A. Homes - In A Country Of Mothers

The doctor shook his head, leaned forward, and whispered back. “Too late for that.”

Claire’s father rented a truck and made a point of going up and down the street telling the neighbors he was taking a load of old furniture down to the “poor folks” and that if they had anything to add, he’d be glad to take it. Claire ended up alone in an apartment in Baltimore with all of Hillside Street’s discarded furniture. It was depressing as hell. It was also the only time she’d been away from her family since spending two weeks at Christian Fellowship camp when she was thirteen. In 1966, maternity wear was basically huge cotton underpants and tent dresses in frightening prints, not the kind of thing that looked good on a nineteen-year-old, so Claire stayed indoors unless it was absolutely necessary to go out.

For no reason other than her determination to embrace everything and anything she was not, Claire decided that if the baby was going to be given up for adoption, it should go to a Jewish family. They’d make a better home for it. They understood sorrow, suffering, loss, what it meant to be an outsider. She thought of the holiday Mark had told her about, the one where they welcomed strangers; they would leave the door open and set a place for a mysterious prophet who’d come in and sit at their table, drink their wine.

“You’re crazy,” her father said. “Always have been. If the boy had been a decent Christian, you’d be married now.”

Claire didn’t bother telling him that Mark was already married. There was no point.

“They’re like that,” her father said. “Slimy sons of … Go ahead, give it to one of them. The further from us, the better.”

It almost went wrong. A family was found, but three weeks later they backed out. The lawyer said it was because they knew, in a roundabout way, who the father was.

“Of course they knew,” her father said. “What do you expect? They all know each other.”

“The family wanted a child with no background at all,” the lawyer said.

Claire tried to conjure a child arriving with no past, only a future.

A second family was found. Through the lawyers sanitized descriptions were exchanged. No one wanted to take chances; it was getting late. Only the most minimal information was passed along. “A lovely family. A mother, a father, a little boy. Because of complications they can’t have more of their own, and yet,” the lawyer said, winking, “they have a lot of love to give.”

He meant money, Claire understood. She wondered how much it was costing them.

“Upper-middle-class. College-educated. Jews.”

Claire was glad they weren’t first-time parents. A baby wouldn’t be a surprise. And it would have a big brother; Claire had always wanted a brother. When she thought of her baby, she imagined a girl named Rachel splashing in a wading pool with all her cousins and the neighbors’ children. She saw her daughter going off to school in a brand-new dress, new shoes, carrying her brother’s old lunch box. She pictured her sitting on a braided rug during story hour, playing with the curls of the girl in front of her, giggling. She figured there would be an extended family; grandparents coming up from Florida with sacks of oranges and grapefruit, and stubby old fingers just right for pinching cheeks. She saw love and comfort. The child would never know she’d started off belonging to someone else.

Claire knew her daughter only as she grew inside her. She loved her by rubbing the child’s kicking foot through the walls of her body.

A woman came charging into the clinic and stopped in front of Claire. “First time?” she bellowed.

“I’m waiting for someone,” Claire said, startled.

“Oh,” the woman said, as if she didn’t believe her. “This is my third. It’s nothing, really. I’m sure your daughter will be fine.”

“Oh no,” Claire said, shaking her head. “It’s not my daughter.” It came out sounding drastically different from how she meant it. The woman shrugged and didn’t say anything else. Claire went up to the desk and asked the nurse how much longer it would be. The answer was hours, not minutes.

“I have to leave,” Claire said. “I’ll be back.” She hurried out of the office, sure that if she didn’t get out in less than thirty seconds, she’d lose consciousness, and masked men would haul her into the back room. They’d give her an abortion even though she didn’t need one. They’d get her anyway, suck whatever they could out of her, just because.

• • •

That night, when Sam reached across the bed and pulled her toward him, Claire screamed.

“I know it’s been a while,” he said. “But has it really been that long?”

They started again. When it seemed certain that neither Jake nor Adam was going to stumble in, Claire reached into her night-table drawer, pulled out her old diaphragm, and filled it with jelly, thinking she probably should turn on the light and check it for holes.

“Are you off the pill?” Sam asked.

“No,” Claire said, handing him the gooped-up disc.

He disappeared under the covers. She could feel him playing, pretending he didn’t know what to do. He ran his mouth over her thighs, blew a stream of air inside her, teased her with his teeth, and finally the diaphragm popped into place.

“What’s up?” he asked, reappearing, tickling and kissing her.

“I feel like I need to be very careful,” Claire said.

It was a major regression. When Claire met Sam she was taking the pill, had an IUD, and a diaphragm in the drawer, and was also trying out this new kind of foam that was like shaving cream and gave some guys a rash. The joke among Claire’s friends was that men needed special protection to keep from turning impotent around her.

“I just don’t want to get pregnant. Is that asking too much?” Claire would demand. She’d stand naked at the foot of the bed ranting and raving about responsibility, starving, unwanted children in third-world countries, the war in Vietnam, anything and everything, until finally, exhausted, she’d collapse onto the water bed and allow herself to be taken.

“Do you not want to do this?” Sam asked twenty minutes later, when nothing was happening, when it still seemed like Claire was somewhere else, not even phoning it in. “I could just put on a videotape and do it myself,” he said.

Claire didn’t respond.

“Maybe I should take a shower.” Sam moved to get out of the bed.

Claire reached down under the blanket and grabbed him by the balls. “I’ll kill you,” she said.

“Now we’re talking.”

“I’ve had a very long day,” Claire said, squeezing Sam until he was on the verge of real pain. “Don’t give me a bad time.”

He pulled away and hurried out of the room, his half-hard dick leading the way. He came back with an old bottle of Jack Daniel’s and something hidden behind his back. “I can do this to you or you can do it to me,” he said, opening his hand, flashing the heavy-duty handcuffs Jake had brought home from school the day before with no explanation.

“Do you have the keys?”

Sam swung the little skeleton keys back and forth hypnotically. He opened the bottle and took a slug. “Who’s it gonna be?”

Claire reached for the Jack Daniel’s, took a long pull, another, and another, then lay back and let Sam handcuff her to the bed frame.

“Let me ask you something,” Rosenblatt said, leaning forward in his chair, pressing his palms together. “Do you ever have fun?”

Claire looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said.

“It sounds like you don’t have fun.”

“I wasn’t aware I said that.”

“You didn’t say it,” Rosenblatt said. “But you never talk about enjoying yourself. Enjoying your family.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed behind his head. “What gives you pleasure?”