The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again (31 page)

The pain was making her nutty. The admitting clerk took so long Carolyn wanted to rise up out of her wheelchair and shake her. “You have all that information already!” she groaned.

“Your husband isn’t here?” the clerk asked.

“He’s out of town.”

“Is your labor coach here?”

“Yes.” Carolyn nodded her head toward Polly. “Right here.”

——————————

In the labor room, Carolyn was dressed in a johnny, helped up onto a table, and examined.

“Good girl,” the nurse said. “Already eight centimeters. You’ve been busy.”

“How much longer?” Carolyn asked.

The nurse shook her head. “We don’t know, hon. Not much longer. Maybe an hour or two.”

“Polly!” Reaching out, Carolyn grabbed Polly’s arm. “I can’t do this anymore!”

“Oh, sure you can.” Polly smiled. “I’m right here, and I’m going to help you.” Leaning close, she stroked Carolyn’s hair back from her face. “You’re doing really well, you know. Eight centimeters dilated, that’s great. I’m sure it won’t be much longer. Try to relax, sweetie. Breathe with me.”

“I hate this!” Carolyn wailed. “I really hate this! I feel trapped!”

“Okay, let’s get you some control. Are you comfortable?”

“Jesus Christ,
no,
of course I’m not comfortable!”

“Let’s try sitting up, then.” Polly looked over at the nurse, who pushed a button, and the head of the bed rose.

That did help. Carolyn felt less nauseous, and also less like an invalid, flat on her back like a fish out of the water, gasping for breath. The room was cheerful, paper with a floral print. Polly was hanging their coats in a little closet. A rocking chair sat next to the bed—

“It’s starting again,” Carolyn whimpered.

Polly came to her side, took Carolyn’s hands in her own, and said, “Okay. Focus on me. Breathe with me, the way I breathe.”

“How can you remember?” Carolyn demanded. “Your son is what, thirty-four years old?”

Polly smiled. “Believe me, once you’ve learned this kind of breathing, you never forget.”

——————————

Carolyn tried so hard. She wanted to do this right. She wanted to have the baby without drugs because it was best for the baby. And Polly was helping. She puffed along with Carolyn, and in between contractions she rubbed Carolyn’s back or fed her spoons of ice. Nurses came to check her dilation, blood pressure, the baby’s heart tones, then went away. Carolyn felt as if she had the worst case of flu in her life, while at the same time being backed over by a Greyhound bus.

Suddenly the pain changed. No longer a controlled ebb and flow, it became a raging, searing, tectonic eruption, so powerful, so agonizing, she screamed.

“Something’s wrong! Help me!” Carolyn was dying, she was going to die!

Nurses buzzed around her. Polly smoothed her hair. The doctor was at the foot of the bed. He said, “Push.”

Carolyn pushed. He said, “Again.” She pushed again. He said, “Take a breath.” She was shaking, sobbing, shivering. She saw Polly’s radiant face. Realization surged through her: she was having her baby
now.
She was here, where she’d longed to be so many years, here at the birth of her child.

“Push,” the doctor said.

This time when Carolyn pushed, she was fueled by such amazing energy, it was not pain, it was power, power as she’d never known before.

“Push,” the doctor said, and Carolyn pushed, and she saw Polly’s face shine with tears, and the doctor lifted a squalling, red-limbed little girl, bald and wrinkled like a giant cranberry, onto Carolyn’s stomach.

“Hello, little girl,” Carolyn whispered. She couldn’t take her eyes off the baby. “Oh, Polly, isn’t she beautiful?”

“She’s the most beautiful little girl in the world,” Polly said.

37

Julia lay on the sofa, just waking from a nap. Tim would be home soon. She had to dress. A group of her photographs was part of the art exhibit at the open house tonight. She should be nervous. Instead, she felt a bone-deep contentment, like a retriever who, after a long run in the cold and a hearty meal, had lain down in the room with his family on a rug in front of a fire.

