Carol Shields

by Dropped Threads 2

  “Her labour was short, thank God,” the new grandma says.

  “Lots of babies in the extended family lately,” says the cousin nursing her newborn behind a towel, “but only mine in ours. Who’ll play with my little Sarah?”

  I scrub the roaster pan harder. I know what comes next.

  “Meg, why haven’t you had a baby yet?” asks an aunt.

  “Yeah, Meg. What are you waiting for? You are twenty-nine already!”

  They’re all looking at me. I’m trapped. “I don’t know,” I mumble. Then I down a half glass of wine that someone placed by the sink and keep scrubbing.

  We have gotten used to our injection routine. It’s our last month. I’m trying so hard to stay positive. It’s hard to think about anything else.

  A couple of times, I’ve called Andrew on my cellphone as I turn the corner onto our road at six o’clock. He has the syringe ready when I run in the door. All I have to do is throw off my coat and lie down on the floor. It’s becoming funny to us.

  Today I go home from work at five. I’m thinking about how good I’ve been, this month especially. Taking care of myself and all that. Little to no alcohol, no caffeine, nine hours of sleep a night, exercise, vitamins. I’m living like a cloistered nun.

  5:45. Andrew isn’t home yet. We’ve always done the injections promptly at six. He wants to be very precise. He says it’s a process of elimination of factors, and we don’t want our inconsistencies to play a part in that. I agree.

  I call his cellphone. I get his voice mail and leave him a message. I am not worried. His phone has no service in some areas. He’ll be here.

  6:01. He’s not here. The nurse said between six and eight every night, I tell myself. That would indicate a range of time is acceptable. Calm down.

  7:01. No Andrew. I’ve called his phone eight times. It’s turned off, I think, because it goes right to messaging. What’s going on? I’m panicking.

  7:35. I call his best friend’s wife. “Hi, Cheryl,” I say. “Is Dave at home?”

  “No,” she replies wearily. “I’m ready to kill him. The kids have the flu and he’s out drinking with his friends.”

  “Is Andrew with him?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “He’ll get home safe, Meg. Don’t worry. It’s not like you have kids at home you need help with. Boys will be boys, you know.”

  “Give me Dave’s cellphone number,” I say, gritting my teeth.

  Dave tells me my husband is on his sixth beer in a little pub in town. He tells me Andrew has been really quiet and depressed lately. That he needs this release.

  I am so angry I’m shaking. How dare he. Its not as if I can take a day off from this process whenever I feel like escaping. It’s not as if his belly is full of red welts. It’s not as if he can’t wear short sleeves because the bruising from the ritual bloodletting makes him look like a heroine addict. It’s not as if he has body parts he’ll never get to use.

  It’s not as if he’s barren. Oh! I catch myself. I’m not supposed to use that word. The clinic people forbid it. I’m supposed to say “child-free.”

  It’s dawning on me that I have to give myself the injection. It’s ten to eight. Jesus.

  I prepare the syringe. I pull down my pants and swab the small portion of my stomach without a hole already in it. And then I stand there. My legs are wide apart. I’m squatting like a sumo wrestler. Syringe in hand, thumb on the plunger. About an inch of belly flesh pinched up with the other hand.

  I look at the clock on the stove. 7:55. I can’t do it. I have to. I try to decide whether to slide it in slowly, or jam it in from about a foot away. I’m clenching my butt. I’m gripping the syringe too hard. My hand feels like drying concrete.

  7:59. I’m still hunched over, staring at my pinched skin. Damn you, Andrew. I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth like at yoga class. Then I push the syringe that’s hovering in front of my midsection. Closer. Closer.

  The tip pokes my skin by accident. I wasn’t ready yet, but it slides quickly in. I’m surprised. I didn’t expect it to go in so fast. I hold my breath as I push the plunger to the bottom and pull the needle out.

  Wow. I feel victorious.

  “Scoot down,” says the nurse. “A little more, please. Scoot. Just a little more.”

  My naked bum is hanging off the edge of the table, my legs braced in the air. There’s a nurse somewhere in the vicinity whom I can’t see. She’s readying herself to give me my last IUI.

  Andrew is standing near my head, shifting his weight back and forth. He’s most uncomfortable in this room. We’ve done this more than a dozen times as we moved from one fertility drug cocktail to another over the past couple of years. But he can’t get used to it.

