Second Nature: A Love Story

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  “I like him,” I told Eliza. “That sounds dumb. I mean, I haven’t spent much time with babies, but he’s just so yummy.” Eliza smiled and almost preened. I held Charley against my cheek and inhaled that inexplicable narcotic smell of unalloyed newness.

  At that moment, the front door burst open and a general roar rose. I looked up at Vincent and he looked at me, and at the baby, the sight shoving him to a stop in the doorway with that same slack-jawed incredulity he’d had when he first saw me with my car. He stood there so long that someone behind him pushed past, a beautiful light-haired girl with a body like the arch of a harp. She said, “Honey! What are you doing? Making an entrance?”

  Vincent had brought a girl.

  I decided I would hate Vincent forever and might as well start doing the exercises.

  A few minutes later I’d splashed enough cold water on my face to restore the pace of my breathing but rinse off most of my makeup. Using a hand towel, I blotted the rest away. Unable to leave an expensive Christmas hand towel covered with streaks of mineral glow, I flattened it out and stuck it inside the back of my underpants. Pale didn’t begin to describe my face. I looked like a chess piece and cursed the polite impulse that had prompted me to agree to come to this dumb shindig. I straightened the ruched black top I wore, meant to draw attention away from my enormous boobs and to my still-indented waistline.

  Die young, Vincent, I thought.

  As though that was still possible.

  Why couldn’t he have installed his “honey” at a hotel long enough to wish the woman who was pregnant with his maybe-handicapped kid a happy holiday? How had this woman gone from unknown to meet-the-family status in … what … six weeks?

  “Let heaven and nature sing,” roared the fake carolers, outside the window.

  Let heaven and nature sing.

  I was going home to make a voodoo doll.

  Pulling open the pocket door of the powder room, I nearly fell into her lap, the woman with the bright hair. Vincent stood just behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long. I’m Sicily. I’m not from Sicily, that is my name.…”

  The pretty woman, perhaps the same age as I, maybe a few years older, displayed a row of slightly overlarge teeth.

  “I know who you are. Nice to meet you. Vincent is a pig for not introducing us. But he’s a pig all the time.”

  Vincent punched the woman in the back, hard enough that she stumbled.

  She whirled and pummeled his arm. “You want a piece of me? Huh?”

  Before I could react, Vincent pulled me into a slightly bashful hug.

  “You asshole,” I said to Vincent. I was sure he didn’t hear me. But he did.

  “Hey, Sicily, great to see you too. How are you? Are you okay? Did you get my emails?”

  I hadn’t opened my emails for weeks. I was trying out a new life strategy: People who really needed you would call. Or show up.

  “Hello, Vincent. No, I didn’t.”

  “From Upstart Productions?”

  “I didn’t associate that with you. Sorry. I forgot the name of your company. I’ve been busy. But now I’d love to meet your friend.”

  “She’s not my friend.”

  “Your girlfriend, then,” I said, and thought of how Vincent would look with a shovel sticking out of his head.

  “This is Kerry, my baby sister, the famous opera diva and knuckle puncher.”

  “Oh, dear. Oh. I’m sorry. Kerry.” I put out my hand. His sister. I knew he had a sister! Kerry was his sister, and they must have met up at the airport. Had I made some kind of odd grimace, accidentally or with deliberate vengeance, out there in the living room? My already sweltry face seemed to dial up a notch. Was I sweating? “It’s just, you know, it’s so warm in here. How good to meet you. You mean you showbiz folks don’t get to come home for Christmas until halfway into it?”

  “If then,” Kerry sighed. “My understudy practically wanted me to promise her my firstborn child to go on for me tomorrow and the next day … and … I—oh, boy. I’m sorry. The opera is Madama Butterfly and I could use a nice seppuku dagger right now. I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry. The first thing I say to you, after all Vincent told me, all the way from Denver, and I blow it sky high. And you’re right, he is an asshole.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I told her. What had Vincent told his sister? All the way from Denver? Vincent knew that I knew that he knew that I hadn’t gone ahead with the abortion. I had never spoken to him, but my aunt made a point of telling me that she’d called Beth to inform the Cappadoras that it was game-on. How had he described me? Half-wit nymphomaniac? Stone around his neck, rapidly increasing in diameter and heft? Medical curiosity and gold digger? A poisoned apple? The love of his life? The sorta-like of the previous fall? “Really, don’t be silly. It’s just an ordinary phrase.”

