“Grace?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t... don’t ever wonder who you are again.”
“But—”
“Please. Because if you do... I won’t know who I am, either. And then we’ll both be lost.”
15
They sat on the floor in the basement of the building with their backs to the cinder-block wall. They had made out a list of things they would need from the liquor store and the grocery, and now they sat with their hands clasped, and waited for the laundry to be done.
She was wearing her red cotton robe, tightly belted at the waist. Her left hand was clasped in his right, her head resting on his shoulder. He had put on his trousers and an old sweater. They were both barefoot.
The sounds of the building vibrated everywhere around them. The washing machine hummed and clicked and clattered steadily as it passed through cycle after cycle. Overhead, the water pipes clanged intermittently and dripped a small puddle of water against the opposite wall. There was the sound of an occasional toilet being flushed, the sound of footsteps and unintelligible voices above. A small window was at the far end of the basement. The rain had stopped, but a strong wind had come up, and the window rattled against the sash with each fresh gust. The myriad sounds encouraged whispering.
“What we could do,” she said, “is get rid of it.”
“How? That takes money.”
“Aren’t there pills or something?”
“I don’t think so. Not for... well, not for getting rid of it.”
“My father would give us money. I think he would.”
“I’d hate to ask him. I mean, for something like this. Anyway, they’d tell you to go ahead and have it, Grace.”
“Boy, this is what I really needed, all right. I really needed this.”
“Well, we are married, you know. I don’t see—”
“I’m scared to death.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. My grandmother died in childbirth.”
“That was in the old days, Grace. Nobody dies in childbirth any more.”
“I’ll bet it hurts like hell.”
“No, they give you anesthesia. You never even—”
“Not until its head is showing or something. Ick, it’s disgusting, all of it.”
“It’s a very natural thing, Grace. Women go through it every day of the—”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I’m only trying to—”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” She was silent for a long time. Then she said, “This throws Paris right out the window, doesn’t it?”
“It needn’t. We could—”
“Sure, we could carry a baby halfway across the world. We don’t even know if the water’s fit to drink there.”
“I’m sure the water in Paris—”
“And inoculations. How can you take a newborn baby to Europe?”
“He won’t be born for nine months, you know.”
“Eight.”
“Well, eight.”
“Or actually seven months and about ten days.” She shook her head. “I’m twenty-two years old, and I’m going to have a baby in seven months and ten days. Boy, that’s something, isn’t it?”
“Some women have them even younger than that.”
“Sure, some women are stupid asses, too. I don’t know how this happened. I swear to God, I do not know how this happened. Can we sue Margaret Sanger?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and laughed.
“I mean, if they put a damn product on the market, you’d think it would work, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s not supposed to be a hundred per cent effective, honey.”
“No, so we get stuck. Do you know what she said to me?”
“Who, Grace?”
“The woman at the clinic. When I went to take the rabbit test. They make you put it in, you know, to see if you’ve been doing it properly, all that. Ick, it’s disgusting. Well, when she saw that I was doing it properly, she said, ‘Are you sure you didn’t leave it in the closet, honey?’”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her, ‘Sure, I left it in the closet. That’s where we make love, in the closet.’” Buddwing began laughing. “Don’t laugh,” she said, “it isn’t funny.”
“Grace,” he said, “the thing is, I wouldn’t mind having a baby.”
She did not answer him.
“We’re young,” he said, “what the hell.”
She still said nothing.
“We’d have a lot to offer a child.”
“Like what?”
“Brains, beauty...” He shrugged, and then smiled.
“Would you please do me a favor?”
“Sure, honey, what?”
“Don’t try to be comical.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know when it must have happened?” she said.
“When?”
“That night we came back from L.J.’s house.”
“You think so?”
“Mmm, yeah. When was that? August sometime? Just after you got the job — when was that?”
“That was August.”
“Well, that’s when it must have happened.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, at least it was good. That night, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Boy, I’m really scared. I mean it.”
“Honey, please don’t be.”
“You’re not even supposed to keep this job. It’s supposed to be a stopgap. I don’t want to tie you down to something that—”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Oh, I have to worry about you. I am you, don’t you know that?”
“No,” he said softly. “I didn’t know that, Grace.”
“Oh, don’t be such a jerk all the time. I spend my whole damn day figuring out what to say to you, and what to wear to please you, and how to make you laugh, and how to feed you and — oh, the hell with it.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said again, softly.
“I just don’t want to get you hung up like this.”
“I told you, honey, I want the baby.”
“I don’t want us to turn into... I don’t know... shlubs. I don’t want us to be like all the shlubs in the world, walking around with their fat bellies full of kids and their shabby flowered housedresses — boy, that scares me, honey. I don’t want you going to a stupid job each day of the week and hating it and hating me and hating the baby and turning into a stoop-shouldered old man with threadbare pants.”
“How’s a baby going to change anything, Grace?”
“I feel changed already. I feel fat. Ick, I could vomit.”
“You don’t look fat.”
“In fact, I do vomit,” she said, and smiled.
“Now who’s making the jokes?”
“Yeah, some joke. The radiant bride with the fat belly, puking all over the bathroom floor. What a charming picture to wake up to each morning.”
“I love you, Grace,” he said.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to that.”
“Do I have to say it?”
“Yes, you damn well do. Often.”
“I love you.”
“I suppose we’ll have to tell them, won’t we? Sooner or later. The folks, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“My brother’ll flip. His baby sister, The Weeper.” She grinned and said, “Well, he warned me.”
“He certainly did.”
“So I guess I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”
“And me.”
“And Margaret Sanger.” She paused, and then sighed, and then said, “I’m scared.”
He did not tell her that he was terrified.
If only, he thought.
Well.
If only
What we need is a break, that’s all. You can’t start this way, with nothing at all, and hope to survive. You can’t start young and fresh and unscarred and step into this world. No, you can’t. It’s a devouring beast, and if you won’t allow it to feed on you, it turns you against each other and you start feeding on yourselves. Because look at her, for God’s sake. What is she? Twenty-two? And thinking it’s all rolling out of bed with a laugh to make coffee in the morning, thinking it’s all rainy Saturday afternoons hiding under the dining room table the way I used to hide with my cousin Mandy. Children. You don’t take them and throw them into the street naked where the tigers are prowling, how can you? They need a break. All we need is any kind of a break. Ah, sure, self-pity. She said it, she was right, I’m a self-pitying son of a bitch, but I know that if we could only