Three Women at the Water's Edge (40 page)

Her baby was born. Her new child. She heard its pitiful wail.

The doctor said, “It’s a girl.”

Daisy raised her head, but could see only the white-robed backs of the doctor and nurses as they gathered around to wash and tend the baby.

“Give her to me,” Daisy said.

“We can’t,” the doctor told her. “You’re wearing street clothes. You would contaminate it.”

“Give me my baby,” Daisy said, raising herself up on her elbows in spite of the contractions that continued to tug at the lower half of her body. “I’m not secured in here, you don’t have me tied down, and if you don’t give her to me now, I’m going to jump up off this table and bleed all over your floor and knock you all down and take my baby from you.”

The doctor stared at Daisy for one moment and Daisy stared at him. They had never seen each other before in their lives. Yet something flashed between them, perhaps a mutual admiration, or a recognition of some kind, and then the doctor smiled.

“You’re really a tiger, aren’t you?” he said.

“No, I’m a mother,” Daisy told him. “A tiger, Jesus Christ, what decade are you in? No one talks that way anymore. Give me my baby.”

And he did. He handed her the wriggling blotchy child and Daisy held her against her breasts for a long moment, suddenly lifted out of the delivery room and away from the whole earth with the wonder of this new creature, this new child, this creature she had borne, her daughter. The baby looked like a wet rat.

“She won’t look like any of the rest of us.” Daisy said aloud, more or less to herself. “She’s going to look like—why, I think she’s going to look like Dale! I think she’ll have brown hair. My other two were so blond.” The baby pushed and nuzzled against her, stretching tiny wrinkled legs and arms, squalling and squeaking with her wild general wrath. “Oh!” Daisy said. “Oh! Please, help me take my things off. I want to nurse her.” She saw the attendants exchange looks with the doctor.

“Go ahead,” the doctor told them. “Let her nurse.”

“These modern mothers.” The old nurse sighed, but she helped Daisy off with her clothes with gentle hands.

The baby took Daisy’s nipple immediately, and immediately went calm. And Daisy found herself entering that old lovely world where only she and the nursing infant mattered, and everything else blurred and fell away. She loved the sexual tug that moved through her from breast to crotch, and while she was vaguely aware that down below, far far away, the doctor was taking out the placenta, her feelings were focused on her new daughter and the almost irritating pleasure of her tiny nuzzling mouth. How small the baby was, how perfect, how vulnerable she was, and how remarkable. Her skin was almost iridescent, gleaming with subtle pastel colors that nearly shimmered like the lights of an opal; and her nails looked like mother-of-pearl, like small translucent stones; she was indeed like a jewel washed up from the sea, all fresh and gleaming in the warmth of her mother’s warm dry arms. Daisy stared at and studied her new child, ran her hands over the tiny sculpted body, over the small cranky-looking limbs. And she was lost again; she was in love. The baby nestled against her, softly sucking, tugging open in Daisy’s body a whole vast new space of love.

Finally a nurse came and officiously took the baby away to do the routine things that needed to be done. Daisy fell back down against the hospital bed, relaxing into her own body and suddenly realizing how she ached in every part. She was grateful for the competent hands that worked so efficiently about her body. She closed her eyes.

“We can let your husband in now to see you and the child, if you’d like.”

Daisy looked up to see the young doctor who had delivered her daughter standing next to her, smiling down.

“My husband?” she asked, surprised. “I don’t have a husband.”

“You don’t have a husband?” the doctor said, puzzled.

“No. I’m divorced, or almost,” Daisy told him. She was too tired, it was all too complicated, to explain.

“But there’s a man out there—the man who brought you in—”

“Oh,” Daisy laughed feebly, “he’s just my date.” And she had to laugh again, thinking of it. “I missed my dinner,” she said.

“Well, you certainly must lead an interesting life,” the doctor said.

“Oh, I do, I do,” Daisy told him, laughing even more at this. “But I get hungry a lot. God, I’d give my soul for a cheeseburger with onions and a Coke.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the doctor said lightly, and moved off.

