“No kidding. She drives Christy crazy.”
Nana C. gave me a long look. Her eyes were darker than Christy’s but just as piercing and intelligent.
“I think He’d send you a son to make you proud,” she said.
“I’m proud of my daughters.”
“Mmm, yes. But a man needs a son.” She smiled fondly. “He’d favor you. And it would make Christine happy.”
“I’m starting to get that message.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Are you starting to listen?”
“Maybe. But I’m stubborn too.”
“Yes, but you’re a man. You can’t possibly be as stubborn as a woman.”
“Ask my wife what she thinks of that.”
The old woman laughed before she turned serious again. “Christine takes after us, you know, her mother and me.”
“Oh?”
“We both enjoyed being pregnant. I rejoiced on my knees. Anne too. I’m sure Christine will do the same.”
I started to nod innocently until I pictured what she’d said—Christy on her knees, “rejoicing.” My eyes flew wide and my cheeks must have glowed.
Prim and proper, my ass, I thought archly.
Nana C. knew exactly what she was doing, and she laughed at my reaction. Then she gathered the candy and cards for the girls.
“Give them hugs and kisses for me,” she said. “And think about what I said.”
“Oh, I will,” I promised.
Christy didn’t say a thing when I came home. She had accomplices for that, and her message had come through loud and clear. She wanted another baby, and a son would do nicely. Chop-chop, Mr. Husband, time to get with the program.
* * *
Trip and I received our acceptance letters to Harvard and MIT. Our boss had known all along that we planned to go back to school, but he was still disappointed when we told him the news. He wished us well, though, and made sure we had work until the last week of August.
Trip started class the next day, and I began about a week later. I suffered the usual first-day jitters, although I settled down and relaxed fairly quickly. Then I took some time to look around, and I realized that my fellow students looked like kids. I didn’t feel old, but the current crop of undergrads were all ten years younger, children of the seventies.
Fortunately, no one mistook me for a professor. Many of them had earned their tenure about the time I’d taken my first steps. Worse, some of them looked the part, like they hadn’t changed their wardrobes or hairstyles since the Carter administration. I didn’t look like a grunge college student, but at least my style had come from the current decade.
Class itself was a different experience from the campus at large. The Master of Architecture was absurdly selective, only twenty-five students in each class. It was a three-year program for students fresh from their Bachelor’s degree, but people with real-world experience (like yours truly) entered the second year curriculum. So about a third of my classmates were like me, men and women who were licensed architects that had decided to return to school.
I enjoyed the program and wasn’t surprised that several of my professors were friends with Laszlo. And because of my connection with him, I enjoyed a lot of automatic goodwill and respect. I called him on a semi-regular basis to give him updates. He and his wife had never had children of their own, and his favorite students filled the void. He kept tabs on about a dozen of us, including Diana Lamberton.
She and I talked as well, but not like we had when I’d worked for her. We were equals now, colleagues separated by years and miles but united by a common experience. She told me about her projects and life in Knoxville. She was married now and thinking about children. I told her about mine, along with my projects and life in Boston. She and I didn’t have the same relationship I had with Trip, but it was definitely on the same level.
* * *
Susan Renée Hughes blessed us with her presence on a balmy Sunday in December 1994. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, even red-faced and slightly confused. She wasn’t grumpy or even suspicious. She was our first baby with dark hair, and she looked back at me like she couldn’t understand why we were the same. Then she sighed and decided I was probably okay, especially if I looked like her.
Nana C. moved to my side and smiled at the little girl. I knew a hint when I felt it, but I wasn’t ready to give up my newest daughter. Still, I couldn’t exactly say no to an octogenarian force of nature who wanted to hold her great-granddaughter.
“Would you like to…?” I offered.
She reacted with almost convincing surprise. “Oh, may I?”
I slid Susie into her arms.
“Oh, how precious. She looks just like you.” She smiled down at the little girl and cooed, “You were supposed to be a boy, but we’re glad you aren’t.”
Susie screwed up her face and looked like she wanted to cry. Then she caught sight of me and settled immediately.
Nana C. laughed softly. “She’s going to be a daddy’s girl.”
“I think they all are.”
“Mmm. And whose fault is that?”
Later that evening, after everyone had left, Christy’s doctor returned to check on her. I made a point to tell him about her history of postpartum depression.
“Why’s this the first time I’m hearing about it?” he chided her gently. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most women experience some form of baby blues. It’s natural.”
Christy glared at me, but it bounced off my armor.
“This is a bit more than ‘baby blues,’” I said. Then I described some of what we’d gone through after Laurie and Emily. The doctor listened and nodded gravely.
“Your hormones might take a while to find their balance,” he said to Christy. “And untreated depression is bad for you. It’s bad for your baby, bad for your husband, and bad for your other daughters.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked for both of us.
“Let’s just keep an eye on things,” he said. “Postpartum depression can be unpredictable. It can happen with every child or only one. The second but not the first, for instance. Or the first two and not the third. It can take a few weeks or even a few months to manifest. And it may not ever. Her body and hormones may recover naturally, and this will be the last time we worry about it.”
“Well, just in case…” I told him about the counseling and medication after Emily.
“I’m not crazy,” Christy grumped. “I don’t need drugs to be normal.”
“No one said you’re crazy,” the doctor said reasonably. “If a medication helps, it isn’t a mental problem—it’s a chemical imbalance. You’d take medication if you had high blood pressure, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose, but—”
“Or insulin if you had diabetes?”
“Yes, but—”
“This is the same. If you suffer from depression, many times it’s a chemical in the brain that causes it. Sometimes it isn’t, which is why we recommend counseling too.”
Christy pouted mulishly.
“Keep an eye on her,” the doctor said to me. “If she suffers from”—he listed a number of symptoms I was all too familiar with, as well as several we hadn’t experienced, thank God—“make an appointment with my office. And here’s my pager number.” He took out a business card and wrote on the back. “Any time, day or night.”
I nodded gratefully and pocketed the card.
He leaned in to meet Christy’s eyes. “Your physical and mental health are just as important as your baby’s. You can’t care for her if you don’t care for yourself first. Now, I don’t think we should worry just yet, but let’s schedule more frequent checkups once you leave the hospital, hmm?”
He glanced at me to make sure I was onboard, and I was, a million-billion percent.
“Why’d you tell him?” Christy griped after he’d gone.
“Because I’m not going to watch you suffer. Not for six months or six minutes. Not in silence, not at all.”