Mermaid: A Memoir of Resilience (40 page)

And here’s the best part: even when he’s taking up a good chunk of space, he’s inviting me in and is not too concerned about where I’ll fit. Leave it to him: Andy always makes it work.

From the rim of the Circle of Doom I watched him dance and couldn’t help but notice his dreamy smile, even as my older siblings eyed him suspiciously. The younger ones cheered him on: Ted, Nina, and then Isabela, who already adored Andy because he could carry on a respectable conversation with her mother in Spanish. The simplicity with which Andy fit in overwhelmed me. Who would have thought that love could be this easy?

I had to consider that Mom’s absence played some role in the success of Andy’s introduction to my family. She had stopped flying after her trip to Las Vegas when Frank died. I felt sad for Tim and Isabela that Mom couldn’t be here; for myself, I was relieved.

I was wearing a black silk dress that dipped into a V in back accompanied by a sheer scarf with a red-and-black leopard print. The saleslady in a boutique in Georgetown showed me how to drape it over my shoulders. “See, it draws attention to your back and shoulders and those sculpted arms of yours.”
Sculpted?
Until then I’d seen them as more along the lines of Popeye’s sister.

I lifted my slinky skirt and stepped into the Circle of Doom with Andy. I raised the leopard-print scarf over my head and slid it across my shoulders, which raised goose bumps all over my body. I looped it around Andy’s neck, pulling him to me. His arms steadied me, and his breath was on my cheek. When I looked up at him, we kissed.

I had told Andy very little about my family. How could I explain our complex relationships? None of that mattered to him. He enjoyed those who reached out. If others snubbed him, he ignored them. From Andy I was learning how to create a neutral space with my family.

That night in bed, I reminded myself how lucky I was to have met this man. I’d been drawn to his mustache, and yet when it disappeared I hadn’t even noticed. I sat up and asked, “When did you shave off your mustache?”

“That thing,” he murmured sleepily. “Long time ago.”

“Why did you shave it off?” I shook his shoulder. “I loved it.”

“Are you joking?” he asked, opening his eyes. “That mustache made me look like a car salesman.”

“Hey,” I said, poking him in the chest. “My family is full of car salesmen.”

“And your point is?”

I bit the inside of my mouth so he wouldn’t see me laughing at his comment. Still, I had to admire his poker face.

O
n the eleventh anniversary of my father’s death, Valentine’s Day, I came home from one of my first days in private practice to find Andy boiling a lobster. He had turned down offers at universities in Brazil and Singapore so that he could move in with me in Arlington. He would open the employment pages of the
Chronicles of Higher Education
only to remember that he had a curry dish he needed to make. Recently he’d planted a magnet on the refrigerator with a picture of James Dean that said “Rebel without a Job.”

This period of unemployment might have taken a toll on both of us except that we were having so much fun. We loved the same things: travel, music, art, swimming, films, books, and cooking, especially cooking for other people. In the fall, we’d rented a tandem to bike around the neighborhood. Then we tried rollerblades.

Occasionally a friend at the State Department would give Andy work as a contractor. Andy helped open libraries in Latvia and Kazakhstan. In Almaty, he was awarded an honorary doctorate and brought home a hand-woven carpet. The migraines he’d endured throughout his teaching career were gone, and I was sleeping better than ever. If Andy was troubled about his career during the day, by sundown he was boiling black beans to Afro-Cuban music.

I’d never met anyone so handy. He patched flat tires and unclogged drains. At this rate, I told myself, he might turn out to be the kind of man who would stay up all night to fix my broken leg. There had to be a catch. We were two people who had previously and separately jammed ourselves into lives that required too much planning; together, we were now careering toward a place called Slapdash, only we were doing it with contented stomachs.

Along with a lobster dinner on that Valentine’s Day, Andy presented me with a ring. He had already given me a garnet ring from Brazil, and now he slipped a sapphire onto my left hand. We had agreed that we wouldn’t get married until he had a job, but he was letting me know that he was working toward a wedding band.

At two in the morning he shook me awake. “Let’s go see Hale–Bopp,” he said.

“Take a picture,” I said. “I’m sleeping.”

Soon we were gliding onto the G. W. Parkway, following the Potomac south in the Mazda 626 for which I’d traded my Miata. This sedan suited us better. When you are hurling toward Slapdash, it’s best to have four doors and a few safety features.