Daisy closed her eyes again and drifted off, only vaguely aware that she was being moved onto another cart and carried out of the delivery room and down to a private hospital room. Nurses tightened her white gown and tucked her in bed and took her temperature again and checked her pads and murmured, and Daisy let it all happen to her as if she were in a dream. She asked for some aspirin and someone gave her some pain pills and another kind of pill that she was too lazy to ask about, and then she drifted again, smugly indolent. It was all over. Her new child was here, the work had been done, the pleasures of the flesh were ahead. She could rest.

“Are you still hungry?”

Again it was the young doctor. He had in his hand a big white paper sack, and he carried with him the most delicious smells that had nothing to do with a hospital, smells of meat and onions.

“Do you have a
cheeseburger
in there?” Daisy asked, all at once awake and ravenous.

“Yes,” the doctor said. “I had someone run across the street, I’m hungry, too; do you mind if I join you?”

“Of course not,” Daisy said. She let the doctor crank up her bed and pull the table around in front of her. He sat down on her bed and spread the food out on the table: cheeseburgers and french fries in cardboard cartons, Cokes in cardboard cups.

“This is so much better than the hospital food,” the doctor said. “And I felt we really should share this meal. If I could get champagne in here, I would. You were my first delivery.”

“Really?” Daisy said. “How exciting. Well, you did a marvelous job.”

“Thank you. But you did all the work. I just got to be there. It was wonderful.”

Daisy ate and ate—he had had the sense to bring two cheeseburgers for her—and listened to the doctor talk. He was a homely young man, and yet endearing, and Daisy felt her affections flowing out toward him doubly, because he had been her physician and yet seemed such a child. It seemed extraordinary, a special treat, a unique prize, to be able to sit in the pale-yellow hospital room eating cheeseburgers with her obstetrician. It never could have happened with her regular physician, a capable but dour older man who had delivered so many babies he practically sighed with boredom at having to go through it all again. With Dr. Leston she had always felt a bit like a child who had willfully gotten herself into a scrape and needed help. With this young man she felt like a grown-up, a contemporary, and if he was a god because he was a doctor, then she was a goddess because she had carried and given birth to a child. She felt comfortable with him, his equal. In fact, she felt almost euphoric in his presence, but that was, she knew, because of the pain pill, and the food, and the physical aftermath of the birth.

“What happened to Jerry?” Daisy asked, struggling to be sensible now that her stomach was full and sleep was overtaking her again.

“I told him he should go home,” the doctor said. “He said he’d be back to see you tomorrow. And he’s going to stop by your house on the way home to tell your sitter what happened.”

“Oh, good,” Daisy said. “Well, Sara knows what to do. I’ll call her in the morning. Oh—I have to call Mother, and Daddy. I have to call Dale!”

“I’ll leave you, then,” the doctor said. “I’ll stop in and see you tomorrow. You need your rest. Don’t stay up talking too long.”

Daisy smiled. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” she said. “I’m fading away fast. Thank you so much for the cheeseburgers; that seemed like the best food I’ve ever eaten.”

Daisy waited until she was sure the doctor was gone, then reached for the phone. No one answered at her father’s house; she would have to call him the next day. She called her mother next, and gave her a long and detailed report.

“Oh, thank heaven. I’m so pleased, I’m so glad,” Margaret said. “I’m so glad you’re both fine. I’ve been wondering about you constantly. And darling, what a wonderful story this will make—you going into labor on a date. I’m glad you’re dating, you know.”

“I am, too,” Daisy said. “I’m glad about
everything
. In fact, right now I’m absolutely high. And it’s not just the drugs. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m well,” Margaret said. “You know, when Danny was born, I went around for a week saying to myself: you’re a grandmother now. A
grandmother
. I felt so old. I guess the first grandchild is always the shocking one. This new baby doesn’t make me feel any older at all.”

