IT’S A BALMY July evening. JD and his crew have accomplished so much that Emma and Ben can sit on the rocking chairs on the porch and feel that they have come home. Ben’s sipping contentedly from a glass of red wine. He’s chattier and more forthcoming than he’s been for a while.
He’s been reluctant to talk about Peter Pan and the Lost Girls. Actually, he hardly mentions it. When she’s asked, he says he doesn’t want to jinx anything by talking about something that’s still up in the air, and his mood plummets so sharply that she’s learned not to bring it up.
In theory, it’s opening sometime in the spring. Emma suspects that things are going badly, that there are delays. But now he seems positively genial as he tells her—he knocks on wood—that they’ve finally put the cast together. They’ve decided they want a beginner to play Peter Pan, because what’s the point of boasting that you’ll never grow up if you are obviously thirty, and already a star, like so many of the actresses who have played Peter? Ben thinks they’ve found someone, an unknown. Avery and Rebecca are sold on her. Ben thinks she can do it, but he’s not sure.
It’s cutting it close for rehearsals, but he’s beginning to think that the production might shape up in time, and that it might actually be good. Emma’s just happy that he’s talking to her about it. Lately he’s gone so quiet, she’s started to take his silences for granted.
She just wishes that his vague air of distraction didn’t make her wonder what a man with a glamorous life in the city has in common with his pregnant country-mouse wife. Well, their baby, for one thing. Not hers. Theirs.
There’s so much she wants to tell Ben. She wants to line all the uncanny events up in a steady narrative that began the first time they came here, when she saw the girl and the baby. She fears he’ll get the wrong idea about her life, and about what she’s been thinking. If he thinks she’s going a little crazy, that will not be helpful, since sometimes she thinks that too. So many things that have been happening to her have no logical explanation.
Little Person. The woman who wrote the journal called her baby Little Person.
Emma goes into the house and starts cooking. She’s decided to make duck breasts—Ben’s favorite—even though the sight of the purplish hunks of meat nearly makes her sick. They look like some small, dead, skinned creatures, more like bunny than duck. They look better when she slices them so thin they curl under her knife. She makes a perfect green salad with miso dressing, slices tomatoes, and puts a peach crumble in the oven.
She loves looking at the plates and platters that she’s so tenderly culled and cleaned and stacked, choosing which ones to use. She loves thinking about how their food will look on this or that color or pattern—she has so many to choose from—and how pleased Ben will be to eat something not only delicious but beautiful too.
She sets the kitchen table with candles and cloth napkins, and arranges the large, round, pale blue plates. Ben takes the first few bites of duck and makes those contented purrs he makes.
Emma takes a deep breath. “You bought that stove, didn’t you? To help convince me to move into the house. You knew I wanted a stove like that.”
Ben’s smile is broad and innocent. Open. Loving.
“Busted,” he says. “Well, it worked. You’d said it was something you’d always wanted. I knew exactly what you were describing. It wasn’t that hard to find. Bonus: The stove cooks like a dream.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked.”
It’s true. She didn’t.
“Besides,” Ben says, “I thought it was a nice thing to do. Fun. Was I wrong?”
“No. You were right. It was sweet. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad it all worked out.”
They finish their duck—it seems like an accomplishment for Emma not to get queasy—and the peach cobbler with heavy cream that Emma whips as Ben watches.
“I’ll never get tired of watching you do that,” he says. “It’s like a magic trick.”
The good feeling between them lingers through the evening. That night, they have sex for the first time in a while. It’s good, but not great. Emma remembers when it was great. She doesn’t want to think that Ben is remembering that too. Comparing. Emma feels Ben holding back. Or worse: He’s trying. Making an effort. Maybe he’s worried about harming the baby. She understands. She’d like to feel free, unconstrained, less like a third person’s in bed with them, watching. Still, she loves the intimacy, the warmth. It’s just hard to lose yourself in sex with other things on your mind.
Afterward, he says, “Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure.” She’d rather just sleep. But saying that would be even worse than the less-than-amazing sex. “You choose.” She can’t think of anything to watch because there’s nothing she wants to watch.
“What about Juliet of the Spirits?”
It’s an odd choice. Ben’s not a big Fellini fan, and they mostly avoid foreign-language films, because it’s hard to read subtitles on the laptop between them.
“Great idea,” says Emma.
And, at first, it is. The film is beautiful, and the star, Giulietta Masina, has the most expressive face Emma has ever seen. But it would be better if Emma wasn’t fading out. A wife whose husband is cheating on her, hears voices, and sees things that aren’t there…
It’s like her situation, only the wife is older, not pregnant, and…
When she wakes up, the movie is over, the room is dark, and Ben is gone.
After a while Ben comes back and slips under the covers.
“Emma! You’re awake?”
“Where were you?”
“Walking around the house. Everything looks so beautiful in the moonlight.”
“How did the movie end?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go to sleep.”
