Now, of course, I can see the mosaic. I can see the complete pattern.
Even my hair has changed, full and thick. It reminds me of a sad little orchid I once tried to keep in Washington, D.C. During the winter months the plant shed its petals and refused to grow, sitting like a green statue in the waning light. But when a colleague of mine took it off my hands, flying south to Florida and placing it on her porch, the orchid bloomed into a frothy explosion of petals. My hair seems to have been transported to its proper climate at last.
And, of course, I have missed my period. Several periods. I have not thought about it, since my cycle has always been irregular. I flirt with the kind of low body weight that can put a person’s menstrual rhythm on pause. Besides, I no longer have any reason to look at a calendar. In a bathroom cabinet, tucked alongside the sink, there is a stock of tampons and pads, a pink treasure trove. The men avoid the area assiduously. When I first came to the islands, Lucy, Charlene, and I all made inroads into the supplies hidden there, nibbling away like mice at a stockpile of grain. But I cannot remember the last time I needed to visit the place.
FINALLY I TOOK the leap. This was a few days ago. I waited until midnight, the sky soaked with moonlight, the big dipper dangling over the cabin. Galen was in bed, Mick and Forest snoring, Lucy humming in her sleep. I headed into the bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror, the only one on the islands.
I almost didn’t go through with it. For a while I hovered, irresolute. I thought about going back to bed and slipping beneath the blankets. Turning out the light. Returning to the state of denial I had maintained for so long.
I reminded myself that I could not be sure of anything yet. There was no stick for me to pee on. There was no gynecologist’s office to visit. The impression I had gleaned from a faraway self-portrait taken over a month ago was hardly a solid diagnosis. I reminded myself that many of the traditional markers of pregnancy had eluded me. I hadn’t been vomiting at all hours of the morning. I hadn’t been exhibiting any nesting instincts, leaving the mopping and sweeping to Lucy. Since I never wore a bra, I hadn’t even been able to verify whether I could still fit into my usual cup size.
In addition, the symptoms I had experienced were far from conclusive. There was a credible rationale for each one. The weight gain might be nothing more than the normal spreading of age. My food aversions might have arisen from our dreadful meals, all that Spam and tuna. My sleepiness might have been triggered by the incessant, wearying chill. Perhaps the islands were playing tricks on me. Perhaps the whole thing was an illusion, an error, one more bizarre dream.
I sat down on the toilet, still clad in my jeans. I laid my head in my hands.
I had come this far. I would see the thing through. It was time to connect the picture with the person — the figure on the screen with my own flesh and blood. It had been a while since I had looked at myself naked. Before Andrew. There on the cold tile, I kicked off my pants. I peeled off several layers of T-shirts. I even shed my socks. Sucking in a deep breath, I turned and faced the mirror.
My belly, broad and golden, protruded over a tangle of pubic hair. My breasts were swollen. There was no question. There was no mistake. The weight was not limited to my torso. Extra flesh had been relegated to my backside. Even my thighs were affected: soft columns, the muscle concealed by new deposits of fat. My stomach glowed in the light like the waxing curve of the moon. I laid my hands on that globe. It felt like years since I had made contact with my own skin.
For the next few minutes, I conducted a thorough investigation. My belly was taut and springy, the consistency of a basketball. I had always imagined the pregnant paunch to be slack and plush, but mine was firm and rubbery — a shield, rather than a pillow. My breasts were heavy. I cupped each one. Fibrous beads seemed to have to have taken root beneath the surface like bulbs in earth. Milk ducts. I gave one nipple an experimental squeeze. Yellow fluid oozed out in honeyed droplets.
My belly button was in an odd condition. It seemed to be transforming from an innie to an outie, currently mid-reversal, like a shirt tangled in the drier. I palpated that nubble of flesh. I stepped closer to the mirror. The pigmentation of my whole body had begun to alter. My face was ferociously freckled now, my cheeks so crowded with maculae that I looked almost tanned. My nipples had darkened to the color of wood. Beneath my navel a brown line had appeared, tracing a path down to my pubic hair, bisecting the lower half of my abdomen. A term from a long-ago health class popped into my brain: linea negra. A classic indicator of pregnancy.
Trembling with shock and cold, I got dressed again.
Please help me. Just this once, Mom, help me. What am I going to do?
30
THERE IS A photograph of you that I used to keep on my night table. Framed against a sunlit prairie, you wore a red dress. Your limbs were lanky. Your hair was swept up in a messy bun. You looked as though you were about to smile — your eyes amused, your mouth pursed like a butterfly with its wings folded.
You were four months pregnant in the photo, though a casual observer might not have noticed this. In the snapshot, your sun-dress both concealed and enhanced the swell of your belly. The fabric worked like an optical illusion. It was the kind of garment that many women favor in the second trimester, the kind that makes everyone look a little bit pregnant, the kind that leaves strangers guessing.
As a child, I loved this picture for many reasons. Your expression, your elegant arms, the backdrop of greenery. But my favorite thing was the fact that it seemed to be an image of one person, yet was actually an image of three. My father had taken the snapshot. You and I were captured there through his eyes.
THE SEASONS HAVE begun to change. It is April, and the days are markedly longer, the sun lingering in the west every evening like the last guest at a party. There is a new perfume on the breeze. Galen has taken to throwing open the windows, letting in a wash of sweet wind. The chill does not bother him — and indeed, it does not bother me. I could bathe in that salty air. Lucy has been afflicted by spring fever, vacuuming the curtains and emptying the cupboards so she can scrub into the corners. She has been moving systematically through the house, wiping mold from the grout, batting cobwebs from the ceiling. (She seems to feel the need to clean wherever I happen to be. If I’m on the couch, she wants to beat the dust out of the cushions. If I’m in my bedroom, she wants to get in there and wash the windows, since she’s doing the whole upper floor.) The animals are changing too. The gray whales are migrating on. The elephant seals are nearing the end of their time here. Soon it will be Bird Season.
In Washington, D.C., the long, gentle spring has begun, I am sure. It has always been my favorite time of year there, the weather opening like a flower, petal by petal. Every day will be a degree or two warmer. The crocuses push up through the soil and burn like sparklers in the grass. Robins carol wildly in the mornings. The trees are studded with buds strewn across the wood like Christmas lights — and then, all at once, the leaves will open. One day the branches are bare, and the next they will be coated with raw green, as fine as tissue paper. The cherry blossoms, too, will begin to flourish, and this, in turn, will attract the seasonal migration of Japanese tourists, who will flood the streets for weeks at a time, reading their maps upside down and photographing oddities like squirrels and vandalism.
The spring brings out a puckish side of my father. After accomplishing the usual reorganization of his closets — sweaters and boots stowed away — he will make a few subtle changes to his appearance. He might start wearing silk ties to work, rather than the heavy woolen things he associates with cold weather. He might shave off his winter beard and let the full glory of his pink chin shine.