But there is far more to us than that, isn’t there?
I must end this. I will go downstairs and purchase a stamp and entrust this to the mercies of the U.S. mails. What an act of faith that is, incidentally! One drops an envelope into a metal box and takes it for granted that it will get where it is supposed to.
Enough. I love you and you. I love our babies to be. Our babies.
God bless us every one, as Small Timothy put it. My sentiments exactly.
Love and love,
Harry
PRISS
I didn’t know he had left. I slept late that Monday and finally dragged myself out of bed. I had perspired a great deal during the night, always a sign for me that sleep was less untroubled than I might remember it. My skin felt clammy. I went and stood under the shower and got out technically clean but still clammy somehow. Then I huddled over the toilet and threw up.
I examined myself in the mirror and put the palms of my hands over my stomach. I am so thin to start with that I began to show almost from the moment of conception, or so it seemed. According to the best medical information, I would at any time now begin to feel life. A new life moving inside me. A new life having the misfortune to be born to me.
There was fresh coffee in the kitchen. On the kitchen table was the typewriter and the pile of manuscript. I went over to see if Harry had written anything, but the last page was of Rhoda’s plaintive chapter. Nothing had changed. I poured myself a cup of coffee and drank about half of it and poured the rest down the sink. Then I went to the bathroom, feeling nauseous, but nothing came of it. Just a brief attack of dry heaves.
I went outside and checked the shed, but Harry wasn’t there. I went inside and couldn’t find Rhoda. I went outside again and pulled a few weeds out of the garden, and while I was doing this Rhoda came out from the woods and approached.
“Where’s Harry?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Isn’t he working?”
“No. He’s not around the house, either.”
“I thought he was working.”
The old Chevy was gone. I got into the new car and drove it to the station, and the Chevy was parked there. I came back and told Rhoda.
“He’s gone to New York,” I said.
“It’s only Monday.”
“I know. I guess he had to get away.”
“He’ll be back.”
“Will he?”
“Maybe something came up, business or something.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll hear from him.”
“Rho, I ruined everything.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not being silly. Everything was perfect. I guess I couldn’t stand everything being perfect and I had to find a way to fuck it up.”
“It’s not fucked up.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
I put my hands on my stomach. “I always wanted to get pregnant. You can’t believe how much I wanted it. I finally got myself to the point of believing that I didn’t really want to. You know the excuses you invent for yourself.”
“Not me. I never wanted to be pregnant.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Well, I did. Desperately. And invented excuses, that I wouldn’t be capable of being a good mother, that a baby would just get in the way, that what Harry and I had was complete by itself and a baby would interfere. The excuses that people always make for themselves. And then I had to, I had to go and pick up those idiots-”
“That was the first time you were ever unfaithful, wasn’t it?”
“Unless I count you.”
“But the first time with a man.”
“They weren’t men. They were boys.”
“The first time.”
“The first and only time.”
“These things happen, Priss.”
“Yes, they do, don’t they? But why did I have to tell him? Why couldn’t I keep it to myself?”
“And eat your heart out for the rest of your life?”
“I could stand it.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not sure you could, love. I’m not sure of that at all. If you could have stood it, you wouldn’t have blurted it all out on paper. That wasn’t a confession, Priss, that was a scream.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. That was an emotional abscess. All that poison in your system coming to a head. You had to get it all out of you.”
“Why couldn’t I just go to a priest? Or a psychiatrist? Why dump all that garbage on Harry?”
“Because we don’t use priests or psychiatrists. We use each other.”
“It’s not fair.”
“Priss-”
“What if he doesn’t come back?”
“He will.”
“But what if he doesn’t? Rhoda, I cut his balls off, don’t you see that? I did the one unforgivable thing to him and I’ll never see him again. I ought to leave.”
“You?”
“I ought to go away from here.”
“Stop it.”
I didn’t stop it. I stopped saying it, but I didn’t stop it inside my head. It kept on going around and around inside me. I was the excess baggage. I was the overweight. I was the nigger in the ointment. I mean in the woodpile. What is it that you have in the ointment? Flies. A fly in the ointment.
I went inside and took another shower. Lady Macbeth, except with me it wasn’t the hands, it was the body. “Here’s the smell of the come still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little snatch.”
Days went by and there was no Harry. My mind invented fates for him. He had met some other girl and had hied himself off to Acapulco with her. He had walked in front of a bus, or leaped in front of a subway, or hanged himself in a closet. He was drunk, lying somewhere in a gutter. He was-he was anywhere but at home where he belonged, and no matter how many showers I took I still felt dirty.
“It’s too late for an abortion, isn’t it?”
“By a couple of months. What kind of talk is that, anyway? You don’t want an abortion.”
“Don’t I?”
“Of course not, Priss. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t want the baby, either.”
“You’ll change your mind.”
“Will I? I don’t think so. What happens if a person has an abortion after it’s too late to have an abortion?”
“She misses her train.”
“Huh?”
“Christ, stop it. I don’t know what happens. Probably the mother dies.”
“Oh.”
“Stop this shit, will you? Do you have any idea what that would do to Harry?”
“How would he find out? I’ll never see him again.”
“You don’t believe that crap yourself.”
“Maybe not. Rhoda-”
“What?”
“I could go somewhere else and have the baby.”
“What’s wrong with the local hospital?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean but I’m damned if I’ll dignify it by taking it seriously.”
“I could just go away.”
“Why?”
“And live somewhere by myself with my baby.”
“Wonderful.”
“It might be best all around.”
“Uh-huh. Harry’ll be somewhere in New York or Acapulco or wherever you’ve decided he is now, and you’ll be somewhere with your baby-where, by the way?”
“I don’t know. Boston. I don’t know.”
“Sensational. You’ll be in Boston with your baby, and I’ll be here with my baby. That’s just what I always wanted, Priss. I mean, I love it here, the woods and the hills and the birds and the flowers, don’t get me wrong. I love it, but the idea of living here all by my lonesome doesn’t appeal to me. I’m not the type.”
“You won’t be alone.”
“Right, I’ll have the kid.”
“And Harry.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll have Harry. Once I’m out of your lives the two of you can be together again and-”
“If you weren’t knocked up I think I might just kick you in the stomach.”
“I can’t help it, Rhoda.”
“Well, you’ve got to help it. You’re being ridiculous and you know it.”