Morning.
Winter sun hit the yellow stone of the old Boston building and filled the foyer with such bright warmth that Sara felt she was entering a cube of light. The carpet was blue. On the wall in the entrance hall was a large glass-cased blocked board listing, alphabetically, the various offices in this building.
She looked at the sheet of paper Dr. Crochett’s office had sent along to her: she wanted Foster, Larch, Wang and Sikes.
FLWS Radiology Associates.
Sara smiled. She could see herself reflected dimly in the glass of the office listing: a young woman, the collar of her red cape turned up against the January cold, her cheeks flushed. That was not the cold; it was excitement, optimism, hope.
She was going to have her “tubes blown out.” Horrid phrase. Yet Dr. Crochett had told her that this procedure was both diagnostic and therapeutic. Wisely scheduled after she had finished her period yet before she ovulated, this procedure could clear out any tissue that might be blocking the way of her egg getting down from the ovary through the Fallopian tube and into her uterus. This procedure might clear the path. Twenty percent of all women who had this done got pregnant that very month.
So!
Sara had flown to Boston (and again the plane did not crash!) and taken a taxi to this clinic, situated near one of Boston’s major hospitals. Her appointment was for ten-thirty. It was only ten-fifteen; but she had not wanted to be late.
She found the correct door and entered the FLWS waiting room. A young woman smiled at her from behind a desk. Sara crossed the room, spoke to her, took the forms offered, hung her coat up on the coatrack.
She sat down in one of the blue plaid chairs that were scattered around the room in little groups, took a deep breath, and looked around her. There were five other women in the room, women of different ages. They did not look up at her.
Sara looked down at the sheet of paper the woman had given her, telling her to give it to the nurse when her turn came. The sheet said, simply:
On her sheet, “Uterotubalgram” was circled with blue ink.
Shit, Sara thought, her heart jumping. She looked up again, studying the women around her. She had forgotten that there were worse things in the world than not getting pregnant, that there were dangers lurking in one’s own body, cruel treacheries, cancers and cysts and tumors, an entire range of problems that no one ever asked for, that everyone feared. Suddenly she felt so frivolous being here, so foolish. Why should she have anyone mess around with her perfectly good body? Why should she take up the time and place when some other woman, seriously ill, was waiting to know the results of a much more important test?
She almost left. But she didn’t, she stayed sitting, her mind racing, and now all the frightening negative words came flooding back around her, the little scary bombs other women she had spoken with had unwittingly dropped all around the field of her consciousness.
When she told her mother she was going to have a uterotubalgram, her mother had said, “Oh, dear. Did they tell you how much it’s going to hurt? I had a friend …” and began to relay such a gruesome tale of pain and incompetence that Sara had had to ask her mother to be quiet. “Oh, that was foolish of me,” her mother had said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sure things have changed for the better by now.”
When she told her sister, Ellie had said, “Great. I’m glad you’re doing it. And it won’t hurt as much as everyone says.”
“What do you mean?” Sara had sputtered. “Dr. Crochett said there should be some discomfort, but no real pain. Or at least nothing that lasts very long, only for a few seconds.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Ellie said, lying so sincerely that only a sister could hear. “I must have been thinking of another procedure.”
When she told Julia, Julia had said only, “I’ll meet you at the doctor’s office. What time do you have to be there?”
“What have you heard about this?” Sara demanded, suspicious.
“Not a thing,” Julia said silkily. “I just love the pleasure of your company.”
Now here Julia was, hurrying into the doctor’s office, giving Sara a quick kiss, sitting down next to her. “You look great!” she said. “We’ll have lunch when it’s over and I’ll take you to the airport. Now listen, I’ve got a new joke. A super-rich woman donates a lot of money to a hospital for a maternity wing. So one day she comes to see the wing and the doctors and nurses fall all over themselves because she’s Mrs. Moneybags. They show her all the new babies and they hand her one baby and she looks at it and coos and goos and they hand her another newborn baby and she coos and goos, and they hand her another one. She looks at this one, turns it this way and that, and finally says, ‘Doctors, there’s something wrong with this baby. This baby just doesn’t look quite right.’ The doctors say, ‘Oh, no, we’re really proud of that baby. That baby is a test-tube baby!’ And she hands the baby back and says, ‘That proves it. I’ve always said spare the rod and spoil the child.’ ”
“Oooh.” Sara laughed, aware of the eyes of the other patients. “That’s truly horrible, Julia.”
“Mrs. Kendall?” A nurse with a light blue cardigan over her white uniform stood in a doorway, a piece of paper in her hand. “Would you come with me?”