  “I didn’t mean anything about your baby—my little nephew or niecie who’s in there. I’m going to be the old maid here and wear my bird-watching shoes to take all the kids to the zoo.… I’m sorry about that too,” Kerry said. Both she and Vincent were blushing. “Vincent, why don’t you say something? If you think she’s so terrific and unusual—”

  “Stop it, Ker,” Vincent said, low and toneless.

  “Why should I stop it?”

  I said, “It’s okay, really. Please … um, it’s fine. Vincent and I haven’t had a chance to talk about anything. I didn’t even answer his emails!”

  “Why don’t you say something? Like, try not being an asshole?” Kerry asked, her stance belligerent as a cat in a downpour. “Try a little. Then try harder. You know?”

  “Don’t you have to go to the bathroom, Kerry? Or out in the fucking snow? Nice introduction,” he said. “Let Sicily know there’s definitely insanity in the family.”

  Kerry stepped into the bathroom. Vincent said, “Come into the kitchen.”

  I did.

  “Is this a hard time of pregnancy? You look tired.” This is code for You look like shit.

  “I don’t know. It is for me. I think I should feel pretty great, but … I’m sort of a lump. It’s good to see you, Vincent. I hope that—”

  He took both my hands and kissed me. I drew back, breathless, and when he kissed me again, I put my arms up around his neck and leaned into him. This time, it was he who stepped back.

  “I can feel it,” he said, and laughed, as though he’d invented this. “You have a little belly. It’s real.” He kissed me again, and I was helpless, a sexual imbecile, my hips slipping under his of their own accord. The thing about the way a person smells, that you can’t want that person unless his smell—even if it’s not pretty—lights up your receptors? It’s all true. Five minutes before, I’d pictured Vincent wearing something in a nice … avalanche. Now he could have turned off the lights, opened the door of the cupboard, and nailed me to the wall right then and there.

  Eliza came in. She wasn’t one of those kinds of people who say, Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. She grinned and said, “Now, that’s how I like to see people I love say hello. I have to sit in the dining room and nurse the baby. But this house has five bedrooms. Go upstairs and talk.” She smiled again, as Charley’s yips erupted into a grouchy whine.

  “Hi, pal!” Vincent said. “Hi, you big fat little boy baby! I want you to meet my—”

  “Sicily,” Eliza said. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I didn’t, but I’m improving,” I told her, blushing.

  “I don’t mean with him. I mean, let me look at you in the light.”

  I sat in a kitchen chair as Eliza unceremoniously handed Charley off to Vincent. The whine dialed up to a full wail. “Eliza, I don’t have the equipment for this,” Vincent said, trying to bounce Charley.

  “Get Ben,” she said. “There’s a bottle in my bag.” In the living room, someone was playing the white baby grand and Kerry was singing “O Holy Night,” her voice a river of silver. “I’m just being careful. Your f
ace is looking … Does your face have any odd things?” Eliza asked.

  Alarmed by her slip out of the American vernacular, I nodded. “It’s hot. But not really.”

  Eliza laid her hand against my cheek. “Do you feel funny anywhere else? Itchy or trembling?”

  “For days,” I said. “My neck itches like crazy, and my hands itch …”

  Before I could finish, Eliza was on the phone, giving the address of the house to someone. “I’m a physician,” she said. “I am with her now.… Are you sure? Ten minutes, no more than that?” Eliza put the phone back on the receiver. “Sit down, Sicily. Madre de dios.”

  “I know that much Spanish.” Vincent had returned with Ben and knelt beside me, taking both my hands in his. Ben was feeding the baby, his face knotted with concern. It was as though there were two stages in the house, each featuring a different play.

