In early November, Sara went up to Boston to meet with Linda Oldham of Heartways House. HH was starting a new line of romance novels, contemporary stories about women who had careers and talents and who would actually be allowed (although discreetly) to make love with a man instead of only panting and fainting and being fragile. Linda wanted Sara to oversee the series, and Sara agreed as long as she could stay in Nantucket. She would come in to the office at least twice a month for meetings. She would have a great pile of manuscripts to sort through and she would be in charge of setting down the guidelines for the series. It was a challenge for Sara, and she was excited about it; this was work she could believe in, for she did believe that the best world of all for women held both work and romance.
After the meeting with Linda, she took a taxi to Cambridge and walked up the winding slate walk to Fanny Anderson’s house. It had been a mild dry fall, so that the trees bristled and clicked with leaves that had become sere and crisp but had not yet fallen. Sara stood at the front door but did not knock. She looked around, at the gold chrysanthemums rimming the walls of the house, at the lawn sloping to the wrought-iron fence where leaves that had fallen caught in bunches between the rails. At one time, she had been slightly afraid of this house, and it had held an air of mystery for her. Then it had become a place that excited her, challenged her; and now it welcomed her, it held her own secrets as well as Fanny’s.
Stone-faced Eloise opened the door when she finally knocked: this much had remained the same. The heavy blue curtains were pulled tightly shut in the living room, and a bright fire gleamed from the fireplace, filling the room with warmth and light. The cats were in their usual cold-weather spots, stretched in front of the fire. Fanny was on the sofa, her favorite spaniel next to her, its head in her lap. As Sara entered the room, she saw that Fanny was unusually agitated. Her smile trembled and she stroked the dog’s head and ears with quick, nervous hands. Oh-oh, Sara thought, what could have gone wrong?
At first they talked about the easy things, plans for Christmas and the weather, Sara’s new job for Heartways House. But after Eloise had brought in the tea cart, Fanny said, “Sara, dear, I have a problem.” Even in her distress her words came with the slow lilting ghost-of-a-Kansas drawl. “Well,” she laughed, “foolish me, I suppose most people wouldn’t think of it as a problem. And that exacerbates it.” She laughed again, stroking her spaniel’s silky head. “You see, I’ve had this letter,” she said. “From England. From my publishers there. They say Jenny’s Book has won an award. Quite a bit of money and a great deal of prestige. The Shelburne Prize.”
“Oh, my God, Fanny,” Sara said. “That’s absolutely fabulous. That’s wonderful. Well, good Lord! How marvelous. The Shelburne Prize is really a feather in your cap.”
“Oh, yes, I know it is, I suppose,” Fanny said. “But you see there is a problem. The letter states that in order to receive the award I have to attend an awards ceremony. I have to accept it personally, and be prepared to give a small speech. In England. In January.”
“Well, you can do that!” Sara said. “Good heavens, Fanny. England! The Shelburne Prize!”
Fanny stared at Sara. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and looked down at the dog in her lap. She stroked the dog in silence.
“You can’t mean you’re thinking of not going?” Sara asked, almost shrieking. “Oh, Fanny!”
Fanny looked up. “Well, my dear, I did tell you that I haven’t left this house for four years. I have explained to you how I feel about going out. And this would be not only going out but going abroad. And going back. It is quite conceivable that I will run into people I used to know when I was in London. Old acquaintances, old colleagues—even old lovers. I really don’t know if I can face all that.”
“Oh, Fanny, what nonsense,” Sara said. “There isn’t a writer on earth who wouldn’t go to hell and back to receive the Shelburne Prize, and you’re only being asked to go to England. You have to go. You can’t let your vanity get in the way here. Besides, you know that everyone else will have gotten older, too, if that’s what you’re worried about, but you will have the triumph because you’ve produced a book that’s won the prize. Oh, Fanny, you have to go, I won’t let you not go!”
Fanny smiled. “I was hoping you would say something like that,” she said. “Because, you see, my dear, I thought I probably could go—on the condition that you accompany me!”
Sara felt her jaw drop in surprise. One thought before all others leapt to mind.
Seeing Sara’s expression, Fanny hastened to add, “I would pay all your expenses, of course, airfare and hotel. I’ll have loads of money and I wouldn’t dream of asking you to go with me unless you would permit me to pay your expenses.”
“Oh, Fanny, that’s so generous of you, and you know I would love to go with you, it’s only that—exactly when is the ceremony? What dates in January do you have to be in London?”
Fanny reached for a letter lying on a table near the sofa. “Around the middle of the month,” she said. “January seventeenth is the date of the ceremony. My agent there said that she is going to try to set up some interviews and my publisher is giving me a publication party and so on, so that if I could be there for an entire week it would really be the best thing. The dates she suggests are January fifteenth to the twenty-first.”
By now Sara knew each phase of her menstrual cycle as well as her own name. Certainly she knew beyond any doubt that the week Fanny wanted her to go to London was the week in January when she would ovulate. The week when she should try to get pregnant.