Sara dutifully followed. The nurse was young, with blond hair that had been overbleached and overblown and stuck out stiffly from her head like seagrass. But she was pleasant enough; she smiled when she showed Sara a curtained cubicle, and said, “Take everything off from the waist down. Put the paper gown on. You can leave your blouse and sweater on. I’ll come back for you in a minute.”
In a changing room much like one in any department store, except that the mirror on the wall was small, reflecting only Sara’s face, Sara stepped out of the lower half of her clothes. She looked at herself in the strange mirror, studying her face. The stark haircut was growing out and looked softer now. In this light she looked quite young and pretty—and healthy. Absolutely capable of having a baby.
She had just sat down on the little wooden bench in the changing room when the nurse returned.
“Would you follow me, please?” she asked, and briskly led the way out of the changing area and down a hallway into a small laboratory room.
“Now,” she said, efficiently, “you just lie down here. Put your feet here. Your legs need to be up. Good. Now scoot down. Way down. Your bottom should be way down here. That’s fine. You’re getting a uterotubalgram, right?”
“Right,” Sara said. “Does it hurt?”
“Oh, it depends,” the nurse said, bustling around, arranging the paper sheet over Sara’s naked lower body. “Sometimes it does. But not for long. And usually not worse than a really severe menstrual cramp. It depends on the person.”
A flare of fear shot up inside Sara then, surprising her. She had experienced so little pain in her life, really, she had never even had a broken bone, and the only time she had been in the hospital was when she was very young, having her tonsils out. What a lucky life she had led until now!
The doctor came in then, whisking through the door as quickly as someone on his way to catch a plane. He walked past Sara without even glancing at her, pulled up a stool, and seated himself at the foot of the table, between her spread knees. Sara caught a glimpse of black-rimmed glasses. The man’s expression was grim.
Isn’t he even going to say hello? Sara wondered. There had to be some kind of protocol for this procedure. Even if he never saw her again—and he probably never would—still he was going to be doing some of the most intimate things she had ever had done to her body. Not even Steve had seen her so gracelessly, helplessly exposed.
The nurse said something to the doctor that Sara didn’t catch. Her heart was pounding suddenly, so loudly that it seemed to be blocking out other sounds.
“I’m a little nervous,” she said quietly.
“I’m just going to put a speculum inside you now,” the doctor said suddenly. “It won’t hurt.”
He bent forward. Sara felt vaguely the intrusion of metal into her vagina. She shifted uncomfortably. She could see the top of the doctor’s head; his hair was white, and he was wearing a short-sleeved blue smock. He must do this all day, Sara thought with amazement. That man must spend all day looking up women’s vaginas. What an odd way to live.
She had almost relaxed when, suddenly, with a grunt of disgust, the doctor pulled his instruments out of Sara’s body and pushed himself away from her. His face was grim, contemptuous, even repelled.
Oh, my God, Sara thought. What was wrong? What was wrong with her? Did she smell? Had he seen something unexpectedly repulsive inside her? Was there something terribly wrong with her body?
The doctor said a few brief brusque words to the nurse and left the room.
Sara raised herself up on the table. “My God,” she said, “what’s wrong?”
The nurse patted her shoulder and smiled. “It’s all right,” she said. “You just haven’t completely finished menstruating yet. We can’t do the procedure today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“But—I don’t understand,” Sara said.
“Here,” the nurse said, helping Sara off the table. “Let me show you back to the changing room and then we can make an appointment for you tomorrow.”
“But, please,” Sara said. “Wait a minute. I still don’t understand.”
Now the nurse turned to Sara, slightly impatient. “He was going to blow dye up inside you,” she said. “But you still have some slight show of blood. That means there might be some capillaries open inside your uterus, and the blood could get in and … cause a problem.”
Sara was horrified. “A problem?” she said. “But … I was told this procedure wasn’t dangerous.”
“It’s not,” the nurse said. “Not if it’s done on the right day. This is the wrong day. But you can come back tomorrow and it will be fine. You wrote down that you’re on the ninth day of your cycle. That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Sara, who had spent more time counting the days in her menstrual cycle than an accountant would spend preparing for an IRS audit, suddenly went blank. “I—I think so,” she said. Seeing the look of impatience on the nurse’s face, she said, more firmly, “I’m sure of it, yes. Absolutely sure.”
“Well, then, come back tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Is there something wrong with me that I still have some blood inside? That I still have capillaries open?” Sara asked. All sorts of fears and worries were popping up in her mind. She saw now that she had not properly considered the intricacies of her body, had not thought of all the tiny parts inside her, which could be harmed if a mistake was made. For some reason, she began to shake.
“No, no, you’re fine,” the nurse said, distracted now, ready to get on with another patient. She led Sara to the changing room and vanished.