It was no wonder she was thinking of dogs. At her feet, their new powder puff of a puppy, Sweetie, perked up, gazing hopefully at Julia with her round, black button eyes. When Beth had told Julia she wanted to give Belinda a shih tzu puppy, Julia had at first demurred. Not that she didn’t think a dog was a great idea, but now that Belinda was talking, singing, and acting like any normal kid, wouldn’t a bigger, less frivolous dog be better for her? Wouldn’t a tiny, fluffy, yipping little varmint no larger than a chrysanthemum keep Belinda in “princess” mode? But Beth had persisted, pointing out that a small dog would be easier for Belinda to care for, and easier, for that matter, for Julia to deal with, which was important, now that so much was changing in her life.

Julia rolled on her back and tickled the puppy with her toes. “Come up here,” she invited.

Sweetie pranced daintily along the edge of the sofa, then mounted Julia’s chest with the pride of Hillary achieving Mt. Everest, the tip of her lollipop-pink tongue sticking out.

Damn, but this dog was cute!

“I wish I had some of your energy,” Julia told Sweetie.

Sweetie wagged her tail.

Julia looked around the room. The move had happened so quickly, she still couldn’t believe it. She still woke surprised to see these walls instead of the ones she’d lived within for over a year. She liked this ordinary split-level ranch, and someday, when she’d managed to get all the cardboard boxes unpacked and chosen colors for paints and fabric for curtains, she knew she’d make it into a comfortable, attractive, even charming home. Until then, she was happy just to be here. She liked the way the sun slanted in the windows, the way the house sat on its spacious lot. She liked the white picket fence surrounding the large backyard, with its apple tree already hung with a rope swing and a shaded area just meant for a sandbox and jungle gym.

“Okay, cream puff,” Julia said, holding the little dog to her chest. “Time to rise and shine.” She swung her bare feet to the floor and padded over the cool wood floors. Later, she knew, they’d think about rugs and carpets. With summer on the way, bare floors were fine. She had so much to get ready.

She had the baby’s room to get ready.

Leaning in the doorway, she smiled. The walls of the empty room were papered in a football motif, and along one wall ran wooden shelves that had once held about a zillion sports trophies. The woodwork and closet door were scuffed, scarred, and marred, testimony to the boy who had grown up here and was now married, with a home of his own. Julia grinned, imagining the kid wrestling with friends, knocking a lamp into the door, or tossing a ball against the wall on a boring rainy day. She could imagine her own son doing that someday in the future.

For her baby was a boy. She patted her belly. “Have a nice nap, tadpole?”

She still awoke astonished that she was pregnant, amazed that she hadn’t realized it before. She’d been so engrossed with the whole Agnes thing, so certain that nerves, suppressed anger, and her concealed, guilt-provoking deep resentment toward the interfering old hag was what was making her throw up all the time. Instead, she was pregnant. She was already four months along.

Sweetie, manic after her nap, skittered around on the bare floor, her tiny toenails clicking as she raced down the hall and back again, then zipped into Belinda’s room. Julia followed, sinking down onto Belinda’s bed and looking around. It was the only room they’d had time to decorate, exactly as Belinda wanted it, with a pink carpet, ballerina wallpaper, twin beds with ballerina bedspreads and sheets. The first few nights there, Belinda had awakened, crying, and Tim had had to sit with her until she fell back asleep. Now she slept through the night. Recently, she’d asked to put up posters of the Powerpuff Girls on her walls.

And when she went to stay with her grandparents, she would sleep in her old room, with its lavender walls and girlie-girl everything, because Agnes and her husband had bought and moved into the house where Belinda and Tim and Annette had once lived. When Tim, Julia, Agnes, and George had arrived at this solution, they’d felt like geniuses: Agnes and George would be nearer to their granddaughter. Tim, Julia, and Belinda could live in a larger house, one with space for another child—and perhaps even more. Belinda wouldn’t be traumatized by losing her old house, because she could visit it whenever she wanted.

And Agnes and George could of course visit them in their new home, which just happened to be in a suburb over an hour’s drive away. That had been one of Julia’s secret qualifications for buying their new home. She didn’t want Agnes dropping in every moment of every day. The location had the more obvious advantage of being closer to Tim’s office.