  “An excellent sample, Andrew,” says the nurse, holding a vial up. “Top-notch.”

  He blushes. I roll my eyes and grin up at him.

  I feel the speculum crank up and my body tighten along with it. An involuntary response. I do my yogic breathing to calm my body.

  “All right, now,” says a voice somewhere between my legs and under a sheet, “relax.”

  Easier said than done. She’s attempting to poke a long, slender tube full of sperm through my cervix to my uterus. She can’t find the opening. Every time she pokes, my back arches and it feels as if someone is pouring ice water into my belly.

  Andrew is squeezing my hand too tight. “Ouch,” I say, and he lets go.

  He paces across the room to the sink but marches back quickly. It’s full of bloody speculums from the first five women inseminated here this morning.

  “There,” the nurse says, emerging from under the sheet. “All done. Stay just as you are for a few minutes, to set it. Then you can go.” She smiles and moves to leave, placing my speculum in the sink with the others.

  Andrew holds my hand. “Are you okay?”

  He looks so concerned, helpless. I feel a surge of love for this man. It’s a nice feeling. I smile at him.

  We’ve been fighting so much lately. Probably the stress of this process, I tell myself. A test of our mettle. But more and more often, I think we must be crazy or caught up in a whirlwind we can’t get out of. Sometimes I look at him and think, I don’t even know this man. Is parenthood with him what I really want? Or maybe I simply hate to fail.

  Sometimes I think we should just cut our losses and move on. Alone. There are days when I fantasize about driving purposefully to the airport and jumping on the first plane out of here. To New Zealand. Or Ireland. Maybe the Irish would love my accent. We could discuss Joyce in the pubs over a pint of Guinness. I could get a job as a castle historian. Or something.

  Other times I wonder how I was so lucky to find this man, who is willing to love me although I cannot perform this basic wifely requirement.

  Andrew rubs my tummy and says encouraging things, kisses my hand. We talk about how this one will work. We can feel it. We did everything right this time. We’ll decorate the baby’s room with a puppy theme. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him after my dad. Maybe he’ll be a hockey player. Or a doctor. Or both, like Randy Gregg, who played for the Oilers.

  We count the months. It will be an October baby. Maybe Halloween! Wouldn’t that be our luck, a possessed baby born on Halloween. We laugh.

  “Exorcism has a higher success rate than insemination,” Andrew deadpans.

  Seventeen days later, I’m sitting in a fancy Vancouver boardroom with my boss. We’re here for two days to interview candidates for our new B.C. office. We’ve interviewed three people already today, although I can’t remember their names or anything they said. I’ve been counting hours, minutes, seconds.

  I am late.

  By my best mathematical calculation, I am forty-three hours late now, give or take. I have never been late before. That is the one thing my body could be relied upon for—regular periods.

  Our next interview candidate walks in, shakes hands all around. Her name is Emily. Lovely name for a girl, I think, as I tune out everything
she’s saying to me. I know that I’m supposed to ask her a question when my boss glares at me. I’m in a fog, going through the motions. There are a million butterflies dancing in my stomach.

  Emily leaves after an hour and we take a break. My boss looks at me oddly and asks what I think of our first four candidates. I tell him they all had redeeming qualities and furrow my brow as if I’m really thinking hard about them.

  I run to the bathroom. I inspect my white panties closely. Nothing there. Nothing there!

  I poke myself in the abdomen. Three times, harder. No cramps. I take off my suit jacket, look under the stall doors to make sure no one else is witness to this, and pull up my blouse in front of the mirror, inspecting my body for signs of bloating. Nope! My pants fit!

  I do this several more times during the day. My boss thinks there’s something very strange about me today, I can tell, but he’s a man and is therefore forbidden to ask questions about why a female staffer keeps sprinting to the bathroom every chance she gets.

  The day has been very long; it’s now early evening and I’m tired. Perhaps an early sign of pregnancy, I think. Fatigue is common.

  I am now officially forty-eight hours late. Two whole days.

  My boss wants me to join him for dinner. “We should talk about streamlining our operations,” he says, “and discuss today’s candidates.”