Sara dressed with trembling hands, her thoughts racing. It was all so new, so unfamiliar, this reproductive business. She had assumed—now she didn’t know why—Dr. Crochett would be doing everything to her, that he would be her doctor with every procedure. And that would have been all right. She trusted him, she had talked with him, he had looked at her—he had seen her. He was a human being who saw her as another human being with a specific problem he could help solve. He had discussed her problem with understanding and even with enthusiasm.
She couldn’t expect that of everyone, after all. These other doctors didn’t have time to be human, with all the women waiting nervously for all the tests they needed done. As she left her curtained cubicle, she passed one of the other women, an older woman who looked almost in shock, so white was her face, so wide were her eyes with terror. The other woman looked at Sara and then quickly away, and in that brief second of contact Sara saw tears glaze the other woman’s eyes. Oh, there was life-and-death business going on here, there was a necessity for speed; no wonder the doctor had been disgruntled with her body, her healthy body taking up time when it wasn’t ready.
Still. Still, that doctor could have said hello, Sara thought.
She went back through the door from the hallway into the reception room.
Julia was reading an old People magazine. As soon as she saw Sara, she rose, dropped the magazine, and in a flash had crossed the room and wrapped her arms around her.
“Are you okay? How do you feel, sweetie? Do you want to sit down? I didn’t want to tell you before you went through with it, but it’s hellish, isn’t it?”
Sara pulled away from Julia. “I didn’t have it done,” she said.
Julia dropped her arms. “Why not?”
Sara explained. “I’ve got to come back tomorrow,” she added.
“Great. You can stay with me,” Julia said. “We’ll play today, and I’ll bring you back here tomorrow, then drive you to the airport.”
Sara saw the receptionist eyeing Julia and smiled to herself. If opulent Julia had been lying on that table, the doctor would have spoken to her! She made an appointment for the next day, then left the office and the yellow building.
Julia drove her to her apartment on Marlborough Street, where they talked until Sara could call Steve, at home for lunch, to tell him what had happened. Then, on an impulse, she dialed Fanny Anderson’s number. The dragon lady answered, and said, as Sara had known she would, that the author was not available. She took the number Sara gave her but did not assure her that the writer could call.
Sara sat in Julia’s living room after Julia had gone back to work and thought about the morning at the doctor’s office. She thought about how Julia had rushed to console her when she saw her, and began to wonder how much this tube-blowing business was going to hurt. She put her hands on her lower abdomen. What if the doctor, careless, uncaring, made a mistake? It could happen. Mistakes happened all the time. And underneath the comfortable pillowy covering of her skin lay all those tiny little functioning parts with their own terribly specific duties: passageways, tubes, arteries, receptacles, infinitesimal in size, immense in importance.
How easy it would be to damage such delicate, microscopic tissue.
One fraction of a centimeter’s slip with a knife—
Or dye or air blown with too much force, blasting a tube into fragments—
Sara jumped up. She had to stop thinking this way. It was foolish, self-defeating.
She dialed Donald James. He was delighted to hear from her and asked her to join him for a drink that evening. He was a confirmed bachelor, too fastidious to be even gay, and absolutely not a person to engage in discussions about sex, babies, and bodies. This would be good for her.
She spent the rest of the afternoon staring at television shows she never watched at home, waiting for Fanny Anderson to call.
Fanny Anderson did not call.
At five she took a cab to the Ritz and met Donald James. It was wonderful being with her old boss again, hearing all the literary gossip, talking about books. And it was a great consolation to know that he wanted her back anytime because he missed her, her, Sara, not a woman capable or incapable of reproduction, but a woman who was a good editor and an intelligent friend.
Later, at dinner at the Harvard Club with Julia, she continued to forget her fears and fantasies. The one time she attempted to move their conversation onto the particularly maudlin track she had become so fond of, Julia had quickly gotten them off it.
“Do you know,” Sara had confided, ever-so-slightly drunk on two vodka tonics and half a bottle of wine, “Dr. Crochett told me that the trip all those little sperm have to make to get from the vagina into the Fallopian tube to get to the egg is equal to a trip that a man would have to make if he jogged all the way from Boston to Detroit?”
“My God,” Julia said, seeming properly impressed. “Just think of that. All that effort, and then to end up in Detroit.”
Of course Sara had to laugh at that, and Julia, seizing her opportunity, began to regale Sara with every dirty joke she had heard in the last six months. It was incongruous, sitting in the dignified serenity of the Harvard Club dining room with the pianist playing Mozart to the genteel accompaniment of silver against china, to hear the vulgar jokes Julia had to tell. But it took Sara’s mind off her worries, and before she knew it she was back in Julia’s apartment, passing out on the foldout sofa bed.
And then it was morning.
