Belonging (35 page)

He responded with a brusque, irritated nod. “So you see why I want to be sure we understand each other.”

“Yes.” Now she wanted only not to humiliate herself further.

“I did not want these babies conceived. I do not want them born.”

“Fine. I’m not asking—”

“When they are born, I don’t want to see them or know anything about them. I don’t care if they’re male or female or hermaphrodite Siamese twins.”

“Really, Carter, there’s no need to be cruel—”

“I don’t want my name on their birth certificates. I don’t want them to know anything about me. I don’t want them to know my name.”

“Carter, I didn’t ever intend—”

“I don’t care if they live or die. They have nothing to do with me.”

“Stop it!” She wanted to be dignified, but she was trembling. “That’s enough!”

“I think you should go now.” Madaket was standing in the door, Wolf close by her side, his lips curled, his teeth bared, small growls rumbling in his throat.

Carter stood, a great shadow looming over Joanna. “I mean it, Joanna. Everything I said.”

“Yes, I know you do, Carter.” Joanna raised her head to look at him, letting her anger and sorrow show clearly on her face. Carter looked down at her, his face unreadable. Then he walked off. Joanna heard the front door open and close, heard the spatter of gravel as the car roared off.

“Are you all right, Joanna?” Madaket came quietly into the room.

“Yes. I just need to be alone awhile, please.”

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No. No, thank you, Madaket.”

“I’ll just be in the kitchen, then.”

Joanna leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Her head ached horribly. She’d never imagined anything like this. She’d imagined herself alone, having left Carter, and she’d imagined herself and Carter reunited—oh, she’d imagined that in so many different ways. But this! Well, of course she’d been a fool not to prepare for this. She knew Carter always liked to have the last word. She should have known he would not let her be the one to leave him.

But Gloria Breck.

Carter was leaving his wife for Gloria Breck.

That manipulative, phony little twit.

She realized her hands were strangling the arms of the chair. Her body felt almost rigid with anger and grief. She wanted to throw things. She wanted to howl.

After a while, she pushed herself up from the chair and with great effort made her way into the hall. She pulled on a coat and scarf and mittens. “Madaket,” she called, “I’m going out for a walk.”

She stepped out the French doors. The brilliant late September afternoon shocked her, almost assaulted her with its sharp clear beauty. Today the world seemed such a profoundly clear and beautiful thing, and she felt ugly and muddled and ill and useless within it. Conflicting desires tore at her. She needed to lie down. She wanted to run.

Picking her way through the prickly
Rosa rugosa
, now speckled with red rose hips, she made her way to the beach. The sunlight on the dancing dark blue ocean, the capricious wind, all seemed particularly intense and Joanna realized that this was because she was in a crisis now, at one of those climaxes of life when everything becomes intensely real and vivid. She would always remember this day.

Far out at sea a fishing boat bobbed, its masts and shrouds flashing like a code, the sun glancing off at such a low angle that sometimes the boat seemed to disappear from sight. It could be an illusion, the boat, just as Carter’s love had been an illusion. Joanna had been a fool—or had been fooled. For in her deepest heart she’d believed that the love between her and Carter was real and would never vanish. Even though she’d never admitted it to herself, the entire time she was running away from Carter, she secretly thought he was going to find her. Claim her. She’d believed he would be the one person in all her life who would say: you belong to me. I belong to you. Now she walked down the beach toward the water, illusionless, in defeat, and achingly alone.

Far out on the water the fishing boat rose and fell on the waves, flickering and vanishing in the bright light as the huge white sun sank lower on the horizon. It made her dizzy to watch the rocking boat. Really, she was in terrible pain, terrible, terrible pain, pain of such intimacy she was ashamed. Sinking to her knees, she wailed, and toppled over, a great useless balloon of a thing. Her cries were lost in the roar of the surf.

How long she lay in the sand she didn’t know, but when she looked up, the sun was lower; the fishing boat was really gone. It was colder. She was still in pain. She tried to push herself up and an arrow of agony shot through her body, and she yelped like a wounded beast.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, body,
no
.” For something was wrong. Something
was going on, and the pain was relentless.

“Madaket!”

She didn’t think she could stand. She knew she had to get back to the house. She tried to crawl.

“Madaket!”

Between flashes of pain she inched her way up the beach, away from the ocean’s roar.

“Madaket!”