She was now thirty-five. There were not that many months left in her life when she would ovulate, when she had a chance of getting pregnant.
But how could she not go with Fanny? She knew Fanny wouldn’t go alone.
And perhaps she would be pregnant then. Perhaps by then it would all be settled.
“Of course I’ll go,” Sara said. “I’d love to go, Fanny. We’ll have the time of our lives. My God, you’re going to receive the Shelburne Prize. Do you have any idea how prestigious that is? How proud you should be of yourself? Oh, and Fanny, a week in London! We’ll have the most wonderful time!”
Fanny’s hands flew up to her hair. “I’ve been thinking all night,” she said, “whether I should put a rinse on my hair. There is so much white in it now. And I must go on a diet. And I suppose my clothes are hopelessly out of style—I suppose I should do some shopping.…”
Sara laughed and leaned forward, talking to Fanny about her hair, her weight, her clothes. The Trip. The Prize. It was all so marvelous. In the back of her mind a thought ran like a song: Fanny is going to leave her house! After all these years of hiding!
And, further back, thrumming like a drumbeat, murmured the worry: You’ll be missing a chance to get pregnant. You’ll be giving up one month’s chance to get pregnant. You’ll be going to London during the time you ovulate. What do you think you’re doing?
At the end of November, Sara’s period started again.
She could not believe it. She had done everything right this time, everything that could be done she had done. She was sickened with defeat. She did not know if she could get out of bed ever again. There seemed no reason to go on living.
She did get out of bed, finally, and spent the day in her robe, taking pills for her cramps, alternately drinking strong coffee and white wine, trying to snap herself out of her misery, trying to stop crying. She called Dr. Crochett, who said she must give herself a few more months before they tried anything else, such as progesterone or other medications or before they discussed something as expensive as in vitro fertilization. He told her tales of other patients who had not gotten pregnant for months, for years, and then who suddenly, for no reason at all, got pregnant. Sara realized that the doctor had been saying in his own way what everyone else had said to her: just relax.
In other words, there’s nothing more we can do.
By late afternoon Sara was nearly hysterical with grief. When she turned on the television, hoping some talk show would distract her, she found herself bombarded with commercials for diapers. She turned off the TV and forced herself to dress and go for a walk. It was a cold day and windy, but sunny. She had gone no more than six blocks when she saw two different mothers with babies in carriages. She turned around and returned to the shelter of her house. At times like this it was very hard not to think that the world was mocking her, that the world hated her.
She fell on the bed, still in her coat and hat and gloves, and sobbed. How had her life gotten into such a state? She had so blithely assumed that she and Steve would have children, when they married they had talked about having children, and life, what life was about, she had thought, was having a family. She wanted to nurse a baby, to change a baby’s diapers, to cuddle a baby, she wanted to read stories to a child, to comfort a sick child, to delight a child at Christmas. She wanted to share the joy of having a baby with Steve. She wanted to show Steve how much she loved him by having his baby. It was not fair, it was not right, it was not real! Their love was so good and strong and healthy and right that she should have gotten pregnant from the sheer force of their passion the first time around.
But she hadn’t. And she wasn’t pregnant now. She felt useless and cursed and insane.
Just before Steve came home, she rose and washed her face and calmed down. Now that she knew how strongly he, too, wanted a child, and how he blamed himself for their failure, she felt it necessary to protect him, to play down her own disappointment. So she put on more mascara and she put on a loud rock ’n’ roll record and she put on steaks to fry in butter and mushrooms and wine. She pretended to be optimistic even though her heart was breaking.
It was the middle of December. It was, in fact, the middle of Sara’s menstrual cycle; the fifteenth day, and The Day according to her test.
Outside, everything was dusted with a sugary sprinkling of snow. Inside, the house was clean and beautiful, for Sara had gotten creative and energetic with the Christmas decorations. Trying to keep active and optimistic, trying not to sink into a state of apathetic mourning, she had thrown herself into getting ready for Christmas with all the vigor she could muster. On Saturday night she and Steve were giving a huge Christmas party for the group and just about everyone else they knew on the island. Sara had brought an enormous tree with her from the mainland and had taken days trimming it with handmade cranberry and popcorn chains and red satin hearts and flashing stars made from mirrors and with the box of decorations that her mother had recently mailed to her, decorations that had been hung on the Christmas trees of her childhood. She had draped laurel on the staircase banister and over the mantels in the living room and the dining room, and a wreath of native grasses and berries, tied with green velvet ribbon, hung in the kitchen window.
Because it was sunny and warm for this time of year, Steve had gotten up early and left to work on the house he was in charge of restoring. Sara had come from the bathroom, where she had just used the kit, to find him dressing. She almost said, No! You can’t go now, you have to come back to bed first! But she knew he was concerned about getting work done on the house whenever the weather allowed them to work outdoors. She could wait until tonight. She just wished that the day would hurry. She felt her egg ticking inside her like a clock, saying, Hurry, hurry, fertilize me, before it’s too late! She was nervous, impatient, even anxious. She could not let this day pass by without making love.
