It Started in June

by Susan Kietzman

  “That’s rotten luck,” said Bruce. “Do you know if she’s got a spare?”

  He wouldn’t know that, thought Dorrie, as a tire would be in the trunk. Bradley was acquainted only with the backseat of Grace’s car.

  “I don’t,” said Bradley. “But let’s go find out. Mom, do you want to stay here?”

  “No,” said Dorrie. “I’d like to come along.”

  * * *

  Grace’s car was parked on the side of a street shaded by large maples. By the time Bradley and his parents arrived, she’d opened the trunk and set the spare tire and jack next to the flat tire. Bradley parked his Honda behind her Cadillac and turned on his hazard lights before getting out of the car.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, walking to him. “Of all the times to get a flat tire. Thanks so much for coming. I know how to change it, but it’s great to have the help.”

  “My dad and I can change it,” said Bradley. “He loves to feel useful.”

  Bruce and Dorrie emerged from the car and approached Bradley and Grace. Before Bradley could say anything, Grace reached out her hand to Dorrie. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m sorry about this change in plans.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” said Dorrie. “I had a flat just last week. They come at the darnedest times, don’t they?”

  Grace nodded and then turned to Bruce. “And it’s nice to meet you, too. Thank you for your help with this.”

  “That’s some car,” said Bruce, shaking Grace’s hand and leaning in for a quick kiss on her cheek. “And since Dorrie did just have that flat last week, I’m in good shape to change this one. Bradley, let’s get this offending tire off the car.” He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Thank you,” said Grace.

  Because the men were quickly absorbed in the task of changing the tire, there was nothing for the women to do except stand around and encourage them or talk with each other. Grace had already decided that being direct with Dorrie—as she would, no doubt, be with Grace—was the best course of action. She led Dorrie to a bench on the sidewalk, and they sat down together.

  “Of course, I’m sorry about more than the flat tire,” Grace began. “I’m sorry about meeting you like this, under these circumstances. I can only imagine what you think of me.”

  Dorrie said nothing, but she uncrossed her legs and turned her body so that she was facing Grace. Grace took this as a signal to continue.

  “I know you’d like for me to have an abortion. And I also know you’re aware of my reason for wanting to keep the baby.”

  Dorrie met her gaze levelly; she didn’t seem at all shocked by Grace’s candor. “Yes,” she said. “Bradley told me about the circumstances of your birth, and how hard your childhood was. I do know your reason for wanting to keep the baby, and I understand it.”

  “But you think it’s wrong.”

  Dorrie took a moment before answering. “No, I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong,” she said finally. “Rather, I wonder if you’ve thought it through, from the beginning to the end.”

  Grace reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing one of the small pearl earrings that adorned her lobes more often than not. “It’s hard to think this through from beginning to end. I have no idea what raising a child will be like, since I’ve never raised one and because I was raised in an unusual household. What I do know is that I can be a better parent to this child than my mother was to me.”

  “From what Bradley tells us, I think you would, most definitely, raise your child in a loving and nurturing manner,” said Dorrie. “What you have to ask yourself is if you need to actually do it to know this about yourself.”

  Grace, who had been sitting with a straight spine, relaxed a little and leaned back against the bench. She had not asked herself this question. She had, instead, decided that her pregnancy and the birth of her child would justify her existence, would put to rest the feelings of inadequacy she felt but had kept hidden her entire life. Raising a baby, she had told herself, would free her from her own failed childhood. Grace allowed herself a quick smile. “Bradley told me you were good at your job.”

  Dorrie smiled with her eyes. “A little too good sometimes, he says.”

  “Mission accomplished,” said Bradley, as he approached them, rubbing the dirt and grease from his hands with a rag from Grace’s toolbox.

  “Wow,” said Dorrie. “That was fast.”

  “I’m impressed as well as grateful,” said Grace, standing.

  “And I accept your gratitude,” said Bradley, bending at the waist in a slight bow.

