The Stars Are Fire(9)

A succession of dry sunny days is something to discuss, to remark upon. Brides in veils walk out of the Methodist church believing the weather a benevolent sign from Heaven. Grace, with her children in the carriage, watches them and tries to decide which couples will be happy together and which will not. The bride in the satin cap that allows her veil to billow out behind her, and who clearly cares more about the picture that is being taken of her than she does about the groom, even removing his hand from her arm, is doomed, Grace thinks. The bride who flinches at the big openmouthed kiss her new husband bestows upon her, causing her to trip over her own dress, will have a tough go of it. But the young woman in the pale blue bridal gown, who walks out of the church talking in whispers to her husband, who bends down to hear her and then smiles, as if at a private joke, has it made. The brides delight Grace. New life, new possibilities. She holds Claire up so that she can see them.

“Isn’t she beautiful!” Grace exclaims.


The muggy days of late August upon them, Grace drops a plate in the sink with the realization that she has missed her period for three months. She sits heavily at the kitchen table, her hands gone cold. She feels her abdomen, which tells her nothing. She balls the cloth of her skirt into her fists. She closes her eyes and counts.

Seconds later, she remembers the only night that could have produced the child. She puts her forehead to the table and counts again.

She sits up straight. The baby inside her is a product of a terrible night. Gene will know. He can add as well as she.

When the child inside her is born, Tom will be fourteen months old. She will have three children under the age of three. Not quite Irish triplets, but close.

She studies the wrinkles in her skirt where her fists balled the cloth. She’s aware of sweat trickling inside her sleeveless blouse. She takes a dish towel and sticks it straight down between her breasts to wipe away the moisture there and then lays the towel at the back of her neck. Gene will say they can’t afford three children. Or perhaps, feeling guilty, he’ll say nothing at all.

She will have to tell Gene. No, she won’t. She’ll let him look at her and wonder. He will have to say it aloud. By then he’ll have done the calculations and will know the night on which they conceived the child. Grace wonders if the way the sperm is put into the woman affects the personality of the child. No, of course not. She knows a wives’ tale when she hears one.


The heat reduces them to looser versions of themselves. Grace lacks the energy to cook a proper meal, but can’t get away with sandwiches. Some afternoons she picks up the hose in the backyard, bends her head, and lets the cool water run down her neck and back and hair, shivering with physical pleasure. At night she can’t bear the cotton nightgown, the fan at the window moving sweltering air from outside to inside. She worries about Tom, who develops a bad diaper rash. Grace knows she has to visit Dr. Franklin to confirm the pregnancy. Her mother guesses soon after Grace knows. Grace says, “I don’t want it.”

Her mother’s eyes widen. “Promise me,” she says.

“I promise,” Grace replies, knowing there’s no alternative. Perhaps if she lived in Portland or Boston, she would know where to go for such a thing. But she’s never heard of anyone in Hunts Beach who could help her get rid of a fetus. Probably Dr. Franklin knows how, but she can’t ask him. He wouldn’t do it anyway.


During the first week of September, Grace begins to wish for rain. All the brilliant sunshine feels unnatural. She knows others think it, too, but don’t mention it for fear of triggering the endless rains of spring. As if a thought could trigger weather.


Grace makes herself bigger dresses. Her mother buys her a maternity blouse and helps her daughter let out the elastic in her skirts. The first evening she dons these clothes, Gene says, when he walks into the kitchen, “You’re pregnant.”

“You noticed.”

“How far are you along?”

“Guess.”

There’s a long silence. Grace knows she’s on dangerous ground.

“Are you happy about it?” asks Gene.

“Are you?”

Grace doesn’t expect an answer, and she doesn’t need one.

“I hear the water level in the lakes and ponds is low,” he says.

“Is that right?”

“I’ll be out mowing the lawn.”

Through the window, Grace watches her husband push the mower, trailing clouds of dust behind him.


Grace makes an appointment with Dr. Franklin, a man who wastes no time in small talk, who enters houses and walks straight up the stairs to the patient’s room before the family even knows he’s there. He studies Grace’s chart.

“I thought so,” he says. “This is your third in less than two years.”

“More or less.”

With a gesture, he makes her spread her legs. “You need any information about protection?” he asks as he inserts his fingers into her vagina.

“No,” she says, “but my husband might.”

She has never used this smart tone with the doctor. He knows her as intimately as anyone, she supposes. He brought her into the world.

“You’re how old?” he asks as he manipulates her insides.

Grace winces with the discomfort. “Twenty-three.”

“You might think of slowing down,” he says, withdrawing his hands.