Belinda was with her grandparents now. She’d spent the day with them, and they were bringing her to the open house and the art exhibit at the spa this evening.

Art exhibit.
Julia snorted, rose, and set off for the bathroom, Sweetie scampering along at her heels like a sand crab in the wake of a seal. Tossing her clothes in the hamper, she stepped into the shower. Her feelings about the art exhibit were mixed. These photos weren’t what she’d intended to do with her life and skills. They were all of Belinda in ballerina costume. They weren’t cutesy proud-mama shots, although Belinda with her curls was a natural for that kind of thing. Instead, she’d done black-and-white studies: Belinda sitting on a hard wooden bench, brow wrinkled in concentration as she fit her foot into a ballet slipper. Short, slightly bowlegged Belinda, watching with awe as her tall teacher performed a perfect arabesque. Belinda just risen from a plié, one arm arching over her head, her face strained with determination. Julia thought she’d captured something of the spirit of the little girl, her willingness to work, to struggle, to change herself, and what she was doing in her ballet class was a kind of microcosm of what she was doing in her life—bravely going forward, trying to trust her teacher, her own body, and the rules of the mysterious world that had taken her mother away.

What others looking at her efforts would discover, Julia didn’t know. If the guests at the exhibit smiled and passed by, that would be fine. Julia was content to please her private audience. Once she’d intended to save the world. Now she was more realistic, more humble. Now she wanted to celebrate the world, one little girl at a time.

——————————

In a little black dress and strappy high sandals, Beth was ready for the open house. She couldn’t wait to introduce gorgeous Sonny to her friends.

“Sonny? We should go pretty soon.”

From the bed, Sonny groaned ambiguously.

Beth sat next to him. “What’s wrong?”

He covered his eyes with his arm. “Maybe you should go by yourself.”

“Why?” She touched his chest. “Don’t you feel good?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know how much fun I’m going to have at this thing. They’re your friends. And I don’t know anything about art.”

“You don’t have to know anything about art! This isn’t some heavy intellectual occasion, Sonny. It’s just a party.”

He removed his arm and gave her a look. “What do I have to say to Carolyn Sperry. ‘How does it feel to own half of Massachusetts?’ ”

Beth was shocked. “Sonny! This isn’t like you at all! In the first place, Carolyn Sperry isn’t as wealthy as you think she is—”

“She’s still fifty times as wealthy as I am.”

“So what? She’s nice! Just say hello. Maybe congratulate her on having a baby. What do you think she’s going to do, converse with you in rhyming verse?” That made him grin, so she persevered. “Come on, Sonny, we won’t stay there long, and I really really want my friends to meet you. It means a lot to me.” She moved her hand suggestively along his body. “Please come, please, please, please. I’ll make you really glad you did.”

“All right.” Reluctantly, Sonny rose. “But I won’t wear a tie.”

“You don’t have to wear a tie.” As he dressed, Beth absentmindedly redid her lipstick, thinking how unreasonable Sonny was. How many hours had
she
spent at Sonny’s family’s house, trying to fit in, trying to make them like her, trying to please them? Because her own parents were dead, Sonny was free from the obligation of reciprocating. He was being totally unfair, making her beg!

“Ready?” Sonny wore khakis and a blue cotton shirt that set off his dark hair and blue eyes.

A wave of lust washed over Beth, a surge of desire spun through her body. She was profoundly in love and superficially irritated with the same person, and it made her body feel as if it contained a swarm of bees.

38

One month after Claudia’s death, Polly was invited to see her grandson again. The first time, eight months ago, just after Jehoshaphat’s birth, had been in Amy’s parents’ house. Today would be Polly’s maiden voyage into David and Amy’s home in the renovated barn down the hill from the main house on the Anderson land.

As she stepped from her car, Polly patted her silver-red curls in an effort to calm them down; the spring humidity sent her hair into crazy corkscrews and she
so
did not want to look flippant around this earnest family.

