“Oh, honey, give him a few minutes to transition from work to being home. You know how men are.” I roll my eyes. “He’s always an old bear when he first gets home. The girls are playing outside. You just relax a little bit while I go take care of my man.”
Margaret gives me a strange look, but doesn’t protest.
From the window I see Burt circle Sarah like a suspicious dog. I wonder if he notices Sarah’s likeness to Leila.
How could he not?
I’m overcome by the urge to go outside and turn the garden hose on him the way I would to chase away an old scurvy stray.
“We’ll have dinner at six-thirty. Just come on up to the house.”
“Can I help you with anything?”
I wave her off and start toward the door. “Heavens no, just relax.”
With that, I try to follow my own advice and relax as I prepare to inform my husband we have houseguests—indefinitely.
CHAPTER 3
Elizabeth
What do you get if you take two consecutive months of missed menstrual periods multiplied by six miserable weeks of morning sickness?
Go on, you do the math.
Shit. What else could it be?
Still, I close my eyes and hold my breath before I look at the stick I peed on five minutes ago.
I know before I know, but still the two little blue lines on the stick come as shocking confirmation.
I’m pregnant.
Shit.
This cannot be happening. I am forty-three years old. I cannot be pregnant.
Andrew is going to flip.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I fling the aberrant plastic stick with its damn blue plus sign at the wall. It bounces off the gray marble with a ping and clatters on the floor as if it’s doing a little happy dance. Mocking me.
Then I throw up my dinner—half a package of saltines and one cup of weak English Breakfast tea—in the toilet right on top of the pee that turned the plus sign the offending blue.
Blue.
I turn on the faucet and rinse my mouth, splash water on my face.
Blue. As in baby boy?
Pressing my hand to my belly, it occurs to me for the first time that there is a little life growing inside of me.
Interloper. Gate crasher.
Poor unwanted little…baby?
My wet hands leave a big handprint on my beige slacks as if marking the spot. I press my palms over my eyes, grinding the heels of my hands into the sockets, so I won’t have to look at it, as if it will clear my vision so I’ll see another color on the stick.
Oops! Silly me. I’m not really pregnant.
But I am. I flush the toilet, collapse the pregnancy-test box, careful to stuff all the remnants of my clandestine science experiment back in the Walgreens bag. I hide the evidence inside my briefcase under the file for the new “Who wants to be a television commercial star” show I’m publicizing.
How in the hell did this happen?
Wait. Don’t answer that. I know how it happened.
Just tell me— How the hell did this happen? I punctuate the silent question by slamming my briefcase on the cold, hard floor.
Andrew and I met in college.
When we fell in love and knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together we devised a plan so that we could live the life we’d always wanted.
A simple ten-step plan that required some sacrifices along the way—such as not having a whole stable full of offspring.
One child was fine.
I hear so many of my friends bemoaning the fact that their first child is an angel, but the second or third or fifth is a hellion. I see so many women whose main objective is to find someone on whom she can pawn off her kids so she can have a moment to herself—so she can go to the bathroom without someone pulling at her, demanding something of her.
What possessed them to pop out so many puppies in the first place? Each couple does not have a moral responsibility to replace themselves with a child. So I have no sympathy for Suzy Birthmore, modern-day Woman Who Lives in the Shoe—or should I say, the Open-Toe Pale Pink Prada Pump—who complains that there’s no rest for the breeder.
Life is much less cluttered with only one child; it’s much easier to raise one child well.
Quality over quantity.
That would be a good contribution to society.
I rub my belly and realize it’s anger and fear talking. I recognize it for what it is. Our Anastasia is a dream child. I just don’t see how we could get so lucky twice. Not to mention it totally and completely screws up the ten-step plan we’ve mapped out for ourselves:
1. Graduate from college at twenty-two. Check!
2. Land great jobs—theme-park public relations for me, banking for Andrew. Check!
3. Ascend corporate ladder. Task well underway.
4. Marry at twenty-five. Check!
5. Buy perfect Stratford Park house. Check (even if it was a mid-sized fixer-upper and wasn’t directly on the chain of lakes. A house on the lake wasn’t in the budget—see steps seven, eight and nine)!
6. Have one—let me repeat that—one child upon turning thirty. CHECK!
7. Work our butts off. Check!
8. Save diligently. Check!
9. Work harder/save more.
10. Anastasia will graduate from college when we turn fifty-five. Andrew and I will be free to enjoy early retirement.
Do you see mention of a second child?
No.
That’s why Andrew got a vasectomy.
How in the hell am I going to tell him I’m pregnant?
Barbara
We’re barely inside the house when Burt starts spitting words at my back. “What the hell is Margaret Woodall doing in this house?”
Lord, I knew he’d be in a snit. I keep walking into the kitchen, weighing my words as I open the refrigerator and pull out the potatoes I peeled earlier and the London broil I’d set to marinate this morning.
Only then do I turn and look him square in the eyes, putting on a cheerful face, hoping to set the tone.
“She and Sarah are staying with us for a while.” I set the French-white Corning Ware baking dishes on the counter so the food can come to room temperature. “Won’t it be lovely to have them here? Sarah and Mary Grace are already fast friends. So nice to have her cousin here to play with.”
He knits his brows and glares at me as if I’m an idiot. “Why didn’t you tell me they were coming?”
Instead of answering him, I pull my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the shelf over by the door and busy myself looking up a recipe for au gratin potatoes.
“How long are they staying?”
“As long as they need to.”
“In other words, they’re moving in? That’s why you put them in the carriage house.”
I close the cookbook and flash a smile at him as if the thought hadn’t occurred to me, as if he’d invented the very idea himself and it was genius—pure