Andy pulled into a parking lot by a monument to soldiers lost at sea. The nearest light came from across the river, the Jefferson Memorial. Above us was clear sky, stars visible. “This is the perfect spot,” he said, climbing out of the car.

I opened the door and my nostrils burned from the cold air. “I’m freezing,” I said. “I’ll just watch from the car.” Then I shut the door and fell asleep.

Andy scanned the heavens with binoculars. When he spotted the comet he tapped at the window, waking me up. “There it is!” he shouted.

“Where?”

He opened the door and pointed up at the sky.

“I don’t see it,” I said, climbing out.

After steadying my shoulders, he placed the binoculars in my hands. “Follow my finger,” he said. Eventually I found a two-tailed fireball swimming across a navy sky speckled with starlight. He tucked his arms around my waist and we took turns with the binoculars.

Back at the apartment, we threw off our coats and climbed into bed. I hadn’t bothered to change from my pink and white flannel pajamas to go out, and I was ready for sleep. Andy had another idea.

“But it’s that time of month,” I said.

“Perfect. We won’t need the diaphragm.”

I can still feel myself there, in that moment, on my lopsided, antique bed. That I can remember this one-in-a-zillion of the times we’ve made love is no coincidence. I will never forget these four things: it all started on Valentine’s Day; we were going to get married; we had just seen Hale–Bopp; and it was the only time in my life that I’d agreed to unprotected sex. Ever.

Six weeks after Hale–Bopp, I struggled to take it in: that a woman could get pregnant while in the middle of her period. Mom wasn’t lying. Maybe we both ovulated twice a month. Why was it that the most absurd of her warnings often came true? She’d tell me on a September morning when I was already sweating in my Saint Vivian blazer, “You better put on a coat.” And I’d say, “No way,” as I pushed through the screen door to leave. Halfway to school, I’d be shivering.

When I told Mom my news about the baby, she said, “We Fanger gals have the heftiest uteruses in the world. Count on it! When are you getting married?”

W
e “eloped” to the Homestead in Warm Springs, Virginia, on Andy’s birthday, a clear spring day in April. Redbuds bloomed in a forest of bare tree limbs with air sweetened by honeysuckle. I wore a twenties-style dress and walked a tulip-lined path to meet Andy and the local justice of the peace. We stood under an arbor of wisteria not yet in bloom.

For two days we celebrated in bliss. We had our first argument as a married couple while we walked the trails around a golf course and bantered over names for the baby. Here I discovered the curse of marrying a man with tastes nearly identical to mine. He is every bit the contrarian that I am: if I said Iris, he said Lily.

That night, we watched the Masters tournament at Sam Snead’s Tavern. An older man came in and took the booth next to ours. “That’s him,” whispered Andy.

“Who?”

“Sam Snead.”

We started a conversation with the golfer, who said he’d just flown in from Augusta. Our argument over Iris versus Lily was forgotten as we stared open-mouthed while Sam Snead watched Tiger Woods win his first Masters. Our food arrived, and we looked at our dinners as if we’d forgotten why we came. Then Andy said something that I would think back on again and again over the years, reminding myself of why I fell in love with him. As long as I’ve known him, he would look into the future and see a happy ending. He leaned toward me as we watched history unfolding on the television and said, “Can you believe it? We’re witnessing the birth of a new era.”

By May, each day greener than the last, we faced the genetics clinic at the George Washington University Hospital. In an exam room lit only by the flurry of white jackets and a sonogram screen, a physician made his way through about ten interns and medical students. My bladder swollen from the water I had to drink for the sonogram, I lay on my back, belly exposed to the crowd. I was less self-conscious than I was nervous about the results. What would we do if this baby had no legs or arms? What if Mom was telling the truth?

The doctor took my right hand to shake it, and just as quickly picked up my claw hand to study it. “This is very nice work on the plastic surgery,” he said.

“I was a baby when most of it was done.” My hand shook from the freezing temperature in the room, but the doctor squeezed it gently in his warm palm.

“Eileen, I trained in Germany and saw a lot of babies affected by thalidomide. Your hand is convincing, especially here, where there were once webs.” He opened his palm and pointed to the spaces between my fingers, where thin braids of scar tissue remained as evidence of them. “I think you’re going to finally have an answer. We’ll send the results from the CVS soon. In the meantime, let’s see what the sonogram shows us.”

