Falling in Love with Natassia

by Anna Monardo

  And then his face got funny, with a sheen of fear that turned him an ugly ocher color, and Nora finally got scared. He is in love with somebody. He’s leaving me.

  “I don’t know how to even start, goddamn it.” He shuddered as if with a chill, then stood up fast. He shoved the chair into the table. “Shit.” The way he said it, the word was a bullet. Then, softer, but still angry: “I’m sorry, Nora, I’m not mad at you.”

  I should think not.

  “God—” Christopher was fisting his pile of receipts. He walked away from the table and came back, still looking afraid and ugly, and Nora was aware of feeling almost giddy with how far over the cliff they were dangling now. Their marriage was much more in the vicinity of danger than of safety. She pulled her socked feet up onto her chair, hugged her knees, felt that roll of flesh around her middle. Though the air within her was too thin for her to form any clear thought—for example, No violence—she knew she had to make a choice not to hit him, not to hurt him physically, no matter what he told her.

  “I don’t know how to tell you all this.” He was whining now.

  “You met a woman.”

  “Yes.” He tossed down the receipts. Put his foot on the chair, put his elbow on his knee, grabbed his hair. “Yes, about a year ago I met this woman.”

  “And you’re in love.”

  “No!” He spit that out. “No, no, no, no.” He came to Nora, knelt in front of her chair. She pulled her feet in closer to her body, squeezed her belly flesh tighter. He tried to touch her sock, but she covered her foot with her hand. Looking down, she noticed bits of gunk in his hair.

  “I’m starting at the start,” he told her. “This is long. More than a year ago. October, all right? Not this one, the one before. You and I weren’t, you know. We’d already been having a hard time with each other for a long time.”

  Go ahead, try blaming it on me. Just try.

  “We were—you and me. I just felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I mean, of course, you were right. You’ve always been right, your having your doubts about getting pregnant with me and having a baby. I was just—I just wanted to have a baby so much.” He sat in the chair. “Nora, I was afraid you were leaving me.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “I’m still here.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a fucking miracle. I really thought you were leaving and you’d had enough of me, and then I’d have nothing. Remember that night, it was a Sunday, you wouldn’t come to the film festival with me?”

  “You’re in love with some other woman because I wouldn’t go to the New York Film Festival?”

  “I’m not in love with anyone, sweetie. There’s no one else. I promise. It’s just that that night I had a drink with Piper and I found out about this woman.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Let me tell this my own way. Please? Can I do that? Does it always have to be your way?” he yelled, then leaned down to kiss her hand.

  She kicked a fast kick at his leg. “Get away from me. Tell me the rest. Hurry.”

  “This woman. I heard about her from Piper that night because she was a widow of this guy, this painter everybody knew, who had died of something really bad.”

  “AIDS. You’re telling me this woman gave you AIDS.”

  “No! Nobody has AIDS. I don’t have AIDS. The husband died of cancer. Some cancer. And that’s it, it’s just basically this really, really sad story. They were married a really, really long time. Longer than us. The woman, this widow, after he was gone she wanted a baby a lot. She was pregnant when he died, then she had a miscarriage.”

  Nora was very confused by now.

  Christopher was starting to look exasperated. He tried to explain. “She lost her husband, Nora, then she lost her baby.”

  “I lost my father, then my mother, all in the same week.”

  “You really—Okay, you be however you want to be, but I’m finishing this story. This widow—”

  “If you say ‘widow’ one more time I’m going to—”

  “She was looking,” he insisted, “looking in a very formal and organized way, she was having a search, for a donor to donate sperm so she could finish the plan she and her husband planned before he died.”

  “What plan?”

  “For her to have a baby. Aren’t you listening? I just called her after drinks with Piper. The first time I called her was because I just wanted to talk to somebody who wanted a baby as much as me. Then I filled out the questionnaire and got the tests. And I went to this lab after she picked me to be the donor. I never thought she’d pick me. I never touched her, not once. I swear that to you. This all happened with tubes and doctors.”

  “You let yourself be an anonymous sperm donor for this person?”