  “As do I!” called Bruce from Grace’s car, where he was putting the tools back into her trunk, along with the damaged tire. “All this work has made me thirsty!”

  “Yes, yes,” said Bradley, looking at his watch. “Let’s go to my apartment for a thorough hand washing and a quick drink. I’ll see if I can push dinner off a bit.”

  “That sounds great,” said Dorrie. “Bradley, why don’t you ride with Grace, just to be sure everything is as it should be? Dad and I can follow you in your car.”

  Once Dorrie and Bruce were sitting in Bradley’s Honda, and Bradley and Grace were in her Cadillac, Bradley turned his head to look at Grace in the driver’s seat. “Well, how did that go?”

  Grace glanced at Bradley before starting the engine. “I think we’re off to a good start.”

  CHAPTER 17

  With the dinner reservation pushed back an hour, they had time to sit in Bradley’s living room and have cocktails. Bruce and Grace talked about her car while Bradley listened attentively, and Dorrie pretended to listen while she further analyzed Grace and the pregnancy. Now that she had met Grace, Dorrie better understood her son’s attraction—and understood why he was contemplating fatherhood. She was captivating. Grace was poised, charming in a sincere way, obviously bright and self-aware, and seemingly at peace about her decision to keep the baby. Judging solely by this first hour together, Dorrie thought that Grace would be a very good mother. But Dorrie’s opinion of the situation had not changed; abortion was still the best option. Even if Grace and Bradley stayed together afterward, which Dorrie thought was improbable, they could always have a baby later, when they were married and ready to be parents.

  Dorrie shook the ice in her empty glass and took the last sip of her drink, which, at this point, tasted like vodka-flavored water. If Bradley had asked her that very second if she wanted another, she would have told him to make her half a drink. But since he was engaged in the conversation between Grace and Bruce, she didn’t ask and the moment passed. And Bruce, who appeared to be as enthralled with Grace and her car as his son, was not at all dialed into Dorrie’s needs and would, therefore, not offer to make her one either. She could certainly get it herself; she was not the kind of sixty-two-year-old woman that needed a man to make a drink for her.

  But she was of two minds about the drink. On one hand, she wanted another drink because the first one had tasted so good. The vodka and soda was refreshing and completely welcome on a warm August evening. Plus, its anesthetizing effects had already lowered Dorrie’s stress level enough for her brain to allow a couple fly-by charitable fantasies about Grace—one of these included an image of Grace in a wedding dress with Bradley at her side. Dorrie shook her head back and forth vigorously, erasing the thought. Not having another drink, on the other hand, would leave Dorrie relatively sober. And being sober, she had a better chance of keeping her thoughts to herself. Tipsy women say things they shouldn’t say. Drunk women do things they shouldn’t do. Weren’t half her patients, female and male, in the various messes they were in due, in part, to excessive drinking? Having convinced herself, Dorrie set her glass back down on the coaster in front of her and put her hands in her lap. Maybe she’d have a glass of wine at the restaurant. She looked at Bruce, attempting to make eye contact. But he was absorbed in the story of Grace’s Cadillac.

  It apparently had an interesting history, this
car, because Bruce had consumed only half his drink, the same with Bradley and his beer. This made Dorrie momentarily sorry she had been in her own head for twenty minutes instead of part of the conversation. Bruce seemed as interested in what Grace was talking about as he did in his conversations with five-year-olds, which was considerable. As a pediatrician, he had unending patience with young children. It didn’t take Dorrie long, now that she was focused on what was happening in the room instead of in her head, to realize that Bruce had packed his belongings and moved camp. He had known her for, what? Forty-five minutes? And already he was an enthusiastic member of Team Grace!

  Dorrie’s suspicions were confirmed at dinner, when Bruce, a meat and potatoes guy in spite of what the medical community and his yoga instructor recommended, exclaimed that the delicately spiced green beans were “the best he’d ever tasted.” In fact, he was so overcome by the vegetables in front of him—the very plants that, prepared in more mundane ways, he routinely pushed to the side of his dinner plate—he turned to Dorrie and said, “We need to eat more vegetarian dishes at home,” to which Dorrie had replied that she would be happy to eat whatever he chose to prepare.