Sheltering maples leafed out all around the converted barn, and the air smelled of mown grass and hyacinths. In the distance a tractor purred, cresting one tidy green hill. She had to admit, she thought, as she knocked on the door, it was peaceful out here.

“Hello, Polly, come in.” Amy wore a long, patchwork cotton dress, and her brown hair was held back with a scarf.

The door opened to a large kitchen. The room was charming, in a time-warped kind of way, with wide board floors, rag rugs, caned chairs, curtains of natural hemp, and bunches of dried herbs hanging upside down from the ceiling.

“If you don’t mind,” Amy said.

Confused, Polly followed Amy’s eyes. Next to the door, a rough wooden box held a pair of clogs. Amy’s feet were bare. Awkwardly, Polly slipped off her molded black loafers, which with their corrugated soles seemed as anachronistic here as truck tires at a medieval fair.

“Oh!” Polly spotted the baby sitting in a wooden playpen. He wore a diaper and a cotton undershirt and was gnawing on a wooden block. Letter
C.
“Oh, Jehoshaphat is so
big
!”

“Yes,” Amy agreed placidly. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be lovely.” Polly knelt at the playpen, feeling like a jeweler spotting the most perfect diamond the earth could offer. “Hi, Jehoshaphat. I’m your grandmother Polly.”

Jehoshaphat squealed in reply, grinned, and held out his block, glistening with drool.

“He has a tooth!” Polly said. “And his hair is darker now, almost auburn. And he has David’s blue eyes. Oh, could I hold him?”

Amy set two pottery mugs on the table. “Perhaps after our tea. He’s so wiggly right now, I like to keep him away from anything hot.”

Well, Amy,
Polly wanted to say,
screw the tea. Let me hold my grandson!
She swallowed her reply, but remained on the floor, conversing with Jehoshaphat, who crawled across the playpen and reached a chubby hand out to touch her nose.

The front door flew open and David stomped in, halting on the mat to kick off his clogs. “Hi, Mom.” He’d gained a lot of weight, at least thirty pounds, and grown a shaggy beard, which, with his sunburned face, straw hat, and suspendered linen trousers, gave him the air of an Amish farmer.

“Hello, David,” Polly answered faintly.

David kissed Amy’s cheek. He bent over the playpen. “Hey, big guy.”

“Would you like some peppermint tea?” Amy asked her husband.

“No, thanks. I’ve got to get back out to work. Just wanted to say hello.” He started to lift his son from the playpen.

“David,” Amy said. “Hands.”

“Right.” David washed his hands,
then
picked up his son and sat down to bounce him on his knee.

Polly got up off the floor, settled in a chair, and drank her tea, her eyes on the little boy. Vaguely she listened to David and Amy’s conversation, which centered around lambs, compost, and the prospect of rain. She studied her son and his wife as they talked. They were completely involved, intense, connected. David looked happy, devoted,
complete.

Polly felt as if her heart were cracking open. As if her heart were an eggshell, and the life struggling to break out were something huge, foreign, and undeniable, like, say, a gorilla. It didn’t make sense. She could actually feel her heart laboring to expand inside her chest. It hurt.

This little family worked well, that was obvious. David, once a banker,
thrived
as a farmer. Was there some kind of twisted dynamic at work here? Was he rebelling against the kind of life his mother and stepfather had? Was he hurting Polly intentionally, in retribution for her marrying Tucker when David was only a boy? She didn’t think so. David looked purely happy. Did he even know he was hurting Polly by leaving her out of his family life? She doubted it.

In the end, did it matter? Children grew up and went away. Some went off to live in faraway lands; David was geographically near but spiritually in another time zone, if not on another planet. Polly had to open her heart and accept her child’s choices for a life completely different from what she would choose for him. This was as painful as the physical labor of birth. No one told her that when women give birth, they do it first with their body, and then with their heart, over and over.

Jehoshaphat began to fuss. Amy made agitated motions. Polly started to rise from her chair. “Perhaps I should go . . .”

“Nah,” David replied. “He fusses a lot these days—he’s teething. Want to hold him?”