  My boss is one of those men who like to drink wine with dinner, and he’s quite put out if his dinner companion does not. But I won’t have any wine; it would be bad for the baby. I tell him I’m not feeling well, and when it looks as though he’s going to object, I play the female card and tell him I have “monthly issues” and must go directly to my room. Humiliating, but completely necessary.

  I’m staying at a posh hotel. My twelfth-floor suite is huge and has a breathtaking view of the harbour. I change into my pyjamas and the hotel’s white bathrobe. For good measure, I inspect my underwear again, swab my insides, poke myself for cramps and breast soreness and examine my midsection for bloating. I can hardly believe it. No menstrual symptoms whatsoever.

  I am having a baby.

  I call for room service, requesting the person on the other end of the line bring me the healthiest meal they have, and herbal tea. The handsome young man who arrives with the tray teases me about my healthy choices. I tell him I have a responsibility to take really good care of myself.

  Fifty hours late now. I’m sipping tea and watching a parenting show on TV. I don’t call my husband, because I know he will ask, and I want to tell him in person, when he picks me up at the airport tomorrow night. I wonder how I’ll do it—should I just announce he’s going to be a father? Or should I say Daddy instead? Maybe I’ll buy a baby pacifier and put it in a tiny gift bag and just hand it to him ceremoniously. Or maybe I’ll simply run into his arms and cry.

  I decide to go to bed. I’ve made my final menstrual-symptom checks, which were all negative. Fifty-two hours and counting. This is a very fragile time now, I think. I must be careful and get lots of rest.

  I slip into the crisp sheets and smile to myself.

  Little mean people with pitchforks are poking me. Poke, poke. Ouch. I roll over and realize I’m dreaming. The clock says eleven-thirty I look around; I’m in the hotel, safe and sound. No pitchforks. What an odd dream.

  I feel a little pain in my stomach. What was that? Gas. It must be gas. My salad had green pepper in it. I curl up again and my eyes shut gratefully.

  I wake up again with a start and look at the clock. Eleven forty-two. My stomach is aching. I should not have eaten the green pepper.

  I’m somewhere between sleep and awake, that hazy place, when the recognition creeps up on me. Maybe these aren’t gas pains. I sit up, shake the cobwebs out of my brain. I feel panicky. My heart is beating fast. I hear a cry before I realize it has come out of me.

  Please, God. I’ll do anything. I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I am sorry. Please let me have a baby. I only need one. Please. I’m suddenly praying to the ceiling, clutching my hands together. Praying as hard as I can to the thirteenth floor.

  I kick off the heavy covers and run to the bathroom, pulling my pyjama pants and my panties down as I go. I fall hard on the toilet, take a deep breath and look down.

  Oh, no.

  No, God. Why me, God? Why me?

  I sit for some time like that, clutching my stained underwear in my hand, until my naked bum tingles with numbness.

  When I get up, I feel as if I’m in a fog again. But a different kind of one. I’m watching myself from the outside now. I’m throwing things: pillows, the telephone, room service tray. My face is wet. My pyjama pants are streaked with red. I’m wailing, moaning, wandering around the room.

  I search for the mini-bar key that I had tossed somewhere upon my arrival here. Aha! I crawl under the coffee table to retrieve it. I concentrate on getting the key into the little lock, wiping my runny nose on my pink sleeve. I pull a little bottle of red wine out of the chest, screw off the lid with force and drink deeply.

  I’m squatting on the floor in front of the mini-bar. I rip open a package of chocolates and throw a handful in my mouth, nearly choking on the quantity.

  I don’t care. I don’t care what I do to myself now. It doesn’t matter any more. Nothing matters. My husband will leave me anyway. He’ll find an emotionally stable, fertile girl and have a whole baseball team of kids.

  I will feel empty for the rest of my life. Hopefully, that won’t be too long.

  The TV is showing late-night child welfare charity shows. Starving African kids look mournfully at the camera. I try to high-kick the TV but wind up on the floor with a thud.

  I twist off the cap of another little wine bottle. Then a third.

  I’m going to be an old barren alcoholic. Jaded, childless. I’m going to wreck my health. Good health has done me no favours. I want to be mean to someone. I find the telephone and plug it in, closing one eye so the outlet will come into focus. I call room service again. I’m slurring. I don’t care.

  “Bring me some cigarettes!” I yell.