  “Don’t be afraid. Dr. Glass and Dr. Ahrens will meet you at the hospital, and now I’m paging …” Eliza punched numbers into her cell phone. “I’m paging Dr. Grigsby. I know that she is in Louisiana, but I’m sure that Livingston is here. So it will be fine. Everything is going fine.”

  I didn’t notice that Ben had left until my aunt and Beth arrived, virtually sliding into second base. Marie was a bit loopy, smiling. Evidently, no one had thought to assign her part in this other play to her. Marie tried to kneel but was unsteady. Beth crouched with her knees bent like a street child tending a grill.

  “What’s wrong, is she bleeding?” Beth asked Vincent.

  “No, she’s hot and itchy,” Vincent said, as though we were a couple. “Eliza called the ambulance.”

  Marie grabbed the edge of granite countertop. “Really, an ambulance? Eliza, do you think it’s serious?”

  Eliza said, “Marie, everything is serious for Sicily. Whatever it is, they will see to it. But Sicily needs to go to the hospital.”

  “Did you eat something?” my aunt asked.

  “I feel bad. I think I must have a cold.…”

  “Are you having a miscarriage?” said Beth.

  “Are you having a miscarriage?” Marie repeated.

  “It’s her face,” said Vincent. “It’s not the baby.” I gripped his hand tighter.

  “Can I have some water?” I asked, and got up.

  “I’ll get it,” Eliza said. “Sit down, Sicily.”

  I’d had one sip when the swoop of a Mars light along the bank of windows announced the arrival of the ambulance. On either side, Vincent and Eliza walked me into the front hall. By then, everyone looked very small and distinct. Angelo stood in the hall, with Kerry clutching his arm. My aunt grabbed our coats from Beth’s hands. Two medics came into the hall, spoke briefly with Eliza, and asked me to sit down on the stairs while one of them took a quick blood pressure and rolled a thermometer over my forehead. While one stayed beside me, the other wheeled the cot in from the porch. As they helped me onto the bed, the paramedic radioed the ER. “This young woman has a BP of one-forty over ninety and a fever of one hundred one. The MD here is a resident at University of Illinois Chicago Circle and says the young woman is in the early stages of tissue rejection.… Yes, a transplant patient. It is a face transplant.” She paused. “Miss, could you be pregnant?”

  Eliza said, “Yes, she is three months’ pregnant.”

  Very softly, my aunt said, “Rejection?”

  “Is one of you riding with her?” the paramedic asked.

  “I am,” Vincent said. “I’m her … It’s my baby.”

  “Right,” said Marie. “She is my baby. I’m her mother.”

  “Come on then, ma’am,” said the medic, who began tucking blankets around my feet. To me, she said, “Little ride. I’ll be right next to you.”

  “I want to go with her,” said Vincent. “Marie, I’ll ride with her. Let my mother or father … Ben … you drive Marie, okay?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Marie said.

  “I’m sorry?” Vincent said. “This is not time for any—”

  “I want him to come,” I said. “I want Vincent to come with me.”

  “Give it up, Sicily,” my aunt said. “This is serious, and the boy wonder here hasn’t been …”

  The room began to revolve slowly; it was almost comical, reminding me of the teacup ride at Disneyland, the room’s occupants at first curious, white, extravagantly dark-eyed, ovoid, their half-raised champagne flutes blinking gold and blue like stained glass, Beth, tears streaming sooty trails through her makeup, picking her camera up from a side table and beginning to shoot, then the people’s jaws thickening, stretching, spreading, connecting like a border of faces—AngeloPatRosieBenChiefBlissElizaBenAngelo …

  “Are you dizzy?” the paramedic asked, and before I could answer, she said, “We need to go.”

  “I’m ready,” Aunt Marie said.

  “She wants me,” Vincent put in. “She’s not a child.”

  “Nonsense,” said Eliza. “Ben, I will go with her in the ambulance. You two can stay here and fight like fools.”

  My aunt grabbed a swag of garland draped over the long curved banister and jerked it, setting the lights bouncing. “He’s here by … accident!”

