. So I
was simply not thinking about a lot of important stuff because I was completely
drunk with the notion of a baby: a baby that looked sort of like Henry, black hair
and those intense eyes and maybe very pale like me and smelled like milk and
talcum powder and skin, a sort of dumpling baby, gurgling and laughing at
everyday stuff, a monkey baby, a small cooing sort of baby. I would dream about
babies. In my dreams I would climb a tree and find a very small shoe. In a nest; I
would suddenly discover that the cat/book/sandwich I thought I Was holding
was really a baby; I would be swimming in the lake and find a colony of babies
growing at the bottom.
I suddenly began to see babies everywhere; a sneezing red-haired girl in a
sunbonnet at the A&P; a tiny staring Chinese boy, son of the owners, in the
Golden Wok (home of wonderful vegetarian eggrolls); a sleeping almost bald
baby at a Batman movie. In a fitting room in a JCPenney a very trusting woman
actually let me hold her three-month-old daughter; it was all I could do to
continue sitting in that pink-beige vinyl chair and not spring up and run madly
away hugging that tiny soft being to my breasts.
My body wanted a baby. I felt empty and I wanted to be full. I wanted
someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always. And I wanted Henry
to be in this child, so that when he was gone he wouldn't be entirely gone, there
would be a bit of him with me.. .insurance, in case of fire, flood, act of God.
Sunday, October 2, 1966 (Henry is 33)
Henry: I am sitting, very comfortable and content, in a tree in Appleton,
Wisconsin, in 1966, eating a tuna fish sandwich and wearing a white T-shirt and
chinos stolen from someone's beautiful sun-dried laundry. Somewhere in
Chicago, I am three; my mother is still alive and none of this
chrono-fuckupedness has started. I salute my small former self, and thinking
about me as a child naturally gets me thinking about Clare, and our efforts to
conceive. On one hand, I am all eagerness; I want to give Clare a baby, see Clare
ripen like a flesh melon, Demeter in glory. I want a normal baby who will do the
things normal babies do: suck, grasp, shit, sleep, laugh; roll over, sit up, walk,
talk in nonsense mumblings. I want to see my father awkwardly cradling a tiny
grandchild; I have given my father so little happiness-this would be a large
redress, a balm. And a balm to Clare, too; when I am snatched away from her, a
part of me would remain.
But: but. I know, without knowing, that this is very unlikely. I know that a
child of mine is almost certainly going to be The One Most Likely to
Spontaneously Vanish, a magical disappearing baby who will evaporate as
though carried off by fairies. And even as I pray, panting and gasping over Clare
in extremities of desire, for the miracle of sex to somehow yield us a baby, a part
of me is praying just as vehemently for us to be spared. I am reminded of the
story of the monkey's paw, and the three wishes that followed so naturally and
horribly from each other. I wonder if our wish is of a similar order.
I am a coward. A better man would take Clare by the shoulders and say, Love,
this is all a mistake, let us accept it and go on, and be happy. But I know that
Clare would never accept, would always be sad. And so I hope, against hope,
against reason and I make love to Clare as though anything good might come of
it.
ONE
Monday, June 3, 1996 (Clare is 25)
Clare: The first time it happens Henry is away. It's the eighth week of the
pregnancy. The baby is the size of a plum, has a face and hands and a beating
heart. It is early evening, early summer, and I can see magenta and orange clouds
in the west as I wash the dishes. Henry disappeared almost two hours ago. He
went out to water the lawn and after half an hour, when I realized that the
sprinkler still wasn't on, I stood at the back door and saw the telltale pile of
clothing sitting by the grape arbor. I went out and gathered up Henry's jeans and
underwear and his ratty Kill Your Television T-shirt, folded them and put them
on the bed. I thought about turning on the sprinkler but decided not to, reasoning
that Henry won't like it if he appears in the backyard and gets drenched.
I have prepared and eaten macaroni and cheese and a small salad, have taken
my vitamins, have consumed a large glass of skim milk. I hum as I do the dishes,
imagine the little being inside me hearing the humming, filing the humming
away for future reference at some subtle, cellular level and as I stand there,
conscientiously washing my salad bowl I feel a slight twinge somewhere deep
inside, somewhere in my pelvis. Ten minutes later I am sitting in the living room
minding my own business and reading Louis DeBernieres and there it is again, a
brief twang on my internal strings. I ignore it. Everything is fine. Henry's been
gone for more than two hours. I worry about him for a second, then resolutely
ignore that, too. I do not start to really worry for another half hour or so, because
now the weird little sensations are resembling menstrual cramps, and I am even
feeling that sticky blood feeling between my legs and I get up and walk into the
bathroom and pull down my underpants there's a lot of blood oh my god.
