Val sighed into the phone. “I would have felt the same way.”
“What?”
“I know I would have. When you went for all your tests, I kept thinking, thank God it’s not me. I did. Once I was pregnant, I knew I could never have not been pregnant. I knew I couldn’t have waited for Tomás.”
Her eyes pricked with tears and anger and sorrow. Avery thought she had shared those months of tests and pills and shots and office visits with Valerie, and all along, her friend was chanting, it’s not me, it’s not me. It had been the same at the party after her father’s funeral, all of Isabel’s friends hugging her, holding her hand, promising assistance, help and kindnesses, when inside, Avery had seen them thinking, My husband’s at home alive. My husband isn’t dead. It’s not us. Not me.
And then after the first busy weeks—casseroles and cookies and phone calls arriving at all times of the day—there was silence and distance, as if Isabel and her children were in quarantine, death on the doorknobs, sink faucets, in the entryway air. No wonder Isabel took to her bed. Under the covers, she couldn’t hear the empty house and the dead phone.
But who in their right mind would want what Avery had gotten? Who wanted infertility and a husband with a secret life and a ten-year-old boy? Who wouldn’t want to run away from such bad news? Look at what she’d done when Dan told her about Randi, skipping out of town the minute Daniel showed up. She was the same as Isabel’s friends and Val. No one had to ask her forgiveness for anything.
“Oh, Val. I know. Of course you couldn’t have. We both wanted a baby. Why would you wish your own happiness away?”
“Aves,” Val said. “I wish it could go back the way it was before. I miss you.”
“It can’t go back. It’s going to be different. For all of us.” Avery breathed in, putting her hand on her stomach. “It’s going to be new.”
Val sniffed into the phone and Avery wiped her eyes. “Listen,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t call for this great forgiveness scene. I really need to know what in the hell we’re all eating today.”
They both laughed. Relief and sadness and joy beat in her chest. Avery felt lighter, as light as her voice reaching up into the telephone wire, floating in the electric air.
“Avery,” Marian said, walking up to the front doorway. “You look . . .” Her mother-in-law searched for a word that wouldn’t offend. Avery wondered what Marian really wanted to say--different, tired, fat, ugly, maybe just bad. She was sure that the day in the hotel room with Mischa glowed purple on her skin and her constant avoidance of Daniel was tattooed like a black flower on her shoulder. But she was surprised when Marian said, “Radiant.”
“Really? Thanks.” Avery folded her into her arms, surprised again by how strong Marian really was, her bones long, her body solid. For some reason, Avery always thought of her more like Isabel, thin and wispy, light as dried flowers.
“Is he here?” Marian pulled away and looked over Avery’s shoulder. “The boy?”
“Well, he lives here, Marian. Of course he’s here.”
“Yes, right.”
Bill locked the car door and walked slowly up the path, stopping to examine the chrysanthemums that had just opened in wide, bronze flowers and the last of the Mexican sage. Finally, he came up behind his wife and placed a hand on Avery’s arm. “Good to see you, Avery.”
She smiled and wished she could close the door. If Avery thought about it, she could recount each of the short visits they’d made to this house, stiff hour-long sits in the living room, Marian asking, “Did you make that? Did you find that fabric on your own?” And Bill wanted to know the exact fertilizer Dan used on the lawn or the specific week in January he thought he’d trim the plum trees. She used to laugh when they left, mimicking Marian, saying, “I whipped it up in a jiffy on the Singer,” not knowing then how important those cold, strange visits with his parents were.
“Come on in. Everyone’s in the backyard.”
“Everyone?” Marian asked, following Avery down the hall.
“Oh, my mom. Luis and Val. You remember, from next door. And Jared, of course. He brought an amazing chocolate cake. And my mom brought her famous green Jell-O salad. You missed it on the fourth.”
Neither Bill nor Marian said a word, and they all walked through the house and then out onto the back patio. Dan had pulled back the pool cover, and Daniel and Tomás and Luis were in the water. Tomás floated in a plastic baby tube, and Luis and Daniel stood next to him spinning it and laughing. Jared and Dan stood over the gas grill discussing optimal temperature, and Val and Isabel sat on the picnic table bench talking.
“Dan,” Avery said. “Your parents are here.”
The talking and noise stopped, all eyes on Bill and Marian. Avery wanted to run inside and close herself in the bedroom and wait for the awkwardness to settle onto the concrete and grass and drown in the pool. Why had Dan invited so many people? she wondered, slowly moving forward, leading Bill and Marian to Isabel and Valerie who had stood up. But as Isabel began to say hello, Avery looked at Dan and saw why. He was scared. For himself and his boy.
“It’s so nice to see you,” Isabel was saying, shaking Bill’s hand. “Oh, my. It’s been a long time. And this boy.” She motioned toward the pool. “What a sweetheart.”
As they looked toward the pool, Isabel held her hand out to Avery, and Avery took it, pressing tight, saying what she could with her squeeze. Thanks. Thank you. I’m sorry.
Bill gave Isabel a flat smile, but Marian turned to watch Daniel, her eyes on him as he dove under the water and shot up next to Tomás, like a slick, wet seal. “Boo!” he said gently, and Tomás squealed.
Dan and Jared put down the thick, steel BBQ tongs and spatula and came over to their parents. Jared moved smoothly, hugging his father and mother easily, their bodies known to each other, the shifts of arms and chests practiced and routine. Dan was awkward, jerky, moving in for a hug and then stopping and sticking out a hand.
“Dan.” Bill was business-like. “Nice day you’ve got here.”
“Lovely,” Marian agreed.
“Please sit down,” Avery said.
Dan stood silent, pale, and then he nodded. “Yes. Can I get you both a drink?”
