Kindred Spirits (34 page)

Drake’s car was in the driveway when Mary Kay returned from the grocery store, her arms loaded down with brown shopping bags. Setting the bags on the counter, she removed the black velvet box and placed it on the kitchen table next to the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers, as if it were an ordinary, yet essential, spice of life.

She resisted the temptation to slip the ring on her finger and continue the merry charade. They could pop open a bottle of champagne and celebrate tonight, call their friends and spread the news. The nurses on her floor would ooh and ahh and declare themselves green with envy since Drake was the last of the stand-up guys.

There’d be a whirl of engagement parties and extravagant planning, a fabulous wedding filled with kisses and good cheers, followed by a romantic honeymoon, just Drake and her on a beach. It had taken years to accept that she would always be the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Yet, by some fluke of providence, she’d been handed all that had been missing in her life and now, due to her own insecurities, she was throwing it away.

Drake strolled into the kitchen as she unpacked the groceries. He’d gone for a run in the dark and his blue T-shirt sported a
V
of sweat. She took a mental picture of him like this, to save for when she was old and alone.

“You’re back!” He grabbed her and kissed her, not caring that he was sweaty and hot. “You are a sight for sore eyes, my MK.” Then he reached down and took her left hand. “Where is it?”

She waved toward the table.

Drake glanced at the box, then at her, then at the box again, his eyes questioning, confused. “I thought we were OK?”

She couldn’t stand to see him like this. Stepping away, she sat in the kitchen chair and said, “We have a problem.”

“Whatever it is, MK, we can work it out.” He took the seat opposite her, his fingers splayed on the table, ready for action.

“Maybe. Or maybe not.” She focused on the sugar bowl, running her finger around the rim. “Drake, I can’t get pregnant. I’m infertile.”

There was a pause and then he let out a short bark of laughter. “Is that it? Is that all? Shit, Mary Kay. Like I told you yesterday, I’m not marrying your uterus. I’m marrying
you.
”

She could stop right there and laugh, too. She’d let Drake call her silly and make hopeful promises about moving heaven and earth to have a baby someday. She could marry him knowing that she had performed due diligence, executed full disclosure, but she could not go to bed with him every night and look him in the eye every morning knowing that she had withheld the whole truth.

“There’s more. I’ve known this for quite a while.”

Drake quit grinning. “How long?”

“Remember when you found my birth-control pills?”

“A couple of days ago?”

She knew he’d say that. “Two years ago, when we first started sleeping together. You seemed so surprised that I needed to take them.”

“You knew then?”

“Years before that. When Tiffany was nine or so, I came down with a pelvic infection, my second one. Lynne had to rush me to the ER and . . .”

“But Tiff’s twenty-three now.”

“I know.” She twisted the sugar bowl lid. “Later that year, I had a laparoscopy and it was confirmed that both my fallopian tubes were scarred tight.”

He sat back, running his hands through his hair, trying to absorb this. “You mean, for fourteen years you’ve known that . . . Then what were the birth-control pills for?”

“So I wouldn’t get pregnant.”

“But . . .”

“If you get pregnant when your fallopian tubes are scarred, the embryo won’t make it to the uterus. It’ll be an ectopic pregnancy and, if not caught soon enough, it’ll end in bleeding, most likely surgery and, in extreme cases, death.

“That said, I quit taking the Pill when I turned forty for health reasons, figuring the odds of not getting pregnant were in my favor. And they were. We’ve been having unprotected sex for two years, so”—she rapped her knuckles on the table—“knock on wood.”

“You haven’t quit taking them, though. You take them every day.” He said this with such sincerity, Mary Kay wanted to duck under the table.

“No.” She lifted her gaze from the sugar bowl. “You thought I was taking them. I wanted you to think I was taking them. So you’d keep on believing I could get pregnant.”

He rested his elbows on the table, squeezing his head like a vise. “This doesn’t make any sense. I find the pills. You don’t say a word. Then what did you do with them?”

“Washed them down the drain.” She winced. “I’m sorry, Drake. It started on a whim. I just should have told you in the beginning.”

“I agree.” He was breathing deeply now. “Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me? A past criminal conviction? An ex-husband?”

“Geesh, Drake. No. There’s nothing else.”

“How do I know?” He slapped the table. Never had she seen him so angry. “You go through all the trouble of buying birth-control pills and washing them down the drain for two years and I’m supposed to believe that you’re an honest person, that you’re not the slightest bit manipulative?”

She closed her eyes. “Please. It was wrong. I know it was wrong. I knew it was wrong from the get-go.”

“Then why would you do it, MK? Why would you intentionally deceive me?”

“Because I loved you.” She summoned the courage to face him straight-on. “And I was afraid you’d leave me.”

“If I thought you couldn’t get pregnant.”

“Right.” God. It sounded so ridiculous now. Something out of a bygone era.

“That’s pathetic, Mary Kay. That makes you seem like a shrew and like I’m some sexist pig who views women as breeders.”

“I know.” She rested her head on the table. “You don’t have to tell me, I know.”

He pushed back his chair, the legs scraping the wooden floor. “You’re right,” he said, snatching the velvet box off the table. “We can’t get married now.” He headed to the door and stopped. “You know, I was already in love with you before I came across those damn pills. And by the way, I don’t know what was going on in your head, but I didn’t think twice about them.”

Just as she’d feared.

“I thought we were building a foundation for the future. But whatever we built was on nothing, Mary Kay. Nothing but lies. And that’s no way to start a life together.”

Forcing herself not to cry, she listened to his footsteps march upstairs then jog downstairs. He’d gotten a few things, she suspected, as he grabbed his keys with a jangle and closed the front door with a slam.