Her appointment was for nine-thirty. Sara drank two cups of coffee and three glasses of water—all the alcohol of the evening before had helped her fall asleep, but had also dehydrated her. She put on the clothes she had worn the previous day, and Julia, dressed in supple black Ultrasuede and pearls, drove her back to the yellow-stoned clinic.
“Shall I tell you some more dirty jokes?” Julia asked as they waited in the reception room.
“My God, can you possibly know any more?” Sara asked, laughing. But her heart was pounding. Today she was more nervous than yesterday. When the nurse called her name and led her into the changing room, she began to tremble. She had had too much time to think about it. Today she knew too much—and too little.
A different nurse, an older woman, led her into the narrow room where the table and equipment sat coldly waiting. Sara licked her lips. Like a good child, she hoisted herself up onto the table and lay down, her legs spread apart, her bottom scooted down to the end of the table so that she knew she made, from a certain angle, a giant M, with the crevice of her crotch, leading into the cave of her body, centered at the fork of the M.
That place, that delicate spot, which so few had ever touched, which Steve touched only with gentleness and reverence and lust and love … now it was exposed to bright light and a stranger’s judgment, all hairy and homely, like a shy night creature that, trapped in the light of day, becomes paralyzed.
She was still new enough to marriage with Steve to base much of her love there, in that low space between her legs, beneath her skin. She loved lying with Steve against her, his penis in that moist iridescent shell-pink passageway, and all the most profound pleasures of her life pulsing there. That was the true heart of her body and her life.
But now she knew that furled passageway led to more secrets, secrets she could only imagine, something more serious than the pleasures of sex, something even homelier and more regal: the beet-red womb rooted deep within, life’s home.
And what else? She was so ignorant. Her ovaries, her tubes, those mute accessories that she had carried with her all her life, uncaring. They were up inside her, too, under her dumb friendly tummy. Were they at fault? Was something wrong? Could they be cured? Or were they simply on a slower schedule than Sara’s—was she rushing them? Would this intrusion damage them, offend them, cause them to withdraw deeper into their wordless dark world?
The door opened. A man came in. It was not the doctor of the previous day. This one was taller, and younger. He was wearing a blue smock, gray flannels.
As his colleague had done the day before, he passed down the length of the table without looking at Sara’s face, without speaking to her, and he pulled up the stool, positioning himself between Sara’s naked spread legs. He grunted orders to the nurse.
“I’m nervous,” Sara said. “I hope this doesn’t hurt.”
No one answered. Sara couldn’t believe it. No one replied. She glared at the nurse, who smiled briefly at Sara.
“I’m going to blow dye into your tubes to see if they’re open,” the doctor said suddenly, and without warning began to insert items into Sara’s vagina. “It won’t take long and it will tell us if your Fallopian tubes are open for the eggs to get down into the uterus.” He seemed to be reciting the words wearily, by rote, an automaton who had done this procedure so often he had become mechanical in its performance. “Okay, let’s go,” he said to the nurse.
The nurse approached Sara and said, “We’re going to take an X ray now. Hold your breath. Don’t breathe again till I tell you.”
Dutifully Sara held her breath. She felt the mute blunt movement of hard metal inside her and then a hot cramp of pain shot through her lower abdomen.
“You can breathe,” the nurse called from somewhere in the room. She disappeared, came back. “Here,” she said to the doctor.
“Mmmm,” the doctor grumbled to the nurse. To Sara he said, “The dye has gone through your right side but not your left. We’re going to do it again.”
What does that mean? Sara wondered. Would they have to use more force? It had hurt only briefly the first time—would it hurt longer this time? And why was only one tube open, was something wrong with her? She began to shake. “I really am getting nervous,” she said. “I have a friend out there, do you suppose she could come in and hold my hand?”
“Won’t be necessary, we’ll be through in a minute,” the doctor said.
“I’m feeling a little dizzy,” Sara said. “And—it’s strange, my hands feel all tingling. My head’s tingling, too.”
“Oh, Christ, she’s hyperventilating,” the doctor said to the nurse. “Give her some smelling salts.”
“Smelling salts?” Sara asked aloud. She felt like Alice in Wonderland, with everything getting curiouser and curiouser. She thought only old ladies with “the vapors” used smelling salts; she didn’t know they were even in use anymore. “What will smelling salts do?” she asked.
“They’ll just shock you a little,” the nurse said.
Sara jumped at that. Shock. She thought of electric shock. She did not want to be shocked.
“I don’t want smelling salts,” Sara said firmly.
“You’ll have them whether you want them or not,” the doctor said brusquely.
