The Unfinished Child

by Theresa Shea

  A sad laughter filled the room. All the women were done with being patient.

  “My mother’s been quite wonderful,” Elizabeth said. “But she does question the lengths I’m going to. More than once she’s said, ‘You can change your mind, you know.’ She means well when she talks about adoption. I mean, I was adopted, but I wish she’d just support me one hundred percent.”

  She was one of the older women in the support group. One gal, Jennifer, was twenty-five, the same age Elizabeth had been when she’d gotten married. The woman’s youth made her feel negligent, like she hadn’t paid enough attention to her predicament. But she and Ron hadn’t wanted children right away, and by the time she’d thrown away her birth control pills she was already twenty-eight. If she’d started earlier, like Jennifer, might things have gone differently?

  Some of the women had been together for years, bonded by their own failures to conceive. Others, the lucky ones, like Audrey, who’d had healthy twin boys, disappeared into the much-sought-after chaos of mothering.

  But Elizabeth wasn’t one of the lucky ones, and after seven years of treatment, the emotional toll was eventually too great. She finally admitted defeat.

  She hurriedly made the bed and threw some clothes into the hamper. Thank goodness for the luncheon date at Marie’s. She needed a destination, but suddenly she was late. All that useless standing around in the shower hadn’t helped at all. Before lunch she had an appointment to view an apartment she’d seen advertised in the weekend paper; the price was right, and it was within walking distance to her downtown shop. If she was serious about leaving, she would need her own place to live. She was just going to look. But if she did leave, she wanted to move as far from her life in the suburbs as possible. Far away from the baby strollers and playgrounds and girl scouts and ice rinks and soccer fields and trick-or-treaters and anything remotely connected to what she couldn’t have.

  FIVE

  1940

  Margaret was fifteen years old in the summer of 1940, and even though the long years of drought had finally ended, on hot days she could still feel dust crunching between her teeth like tiny shards of glass. Impending doom, some called it. But it certainly wasn’t right to have endured and survived the long years of drought and then to go directly into another war. A few years of peace and prosperity was all they’d have needed to erase the deep memories of hardship. Bumper crops of wheat golden in the fields. Corn that grew fat on the stalk. New equipment. Straggling out of debt. Just a few good years to stop taking it all so personally.

  Instead, that summer her brother, Johnny, sliced off four fingers on his left hand while trying to fix the thresher for the upcoming harvest. Their father wasn’t home that day; he’d taken the truck to help Mr. Boyko on the neighbouring farm. Johnny came stumbling in, already pale from loss of blood, and their mother quickly took charge. “Get the wagon,” she commanded, “and bring it to the front.” Farm injuries were just another chore to add to her endless list of things to do. Gutting chickens would have to wait.

  Margaret drove the four miles to town as quickly as the road allowed while her mother crouched in the back, holding Johnny close for comfort and absorbing the shocks from the road with her body. Margaret would always remember the image of her mother, black skirt spread out over the wagon floor, rocking on her heels over the hard bumps, her arms firmly around her first-born and only son.

  The sun had already passed over the midday mark and was slowly making its way toward the western horizon. When they pulled up in front of the doctor’s office their horse, Anvil, was lathered in sweat, his neck slicked an oily black, and Johnny’s face was white as the full moon. The towel wadded around his hand was soaked through with blood and dripped a trail from the wagon into the house. Dr. Jenkins had just returned from delivering a baby. They were lucky to catch him, said his lanky son, Stuart. He stood by and watched his father sever Johnny’s mangled fingers from his hand with a sharp blade and stretch the ragged skin into a flap that he sewed over the swollen palm.

  “It’s a good thing you kept your thumb out,” Dr. Jenkins told Johnny as he stitched the flesh together. “That thumb will come in handy. You’ll be able to use that hand for something, anyway.”

  Johnny’s numb face didn’t register a thing.

