She Poured Out Her Heart (14 page)

“Maybe he ought to be.”

“What? OK, he shouldn't have tried to be slick. Me neither, I'm sorry. He didn't want you to feel you were being manipulated.”

“Even though I totally am.”

“So forget the bad motives. We'll hang out with the rug rat. Drink from sippy cups. Finger paint. Make fun of your husband.”

“Listen, I can't stay on the phone.” Robbie was mobile again, careening down the hallway out of sight. “It'll be good to see you, let me know when you're coming, bye.”

That night she said to Eric, “Bonnie's thinking of coming for a visit.”

“Is she?” Jane watched him pretend mild surprise. “That'll be a nice change of pace for you. She always peps you up.”

“She's a peppy kind of a girl,” Jane said, but she left it at that. How mad were you supposed to get? Would she like it any better if he didn't care about her?

She'd seen Bonnie only once in all this time, and that was when Robbie was a few months old and they'd made the arduous trip back to Chicago for Christmas so that the grandparents could view him. It had been a hectic visit, Robbie already a wriggling, vocal infant, and their two families competing for equal time and attention. Bonnie was skipping the holidays with her own family—it was a new tradition, she'd said—and came by Jane's parents' house on Christmas afternoon. She'd looked older, in a way that Jane realized was a reflection of herself. Neither of them yet thirty. Not exactly over the hill. Just something other than what they'd been.

Bonnie, meanwhile, had become, in a local sense, something of a
well-known figure. Crisis intervention was very up and coming, an important tool in urban policing. “As opposed to, say, just shooting people,” Bonnie said. Jane's parents were impressed that she'd been interviewed on one of the Chicago news programs, and they'd taped it to show Jane. They cued it up in the family room and Jane's mother brought out coffee and Christmas cookies. Bonnie murmured that it wasn't really a holiday classic. But here she was, looking cool and savvy in a white shirt and a leather jacket, a streetwise professional talking knowledgeably about demographics and distressed populations and the new skill set required of officers in the field as they adapted to changing conditions, etc. “You're so
articulate
,” Jane's mother said, and Bonnie and Jane traded weary looks, since it was a habit for both their mothers to find in the other those remarkable virtues that their own daughters lacked. Bonnie's mother liked to point out how polite Jane was.

A time or two a case Bonnie had been involved in landed in the newspaper. She sent these along to Jane, and Jane read the heartbreaking, infuriating details of people who did not seem willing or capable of even the lowest common denominator of responsible behavior. Not every crisis was resolved happily, of course, and Jane thought that would be the hardest part. When crazy, or crazy drugs, or a vicious, unfettered mind won out, in spite of your best efforts. She thought it would have to take a toll, if you did it long enough.

For her Atlanta visit, Bonnie made Jane promise not to go to any trouble, and Jane said that was easy enough to comply with. Especially since there was no other place to put the potty chair except in the bathroom that Bonnie would be using. Bonnie said she guessed she'd meant, more along the line of entertainment, but no matter. Jane made up the guest bed in the spare room—she had not yet begun to think of it as a nursery—and put out a stack of fresh towels. She scrubbed down the kitchen and sorted and folded the backlog of laundry as Robbie threw the pieces of his educational puzzle toy one by one at the glass patio
doors. Perhaps she could project an air of cheerful television sit com havoc.

Bonnie had insisted on taking a cab from the airport so that no one would have to pick her up. Jane watched Bonnie shut the cab door, hoist her suitcase, and roll it along the sidewalk. “Nice place,” she said, when Jane opened the front door. “We've got to get you out of here.”

Robbie was still at an age where he was fearless around strangers. He squealed and crowed when Bonnie picked him up and swung him around. “Roberto. The jig is up. There's a new sheriff in town.” To Jane she said, “Go lie down and take a nap.”

“But you just got here.”

“And I'll be here when you wake up. Go on, I'll call you if I need you.”

Jane made a few noises of protest, but the unexpected reprieve and the gravitational pull of her bed were too strong to resist. She closed the bedroom door behind her and lay down. “All right, kid,” she heard Bonnie saying. “What do you have to drink in this joint?”