  “Yeah. But, no, it’s not anonymous. I had to be an artist, because of her husband. She wanted to pick very specifically, so she’d have the right person, like her and her husband had planned. I told you. The questionnaire was really long. She liked my drawings.”

  “She liked your drawings. You were the right person because you’re an artist.”

  “Yes. A painter. I had to be a painter.”

  “So now this woman is going to try to get pregnant with your sperm.”

  “Nora!”

  “I’m just trying to understand here. I’m trying—”

  “It’s done, Nora. Sweetie, the baby’s born.” Christopher’s face cracked into tears, like a boy’s face. He went to the far end of the table and got his wallet from the piles of papers and brought the wallet back to Nora. He opened it. “I have a son. I have this baby son, Nora. His name is Don, like his mother’s husband’s name, the one who died.”

  He pulled out a photo and tossed it onto the table in front of her, and she saw nothing but the closed-eye animal look of an infant, then its purply skin. And within the confusion that Christopher had already created, Nora thought, when she saw the picture, that Christopher was telling her that something monstrous was wrong with this child. The news and the photograph fused together into something monstrous and ugly, and Nora screamed. She tossed a New York State tax form on top of the photo to hide it. She screamed again, screamed big, her words sloppy: “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong with that baby, what happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing, Nora. He’s fine. He’s healthy.”

  “Don’t you touch me.”

  “No-ra, are you? Okay, Nora? You’re white. Don’t you, don’t you faint on me.”

  Her head was full of moths, fluttering light, and as soon as he said faint, she knew what was happening to her, and knew, from the two times before in her life when she’d fainted (once, right off the toilet seat in her college house, when she realized she was pregnant; the second time, right after the abortion, when she realized she no longer was), she knew the downward spin wouldn’t stop now, it was already happening. There was a subway-collision boom in the apartment.

  And then Nora was rising up out of a cotton-ball darkness into cold, a cold calm; she realized she was lying on the floor, and Christopher was holding ice cubes to her wrists and her forehead.

  “Nora, sweetie.” His whisper smelled like coffee, and her stomach folded close to a gag. Then she remembered what had happened.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “You fainted. I caught you just before you hit the floor.”

  “How long?” What had he done to her in between the time she slumped over and when she came to? He could have done anything. She had to call the police.

  “You were out just about one minute.”

  “Give me the phone.”

  “Who’re you calling?”

  “Where is the phone? Bring it to me.”

  She noticed the digital clock. He wasn’t lying. It was just six-eighteen, and she remembered that it had been only six-ten when they’d started to talk, when he’d come down to her end of the table with the receipts. Still, though, when he brought her the phone she took it and dialed 911, and when she got an answer, she said
, Sorry, and hung up.

  “Did you just call 911?” Christopher asked.

  “Yes. And I’ll call again if you come near me.”

  He sighed. She saw him decide not to get angry. “You’ve got to get off the floor. I have to help you up off the floor.”

  “Get out of this house.”

  “Sorry, I’ll take you to the hospital if you want to spend the night there, but I’m not leaving you alone tonight. Uh-uh.”

  “Why did you show me that picture?”

  “He’s my son. I couldn’t stand you not knowing I’d done this.”

  “Is there something wrong with him?”

  “Is there something wrong with him?” Christopher sounded offended. “No. He’s healthy, totally healthy. He’s beautiful. He’s ten-and-a-half weeks old now. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. Do you know how hard—”

  She lay on the floor, still not letting him near her. She stared at him. “What else do I need to know? Where is this baby?”

  “They live in Nyack. That’s why I’ve been there so much. I had to fix up the house. It’s a mess, Nora. Her life, man, really. She needed the help.”

  “What do I need to know?”

  “I’m not in any way and never was in love with her. I love Baby Don. I’m—”

  “Just what I need to know, Christopher. Do you want a divorce?”

  “Jesus, Nora. God, no. Do you? Do you want to divorce me?”

  “Are you moving to Nyack? Who’s supporting this baby?”

  “She is. It’s totally her deal. Totally. I signed a paper, she’s the full parent. All rights are hers for every decision. I just try to help them—”

  “You spent Christmas there, then.”

