Authors: Holly Chamberlin

Babyland (29 page)

BOOK: Babyland

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Nasty Truths

A
lexandra came over bearing the latest issue of Italian
Vogue
and a large piece of German chocolate cake. I'd told her about my fight with Ross; this was her way of alleviating my posttraumatic stress.

For a while we sat quietly. Alexandra flipped through the
Vogue
; I poked at the cake with a fork and thought about losing the baby. I had suffered a miscarriage. That was what Alma had said the other day. That I had suffered a loss. I thought about the word
suffer
and about the act or the state of suffering. I thought about enduring. About bearing the burden, about tolerating the pain, about learning to reconcile myself to this new, stark reality.

The new and stark reality of being alone.

The fight had only confirmed what I'd sensed was happening between Ross and me. We were so alienated from each other. I felt as if he'd shoveled the tragedy onto my head, thrown it at me, and walked away. I felt as if I'd done something wrong and shameful and that that something now stood between Ross and me. The miscarriage hadn't bound us more closely. It had driven a wedge between us.

I wondered, Had the pregnancy started the process of tearing? Or had it simply accelerated a process already begun?

And if the pregnancy hadn't ended like it had, if the baby had been born at full term, healthy and strong, would the truth about Ross and me never have come to light? Would we just have gone on side by side, never really touching, until death did us part?

I'd never know, not for sure. And the fact was, I'd never really been able to imagine a family of threeâRoss, a baby, me. I'd come to see me and the baby, the two of us, alone together and happy. But I'd failed to see Ross as part of the picture.

A failure of imagination. Just another one of my many failures.

“I'm the first bad thing to happen to Ross,” I said abruptly.

“What a horrible thing to say!” Alexandra cried, tossing the big glossy magazine aside.

“No, it's true,” I assured her. “Ross has never failed at anything.”

“Maybe he never tried hard enough to fail.”

I didn't bother to comment on Alexandra's observation. We both knew it was true.

“No one close to him has died,” I went on. “His parents adore him. He's never been cut from a sports team or rejected from a club. Do you know he turned down the presidency of his fraternity's local chapter because he was too busy being president of some young businessmen's club?”

“And delegating his workload to his staff.” Alexandra's tone was acidic.

“Does it matter? Ross never asked anyone to marry him before me. And I said yes, immediately, no hesitation. Even then he'd won. And now ... I just know he sees my miscarriage as my failure. I'm tainted, and because I belong to him, he's tainted now in some way, too. And it's really upsetting him.”

“And you still want to marry someone who finds you unacceptable because you're human?”

“Less than human. Damaged goods. A tarnished good luck charm.”

“Answer the question.” Alexandra's voice was tight.

I looked at my friend. I could be wrong, I thought. I could be loading my own confused feelings of shame and failure onto Ross. I could be inventing the awkwardness between us since the miscarriage.

But I knew I wasn't.

“I can't,” I said, and my voice was weak.

Alexandra's eyes held mine. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. “You can't answer the question,” she said, “or you can't marry him?”

I thought of Jack. I thought of his hand around a coffee cup, of his hand on my elbow.

“I can't.” It was all I could say.

The Unhappy Couple

“A
re you giving me an ultimatum?”

I stood there, hands at my side, looking at the stranger who was my fiancÃ©.

“It's not an ultimatum,” I said. “I just think that maybe we should go to counseling together. Because we're not talking about what happened.”

Because we're falling apart and I don't know what to do about it.

Ross had called earlier that morning. All of the fixtures in the master bathroom had been installed; the room was ready for painting. He wanted to know if I cared to see the mini marble palace. I told him that of course I wanted to see it. Hadn't we chosen the marble together at the stone yard?

He'd greeted me at the door to the loft with barely repressed hostility.

“You're late,” he said.

“No, I'm not,” I replied. And then I checked my watch. “Oh. I'm sorry, I am. My watch has slowed down. I'll replace the battery.”

Ross stepped back to let me enter. “It's not good to keep people waiting.”

“Yes,” I said, wondering suddenly why I was really there. “I know.”

I admired the marble. I admired Ross's final choice of paint color. And then I suggested that we see a therapist.

“The whole idea is ridiculous,” Ross said dismissively. “Therapy is not for people like us. At least, it's not for people like me.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “Don't you want to work things out between us? Grief doesn't just go away, Ross. You can't just pretend everything's okay. You can't hideâ”

“I'm not hiding anything.”

Looking at Ross then, at his blandly handsome and oddly closed face, I believed he was telling the truth as he saw it.

I shook my head in amazement. “My life,” I said, “is becoming a soap opera.”

