It was the middle of the afternoon by the time they woke up the next day, and Steven suggested they take a swim, which they did, after they showered and had breakfast. Adrian was in a quiet mood, and she didn't say anything as they went out to the pool holding hands and feeling pensive. It was a pool shared by all the residents of the complex, but there was no one there today. It was a beautiful sunny May afternoon and people had gone to the beach, or to see friends, or they were just lying on their decks, out of sight, getting suntanned and most of the time, lying naked.
Steven swam laps, while Adrian swam for a little while and then lay in the sun and dozed. She didn't want to talk about the baby anymore, not now. She was hoping that eventually he would calm down and adjust, now that he knew. It had been a big adjustment for her, too, and she knew it would be an even bigger one for Steven.
“Ready to go in?” he asked finally, after five o'clock. They had barely spoken all afternoon and after their emotional debate of the night before, Adrian was still feeling exhausted.
They went inside quietly and after Adrian showered, Steven put the stereo on, and they listened to UB40 while she made dinner.
Adrian wanted to spend a quiet evening with him. They had a lot to think about, a lot to consider.
“Are you okay?” he asked as she made pasta and a big green salad.
“I'm okay. I'm just kind of tired,” she said softly, and he nodded.
“You'll feel better next week when you get it taken care of.” She couldn't believe he had said what he just did, and she stared at him in amazement.
“How can you say a thing like that?” She looked horrified, and she realized suddenly that he wasn't reconsidering at all. He was as adamant as ever.
“Adrian, all it is right now is a physical problem. It's making you feel lousy, so fix it. That's all. You don't have to think of it as anything more than that.” She couldn't believe how totally unemotional he was, how totally uninvolved with their baby.
“That's disgusting. It's a lot more than that, and you know it.” She hadn't planned to mention it again that night, but now that he'd brought it up, she was going to discuss it. “It's our baby, for God's sake.” Tears filled her eyes again and she hated herself for it. She didn't normally cry, but he was pushing her to extremes, with his casual attitude about her having an abortion. “I'm not going to do it,” she suddenly said as she left their dinner on the kitchen counter, and hurried upstairs to their bedroom, and it was over an hour later when he finally came upstairs to continue the conversation. She was lying on the bed and he sat down next to her and spoke very softly. “Adrian, you have to have an abortion,” he said calmly. “If you value our marriage. If you don't do it, it'll ruin everything.” As far as she could see, it would ruin it either way. If she didn't have the baby, she would always feel the loss, and if she did, Steven might never forgive her.
“I don't think I can.” She spoke from deep in her pillow and she was being honest with him. The last thing she wanted was an abortion.
“I don't think you cannot. It'll destroy our marriage and cost you your job if you don't have the abortion.”
“I don't care about my job.” And the truth was, compared to the baby she didn't. It was amazing how quickly the baby had come to be important to her.
“Of course you care about your job.” To Steven, it seemed as though overnight she had become a different person.
“No, I don't …but I don't want to destroy us,” she said sadly, turning over to face him.
“I can tell you one thing I do know for sure, Adrian, and that is that I don't want a baby.”
“You might change your mind later. People do,” she said hopefully, but he shook his head.
“I don't. I don't want kids. I never have, never will, and you used to think that was all right too. Didn't you?”
She hesitated and then admitted something to him she never had before. “I thought that maybe eventually …you might change your mind one day. I mean … if we really never had kids, then I suppose it would be all right. But in a case like this … I thought maybe … I don't know, Steven. I didn't ask for this. But now that it's here, how can you just sweep it from our lives without a second thought?” It was awful.
“Because the quality of our lives will be better if I do, and you're a lot more important to me than a baby.”
“There's room for both,” she pleaded, but he shook his head.
“Not in my life there isn't. There's room for you and no one else. And I don't want to compete with a baby for your attention. I don't think my parents said more than two words to each other in twenty years. They never had the time or the energy or the emotion. They were drained. There was nothing left of them when we grew up. They were like two used, finished, old dead people. Is that what you want?'
“One baby isn't going to do that,” she said softly, pleading with him again, and clearly getting nowhere.
“I'm not willing to risk it, Adrian.” he said, looking down at her. “Get rid of it.” His voice trembled as he spoke to her, and he went back downstairs for a long time, just to get away from her, and the threat of the baby she carried within her.
She thought about it for a long time as she waited for Steven to come back upstairs, and she knew that if she gave up this baby, an important part of her very soul would be lost forever.
SUNDAY AND MONDAY WERE A NIGHTMARE OF ARGUMENTS and recriminations between the two of them, and at six in the morning on Tuesday before Steven left, Adrian finally collapsed in hysterical sobs and agreed to do anything he wanted. She hadn't been to work in two days, and she didn't want to lose the husband she loved, even if it meant giving up their baby. She promised to take care of the abortion while he was gone, and that day all she did was lie in bed and sob until she went to see the doctor at four-thirty.
She had lain in bed all that afternoon with a feeling of dread that grew to blind terror by the time she was dressed, and she wanted to run away from all of it as she hurried out of the apartment. She wanted to run away from what was happening to her, from what she had to do, from what Steven expected of her, and what she felt she owed him if she valued their marriage.
“Adrian,” the nurse called as she stood up, looking very nervous. She had worn black slacks and a black turtleneck shirt and black shoes, and with her white skin and dark hair, she looked unusually somber.
She led Adrian into a small room and told her to get undressed from the waist down and put on a gown. She had been there before but it had all seemed less ominous the other times when she'd been there for birth control advice or her annual checkups.
She sat on the exam table in her black silk shirt, with the blue paper gown covering the rest of her, and her bare feet tucked under her, and she looked like a little girl, as she tried to keep her mind off why she was there and what was going to happen. She kept reminding herself that she was doing this for Steven because she loved him.
The doctor came in finally, and he smiled as he glanced at her chart and recognized her. She was a nice girl, and he had always liked her.
“What can I do for you today, Mrs. Townsend?” He was a pleasant old-fashioned man, about the age of her own father.
“I …” She couldn't bring herself to say the words, and her eyes looked huge in her pale face as he watched her. “I came here …for an abortion.” The words drifted away, spoken so softly, he could barely hear them.
“I see.” He sat down on a small revolving stool, and glanced at her chart. She was married, thirty-one, in good health, none of it added up. Maybe the baby wasn't her husband's. “Any special reason?”