Raising Rain

by Debbie Fuller Thomas

  Maybe it was just an excuse. He needed a reason to mask his own fears and blamed her for becoming like her mother. It distracted her from the real issue of having a baby.

  His voice rang in her ears as she drove away from the downtown district, the temperature dropping. By the time she got home, she realized the implications of his words. If he’d truly felt that way for a long time, he’d been a walking time bomb. He said he put up with it because he’d cared about her. He didn’t have that reason now. He would have left her eventually anyway, with or without her ultimatum about having a baby. If not a baby, it would have been something else that pushed him over the edge.

  She’d been deluding herself. She wasn’t the one who broke it off. She merely provided him with the excuse he needed to leave.

  Wasn’t that exactly what her mother was doing with William?

  Christmas was just under three weeks away, and all Bebe could think about was Jude’s Celebration on the coming weekend, and the fact that she hadn’t heard from Scotty since she’d answered his letter about the news clipping. Every time the phone rang or the mailbox came up empty, she feared the worst—alienation from her firstborn.

  She hoped to hear from him before they flew down for his graduation from the School of Infantry. Once he graduated, he would be free to come home. He would get a job and spend only one weekend away each month until his unit was deployed. It would be a long plane ride and a long holiday, if things were awkward between them. He might even move out.

  She tried to occupy her mind with final preparations for the Celebration, printing information and maps from the Internet, including directions to the closest hospital, just in case they needed it. Mare had her menus finalized, and Bebe felt that she provided a balance of choices for them all. Toni had the key to the house, the key code for the alarm, and final instructions from the owner. The only real variable now was Jude.

  It was decided that Bebe and Rain would pick up Toni on their way through San Jose, and that Mare would pick up Jude on her way from Marin. Bebe hoped that Mare and Jude would still be speaking to each other by the time they all met up in Monterey.

  Bebe began to get headaches and didn’t sleep well during the next week. Too much pressure around the holidays, she assumed. And she dreamed. Not pleasant dreams, but jumbles and snatches of people and places and conversations.

  It didn’t take a Freud to figure out what was going on. Rich emotional baggage lay just below the surface like an archaeological dig layered with dysfunctional relationships, mistakes from the past, and guilt. Sunken memories rose to the surface as she lowered her defenses in sleep. They left her feeling unsettled when she awoke, which was usually before her alarm rang, and she got up early to avoid falling back into that dream state.

  She truly dreaded the coming weekend. If it weren’t for Rain, she would cancel.

  Each of the women sitting in the lobby of the fertility clinic fell into either one of two categories—those who looked anxious with an edge, and those who looked anxious with a glow. It wasn’t hard to tell the pregnant ones from the hopefuls. Rain knew she exuded “anxious with an edge.” She couldn’t help it. She tried hard to mask her anxiety, but it was beyond her, sitting there alone without a loved one to hold her hand and tell her it would be okay.

  When her name was called, she undressed in a cubicle and went in for an ultrasound. The nurse kept a poker face as she moved the wand over Rain’s body and studied the image on the screen. She remained noncommittal when Rain asked her point-blank if she thought her body was responding to the shots, but she encouraged Rain to just continue with her treatments. After the ultrasound, Rain dressed and stopped at the front desk where she got an appointment to see Dr. Sykes later in the week. She went home feeling like she was in limbo.

  A sense of heaviness hovered over her as the weekend loomed ahead, realizing the potential for disaster and the fact that it was her mother’s Celebration of Life. Her mother’s pre-funeral.

  She checked the weather forecast online and packed accordingly. She also called William to make sure he was overseeing Jude’s packing. He told her he was already on top of it and nursing injuries from it.

  Jude was in “rare form,” he said. He would make sure all her prescriptions were refilled, and even offered to throw in a bit extra in case she grew intolerable. Then he apologized to Rain. He said that two of Jude’s colleagues had stopped by to see her, and she hadn’t seemed surprised, so she must have arranged it. He didn’t know why and she wouldn’t tell him anything. He joked that perhaps he should start packing up. Rain wondered if he would secretly be relieved when Jude was gone.