At least today was the day she had invited Annie Danforth for lunch. Sara set out quilted red placemats and matching napkins and put red tapers in the silver candlesticks. She had made a quiche and a small salad and bought a nice white wine. This was the first time she had invited anyone to lunch on Nantucket. She felt as young and excited as a child about to have a friend for a sleepover.
Annie had a master’s in English literature, but like many other women on the island—or any English major anywhere—she could not find a job that called for her particular qualifications. So she had started her own dressmaking and sewing business and was doing very well. But she loved to read and longed to talk about books and for the first part of the afternoon they indulged themselves in book talk. Sara was delighted, partly to find someone who loved books as much as she did, but also because she had wanted to put off any mention of children until late in their conversation so that she would not seem too interested in the subject.
“What luxury,” Annie said as Sara brought in a pot of strong tea to counteract the effects of the wine. Their dessert, raspberries in whipped cream flavored with Chambord, waited before them in crystal bowls. Annie waved her hands, indicating the room around them, the world around them. “This gorgeous day, and your house is so beautiful and this lunch is so good. And it’s so peaceful here.”
“I know,” Sara said. “It is peaceful. But that’s partly because Steve and I don’t have any children yet.” There, Sara thought, wasn’t that a subtle enough nudge in the right direction?
“Do you and Steve want to have children?” Annie asked, stirring her tea.
“Mmm, I think so,” Sara said casually. She couldn’t reveal her painful secret just yet. “Do you and Wade?”
“Oh, we’ve always wanted to have a family,” Annie said. Her face grew serious. “But we knew we had to save a little money first and get our lives organized! It took me a while to figure out what I was going to do here, since I couldn’t use my English degree. And it’s taken forever to get our house in shape. But Wade is thirty-three and I’m thirty-five. So we decided we’d better get started. It’s such a hard decision to make.”
“I know,” Sara agreed. Now, she thought, tell me what a surprise it was that you didn’t get pregnant right away.
“But we did make the decision, and I stopped using my diaphragm. That was a whole year ago.” Annie looked into her tea. “I guess we thought I’d get pregnant right away,” she said, her voice dropping. “It’s really been a hard year for us, because it didn’t happen that way. I mean it didn’t happen instantly like we thought it would.”
“I know,” Sara agreed. She almost added that she and Steve were having trouble, too, but Annie was engrossed in her own account. Sara listened, feeling the words come like balm over the wound of her lonely infertility.
“You wouldn’t believe how hard something like this is on a marriage. I didn’t think much about it for about six or seven months, although every month when my period started I was disappointed and then pretty upset. But then I know we’re older and it probably does take longer. And the first few months we didn’t pay any attention to the times when I might be fertile, I mean we just made love whenever we wanted to and didn’t try on any certain day. But then I started reading up on how to get pregnant and sort of tried to maneuver Wade into bed on the right days. That was fun. But I still didn’t get pregnant. You can’t imagine how funny that made me feel.”
“Oh, I can imagine,” Sara said, sympathetically. She felt that when her turn came to talk, her sorrowful tale would rush from her like lava from a volcano, leaving her purged, cleansed, relieved, and fresh for a new beginning.
“Well, about two months ago I suggested to Wade that perhaps we should see a doctor because I wasn’t getting pregnant. Man, you should have seen his reaction. Talk about macho defense mechanisms! He freaked. No way was he going to let a doctor fiddle around with his equipment! We had a terrible fight. The worst we’ve ever had. This fertility stuff really strikes at the deepest fears and feelings. God, I was really scared for a month. I thought our marriage might be ruined. I couldn’t even get Wade to talk about it. I felt so lonely.”
“Oh, you should have called me,” Sara said, and almost began to say, “because I’ve been going through the same thing.” But Annie kept on talking.
“So finally I bought this thing called an ovulation-response kit. It’s sort of like a home chemistry unit, it tells you exactly the day you ovulate. You have to do a little test with your urine every morning during the middle of your cycle. Well, I used it, but I had to sneak around to do it because Wade would have hit the roof if he knew I was using it. Sometimes he’s just such a caveman I can’t believe it. Anyway, I did use it last month—” Annie raised her eyes and looked at Sara. Her smile was so radiant that it took Sara’s breath away. She knew what Annie was going to say before she spoke. “Sara, I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant! I haven’t told anyone yet—I haven’t even told Wade! Please don’t tell anyone. I could be wrong. But I don’t think so. My period’s three weeks late.”
Sara smiled, and behind the facade of her smile her entire body switched into an alternative mode that focused on survival, evasion, and pretense. “Annie, that’s fabulous!” she said. “Listen, since you used a home ovulation test kit, why don’t you get one of those home pregnancy testing kits?”