This could not be happening to her. She had been so careful, so prepared. She was healthy, she’d taken good care of herself—the pain folded her in on herself relentlessly, and she collapsed on the sand, moaning, her arms hugging her belly. When it retreated, sinking back like a tide, she lifted her head and yelled as loudly as she could.

“Madaket!”

Wolf came running down the beach, wagging his tail, whimpering, eyes fraught with worry.

“Get Madaket,” Joanna begged.

Finally she saw Madaket running down the path to her, her black hair flying up behind her like wings. Madaket sank to her knees, cradling Joanna’s head in her arms.

“I’m here. I’m going to call the doctor. You’ll be all right.” But there were tears in her eyes. Then everything went dark.

She opened her eyes to see Gardner and Madaket and Wolf all crowded around her. A blanket had been thrown over her, and the satin trim brushed her chin. Beneath her the sand was gritty and cool. The sun was almost gone. She felt her belly contract with the mute stony hardness of a shelled creature.

“Gardner! What’s happening?” she asked.

“You’ve started labor,” Gardner told her. Gently he massaged her hands. The last of the light seemed to catch in his blond curls, giving him a halo. He smelled of mint.

“An ambulance is on the way.”

“My babies—”

“They’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

“But it’s too early!”

“I know. But we can slow it down. Maybe stop it.”

“Gardner—” she implored in a whisper, and he bent close to her. “I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be. I’m here.”

“The ambulance,” Madaket cried, and Joanna heard the sand rasp as Madaket spurted up the path to the drive. A few minutes later she returned with two young men.

Gardner rose. “Joanna, they’re here with the stretcher. Relax. They know what they’re doing.”

With a gentle, professional speed, Joanna was lifted onto the stretcher. Closing her eyes against a wave of pain, she inhaled a potpourri of good male odors: garlic, beer, sweat, clean clothes, soap. Normal, healthy life. They strapped her in. Madaket took one hand and Gardner took the other.

“Oh, Madaket,” Joanna moaned. “I hurt.”

Madaket looked at Gardner. “Can’t you do anything?”

“We need to get her into the hospital. Then we’ll see.”

Joanna felt herself being carried like some sort of pagan flesh offering through the fresh air, Wolf circling the group and whining, the last streaks of sunlight dimming above her. With Gardner and Madaket holding her hands, her terror faded into a quiet anxiety. Her stomach hardened, seeming to rise to a point, and she felt staked down by it, the hub of an inexorable wheel.

As she was slid into the ambulance, she was so frightened she cried out.

“Gardner, can Madaket ride with me?”

“She’ll follow in the Jeep. I’ll be with you, Joanna.” Gardner stepped into the mechanical cave. The door slammed with a metallic finality. A light flicked on above her, exposing a cargo of instruments, masks, canisters, and rubber hoses.

“I hate all this,” she said.

Gardner held her hands. “It’s new to you, that’s all. And this stuff is all just necessary equipment.” He stopped talking to time her contraction, then launched into an anecdote. “The first twins I ever delivered …”

Joanna listened to Gardner, not really hearing him, but comforted by his presence. He was trying to assuage her fears, and she was grateful to him. They arrived at the hospital; she could tell by the lights and the way the ambulance slowed. Joanna’s heart skidded with a sudden fear. The back doors of the ambulance opened. She grasped Gardner’s hands.

“I’m so frightened,” she whispered.

“You’ll be fine,” he told her. He shouted orders to the ambulance attendants. Then he stepped back and Joanna was lifted out into the night.

In the hospital, for at least an hour, people fussed over her helpless body, taking off her clothes, draping her in a hospital gown, poking and pricking her, squeezing cold gel on her belly. Madaket had been asked to wait in the hall, and from time to time Joanna could see her black hair as she hovered near the doorway.

Gardner returned to the room, garbed in white. He stood at the end of her bed, talking in a low voice to the nurses. He bent over Joanna and listened to her belly, felt her pulse. His hands were strong and clean and efficient.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like the bride of Frankenstein,” Joanna told him, glaring down at the number of tubes and attachments protruding from her body.

Gardner smiled and perched on the side of her bed. “Here’s the situation. You’re in preterm labor, but we’re getting that under control. That IV in your left arm is Terbutaline, which will slow and we hope stop your labor. But it will also make you feel a little jittery, and it will speed up your pulse, so if you notice that, don’t worry. We’ve also injected you with betamethasone, which will help your babies’ lungs mature.”