  On her last day at work before the Celebration weekend, Rain’s department manager, Latoya, asked her to stop by her office after lunch. Rain hoped it wasn’t about more special projects. Perhaps she’d gotten wind that Rain had time on her hands, now that Hayden had moved out. It was a relatively small office.

  Latoya asked her to shut the door and motioned for Rain to take the chair on the other side of her desk. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” Rain crossed her legs at the ankle and folded her hands in her lap.

  “Well, I asked you to come by because I just heard about an opening for a senior paralegal for one of the attorneys, Jacob Barbera. It’s a fabulous opportunity, and I think you would be a great choice for the job. Gerald does, too. He said you should apply right away before they look outside.”

  Rain was stunned. “What exactly are the duties?”

  “Basically keeping him abreast of changes in legislation, overseeing interrogatories. Taking depositions. A large part involves interfacing with clients. There is also a certain amount of travel that goes with the position. Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas, I think. Maybe San Diego. The company needs someone of your caliber to troubleshoot potentially volatile clients and situations.” She tapped her pen on the desk and eyed Rain with satisfaction. “You are perfect for this.”

  “Thank you. What makes you think so?”

  Latoya clasped her hands on the desk, leaning in toward Rain. “You have a sort of low-key passive-aggressiveness that people naturally respond to.”

  Rain balled her fists in her lap. “I’m passive-aggressive?”

  “In a good way. Just enough that people end up doing what you want without ever realizing what’s happening. I’ve seen it in your projects. You’re completely nonthreatening, but you get it done your way. That’s the type of person they’re looking for.”

  Rain felt the tension travel up her back through her shoulders and neck. This only confirmed what Hayden had told her. But what about a baby?

  “How much travel? How often?” she asked.

  Her supervisor shrugged a shoulder. “It depends on the situation, but I would guess probably twice a month. Maybe more. It comes with a pay raise, profit sharing, and a company vehicle.”

  More money and a company vehicle. That would certainly help with the cost of infertility treatments. Rain knew she should jump at the chance; after all, this was the kind of position she’d been working toward. But she felt ambivalent. The truth was that her job—any job—simply didn’t satisfy like she’d expected it to.

  “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have to think about it,” Rain said, without enthusiasm.

  Latoya frowned. “Well, don’t think about it too long. They’ll be posting it January 1st. If you need to talk to Gerald about it, I can give him a call.”

  Rain rose and thanked her again and returned to her desk. She thought about the job opportunity, and the fact that a VP had suggested her for the position, but it only raised more questions.

  How would she manage a pregnancy and a baby with traveling several times a month? And if she passed on the job and wasn’t able to get pregnant, then she’d be left with nothing. And she was passive-aggressive—in a good way? She sat shell-shocked, unable to focus.

  Someone passed by her cubicle, and she picked up her pen and doodled on a company notepad to look busy so they wouldn�
�t stop to make small talk. She thought again about her mother’s suggestion that she take the house from Hayden. At first, she had recoiled from the idea. It was so like Jude to casually mention taking advantage of someone for personal gain. But if Rain didn’t take this job and if the fertility shots didn’t work, getting the house for herself might be the only way she could afford in vitro. At this point, he might roll over and let her have it. If she was a nice person and split the house fairly with Hayden or if it didn’t sell, she would have to take the promotion and be an absentee mother. And either way, she could spend a lot of money on treatments and end up just like she was.

  She glanced down at her doodling. “Steele, VonTrapp, and Evers” stood bold at the top, and with a few quick strokes she changed it to “Steel trap 4 Ever.” She ripped off the note and stuck it in her shredder.

  Perhaps she should get a phone number for one of her mother’s colleagues this weekend, just in case.