  Stuart Jenkins held the light for his father. He threaded the needle and he held the light. He glanced at Margaret, seated across the room from him, and smiled. She’d never seen teeth so white and straight before, and she couldn’t stop herself from staring.

  When Margaret was a little girl, the creek that ran through their property had seemed like a small river. Her father would sometimes bring her to a spot by the cottonwoods he’d planted as a shelterbelt to keep the soil in the open fields from drifting away in the wind. “One day you’ll have shade here,” he’d tell her. “Cottonwoods grow like weeds. And like children,” he added as an afterthought. “You kids grow like corn in the night.” Margaret fixated on the belt in shelterbelt and imagined what one might look like holding up a pair of pants.

  It was two weeks after Johnny’s accident, and the water in the creek had been reduced to a small trickle, insistent but inconsequential. The midday sun beat directly onto Margaret’s dark hair, searing her scalp where her hair was parted. She could feel the freckles on her arms and face rising to meet the sun. Johnny had gone into town again with her parents to have the doctor examine the mound of flesh where his fingers used to be. An infection had been sidestepped, but often when she looked at Johnny, she saw the way he grit his teeth to keep the pain at bay. Exhaustion was etched into every expression and movement he made. Margaret had even more work to do with Johnny healing in the house, but now, with her family gone, the house stood empty. It was a rare moment, and she couldn’t resist the urge to sit by the creek to cool herself, if even for a few minutes. She’d be sure to work extra fast at cleaning the chicken coop to make up for the lost time.

  It was a short distance from the house to the creek. In the cottonwood’s shade the temperature was at least five degrees cooler. She removed her shoes and socks and stretched her toes into the cool water. The wind lifted the loose hair around her face and she tucked the errant strands behind her ears while she wiggled her toes. She closed her eyes and tried to hear the heat waves rising from the earth in the way that yeast raises bread. No. She couldn’t hear it. Just wind, the sound of grass rustling against itself, and a drone of insects. Somewhere nearby a snake rustled through the dry grass. A pebble turned and rolled. And another. She swivelled her head and he was there. Stuart. The doctor’s son. Quickly she reached for her socks and shoes.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asked. Dark red hair cropped close. Large hands too white to be farm hands. Pants pressed from his mother’s iron. She’d never known a boy who wore pressed pants. It wasn’t right here, like church clothes worn to muck out the barn.

  “What’s your hurry?” he repeated, moving closer. His head blocked the light and for a moment his silhouette was outlined in black as if his body had swallowed the sun. When he moved again the sun was released and he stood beside her. “How’s Johnny?”

  “He’s fine,” she said, rushing to get her shoes done up. “He’s up at the house,” she lied. “Did you want to see him?”

  She tried to stand but he put a firm hand on her shoulder and lowered his body beside her.

  “I like your hair,” he said. “It’s beautiful.” He had a phony voice, sing-song, like he was trying to convince her that he liked her. She moved her head to one side as his fingers parted and combed through her hair. “It’s nice to be alone here, isn’t it?” He smiled and rested his hand on her knee.

  Margaret tried to stand again but Stuart wrapped his hand around her wrist. “My mother’s waiting for me,” she said. “I have to go, she’ll be looking for me.”

  “No one’s home,” he said. “I know your folks are in town with Johnny to see my father. I left the house when they came in.”

  She felt the dust dr
ying on her bare arms, melting and disappearing into her damp skin like snowflakes on an outstretched tongue. Why was Stuart Jenkins here? Aloof and untouchable he was, thinking better of himself than the country kids. Eighteen going on thirty and off to study medicine in the fall. Even though he was three years older, she’d seen him in school. Everyone knew everyone in Mayburn. Plus, all the girls talked about him. Stuart this and Stuart that. The one most likely to get a girl to the big city. Dogs didn’t like Stuart Jenkins and took a wide path around him, but none of the other girls seemed to notice. They all believed catching a ride on his coattails could only be good. He was going places, and most of the girls wanted to go places too.