THE NEXT MORNING, lying in bed with Ben, sipping herbal tea while he drinks coffee, Emma feels confident enough to say, “Ben, listen. The weirdest thing happened. I know you asked me not to go up in the attic. But I did. Just once.” She crosses her fingers under the covers. “I was reading this old journal by a young woman who’d had an affair with a big Broadway star and she got pregnant and he sent her here to have the baby.”
“Sounds interesting.” Ben doesn’t sound interested. At least he’s not annoyed at her for exploring the attic when he told her not to.
“I’m sure there was a lot of that here,” he says. “Unwed moms were probably as common as Broadway drunks.”
“But listen. Here’s the strange part. One of the strange parts. She called her baby ‘Little Person.’ Like I do.”
“Weird,” says Ben. “But still. I don’t mean to be insulting, babe, but it’s not the most original name. If you were to take a survey of the funny little names pregnant women call their babies whose gender they don’t know, Little Person would probably be in the top five.”
Emma is insulted. Ben probably thinks that lots of things about her aren’t especially original, even a little banal. Having a baby, for example. He seems to be moving further away, the nearer the baby gets to arriving. It would be so much easier if they felt close.
“I’ll go get it. I’ll bring it. I’ll show you.”
“Let’s go together,” he says. “Just in case.”
Emma’s sorry she mentioned it. Sorry she offered. She doesn’t want Ben reading the journal. She still feels as if the book is full of secrets. She knows it’s ridiculous. But she can’t shake the feeling.
Emma has gotten so used to pulling down the ladder, she knows exactly how to do it—what angle to come at it from, how much force to exert. But like a good wife, she steps back and watches Ben struggle to get it right.
Ben turns back to help her up the ladder. She can’t refuse his hand.
She knows exactly where the book is. On top of which cardboard carton, in the space she’s cleared so that she can sit on a little stool by the light of the window. She leads him toward the window and tells him to sit on the stool while she looks for it. The box is where it always was.
But the black-and-white book is gone. It isn’t anywhere. And she hasn’t taken it, hasn’t misplaced it. She paws through the papers in the box, raising a cloud of powdery debris.
“Jesus Christ,” says Ben. “Don’t breathe.”
“Sorry. It was right here.”
“Where?” Ben sounds impatient. “Where is this great book you’ve been telling me so much about?”
“It was right here.”
“It’s a big attic. A big mess. It could be anywhere.”
“It couldn’t. It’s always here. And it’s gone.”
Ben lets a silence pass. “Listen, sweetheart. The next time you see Dr. Snyder, maybe you could talk to him about these… weird thoughts you’ve been having. Maybe there’s something he can give you, something to calm you down without hurting the baby.”
I don’t need it, Emma thinks. I don’t think these things happened. They happened.
Ben takes her by the elbows, gently pushing her away from him, looking at her hard.
“Ben, strange things have been happening.” She’s fighting tears. “Stuff I don’t understand, coincidences, seeing things that might not be there and…”
“Are you serious? Emma, sweetheart, darling, tell me you’re not serious. I mean, Jesus… is this some kind of Rosemary’s Baby shit?”
He’s never called her sweetheart before. He’s never called her darling. That’s how theater people talk. He’s always been so proud of not being like that.
This is a very bad time for Ben to have become someone else.
“I mean… tell me you don’t think you’re carrying the spawn of Satan.” Ben’s laughing, but it’s not funny. Emma fakes a smile.
They’re both acting.
EMMA HAS A morning appointment with Dr. Snyder, so she decides to stay over in the city. Maybe she’ll spend two nights, maybe go out to dinner and a movie with Ben.
At first Emma hoped Ben would be going to Dr. Snyder’s with her. She wants him to see Little Person on the sonogram screen. She wants him to be as excited as she is.
But when she decides that she might want to tell her doctor about all the strange… emotional problems she seems to be having, she’s relieved when Ben says there’s a rehearsal he can’t miss. The director needs him to tell the cast something they need to hear.
The hormones are messing with her again, because what she wants to tell Ben is Maybe the doctor will tell you something you need to hear. Something more important than whatever you have to tell the cast. But it would be a mistake to set up a competition between Ben’s domestic life and his work. Besides, she doesn’t want Ben coming to the doctor with her, so what’s her problem?
She gets to the apartment around five. Ben is still at the theater, and he doesn’t pick up his phone. That is not a good sign: not taking your pregnant wife’s calls. But work makes him absentminded, narrowly focused. She’s known that from the start. That intensity is one of the things she’d admired about him. Admired and loved.
The refrigerator is empty. What has Ben been eating and why isn’t he thinking she might want something to eat when she gets here? That’s unlike him. He’s always been so thoughtful. And he can cook. She’d assumed he’d been cooking for himself, as she had.
In fact, she isn’t hungry. But the baby needs a snack.
She can go get something from the Jordanian grocery on the corner. The two brothers who own the grocery, Salim and Joe, know her. She’d told them she was leaving the city and why, and they’d broken into big grins. “Congratulations!” Their kids’ photos are all over the wall behind the cash register.