  “He was born on Wednesday, December sixth. I had to be there. It was a cesarean. I had to help him. And you were—”

  “Never mind where I was. And don’t make it sound like the doctor needed you there to perform a cesarean. You were there because you wanted to be. You saw some woman having a baby.” They sat very still. Nora felt Christopher looking at her. She couldn’t look at him. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked.

  “He’s going to grow up. I hope, healthy and good. Happy, if he can.”

  “I mean with us.”

  “I don’t know.” A beat of silence. “Are you going to call 911 again?” She glanced over at him with enough anger to make him say, “Sorry.”

  “I can’t sleep with you in this house,” Nora said. “You’re going to have to leave.”

  “There’s no way I’m leaving you here alone when you’re like this.”

  “I’ll take responsibility for myself.”

  It went back and forth for half an hour. Finally, he put on his parka; finally, he left.

  AS SOON as Christopher was gone, Nora chain-locked the door. Before long, the phone rang. She let the machine answer. Kevin’s voice: “Nora, it’s me. I know you fainted, he called me from the street. Pick up, I want to talk to you.”

  She picked up. “What did he tell you? What did that fucker say?”

  “Nora?” Kevin’s voice was incredulous; Nora didn’t swear often. “He said nothing, just to call you because you fainted. What’s going on with you two? This is getting too weird. Are you sick, Nora? Is that it? What?”

  “That’s all he told you? That’s all—”

  “Yes, what else is there? Tell me. Jesus, Nora.”

  “There’s nothing else. Just stay out of it. I’m fine. I’ve got to go.”

  As soon as she hung up, she was trapped. She could not stand or sit or lie down and be still. Wandering the too-wide space of the loft, she forced herself to know what she knew. Walking into the bathroom, she thought, Christopher has a baby. Christopher has a son. In the living room, she stopped. He had a child with someone. Walking toward his old work space, she noticed the Harley parked there and she had to turn away, and as she did she got nauseous. Nyack. Nyack? When she reached the bedroom, Nora knew she couldn’t sleep in there that night. She went back to the couch, sat down. Her hand automatically went to the phone. Christopher has a baby son. This news needed to be told.

  But to whom?

  Whom could Nora call? Call Kevin back? Two years ago, even a year ago, that would have been the first call in a crisis, but slowly Nora had managed to cut her brother out. Mary or Giulia? Abe? For an odd moment, she thought of calling Lotte. Then an even odder moment when she thought of Giulia’s father, a psychiatrist in Ohio. Nora had met him only twice. She took her hand from the phone, and said aloud to her mother, “Mommy, Christopher had a baby with some woman who’s not me.”

  Nora sat on the couch.

  It was too late to call her friend Candice. She had those twins now, and was never free to talk on the phone.

  Nora sat on the couch.

  All night, from midnight to one, to two, past three o’clock, she sat on the couch and thought about Christopher’s odd, odd news. Over and over she had to deep-breathe to calm the palpitations in her chest.

  All night she sat awake with the news. I knew he had a secret. Nora sat against the couch cushions and said aloud, “Christopher has a son.” She got no further than that. No further than Christopher has a baby. That sentence was a wall. There was nothing to do with it, no way past it, or around it, or anything. All night, eight hours, and Nora sat and thought it, then thought it again. The words Christopher and son, and Christopher and baby, but nothing beyond those words. Nora didn’t cry or throw things or scream. She didn’t want to call Christopher to come back. She didn’t want to file for divorce, or kill him. There was no action. There was just the one stunning fact.

  Now what? The view out the window was lightening. Morning. In that scary physical phenomenon that happens sometimes after a night without sleep, Nora felt extra-strong when she stood up to get dressed for work, energized, but she couldn’t eat or drink anything. She understood that her life had changed profoundly, as after a death. The days right after her parents’ deaths had felt something like this. Now she just needed to act. Wool socks, my boots. It’s cold out. A long sweater.

