchen table. The room smelled strongly of coffee. The man had a shaved head, was soft featured though a bit emaciated, his cheekbones standing out, with deep-set light blue eyes, and a well-trimmed white beard that made the hairless scalp all the more striking. He reached forward to shake hands, half-rising from his chair.