Jane was instantly asleep. She woke just as suddenly, as if she had slept no time at all, but the room was full of shadowy evening light. She panicked: where was Robbie? But he was with Bonnie, and then she panicked all over again, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and rushing into the bathroom because of course she couldn't live another minute without peeing.

She heard voices, one of them Eric's. Had he come home early? Or no. It wasn't early. Still fighting sleep and dread, she hurried toward the light and commotion of the kitchen. The three of them were sitting at the table, Eric and Bonnie and Robbie in his booster chair, surrounded by sandwich wrappers and paper cups. And even as she was greeted with noisy enthusiasm and Eric stood to kiss her and Robbie clamored to be picked up and held, she knew that all she'd had to do to bring about this scene of contentment was to leave them alone.

She could not shake her sense of dislocation, as if everything in the
room had been arranged so as to mimic the perfectly normal. “Great timing,” Eric said, showing her the plate set out for her. “We just this minute started. It's still hot.”

Bonnie said, “Eric brought barbecue. From world famous something or other.”

Jane checked the clock. It was almost seven, and she'd slept for most of four hours. “I guess I was really out of it.”

“Or really tired. Here, I got you a mac and cheese, and a pulled pork sandwich. Is that OK? There's ribs too. And slaw. You want iced tea?”

“I was going to cook dinner.”

“And we'll let you. Tomorrow. Here, I made sure they put the hot sauce on the side.”

Who could ask for a better husband? How deftly, and with what a light touch, he skated over her shortcomings, smoothed the way for her. Every so often he gave Jane an encouraging smile. Jane sat down with Robbie in her lap, trying to arrange him so that he did not kick her in the stomach. To Bonnie she said, “How did you manage with him, did he run you ragged?”

“Nah. We reached a negotiated settlement.” Bonnie was in on it too, playing the part of the fast-talking babe in the screwball comedy. “We ran race cars. He's a competitive little dude. Aren't you? Ticklish, too.” Bonnie made a mock-lunge for Robbie, who squealed, enamored, and hid in Jane's shoulder. “Are you ticklish? Huh?”

“No-ooo!”

“Not ticklish. Good to know. Let's see, then we had peanut butter and crackers and orange juice, and we watched
Jeopardy
, and we did a little target practice in the bathroom. Don't worry, everything's all cleaned up.”

“Bonnie, I didn't mean for you to do—”

“Stuff you do every day? Chill. It was no biggie. Since I don't do it every day.”

“Well thank you, Mary Poppins.” She shook her head to get some of
the sleep strangeness out of it. To Robbie she said, “Let's eat some dinner now, all right? Can you sit up and eat your sandwich like a big boy?”

“I want play my cars.”

“After you eat.” Jane reached for the chicken sandwich he hadn't touched. “Here. Make sure you chew it enough.”

“Don't you get to eat?” Bonnie asked.

“In a minute.” In fact Jane was hungry, but the smell of the red-brown meat was unpleasant, almost swampy to her. She would have liked something clean and persnickety, like cucumber and watercress sandwiches with the crusts trimmed. She had the most useless pregnancy cravings, there was never any hope of satisfying them. “Drink your milk,” she told Robbie. “Another big bite.” He was good and wound up from his adventures with Bonnie. Bedtime would be a challenge. “How about we play with your cars in the bathtub?”

Once Robbie had been fed, bathed, and put into pajamas, Jane came back to the kitchen table, where Eric and Bonnie had switched to bottled beer and were chatting companionably.

“Daddy has to kiss him good night,” Jane announced. She sat down and started in on the cold mac and cheese.

Eric drained his beer bottle and got up. “We're very child-centered around here. The child insists.” He patted the top of Bonnie's head on his way out.

Bonnie said, “What's it going to be like with two?”

“At least the baby won't be running around for a while. Other women do it. Other women put their kids in day care and go to work every morning.” She must look even worse than she felt, for the two of them to be so solicitous. It irritated her, in an unworthy way, as if she could do nothing without supervision and care. Jane had second thoughts about cold mac and cheese; she got up to put it in the microwave. “I'll be all right.”