  Later, when they were alone in their bedroom at the Airbnb, Dorrie asked him a question she already knew the answer to. “What do you think of Grace?”

  Bruce was standing in the middle of the room and in the process of unbuttoning his shirt. “I think she’s terrific,” he said, a grin on his face. “She’s obviously lovely to look at, but she’s also a talented conversationalist. She knows when to talk and when to listen—something most people don’t figure out until they’re in their eighties. And she’s as taken with Bradley, I think, as he is with her.”

  Dorrie sat down on the bed. “What do you think of the fact that she’s pregnant with Bradley’s baby?” Dorrie hated herself for asking him this, for her attempt to drastically and negatively impact his ebullient mood. But she needed to do this, to snap his head around, so she could discuss this issue with him in as unbiased a manner as possible. And she was afraid that she was losing him, that she had already lost him. Her words appeared to hit their mark. Bruce stepped back, as if pushed from the front, his hands dropping from undoing the button closest to his heart to his sides.

  He then countered with, what was for him, an uncharacteristically acerbic remark. “What is this about, Dorrie? Are you jealous of your son’s girlfriend?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Bruce,” she said, raising her arms in the air and swatting in his direction with her hands. “Don’t turn this into that.”

  “What is it about, then, Dorrie? If it’s not that you’re jealous because Bradley and I paid more attention to Grace tonight than we did to you, what is it?”

  “It’s about why we’re here, Bruce. It’s about getting this woman to change her mind about having the baby that would wreck our son’s life.”

  Bruce sat heavily in the leather armchair in the corner of the room. “Before we even get to that,” he said, “tell me why you had to kill my good mood. We’re out here visiting our only child, whom we are both wild about. We just had a wonderful evening with him and the woman he is currently in love with. . . .”

  “You think he’s in love?”

  “Don’t you?” asked Bruce. “You’re the shrink. You tell me.”

  Dorrie looked down at her hands for a moment and then back at Bruce. “You might be right.”

  “Okay,” said Bruce. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe what we should be talking about is shifting our perspectives, instead of cooking up schemes to kill the baby.”

  Dorrie lay back on the bed, arms out at her sides, as if poised to make a snow angel on the quilted coverlet, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Well, now you’re just being dramatic.”

  “You started it, lady,” said Bruce.

  Dorrie winced; Bruce knew she liked to be referred to as a woman rather than a fragile, powerless lady. But, as she usually did when she’d said something she wished she hadn’t, she apologized. And he accepted her apology immediately, as he usually did. But this time, the acceptance came with some pushback.

  “You’ve got to stop firing off your mouth like this,” he said. “I understand you’re sorry about it, Dorrie, but Jesus, you make your living by choosing the right words. You should know better, even though tonight I suspect you chose the exact words you wanted to say to cut me to the quick, to hurt me.” He shook his head. “Every once in a while, you need to treat me with the same patience and respect as you do your patients. Seriously, Dorrie.”

  “I know,” she said. “You’re right.”

  He sat up abruptly and said, “You’re damn straight I’m right.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Dorrie. “You’re right. Gold star to the man who now loves vegetables!”

  She was trying to be funny, but Bruce was, evidently, not ready to laugh, not ready to make up with her. “I think we’re done with this for now,” he said. “I’m tired and I want to go to sleep. Maybe we’ll be able to have a better discussion in the morning.” He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven o’clock now. We need to be at Bradley’s apartment at eight o’clock for breakfast before our hike with Grace. Get into bed, Dorrie, and go to sleep.”