“Oh, I have,” Annie said. “I’ve used three of them. They’ve all said positive—I’m pregnant. God, I can’t believe it. I have an appointment with the doctor on Friday. I want to be sure before I tell Wade. I don’t want to be just maybe pregnant, I want to be really pregnant.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Sara said. “It sounds like it.”
“Well, my breasts are tingling at the nipples,” Annie said. “And yesterday, while I was sewing? I just fell asleep. I’ve never done that before. I’m so tired and sleepy these days I can’t seem to get anything done. That’s not like me at all. And—”
Sara listened while Annie talked about the signs of her pregnancy and about when the baby would be due and about how she hoped it would be a boy for Wade’s sake. Sara smiled and nodded and oohed and aahed, and thought: Annie, you are so self-absorbed! Doesn’t it occur to you to wonder why I brought this up? Or what I meant by all those “I knows”? But Sara knew that now she would never confide her own problems to Annie. She could not let Annie know that while she had gotten pregnant after using the test once, Sara hadn’t gotten pregnant after using it several times, after a laparoscopy, after over two years of trying.
Annie kept on talking, but each word only pushed Sara further back into her own loneliness. Now she knew that every time she saw Annie, whose stomach would burgeon triumphantly with new life, with the real child she would be carrying, Sara would be made aware of the contrast between the two of them. She would be the failure.
What was happening? Why was this happening? Finally Annie left, and Sara, zombielike, cleaned up after their lunch, then went to her bedroom and lay on the bed, stiff with self-hatred and confusion. She didn’t deserve this; she could think of no awful thing she had done in her life that would have brought this on. But fate was clearly turning its back on her, or, worse, singling her out to curse. Her sister, Ellie, was pregnant for the second time. The Virgin, horrid Mary, was pregnant for the third time. The woman at the dry cleaner’s was pregnant, a cashier at the grocery store was pregnant. And now Annie was pregnant. Now Steve and Sara would be the only couple in their group who didn’t have a child. Why? How could this be explained? What could she do? What could she do?
Well, they could make love tonight. She was ovulating today. She had proof of that. She must hang on to that and be optimistic. She really could not let herself sink into a bog of self-pity. She would be warm and loving to Steve when he came home. Tonight could be the night.
But when Steve came home, he was tired and irritable. One of his workers hadn’t shown up, and Steve thought they were falling behind schedule on the job. Sara served him a huge helping of lamb stew, which usually put him in a better mood but didn’t work this evening. He was sullen as they ate, and responded to her cheerful chatting with monosyllables. Then, when she was in the kitchen, thinking that it was unfair of him to take his bad day out on her, Steve came into the kitchen with a sheaf of mail in his hands.
“Jesus Christ, Sara!” he said. “I just looked at the Sears bill. And our MasterCard and VISA. Have you gone mad?”
Sara dried her hands and turned toward Steve. Oh, Steve, she thought, trying to relay a silent message to him. Let’s not fight. Not tonight. We have to make love tonight.
“It’s Christmas,” she said. “I got presents for everyone off-island, it’s cheaper than here. We’ve got so many people to buy for—your mother and father, and my mother, and Ellie and her husband and Joey, and Julia and I always exchange gifts, and I wanted to get something for Fanny this year, she’s become so special to me. And then I bought some specialty foods in Cambridge at Cardullo’s for our party this weekend. I can’t find anything like that here.”
“Well, God, Sara, I just can’t believe you spent so much! Jesus, look at these bills! As if we don’t have enough to pay with our fuel bills in the winter.”
“Oh, Steve, it’s not any more than we usually pay,” Sara said. “It’s just that it came all at once this year—the bills, I mean. Usually we don’t get hit for it until January, or it’s spread out over two or three months. I was just really organized this year and did all my shopping at once, and all the bills are coming at once.”
“Well, you should have consulted me before you spent so much money.”
“Oh, Steve,” Sara replied. “Don’t turn us into a cliché marriage with the husband telling the little wifey what she can and can’t do. I bring in a good amount of money, you know, I work, too. I’ll be paying half of those bills.”
“Yeah, but Sara, you know I’m strapped these days,” Steve said. He plunked down in a kitchen chair and tossed the mail with such angry energy that some of them flew across the table and onto the floor. “I think you’re really being inconsiderate. I’m not telling you what you can or can’t do, but the least you could have done was to consult me.”
“But, Steve, you know how you hate buying Christmas presents,” Sara said. “You’re such an old Scrooge about it—”
“Oh, are we going to call names now? You’re going to call me an old Scrooge? Because I think we have to watch our money? You don’t want to get into the cliché of husband talking to wife about money, but you can call me names. Right? Right?” He was almost shouting at her.
“Steve,” Sara said, “don’t get so angry. Just because you’ve had a bad day at work, don’t take it out on me.”
“And you don’t try to get off the subject!” Steve said. “I’m not crabbing about a bad day at work. I’m crabbing about these goddamned bills. Sara, you bought Joey about three hundred dollars’ worth of stuff!”