  She wasn’t aware of leaving the loft, or getting the bus, or arriving at her office. She did all her morning appointments, and they went well. Fine. No problem. At lunchtime, Nora pulled out the Yellow Pages and dialed real-estate agents. No one could show her any apartments at lunchtime. Nora’s afternoon appointments were more difficult to sit through than the morning sessions had been. Exhaustion was kicking in. But she set up a meeting with a real-estate agent for tomorrow, at noon, which helped her get through the afternoon, get home, get to bed, fall into exhausted sleep.

  The next day, Nora sat in the real-estate office filling out forms and, as she had anticipated, she began to want to kill Christopher. What if she didn’t manage to move before people started to find out about this baby, find out that Christopher had stopped loving Nora and begun caring for someone else? Her friends would find out. Her patients. People.

  The real-estate office was on the third floor of a walk-up and had huge greasy windows plugged up with grimy AC units. Looking over Nora’s completed forms, the guy at the dented, tan metal desk said, “Wow. Well, you got a pretty low highest-possible-rent here. I don’t know what I might have for you, not in this market.”

  Nora kicked his desk with her boot. “Just show me an apartment.” Christopher had left two pleading messages on the phone machine telling Nora that it wasn’t what she thought, he still loved Nora, not the Nyack widow. But that baby. That baby existed, and it was Christopher’s baby, and the baby had nothing at all to do with Nora. “Show me anything,” she told the real-estate guy. “Today. I need to move. Now.”

  CHAPTER 34 :

  FEBRUARY

  1990

  Nobody ever talks about how truly strange it is to look for a new place to live. As Nora taxied with her real-estate agent, Gavin Grey, from an apartment on East Ninety-first Street, to a place on West Ninety-sixth Street, to another on West Sixty-eighth, trying to see as ma
ny places as possible in the hour and twenty minutes she’d given herself for a lunch break, Nora was beginning to understand something about her patients. When they came in weeping and wailing about the hardships of apartment-hunting in the city, no wonder it was nearly impossible to jolt them into a deeper plane of contemplation. The minute you began an apartment search, you stepped into an Alice in Wonderland world, in which you were comically too large for the space available to you, and your resources ludicrously too small.

  An Upper East Side studio a half-block east of Park Avenue: one room with a cracked picture window looking out on the backside of an institutional high-rise; a stove, microwave, refrigerator, and sink along one wall; a bathroom with a stained plastic shower stall, no tub; all for $980 a month, plus 15 percent of the annual rent up front for the agent’s fee. This, Gavin Grey said, was the best deal of the day. “Under a thousand.”

  An Upper West Side fourth-floor walk-up in a brownstone a half-block west of Central Park: two rooms, neither large enough for a queensized mattress; a closet-kitchen with mice feces on the counter; an arched northern-exposure window facing the street—“Classic,” Gavin said—which brought the rent to $1,345 a month plus $2,421 agent’s fee.

  Apartment-hunting in New York City was, Nora learned, like reading Jonathan Swift. A pull-all-stops satire. You could get lost in the outrageous details, and therefore never give yourself a chance to consider fully the surreal nature of the act itself: dismantling your home; piling your belongings into a dirty rented truck; unloading your furniture, your precious tidbits and contraptions, onto your new street—literally, onto the sidewalk, or among the double-parked cars—a street or an avenue on which dogs shat and deliverymen spat and doormen stamped out cigars and cigarettes. And then, finally, hauling the whole deal up flights of steps, or crunching it into an elevator, to the new space, where you would spend weeks or months or years creating it again: your home.

  But even before that stage—the actual move—there was the equally weird stage during which you opened doors and entered strangers’ homes. People you’d never meet, and there you were with your head in their overstuffed clothes closets, lifting the little rugs under their pile of shoes to examine the quality of the wood floor (terrible, hence the rug). Your hand pulling aside their shower curtains, seeing their personal products, their still-dripping washcloths, sponges, loofahs. Their medicine cabinets. Their toilet seats. Seeing that their cats sat all day with their butts on the bed pillows, seeing underpants left on bedroom floors, on kitchen floors. Seeing filthy sponges floating in sinks of grease-dotted dishwater. Seeing the dust of strangers’ lives. Nora could barely swallow the terror that someday she might be examined this closely herself.