Sara nearly rose off the table. Only the knowledge that her lower body was filled with metal tools and God knew what else—she didn’t!—kept her from getting up and walking out. How dare he speak to her that way! What was his problem? What kind of doctor would speak that way to a patient? By coming here, by lying down on his table, she had given him the power to perform a certain procedure on her—she had not thought she was also giving him the power to tyrannize her.
In her rage, she burst into tears.
The nurse approached Sara and said quietly, “I’m just going to wave these over you quickly, you’ll just get a little smell of ammonia, it will just be a little shock, nothing that will hurt you, just enough to clear your head.”
The nurse waved the salts at such a distance from Sara’s face that the sharp and not unpleasant odor was more tantalizing than shocking. Sara took a deep breath.
“I’m all right now,” she said, but she was still trembling with anger.
“Let’s get this over with,” the doctor said.
Sara glared at him, but of course he could not see her glare; his head was bent between her legs.
“We’re going to do another X ray,” the nurse said. “Hold your breath. Don’t breathe until I tell you.”
Sara held her breath. Once again a sharp pain bit into her abdomen, more forcefully this time, so that she felt her body naturally, automatically recoiling, contracting at the pain. But it didn’t last long, it really was no worse than a menstrual cramp—she had had much worse cramps than this.
“You can breathe now,” the nurse said. She disappeared from Sara’s side, reappeared holding some slides for the doctor to see.
The doctor removed his equipment from Sara’s body and rose. “Your left tube is blocked,” he said and walked past her to the door.
“Wait!” Sara called. She twisted on the table to look at the man.
“Can’t you—can’t you do the procedure again to open the tube up? I thought that was why I was here, so that you can open up my tubes if they’re blocked. I want to get pregnant,” she admitted.
“You can get pregnant. You’ve got one working tube. You can talk to your doctor about it,” the doctor said, and left the room.
“Are you all right?” the nurse said, hurrying to Sara as she pulled herself into a sitting position and swung her legs around to the side of the table. “Don’t try to walk just yet, not till you’re sure you’re not dizzy.”
“I’m not dizzy, I’m confused,” Sara said. “Why couldn’t he—he was in and out of here so fast. He didn’t explain—I didn’t have time to understand. I don’t understand. If I’ve got one tube blocked, why that means that I’ve only got six months a year when I can get pregnant. Right? Don’t the ovaries alternate in producing eggs?”
“Well, that’s what we used to think,” the nurse said. “But now I guess the theory is that we don’t know. Sometimes the right ovary can produce the eggs for months at a time, sometimes the left. They don’t automatically alternate every month.”
“Then—then that means that my left ovary might be producing the egg but it can’t ever get down because that tube’s blocked,” Sara said. “Oh, can’t the doctor come back and open up my left tube?”
“No, dear, it would be too uncomfortable for you,” the nurse said. “He did as much as he could today. Now we need to get you moving along. Can you stand?”
Sara was almost in tears again. She was sure the doctor had left her with one tube blocked because she had been such a cowardly patient.
Somehow she knew she had failed. Somehow she failed again, to do what was necessary to get pregnant. If only she had been calmer, braver. She could not bear this kind of judgment, it was a judgment that cast a shadow over her entire life.
“Could I please speak to the doctor?” Sara asked.
“He’s busy,” the nurse said. “Your gynecologist will explain things to you.” Her impassive face made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss anything with Sara. She took Sara by the arm and led her back to the changing room. “You can pay the bill at the desk before you leave,” she said.
Sara changed back into her street clothes and found her own way out to the waiting room. She smiled at Julia, spoke with the receptionist, and calmly left the office. Not until she was seated in Julia’s red convertible did she burst into tears again.
“It was so humiliating,” she cried. “It was so awful. I was so awful. Such a coward.”
“What happened, honey?” Julia asked. She started the car so the engine could warm them up as they sat.
Sara explained what had happened.
“Doctors can be such insensitive assholes,” Julia said. “There should be a law: no man can put his head between a woman’s legs without first introducing himself.”
Sara laughed. “True. But I still feel at fault. I don’t know why, but I got spooked. I suddenly got scared, started shaking, got all nervous—”
“I’d love to stick some metal up that guy’s penis and see how calm he’d act,” Julia said.
Sara smiled. “So would I, actually,” she said. She sat a moment, envisioning—the power of it, to be probing into someone’s delicate sexual and reproductive organs. “Julia,” she went on, “do you think I’m not a natural woman?”
Julia burst out laughing. “Yeah,” she said. “I think you’re synthetic.”
“No, really,” Sara pressed on. “I haven’t gotten pregnant easily, I can’t even have an examination easily. Maybe I’m secretly frigid. Do you know even Queen Elizabeth gave birth in less than a year after her marriage?”
“What does Queen Elizabeth have to do with this?” Julia asked.