“Well, they were on sale,” Sara began. “And they weren’t just for Joey—” She turned away. How could she say what a pleasure it had been for her, to spend the afternoon in the toy department of the huge Sears store on the mainland. She had lingered over dolls with frilly dresses and fire trucks that pumped real water, overstuffed teddy bears with pink ribbons and dollhouses with miniature furniture. She had gazed with longing at the gaily colored educational toys that bloomed like huge plastic flowers in the baby section. She had wanted to buy every single item and take it home and give it to her own baby, her own little boy, her own little girl. She had bought presents for Joey, her nephew, and then, obsessed, she had bought presents for Ellie’s new baby, which would be born in January. Tiny terry-cloth layette sets. Bath blanket and washcloth sets the color of a newborn chick. A silky quilt embroidered with bunnies and elephants and ducks and giraffes. An exquisite pure-white fleece winter blanket with a hood attached. Yes, she had gone mad. She had bought too much. But then, what was too much to welcome a new child into the world?
Yet she could understand Steve’s point of view. She had been extravagant. She had spent too much. She had gone a little bit nuts. She had bought those things for herself, really. It had been worth three hundred dollars to spend that afternoon legitimately buying baby clothes and toys.
There was no way to explain all this to Steve without making them both even more miserable because they had no baby of their own.
“I’ll pay for it all myself,” she said calmly, not looking at him.
“Oh, Christ, Sara, why not just go ahead and cut my balls off,” Steve said.
Sara looked at him, shocked. He had never talked to her this way before. But Steve was moving now, shoving his chair away from the table and stomping off into the other room. She heard him grab his coat and slam the front door. She heard the roar of the pickup truck as it went off into the night.
He had never done this sort of thing before. She had never done this sort of thing before. At the most, during their worst arguments, she was the one who left the room—but only the room. She had flung herself, weeping, from the living room, waiting for Steve to come find her, forlorn, on the bed. Sometimes he had come, sometimes not, and then she had had to swallow her pride and go back into the living room to start up the conversation again.
But she had never left the house during an argument, and neither had Steve. She felt sick at her stomach.
She picked up the bills that were scattered across the kitchen floor. They were pretty scary—the bills for Christmas presents; and she had charged the booze and food for the party on her MasterCard; and, mixed in with all the rest, they still owed a thousand dollars for her laparoscopy. At least Steve hadn’t complained about that. He hadn’t said that if she weren’t such a failure as a woman, they wouldn’t have had to pay $2,500 in medical bills. And there were the ovulation test kits Sara had bought, thirty-five dollars apiece. That added up.
It all added up. It would be hard work fighting their way through the bills, paying them off. She should have been more frugal this year, knowing what a financial and emotional burden Steve’s new business was on him. But they would come out all right, she was sure of that.
If only he would come home. Sara looked at her watch. It was almost nine-thirty. Her nerves jangled. Only two and a half hours before midnight! Only two and a half hours before the day she ovulated was over. He had to come home, soon, they had to make up, they had to make love.
Needing to use up her frantic energy, she finished cleaning the kitchen. When, at ten o’clock, he still hadn’t come home, she could only pace through the house. Where was he? Had he gone off to a bar for a beer? She would hate it if he did that, he never did that, it would be like telling the world they’d had a fight, it wasn’t like Steve. But it wasn’t like him to stomp out of the house like that, either.
At ten-thirty he came home; his face was somber and drawn.
“Where have you been?” Sara asked, trying to sound worried but not nagging.
“I just drove to the beach and sat there listening to the radio and staring at the water,” Steve said. He walked through the hall, tossed his jacket on the stairs, and headed up the stairs to their bedroom. Sara followed.
Steve talked as he undressed for bed. At least he’s getting ready for bed! Sara thought.
“I’m sorry I spoke to you that way,” Steve said. “That was vulgar and crude of me.”
“I do understand about the money,” Sara said. “I can see that I did spend too much. I’m sorry. But now that I’m working full-time for Heartways House—”
“But don’t you see, Sara,” Steve said, “it’s not right for you to be paying more than half the bills. I can stand it that I’m not supporting you, I’m that liberated, but it just grates on me if you’re going to be paying such a big portion of the bills, and spending so much money without consulting me, as if what I make doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, Steve, I never meant for it to seem that way,” Sara said.
“I know you didn’t. I know I’m overreacting about the money. But I’ve got expenses I didn’t expect—the insurance premiums for the two men who are working for me are killing me. And the bookkeeping is a real pain in the ass. I’ve got to watch every cent we spend on this house, and if I make any mistakes, it comes right out of my own money. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, having my own company. Sometimes I think I made a mistake.”
“Oh, Steve, you didn’t, it’s always more difficult when you start off,” Sara said. “I’m so sorry I spent so much. It was insensitive of me, right now when you’ve got so much on your mind. But it will be okay, Steve, really it will.”
Now, finally, Steve turned and embraced Sara. He held her to him and ran his hand over her hair. But it was only a gentle embrace, not a lustful one.