“—my babies—”

“—are both all right. We’re going to keep the fetal monitor on you so we can chart their heartbeats. We’ve got two strong heartbeats, so your babies are just fine. But your blood pressure’s high and you’ve got a little toxemia, so we need to keep an eye on that. We took some blood so we can check on some things, and we’re running a test to check for protein in your urine. You’ve got a catheter in right now. For the next day or so, I want you to have complete bed rest. And no food, in case you end up going into labor anyway. That IV on your left arm is just sugar water and saline to keep your system in shape.”

“Are my babies in danger?”

“I don’t think so. But we want to give them every extra day we can to develop before they’re born. The best thing you can do for them now is just to rest.”

“Can Madaket stay with me?”

“Would you like that?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t feel so alone here.”

“All right, then. We’ll put her down as your closest relative. And of course if you
need anything, or feel anything that worries you, just press this button.”

“How long will I be in here?”

Gardner shrugged. “We’ll see. A few days to start with until we’re sure everything’s under control. We’ll take it a day at a time. For now, the best thing you can do is rest.”

Joanna dutifully closed her eyes. She heard Madaket come into the room, and when the young woman pulled a chair close to the bed and sank into it, Joanna breathed a sigh of relief and sank into sleep.

Twenty

Joanna lay flat on her back in her hospital room, wired and monitored and charted like some sort of volcanic mound about to erupt. The tubes, needles, IV bags, and all the other shining technological apparatus of lifesaving frightened her at first, yet soon became oddly comforting, reminding her of the cables, meters, microphones, and equipment used in taping
Fabulous Homes
. The hard part for her was simply lying there, a thing, helpless as she drifted in her fate.

During the first five days of her stay, friends came often to visit, Pat or June or Claude, bringing with them fresh air and flowers, but her reaction to even those gentle excitements caused her blood pressure to rise and the nurses to fuss and scowl. Madaket’s presence seemed to soothe her, or at least not to elevate her monitors, so Madaket stayed in the room almost constantly, slipping home to tend the animals when June or Pat came in. Madaket read to her, brushed her hair, or sometimes only sat next to her, watching television. When Joanna woke at night, she found it a great comfort and companionship that Madaket was always there, sleeping on a cot provided by the hospital. When Joanna opened her eyes and looked at Madaket’s sleeping form, the young woman would awaken, too, immediately alert, concerned.

“Joanna, are you all right?” Her eyes would gleam in the dark.

“I’m fine,” Joanna would answer, and they’d both snuggle back into their covers. Madaket would fall back asleep. Joanna could hear the soft rustle of her breathing.

Quietly Joanna would run her hands over her abdomen. The Chorus Girl would kick and the Swimmer roll in reply. Sometimes she envisioned the future: her babies toddling on the beach, the ocean rippling and gleaming in front of them, her perfect house rising behind them like a shield. The Chorus Girl would be a handful: rebellious, difficult, energetic, and obstinate. She would like to dress up in Joanna’s clothes, pretending she was a queen. The Swimmer would be tranquil and poetic, a musical child. He would play with miniature knights and dragons, castles and steeds; he would play piano and baseball and he would swim in the water like a dolphin. Together the three of them would learn to sail.

Many hours Joanna simply slept, but in the long deep center of the nights she
found herself awake, and after reassuring Madaket, and watching Madaket fall back asleep, Joanna would lie staring at the moon-yellow glow of light levitating over the clean swirled linoleum floor of the hallway. She closed her eyes when the nurses came in on their rounds, not wanting to worry them or obligate them to stay to chat with her, and often as these women came near her to check a monitor or tuck in a bit of blanket, the whispering puff of air, scented with perfume and clean womanly flesh, and the exquisitely light sense of an intelligent presence and of concerned, concentrated caring would pass over her just like the gentle brushing of the sleeve of her mother’s quilted peach-hued satin robe had so long ago. Then she would remember being very young, and physically small, so little that her mother could carry her, and did carry her, up the stairs of strange houses and into strange bedrooms. In those days Joanna was allowed to begin her night’s sleep in her mother’s bed, her face pressed into the familiar scent and feel of her mother’s nightgown. Later her mother would come up and move Joanna to another bed, sometimes one in the same room, sometimes in another room, and then she would gently tuck Joanna in with much the same tender vigilance that these nurses showed. Had her own mother loved her with the ferocity Joanna felt for these unborn babies? She must have, Joanna decided, to give up her figure and its seductive powers for nine months and then to take her with her everywhere she traveled.