The Birthing House

Gail looked up at the sky and wailed. 'What is happening to me?'

'Oh, for Chrissakes go home,' Steve said, disgusted. 'Take care of your wife.'

'I'm sorry,' Conrad said.

'And stay by the phone, pal,' Steve said over his shoulder, walking Gail back to her house. 'The police are going to have questions, very soon. Count on it!'

Conrad followed Jo, who was trotting into the house.

Jo was in the downstairs bathroom, vomiting again. He knocked and spoke through the door.

'Jo, can you let me in? Do you need a doctor?'

'No,' she said, choking. 'No doctor.'

He backed away from the bathroom door and walked back into the kitchen. He was still shaking when he reached the refrigerator and popped his first beer. The beer went down like he'd just held it over the drain until the foam dribbled out.

'Fucking Nadia,' he said, looking out the window to the backyard.

'What was that?' Jo said, coming up behind him.

He turned, surprised by the change in her voice. She had her hair back in a band, her face splashed wet and pinker, more like herself. She was patting her brow with a hand towel. The sick woman from the lawn party had been replaced.

'Is this normal?' he said.

'Normal?'

'You look better, if that's possible.'

'I feel like I just woke up. What's all the fuss about with Nadia?'

'She was just a dumb kid.' He dropped the empty into the sink and popped another.

'Conrad. We need to talk.'

'No shit.' He turned to face his wife. She was scaring him, and he didn't like that. He was pretty sure she was hiding something, too.

'Did something happen between you and that girl?'

'Tell me about the baby, Jo.'

'You weren't there. You have no idea what I went through.'

'You left me. You told me to stay home.'

'That's not fair. You're hiding something. If our neighbors can see it, how obvious do you think it is to me?'

'You're not going to tell me what happened to our child?'

'Not until you tell me what went on in this house.'

'What went on in this house,' he repeated, tasting the words. 'Yes, that's one way to phrase it. Another way is, what is still going on in this house? Still another is, what has always been going on this house, what is going to happen next in this house?'

'Was that a threat? I don't fucking believe you.'

'You should believe me.'

'Don't even speak until you're ready to be honest with me. And then you better tuck yourself in, mister, because we are in for a very long haul with this little experiment.'

She was angry. So very angry. But beneath that he saw fear, too. Good. Let her be afraid, a little. She deserved it. Coming home and giving him this shit.

'You are a piece of work, you know that. I found this house for us. I gave this "little experiment" everything from day one, and what do you do? You move out of state, for what? For some job. For some money. You treat me like a walking hard-on while you're away. You disappear, I can't reach you, some douche bag in your room, hanging around like the gay sidekick on a bad sitcom. Did you convert him? Or was it Jake? Did you let him fuck you, Jo? You know what? I hope you did. I hope someone got laid while you were away, because it wasn't me, and it seems to me like you really could have used a good fuck in the past three months.'

Patches of red crawled out of her shirt and up her neck. She wheezed, holding the back of the chair like she was going to keel over.

'Right,' he said, going for his third beer.

'How. Fucking. Dare. You!'

'You already said that, Jo.' He had seen this conversation play out before in his head so many times it was almost a memory.

Her lips quivered. 'Who are you that you have so much black rage inside you?'

'Hey, Baby,' he said, affecting a sort of jive-ass tone. Rollo on Sanford and Son. 'You knew what kind of cat I was when we got hitched.' He thrust his hips back and forth, fucking the air between them.

She slapped him across the mouth, lit up his whole face. He tasted blood.

'I am two seconds away from calling the police on you,' she said. 'What did you do to that girl?'

'I told her to get a life.'

'What did you do to that girl?'

'I told her to get the fuck out of Dodge.'

'What did you do to that girl!'

He sighed. His wife was standing ramrod straight, tears running down her cheeks.

'Just tell me the truth,' she said, her voice hoarse. 'I might hate you, but I'll at least respect you for it.'

'Tell me,' he said, a nasty smile curling his lips. 'Did you lose it, or did you throw it away? Or was it Jake's? You know, I'm glad you lost it. Now I don't have to raise the little fuck and wonder every day if he's mine or if he belongs to the talentless asshole who fucked my wife while I was burying my father.'

Something in her broke. The fight was gone. His tall wife was sitting on the floor, head buried in her knees, sobbing. He knew that if he wanted to, for the first time in their history, he could punish her. He could win. He could reach in and grab her emotions like apples from a tub of cold water and take them out one by one and smash them on the sidewalk. But she was already crushed.

After a time she said, 'I've never been unfaithful to you. Never. Jake was too drunk to drive. He never even made a pass at me, you fucking asshole.'

She sobbed, and in her sobs he found her ugly. He pitied her then.

'Joanna,' he said, his voice soothing, eerily normal. 'I'm sorry. This has been the worst three months of my life. I want you to understand, okay?'

She looked up. Her face was turning gray again.

'The truth is. I tried like hell to seduce her. I did. I was not myself, but that's no excuse. How I got here, it's . . . leaving Los Angeles was something we both wanted and needed, but something else triggered it. Maybe my father dying. I don't know. When I was seventeen my girlfriend Holly got pregnant. I loved her in ways you will never let me love you. I wanted her to have the baby. She did too. We were going to make it. We almost made it. But her father. Jesus, our fathers. It's always our fathers. I'm tired of blaming him. It's my turn now, isn't it?'

Jo wasn't crying. She was just staring at the wall, stunned.

'She disappeared. I could have a son walking around out there in Portland, or Austin, or Denver. Or a daughter. I would have loved either one, but I never found out. Then I met you. And we have been drifting for so long, Jo. I don't think you wanted to have a child. But it's all I ever wanted. It's all I want. I thought this house would change things. It was supposed to be our new start. I should have told you about Holly. But remember what you said about your cut in salary, how I really didn't want to know? Well, this was like that. You didn't want to know. I thought as long as we made a new life of our own, it didn't matter. It was past. If you had been here right after we moved. I don't know. I'd like to think I would have been happy with you. I would really like to believe that everything would have . . . healed itself . . . if you had never left. Can you understand that?'

Jo swallowed, raising herself on coltish legs. 'I'm, uhm, glad you're finally talking to me, Conrad. But I think . . . I really need you to tell me now. What did you do with Nadia?'

'It's not Nadia. I mean, you can't understand what this house does to you, Jo. Leon Laski. He knows. He tried to tell me. These women keep coming back. It was a birthing house, Baby. It wants to be one again. If you stay, you will have another child. That's what it wants. That's what we want, isn't it?'

'Wait, are you telling me you tried to get into Nadia's pants because the house wanted you to?'

The anger was gone. He was excited. It felt so good to tell the truth. Now he just had to make her see.

'Baby, that's a very small piece of something much larger. Listen, do you think it's a coincidence you got pregnant so soon after we moved here? Huh? No, of course not. It happened in this house. And I know what you're thinking, but listen. The women in the photo - shit, you haven't seen the photo! Why did I burn--it doesn't matter. It's a healing place. You should have seen my hand. And the dogs! The dogs were all cut up from the broken mirrors. She was here, the woman in the house is trying to get out--'