Daisy smiled to herself to think that her mother would turn even this event into a reflection on herself, but she ended her conversation with Margaret amiably enough, and thanked her again profusely for the money, and said she would send pictures as soon as possible. Then she said goodbye, and called Dale, who responded with wholehearted enthusiasm and concern.

“I’m so sorry I can’t fly back and help you out,” Dale said. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Oh, I’ll be great,” Daisy said. “I’ve got Karen and Jane helping me for the next two weeks: they’ll have Danny and Jenny with them. And I’ve got the rooms rented out to girls I really like, and I’ve got enough money, and I’ve even got a nice doctor who brought me cheeseburg
ers!”

“You’ve got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night,” Dale said. “What kind of happy pills do they have you on?”

“Oh, Dale.” Daisy laughed, but even as she spoke she felt the effect of the painkillers take a turn; she was suddenly so sleepy she wanted to simply drop the phone on the floor and pass out. “Dale, I’ve got to go. I’m all woozy. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“No, you save your nickels and dimes. I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Thanks. I love you. And guess what—I’ve done my bit with babies, now—it’s your turn. The next babies in this family will be yours.”

“Well,” Dale said. “There’s a thought. Well.”

Daisy said goodbye to her sister and hung up the phone, then slid down into the comfort of the warm blankets. She felt as though she had just gotten in from a most unusual, serendipitous, and strangely erotic party. How lucky she was, she thought, and instantly fell asleep.

Oh, the color of the trees: such vibrancy! Margaret’s gaze kept catching on the trees, the flowering apple and crab and dogwood, the cut-leaf maple, and the myriad gentle greens of the spruce and low shrubs. She was looking out the window of her new home, or rather trying not to look out; she had so much unpacking to do. And it was only nine-thirty this Sunday morning, and she had vowed to herself that she would have her new house in order by that night, so that the next day, when she came home from work, she could have some sort of order to return to. But the flowering trees, the ebullience of all the flowers, lured her, lured her, and finally she took up her cup of tea and went out the door and sat down on her back porch step simply to stare.

It was late April, and the sun warmed everything, made everything glimmer with a golden light. There was nothing more pleasant than this, to sit warmed and private in the sunlight of her own backyard, surrounded by the pinks and whites and greens and golds of spring. Pandora, the white cat, was sprawled luxuriously near a rich green bush of peonies which were almost ready to bloom. Ulysses, the gray cat which had adopted Margaret, was farther out in the garden, creeping around under the azalea bushes, trying to find something to capture his attention. He had turned out to be such a whimsical, frivolous sort of cat, so unlike Pandora, who spent most of her life lolling about, that Margaret had become really fond of him; he entertained her, he was past her imagining. He chased his tail, something Pandora would never be naïve or energetic enough to do, and he talked incessantly to Margaret. He was a bit of a ham. Now, seeing that Margaret had come out of the house and was watching him, he executed a clever graceful dance among the bushes and ended by leaping up into a low branch of the apple tree. Then he mewed questioningly at Margaret.

“Yes, I see you, Ulysses, I see you. You’re marvelous,” Margaret said.

This seemed to satisfy the cat. He turned his back on her and began to groom and preen himself with such brisk concentration that Margaret smiled, sure that sooner or later he would fall out of the tree. Some things you choose for yourself, and some things Fate brings you, Margaret thought, and perhaps you can never know, even at the end of your life, at the summing-up, just which sort was better. For she needed the aloof and luxurious Pandora, just as she needed an aloof and luxurious life; but now she knew that she also needed, still needed, in her life, the unexpected, the enchanting, the lively things. How full life could be, Margaret thought. Life could be full and long, and now she knew that the choice of one way of life over another did not mean placing any sort of limitations—or if limitations were placed, then so were new possibilities opened up. It was a matter of making the best of both.

She sipped her tea. She was content. And yet underneath it all ran the tension that came from knowing that even as she arranged and rearranged her chosen life, Fate was working its devious ways to unsettle her. That is, she had come to realize how brief life could be; she was aware of her own mortality.