  Rain sat in the waiting room at the clinic, making mental lists of things she needed to do to finish packing before she left for her mother’s Celebration that afternoon with Bebe. It would be hard to keep the excitement to herself if she received good news from the doctor, and she might even make an announcement if everything was a go.

  She was secretly dreading the weekend, for many reasons. She liked getting together with the women, but the dynamics could be exhausting. Sometimes they bickered like high schoolers. If Jude slept a lot, it could be a relaxing time for them, but it would mean her mother was declining. Rain felt helpless when she saw her mother’s physical appearance worsen with each visit, and she wondered if this weekend would prove too much for her.

  Rain was called into Dr. Sykes’s office and he breezed in a moment later. He greeted her and scanned her file, frowning as he flipped pages. Then, he closed her file and steepled his fingers.

  “Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that we’re having a good response to the drugs. At this point, I would recommend that you move to in vitro fertilization.”

  “In vitro.” It wasn’t working. Rain felt the ground shifting beneath her.

  “You’ll continue with your shots. But this time, the eggs will be surgically removed before the hormones cause your ovaries to ovulate, and we’ll fertilize them through IVF. The best embryos will be transferred, and we’ll do an ultrasound at eight weeks to see how things are progressing.”

  “What are my chances of getting pregnant?”

  “Roughly one-third of IVF procedures work. But there’s no evidence of polycystic ovarian syndrome. I see no reason why it shouldn’t work for you.”

  “But . . . but if it doesn’t. What then?”

  “If the problem lies with the eggs, donor eggs are always an option. Or if it’s a matter of implantation failure , we would do a laparoscopy to test for pelvic scarring or endometriosis.”

  Rain felt suddenly that she couldn’t handle the looming possibility of failure and the realization of the cost—both mentally and financially—on top of the uncertain weekend that lay ahead. She felt an overwhelming need to have Hayden beside her, and tears welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over. She gathered her purse and stood blindly, murmuring a thank-you, and almost knocked over her chair. She left the office, swiping at tears on her way out the door, and wondered grimly if the other patients breathed easier now that she was the designated statistical failure in the room.

  She drove home in a fog and packed her suitcase indiscriminately. As she scooped her cosmetics from the counter into her bag, she glanced up at her reflection in the mirror. Her skin was blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed, the makeup washed away to reveal her age and small wrinkles around her eyes. Her lips were chapped and puffed up with crying. She couldn’t help feeling disgust for herself, and for the body that had betrayed her.

  Bebe pulled into Rain’s driveway and beeped once. Just as Bebe jumped out to go inside, Rain came out dragging her suitcase and paused to lock the dead bolt behind her.

  Bebe helped her load her suitcase into the back. “Sorry if the car smells like Jimbo. We got him groomed yesterday.” They settled into the front seats and Bebe asked, “Are you ready for this?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Rain answered, stuffing her purse on the floor at her feet.

  Bebe put the car in reverse and backed out, glancing over at Rain who stared out the passenger window.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Bebe asked.

  Rain turned to face her and said evenly that she was fine, and looked out the window again. Bebe knew something was wrong, but wasn’t about to push it.

  She tuned the radio to smooth jazz on the ride over to Toni’s house in San Jose. It took several hours, and even though she called Toni when they were half an hour away, Toni still wasn’t ready when they arrived. Rain stayed in the car while Bebe went in to help Toni drag her suitcases to the car and load them.

  “You do know this is only a four day trip?” Bebe said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for Mare and Jude to be waiting on the front lawn for us.”

  “It’s just a few things. I like to have choices when I travel, and you can never tell when a storm will blow in.” She said privately to Bebe, “Chance of storm 100 percent.”

  Toni filled in the silence with chatter for the next forty-five minutes. Of course, Mare’s Prius was parked outside the gated entrance of the house when they arrived. The “Coexist” bumper sticker written in various religious symbols on the back of her car stood out in sharp relief to Bebe when she remembered the round Marines emblem on the back of her Highlander.

  Toni jumped out and punched in the entry code, and Mare drove on through without a greeting. Toni scrunched up her face at Bebe when she got back in the car and asked, “What’s eating her?”