  But she was a country girl, and he barely gave the town girls the time of day. Why was he here? She had chores to do, and here she was in the middle of the afternoon trying to cool herself at the creek. How disgusted her mother would be to see her daughter dangling her toes in the cool water and enjoying herself in the middle of the day.

  “I have to go.”

  Stuart reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. His fingernails were square and clean, his palms white. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said.

  She closed her eyes to his lie. If she didn’t see him, maybe he’d go away. She would become invisible, cast no shadow, and fade into the sand-coloured stones at her feet.

  She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek as he leaned closer. It only added to the heat of the day, scorching the fine hair along her jawbone and down her neck. Maybe he would go away if she kept still. Invisible and still. His breathing grew quicker, his hand moved with greater determination, and still she maintained her silence, closing her eyes to the picture that God must see from above.

  “Lie back,” Stuart said, and he pushed her down.

  His hand was on the hem of her dress. She tried to push it away, but he was persistent. He wasn’t going to go away, and she wasn’t disappearing. For a town boy unused to physical labour, he had surprising strength.

  Grasshoppers whirred in the fields around her. The creek’s small trickle could barely be heard. Stones pushed deep into her back from the weight of Stuart’s body on hers. She turned her head sideways. A short distance away her house shimmered in the heat, rising like a mirage. The cottonwoods strained deep into the earth and pulled hard for moisture.

  Shelterbelt, she thought. There was no shelter here.

  SIX

  1983

  When Marie was twenty, the year that Elizabeth started to go out with Ron, she gained ten pounds. Food had always been a great comfort to her. During the long, lazy, hot summer afternoons when Elizabeth was at the stables and Marie was left to wander on her own, she’d stroll over to the Dairy Dell and buy a large cup of soft chocolate ice cream, her surrogate friend all that summer. It came in a tall white Styrofoam cup, swirls of thick, cold chocolate coiled around and around and around in the cup and ending at the top with a delicate curlicue flip. She’d find a shady spot under a tree and slowly spoon the creamy coolness into her mouth. If she was patient, she could make the contents last up to half an hour.

  She was drawn to sweets and salty things when she was a child, and to fats and breads when she got older. It was the romantic combination of being happily alone and feeding her extreme loneliness. There wasn’t really any other way to explain her need to eat. Betrayal was certainly a trigger.

  She thought back to her earlier conversation.

  “For God’s sake, Elizabeth, I slept with him!”

  “I know,” Elizabeth apologized.

  “No, you don’t!” Oh, she hurt. Her toes curled with the pain that tightened right up her spine.

  “I’m sorry, Marie. He only phoned me a month ago.”

  “Only a month ago? You waited an entire month to tell me?”

  “No, no. I mean, you guys hadn’t been together for a while. You’d already broken up.”

  “You mean he’d already broken up. I was still very much interested.” Marie was shaking with anger. She wanted to throw something, break something in two. She looked around her and shook her head. Elizabeth was smart to tell her in a public place. The university pizzeria was busy, as usual. And the music was getting louder as the evening progressed. Maybe she’d smash things when she got home. Maybe she’d clear her shelf above her dresser of nail polish and hair accessories with one big sweep of her arm.

  “I didn’t want this to happen, Marie. You have to believe me.”

  Marie nodded her head as if something had become suddenly clear and set her mouth in a firm line. “Yeah, un-hunh.”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  A stain of resentment had spread out between them. They were both breathing heavily, as if they’d run up a steep hill.

  They understood that this was a turning point in their relationship; what direction would they take?

  Marie knew she had it in her power to ask Elizabeth to give Ron up. She could cause her friend great pain and then help her to get over it, just like Elizabeth had tried to help her to get over Ron in the first place. Before she decided she wanted him for herself.

  What to do?

  Her stomach felt empty. Should she take, or should she give?

  “What a cliché,” she finally said, feigning indifference. “My best friend stealing my boyfriend.”

  “You should know me well enough to know that I didn’t intentionally set out to hurt you. It just happened, okay? And I’m telling you about it because it matters to me that we stay friends. Do you think I wanted this to happen?”

