Mixed Blessings

by Danielle Steel

  But Pilar only smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. “I never wanted to. My own childhood was pretty strange, and I’ve never wanted to put anyone else through that. And we had you and Todd. But I really never wanted kids when I was young. I guess it was just a part missing from my own psychological package. I looked at the women I knew who got married right after school, tied down with two or three kids, in houses and lives they hated. They all looked So trapped to me. They never did anything. It always seemed like a choice to me, and the things I wanted out of life just didn’t include children. And after I went to law school, I really never thought of it. I have my career, and then I met your dad, and I’ve never looked back. The women who had their kids twenty years ago are sitting at home now, with their kids grown and gone, wondering where their lives went. I’m glad that didn’t happen to me. I would have hated every minute of it, hated myself, and the man who condemned me to it.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be like that,” Nancy said gently. She had gained new maturity, and broader views in the past months; her world, like her belly, had been slowly growing. “I have friends who do both, who have careers and kids. Lots of them, in fact, some of them are doctors, lawyers, psychologists, writers. It doesn’t have to be a choice, if you don’t want it to be.”

  “Your generation is a lot better at that than mine was. For us, most of the time, it was a choice. You got the big job, the big break, and crawled your way to the top, or you moved to the suburbs and had kids. It was usually as simple as that. Now, people seem to be able to juggle everything, but a lot of that has to do with how helpful their husbands are, how flexible, and how badly they want it all. You have to give up a lot of things if you want a family and a career. Maybe it’s just as well I’ve never had to make those choices. I think your dad would have been great at it, though, if we had had kids. He was terrific with both of you. But I guess I just never felt the need. I never had that longing that some women get, that yearning that won’t end till they have children. I’ve heard women talk about it, like a disease, but thank God, I’ve never felt it.” But even just saying those words she felt an odd twinge now. Like the faintest beginnings of a toothache.

  “You’re not sorry, Pilar? You don’t think you’d miss it one day, that you’ll look back and wish you’d had them? It’s not too late, you know—I know two women who just had babies who are older than you are.”

  “Yeah, who? Sarah is in the Bible, and who’s the other one?” She laughed and Nancy insisted that she wasn’t too old. But something told her she was, that it was too late for her. She’d made her choices long ago, and she wasn’t unhappy with them. She had to admit that lately she’d thought about it once or twice, particularly since Nancy had gotten pregnant, but she suspected that most of that was just the tremors of old age, the biological clock ticking away its last moments. She wasn’t about to be swayed by it, no matter how touching she thought it all was, or how sweet Nancy’s belly looked to her. She was just getting soft in her old age, and that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted a baby. She reminded herself of that as she cleared the table.

  “No, I don’t think I’ll be sorry later on. Sure, it would be nice to have a child then, to have someone to talk to and love and be loved by, when I sit in my rocking chair on the porch thirty years from now, but I have you, and I think that’s just fine. I don’t have regrets about my life. I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do, in just the way I set out to, and just when I wanted to do it. You can’t ask for more than that in life.” Or could you?… the bitch was that suddenly there were these vague echoes. She had been so sure of herself all her life, so positive of what was right for her, and she was still sure … or was she?

  “I don’t exactly see you sitting in a rocking chair in thirty years. I can’t even see my dad doing that then.” He would be ninety-two by then. “Maybe you should think about it again.” She thought the baby she was going to have was going to be so wonderful that everyone ought to try it.

  “I’m too old to think about it now,” Pilar said firmly, as though trying to convince herself. “I’m forty-three. I’ll be much better suited to being a grandmother when your baby comes.” But saying that somehow made her feel sad, and that startled her. Suddenly, she had skipped the middle part. She had been young, and now she was old. She had never had children of her own, and now she was going to be a grandmother. It felt like she had missed the party.

  “I don’t know why you think you’re too old. Forty-three just isn’t old anymore. Lots of women have babies at your age,” Nancy insisted.

  “That’s true, but lots of women don’t. I think I might be one of them. If nothing else, it’s more familiar.” She went inside to make coffee then, for herself if not Nancy. They chatted for a while into the afternoon, and then Nancy left. She had some errands to do, and she was having dinner with friends that night. She really seemed to be enjoying her pregnancy, and Pilar had been fascinated to watch her as they talked, she kept rubbing her stomach as though she were talking to it, and once or twice Pilar saw the pink shirt jump, as the baby moved or kicked, and Nancy laughed. She said the baby was very active.

  But after Nancy left, Pilar walked aimlessly around the house. She did the dishes from lunch, she sat down at her desk for a while and stared out the window. She had brought some legal files home, but she couldn’t keep her mind on them, all she could think of were the things she and Nancy had said that afternoon … the questions her stepdaughter had asked her … would she be sorry one day?… would she regret not having children when she was old?… and what about when Bradford died, God forbid, but what if he did and she had nothing left of him, except her memories and another woman’s children? But how ridiculous that was, you didn’t have babies just to hang on to someone, to have a piece of them when they died. But why did people have children? And why had she never wanted any before, and yet now it was slowly becoming a gnawing question? And why now? Why, after all these years? Was it just jealousy of Nancy, a desire to be young, some crazy idea that had come to her just before menopause? Was this beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning? Or was it anything at all? She seemed to have none of the answers.

