Anna Adams - Marriage in Jeopardy

“Nothing like this will happen again. It was an aberration.”

“It won’t ever happen to me again.”

“MR. QUINCY, if you’ll bring your car to the front entrance, we’ll take Lydia down.” Patty, Lydia’s nurse, took her bag of belongings and passed it, along with the cup of flowers, to Josh. “We’ll meet you at the doors.”

Josh looked at Lydia, longing in his eyes. They’d finished a wary morning. He’d gathered her things, talked about dinner tonight, assumed they were going home together.

“Are you all right?” he asked, but she knew he was asking if she’d rather call a cab.

She hesitated. She couldn’t turn back again. This time, it was give up or give in. “I’m fine.”

After he turned the corner, Patty put on her reading glasses and peered through several sheets of paper. “Let me see.” She ran her index finger down the print. “Watch for a rise in temperature and extra sensitivity in your abdominal region that might indicate internal bleeding. No sexual relations for six weeks.”

“No—” She’d almost said “no problem,” but stopped just in time to avoid flinging her dirty laundry at Patty’s feet.

“These are the numbers for the nurse’s desk and for Dr. Sprague. Call if you have any questions.” Patty took off her specs. “I’m working Monday, Wednesday and Friday from eight until eight.”

Unexpectedly warmed by an almost-stranger’s concern, Lydia smiled.

“I’d like to hear how you’re getting along.”

“I’ll call.”

“Okay.” Patty looked up as an orderly pushed a squeaking wheelchair into the room. “Shall we?”

Lydia sat and folded her hands to hide their shaking. The town house hadn’t felt like home since she’d first begun to think about leaving Josh, but if she was starting over she had to go home.

The trip in the small blue-gray elevator went too quickly. As the doors opened, a cool gust of air blew in. Lydia breathed deep. The orderly pushed her past a long row of wide windows and delivered her to the sidewalk as Josh pulled up in their car.

“Thanks,” Lydia said to the man behind her, though she avoided his helping hands as she stood.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Best of luck.” He nodded to Josh and went back inside.

“Are you in pain?” Josh opened the passenger’s door.

She shook her head and let her hair blow across her face. She assumed his tenderness, as he eased her into the seat, was for the baby they weren’t taking home. He pulled her seat belt out, but she fastened it herself. “Thanks,” she said.

“I’ll take it easy.”

The bumps in the road didn’t matter. Neither did the stab of pain in her belly when Josh had to slam on the brakes for a VW bug whose driver sped through a red light.

“Damn it!” His ferocity had nothing to do with the bug’s driver.

“Can we stop?” She risked her first look at him since they’d left. “I don’t want to go home. I thought I could do it, but…”

He was clenching his jaw so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear his teeth shatter. He glanced into the rearview mirror and then checked over his shoulder and pulled to the curb. “Where do you want me to take you?”

She glanced into the backseat. She didn’t even have a sweater. “Nowhere’s practical.”

“Then come home and think about what you’re doing.”

“I was trying to, but it doesn’t feel like home.”

He nodded, a brief jab of his chin in the air. She didn’t blame him.

“I’m not trying to hurt you on purpose. I just don’t know how to pretend anymore.”

“And you can’t make up your mind?”

She looked out at the passing traffic, at the sun that seemed too bright for a day like this, and at a couple strolling by with their young daughter holding their hands.

“I’m panicking.” She wiped sweat from beneath her bangs. “But I want to be with you. I mean that.”

“Trust me.”

“If it were that easy, we wouldn’t be talking about this at all.” She folded her hands in her lap and glanced over her shoulder. “Let’s go. I’m all right. I won’t do this again.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t promise that.”

She searched his face for sarcasm but found only compassion. It made a huge difference because fear was driving her, and he had a right to be angry. A chip fell out of her massive store of resentment.

Still, she clung to the sides of her seat when he parked in front of the town house. “I’m glad none of the neighbors are out.”

He nodded and pulled the keys from the ignition. “They mean well, but I don’t know what to say when they tell me they’re sorry.”

They both got out of the car. Lydia planted her fists in the small of her back and stared at the wreath on their door, the open drapes she hadn’t been home to close. The baby’s nursery was on the second floor. She walked up the sidewalk as fast as her aching body would let her to avoid looking at that window.

EVELYN STARED at the white phone that hung on her white kitchen wall.

“I should call him.”

“He won’t feel better if you do.”

She jumped. “Bart, I didn’t know you were home.” Turning, she crossed the kitchen to take her husband’s coat and hang it on one of the pegs in the mudroom.

He took off his boots and stared at them. “I forgot to change when I got off the boat.”

“Put them in the bench. If we can’t stand the smell of our own lobster and fish and ocean water by now…” She didn’t know how to end that sentence. “It doesn’t matter. You really think Josh wouldn’t want me to call? Isn’t this different?”

“To us. Not to him.”

“We were supposed to have a grandchild.” A grandchild that might have brought Josh back to them.

Bart pulled her close and kissed her forehead. Usually that made her feel better. “For all we know, it’s brought back memories of Clara and he hates us more than ever.”

“You can’t blame him.” She wiped her mouth. Eighteen years since she’d had her last drink, but the thirst could still bring her to her knees. She stepped away from Bart and went to the sink, grateful for dirty lunch dishes. She started running the water and slid her hands beneath its warmth.

“If you want to call him that badly, maybe you should.” Bart gripped her upper arms for a minute and then let go. “I just hate that you have to prepare yourself to be hurt.”

“He might understand. He’s lost a child, too.” She thought of Clara. Rather, a memory of Clara stole into her mind. Her baby, in pink shorts that bagged almost to her knees, brown hair blowing across her eyes and a spade almost as tall as she was for digging in the sand.

Evelyn clenched her eyes shut and willed that wisp of memory to leave. She didn’t deserve to remember the good times, and the worst day was just a nightmare feeling she could call to mind. She’d been so drunk she only knew what had happened after her daughter had died.

“Josh didn’t lose his child the way we did.” Bart started toward the hallway. “I’ll wash up. You do what you have to, Evelyn.”

“Bart—”

He stopped. She wrapped her wet arms around him, finding his sea scents comfortingly familiar. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m tired of him pushing us away. But how can we complain? He raised himself. He was more father and mother to Clara than we were.”

“Not just because of you.” He looked backward in time. “The catches were so sparse. I was afraid I couldn’t feed you all. I’ve asked myself the same question since the day Clara… Why didn’t I work harder, instead of drinking harder?”

“And why couldn’t I want to be a mom?” Evelyn made herself say the words, each one like hammering a nail in her own coffin. Josh had been a total surprise to her and Bart. She’d wanted to be a teacher, but pregnant at nineteen, she’d dropped out of college. As a mom, she was a total misfit, never feeling the instincts that came naturally to other women.