“I mean—she appears so proper, but—”
“Oh, honey, sexual passion and love have nothing to do with reproduction. Women get pregnant when they’re raped by maniacs. The body is just so perverse. Everyone’s is. You’re a natural woman, for heaven’s sake. I’ll tell you what you are, though, that’s hurting you, you’re getting paranoid about all this. You’re putting too much on yourself. Why are you doing all this cha-cha-ing around to the doctors? Why not just relax and enjoy yourself? You’re young. You’ll get pregnant eventually. Why not go off to some desert island this winter with your yummy husband and fuck your head off? I mean, I’ve heard the harder you try to get pregnant the less it happens.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Sara said. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know. I know I’m not keen to see any other doctor for a while. Although Dr. Crochett’s nice enough.”
“Well, you ought to tell him about your experience at the clinic,” Julia said. “That shithead shouldn’t be allowed to get away with brutalizing women like that.”
“You’re right. I’ll tell Dr. Crochett,” Sara said.
But she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that. What if Dr. Crochett and the laboratory doctor were best friends? Certainly they knew each other, Dr. Crochett had sent her there. What if she complained and Dr. Crochett talked to the lab doc and said that Sara was a recalcitrant patient? What if Dr. Crochett decided there was no use treating her, since she freaked out at the slightest operation?
Sara leaned her head against the car window and closed her eyes. Suddenly she was overcome with exhaustion. It was all so complicated, this trying to get pregnant—all so unnecessarily complicated! Her anger made her feel weighted down, the situation made her feel helpless. She wanted to sleep.
“I’ll get you to the airport,” Julia said now. “We’ll have some coffee while we wait for your plane.” Without waiting for a reply, she put the car into gear and pulled away.
Steve met her at the Nantucket airport. During the flight Sara had decided how much—or how little—she would tell Steve about her experience. She wanted so desperately for her getting pregnant to be a joyous occasion, an event of love and delight. She did not want to drag it down with dreary tales. She did not want to appear dreary to her husband—it would be too much for any man to have to bear, to have a wife who was not only infertile but also cowardly and gloomy.
And, at the sight of her husband, her spirits lifted. Oh, she loved him so much! And it was such good luck that they had found each other in this world, such good luck to have every day with each other. Steve crossed the small airport waiting room in three strides and encompassed her in a bear hug. He smelled of fresh air and sawdust and sweat. He was delicious, he was wonderful, he loved her, she was safely home in his arms, everything was possible.
As Steve drove her back to their house, she chattered about Julia and her escapades, and Donald James’s gossip, and gave him only a superficial and cheered-up version of her visit to the lab.
“So what happens next?” Steve asked. “I mean, if you’ve got one tube blocked?”
“I don’t know,” Sara answered. “I have to talk to Dr. Crochett. He did tell me that twenty percent of all women who have this procedure get pregnant that month. It’s supposed to be therapeutic as well as diagnostic.”
“Well,” Steve said, and took Sara’s hand. “That’s good news.” He looked at her and smiled. “Thanks for doing all this stuff,” he said.
“Sure.” She smiled back.
It was Steve’s lunch hour, and once at home they heated up a can of chili, covered it with grated cheese, and sat companionably together in the kitchen. They talked about their past day apart and Sara was in two worlds at once; part of her aware of the thick pad between her legs at this unusual time of the month; she was bleeding slightly from the morning’s procedure. She didn’t want to mention this to Steve; it wasn’t the right sort of thing to discuss over a meal, and she didn’t want to seem to be asking for pity. But she could not escape her awareness of it, of how her lower body felt, of all she had been through that morning, of the things she had left unsaid.
Steve leaned back in his chair. He studied Sara; she could tell something was up.
“Yesss?” she asked. Perhaps he was thinking of going to bed right now. God, she hoped not, she really wouldn’t enjoy it right now. But she knew that at least one tube was open.…
Steve grinned. “What would you think about going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl? It would be expensive, but how many times do you get to see the Patriots play in the Super Bowl? Several of the guys have been talking about going—I think it would be a lot of fun. What do you think?”
Sara looked across the table at her husband, who was tipped back in his chair, his arms stretched up so that his hands were crossed behind his head. He was wearing grubby old work jeans that were more brown than blue now and several plaid flannel shirts under a torn wool sweater. Through all the layers of clothing his healthy muscles and strong frame showed; his body looked as thick and hard and impermeable as steel. Like Superwoman, she could see through those clothes to the flat stomach, the tight muscles that lay under his hairy chest and abdomen.