For a while, all she could do was rest her head against the cool wooden table and let the tears flow. She didn’t bother turning on the lights aside from the ones in the kitchen. There was no point.

Finally, she went back to the groceries and dug her hand into the bottom of the bag until her fingers landed on the oblong box. She read the directions and carried it into the bathroom, ripping open the foil wrapper with her teeth.

The last time she’d taken a pregnancy test had been before she came down with the pelvic infection, in the 1980s when you had to wait until the morning (in addition to several weeks) after your last period.

Mary Kay couldn’t remember when she last had her period. She’d stopped keeping track of that sort of thing long ago. Out of sight, out of mind was her philosophy—until this weekend when the typical symptoms of pregnancy began to haunt her and she couldn’t put it out of mind anymore. What if her lackadaisical attitude toward birth control and her cavalier assumption that the chances of conceiving were nil had been a mistake?

What if the nausea and fatigue and cramping weren’t simply stress, but signs that she might be suffering from an ectopic pregnancy?

Anxiously, she set the plastic dipstick on the sink as she washed her hands, her blood going cold as the pink line turned from a minus sign into a plus.

J
eff and Carol were drinking their coffee in the sunroom, lingering until the absolute last minute when they had to take showers and get to work. Carol sat in her familiar rocking chair by the window overlooking the lake while Jeff, as usual, sat on the floor, various sections of
The New York Times
spread out in a fan.

Quiet moments like this used to bore her stiff. Jeff hardly spoke, except when he read an occasional snippet, and those were hardly breaking news. Did she know that squirrels could turn their ankles in a 180-degree angle? Or that, according to Paul Krugman, they actually were in a depression? She used to grit her teeth and count the minutes until she could hop the train.

This morning, however, each tidbit was a treasure to her ears. She sipped her coffee and rocked as Jeff moved from the front page to the financial section and finally op-ed. This was what Lynne meant when she spoke about finding the joy in little things, the hummingbird at the feeder, the yellowtail butterfly on the lilac. Krugman prophesying the economic doom of humanity.

With the sun rising over the lake, Carol couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so at peace.

Jeff had just gotten up to take a shower when her cell rang. According to her last message, Amanda was supposed to call twenty minutes from the station to say if she was on her way. But it wasn’t Amanda. It was Mary Kay.

“Beth’s dad had a heart attack,” she said breathlessly.

Carol put down her cup, alarmed in light of Chat’s questionable test results. “Is he OK?”

“Apparently, he’s fine. Marc came over to the house yesterday to drop off some movies and, smart guy that he is, noticed Chat’s color was off. They called 911 and, sure enough, he was in the beginning stages of a mild heart attack. I guess they did some emergency open-heart surgery at Grace and, for now, all systems go.”

Carol clasped a hand to her chest, relieved. Beth had fretted all weekend about leaving her father. If something awful had happened in her absence, she’d probably never survive the guilt. “Thank God.”

“I know. I’m headed to the hospital now. After I’m done, I’ll check in at ICU and see how they’re doing.”

“I thought you didn’t have to work today,” Carol said, wondering if she should stop by too before taking the train to New York.

“I don’t.” Mary Kay sighed. “I took a test last night, Carol. Remember all those stomach issues I had on the trip? Turns out it wasn’t car sickness. I’m pregnant.”

Carol let out a squeal. “That’s fantastic! After all that handwringing about not being able to . . .”

“It’s not fantastic. It’s bad,” she said tightly. “It’s why I should have stayed on the Pill. It’s ectopic, and that’s why I’m at Grace, for an ultrasound. I just hope it’s not too late and they can treat it with drugs.”

Ectopic pregnancy was dangerous, Carol knew. It was the leading cause of death among women in their first trimester. “Is Drake with you?”

“That’s another thing. Drake and I broke up when I came clean last night, before I took the test.” Mary Kay paused and Carol tried to figure out if she was crying.

“I left a couple of messages on his cell, but he’s not answering,” she said, sounding shaky.

Carol was already running upstairs to get dressed as fast as she could. “I’ll be right there.”

“You can’t be right here. You’re in New York.”

“Not yet. Jeff will drive me over. Just hang on until I get to the hospital, OK?”

“Thanks,” Mary Kay whispered. “Right now, I could use all the support I can find.”

There were some advantages to being a doctor’s wife, Carol thought as Jeff took her by the hand past security, through the ER to ultrasound without anyone insisting they sign in for a pass.

Carol finally found Mary Kay in a women’s waiting room in the radiology unit, already in a white johnny. “I can’t believe it’s flurrying outside,” she said brightly, unwrapping a scarf she’d found in a trunk of winter clothes. “How are you doing, kiddo?”

Aside from her red-rimmed eyes and her slight paleness, Mary Kay seemed reasonably collected. “Can’t say it’s the happiest day of my life.”

Carol sat next to her and patted her thigh. “Don’t you worry. Everything’s going to work out just fine.”

“Yeah, right. Lose the guy. Lose the baby. Maybe a hysterectomy along the way. Good times.” Mary Kay glanced away. “But enough about me. How are
you
doing? How come you’re not in New York?”

“How about I tell you later.” This wasn’t exactly the right time or the right place, in Carol’s opinion.

“How about you give me a clue now?”

“OK. I’ll tell you this much. We had a long talk last night and we’re going to try to give it another go.” Carol shot a glance at a nurse appearing in blue scrubs with a clipboard.

“Mary Kay?” the nurse said.

“Hey, Barbara.” Mary Kay got up and Carol grabbed her purse, following behind.

“So, you think you might be preggers, huh?” Barbara asked.

“Not in a good way, unfortunately.”