Mockingbird (6 page)

So I'm watching the baby, and every time she makes for the balcony, I chase her down and lug her awkwardly back into the room with my arms around her chest so she dangles from her armpits. She thinks this is hilarious, and starts running back to the balcony as soon as I put her down, knowing I will come chase her again.

I have just picked up her giggling fat body for the fourth time when there is a terrific crash from my parents' room, a horrible glass-smashing sound. I am so frightened, I drop the baby, who falls
bump
on her bottom. There is a long aching moment of silence. Then another smash from downstairs, and a reek of jasmine and
roses. The Preacher is smashing Momma's perfume bottles.

I remember thinking that Mr. MacReady and any customers in his Garage Mart next door must be hearing this.

I stare at Candace Jane, willing her to silence, praying she won't do anything to draw the Preacher's attention. The baby looks at me with huge eyes, and then—she laughs! Laughs at the drop-go-bump game, and holds out her arms to be picked up so we can play
that
again. The baby grins hugely with her sprinkling of teeth and I love her so much, so desperately. She is everything good in this life and I wish dumbly and hopelessly that I could be like her. The love I feel is so fierce and hurt and huge I have no words for it, I can't see around it or even remember it most of the time, but it's always there. And sometimes I catch that faint cinnamon smell of her, and then I remember.

I got pregnant.

I decided the day after we buried Momma. I made an appointment with a fertility specialist on Monday and started plowing through his literature on artificial insemination. Interestingly, the part where they actually squirt you only costs about a hundred and fifty bucks, plus a surcharge if you use their sperm, as I did, rather than bringing your own supply from home. The real charges mount with the ultrasounds. These are internal rather than external ultrasounds. They are not great fun. The internal monitor is, frankly, penis-shaped. I guess there's no point in reinventing the wheel, but I have to say that when the technician slathered that thing with lubricant and then approached me, I was filled with serious misgivings about the whole procedure. She also banged one of my ovaries while probing around in there. If you are a guy reading this, try giving one of your testicles a sharp rap with a tack hammer to see how that feels.

The purpose of the ultrasounds is to pinpoint the exact time of ovulation. The closer you get, the more ultrasounds they take. It's a lot like playing Battleship. Since each ultrasound runs about a hundred and eighty bucks, charges can mount up. My egg was a bit elusive, so the whole go-around cost nearly thirteen hundred dollars, but the doctor said that a thousand dollars a month was pretty typical. Happily, either my eggs were seething with desire long denied, or else the Widow approved of an increase in the gene line. Whatever the reason, I caught a baby on the very first try.

Why? Why did I rush out and get pregnant? Um, I'm glad you asked me that. Um . . .

Is it too cliched to say that time was passing me by? From the moment Momma died I had felt time blowing past me like the gulf breeze. I had put off
so many things,
waiting for my life to be perfect. Marriage, kids, family.

Or maybe—does this make sense?—I had been afraid to have a life while Momma was alive.

I didn't like to think about that too much. So here I was, carrying a baby of my own, and scared as a sinner in a revival tent. The doctor had promised me that sperm donors were screened for genetic problems, but what about subtle things—alcoholism, a curse in the family, dyslexia? What could you expect from a man who jerked off for money? What if he was the sort of guy who—

No. No. I willed myself not to think about it. It was
my
baby. Nobody else's. Only mine.

It was ridiculous, I guess, to try and keep it a secret, but I did. I used up bereavement leave at work and then pleaded illness when the ultrasound frenzy heated up. I said not one word to Daddy or Candy. Unfortunately, having a sister who can see the future makes it hard to keep a secret. Two months after we buried Momma I asked Candy to help me do some shopping, but the moment I saw her in the mall I knew I was in trouble.

I had asked her to meet me at the ice skating rink in the Galleria, Houston's most expensive shopping district. Hordes of Japanese tourists and Saudi oil barons and rich trashy blondes in concubinage to assorted South American despots troop through the Galleria on a regular basis, looking for outrageously expensive merchandise in the same spirit that drives successful West German businessmen to go on safari in Africa and gun down bull elephants with automatic weaponry.

Candy was sitting on a bench next to three teenagers lacing on skates. She was mad. “You're
pregnant!
” she said, jabbing me in the chest with one accusing finger. Her black hair was done up tight behind her head, with a couple of wispy ringlets framing her face. “You think I need this right now? I have a wedding to plan, Toni. How am I supposed to fit you being pregnant into that?”

“You finally proposed?”

“Well, not yet,” she admitted. “I keep hoping Carlos will think of it himself.”

“Candy!”

“Okay, okay, I'll do it. Anyway, I've already picked the date, September twenty-first. The autumn equinox. I had a friend do a chart for me and it's got great signs.” She paused. “Are you okay? You sort of choked there.”

“I'm fine.”

“Toni? Toni, don't lie to me. What . . .” She hissed. “You're
due
then, aren't you?” She stood with her hands on her hips. “Oh, sure! Go into labor in the church. It has to be a church wedding, of course. La Hag will strangle herself if we aren't married in a church. So what's the date, Toni?”

“The twentieth,” I said weakly. “But with first babies they're usually a week late. Ten days even.”

