“No.” Liz waited for the moment to pass, for another world to come into being so she could avoid telling Ingrid what she must. “I’m pregnant.”
The information took a second to register. “Omigod, that’s fabulous.” Ingrid began to talk, sounding like her mother off on a tangent of plans.
Liz put her hand on Ingrid’s forearm. “No, it’s not great. I came here, to Rinconada . . . I wanted to see you all, but I also . . .” She closed her eyes a second. “On Friday I’m scheduled for an abortion.” Ingrid didn’t seem to hear her. The pronouncement flew over the girl like sheep galloping across the sky.
“Did you hear what I said? I’m not going to have this baby. I’m going to have an abortion.” Liz waited a moment for the truth to register and when it still didn’t seem to make it into Ingrid’s head, she added, “I don’t want to be a mother.”
That got Ingrid’s attention. “Why not? You’d be amazing.”
Liz shook her head, tired of having to convince people of what she knew in the heart of her being.
“What about your boyfriend? Gerard?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You didn’t use birth control?”
“I didn’t think I could conceive. I thought I’d started menopause.”
“It’s like a miracle.”
“No, Ingrid. It’s like an accident.”
Ingrid stared at her. Liz thought, yes, look, see me as I am. Know me.
If we come through this . . .
“How can you love a guy who wants you to murder his baby?”
She was stunned for a second and couldn’t think what to say. “Ingrid, an abortion isn’t murder. It’s many things but it is not murder.”
“You don’t know. Not for sure.”
“It’s my body and I know what’s inside it.”
“My friend says babies have souls. Even in the womb.”
“And she’s free to believe that. But I don’t. This . . . thing inside me . . .”
“It’s not a thing,” Ingrid cried, “It’s a baby. A real live baby.”
Liz raised her voice. “It is nothing like a baby. Not yet. It’s barely anything at all.” Liz reached for Ingrid’s hands but she pulled away. “Listen to me. In your life you’re going to hear a lot of stuff about abortion, about how it’s wrong or it’s right and maybe you’ll end up being one of those women who thinks it’s wrong. And that’s fine. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one. But before you make up your mind, I want you to use your intelligence. Don’t get seduced by answers that make everything seem easy, black and white, yes or no.”
Ingrid twisted a lock of hair around her finger and stared at it.
“Honey, none of the big questions have simple answers. And the older the world gets, the more that’s true. We all just have to learn to live with shades of gray. No matter how much we long for black and white.”
Ingrid stared. “How can you live like that?”
“Just the way you do—or will, the way your mom and dad do. I weigh the good and the bad, the consequences of my actions. I use my brain to look ahead, to think about those consequences. I decide.” She heard her words and thought that it was never that easy. She took Ingrid’s hand and wouldn’t let her pull away. She placed it flat on her stomach. “This is an embryo, not a baby. It doesn’t exist apart from me. If I died tomorrow, it would die too. Right now, it’s a mass of cells growing in my uterus. Against my will.”
“You make it sound like cancer.”
Liz opened her mouth and shut it.
“If Gerard loved you, he’d want you to have your baby. I mean, it’s his too, isn’t it?”
Liz wanted to explain that she and Gerard were happy as they were: a pair. But of course Ingrid would think that selfish because she was more like her mother than she could yet understand. Love and family and children were all of a part to her.
“And if you loved him you’d think his baby was the most wonderful, miraculous, fabulous thing in the world. You’d be excited.”
“Is that the way you feel about Paco?”
“Well, I would if... you know.”
“What if you had sex and you got pregnant?”
“I wouldn’t. We’d use protection.”
“Just suppose.”
“I can’t suppose. It would never happen, we’d be careful. We aren’t stupid.”
“But just suppose it did happen to you. Would you want to get married and have the baby, raise it?” Ingrid started to answer. Liz shook her head. “I don’t want you to answer me. I want you to think really hard about what it means to bring a child into the world. All the levels of responsibility, all the possible consequences.”
In the moment that followed Liz was conscious of Ingrid and the bedroom in which they talked but her senses reached beyond and engaged the house and the yard and the garden. The tang of the wildwood filled her nostrils and the back of her mouth; down in the paddock Glory whinnied, the dogs barked and somewhere in the house a radio played. The narrow, silver-green leaves of the citradora shivered in the wind and a mockingbird sang on a swaying branch. The fullness of the world, its richness and variety tightened her throat and she felt such love for Ingrid as she would not have believed was in her.
“The point is, you have to do what you believe is right. If you don’t, if you go along with the crowd or follow someone else’s sense of right or wrong, you’re betraying yourself.” Liz folded Ingrid into her arms. “That’s the worst thing you can do, honey. Betray yourself. It can take a lifetime to get over that.”
“You were such a good boy,” Jeanne said and tucked the infirmary blanket tighter around Adam Weed’s small body, the palms of her hands warm with the pleasure of the simple task. “Nurse Judy says you’re very brave.”
“She gave me a Hershey Kiss.”
Jeanne dug in the pocket of her sweater jacket and brought out another silvery Kiss. She held it out and Adam took it.
“Thanks.”
He unwrapped the foil, put the chocolate in his mouth and lay back. Jeanne took the paper from his hand and set it on the bedside table beside a glass of water with a bent plastic straw. Next to the little table, a window opened onto the back common where a half-dozen students tossed Frisbees and footballs. Adam stared at the ceiling. Jeanne watched him and became aware that he was concentrating hard on something.