“God,” he said. “I’m beat.”
He rose, went into the bathroom, came out, and crawled into bed. Sara went downstairs and turned off all the lights, then went back up the stairs, her mind churning. They had made up. But he didn’t seem interested in making love. In the bathroom she deliberated. She could put on a sexy nightgown—but it was cold in their house at night in the winter; they purposely turned their thermostat way down. She always wore her cozy flannel nightgown. Still … she put on a sexy skimpy gown.
Steve was lying with one arm flung over his eyes. He did not see her come through the bedroom. Sara got into bed next to him and wrapped her arms and legs around him. She cuddled up to him. She knew he must feel her body through the flimsy material of her gown.
Steve wrapped an arm around her and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Sara, I’m just no good tonight,” he said. “I’m wiped out. I’ve got to get some sleep. I want to get up at six tomorrow. I’ve got to start getting out to the house earlier or we’re going to be way behind schedule.”
But you have to make love to me tonight! Sara thought in horror. You have to!
She lay frozen while he reached out, turned off the light, then turned on his side, into the position he always chose for sleeping. His back was to her.
Sara lay still, but inside she was churning. She was insulted—didn’t her practically naked body have any effect on him anymore? And more important—what was she going to do now? Should she say, Steve, you have to make love to me, I’m ovulating? That would be a real turn-on. But if she didn’t get him to make love to her … She looked at the bedside clock. It was ten forty-three. The minutes were speeding away. What could she do? What should she do?
She heard Steve snoring next to her. Already he was in a deep sleep. He’d been falling asleep this way almost every night, exhausted from work. She knew she wouldn’t wake him; she couldn’t. It would be too crude, it would make it seem as if she thought of him only as a kind of stud who had to automatically perform and fertilize her. This was not a good time for her to push for anything now; he was already feeling too pressured.
Steve snored evenly, regularly, sleeping deeply. Sara lay next to him, painfully awake. What a day this had been: Annie Danforth’s happy confession, which had fallen like a bomb on Sara’s hopes for a sympathetic friendship, and then the argument with Steve, and now this, her body waiting eagerly for something that would not happen. She lay awake deep into the night. She knew she would not get pregnant this month.
In the morning she had trouble waking up. It had been a sleepless night and she was not rested now. Dutifully she made Steve’s breakfast, dutifully she sat down at the dining room table with an Eiffel tower of manuscripts waiting to be read and judged. She drank her coffee. She stared. She drank another cup of coffee.
“I’ve got to do something,” she said aloud to the empty air. “I’ve got to do something, or I really will go mad.”
She sat, unable to think of the first thing to do.
Finally she pulled the manuscripts toward her and began reading. But nothing excited her; they all seemed so dull. She stopped reading—this was not fair to the manuscripts or their writers. She had gotten into such a deadly state that nothing could appeal to her.
“I want a baby, damn it!” she said, pounding her fists on the table. “Everyone else is getting one. Why can’t I?”
She rose, restless, and walked through the house. Outside the day glittered with cold. Inside, the air seemed expansive with silence, except for her footsteps, her breath.
“Well, that’s it, I’ll just sit here and go mad,” she said aloud, and plopped down where she was, on the third stair of the staircase.
She had no idea how long she had been sitting there when the doorbell rang, so near to her—just a few steps across the hallway to the front door—that she almost screamed. It was the mailman with a small special delivery package from Julia.
“Open immediately!” it said in bright red letters on the brown wrapping paper.
Sara thanked the mailman, then carried the parcel to the dining room table and sat down with it. Inside a small box she found a tiny oval rock, a not particularly pretty or unusual one, and a plastic sandwich bag filled with tiny brown—what? Nuts? Seeds? Dry oatmeal? She unfolded Julia’s note.
In the seventeenth century, they believed that “The seeds of Docks tyed to the left arme of a woman do help Barrennesse.” I looked it up in the dictionary—“dock” is one of several coarse weeds of the buckwheat family. Then I remembered that my mother—and you know what an intellectual snob she is—took wheat germ for a long time trying to get pregnant with my brother. So this mishmash is wheat germ mixed up with ground buckwheat noodles—the closest I could get to buckwheat seeds. I wonder why it should be tied to the left arm.
The pebble is for you to use in the bath. “To cure sterility, in Shetland in the nineteenth century, a woman washed her feet in running water in which an egg-shaped pebble was placed.” So tie this stuff to your left arm, put the stone in your bathtub, take a nice long bath, and there you are, all knocked up. I’ll bet my medicine works at least as well as Dr. Crochett’s hanky-panky.
I love and adore you even if you are insane, and I’ve sent a decent Christmas present to you and Steve in a separate package.
Love, Julia
Sara studied the box. For the first time, here were some ancient cures for infertility that she could actually do something with. She’d never tried to find wolf pizzle, and she’d never sit over a bowl of steaming garlic—but this she could do.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, standing up suddenly, wild with energy. For she had had a thought—why stand in a bathtub with this one egg-shaped stone when she was so close to the ocean, which had to hold billions of egg-shaped stones. All those pebbles. Why there must be more than billions—in the ocean there must be trillions, more than could be numbered, more than all the stars in all the galaxies!