“Oh, yes, the Super Bowl!” Sara said, and suddenly, to her surprise as much as Steve’s, she was in a rage. “Well, why not? Why not spend time and money to watch a bunch of men smashing into each other? You can’t really hurt men, can you? Not where it counts. Their private parts will be protected, you can count on it. No matter how they bash each other around, they’ll still be able to make babies. No one’s going to fool with their penises!”
Steve looked at Sara as if she had just lost her mind.
“Sara,” he said with concern, “what are you talking about?”
Sara looked at her husband in dismay. What had she been talking about? She lowered her head into her hands, hiding her face, which contorted now as she began to cry. Steve rose, came around behind her chair, put his hands on her shoulders.
“Sara?” he asked.
“Oh, Steve,” she sobbed, “it was so awful. It was frightening and humiliating and unpleasant and you talk about the Super Bowl.”
Steve tried to embrace her, but she remained rigid, crying into her hands.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me. You seemed okay.”
“Well I am okay,” Sara said. “And it wasn’t anything drastic, it wasn’t that bad. But it was bad. And I had to do it, all by myself, I had to lie there with a strange man doing things to my … and you weren’t even thinking of me, you were out in the fresh air, building houses, talking to your friends about the goddamned Super Bowl!”
“Well of course I was thinking about you,” Steve said. “Sara, of course I thought about you this morning. You know that. But you sounded fine when I spoke with you yesterday, and you told me before you went up that it was going to be a piece of cake. Those were your exact words, remember, ‘a piece of cake.’ ”
“Well, I was wrong,” Sara said. “And if you’d had any imagination, any sensitivity—I mean, I told you what they were going to do, I told you they were going to force dye through my Fallopian tubes. You might have thought about it a little, that it would be unpleasant for me, that it might hurt.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Steve said, rubbing her back and shoulders. “I didn’t mean to be callous.”
“Oh, I know.” Sara sighed, wiping her tears with her hands. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry to blow up at you. I think I’m getting mad at you because of the way the two doctors treated me. They were so brusque and insensitive. They made me feel like—a piece of meat.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said again. “I wish I could have been there to help you.”
“And I wish, I really wish, that you had to bear just some of the bother of this!” Sara said. “I think that if you just had to, oh, say, go have some strange woman handle your penis, look at it, stick something in it, decide whether it was a good penis or not, then you’d understand a little more.”
Steve’s hands stopped caressing her back. Sara could feel how startled he was at her words, how he had withdrawn from her, puzzled by her anger.
“Well, Sara, it’s not my fault that the human reproductive system is the way it is,” Steve said. He crossed back to his chair and sat down. His expression was bleak.
He thinks that what I’ve just said to him is horrible, Sara thought. She felt she had overstepped some boundary in their marriage. She felt he would never understand how it was for her, that no man could ever understand how it was for women. There he sat with his intact and solid body, insulted by the mere thought of someone messing around with his reproductive organ.
She felt that the gap between men and women was so huge that she would never have the energy to imagine crossing it again. Often she had thought of herself and Steve as one. But now she knew that was only a foolish illusion.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” Steve said, breaking into her thoughts.
“All right,” Sara said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She sat at the table, head in her hands, while he put on his coat and cap and gloves. She did not raise her head for a good-bye kiss, and he did not come to kiss her but went wordlessly out the door, which he pulled shut firmly behind him.
“Oh, honey,” Ellie said. “Oh, sweetie.”
Even though it was the middle of the day, and prime-time rates were in effect, Sara had dialed her sister when she heard Steve pull away in their Jeep. Sara needed desperately to talk. She told Ellie about the procedure and then about how oddly she had reacted, first trying to persuade Steve that everything had been easy and fine, and then, to her consternation, lashing out at him for what wasn’t his fault.
“I think I’m going nuts,” Sara said. “I’m certainly acting nutty. But, Ellie, sometimes I feel that I’m ready to explode. I can’t seem to get control over anything. Everything in my life seems so stuck. I can’t get pregnant, and I can’t get this infuriating Fanny Anderson to even talk to me on the phone. I can’t get anything to work for me. My life is just stalled.”
“Now look,” Ellie said, “you’re getting everything confused. This book business has nothing to do with getting pregnant. They are both frustrating problems, but they are not related. You’re making yourself crazy connecting the two this way.”
“I know,” Sara said. “I know.”
“Listen,” Ellie said, “will you listen to me, please? I’m just a nurse, but I do know something about all this. Sara, we don’t have any idea how much fertility or infertility is affected by stress. And you’ve put yourself under heavy-duty stress. Especially by thinking of your work and your body as the same sort of general thing, you’re working yourself right into a kind of trap. You really have to relax.”
“Oh, Ellie,” Sara said, “I know that. I’ve read that. I’ve heard that. But how do I relax? All I can think about is getting pregnant.”
