Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

Mrs. Bennet’s tone was thoughtful rather than intentionally cruel. She said, “You have no idea how lucky you are that someone like him would settle for you.”

JANE USUALLY LEFT for Chip’s apartment after dinner, but that night she joined Liz, Kitty, and their mother to watch television in the den. When Jane entered the room, Mrs. Bennet looked up from the catalog she was paging through and said, “Is Chip working tonight, honey?”

Jane nodded, and even if Liz hadn’t known that Chip’s shift finished at seven, she’d have been able to tell that her sister was lying.

Several minutes later, when Kitty and Mrs. Bennet were discussing whether the throat of the prostitute on the legal drama was likelier to have been slit by her ex-husband or her john, Liz murmured to Jane, “Any word from him?”

Somberly, and also quietly, Jane said, “He just called.”

“And?”

“We’re having dinner the day after tomorrow.”

This plan did not sound promising to Liz — the formality of it, the delay. She said, “Did you tell him how far along you are?”

Jane nodded.

So he was aware the baby wasn’t his, Liz thought. And he wasn’t planning to talk about it with Jane for forty-eight hours.

Jane stayed in the den for no more than twenty minutes and went up to bed before the show’s conclusion; apparently, she was unmotivated to find out that the crime had, as Mrs. Bennet had suspected, been committed by the prostitute’s ex-husband.

IN THE MORNING, when Liz’s phone alarm sounded, Jane said with what Liz suspected was feigned bleariness, “I’m going to skip the run today.” Though for all Liz knew, her sister was in the grip of morning sickness; furthermore, Liz had no idea how far into pregnancy vigorous exercise was recommended.

After using the bathroom and changing, Liz paused in the door of her childhood bedroom and looked at her sister. The curtains still were closed, but sunrise had occurred, and the room was more light than dark. Liz thought of asking if Jane needed anything, but Jane’s breathing was as deep and steady as if she really were asleep again.

LIZ FOUND Mr. Bennet in his study. With his computer screen obscured, as usual, from her view, it struck Liz that she had always given her father the benefit of the doubt, assuming him when in his study to be immersed in matters that were tedious but necessary, his attention to the welfare of the family steadfast and somehow masculine.

She closed the door behind herself and said, “You need to sell the house. I saw online that the Ellebrechts sold theirs for $1.8 million in March. Do you know if they’d renovated their kitchen?”

Mr. Bennet looked at her with amusement. “You’ve been busy.”

“Let’s say you get $1.2 million for this house, which is obviously a very rough guess. You pay off your hospital bills, buy a condo in the three hundred thousand range — I think you can get two to three bedrooms for that in Hyde Park — and you draw up a budget for living expenses and stick to it. Oh, and whatever you think of Obama and his healthcare, you and Mom both need to get insurance through open enrollment, which should start October first.”

“Your mother wouldn’t stand for me selling this house.”

“I don’t see how you have a choice. Do you own your cars or lease them?”

“And what will become of your wastrel sisters?”

“You’re the one who keeps saying they need to leave the nest, and you’re right. There’s no reason for them not to have jobs. How much are the country club’s annual fees?”

“Your mother would rather drink strychnine than not belong to the Cincinnati Country Club.” Mr. Bennet’s expression grew mischievous. “Shall we offer her some?”

“Are there other major expenses I’m not thinking of?” Liz asked. “Mom’s jewelry must be worth something, right? And there’s that portrait in the front hall of whoever it is.”

Seeming impressed, Mr. Bennet said, “My dear, you’re positively cold-blooded.”

“I bet you guys will feel relieved to live somewhere smaller, without so much stuff. Do you prefer a real estate agent you already know or someone outside your social circle?”

“If your mother and I lived somewhere smaller, we might have to actually see each other.”

“The bills you’ve gotten from the hospital,” Liz said. “Have you done anything about them? Have you called anyone?”

For a few seconds, they watched each other silently.

“Give them to me, and I’ll make an appointment and go in with you,” Liz said. “The situation won’t get better by ignoring it.”

JANE’S CONVERSATION WITH Chip had not gone well. Although he hadn’t explicitly accused her of dishonesty, he’d questioned her assertion that she was pregnant via donor insemination rather than through an encounter in New York of the more traditional kind, which was almost the same thing. It wasn’t, Jane told Liz, that he showed a heretofore concealed cruelty; he still seemed like himself, just no longer besotted. “I’m not an idiot,” he’d said. “It’s not like I thought you were a virgin before we met.”

When Jane had insisted that there was absolutely no chance her pregnancy had resulted from anything other than the IUI procedure, he’d said, “Then I don’t understand why you never told me you were trying to have a baby on your own. How could you keep such a huge secret?” And this question, Jane had to concede, was a fair one.

The exchange had taken place at a restaurant downtown, where Jane had driven herself, which, she said to Liz, had been an intimation about the way things would go: Rather than picking her up, Chip had met her in public to break up with her.

“And did he?” Liz asked.

“Not in so many words,” Jane said. “But he claimed it wasn’t a good night for me to come over because he and Caroline needed to talk about some business stuff. And when we said goodbye, he kissed me on the forehead.” Liz could tell that her sister was fighting tears. “He said the news was a lot to digest, and he’d probably need a few days. But, Lizzy, I’m sure it’s over, and I don’t blame him.”

As Jane spoke, it was just after nine P.M., and the two sisters were standing in the Tudor’s basement. Instead of watching television in the den, Liz had decided to investigate this subterranean wilderness to which she normally did not descend except to do laundry or retrieve food from an extra refrigerator; the room containing these appliances was reasonably clear, but three additional rooms were nearly impenetrable storage units for all manner of familial detritus. It was in the largest of the three overstuffed rooms that Jane had found her.

“I should have told him from the beginning,” Jane said. “But I guess I was waiting for things to not work out or else for him to fall for me so completely that he wouldn’t care I was knocked up.”

“He’s a good guy,” Liz said. “I bet he’ll realize this isn’t insurmountable.”

“Maybe.” Jane pointed to a witch’s hat encircled by a dusty orange velvet ribbon. “Isn’t that from my fourth-grade Halloween costume?”

“And check this out.” Liz lifted the hat to reveal a high, narrow marble table with curved legs ending in deer hooves that had once occupied their maternal grandmother’s living room. “Remember how this used to scare Mary?”

“Why are you down here?” Jane asked.

“Oh, you know,” Liz said. “Memory lane.”

LIZ STAYED IN the basement until past midnight, though as fatigue overtook her, she was chagrined to look around and realize that her efforts had, if anything, made the room look worse. She’d been trying to sort items into broad categories — dishware, sports equipment, holiday decorations — and she’d partially succeeded, while also eliminating already-scarce floor space. Plus, she’d encountered at least a dozen spiders, not all of them dead. She’d deal with the mess later, she thought, and she flicked off three light switches and climbed the steps to the kitchen. She didn’t, until it was too late, realize that Lydia and Ham Ryan were kissing avidly by the stove. They noticed her at the same time she noticed them, and they sprang apart, Lydia saying in an accusatory tone, “What the hell?”