The brothers ask how she’s feeling and beam at her when she says “Good!” She buys Swiss cheese, fresh pita bread that Joe’s wife makes and you have to know to ask for, and a ripe avocado. Back home, she makes a grilled cheese sandwich and tops it with slices of avocado.
There is never any question of her meeting Ben at the theater, watching him work. She’s asked a few times, and he has always said no. Maybe later, but he’s under pressure. Emma’s presence would be a distraction.
She’s asleep when he comes in, and she wakes up just long enough for one sleepy kiss.
In the morning, they eat the pita bread and cheese.
Ben says, “Call me as soon as you’re done with the doctor.”
“I will,” says Emma.
“Promise you’ll tell him about all this stuff that’s been bothering you?”
IT ALWAYS TAKES a while to realize she’s actually listening to the baby’s heartbeat. At first, she thinks it’s just the thrum of the machine, running beneath the beeps. It takes a while to get up the nerve to look… and there it is, pulsing and dancing, swimming and dreaming. Does the baby recognize her voice?
“Look,” Dr. Snyder says, “there’s the heart. And there’s the foot. And there— Oops. Sorry. We’re keeping that a secret. Still?”
Emma nods.
She senses that he doesn’t entirely approve of their not wanting to know the baby’s sex. But lots of couples must feel the same way. Maybe he thinks it’s unscientific. Science is wanting to know the facts. There is always a beat where the doctor almost says “girl” or “boy,” or uses a revealing pronoun, but he catches himself. Maybe he’s teasing her. Or maybe Emma is imagining it, the way she’s been imagining so much.
“Good, good, good,” the doctor says.
She thinks about an afternoon not long ago. They were in the country, taking a nap. Ben finally felt the baby turn over. His smile was so radiant, so amazed, Emma knew everything would be fine.
Nothing is easy, Emma tells herself. She never believed it would be.
“Emma?” Someone is calling her. “Emma?”
The doctor is saying her name. Oops. She needs to prove she’s right here, right now. Fully present and aware.
“Okay, Mom,” the doctor says. She wishes he wouldn’t call her “Mom.” It seems like bad luck. He probably calls all his obstetrical patients “Mom,” but it’s annoying. Does he call the dads “Dad”? Probably. Ben is never here with her, so she doesn’t know. If Ben calls her “Mother,” the marriage will be over.
Who called his wife “Mother”? That’s right. Ted. Lindsay’s dad. He called Lindsay “Baby Girl.” Emma does little memory tests on herself, to make sure her brain is still working.
The doctor hands her a paper towel to wipe the gel off her belly.
“You can get dressed. Take your time. Then let’s chat in my office.”
The sonogram screen goes blank. The heartbeat stops. Goodbye, Little Person. Be good. Be safe. But why say goodbye? They’re leaving the room together.
“So?” The doctor’s desk is cluttered with charts and medical journals. “How’s everything going?”
“Fine,” she says. “Really really great.”
“Really really? Two ‘really’s worry me. Is something bothering you, Emma?”
“No.” She wants to say yes.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time.” He has four kids of his own, all very tall and athletic, in photos on his desk. He was her mother’s doctor. He’ll be retiring soon. She wishes he wouldn’t.
Was Dr. Fogel a real doctor? Emma shudders. Best not to think of the journal now. It’s uncomfortable when one part of her life seeps into the others.
“It’s normal to worry. Sometimes it helps to talk about it.”
Emma says, “I don’t know… it’s probably nothing…”
“What is?”
“The house… it’s a lot of work. Ben’s in the city a lot. And our contractor is a great guy, I trust him completely, the work’s going well, but…”
“But…?”
“I don’t know…”
“Emma, do you know how often you’ve said ‘I don’t know’?”
“It’s just that… sometimes, it’s like I have these… hallucinations. I see something out of the corner of my eye and then it’s gone.”
She’ll stop there. No need to tell him about the journal. Or the graveyard.
“What are you seeing?” He leans forward. Is he curious or concerned?
“A woman with a baby.”
He smiles. “You’re seeing your future.”
He seems oddly okay with a patient saying she’s hallucinating. Maybe he thinks she’s exaggerating, or that it’s a metaphor, or— She hopes that’s not her future. The girl looked half-starved and unhappy.
“Emma.” The doctor’s voice couldn’t be kinder. “Hormones are rampaging through you. Some you’ll need later, some you’ll never have to deal with unless you have another baby. Your sensors are on high alert, instincts you never needed. Try and stay as calm as you can, but look around. There isn’t one human being born whose mother wasn’t worried.”
He makes it sound so simple. So normal and healthy. He makes her doubts and fears sound… necessary. Except that he hasn’t, not really. She talked about hallucinations, and he talked about hormones.
“Think of this as the calm before the storm.” Dr. Snyder chuckles at yet another remark he’s probably made a thousand times. Well, fine. “The second trimester. This is the easy part.” He knocks on his massive wooden desk. “Enjoy it.”