The Birthing House

'The neighbors.'

He hopped off the couch and ran upstairs to get ready for dinner. A few laughs, some human company. Jo would be pleased with the effort.

8

The House of Grum was another Victorian, barn-red with creme and robin's egg trim, pillars slim as dancers, with bursts of filigree on top. The front porch was narrow, wrapping around and widening on one side. Inside, the decor was somewhere between antiquarian and mid-twentieth-century frugal farmer's wife. The dinner table would seat twelve, but tonight was attended by only two couples - Gail and John Grum, and the neighbors, Steve and Bailey Bartholomew - plus Conrad. Both couples were comfortably attired in Lands' End (worldwide headquarters was just two towns over, people kept telling him): cargo shorts, untucked shirts with button-down collars, slip-on shoes. Canvas shades of ecru, loden, heather abound.

This is us in ten years, Conrad thought. But if this was the Game of Life, he was missing his pink peg. If Jo were here, she would do all the talking, knowing what to reveal and what to hold back. As it stood, he felt like a fraud and kept waiting for one of them to call him out on it. What do you do? Is it true you paid cash for that house? What the hell are you doing in Wisconsin, Conrad?

Hiding? Or running?

But they didn't call him on anything. Instead, they fed him and watched him like the polite stranger he was, and spoke kindly, even when he began to pry.

'So what's the story with the guy used to live in my new house,' Conrad said, pushing his roast beef aside to dig into Gail's peach cobbler.

'What about Leon Laski is it you want to know?' Gail Grum said, a spoonful of vanilla ice cream hovering under her nose.

'Oh, I dunno,' he lied, reminding himself these people might very well still be friends with the man who once owned his house. 'He came by earlier today and, well, it was weird. Some issues with the closing, I guess.'

Gail pulled the spoon from her mouth slowly. 'Leon can be a touch abrasive at times, but they're good people.'

Big John Grum turned to his wife, 'How long were dey in dare? Ten, twelve years?' At six-six and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds, Big John towered over his little garden gnome of a wife. He was a carpenter and a mason, with the hands to show for it. The gentle giant was also a haggard giant.

'Oh, nooo. More like sixteen,' Gail corrected.

Big John shook his head. 'Leon's just upset he's overextended himself on that farmette. He was probably all in a rush to get the money out of your deal, and now that you're here he doesn't know where to put his family. Don't even have plumbing's what I hear. Be another three months yet.'

'Poor Leon's going to be shitting in the woods all summer long,' Steve Bartholomew added. Steve had the tidy presence of a financial manager, but his voice filled the room. He strode around with his belly out, red in the face, his gray-flecked black hair shorn military tight enough that Conrad could see the shiny sunburn on his scalp. As with many men of his disposition, Steve's wife was his opposite. Bailey Bartholomew was so quiet she seemed to disappear, popping back into the conversation only to temper her husband.

'In the woods, huh?' Conrad said. 'Do we have poison ivy around these parts?'

'Yes, we do!' Gail said, laughing with the others.

Steve drained half his wine and fixed on Conrad. 'A man raises his family in a house, I don't care how well he does in the transaction - and that house was worth a lot less when Leon bought it - it's never easy leaving your home.'

'Of course not,' Conrad said, feigning sympathy. 'I'm sure Leon's a decent guy.'

Gail touched Conrad's arm. 'Greer - that's his wife - was probably just worried about the kids. Four is a lot to carry around, with or without plumbing.'

'Three,' Steve corrected. 'But she's preggo again.'

'Actually, Steve,' Big John put in. 'Wasn't it two plus the pregnancy? '

'Oh, that's right,' Gail said. 'I can't keep track.'

Steve scoffed. 'Don't even try. It's like ten little Indians over there.'

'Okay, everybody,' Big John said, heading to the back porch for a post-meal smoke.

A mutually regrettable silence ensued.

'How old are his kids?' Conrad waited, but suddenly no one wanted to crunch the numbers. All eyes around the table had drifted away or downward.

Steve nudged Conrad in the ribs. 'Our Leon's a regular Johnny Appleseed. Shoots more bullseyes than Robin Hood.'

'Steeeeve!' Bailey wailed. 'You are terrible.'

Steve winked at Conrad - aren't I a piece of work? - and Conrad smiled, realizing he liked Steve and his cruel humor. Suddenly Conrad imagined spending long summer evenings on his porch with Steve, the two of them getting red in the face over the state of the world. He realized he was making a new friend, or could be.

Bailey turned to Conrad. 'They lost their first two. Years ago. So sad. Gail, did Greer ever--'

'No one knows,' Gail said. 'Could have been something rare. Just . . . one of those things.'

'They should have called the doctors sooner,' Steve said. 'There's just no excuse.'

When no one added to that, Conrad decided to let the topic go for now. But two kids 'lost'? Something bad had happened, oh yes.

'I'll kill you, you asshole!' the girl screamed. 'How dare you fucking touch me. No, no! Come back here, Eddie! Eddie, you piece of shit!'

Her voice was an octave shy of a shriek and it was coming from outside. A car door slammed, the engine revved to the moon and tires barked.

Conrad jerked in his chair, certain the car was coming through the walls.

The front door banged open and a teen girl crying her eyes out barged in, colliding with her mother. Everyone turned to witness the drama.

'Liebschen!' Gail grabbed her daughter by the elbow.

'Don't touch me!' The girl clawed back like it was her mother that had been hitting her, if hitting was part of it. Conrad glimpsed tears and blood near her mouth, but not much, and it was hard to be sure with the long hair tangled over her features.

Before Gail could corral all five feet nothing of her daughter's whirling madness, the girl turned on them, aware she was making a scene. Face gone red, blue corduroy jacket flapping, exposing the bulges, her awkwardly large breasts like twin summits over the earth orb that was her belly peeking from under her skin-tight tee. Her entire life on display, daughter Grum glared across the table and locked on Conrad with eyes as large and green as turtles.

'Who the fuck is that?' she said. 'What's he looking at?'

All he thought was, Damn, that girl's pregnant.

And she was the one hiding in my house the day I toured it with Roddy.

'Nadia, out.' Gail pointed like a hunter for her setter.

Conrad felt a snap of embarrassment for her, followed by shame, like he was on some jury deliberating her guilt. All that was missing was the big red P on her chest. He turned away quickly and saw Steve shut his mouth, wisely offering no comment while Gail wrestled her into the adjacent room, applying a mantra. 'Nadia, calm down, Nadia, calm down . . .'

He owed her one, in a way. The girl had taken the attention off of him. He felt relieved and run over. She had that effect on him from the first. Even in her tears, her corded neck mottled with angry red patches, her white hair flying, little Nadia Grum was, to a wounding degree, gorgeous.

His birthing house was a sauna. Hoping to cool down and stave off the inevitable wine hangover, Conrad took a beer from the fridge and returned to the album. The whole notion that his wife was trapped in there now seemed absurd. He plopped down on the couch and flipped the pages idly, skipping the first photo of the women, the ones he had begun to think of as the Heritage Street Gals. He didn't really want to know if Jo was still with them, waiting for him to look again into her dead black eyes.