He nodded to the technician, who dabbed cold gel on my stomach before moving the wand over it. Andy stepped closer to rub my shoulder, and I leaned into him. There was a lot that I couldn’t make out onscreen.

“I don’t see it, do you?” I said, nudging Andy. “What are we supposed to see? Is there a baby in there?”

“Right here,” said the technician, pointing to a fishlike form swimming back and forth, flipping and kicking.

“What was that?” I asked. “A foot?”

Andy wasn’t talking. I looked up at his face. He was already in love with that baby goldfish. I could tell by his silence. This is where we are totally different. When falling in love, I tend to babble and quiver, whereas Andy freezes.

The technician zoomed in on the legs and arms, then hands. She counted the fingers. “All ten are there,” she said. “And look at that,” she pointed. “It’s a foot. And that’s the other.” She wrote “FEET” on the screen and took a snapshot. “Your souvenir from the genetics clinic.”

“I knew this would go well,” said Andy in a hoarse whisper, while I swallowed my tears and silently thanked the universe.

As Andy faced fatherhood, he decided to abandon his search for a university teaching position. He cashed in his pride for a paycheck from a temp agency and was given a data entry job. I arrived home one evening ahead of him and found the letter from the genetics clinic in our mailbox. Despite every intention of waiting for Andy to come home, I stepped out of the elevator and ripped into the envelope, scrolling down the page in the hallway. It said there was no sign of any defective-genetic blah blah blah in our ... baby girl. Girl? In my hand I held the news for which I’d been waiting more than thirty years. The torment was over. My baby would be fine. I was cheering out loud in the hallway.

By the time I made it into the apartment she already had a name: Ania Sophia. Andy was thrilled to hear the good news, and he quickly agreed to this name. From then on, the pregnancy became a humbling experience. We were supposed to go to Cincinnati to have a small party to celebrate our wedding. Mom put Liz in charge and Liz hired Colette to cater a dinner party. But the baby lodged herself right on my sciatic nerve. Pain riveted down my spine into my hip and leg. I had to crawl to the bathroom. The doctor said I couldn’t fly or tolerate a long car ride. We had to miss our own party.

The situation resolved itself, and next my cervix began to dilate. Now the doctor ordered total bed rest. By then we’d bought a house. Andy had found a full-time technology job, his launching point for what would become a successful career in financial exchange.

Ania came two weeks early, at six pounds. She had an inch of black hair, monkey down all over her body, the strongest legs of any baby I’d ever held, and Frankie’s almond eyes. “Caramela,” she would be called by a Guatemalan boy from our neighborhood. I had just breastfed Ania for the first time when Andy fell asleep. Exhausted, I closed my eyes and started to sleep until I remembered the baby. She might fall out of the bed, or I might smother her. I tried to call for the nurse, but I couldn’t find the button. When I sat up I found my bed drenched in blood. I screamed for Andy.

In seconds, a nurse was hooking me up to a monitor while Andy, holding Ania, backed away from an expanding crowd, his skin ashen. Ania peered down at me from his arms, attentive as a grandmother in a baby blanket. Already she seemed to know who we were and how we fit together. Above me a monitor read 73 over 37. I thought my eyes were inverting numbers. “Is that my blood pressure?” I asked the nurse to my right. “Am I going to die?” The nurse didn’t answer. I closed my eyes.

I might have remembered that I’d once visited Heaven. I was about four when Rosa and Bridget blindfolded me and twirled me around before lifting me to Heaven. Actually, they took me through an opening from Rosa’s closet to the attic. When they lifted my blindfold I faced Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, and a few wise men, all of whom looked similar to my older sisters and cousins enrobed in blankets. The Virgin Mary, who looked like Bridget, held a baby who looked like Ted.

“Eileen, you are in Heaven,” said a wise man in a voice similar to Rosa’s.

Now I opened my eyes and watched a group of men and women in scrubs staring down at me, hands working, lips moving, and Ania’s little face peeking down from over their shoulders. Andy swayed back and forth while he held her, already comfortable with the baby. One of the nurses called out for a drug. Someone else took off running, and seconds later the first one injected me. Everyone grew silent. My contractions slowed down, which brought the hemorrhaging to a stop. My blood pressure picked up. Frazzled energy gave way to relief. Someone rubbed my arm, assurance that I was still there. When I looked up, I found my family smiling down at me.