I call Charisse. Gomez answers the phone. I try to sound okay, ask for
Charisse, who gets on the phone and immediately says, "What's wrong?"
"I'm bleeding."
"Where's Henry?"
"I don't know."
"What kind of bleeding?"
"Like a period." The pain is becoming intense and I sit down on the floor.
"Can you take me to Illinois Masonic?"
"I'll be right there, Clare." She hangs up, and I replace the receiver gently, as
though I might hurt its feelings by handling it too roughly. I get to rny feet with
care, find my purse. I want to write Henry a note, but I don't know what to say. I
write: "Went to IL Masonic. (Cramps.) Charisse drove me there. 7:20 p.m. C." I
unlock the back door for Henry. I leave the note by the phone. A few minutes
later Charisse is at the front door. When we get to the car, Gomez is driving. We
don't talk much. I sit in the front seat, look out the window. Western to Belmont
to Sheffield to Wellington. Everything is unusually sharp and emphatic, as
though I need to remember as though there will be a test. Gomez turns into the
Unloading Zone Or the Emergency Room. Charisse and I get out. I look back at
Gomez, smiles briefly and roars off to park the car. We walk through doors that
open automatically as our feet press the ground, as in a fairy tale, as though we
are expected. The pain has receded like an ebbing tide, and now it moves toward
the shore again, fresh and fierce. There are a few people sitting abject and small
in the brightly lit room, waiting their turn, encircling their pain with bowed
heads and crossed arms, and I sink down among them. Charisse walks over to
the man sitting behind the triage desk. I can't hear what she says, but when he
says "Miscarriage?" it dawns on me that this is what is going on, this is what it is
called, and the word expands in my head until it fills all crevices of my mind,
until it has crowded out every other thought. I start to cry.
After they've done everything they could, it happens anyway. I find out later
that Henry arrived just before the end, but they wouldn't let him come in. I have
been sleeping, and when I wake up it's late at night and Henry is there. He is pale
and hollow-eyed and he doesn't say a word. "Oh," I mumble, "where were you?"
and Henry leans over and carefully embraces me. I feel his stubble against my
cheek and I am rubbed raw, not on my skin but deep in me, a wound opens and
Henry's face is wet but with whose tears?
Thursday, June 13 and Friday, June 14, 1996 (Henry is 32)
Henry: I arrive at the sleep lab exhausted, as Dr. Kendrick has asked me to. This
is the fifth night I've spent here, and by now I know the routine. I sit on the bed in
the odd, fake, home-like bedroom wearing pajama bottoms while Dr. Larson's
lab technician, Karen, puts cream on my head and chest and tapes wires in place.
Karen is young and blond and Vietnamese. She's wearing long fake fingernails
and says, 'Oops, sorry,' when she rakes my cheek with one of them. The lights are
dim, the room is cool. There are no windows except a piece of one-way glass that
looks like a mirror, behind which sits Dr. Larson, or whoever's watching the
machines this evening. Karen finishes the wiring, bids me good night, leaves the
room. I settle into the bed carefully, close my eyes, imagine the spider-legged
tracings on long streams of graph paper gracefully recording my eye movements,
respiration, brain waves on the other side of the glass. I'm asleep within minutes.
I dream of running. I'm running through woods, dense brush, trees, but
somehow I am running through all of it, passing through like a ghost. I burst into
a clearing, there's been a fire-
I dream I am having sex with Ingrid. I know it's Ingrid, even though I can't see
her face, it is Ingrid body, Ingrid's long smooth legs. We are fucking in her
parents' house, in their living room on the couch, the TV is on, tuned to a nature
documentary in which a herd of antelope is running, and then there's a parade.
Clare is sitting on a tiny float in the parade, looking sad while people are
cheering all around her and suddenly Ing jumps up and pulls a bow and arrow
from behind the couch and she shoots Clare. The arrow goes right into the TV
and Clare claps her hands to her breast like Wendy in a silent version of Peter Pan
and I leap up and I'm choking Ingrid, my hands around her throat, screaming at
her-
I wake up. I'm cold with sweat and my heart is pounding. I'm in the sleep lab.
I wonder for a moment if there's something they're not telling me, if they can
somehow watch my dreams, see my thoughts. I turn onto my side and close my
eyes.
I dream that Cl