After Dale’s visit in late January, Margaret had spent hours sitting at her desk, pondering, poring over her checkbook and savings account, thinking about her life. The question was how to best help Daisy without totally removing from her own life all financial comforts. There was so much that Margaret wanted to do. She wanted to take trips: short vacations to Hawaii when the rains hit Vancouver, and longer trips to Europe or the Orient. She wanted to feel she could attend the ballet and concerts and theater, to give gifts to her friends, to continue to buy pretty clothes and books, to live her life
well
. Then, too, there was the darker side of it, which Miriam’s problem had all too sharply brought home these past few weeks: There was the possibility of illness in her future, and at least the certainty of old age, and she wanted to be able to take care of herself during those times. All that took money. And if she planned on all that, then there was not enough money to go around, not enough money so that she could give Daisy what she needed.

The only solution was for Margaret to sell her house by the sea. It was a terribly costly house because it was on the oceanfront, and the taxes were so high. Why, Margaret suddenly asked herself, why did she have to live by the ocean after all? She had enjoyed it, but as often as she found it lovely, she also now ignored it, or found it tiresome. Once she had sat gazing out her window at the harbor, watching a massive steel Norwegian freighter slowly make its way from Point Grey to the Second Narrows, and she was strangely exasperated by the sight of that ship carrying the goods of the world and the men who handled those goods. That afternoon she had driven around West Vancouver with a realtor, looking at houses farther up the mountain, and had found one house—this house she was now moving into—which provided her with an antidote to that early oceanside dissatisfa
ction. It was small, rather cottage-like in appearance, with a lovely little garden behind. The garden was totally private, walled on all sides with high cedar boards and shrubs and trees, and on seeing it, even in its rather dismal February state, Margaret had thought: oh, this would be perfect,
this
is what I want. So she had sold her waterfront home, and bought the little cottage with the private garden, and the difference in the price of the two properties was so great that she was able to send Daisy the money to keep
her
house and to have some left over to add to Margaret’s own savings. It had all worked out well. Margaret felt she had dispensed with her obligations: Harry had married Trudy, Dale would never need her in the way that Daisy did, and Daisy would now be forever supported, each and every day, by Margaret, because she would be living in the house which Margaret had helped make possible for Daisy to have. Oh, Dale and Daisy were young, and undoubtedly during the course of their lives they would come to Margaret with troubles again; but the important thing was that Margaret now felt that she had done all she could for her daughters. She had done enough. She could feel free.

She had set herself free of Anthony, too, but that had not been done as well. It could not be done by sending a piece of paper in the mail; it was not a task so distantly dispatched. Yet when Margaret had told Anthony she would not ever marry him, she would not ever marry anyone, he had carried it off with the ease and insouciance she expected of him, and they were still friends. In fact, they still saw each other, still slept with each other, though not as often. She knew from Miriam that Anthony had begun to see another woman regularly, and she knew instinctively that before long Anthony would probably marry that other woman, and that made her slightly sad. But not sad enough to do anything about it. She would miss Anthony’s elegance and charm, but there were other men. There were enough other men to dine and sleep with, and if there weren’t any particular men around, then there were her women friends, and she had herself, her own solitary desires and pleasures, which she preferred above all. And she could talk to her women friends and her daughters.

She had discovered, gradually, with a growing sense of delight, that she had a mind. She knew this was not the same thing as having a talent or a career, but still it satisfied her immensely. It was a real surprise and pleasure to realize that she had a mind, that her mind had a life, that it wanted to expand itself and grow, and that it could do that, within the solitary confines of her own head, just as life expanded and grew amid the jumbled complexity of people and things.