“Soda for us both. Too early to get anything else going.”
Dan went to the cooler, and Avery motioned to Valerie, and then to Luis, who was still in the pool. “You remember our neighbors the Delgados. Val and Luis have been a big help to us with—with our new situation.”
Luis waved from the pool, and Valerie shook the Tacconis’ hands. Avery could see Val searching for something to say, her mouth open slightly, the tip of her tongue touching her front teeth. But nothing came out, and she simply nodded and smiled.
“Here you go.” Dan handed them both glasses of Coke. “Daniel, please get out of the pool and dry off. There are people I want you to meet.”
Daniel swam to the edge, his skinny arms twirling in the water. Avery remembered what she heard her swim coach say once: “It was like a manikin factory—arms and legs everywhere.” Next summer, she’d take him to the club and enroll him in lessons, practicing with him afterward. She’d show him how to keep his head down and pull his arms past his hips. After a few weeks, his arms would glide into the water, as if he’d been swimming in the suburbs all along.
All the adults watching him, Daniel pushed out of the water and grabbed his towel and walked toward them dripping, his hair slick against his face. Avery wanted to hold up a towel, cover him, and push him into the house, promising him anything, ice cream, computer games, television, just so Bill and Marian wouldn’t see what she saw now: Randi from the photos, dark haired, freckled, smiling, all elbows and knees and ankles.
Dan saw it too and almost seemed to be nodding, as if Randi were standing behind Daniel, her shellacked nails resting like exotic shells on his shoulders; as if she were saying, “He’s my boy. Look at him! One hundred percent mine-oh-mine.”
Unable to swallow, she s
tepped closer, reaching out for Daniel until Dan stopped her, pulled her close from behind and pressed her to his chest, his hands holding her upper arms.
“Mom, Dad. This is Daniel. Daniel Tacconi.”
And then, as the afternoon stilled into Fall heat, the pool a silent wash of blue in the backyard, Dan’s body warm behind her, her mother, best friends, and brother-in-law near her, Avery watched Bill and Marian smile slightly, shake Daniel’s hand, ask him about school and his friends and his bedroom. Nothing cracked open; no one cried or shook or blew away with the leaves dropping from the Delgado’s sycamore tree. Now, they all knew the truth about everything, except for one small thing.
She hadn’t been able to tell Dan about the test she’d done in the bathroom before her nap yesterday afternoon, peeing on the wand she’d bought at the drugstore in the airport. The flight home from St. Louis had scared her, her stomach churning, her head pounding, her body bloated. Food poisoning, she thought. Or worse, brain tumor. Stroke. Stomach cancer, just like her father. This was how it had started, after all—the terrible indigestion and fatigue. But somewhere over Nevada, she thought back through the months since July. For a couple of cycles, she’d imagined her body was reeling from Clomid, lurching back into normal by shutting down and recalibrating. But then she’d forgotten altogether, what with Daniel and work and Mischa.
As she’d wheeled out of the terminal, she’d spotted the Pay Rite and bought the test, almost shaking her head as the clerk rang her up. Right. One night of sex, the time she didn’t even think Dan remembered, both of them half asleep, drugged with dreams. After the surgeries and tests and shots she’d been through, she’d be crazy to think that one night would do it. It was a shameless waste of money, but if she wasn’t pregnant, she was dying. Either way, she had to get home to Dan and make him forgive her.
And then, though a fog of sleepiness making her clumsy and slow, she stared as the wand changed color. Blinking her eyes and staring at it, she sat back on the toilet and watched the bathroom wall stay the same yellow, her whole body pulsing. She wanted to scream and cry out, not for the baby, but for her and Dan, for what they could have. But she wasn’t sure how Dan would react. He might tell her it was just too damn late. He might not want this baby at all.
She’d pulled off her nylons and got off the toilet, walking to the bed, dropping her clothes as she did. Five minutes. She’d sleep for five minutes and then go find Dan and tell him the whole story.
But even though he held her now as Daniel smiled up at Bill and Marian, Dan was too raw for the grand, ironic finale. She’d wait until he could hear what she had to say; she’d wait for Daniel to feel more at home, with all of them, his grandparents and neighbors, family and parents.
The air crackled with a gust of cooler air and leaves, and then the moment was over. Daniel rushed back into the pool, Luis spun Tomás in the tube, and Bill and Marian settled next to Isabel and Valerie and Jared around the picnic table. Dan still held onto her arms and she let herself lean into him, her husband she’d returned to.
“Aves, I think,” he whispered into her ear, “it will be okay.”
Avery watched Daniel holding his breath underwater as Luis counted, and she nodded. She wished she could say “Yes” out loud, but somehow, Mischa Podorov and Randi Gold had slipped between the two of them, and she knew she wasn’t ready. It would take a while for that sexy Georgian ghost to slink away, turning the corner with his jars and bottles of caviar and Stoli and dark red wine. Randi would be with them as long as Daniel was, but she wouldn’t always be standing before them clicking her long nails.
And Galvin Gold lurked somewhere, ready to spring out like more bad news. But Avery knew how to deal with that, hadn’t she? She’d finally learned something.
Avery closed her eyes. She would never have planned for this, listing this life onto controlled scraps of paper, organizing minutes and hours into this exact day to create the scene out by the pool. Slowly letting out the air she seemed to have gulped in the moment she first heard Midori Nolan on the answering machine, she listened to the long ago voice of her yoga teacher, finding the moment in her husband’s body against hers, femur, pelvis, shoulder, arm. Dan and her. Daniel, Isabel, Marian, Bill, Jared. Luis and Valerie and Tomás. The fullness in the center of her belly.
One Small Thing Page 27