Hurrying, she dressed warmly, piling a wool sweater over a flannel shirt and leg warmers over her jeans. With a piece of Christmas ribbon—she paused a moment, considering just which color was right, and decided on green, of course, for fertility, for life—she tied the baggie of wheat germ around her left upper arm. Then, careful not to knock it off, she pulled on her parka. She jammed a wool cap on her head, pulled on her thickest gloves, grabbed up a pair of wool socks, slipped into her boots, and ran out to the car.
There could be people at the Jetties Beach, or at least out in the harbor, scallopers and fishermen going out or coming in. She headed to Surfside Beach on the Atlantic Ocean side of Nantucket. And she was in luck—no one else was there. She ran down the long slope of sand to the water’s edge. It was not windy today, so that the waves seemed to dawdle in, taking their time, lolling about on the sand. Good. She wouldn’t have to worry about being knocked over or dragged under.
Sara kicked off her rubber boots and walked into the water. The cold was so intense and painful that it was like putting her feet against burning irons. Immediately she felt the instinct to jump back, to jump out, but she gritted her teeth and walked farther into the waves. She leaned over and, taking Julia’s pebble from her pocket, tossed it into the water next to her feet. She stood there then, letting the icy waves surge around her feet and ankles. She looked out at the navy blue waters to the horizon, then up to the winter-pale sky where the sun rolled overhead like a primitive god, hurting her eyes with its glare.
“All right,” she said aloud. “Here I am. Look.” The ocean was calm today, but even so the waves rolled with noise, a steady booming that drowned out everything else. “I said here I am!” Sara shouted. “With my egg-shaped rock and my docks tied to my left arm and all my prayers aimed at every single generative force in this whole fucking universe! So do something! Give me a break!”
She began to shiver. Her feet hurt unmercifully. In the warmer months, after a few moments in the water, one got used to the relative cold—but this was too cold. This was painful.
Perhaps if she walked. The quote Julia had sent said “washed.” All right. Although she had no soap—but there was sand, the old primitive matter for washing. Pushing up the sleeves of her parka and sticking her gloves in her pocket, she leaned over and scrubbed at her feet with the sand, with small egg-shaped pebbles. Her hands contracted with the cold.
Standing up again, she noticed a portly woman bundled in layers against the winter wind, walking along the beach toward her, her black Lab dog dashing and yelping joyfully.
Shit, Sara thought. She felt intruded upon.
“Are you all right?” the woman called, approaching Sara.
Actually, no, Sara wanted to reply. Actually I’m insane, demented, absolutely berserk.
“Just fine,” Sara called back cheerfully. Sticking her hands in her pockets, she turned in the opposite direction and strolled along casually, kicking at the water with her feet as if she were wading in August warmth. She racked her brain but could think of no rational explanation to give the older woman for standing barefoot in the freezing water, so she just went splashing on, until finally she was shaking with cold.
She stepped out of the water then, sat down on the sand, and drew on her wool socks. Oh, the ecstasy of warmth. She looked out at the ocean. All right, she spoke silently to the ocean, to the natural force that ruled the ocean and all other universal forces. I’ve done my part. Now you do yours.
When she got home, she took a long hot bath and drank cups of hot herbal tea, trying to ward off a cold. And when Steve got home for lunch, she attacked him. She made him gobble his lunch, then dragged him into the bedroom and attacked him. It could still happen, the timing could still be okay. He staggered off to work, exhausted but happy. Sara lay in bed, full of his seed, and fell asleep.
“I’ve got a wonderful Christmas present for you, but you’ve got to leave the house to get it,” Sara said to Fanny. They were sitting in her blue living room, an applewood fire blazing next to them, the animals nearly comatose from the heat.
Fanny set her teacup down gently in its fragile saucer. “Sara,” she began.
“No, I won’t take no for an answer,” Sara said. “It’s a beautiful day, the streets and stores are glorious with Christmas decorations, and you are coming with me if I have to wrestle you from this house.”
“What an inelegant image,” Fanny said, smiling, faintly.
Sara could tell that Fanny was displeased. Really pissed, though she’d never use that word.
“Fanny, you’re going to England next month. Now really, be sensible. Do you think you’re going to waltz out the door, onto a plane, and through all of London when you haven’t left this house for four years? You’ll be so shocked—so disoriented—it would be crazy. You’ve got to go out a few times before then, test the water, get used to it. Now come on, you know I’m right.”
“I can’t go out today. My hair is a disaster,” Fanny said. A tiny strain of petulance streaked her graceful voice.
“I know,” Sara said. “But you can put a hat on over it. And that’s part of my gift—we’re going to get you a new hairstyle. We’re going to a beauty salon.”
Fanny rose, indignant. “My hairstyle is perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong with my hairstyle. I’ve had it for years.”
