Sisterland (52 page)

I sat on the floor against the tub, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. From downstairs, I could smell the turkey cooking and hear Jeremy building a fort with the children.

Please, no
, I thought.
And I’ll never tempt fate again. I’ll always be good, for the rest of my life
. Because if I was pregnant yet again and Jeremy was the father, it would be bad enough; I doubted I had more to give, additional reservoirs of patience or attention beyond what Rosie and Owen depleted every day. But if I was pregnant again and Hank was the father, it would be unimaginable; it would be cataclysmic.

It’s impossible, of course, to remember every moment of every day, impossible sometimes to remember
any
moment of a particular day. Certain instants come to stand in for whole swaths of time, and these three minutes, sitting on the bathroom floor on Thanksgiving, my back to the tub, Rosie laughing downstairs, is what I now remember when I think of being pregnant with Gabe. These moments were the last ones in which I didn’t yet know that I was pregnant, or didn’t know for sure, when I still felt a terrified wishfulness. It was when my third pregnancy seemed like an extremely unpleasant hypothetical condition rather than the start of a new life.

When I leaned forward to check the window on the wand, it said pregnant. I swallowed, and I didn’t cry; who did I have to blame but myself? To be pregnant and not to know who the father was, for his identity to be revealed when I delivered either a white baby or a black one—this was a situation from a soap opera.

Before I went downstairs, I peed on the second wand in the package,
and the word pregnant also appeared in its window. Then I returned both wands and their caps to the box, put the box inside an empty diaper package I found in Owen’s room, put the diaper package inside a plastic bag from Target, tied the handles of the Target bag, and carried it downstairs to the kitchen, where I inserted it in the only trash can in the house that had a lid. I mashed down the Target bag with my hand, letting other garbage rise over it—potato peels and wadded paper towels and a soggy piece of toast—and then I joined my husband and children in the living room.

Would this be our last Thanksgiving as a family? I felt as if I were watching Jeremy and Rosie and Owen underwater. Though already, the suspense of my secret had shifted, the belief that being pregnant was the worst possible outcome. Now the worst possible outcome was that Hank was the father. Jeremy and I could deal with a third child that was ours; it would be hard, but plenty of people had three children, and we’d figure it out. If Hank was the father, however, it was not at all clear that Jeremy and I could figure it out, at least not together.

Making the cranberry relish, I vacillated between considering the logistics of our impending meal and wondering if I’d wrecked my life. If I set the table ahead of time, would Rosie grab the utensils? Was it possible to find out who the father was before you gave birth? I’d put out everything except the silverware, I decided.

I set Owen on the dining room rug and pulled the place mats and cloth napkins from the sideboard. Rosie was in the living room watching an episode of
Olivia
, and Jeremy was in the kitchen checking the turkey. “Maybe you should carve it before my dad gets here,” I called to Jeremy. “I feel like he’s been shaky lately.”

Jeremy came to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. “Sure, if you think that’s better. I can do that.” He didn’t move right away
—he
hadn’t guessed that I was pregnant, had he?—and then he said, “I understand why you threw in the towel on Courtney. And I’m not saying you should change your mind. But I kind of miss hanging out with the Wheelings.”

One could, while
still pregnant, learn the identity of the father by two means, depending on how far along the pregnancy was: chorionic villus sampling, or CVS, if you were between your tenth and twelfth weeks—this was, coincidentally, the same procedure that had revealed that Courtney was carrying a baby with Down’s—or amniocentesis after. Both procedures carried a small risk of miscarriage, with the risk being slightly higher with CVS. To confirm paternity, you needed a DNA sample—a swab from inside the mouth, a hair with the follicle still attached—from one of the candidates or their first-degree relatives. In other words, I could root around on Jeremy’s pillow or I could take Rosie or Owen to a lab, options that all seemed treacherous and sordid.

I discovered this information on the Internet at the Richmond Heights library, where I’d gone during Kendra’s babysitting hours the week after Thanksgiving. I could have found out sooner, I could have looked it up on my phone the minute my pregnancy test came back positive, but I didn’t want Jeremy stumbling across my search history. Not that he used my phone, but I didn’t want to worry that this would be the one time he did. Anyway, to not take action on my pregnancy was like not telling Jeremy I’d cheated in the first place: if it meant I had to bear the burden of guilt alone, it also meant my pregnancy wasn’t real to anyone besides me.

From the parking lot of the library, I called Vi, and it was obvious that I’d awakened her. “I have a favor to ask,” I said. “Can I come over?”

When Vi opened her front door, wearing plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a red T-shirt under which she had on no bra, I said, “I’m in a hurry, but I need you to do a reading for me. I’m pregnant again—”

“Good Lord, Fertile Myrtle!”

I shook my head; I wasn’t sharing good news. “Remember the night of your prediction, when you told me I smelled like sex? Well, I’d had it with Hank. And I’m not sure if the baby is his or Jeremy’s, and that’s what I need you to tell me.”

For a full ten seconds, Vi gawked at me, speechless. Then she said, “Holy crap.” After thirty-four years, I had completely shocked my sister,
but there was no satisfaction in the achievement. “I mean—” She blinked several times. “Just—wow. Wow.”

“I know.” Because I couldn’t help myself, I said, “It was only that once. I’ve never cheated on Jeremy besides that, with Hank or anyone else.”

“Does Jeremy know?”

“I’ve gone back and forth about whether to tell him, and it just seems selfish. Or more selfish than not telling.”

“He’ll know if a black baby pops out of your cooter.”

“Well—” I paused. “That’s why I’m here.”

As I followed her into the living room, she said over her shoulder, “If you and Jeremy split up, my faith in heterosexuality will be destroyed.”

Unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears, but I willed them away. “Maybe it should be.”

Before she sat in her lounger, she said, “I’ll help you, but why don’t you just do a reading for yourself?”

“I’m not psychic anymore. You know Nancy’s New Year’s Eve party when we wrote down things we wanted to get rid of and burned them? I did that with my senses.”

Vi looked skeptical but not hostile. “When?”

“After Rosie was in the hospital with her eye thing. Every time a thought came into my head, I didn’t know if it was a normal new mom anxiety or a premonition. I couldn’t live like that.”

“And it worked?” Vi said. “You don’t have senses anymore?”

“For the most part. I mean, apparently, I was wrong about October sixteenth.”

“Well, yes and no. There may not have been an earthquake, but it turns out something huge happened in your own life that night.”

“Yeah, because I
made
something happen.”

“But if you hadn’t sensed you’d cheat, think of how things could have gone with the day-care accident.”

I had groped for this justification in my own mind, but I remained unconvinced. Because really, wasn’t the opposite just as likely? After all, the roads had been less crowded on October 16, which meant the driver of the eighteen-wheeler reached Hanley Road earlier than he otherwise would
have, which was why, when he fell asleep, he crashed into the front room of the day-care center. Under normal circumstances, he’d have been twenty miles back, or ten, or seven; he’d have crashed into a field of grazing cows, or an empty office space for rent, or a sandwich restaurant.

I said, “I think if I want to put the senses to rest, I have to put them to rest. If information comes to me, I can’t exactly stop it, but I shouldn’t try to be psychic.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I thought you’d disapprove.”

“I do.” She looked admiring, though, as she added, “I had no idea you were so good at keeping secrets.”

She settled herself in her lounger, and I sat in the folding chair just to her right. She closed her eyes, and they’d been closed for thirty seconds when she opened them and said, “This’ll be easier if—I know you don’t like this, but is it okay if I ask Guardian?”

I nodded, and she closed her eyes again. This time only two or three seconds passed before she opened them. “How can you be pregnant when you’re still breast-feeding all the time?”

“This is you talking, right? Not Guardian.”

“Yes, this is me.”

“You can ovulate before you get your period. And Owen doesn’t always nurse for that long. He’s eating more and more solid food.”

“Okay, sorry.” She closed her eyes again, then opened them a third time. “Have you told Hank?”

I shook my head. “He and I don’t hang out now.”

“And here I thought they weren’t at Thanksgiving because of me. You think Hank told Courtney you guys did it?”

“I hope not.”

Vi cackled a little. “Oh, you’d know if he had. She’d come to your front door and shoot you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Vi leaned forward and swatted my arm. “Lighten up, Daze. I’m kidding.”

This time when she closed her eyes, she was quiet for several minutes, a
peace overtaking her features. She didn’t speak aloud—I had wondered if she would, and she didn’t—but I still knew when she’d made contact with Guardian. I felt the presence in the room, and Vi was right, it was a presence entirely different from the one that had been there when Marisa Mazarelli and I had used the Ouija board. This was a compassionate presence, a protective one—it was wise and calm, like an older relative or a boss who has great affection for you while recognizing that the calamities in your life aren’t as significant as you believe them to be. I had never imagined I’d think so, but abruptly I was glad that Vi had had this companionship all these years; it meant that even when we’d grown apart while I was at Mizzou, even during our fights, even when I’d married Jeremy and she hadn’t yet met Stephanie, she had never, I understood now, been alone.

When she finally looked at me again, her expression was so carefully composed, so sympathetic, that I knew immediately.

Gently, she said, “If you got pregnant on October sixteenth, you’re not that far along.”

“I can’t get an abortion,” I said. “I just can’t.”

“I could go with you. I once went with Nancy.”

“Nancy had an abortion?” Then I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“Jeremy is as supportive as they come, but if you say to him—”

“I know.”

We both were quiet, and she said, “Some mixed-race people have really light skin. Remember that guy Kent I used to work with at Trattoria Marcella?”

“Believe me, I’ve been telling myself that.”

She squinted. “Are you pro-life?”

“You know how Courtney Wheeling miscarried? Well, she didn’t miscarry. They found out the baby had Down’s, and she had an abortion. And at the time, I thought that I wouldn’t have done it if I were her, so how can I live with myself aborting a healthy baby?” After a few seconds, I said, “Is this a healthy baby?”

“Guardian didn’t give any indications to the contrary. But, Daze, it’s
totally normal to disapprove of what other people do until you’re in the same situation.” Vi grinned. “It’s one of my hobbies. And it’s not like you rented a billboard and publicly declared that Courtney is a bad person.”

“I just can’t.”

“But will you share custody with the Wheelings? Half the week at your house, half at theirs?”

“I don’t know.” I stood up. I hadn’t even removed my coat. “I should go. Thanks for this.”

“Hold on.” Vi was still sitting. “Want to know the sex?”

This seemed such a peripheral piece of information at that moment, so inconsequential, but when she told me, it started to make the baby real.

She said, “It’s another boy. Hey, it’s not too late to finish that blanket I started for Owen.”

I read to
Rosie before bed, and she sat on my lap. When I was turning a page, she pointed to my left hand and said, “What’s those on Mama?”

“They’re my knuckles.” I held up my right hand, making a fist. “I have them on my other hand, and you have them, too.”

Her plump little toddler hands—they would soon vanish. They’d vanish along with her fixation on the baloney puzzle piece, her pronunciation of lion as “nion” and bathing suit as “babing suit,” her fondness for holding up individual strands of spaghetti at dinner and making them dance. Rosie wasn’t yet three, and already her babyhood was forever irretrievable.

She wiggled her fingers. “Rosie have knuckles.”

“That’s right.”