Mixed Blessings (21 page)

"No, but I'd like it," she said sadly, as she looked at him, and he put an arm around her shoulders.

"So would I. But I won't risk what we have for it. And I don't want you to either." He knew from others that the process could become so obsessive it could destroy a marriage, and that was the last thing he wanted after waiting so long to marry her. What they had was just too precious.

She was still thinking about what he'd said as she sat staring into space at her desk the next morning. She had dutifully taken her temperature the moment she woke up, and before getting up to go to the bathroom, and charted it neatly on the graph that came with the thermometer. She had done the LH kit right before she went to work.

That took a little more time, juggling a urine cup and half a dozen tiny little vials of chemicals in her bathroom. But the results showed that her LH surge hadn't occurred yet, which meant she wasn't ready to ovulate.

Brad was right. It did seem complicated for something that should be simple.

"What are you looking so unhappy about?" Alice Jackson asked as she walked by Pilar's office.

"Oh . . . nothing . . . just thinking . . ." She sat up, and tried to forget what she'd been mulling over, but it wasn't easy.

All she seemed to think about these days was getting pregnant.

"It doesn't look like a happy thought." Alice stopped for a moment  
 
with her arms full of files. She was researching a difficult case for her husband.

"It is a happy thought, just not an easy one," Pilar said softly.

"How's your case coming?"

"We're almost ready for trial, thank God. I'm not sure I could go through another six months of this." But they both knew she would if she had to. She loved working with Bruce, and doing research for him.

Sometimes it made Pilar wonder what it would have been like to work with Brad. But she couldn't imagine it, much as she valued his advice.

They were both too definite in their styles, too strong in their opinions. They were great as husband and wife, but she suspected they would have been considerably less so as partners. She was more of a bleeding heart than Brad, and she liked taking on difficult, near impossible cases, and then winning them, preferably for the underdog.

There was still a lot of public defender in her. Brad, on the other hand, had never stopped being a D.A or so she said, when they argued about the law. But most of the time, the arguments were pretty friendly.

The telephone rang before she could continue her conversation with Alice Jackson about her case, and then her intercom buzzed, and their receptionist told her it was her mother.

"Oh, God," she said, and she hesitated, wondering if she should even take the call. Alice saluted her and moved on, with her arms full of briefs for Bruce. "Okay, I'll take it," she said into the intercom, and then pressed the button on the line that was lit. It was noon in New York, and Pilar knew that her mother had been working for five hours by then at the hospital, she'd be ready for a quick lunch, and then another five or six hours of patients. She was tireless, and she set a gruelling pace, still at her age. Brad had said more than once that it was an encouraging omen for Pilar, and she always rather less charitably suggested that her mother was too driven to slow down, and too mean to quit; it had nothing to do with omens.

"Hi, Mom," she said casually, wondering why she'd called.

She usually waited for Pilar to call her, even if it took a month or more. Pilar wondered if she was coming out for another convention.

"How are you?"

"Fine. There's a heat wave in New York today. It's incredibly hot. Thank heavens our office air conditioning is still on. How are you and Brad?"

"Buried in work, as usual." And trying to have a haby. The vision of her mother's face if she knew actually made her smile, as she continued the conversation. "We've both been pretty busy. Brad's been on a long case, and half of California seems to have come through my office this month."

"At your age, you should strive for the bench, like your father and Brad. You don't need to be handling cases for all of California's liberal rilfraff." Thank you, Mother. The call was typical of most of their exchanges. Questions, reproaches, mild accusations, tangible disapproval. "You know, your father was on the bench when he was quite a bit younger than you are. And he was appointed to the Court of Appeals at your age-it was quite an honor."

"Yes, I know it was, Mother. But I like what I do. And I'm not sure this family is ready for two judges. Besides, most of my clients are not liberal riifraff." But she was annoyed at herself even for trying to defend herself, her mother always provoked her to do that.