Sara was silent, letting the expression on her face say: Precisely. That’s just the point.
Fanny began to do her slow, fluttery pacing around the room. She changed tactics. “Sara, dear, this is thoughtful of you. I can certainly see that. And undoubtedly you are right. I should go out a bit before I go to England. Like practicing. And I will. But not today, not so suddenly. You’ve rather sprung this on me, you know.”
“Fanny,” Sara said, “you know it wouldn’t have worked any other way.”
Now Fanny was trembling with anger. “And it is not working now!” she said. “I will go out of this house when I decide to, not under anyone’s pressure.”
“There’s more news about Jenny’s Book,” Sara said. “Interesting news. Quite a bit, actually. And I won’t tell you until you’re at the hairdresser’s with me.”
“Fine,” Fanny said. “Don’t. I can always call my agent.”
“He won’t tell you. No one will tell you. I’ve talked to them all and they agree with what I’m doing and they’ve promised not to tell you.”
Fanny flushed with anger. She turned her back on Sara and walked toward the door at the far end of the room. When she turned back to Sara, she had tears in her eyes. “This is blackmail,” she said.
“So, call the police,” Sara said cruelly. “You would have to let them come in the door to talk to you, to see you.”
Fanny turned her back again. Sara rose, went toward her a few steps, and said in a conciliatory voice, “Fanny, please. Think a moment. If it’s this hard for you to go out with me, just to a hairdresser, just think how hard it will be to go to England. You’ll be paralyzed; you won’t be able to go. You’ll miss everything. Fanny, this is like—like learning to walk again. You’ve got to take this first step.”
“All right,” Fanny said, her voice low. “Let me go change my clothes.”
Sara knew that if she let Fanny out of her sight she would probably barricade herself in her bedroom for the next twenty years.
“No,” she said to Fanny. “You’re fine. Your dress is fine, your makeup is fine. All you have to do is put on your coat. I rented a car in Hyannis and drove up here so that you wouldn’t have to deal with a taxi driver. Just me, then the beauty salon, filled with women who no matter what their age couldn’t hold a candle to you.” As she spoke, she could almost see the tension ebb from Fanny’s body. “Fanny, I know just how you should have your hair cut.”
“Cut?” Fanny asked, her hand reaching for her hair. “Why should I have my hair cut?”
“Because you look like you’re ready to sing opera,” Sara said. “You have beautiful thick hair, but when you wear it piled up like that, you look older than you should. Grandmotherly. I’ve even talked with the hairdresser about you, and we’ve agreed on something that would be marvelous for you.”
“I can’t have my hair cut short,” Fanny said, her confidence returning slightly on the wings of her inexorable powers of judgment. “It would not be sensual, feminine, to have my hair cut short.”
“It won’t be short,” Sara promised. “It will be elegant. Not faddish, though. Classic. Even sexy. But very simple.”
Fanny came back into the room. She put her hand up to her hair. “I haven’t had my hair styled in years,” she said.
“Remember how luxurious it is?” Sara said seductively. “How good it feels to have someone else wash your hair and massage your scalp? This is a very good hairdresser we’re going to, the best.” She was close enough to Fanny now to reach out and gently take her hand. Fanny’s hand was silky and plump. Carefully, as if she were leading a wild colt who would bolt at any startling movement, she urged Fanny toward the living room door and out into the hallway.
There stood the gruesome Eloise. For one wild moment Sara feared that Fanny would fling herself at her housekeeper, crying for protection, while Sara attempted to wrestle her away.
Instead, Fanny said, calmly, as if she were asking for more tea, “I’d like my coat, Eloise. The mink. Please find my gloves, too. The brown suede lined with cashmere. I’m going out.”
Except that her eyes bugged out of her head, Eloise expressed no surprise. She only nodded and, eyes bulging, went off to fetch Fanny’s things. Fanny looked at Sara, and to Sara’s immense surprise, Fanny snorted, the only way she could let out her suppressed laughter. So Sara knew it was going to be okay. Fanny was going to be okay.
Sara had parked the rented sedan right in front of Fanny’s house. Fanny made her way to the car with her shoulders hunched forward and her head bowed nearly into her chest, as if she were a criminal averting her face from a hungry press. Once in the car, however, she seemed to relax. After adjusting her scarf so that it curved in concealment around her face, she turned her head toward the window, then faced front.
“I’ll never forgive you for this, you know,” Fanny said as Sara started the car.
Sara grinned. “Yes, you will,” she said. She tried to keep the triumph from her voice. “I think you will.”
After that they rode in silence—until Fanny began to notice the sights they were driving past. “Oh, look at that,” she said. And, “Oh, I had forgotten that.” And, “The river looks like gunmetal today.” Sara knew Fanny was not talking to her. She was talking to no one, she was expressing delight and amazement at the buildings, trees, railings, churches, colleges, bridges, parks, sidewalks—all the outside world that she had not seen for four years.