She had decided to put herself to the study of three things: religion, the music of Beethoven, and botany. She wanted to come to understand before she died the structure and systems of plants and flowers and trees, especially those which were self-regenerating. She wanted to comprehend the mysteries of scales and movements and measures of music. And she wanted to compare and examine the anatomies of all religions, not just the western ones, because although they were man-made, as music was, still they reached past the human in ways that were awesomely complex while still rigorously bound. There were whole realms of experience and knowledge which Margaret had never really been aware of, and now she wanted to enter into those realms as one might enter new and gracious rooms, she wanted to wander about, exploring at her own pace. She saw how she could live quite happily among the complicated edifices of religion, music, botany; she was eager to fill her life and her mind with words such as morphology and genus, transfigur
ation and Nirvana, cadenza and clef.
Obbligato, oblanceolate, oblation:
Margaret chanted these words to herself through the months of February, March, and April, as if they could work a sort of charm. There were so many ways to live a life.

To live a life: for that was it, that was the key, that was everything. For a time just before and after Dale’s visit, Margaret had been—she now realized—i
ndulging herself with the seductive charms of a sense of belatedness. She had felt old; she had felt sorry for herself, for the way she had lived out her life. She had pitied herself for her sagging flesh and her lack of marketable talents. She had envied her daughters, who were young and pretty, with all of life and its physical enjoyments ahead of them. She had become almost obsessed with thoughts of her past, with profound and despairing regrets for the way she had lived her past. She found herself sobbing as she read certain strongly feminist books, and once she had had to run from a drugstore because the simple, cheerful, brightly printed words on the cover of a women’s magazine brought home to her just how successfully younger women were managing to combine a family life with the life of the self. Bitterness and remorse began to taint her days so completely that she found herself turning away from even Miriam, her closest friend; she could not keep herself from thinking jealously just how much more of a life Miriam had led.

Then one day in early April Miriam had insisted that Margaret come to her house for lunch. Margaret had been so turned in upon herself that she expected that Miriam would lecture or chastise her for her recent growing gloom; she had been taken aback to find Miriam vague and preoccupied as they ate: they both just picked at the lovely crab salad Miriam had made. They took their coffee out to the sunporch of Miriam’s house and settled into the gay striped cushions of the wicker chairs, and Margaret thought: now she’s going to say it, now she’s going to comment on just how unpleasant I’ve become.

Instead Miriam said to Margaret: “There’s something I have to tell you. I’m going into the hospital next week. I may have to have a mastectomy.”

“Oh, no,” Margaret had said. “Oh,
no
.”

As she went through the next few weeks with her friend, she had tried to express to Miriam not only her sympathy but also her sense of gratitude and irony: that it had taken this sudden terrible turn in Miriam’s life to bring to Margaret an awareness of the importance of the present, of the life that Margaret had left. In fact Margaret had felt guilty, as if her own spiritual malaise had brought about her dearest friend’s physical illness.

“But that’s absurd!” Miriam had laughed. She then had been sitting cross-legged on the hospital bed, wearing a white nightgown and a plastic bracelet with her name on it: the operation was to be the next day. Still she had laughed. “Don’t be so egotistical, Margaret,” Miriam had said. “You’re not responsible for my illness, or for anyone else’s. The only thing you’re responsible for now is your own happiness—and while I’ll be sorry if you continue to make yourself miserable, you’ll be the only one who will really suffer. You’ve always been responsible for yourself. You’ve just never realized that until recently. And it’s natural that you should feel a certain amount of real regret at what you’ve lost. But it would be foolish to lose what you have now, and what you can have in the future, by endearing those regrets so strongly to yourself. Oh, Margaret, we
all
have regrets. Look: I’m forty-nine years old, and I’ve been reasonably happy all my life. And this surgery does not really upset me all that much, except that now, for the first time ever, I regret that I never had any children, that I never had a baby nurse from my breast. I suppose it is the possibility of losing the breast that makes me feel this; though I’ve never felt it before, and I’m long past the age when I could have a baby or nurse a child. Yet it’s only a small sorrow, and God knows everyone has her share of small sorrows. I’ve really had so much from life, Margaret—and so have you. It’s true, you know. So have you.”