“Only because you're letting it,” Ross snapped. “Why are you doing this to me, Anna? Why are you ruining everything?”

“I'm not ruining anything,” I cried. What was there to ruin? A fantasy? A construct? The notion of a perfectly fine life? “This is life, Ross. Bad things happen for no good reason, for no reason at all. Stop blaming me.”

Ross stalked out of the master bathroom. I followed him into the kitchen. And for the very first time I wondered if I was the great love of Ross's life. Was I really loved? I didn't have the nerve to ask.

“Do you realize this is the first time we've ever fought? Ross, we never even really talked until we lost the baby. I mean, really talked. About the big stuff.”

Ross slapped his hands on the shiny counter. “What was there to talk about? Everything was fine. Everything still would be fine ifâ”

Ross looked down at his hands.

“If what, Ross?” I said finally. “If I hadn't lost the baby? Or if I hadn't gotten pregnant in the first place?”

Ross continued to stare at his slim, manicured fingers. “Never mind,” he said. “Look, my mother wants to have us for dinner this Sunday. Can I count on you to be there?”

“Can I count on you to talk to me about what's really going on between us?”

Ross said, “I'll pick you up at six.”

Beauty

“D
idn't your mother ever teach you not to snoop?”

I'd heard Jack come into the studio, but unlike the last time I was there alone, I didn't care. I continued to gaze at the darkly lit black-and-white nude studies spread out on the table before me.

“Jack, they're beautiful,” I said. “And I wasn't snooping. They were right here for anyone to see. I'm sure the UPS guy who was just here thinks they're wonderful, too. By the way, I signed for the package.”

Jack began to slide the prints into a rough pile. “You're not a professional critic,” he said. “Not that I have any use for the majority of them.”

“I never claimed to be a professional critic. And might I remind you that you sought out my opinion on that student's work that afternoon at the cafÃ©. And don't tell me you did it out of pity, or I'll be furious.”

Jack gave me a dirty look. “I don't do anything out of pity. I don't believe in pity. You know that.”

I did know that.

“Why haven't I seen these before?” I asked. Jack was now holding the stack of black and whites protectively against his chest. Did he really think I would make a grab for them?

“I don't show you everything I've ever worked on.”

“These are new, aren't they? I thought you'd given up on personal projects.”

Jack slid the photographs into a flat file and locked the cabinet.

“Time to go, Anna. I've got work to do. Heather-Marie Rich's Sweet Sixteen party shots are due to the wealthy spineless daddy and artificially ageless mommy first thing tomorrow morning.”

Why did I have to push him?

“You know they're good, don't you?” I said. “There isn't a humble bone in your body, and you can't be so disingenuous as to pretend you don't know serious art when you see it.”

There was a deadly silence. Jack's expression was dark.

“Okay,” I mumbled, “I'm going. I'm sorry I think you're the most talented photographer I've seen.” I snatched up my purse and headed for the door.

And still Jack said not a word.

Part Three

The End

T
he last of the baby gifts had been returned, with carefully worded notes of thanks. Even the awful sweater, the one that had afforded me some comfort just after the miscarriage, had gone back to Mrs. Davis. The childbirth books and parenting magazinesâall were gone. There was nothing in my apartment to remind me of what had happenedânothing except me.

I checked the clock over the stove. Ross was due in half an hour. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him, not reallyâhow sad!âbut I had to. Once last time I had to try to reach him, try to make some connection to this person I was taking on as my life partner.

Life partner. Husband. Those words had come to sound ugly, confining, murderous.

I sat on the couch and opened one of the coffee table books, a collection of Ansel Adams photographs, but for the first time the images held no appeal. I went to my computer and checked e-mail; nothing but SPAM. The latest headlines from Reuters made virtually no impression on me: another car bombing in Palestine; another midnight wedding for another drunken starlet; another storm off the coast of Florida.

Twenty minutes. In twenty minutes Ross would be at my door and maybe, just maybe, this misery would be over. What did I mean by âover'?

Our official engagement portrait, framed in Tiffany silver, stood on a small table by the couch. I picked it up and studied our smiling faces, Ross's and mine. And try as I might I just couldn't recognize either of us, not really. The woman in the portrait wasn't me, not now. And the man ... With a rush of anger I realized I had never known the man because there wasn't much of a man to know. All along I'd wanted to believe that there was more to Ross than met the eye. But I'd come to know there was less.

Without care I set the portrait down; it fell glass first onto the floor. I let it stay there.

The dreams. I thought about the dreams. Increasing blindness, loss of voice, choking, abandonment. Even if I could ask questions of Ross, would he be able to answer? Was he even capable of listening?