  In the end, after a long battle with herself, Pilar put her legal files away, and called Marina. She felt foolish even as she dialed, but she knew she had to talk to someone. She was just too unsettled after her lunch with Nancy.

  “Hello?” Marina had on her official voice, and Pilar smiled as she heard her.

  “It’s only me. Where were you? You took forever to answer.” For a minute, she’d been worried the older woman wasn’t home, and it was a relief when she finally heard her voice at the other end.

  “Sorry, I was out in the garden, pruning roses.”

  “Can I interest you in a walk on the beach?”

  Marina hesitated, but only for a moment. The truth was that she was enjoying her gardening, but she also knew that Pilar never invited her to walk on the beach, except when she was deeply troubled.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Not really. I don’t know. I think I’m just rearranging the furniture in my head. It’s all the same old stuff, but I’m moving it around to different places.” It was an odd way to explain what she was feeling, but Pilar just hadn’t found the right words yet.

  “As long as there’s still a place for me to sit down.” Marina smiled, and set her gardening gloves down on the kitchen table. “Want me to come and pick you up?”

  “I’d love that.” Pilar sighed. Marina was always there for her, always accessible, and warm and kind. Her brothers and sisters still called her in the middle of the night with all their problems, and it was easy to see why. She was so sharp and intelligent, and so incredibly loving. She offered Pilar everything her parents never had, even if it just meant listening sometimes, or working through a difficult decision. Most of the time, Pilar talked to Brad, but now and then something came up that only another woman would understand, although this time she felt sure that Marina
would tell her she was crazy.

  She was there in less than half an hour, and they drove slowly down toward the ocean, as Marina glanced at her from time to time. Pilar looked all right to her, but it was obvious that she was worried.

  “So, what’s on your mind?” she asked as she finally stopped the car. “Are we talking about business, or pleasure … or the lack of it?” Pilar smiled and shook her head, as they got out of the car. “You and Brad had a fight.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” Pilar was quick to reassure her. In fact, things had never been better between them. Getting married had been the best thing they’d ever done, and more than ever she wished they had done it sooner. “Actually,” she took a deep breath as they started to walk on the sand, “funnily enough, it’s Nancy.”

  “Again? After all these years?” Marina looked surprised to hear it. “I thought she’d been behaving herself for the last ten years. I’m disappointed to hear that.”

  But Pilar laughed as she shook her head again. “No, it’s not that either. She’s fine. She’s going to have the baby in a few weeks, and that seems to be all she can think of.”

  “It would probably be all you’d think of too if you had a fifty-pound watermelon strapped to your belly … when you could get it off might easily become an allconsuming question. It would to me anyway, I hate carrying anything heavier than a quarter.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Pilar laughed at her again. “Don’t make me laugh, Mina.” It was a name that her nephews and nieces had called her for years, and Pilar called her that at special moments. “The crazy thing is that I’m not even sure what I want to tell you … or why I feel the way I do … I’m not even sure what I feel, if it’s real, or an illusion.”

  “My God, it sounds serious.” Marina was half teasing, but she was also watching Pilar’s face, and her eyes, and she knew she was deeply troubled and confused. But she also knew that eventually the younger woman would say what she had to. Marina was in no hurry, she could let her take her time to find the words to match her feelings.

  Pilar looked at her sheepishly as she tried to put words to the tangle of emotions. “I don’t even know where to start.… I think it was five months ago, when Nancy told me she was pregnant … or maybe it was after that.… I don’t know.… I just don’t know anything … except I keep wondering if I’ve made a mistake … maybe even a huge mistake …” She looked agonized and Marina looked genuinely surprised by what she’d just said.

  “You mean by marrying Brad?”

  “No, of course not.” Pilar was quick to shake her head. “I mean by being so adamant about never having children. What if I was wrong? What if I regret it one day? What if everyone else is right, and I’m just neurotic because my parents were so rotten to me?… What if I could have been a decent mother after all?” She looked anguished as she turned to Marina. And Marina pointed her to a dune, where they sat down out of the wind, and the older woman put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I’m sure you would have been a very good mother, if that’s what you wanted to do. But being good at something, or potentially good at something, doesn’t justify doing it, unless you want to. I’m sure you would have made a very good fireman, too, but it was hardly a necessary step in your career. Let me remind you that no matter how many people do it, it is still not obligatory to have children. It doesn’t make you a bad person, or mean that you’re strange, or dangerous, or queer if you choose not to have them. Some people just don’t want kids. That’s okay. It’s fine, if that’s what suits you.”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered if you’ve done the right thing? Haven’t you ever been sorry you didn’t have children?” She had to know, she was moving into uncharted waters now, and Marina had been there before her.