"From what I understand, you're still defending the same people you were defending in the public defender's office."

"No, fortunately, most of these have more money. So how about you? Busy in the office?"

"Very. I've appeared in court myself twice recently, testifying in cases that involved neurological injuries. It was very interesting. And of course, we won both cases." Humility was not one of Elizabeth Graham's strong suits and never had been, but at least she was predictable, which made her easier to deal with.

"Of course," Pilar said vaguely. "I'm sorry . . . I've really got to get to work. I'll call you soon . . . take care." She hurried her off the phone with the same feeling of defeat she always had when she talked to her mother. She never won, her mother never approved, Pilar never got what she wanted. But the sheer stupidity of it was that she had known for years that she wouldn't. Therapy had taught her that long since. Her mother was who she was, and she was not going to change. It was Pilar who had to change her expectations. And for the most part, she had, but there were still moments, like when she called, that Pilar expected her to be someone different. She was never going to be the cozy, sympathetic, warm-hearted loving mather Pilar had always wanted. And her father had been much the same. But she had Brad for that now, for all the loving and support and kindness she had craved for so long and never had, and when she needed the illusion of a mother near at hand, she had Marina for that, and so far neither of them had ever failed her.

She called Marina that afternoon, during a recess in court, to thank her for the referral to Helen Ward, and Marina was pleased that she had liked her.

"What did she say? Was she encouraging?"

"Pretty much. At least she didn't say what my mother did, that I'm way too old and we'll have deformed children. She I said it might take some time and a little effort."

"I'm sure Brad will be happy to oblige," the older woman teased, in sharp contrast to the retort Pilar would have gotten from her mother.

"He suggested as much himseu" Pilar laughed. "And she gave me some pills, but they may or may not work. The bottom line on all this is that there's hope, but I ain't no spring chicken."

"Who is? Just remember my mother . . . last baby at fiftytwo ."

"Stop that. Every time you remind me of that, you scare me. Promise me I'll at least be under fifty."

"I will promise you no such thing." Marina laughed good naturedly.

"And if the good Lord means for you to get pregnant at ninety, you will. Just read the Enquirer, for heaven's sake."

"You're a big help. This is not a freak show, Judge Goletti, this is my life . . . or Is it? My mother called today, that's always fun."

"What little bits of good cheer did she share with you today?"

"Nothing much. A heat wave in New York, and a reminder that my father was my age when he was appointed to the Court of Appeals."

"Oh, you dismal failure. I had no idea. . . . How nice of her to remind you."

"I thought so too. She thinks I ought to try for your job, by the way."

"So do I. But that's another conversation, and right now I have to get back out there, and be a judge. I've got a felony drunk-driving case this afternoon that I could live very happily without. The defendant walked out of his completely demolished car unscathed, having just killed a thirty-year-old pregnant woman and her three children. Fortunately, there's a jury, and they'll have to make the decision."

"Sounds like a rough one," Pilar said sympathetically. She loved their exchanges, their conversations, their friendship. She was never disappointed in Marina.

"We can have lunch, if you're not too busy."

"I'll call you."

"Thanks. Bye." They hung up, and they both went back to work.

They never had time to have lunch that week, or the following one.

They were just too busy, and so was Pilar until Brad suggested they go away for a few days, to a very romantic little hotel he knew in the Carmel Valley. As he referred to it now, it was "blue week." Her LH, or luteinizing hormones, were about to surge, and she was going to ovulate within the next day or two. And Brad thought it might be nicer to go away to deal with the event, rather than stay home and field crises on the bench, and in her office. But by the time they got to the hotel, they had both had such a difficult few days at work, that they were both exhausted.

And it was a relief to be alone in luxurious surroundings, just to be together and talk and think, without the interruption of telephones, or an avalanche of briefs and memos.

