Amy Bloom - A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Ari sighs and shifts, holding tight to Julia’s pajama top, her lapel twisted in his hands like rope. She feels the wide shape of his five knuckles on her chest, bone pressing flesh against bone, and she is not sorry at all to be old and awake so late at night.

Ifeel my baby’s arms around my neck. Hidden wrists, flesh the color and feel of white tea roses, the rising scent of warm cornbread. I wake up and find the pillow twisted beneath my chin, a few strands of my hair caught in the pillowcase zipper. Marc hears me or feels me beginning to cry and wards it off as best he can.

“Gotta piss,” he says, and he smooths the covers down as if to soothe his side of the bed.

I rock the pillow and reach for a Prozac and the glass of water on the nightstand. My whole house is decorated by an invalid: boxes of tissues, half-drawn curtains, sweaty nightgowns, aspirin, marjoram shower gel (guaranteed by Marcs New Age secretary to “lift your spirits”), fading plants. I do not understand why death inspires people to give greenery.

Marc comes back to bed, and I am kind enough to pretend that I’m asleep. If I were awake, he would have to comfort me. The circles under his eyes darken and crease the skin down to his cheekbones. Why should either of us have to endure his comforting me? He puts his hand on my hip, as if to balance himself, but I know he’s checking. Am I twitching, am I sweating, are my shoulders heaving? He’s a good man; he will avoid me only once. Having got off the hook earlier, he is compelled to be attentive. I sound like I hate him, which I don’t.

I do fantasize about his death, however. I strangle him with the umbilical cord, the blue-pink twist they took off Saul’s little no-neck. The doctor, my own obstetrician — a perfectly pleasant, competent woman, a Democrat who sits with me on the boards of two good causes — is perforated by the smallest, sharpest scalpels, as in an old-fashioned knife-throwing show, until she is pinned to the wall of the operating room in pieces, her lips still moving, apologizing, but not so profusely that I might think she was at fault and sue her for malpractice or wrongful death or whatever it is that my brother-in-law told us we could sue for. My wrongful life, my dying marriage, how about the house plants and the students I don’t give a damn about? For the nurses and the intern who assisted Mary Lou, I use dull scalpels, and I stick them with horse-size epidural needles when they try to escape.

I made an attempt to go back to my office three weeks ago. I picked up my mail and was doing fine, ignoring the silences and the sotto voce inquiries, which practically screamed “Better you than me.” Martha, our department secretary — old, frightened, useless since we all got computers — handed me my messages and a stack of departmental memos. Her ancient poodle was wheezing on his little bed beneath her desk.

“Your shirt…” she said, and I looked down at the wet blue circles and left.

I sat in the ladies’ room, pressing my breasts, kneading my shirt and my bra until tiny white tears dripped onto my fingers. I left my mail on the floor, and someone sent it to me anonymously, with kind intentions, two days later.

Igo back again, braced with a Percodan-Prozac cocktail, which you will not find in the Physician’s Desk Reference. Information about an MLA conference I seem to have organized in Edinburgh is coming through on the department fax. The man faxing me is very excited, and his words leap about on the cheap, oily paper. He is expecting a draft of my presentation in two weeks and me in four. I don’t think so. I tell Martha to fax him back that I will not attend and that I will not send the notes for my talk.

She is concerned. I treat Martha the way my mother taught me to treat our domestic servants. I am gracious and reasonable and accommodating. She adores me (and appreciates her annual Westminster dog show tickets), and the faculty Marxists (former Marxists — I don’t know what they do with themselves now) gnash their teeth over us. Martha hesitates. It cannot be good for me professionally to cancel at this late date. Perhaps I will not be asked to chair a panel again soon. Perhaps my reputation at the university will diminish and Martha’s office status will go from endangered to extinct. I fax the message myself: “Cannot come. Baby dead. Maybe next year. Onora O’Connor.”

A girl is waiting for me in the hall. I don’t mind girls too much, and I can even feel sorry for them, since I know what’s in store for them and they don’t. When I was her age, I’d look at women like me with just that same disgusted disbelief. Their stomachs billowed out, their asses dragged, their hair hung in limp strands or was sprayed up into alien shapes. Why did they do that to themselves? They must all have been ugly girls and never recovered. But I was not an ugly girl, I put this young thing in the shade when I was her age. I did art modeling for tuition money — servants were a phase, not a lifestyle — and loved it. My body defied gravity, defined lush perfection. Peach juice would run out if I was bitten. I was fucking perfect for three years of my life, and not too shabby until the recent past.

I signed her forms, promised her she could be in my Auden seminar come fall, and escaped, feeling like a check bouncer in a mom-and-pop grocery. Sure, here’s my address, watch me record the amount, like it matters. There’s nothing in the bank. I am no more going to teach in the fall than play third base for the Yankees.

I leave the building, passing clusters of women. I hate them all; I don’t even see the men. When I hear or smell babies coming, I leave the room. These women, all these women, are pregnant, or will be, or have been, or don’t want to be, or have suffered some made-for-TV disaster like mine. It doesn’t matter; whether they are like me or lucky, I hate them, and I seem to make it pretty clear, because they turn just a little, feet unmoving while their hips shift, and I cannot join them without barging in.

Ifind a woman sitting in my kitchen, not obviously pregnant but she might be — she could let it drop in the middle of our conversation or else make a huge effort and say nothing at all so Marc can struggle with telling me privately. I wonder if he’s sleeping with her, but I can’t imagine it. He looks as bad as I do. Every time he shaves he nicks another spot; his whole face is lightly gouged, as if he’d been rather listlessly assaulted. There are four deep-green rows of wine bottles on our kitchen counter. Marc has been steadily working through cases of California Merlot and Zinfandel.

“I’m Jessica? From the Neonate Program at the hospital? Memorial Unit Three?” She goes on talking, but I’m stuck. Doesn’t she know who she is? Is she asking me? Does she think I’ve forgotten the floor name? Does she think I remember her? Marc is nodding, with tears in his eyes. She must be talking about Saul.

“… that you might be interested in …”

“What?”

She sighs, just a little bit — I should appreciate how patient and understanding she’s being. Do I look like I give a fuck? You, do you think I can even smell you without wanting to puke? I may start puking if she doesn’t leave soon. Hormones, medication, lots of obvious explanations for my sudden vomiting. I measure the distance to the kitchen sink and figure whether I could hit her shoes on the way. She’s still talking, and Marc has put his hand on my shoulder. Saul is definitely the subject.

“… your loss. I worked with one woman who went through this experience, and I think she found it very helpful. So I mentioned it to your husband.”