Surprised, Polly nodded and held out her arms. David handed the baby over.

Jehoshaphat stared wide-eyed at Polly as she settled him on her lap, his woes forgotten in the midst of this adventure.

“Oh! What a nice solid bundle you are!” Polly smiled at her grandson, then made popping noises with her lips. Years ago, David had loved this, and sure enough, it worked magic on Jehoshaphat, who broke into a grin and wiggled his fat arms in delight. Was there anything sweeter than a baby’s smile?

Engrossed, totally infatuated, Polly progressed to making bubbles, and through her laughter and Jehoshaphat’s, she heard her son say to his wife, “You see? I told you. He’ll be fine.”

Polly braved a questioning glance at David.

“We were wondering if you’d ever want to come out to babysit for an hour or so,” David said. “Amy would like to catch up on some work.”

“I’ll just be in the other room,” Amy hastily interjected. “Or out in the garden.”

Probably, Polly thought, it would alarm David and Amy if she fell on her knees, babbling with gratitude. So she simply answered, “I’d love to!”

A few moments later, Jehoshaphat began to fuss in earnest, and Amy carried him off to nurse, and David returned to his fields.

As Polly drove away from the farm, she couldn’t stop smiling. Funny, how sometimes life could turn on a dime. Odd, how days and weeks could pass by in a monotonous blur, and then suddenly, everything would go right. She’d held her grandson today. She had a date to babysit him tomorrow morning—and she had a grown-up date tonight!

——————————

Carolyn adored her one-month-old daughter, but she was exhausted deep down to the bedrock bottom of her muddy soul.

Because Elizabeth was premature, she was slightly underweight and needed almost constant feeding. For three weeks, Carolyn nursed her baby, but her milk didn’t seem to satisfy the child, and Carolyn didn’t really enjoy the experience, which caused her agonies of guilt and mortification because she knew
real
mothers,
natural
mothers,
good
mothers, loved nursing. So she tried Elizabeth on a formula, and the baby liked it, which really made Carolyn feel like some kind of natural freak, a maternal failure, physically less capable than a goat or a cow.

She was just tired, she reminded herself. Even though Hank diligently popped up whenever Elizabeth cried at night, Carolyn hadn’t gotten more than two hours of consecutive sleep in the past month. Her head buzzed, the joints of her body ached like those of an ancient arthritic.

And as if some kind of malicious sprite were hovering around her life like a fat bumblebee, a week ago, their trusted housekeeper, Mrs. B., had come to tell Carolyn she needed to retire. She knew, Mrs. B. said, it was the worst possible time for Carolyn, but her husband’s health was such that she just had to be home with him full-time now. Furthermore, this house was too much for her at her age. It needed two full-time people really, at least.

Carolyn understood. She asked Mrs. B. to try to find someone to take her place, at least temporarily, but so far they’d had little luck. Women wanted to work in malls and businesses around other people, not alone in this enormous, dark, dust-generating, historical mound.

Plus, her father was depressed. So depressed that during the five or six minutes in the day when Carolyn wasn’t weeping herself, she considered asking him to get professional help, provided she could ever find the energy to drag her dripping, sagging, throbbing, used-up body through the endless rooms and corridors to his wing. Aubrey was pleased at the arrival of his granddaughter, and he often came to look in on her, but each time he arrived, he looked just a little bit older. Sometimes, alarmingly, this man who had always before been immaculately groomed to the point of seeming a dandy hadn’t bothered to shave, and his clothes looked dingy even, from time to time, stained and spotted. He dressed well when he went to work, but apparently, once there, he was incapable of making necessary decisions, which meant that his secretary and some of the other executives were phoning Carolyn several times a day for her advice and input.

Through her windows, she saw the trees leafing out, thousands of tiny perfect leaves gleaming lime green in the April sun. The television weatherwoman forecast the temperature in the high seventies. She wanted to take Elizabeth outside. She wanted to be outside herself, to feel the sun on her slumped shoulders.