And in spite of the hectic days that had preceded their trip, they had a good time cruising the antique shops in Carmel. He even bought her a small, very pretty painting. It was of a mother and child on a beach at dusk; it had an impressionist flavor, and she loved it. She knew if she got pregnant now, that painting would always have special meaning for her.

They went back to Santa Barbara after two days, happy and relaxed, and convinced that they'd done it this time. She was almost sure of it, she told Brad. Until she got her period again the following month, and had to start taking the chlomiphene.

And it did exactly what the doctor had said it would. It made her feel wound up as tight as a watch spring. She was ready to jump at everything Brad said, and she wanted to strangle her secretary at least six times daily. She had to control herself not to lash out verbally at her clients. And she almost lost control of herself arguing with a judge in the courtroom. Just controlling her temper was suddenly a full-time job. And she had a constant sense of exhaustion from the medication.

"This is fun, isn't it?" she said to Brad. "You must really love it."

She had been hideous to him for two weeks and she could barely stand herself, let alone understand how he could stand her. It was a lot worse than she'd thought it would be, but it was worth it if she had a baby.

"It's worth it if it helps," he reassured her. But the trouble was that, once again, it didn't. They had been trying for five months by then, and the following month Dr. Ward had scheduled them for artificial insemination, the week before Thanksgiving.

They had discussed it with her at great length, before deciding to try it, and she had assured them she thought it might make a difference.

What she wanted to do was increase Pilar's dose of chlomiphene that month to twice the dose she'd been taking-which wasn't great news to Pilaro an ultrasound just before ovulation to check the development of her follicle, give her a shot of another hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin, or HCG, the night before she ovulated, and then perform an intrauterine insemination, delivering the sperm directly into the uterus, making the meeting of sperm and egg that much easier, and perhaps that much better.

Pilar wasn't crazy about taking the drugs. She was already unbearably tense on the amount she was taking, but Helen Ward assured her it was worth a try, and they made a reservation at the Bel Air for two days, on what they believed were the right dates, based on what they could expect from the drugs, and what they had learned from her temperatures. And Dr. Ward warned them not to make love for three days before, so as not to deplete Brad's sperm count.

"I feel like a race horse in training," he teased as they drove to L.A.

And by then Pilar felt almost human again. She had taken the last dose of chiomiphene five days before, and she was just beginning to feel like herself again, a small gift for which she was now extremely grateful. Just having a day when she didn't feel as though her head were going to blow off, and she didn't have a fight with Brad, had suddenly become very important.

They went straight to the doctor's office when they reached L.A and the doctor did a transvaginal ultrasound to examine her ovaries, and she was pleased with what she found. She gave Pilar the HCG shot immediately after that, and asked them to come back at noon the next day, which left them a whole afternoon and night free to do anything they wanted, except make love. And they were both surprised to find that they felt excited and anxious.

"Maybe by tomorrow I'll be pregnant," she whispered, and that afternoon he bought her a beautiful antique diamond pin, in the form of a small heart, at David Orgell on Rodeo Drive, and then they went down the street to shop at Fred Hayrnan. It was an extravagant afternoon, but they were both on a high, and terrified that it might turn into a down before they knew it.

They had drinks at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and dinner at Spago and then went back to the Bel Air, and walked quietly through the gardens, watching the swans, before they went to bed. And they both lay there awake for a long time, thinking about tomorrow.

The next morning, they were both nervous when they left the hotel, and Pilar was shaking as they got in the elevator of Helen Ward's building.

"Isn't this stupid?" she whispered to Brad. "I feel like a kid about to lose her virginity," she said, and he smiled. He was edgy too. He didn't like the idea of having to produce the semen in the doctor's office. The doctor had assured them that Brad could take as long as he wanted to, and Pilar was welcome to help. But the whole idea seemed incredibly embarrassing, and they were both dreading it. But they were both surprised by how smoothly it went once they reached her office.

They were ushered in through a separate door, into a private room that looked more like a well-appointed hotel room.