Everything I Never Told You(37)
She dug in her purse for a handkerchief and touched its corner to her palm and suddenly the cut was drained dry, the handkerchief blotched scarlet. The beauty of her hand amazed her: the pureness of the colors, the clarity of the white flecks and the thin lines on the muscle. She wanted to touch it, to lick it. To taste herself. Then the cut began to sting, and blood began to pool in her cupped palm, and she realized she would have to go to the hospital.
The emergency room was almost empty. The next day it would be full of Fourth of July accidents: food poisoning from bad egg salad, burned hands from grill fires, singed eyebrows from rogue fireworks. That afternoon, though, Marilyn walked up to the front desk and held out her hand, and in a few minutes she found herself on a cot, a petite young blonde in white taking her pulse and examining her palm. And when the young blonde said, “Let’s get you stitched up,” and took a bottle of anesthetic from a cupboard, Marilyn blurted out, “Shouldn’t the doctor do that?”
The blond woman laughed. “I’m Dr. Greene,” she said. Then, as Marilyn stared, she added, “Would you like to see my hospital badge?”
As the young woman closed the gash with neat black stitches, Marilyn’s hands began to ache. She clenched her teeth, but the ache spread into her wrists, up to her shoulders, down her spine. It wasn’t the surgery. It was disappointment: that like everyone else, she heard doctor and still thought—would forever think—man. The rims of her eyes started to burn, and when Dr. Greene tied off the last stitch and smiled and said, “How are you feeling?” Marilyn blurted out, “I think I’m pregnant,” and burst into tears.
After that everything happened very fast. There were tests to be run, vials of blood to be drawn. Marilyn didn’t remember exactly how it worked but knew it involved rabbits. “Oh, we don’t use rabbits anymore,” the pretty young doctor laughed, slipping the needle into the soft crook of Marilyn’s arm. “We use frogs now. Much faster and easier. Isn’t modern science wonderful?” Someone got Marilyn a cushioned chair and a blanket to drape over her shoulders; someone asked for her husband’s phone number, which Marilyn, in a daze, recited. Someone brought her a glass of water. The cut on her hand was closed and mute now, black sutures binding the raw flesh shut. Hours passed, but it seemed only a few minutes before James was there, radiant with amazement, holding her good hand while the young doctor said, “We’ll call you with the results on Tuesday, Mr. and Mrs. Lee, but it looks like you’ll be due in January.” Then, before Marilyn could speak, she stepped into the long white hallway and disappeared.
“Marilyn,” James whispered when the doctor had gone. His tone made her name a question that she could not yet bring herself to answer. “We’ve missed you so much.”
Marilyn touched her unwounded hand to her belly for a long time. She could not take classes pregnant. She could not start medical school. All she could do was go home. And once she was home, she would see her children’s faces, and there would be a new baby, and—she admitted it to herself slowly, with an ache more painful than her hand—she would never have the strength to leave them again. There was James, kneeling on the floor beside her chair as if in prayer. There was her old life, soft and warm and smothering, pulling her into its lap. Nine weeks. Her grand plan had lasted nine weeks. Everything she had dreamed for herself faded away, like fine mist on a breeze. She could not remember now why she thought it had all been possible.
This is it, Marilyn told herself. Let it go. This is what you have. Accept it.
“I was so foolish,” she said. “I made such a terrible mistake.” She leaned into James, breathing in the heavy sweet smell of his neck. It smelled like home. “Forgive me,” she whispered.
James guided Marilyn to the car—his car—with his arm around her waist and helped her into the front seat as if she were a child. The next day, he would take a taxi from Middlewood back to Toledo and make the hour-long drive again in Marilyn’s car, warm and aglow at knowing his wife would be there when he got home. For now, though, he drove carefully, scrupulously obeying the speed limit, reaching over every few miles to pat Marilyn’s knee, as if reassuring himself that she was still there. “Are you too cold? Are you too warm? Are you thirsty?” he asked again and again. I’m not an invalid, Marilyn wanted to say, but her mind and tongue seemed to move in slow motion: they were already home, he had already gone to get her a cold drink and a pillow for the small of her back. He was so happy, she thought; look at that little bounce at the end of each step, look at how he tucked the blanket so carefully around her feet. When he came back, she said only, “Where are the children?” and James said he had left them across the street with Vivian Allen, not to worry, he would take care of everything.
Marilyn leaned back against the couch cushions and woke to the sound of the doorbell. It was almost dinnertime; James had retrieved the children from Mrs. Allen’s and a pizza deliveryman stood at the door with a stack of boxes. By the time Marilyn wiped the sleep from her eyes, James had already counted out the tip and taken the boxes and shut the door. She followed him, dozily, into the kitchen, where he put the pizza down right in the center of the table, between Lydia and Nath.
“Your mother’s home,” he said, as if they couldn’t see her standing there in the doorway behind him. Marilyn touched a hand to her hair and felt frizz. Her braid had come undone; her feet were bare; the kitchen was overly warm, overly bright. She felt like a child who’d overslept, wandering downstairs, late to everything. Lydia and Nath stared at her warily across the table, as if she might suddenly do something unexpected, like scream, or explode. Nath’s mouth puckered, as if he were sucking something sour, and Marilyn wanted to stroke his hair and tell him that she hadn’t planned any of this, hadn’t meant for this to happen. She could see the question in their eyes.