Eric came back in. “He's down but not out.” From the hallway came Robbie's mournful, imperious cry: “Mom-mee!”

“Go to sleep,” Jane called. “We have bedtime issues,” she told Bonnie. “Because Daddy and I are, believe it or not, one heck of a rousing good time.”

“She didn't used to be sarcastic,” Bonnie informed Eric.

“Clearly, I'm a bad influence.”

“Mom-mee!”

“Honey, it's bedtime.” She was going to have to go in to him, but she wanted to get some food in her first. She took Robbie's half-eaten sandwich apart and started in on the bun. She saw the other two watching her. “I ate a very balanced breakfast and lunch.”

“Maaa-mee!”

“I'm coming.” If she didn't go to him, he'd get himself out of the crib and then they'd have to start all over. “Just put everything away, I'll eat it later.”

Jane headed back to tend to Robbie. It came as a relief to get up and leave. She was still out of sorts, and there was something discordant about the three of them together in a room, as if any two of them would be a better idea.

She stayed with Robbie until he fell asleep, rocking him in the rocker, rocking the new baby also, the three of them heavy with sleep and warmth and there were these moments too of perfect contentment, the boundaries of her body blurring into theirs, the weight no burden, and love, for once, coming easy.

By the time she lifted Robbie into his crib, and tried to arrange his arms and legs into some peaceful position—because even in sleep he looked ready to land a haymaker punch—the others had gone to bed. The guest room door was closed. Her own room was dark, and Jane undressed and put on her pajamas without turning on a light. She left their door ajar in case she needed to hear Robbie. Eric snored breezily. When she got into bed on her side, he woke up enough to send an arm in her direction, draping over her.

Jane said, “I know you called and told her to come.”

It took him a moment to swim up through his sleep and be able to speak. “Was that such a terrible thing?”

“You could have asked me about it.”

“You would have said no, it was too much trouble.”

“You don't know that.” Jane heard her voice rise, then damped it down in case Bonnie was awake and listening. “Anyway, why was it so important?”

“I thought she'd cheer you up.”

“And why is it so important that I get cheered up? I'm doing the best I can, Eric. I try not to complain, because then I'd be complaining the whole time, but this is not easy.”

“You never want anything I can give you.”

That stopped her, and by the time Jane came up with something she might say to him, he was asleep again.

In the morning, Eric left before anyone else was up. Jane got up next, fed Robbie his breakfast, and plunked him down in front of a Disney movie while she ducked into the bathroom for one of her three-minute shower routines. By the time Bonnie woke, she'd started the day's second pot of coffee. She'd tried doing without caffeine early on. Even Eric agreed she was better off drinking it.

“Good morning,” Bonnie said, playing peekaboo around the door frame. Robbie was instantly in the fun zone, ready to pick up where they'd left off. He pounded across the floor to Bonnie and tackled her around the knees.

“Whoa there, killer. Can I get a little coffee before we get rowdy?”

“No!”

“Welcome to my world,” Jane told her. “Robbie, why don't you go get your cars? You left them in your bed.”

Robbie took off down the hall. “Quick, medicate me,” Bonnie said.

Jane poured her a cup of coffee. “Are you hungry? We have Cheerios, toast, and . . . Cheerios. Orange juice.”

“Just coffee. Eric's at work?”

“Eric's always at work.”

“Huh.” Bonnie wrapped her hands around the coffee mug as if in prayer, and drank it down with an intensity that Jane found theatrical. Really, it was just coffee. Bonnie still wore her hair long and mussed, and she still slept in what she called her Whore of Babylon nightgowns, limp, satiny things trimmed with lace scallops. This one was peach-colored. Its slightly draggled bottom hem was visible beneath the terrycloth bathrobe Jane had loaned her.

Bonnie saw Jane looking at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jane said. She had been wondering who Bonnie had bought the nightgown for.

“I guess you pretty much have to be a big workhound if you're going to be a doctor. I mean, some of the stuff he's up to is pretty amazing.”

“It's good you're here for him to show off to. There's no point in him trying to impress me anymore, I've made all the adoring noises I can.”

“Huh,” Bonnie said again.