Candy eyed me coldly. Out of respect for the blue norther that had brought freezing temperatures to Houston that January weekend, she was wearing her version of cold weather gear: soft red leather ankle boots with a one-inch heel, jeans, a black tank top, and over that a bulky black leather bomber jacket with a Sacred Heart of Jesus embroidered over the left breast. The entire back of her coat was dominated by a huge head of Saint Jude, patron of lost causes, from which arrows of angel-light darted forth in every direction.
Carlos
was stitched on the shoulder with scarlet thread. “How are you going to help decorate the church, Toni?”

I backed out of the skate-lacing area, pretending to spot something of interest in the dreadful Baubles & Bijoux across the atrium from us. Candy stalked after me. “You never even told me you were seeing anybody!”

“Bad enough I should have a sex life. But to not tell you! Boy. What nerve.”

“Damn right. You go so long between boyfriends, I'd like to give up hope. You could at least throw me some crumbs.”

A pregnant woman waddled by and I stared at her tummy, mesmerized. “Even normal women get bowlegged,” I said. “What's going to happen to me? Did you know your cartilage actually loosens when you're pregnant? The ligaments and stuff get all wobbly so the baby can get through your pelvis without breaking your hip bones.”

“Don't be gross, Toni.”

“Don't blame me. I didn't design the system. And did you see the flush on that woman's cheeks? That's the ‘glow' people talk about. What it means is that her blood volume has gone up by about forty percent. If she's hot now, what is it going to be like for me in August?”

Candy made a face. “Where did you learn all this stuff?”

“Baby books.”

“Of course.” She looked at me. “You didn't even buy them, did you? You took them out of the library.”

“There's no point in spending money on books you can use for free. What? What! Look, I refuse to be embarrassed about something so stupid.”

Candy laughed. “Then refuse to blush.”

A stroller went by. “Is there a baby convention in town or something?” I muttered. I caught Candy grinning at me. “What is your problem, anyway?”

“Congratulations.” Candy hugged me and kissed me once on each cheek. I hugged her back, wondering what it would feel like to do this when I had a belly the size of a watermelon.

“How many weeks are you?”

“Five today.”

“Wow, Toni. How do you feel? Are you happy about it?”

“I don't know.” The Saturday afternoon crowd had arrived in earnest. Purses jingled, shopping bags rattled, change clattered on counters, children cried and parents shushed them, customers complained and clerks flattered. “Have you ever read a book about being pregnant?” I said. “Do you know how many times you see the word ‘bloat'? Bloat, bloating, bloated. ‘In the eighth month, you may experience further bloating, along with hot flashes, more frequent urination, hair loss, and difficulty breathing.'”

“
Hair loss?
Omigod.”

“Swear to God, Candy, it's like being a Hiroshima survivor.”

(A quick memory of Momma, bald from radiation, the skin on her neck shaking. Forget it. Forget it.)

Another young mom came by pushing a stroller. The hapless baby inside looked like something made from plastic and crushed velour. It had the most amazingly black eyes, peering up from under a ridiculous fluffy cap. I felt my own eyes get damp and my throat constrict. Quickly I turned away. “Anyway, I want to buy some clothes. That's where you fit in.”

Candy snorted. “You need my help to buy a few smocks? Don't get anything tight around the tummy. After that, you have your choice: flowered granola tent dresses, or navy jumpsuits with big bellies.”

“I don't mean maternity clothes. I want pretty clothes. Sexy clothes.”

“You? Why?”

I closed my eyes. “Someday, Candy, I'm going to push you in front of a bus, and you won't even know what you said.”

“What did I say?”

“It just so happens I want to look good, for once. Accept it as a miracle from God and shut up, okay? Put your mind to the problem. And I don't mean I want to look . . . ‘professional,' either. I want to look attractive. The books all say two parents have an easier time than one. So if I can pick up a dad for this kid, so much the better.”

She looked at me, shocked. “But the baby has a father. It's Bill junior's, isn't it?”

“What!”

“But Toni—Toni, I dreamed him playing with the baby! That's how I knew you were pregnant. You and him, and you were still a little fat, you know, from the pregnancy, and he was with you out in the garden. Playing with the baby.”

“Bill junior? Are you sure? Omigod.”

“You mean it isn't his baby?”

I shook my head. “I got artificially inseminated.”

“What!”

Another baby came by: this time a skinned-rabbit-looking kid in a Snugli. He had on the most incredibly cute little checked tam-o'-shanter. The mom's back was to me as she walked past, so I could stare as much as I wanted at the little goggle-eyed alien wobbling on her shoulder. I must have smiled, because the baby smiled back and then burped up a teaspoonful of white slime, just for me.

I tore my eyes away. “It makes perfect sense. I want to have a baby. But if I try to wait for a good father first, I might run out of time before Mr. Right comes along. If I get the baby first, then even if I never find a suitable guy, I've still got a family.” I trailed off as I saw Candy staring at me. “Half a loaf is better than none, right?”

“You've gone crazy,” Candy said. “The shock of Momma's death has thrown you into a mid-life crisis.”

“I'm not crazy, I'm an actuary. It's different. This makes perfect sense.”

Candy began to smile. “What's really cool about it is, you genuinely think you're being reasonable. When in fact you're bent as a three-dollar bill.”

“Candy, I'm thirty years old. Maybe you can get a husband in New York if you're thirty. But here, I'm an old maid. And not an especially pretty one. It's time to play the odds.” I made for the Galleria Directory in front of the stairs. “Bill junior? Are you positive? Maybe it was an ordinary dream that didn't mean anything.”