“Well, let’s consider the possibilities. First of all, you’re only thirty-four. You’ve got a good eight years to get pregnant. You’re healthy, Steve’s healthy; you two have just gotten a late start, and it takes a little longer to get pregnant when you’re older. I know you can’t forget about it now that you want it so much. But perhaps you can think of some ways not to focus on it so much. When you were in your twenties, there was so much you wanted to do, enjoyed doing. You liked to travel, you liked to swim and ski and horseback ride.… Why don’t you and Steve take a vacation? Not a vacation to get pregnant, but one to enjoy yourselves. Doing things you really love to do.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of money,” Sara began.
“My darling, you have more money now than you will after you have children, believe me,” Ellie said. “You will get pregnant, you know, and the day will come when you’ll wish you had the freedom you have now. When you’ll be stuck at home with a sick kid and you’ll wish you and Steve had done something slightly glamorous and exciting.”
“Well,” Sara agreed, “we could use a vacation. We could use some time together not thinking about a baby. And I could use some time not waiting for Fanny Anderson to call.”
“Well, then,” Ellie said. “Why not? Do something wonderful together, something you both would like. You might surprise yourself and get pregnant.”
“Oh, Ellie, what would I do without you?” Sara asked.
“I can’t imagine,” Ellie said. “You’d probably just have to be locked away somewhere.”
The sisters laughed. Ellie changed the subject, to tell Sara about a problem she was having with her supervisor. She forced herself to concentrate: I’ve got to stop dwelling on my problems, she told herself. I’ve got to relax.
When Steve came home that night, Sara had filled the house with the aroma of garlic and parsley as she made linguine with clam sauce, one of Steve’s favorite meals. She felt shy when her husband came in the door, and she could tell by the way he looked at her, holding himself tensely, slightly wary, that he was shy, too. For one long moment she was unsure of herself. Then, “Hi, sweetie,” she said, just at the moment that Steve said, “Hi, sweetie,” and they grinned, amused at themselves, and in a flash were in each other’s arms. All anger, all embarrassment disappeared, replaced by a wonderful mutual flow of comfort and content that rapidly brought on lust. They went to bed before they ate.
When they went back to bed later that night, they lay for a long time, holding each other and talking.
“Baby, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you, I didn’t mean to be insensitive,” Steve said. He held Sara nestled against him, and he softly massaged the back of her neck and head; it was a wonderfully soothing thing for him to do. Sara thought she would purr from it. “There’s just so much stuff I don’t know about it all,” he said. “And you seem so easy with it.”
Sara smiled into her husband’s chest. Now, in this dark room, warmed and comforted by her husband’s words and touch, the obsession faded, relaxed, so that she knew that what was real and good and important in her life was all here, all now, in this room, in this bed. Steve’s touch, and his words, which she could feel spoken, his warm breath rustling her hair, made her feel cherished.
Sara wrapped her arms around Steve and snuggled close to him, chest and pelvis pressed against his, her head bent and nuzzling against his shoulder. Oh, this was what it was all about, this was what the world was about, this was what men and women were all about. Not just a sexual love, though that, of course, but this love that included it all: parent and child, brother and sister, man and wife, excitement and content. He was everything to her, and she was everything to him. She had forgotten this, and it was deeply sweet to remember.
The next day they made reservations on a super-saver flight to Jamaica. They would leave in two weeks and spend ten days there. Steve could easily take the time off from his job, for January and February were slow months for carpenters. And Sara wasn’t editing another book yet. She decided to devote the two weeks to getting her body in shape for a bikini.
Five days before they left, while Sara was scrutinizing herself in the bedroom mirror, trying to decide if she really could walk around in front of strangers with so much flesh exposed, the phone rang.
“Hello, Sara? This is Fanny Anderson,” the soft lilting voice said.
Sara plopped down on the bed, amazed. She had not tried to reach the author for weeks. She had really given up hope.
“Oh, yes, how are you?” Sara asked.
“Oh, I’m well, thank you,” Fanny replied. “I’ve been writing, and I think I’m just about through with my Jenny book. But I can see where it would be of great help to have an editor at this stage. And your letters have been so kind, and you do seem to understand just what I’m attempting here. I was wondering if perhaps you would like to come for a visit, in the near future, as you had suggested.”
Sara’s heart jumped. She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Why, of course,” she said. “I’d be glad to come anytime. I’m delighted.”
“Well, then,” Fanny said, “when shall we schedule this?”
“Why, I could come tomorrow,” Sara said. “Or the next day or the day after that.”
There was a silence then, one so long and profound that Sara thought perhaps they had been disconnected.
“Hello?” Sara said. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” Fanny said, her voice faint. “Yes. All right. Do come tomorrow.”