“I’m counting,” he told her. He pointed at the acoustical tiles overhead. “There’s twelve in all the rows ’cept one’s got eleven.” His forehead wrinkled. “I mighta lost count ’cause I had to blink.”
“Have you tried counting the dots?”
“My eyes get all burny.”
“Would you like a book to look at instead? Maybe a magazine or something to draw with?”
He shook his head.
“Nurse Judy says you broke your ankle. Does it hurt?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have you had some aspirin?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re going to learn to walk on crutches for a while.”
He looked interested. “Cool.” He looked up at the ceiling again.
“Why’d you let go of the rope, Adam? You were almost to the top.”
He said nothing. She guessed from his long stare that he was trying to figure out how much he could trust her.
“Uncle Louis said.”
“He told you to let go and fall?”
Adam nodded and then sighed.
“Do you always do what Uncle Louis tells you?”
He put his hands up to cover his ears. She pulled them away gently.
“Uncle Louis lives in your mind, doesn’t he?” His hands wriggled in hers. “I’ll tell you a secret, Adam.”
He looked at her.
“Mostly you don’t get to know this until you grow up.” She dropped her voice and looked from side to side, a cartoon spy. “It’s a very grown-up secret.”
“I won’t tell.”
“Promise?” He nodded the smallest possible nod. “The things you hear in your mind, they’re not always true. Sometimes the mind lies.”
Adam stared at her then looked away and up. His lips moved as he began to count the tiles again.
“Never mind. Everything’s going to be okay. Be patient a little longer.” She touched his cheek and imagined it was James she caressed. What would it be like to touch her own son? “I talked to your father’s office a little while ago. He’s in Tokyo. Japan. But he’ll be back on Thursday and then he’s going to come down here and get you.”
“Uncle Louis says Daddy’s mad at me.”
“Uncle Louis is a liar.”
Adam looked as if he expected momentary murder and mayhem.
“Your father wants you to be happy. And so do I. You don’t have to stay at Hilltop if you’re unhappy.” She lifted a lock of hair off his forehead for the pleasure of touching him.
Adam closed his eyes, ignored her and pretended to sleep. Jeanne stayed beside him. She watched his face and after a few moments the tension melted from it. His breathing deepened and beneath the light infirmary blanket his narrow chest rose and fell.
Outside the infirmary she stood on the side porch watching the boys on the playing field. She knew each by name, his parents and his special needs. When the Frisbee dropped near her feet she picked it up and bent her arm back, sent it sailing on a gust of wind. Once years ago there had been talk of making Hilltop a coeducational school, but she had opposed the idea. At the time Teddy asked why she cared so much; and her answers had been scientific, based on sound educational theory. Children did learn better when boys and girls were separated. But really, she saw now, her arguments had been to rationalize nothing more than wanting to be surrounded by boys standing in for James, variations on her son.
She would tell Simon Weed to follow his heart. He must not let his boy go to strangers, even Hilltop strangers. Hire tutors, the best in the world. Kid-friendly shrinks, as many as it took to sideline Uncle Louis.
When Hannah and Dan made love that night they kissed as if they were inventing kisses, as if kissing might save their lives. Afterwards Dan stayed inside her and they held each other for a long time before slipping apart and over to their own sides of the bed.
Hannah took care not to wake Dan when she went into the bathroom. The luminous digital clock ticked over the minutes after midnight. Her body ached for sleep while her mind churned and made sleep impossible.
It was Wednesday at last.
Barefoot in her white terry robe, she moved through the house like a ghost. In the den Cherokee lifted her elegant head from the couch and thumped her tail. Hannah sat beside her and switched on the television. She found an ancient black-and-white movie starring a pallid young man with a pencil mustache and Myrna Loy, skinny and smirky as always. They guzzled martinis and called each other darling. She watched for a few minutes, then flicked to a channel where a swami preached circles in a singsong voice, flicked again to the skin care secrets of a woman with kumquat-colored hair. On MTV a boy in sequins gyrated while fans screamed.
While the images danced on the screen, Hannah walked around the family room absentmindedly straightening the bookcases and tidying a pile of papers left by Eddie on the project table. On the cover of a blue binder he had written with care, using stencils,
THE RINCONADA ROCKETS
. Inside neatly tagged dividers with typed labels separated the pages. In the first section there was a typed list of players, the roster of the Rockets with all their personal stats: size, weight, college team, position in the draft. The second section held the players’ trading cards encased in plastic for protection. Hannah stared at the mostly African-American faces and repeated the names to herself. She recognized a few as stars. The third section was all statistics, a formidable array of numbers translated into percentages and ratios. Yards on the ground, yards in the air, attempted passes and completed passes, sacks. Math. And laid out as clearly as a Fortune 500 stock report. The next divider set apart a precise reckoning of how much money the Rockets had won for Eddie so far that season. Twenty-three dollars and thirty cents. The last section held typed articles about the Rockets signed with the byline Ed Tarwater. She read one entitled “Rockets Fizzle in Third Quarter” and found no errors.
He made her proud, this boy, smart as he was in his special way. But he shamed her too. While hiding who he really was—the owner, manager, coach, and even the journalist of a winning team—he had tried to play football at Rinconada High School because she wanted him to. Her skin prickled with regret and then with irritation. She never demanded he play. He could have refused.
Hannah’s throat and jaw tightened. She pressed her fingers to her temples. He loved her and she had been awful to him.
“It isn’t that I don’t love you, Eddie. Ed. It’s just I can’t . . .” Her words feathered off into the silent house.
The boy would be better off without her.
Deep in a bosky dream, Cherokee thumped her tail.