But she didn’t know whether she had the energy to push the baby carriage through the corridor, down to the back hall, and out the door onto the porte cochere. Could she lift the carriage down the steps without bursting into tears? And what about the wind? Here at the summit of the hill overlooking the town, the wind always blew, having nothing to obstruct it. Didn’t the wind make babies colicky?

Hank came in, his arms full of grocery bags. “Got the diapers,” he said. “Got everything on the list.” He disappeared into the kitchen. Carolyn heard the cupboard doors opening and closing. Returning to the living room, he gazed at his daughter, in Carolyn’s arms, falling asleep as she sucked a bottle. “She’s sleeping. Good. I want to show you something.”

Carolyn yawned. “Okay.”

“We have to go for a little ride.” Hank looked mischievous.

“Oh, Hank, I can’t go out like this, and I don’t have the energy to change.” She didn’t have the energy to walk across the room.

“Sure you can. You look fine.” He lifted his daughter from Carolyn as easily as if he’d been doing this all his life, easing the nipple, with a pop, out of Elizabeth’s rosebud mouth, nestling the tiny, hot head in the crook of his arm. The baby didn’t cry but slumbered on.

“Really,” Carolyn protested. She wore a pair of stretched-out sweatpants and one of Hank’s old blue button-down shirts. “I can’t.”

“Really. You can.” Hank went out the door, carrying his daughter with him.

Carolyn shuffled behind him, muttering curses. Once outside, she sighed. The fresh air was so sweet! Hank buckled the baby into her car carrier in the backseat. Carolyn collapsed into the passenger seat. They drove down the hill and through the town. Carolyn kept the window down, to feel the sunlight on her face. They passed Main Street, the post office, library, and pharmacy. Just past the medical complex, they turned off onto a road angling up a hill past riding stables. David turned off onto the drive of a handsome modern house built of glass, cedar, and stone.

“What I want to show you is inside.” He lifted the baby carrier out and went up the slate walk.

Groaning, Carolyn followed. The house was empty. It smelled of fresh new wood and paint. The honeyed oak floors unrolled before her with pristine glossiness. The rooms were full of light.

“What?” Carolyn asked.

“I want us to move here.” Hank kept walking just ahead of her, from room to room, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness.

“Move? Here?” Carolyn stopped dead in her tracks. “But it’s so small!”

“No, it’s just
normal.
It’s got five bedrooms, Carolyn, plus a suite off the kitchen for a live-in nanny. It would be easier to take care of, and a damned sight less gloomy. It’s elegant, new, in perfect condition, it’s just a few minutes from the paper mill. It’s got a great backyard that borders the forest. Look, where we live now, there’s no place for a child to play.”

“But . . . but . . . my family’s always managed to raise its children there.”

“Those were different times. And different women.” Hank turned to face Carolyn. “Don’t start comparing yourself to your ancestors. That’s crazy. They had a horde of servants, which we don’t want. We want to make our lives easier, we want to do more things faster, we need efficiency, and we don’t need so much space.”

“But what about my father? Where will he live?”

“Wherever he wants! He might want to move into a condo. He might want to move to Florida or the Bahamas. It might shake him up to move, get his blood running again. Carolyn, it’s time for a change for us all.”

Carolyn’s heart hurt a little, as if it were tough, root-packed soil, with green shoots pushing through. The kitchen at the back of the house was large and bright, with a fireplace at one end and a handsome array of cupboards and shelves at the other. The windows here streamed with rivers of light. She took a deep breath. This room made her want to do that, it made her want to
breathe.

She walked through the upstairs. From the bedroom window, she saw through the trees the windows and yards of other houses. Another room looked down on a pasture where a colt kicked his heels, showing off for his placid chestnut thoroughbred mother. How neighborly it felt here, how good to be among people, rather than looking down on them from her isolated bastion on the hill.

Back downstairs, she returned to the kitchen, opened the sliding door, and stepped out onto the deck. They could fence the yard, so that someday Elizabeth could run in and out of the house, tracking mud, giggling at her puppy, kidnapping the pots and pans to use as an imaginary spaceship.

Hank came up to stand next to her. “Do you like it?”