  “Accident, accident! Life is all an accident,” Eliza said loudly. “My mother is my mother because the little girl she saw in the picture died of influenza, and when she came to bring home her child, they give her Maria Agata and say it is Maria. We are all Maria. Vincent has a right here too. Now we’ll go, Sicily. You come when you aren’t drunk.”

  And there we went, past the neighbors, who were all outside, red-faced with drink and shivering in their finery. The carolers stood next to them, the teenager holding the carriage lamp overhead to light the progress of the cot down the walk and out into the street.

  Ambulances speed along with such authority and dispatch that you’d think it would be comfortable in one, but it isn’t. It’s like being a package in the back of an ice-cream truck. The drivers are hot dogs, and if there weren’t rails on the beds, you’d be on the floor. As we shrieked along, through the quiet neighborhoods and onto the expressway, I felt as though I had the vantage of St. Nicholas, high above clusters of identical houses, all four walls frosted in racing lights and rugged blinking lights and ethereal LED lights, ice-blue and green and silver lights in the shape of icicles and oversize tree ornaments and chili peppers, and it was impossible for me to put away from my mind the story Renee Mayerling told me all those months ago, about the silent ride through the dark afternoon bravely illumined by outdoor mangers and gables festooned with candy canes—from Engine Company 3 to the chapel at Holy Angels.

  When we arrived, the doors were open in the bay and the doctors and nurses surged out. I knew from years of hospital habitation that they’d had time to do what they called their preps, from throwing down a sour cup of coffee to washing their faces to a stolen thirty seconds of yoga breathing. And then they were all around me and I was, for better or worse, home again.

  Dr. Park and the senior resident, whose name I could never remember, did not ask me to pause at the desk to register. Up to the ninth floor we went, where my new obstetrician, Dr. Helen Setnes—who’d replaced Dr. Gloomy Glass—came hurrying down the hall, pulling on her lab coat over a red velvet Christmas dress. At the huge triangular central station, nurses were gathered, singing … what child is this? Around the corner of the desk came Dr. Livingston, as the medics lifted me onto the bed. In the hall. “What is this with our Sicily?” he said, and I felt my blood pressure swoop right, left, and settle to center.

  “I’m sick,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “The vascularity and the beginnings of a pattern of tracery beneath the skin of her upper left cheek …” Eliza said.

  “That’s just right,” Dr. Livingston said. “Spot-on. You’ve never seen an episode of rejection.” Eliza got an A-plus. What did I get?

  “Will my face slough off tonight?” I asked. “Will it start with layers? Bits? Like sunburn?”
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  “Sicily, no, of course not. Now, you know that we can bring this under control.” I was in a room by then, the transplant nurses helping me out of my black silk and into sprigged blue cotton and the pair of bottoms to a set of surgical scrubs I’d asked for. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Hey, Sicily,” said Dr. Setnes. “I didn’t expect to see you until next month.” A sonogram tech was wheeling in a portable machine. “Let’s have a look and see what’s going on in there before I give you over to the supersleuths here.” The tech, a sweet-faced blond young woman wearing an elf hat, rolled down the band of the scrubs and gelled my belly. And I didn’t notice that my aunt and Vincent were at the foot of the bed until the little alien appeared on the screen, displaying the palm of one perfectly formed miniature hand. My aunt gasped and Vincent swore softly, but when I looked up at him, his face was thrilled and agonized, his eyes squeezed nearly shut, his lips compressed.

  “I didn’t expect it to look so real now,” Vincent said. “Yet, I mean.”

  “Well, this is a very early pregnancy,” said Dr. Setnes. “These are features that—”

  “It’s my baby,” said Vincent. “That is my baby.” Vincent reached down and touched all there was of me within his field, one of my stockinged feet.

  As I stared at the slip of printout that Dr. Setnes had first handed me, Dr. Ahrens explained that what was happening to me was understandable, an undesirable blip, but not necessarily a failure of the new protocol. “We might expect a period of adjustment as the body … well …”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Vincent asked.

  “The baby?” said Dr. Setnes.