  “Sure,” Marina told her honestly. “Once or twice. Every time one of my sisters or brothers or nieces or nephews puts a baby in my arms, there’s a tug at my heart, and I think … shit, I want one of those!… but for me, those feelings are always gone in about ten minutes. I had twenty years of wiping runny noses, changing diapers, cleaning up vomit, doing four or five loads of laundry a day, picking them up at school, taking them to the park, tucking them in at night, helping them make their beds. Christ, I didn’t even start college until I was twenty-five, and I didn’t get to law school until I was thirty. But at least I made it, and I love all of them, except maybe one or two, but the truth is I love them too.… I had some wonderful times with them, some incredibly precious moments. But I didn’t want to do that again. I wanted time for me, for study, for work, for friends, for men. I would have gotten married eventually if the right man had come along. And the right guy did, once or twice, but I always had some good reason for not getting tied down at that particular moment. I think the truth is that I was happy being single. I loved my work, I loved the kids. But I’m glad now that I never had any of my own. Sure, it would be great to have a daughter or son who would care what happens to me when I get old, but so what, I have you and ten brothers and sisters and their kids.” It was as honest as she could be, and Pilar was grateful to her.

  “What if it’s not enough one day? What if it’s not the same?” Friends and siblings were not the same as one’s own children, or were they?

  “Then it’s my mistake. But I’m not complaining, for the moment.” She was sixty-five years old, and going strong. She loved her work on the bench, and she had more friends than anyone Pilar knew. And whenever she could, she seemed to be flying somewhere to see someone, nieces, nephews, sisters, friends. She was a happy, fulfilled woman. And Pilar had felt that she was, too … until lately.

  “What about you?” Marina turned to look at her, wondering why she seemed so confused and looked so unhappy. “What’s eating you, Pilar? Why all these questions about having babies? Are you pregnant? Are you asking me what I think about an abortion?”

  “No.” Pilar shook her head miserably. “I think I’m asking you what you think about having a baby. And no, I’m not pregnant.” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be. But suddenly, for the first time in her life, she had doubts about the path she had chosen.

  “I think it would be fine, if that’s what you want. What does Brad think?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’d probably tell me I’m nuts, and he might be right. I was always so sure I didn’t want kids. Mostly, because I didn’t want to be like my mother.”

  “You never could be. I hope you at least know that much by now. You’re two entirely different people.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Or maybe I should say that one of you is a person, and the other is a little strange.” She could never understand the situations Pilar had described to her over the years. All she could do was agree with her young friend that her parents should never have had children. “Is that the only thing that stopped you? Your fear of being like them?”

  “It was part of it, but not everything. I just never felt the need for all that. But I never felt the need to be married either, and now I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

  “That kind of regret is a waste of time. Just enjoy it now, don’t spoil it by looking back over your shoulder.”

  “I don’t. But I just don’t know what’s happening to me … I feel as though I’m suddenly changing.”

  “That’s not such a bad thing. It would be a lot worse if you were rigid and immovable. Maybe this is the best thing that could happen to you, Pilar. Maybe you should have a baby.”

  “But what if I didn’t like it? What if I’m just jealous of Nancy, or some insane thing? What if my mother’s right, and the baby had three heads, because I’m so old?” There were so many questions to which even Marina didn’t have the answers.

  “What if there’s human life on Venus? You can’t know everything, Pilar. All you can do is follow your heart and your mind, and do the best you can. And if you think you want a baby now, then give it some serious thought, and don’t worry so damn much about the outcome. For heaven’s sake, if everyone w
orried about it that much, no one would ever have any children.”

  “But what about you? If you’re not unhappy not having children, maybe I wouldn’t be either.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. We’re two different people. Our life experiences weren’t for even one moment the same. My life has been filled with children for sixty years, you’ve had none except Brad’s kids, and they were pretty big when you came along. Besides, you’re married, and I never have been. And I’m perfectly content about that too. It leaves me free to enjoy a variety of people, in whatever way I choose, and that’s a lifestyle that suits me. You’re happy married to Brad, and maybe one day you would be sorry if you didn’t have children.”

  Pilar sat silently for a long time, staring at the sand, and then she looked up at her friend again, comforted by her words, but she still hadn’t found her answers. “Mina, what would you do if you were me?”

  “I’d relax, for one thing. That would do you a world of good. And then I’d go home and talk all this out with Brad, but I wouldn’t beat it to death. He’s not going to have all the answers either. No one will, not even you. To some extent, one has to take a few chances in life. You have to protect yourself as much as you can, but you still have to jump off the diving board sooner or later. And hope you don’t belly flop into oblivion.”

  “You have a way with words, Your Honor.”

  “Thank you.” The older woman grinned, and then she looked down at Pilar again. “And for what it’s worth, if I were you, I’d go ahead and have a baby, and to hell with all that nonsense about being too old. I think that’s what you really want to do, and you’re too scared to let yourself say it.”

  “I think you may be right.” She usually was. But Pilar had no idea what Brad would say if she told him she wanted a baby. But for the first time in her life, she had an emptiness, an ache, which she had never known before, and it was beginning to make her seriously unhappy.

  They walked slowly back to the car after that, and they said little on the way home. It was one of the nice things for Pilar about being with her. She didn’t feel she had to make an enormous effort, and she valued what her friend had said. She just needed time to think about it.