  “Well, you have hurt me, intentionally or not.”

  The extra weight gathered in her waistline and protruded in a soft roll over the top of her jeans.

  She ate because Ron was now with her best friend.

  She ate because Ron had seen her naked, and he’d fondled the cellulite on her thighs as if he’d discovered a rare artefact. And then shortly afterwards he’d stopped calling.

  She ate because at night she dreamed of the two of them together and saw Ron removing Elizabeth’s clothes, one piece at a time, slowly and with immense delight.

  She ate her way through the hurt until one day she didn’t need to eat over it anymore. The pain had passed, and she could talk to Elizabeth again without faking her affection. She could honestly wish them both well.

  And she could meet the eyes of the man at the gym who’d been watching her. The one who showed up on alternate days, always at the same time. He wasn’t as tall as Ron, or as slender, but there was a take-charge quality about him that she admired. He moved from one workout machine to the next in fifteen-minute intervals like clockwork. And when he was done with the machines, he pulled on a lightweight black knee brace (the result of an old soccer injury, she would later learn) and did some laps around the track.

  She started to run when he did, knowing that if he came up behind her he’d see the way her rump jiggled in her tight black workout pants. He’d know that she carried some weight on her bones, that she wasn’t some naturally thin woman. She was at the heaviest weight she’d ever been when he smiled at her after his run; if he thought she was attractive at that weight, then there was hope.

  Marie made sure to be at the gym when Barry was there. She smiled when he caught her eye. She made it clear that she was interested in talking with him. She laughed at his jokes. He picked up on her cues and asked her out for a drink. Oh, she’d been so lonely.

  Later, when they had married and the children had come and her life seemed to be spinning out of control with the chaos of parenting, she scolded Barry as if he were her third child. He raised his voice too much with the children. He didn’t laugh with them enough. He needed to loosen up. He was out of the house all day—he didn’t have any excuse for being impatient.

  But she did.

  If he’d known her well enough then to read between the lines, he’d have known she was talking about herself. She was impatient. She didn’t laugh enough with the children. She needed to loosen up, not fatte
n up. Had he noticed that she’d put on weight?

  In the early years, when the children were babies, there had been some winters when they hadn’t gone outside for days at a time because of cold snaps that had stubbornly parked over the city for weeks on end. And if she did go out, by the time she got all their winter gear on and was sweating herself, they would play outside for ten minutes and then cry to come inside again. Yes, there had been plenty of bad parenting moments. Teething. Diaper rashes. The constant squabbling between the siblings. Some days it seemed as if the walls had closed in and the world had simply shrunk to the size of her bathroom. She remembered grabbing one of the girls once and shaking her hard before throwing her on the bed. Blind rage. The kind where you stand outside of yourself and know full well that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing but you just can’t stop.

  And then a little child would sidle up beside her and say, “I’m sorry, Mommy,” as if her anger could disappear just like that. Oh, to be a child and move from emotions so rapidly! It took Marie time to let go of her anger. Sometimes a lot of time.

  But she had worked hard to develop her patience. She did it for her children because she wanted to be a good mother. And she had gotten better. The work had paid off.

  But she still had dreams sometimes. And she’d wake in a cold sweat because she knew she had it in her, the ability to abuse something that was less powerful than herself.

  SEVEN

  1999

  In her thirty-sixth year, when Elizabeth had embryos inside her and was waiting to discover if one had eagerly put down roots, she walked into a downtown mall and passed a store that had baby clothes on sale. Dozens of matching sleepers and overalls hung from the ceiling on invisible wires. Primary colours screamed their existence. Elizabeth slowed as she passed a rack at the store’s entrance. She fingered a little pink sleeper that swung from a miniature hanger. It was plush and cozy. And such tiny feet on it! She pulled it from the rack and smiled at the little plastic strawberries used for buttons. Instinctively, she reached for her wallet and walked to the counter.