I took a few deep breaths but my heart continued to race. Ten minutes. Ross would be at my door in ten minutes. And then...

Ross wanted to know when we could start trying to get pregnant. Why had he assumed I wanted to get pregnant? And even if I did, wouldn't I need time to mourn the loss of our child? What, what, what was Ross thinking?

I walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. Ross was thinking nothing. Ross wasn't capable of real thought, not beyond what suit to wear to what function or what new diet fad to try next.

Why, I wondered, couldn't Ross ever admit to being confused or distressed? Why, I wondered, couldn't Ross ever admit to being human?

I put the empty wineglass in the sink. Five minutes. I held my left hand before my face and studied my engagement ring, the sign of my commitment to Ross, the sign of my retirement from life.

Four minutes. And everything was a mess. Ross blamed me for messing things up. He blamed me for bringing the sweaty chaos of life into his cold and ordered world.

How, I wondered, could I ever trust him to be there in the hard times? How could I ever trust him to be there for me if I got sick with cancer, especially a disfiguring kind, like breast cancer, something that would cause him public embarrassment? How could I trust him to support me if I had a nervous breakdown, if I lost my self-confidence, if I got fat?

I looked again at the kitchen clock. It was time. The doorbell rang. Calmly, I walked into the foyer; calmly, I opened the door.

“Hi,” I said.

Ross hesitated a moment before stepping inside. “Hi.”

We stood there in the foyer of my apartment, facing each other, too far apart to touch.

“What did you want to see me about?” he said. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

“Why did you stop having sex with me when I got pregnant?” I asked.

Ross didn't answer. His eyes darted back toward the door. I wondered if he was going to bolt.

“Was it because you found me disgusting?” I went on. “Or was it because you thought I was too precious? Pregnant women are women, Ross, they're people, but maybe that's the problemâ”

“Anna,” Ross said angrily. “Stop.”

My voice became higher, thinner. “No, I won't stop. You don't like women very much, do you Ross? Not really.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Anna.”

“Then answer the question,” I said. “Why wouldn't you have sex with me?”

“Look,” he said, with some emotion, “I don't know, all right? Can we just drop it? What's done is done.”

He was right. What had been done to us had been done to us. And this was what we were left with.

Suddenly, we both seem to have lost steam. Ross leaned against the foyer wall. I sat heavily on the couch.

“Everything's that happened, Anna,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don't knowâ”

I looked at the fallen portrait. “It's okay, Ross,” I said. “I understand.”

But it seems that I didn't understand, not entirely.

Ross pushed away from the wall; his arms seem to hang loosely at his side. “It's just that I want a family. I can't be with someone who doesn't want what I want. I want a family, Anna.” Ross said it simply, matter-of-factly, like what he was telling me was nothing more important than his saying, “I like my coffee black.”

I shot from the couch; my skin was tingling; I wondered if I were having a heart attack. “Since when?” I spat. “When did you decide you were a family man?”

“I've wanted a family for a while now,” Ross said, evasively. “I mentioned the pill. The other day. Remember? But you didn't want to talk about it. You just don't want to be a mother and I can't live with that.”

I looked at his pretty face and wanted very badly to slap it. Ross was even more obtuse than I had imagined. “All this time wasted ...” I laughed. Suddenly, it all seemed so ridiculous. “Why, Ross? Why the big change of heart?”

But to answer the question required more creativity and self-awareness than Ross could manage. “I want a family,” he said again. “Can you tell me you want the same?”

“I don't know, Ross,” I said, honestly. “I can't make any promises right now, not to anyone. You see, I'm suffering.”

And that repulses you.

“Okay. Fair enough.” Ross ran a hand through his perfectly groomed hair. It was something I'd never seen him do. “So, this is it, I guess. It's justâover.”

It was just over. There was no way to negotiate such a black and white issue. There was no way I could forgive him for his gross lack of understanding.

“Ross,” I said, “you should go now.”

I slipped the engagement ring off my finger and took a step toward him. Then I held out my open palm and offered him the ring.

Ross's face was drawn, unhappy, tired. “Anna, you don'tâ”

“It doesn't belong to me anymore,” I said, and it didn't hurt at all.

Slowly, Ross put out his hand and took the ring. When his fingers touched mine I felt nothing, no spark of desire or tenderness, nothing to make me take back my ring and in doing so, my life with Rossâand his children.

When he was at the door I said, “Ross? I'm sorry.”

He didn't turn; his hand remained on the doorknob.

“I'm sorry, too, Anna,” he said. “I really am.”

And then it was really over.

BOOK: Babyland

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