  He was right. She knew it, as he knew it. They both finished undressing. Wearing only his boxer shorts, Bruce pulled back the covers and lay down, instantly closing his eyes. Dorrie watched him for a moment to see if he would open them. When he didn’t, she retrieved her nightgown from the closet and walked into the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and urinated. She opened wider the two bedroom windows in an effort at coaxing a cross breeze. When she got into bed beside Bruce, he slowly rolled away from her.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next morning brought slightly cooler weather, which was perfect for the six-mile hike Bradley planned, a not-too-strenuous loop in a nearby state park. He and his friends had done the hike before. It had taken them almost two hours at a fairly brisk pace. For the hike with Grace and his parents, Bradley had a more leisurely pace in mind, one that included a stop for a picnic lunch. A minute before 8 a.m., Dorrie and Bruce, dressed in hiking clothes, pushed open the door Bradley had left ajar, and walked into his apartment, just as he was pulling a platter of pancakes out of the oven. “Good morning!” he called when he heard them.

  “And good morning to you,” said Dorrie, walking into his kitchen space. “What’s all this?”

  “Carbohydrates,” he said, “otherwise known as pancakes. We need to fuel our bodies for our serious hike.”

  “How serious is serious?” asked Dorrie, as they followed Bradley and the pancakes to the table that he had already set.

  “Not very,” he said, setting the platter down in the middle of the table. “I don’t want to push Grace.”

  “You look tired this morning, dear,” Dorrie told him. “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Like a baby,” he said, trying to be funny. Dorrie met his remark with a neutral face.

  “Will she be okay?” asked Bruce, sitting down and putting the cloth napkin in his lap.

  “I think so,” said Bradley. “She loves to walk, but she’s had a tough go with morning sickness.” He sat down and put two pancakes on his plate.

  “Is she feeling better now?” asked Bruce, forking three pancakes.

  “She is,” said Bradley, covering his short stack with real maple syrup.

  * * *

  Dorrie noticed and was pleased by this, as Bradley had refused anything but what she called fake syrup throughout his childhood. She had allowed him to eat processed food as a young boy—the hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and chicken nuggets all kids seem to love—but as soon as he appeared to be open to trying other things, she had switched gears, giving him whole foods that were locally grown. He had never liked real maple syrup, proclaiming it too sweet, but he seemed to prefer it now. Dorrie coated her pancakes with butter and syrup, and then took a bite and chewed it carefully, all the while mentally marking the seconds until
she thought enough time had passed. “And how are you feeling, Bradley, about Grace’s morning sickness, about her pregnancy?”

  “Really, Dorrie?” It was Bruce, who obviously did not think enough time had passed.

  “Look,” she said, cutting another bite-size section from her two-cake serving, “we’ve got to talk about this at some point. Isn’t this one of the reasons we’re here this weekend?”

  “The pancakes are delicious, Bradley,” said Bruce. “Thanks for making them for us.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Dorrie. “The pancakes are, indeed, wonderful. Thank you.” She put the portion she had cut into her mouth and chewed in an exaggerated manner.

  “Never mind,” said Bruce. “Charge right in.”

  “It’s okay,” said Bradley. “I know you’re here to talk with me about this. And I appreciate your efforts, Dad, at making this a pleasant, normal weekend. But I do understand Mom’s point of view. I have a very big decision to make, and I’m running out of time. I hate to admit that I’m still stuck in the middle.”

  “Why do you think you’re stuck?” asked Dorrie.

  * * *

  Bruce, who had listened to his wife talk to his son this way for thirty years, got up from the table to get another cup of coffee. It wasn’t that her approach was wrong, necessarily; it was just sometimes hard for him to witness the pleasure she seemed to get from this kind of inquiry. Bruce didn’t subscribe to the talk therapy method of solving all of life’s problems. He understood the benefits of verbally analyzing whatever pros and cons attached themselves to certain issues—whether or not to get married, say, or whether or not to quit one job and take another. But there was also something about going with one’s gut. What he wanted to ask Bradley was this: “Do you want to become a father in a little more than six months?” That’s what it came down to, when the outer layers were stripped away. Yes, it was about Grace and whether or not Bradley loved her. But it was more about where he stood on impending fatherhood. Bruce refilled his mug and walked back to the table.