  A knock on the door. I wrestle into the white robe so the person on the other side doesn’t see my pyjama pants.

  It’s the same young man as before. He looks confused. I grab the red pack of du Mauriers from his silver tray.

  “Are you all right?” He asks.

  “Leave me alone!” I shout, and slam the door.

  I have to close one eye again to light the cigarette. It’s a non-smoking room, so I use my orange juice glass from dinner as an ashtray. The liquid inside becomes a gray-green sludge. I smoke four cigarettes in a row, between gulps of wine, and when there was none left, of whisky.

  “I will become a smoker!” I yell aloud to myself. I will eat junk food, have bad skin and gain thirty pounds. I will drink in the morning. I will look on the outside how I feel on the inside.

  Then I scream until I’m hoarse. Long, incoherent wails.

  I wake to the loud alarm clock and sunshine streaming in off the glittering harbour.

  I’m on the bathroom floor.

  My head is enormous. My eyelids are heavy and, when I touch them, springy. I cough several times. I get up slowly, not comprehending at first what brought me to this cold tile floor.

  Then it comes back. I am not pregnant. I never will be.

  I look in the mirror and am terrified at what I see. Eyelids so puffy that the openings are reduced to slits. Purple face. Grey teeth from red wine consumption and no toothbrush.

  I step slowly into the shower. I have to brace my legs wide to remain standing. I feel like a cored apple, fragile outside, nothing inside. My heart hurts.

  I manage to apply some makeup and dress in my best suit, ripping holes in two new pairs of pantyhose before I’m successful in getting on a third. My boss is waiting, I know, and I’m late. I nearly vomit on the elevator ride down to the lobby but manage to keep it down.

  “You look well,” he says to me when I reach the lobby. “You must be
feeling better than you were yesterday.”

  I nod. I wonder if he’s being sarcastic. I’m scared to open my mouth in case the wailing comes out again.

  “Well, good,” he says briskly. “We have a long, important day ahead of us, Meg. Let’s not waste another minute.”

  He begins walking quickly toward the door, into the streams of sunlight. I watch him a moment. Then I pick up my briefcase, square my shoulders and march after him to the waiting taxi.

  Cat Bag

  Billie Livingston

  Just before I started kindergarten, my mother and I moved into a house on Fourth Avenue in Vancouver with her boyfriend, Michael, a Korean War vet with a plate in his head. Michael had a voice like a butcher knife. The same mouth would, one moment, berate my mother for her apelike behaviour—at four years old, he said, I was too big to be hanging off her neck all day long—and the next, plead with me to call him Daddy. He would kiss and coo in her ear at the kitchen table over beer and, one or two drinks later, backhand her across the mouth for the tone she’d used, a word he didn’t like.

  I would stare at his back as he left the room, imagining a white dinner plate spinning in the middle of his skull, wondering why they’d put it in there in the first place if it was going to make him behave that way. Mom would sit, silent in her chair. A trickle of blood coming down the corner of her mouth, she’d glance quickly at me and smile, then turn her head in the direction he’d gone and stick her tongue out, look back at me and grin. I’d grin back. It was a sort of pact.

  After one of these episodes, there wasn’t much to do but follow in the smile-and-act-natural vein, go outside and play. Or better yet, go next door to the hippie house to see Marilyn and Karen.

  In 1970, Fourth Avenue was the hippie zone: long wild hair and beards, love beads and drugs, peace and protest. Marilyn and Karen, fresh out of NYU, had closed their eyes, plunked a blind finger down on a map, then hitched their way across the continent and moved in next door. The only constants amid a flophouse of ephemeral roommates, they were my favourite hippie girls in the world. The door was always open. If Marilyn was having a bath, I had an open invitation to leap into the tub with her; if Karen was stringing necklaces, I got a pile of beads and my own needle and thread. They put on puppet shows, played word games and took me up to the attic to meet the “Gotcha Wizard” (Marilyn’s woolly-bearded brother who’d shroud himself in an old sleeping bag). They took me with them to war protests downtown. They took me to the boutique where they sold the clothes and jewellery they made and let me wrap myself in ponchos, beads and hats as though the greatest value their creations had was in their ability to transport and transform me. They were witches, they said, and I believed in their magic like nothing else. I didn’t tell them much of anything going on at home. I went to them to play.