  They pulled through the gate and followed Mare along the circular driveway to the garage, where they parked and unloaded the suitcases. They greeted each other and dragged their suitcases inside. Bebe went back for Jude’s. Rain caught up with her and wanted to make sure her mother got a ground-floor room. Bebe said she’d take care of it discreetly so Jude wouldn’t think it was patronizing.

  The house was fabulous: expansive and white, with bare windows overlooking the ocean and private suites for each of them. The kitchen and dining room alone were larger than Bebe’s house. She tried not to gawk.

  Jude went straight to her room to rest. Mare came out to the kitchen where Bebe was checking out the contents of the cabinets and breathed a sigh of relief. She chastised Toni when she discovered it was her fault they were late.

  “We weren’t that late,” Toni shot back, investigating the wine rack. “Oh, look,” she said, pulling a bottle from the rack. “A 2005 Old Ghost Old Vine Zin. Marshall said we can help ourselves to anything in the rack, but his wine cellar downstairs is off-limits.” She carefully replaced the bottle. “I wonder what he has down there.”

  Mare would not be distracted. “Jude was just exhausted, and you know how irritable she gets. I think she was uncomfortable, too, like her meds were wearing off.”

  Rain came into the kitchen carrying grocery sacks.

  “Rain, do you know anything about your mother’s medications?” Mare asked. “Would she tell us if she needed anything?”

  Rain stopped and glanced in the direction of her mother’s room. “She might not. Maybe her patch needs to be replaced.” She set the bags down on the counter and headed down the hall.

  Bebe watched her go, wondering when Rain had become so attuned to Jude’s needs. Toni and Mare began to unload the contents of the cooler into the giant side-by-side refrigerator.

  Toni lifted a container from the cooler and brandished it at Mare. “Tofu? I will not eat tofu!”

  Mare yanked it out of her hands. “It’s not for you, it’s for me.” Mare bent down to retrieve more items, and muttered, “I wouldn’t waste it on you.”

  Toni made a snotty face over her head and Bebe gave her a chastising look. Toni winked at Bebe playfully, and immediately turned a
straight face to Mare when she looked up.

  Rain came back out to the kitchen a few minutes later and said her mom was resting with a new patch. She would probably sleep for hours. She was going to rest awhile, herself.

  She turned and went down the hall to her room, and closed the door behind her. The three women looked at each other.

  “She’s unusually quiet,” Toni observed.

  Mare’s eyes widened. “Could she be pregnant?”

  Bebe knew that Rain would have difficulty containing her joy, if that were the case. Her melancholy fit the possibility of bad news, but Bebe didn’t want to give anything away. “I don’t think so. Consider why we’re here, ladies. It’s only natural that she should be depressed.”

  They seemed satisfied with her answer. They got the kitchen squared away, oohed and aahed over the appliances, and familiarized themselves with where everything was. Toni pointed out where the kitchen laptop was stored. It was used mostly as a virtual cookbook, but they could log on as guests and use it whenever they wanted. When they were done, they took their beverages of choice out to the sunporch and watched the wispy fog roll in. Toni opened a window to hear the roar of the ocean below. The sun bedded down in lavender gauze and fog eventually encased the house, extinguishing even the floodlight on the path down to the beach.

  Toni rattled the ice in her empty glass. “Well, what’s for dinner, Mare? I’m getting hungry.”

  “Shrimp fettuccini. I stopped by a bakery in Monterey for some rosemary bread to go with it.”

  “Mmm,” Toni murmured. “Sounds good. When do we eat?”

  Mare looked over at Toni, exasperated. “When you decide to get up and do something about it.”

  Toni’s eyebrows shot up. “Meow. Draw in your claws.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I only agreed to make the menu, not cook every meal.”

  Bebe went over to the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen shrimp. She took a shiny colander from the hanging rack overhead, dumped the shrimp into it, and turned on the cold water.