The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  Beth surveyed the store, which looked a little worse for wear. She’d sent the saleswomen home in case things got ugly, so the store was empty and quiet compared with the ruckus outside. Beth had considered the possibility of violence, but she didn’t want to admit so much to Anna. Since they had to close the shop, they had lost an entire day’s business. Still, Beth was certain they’d more than make up for it online. With all the attention the controversy was causing, sales would skyrocket. This was all working out fine as far as Beth was concerned.

  She took a long, slow breath, resolved that all was for the good. With one last scan of the store, her eyes rested on a tear sheet of one of the Agnes Seymour magazine print ads lying on the counter by the register. It was wrinkled and torn at the edges, and at first Beth figured the ad had gotten caught in the melee of the day. She picked up the page to discard it in the trash bin but froze when she saw that someone had torn holes in the paper where Agnes’s eyes and breasts had been and there was a target drawn with heavy black marker across her belly. An arrow pierced her infant’s heart and horns had been drawn atop his head.

  “What the fuck?” Beth said aloud. She crumbled up the page and threw it in the trash can with a frisson of understanding that it was an angry world out there. Beth tried to shake off the incident. What a fucking day . . . she thought, and then, Oh, damn, I forgot to call Paul.

  She picked up the store phone and dialed Paul’s number.

  “Paul, hi, it’s me, Beth. Jessie said you’d called at home . . .” She was speaking into his machine when she heard someone fumble with the phone in an attempt to answer it.

  “Hey . . . hi,” an unrecognizable voice, labored and raspy, said on the other line.

  “Who is this?” Beth asked.

  “Beth, it’s me.” Paul could barely get out a few words without stopping to take a long, slow breath. He sounded like he was drowning in air. “How are you?”

  “How am I? Paul, what is going on?” Beth had talked to him a week earlier and he’d sounded fine. His health wasn’t great, but he didn’t sound like an iron lung.

  “I think I have pneumonia again . . .” A weak inhalation followed before he managed to squeeze out, “I’ll probably be headed back to the hospital soon.”

  Beth breathed heavily into the receiver as if to lend her breath to him. That he wasn’t in the hospital already made Beth truly angry for the first time today.

  “I spoke with my mom earlier,” Paul continued. “She told me that I was supposed to”—he took another long intake of breath—“take care of her in her old age.” His voice broke. “She also said that she knows she will go to heaven and she doubts she will ever see me there.” Paul was barely able to finish the sentence for the lack of oxygen he was unable to pull into his lungs.

  “Paul, just stay away from her. The last thing you need her to do right now is make you feel guilty for dying, for Christ’s sake! Can’t you ask Helen to keep her away?”

  Helen was Paul’s sister and the only one in his immediate family with the slightest clue about the real cause of Paul’s failing health. His mother tried to convince herself that her son had some unidentified chronic illness because he worked so hard and because Beth had left him with a broken heart. Her mean-spirited response to his decline told Beth that his mom knew better, but keeping the lie alive that her son wasn’t gay made her self-righteous. So much for the strength of the Christian spirit. Paul could rest assured that his mother prayed for his soul every day, but she would do nothing to soothe his flesh and blood suffering on earth.

  Paul was silent for too long, and Beth thought maybe he had fallen asleep. Then she heard him pull a slow, painful breath. “Beth, why did you leave me?”

  Conversations with Paul over the years inevitably veered toward this question, more so lately than ever before. She had never really understood the power of denial—the word was tossed around so cavalierly—until she realized that Paul truly didn’t understand why she’d left him. He had never even admitted his homosexuality to her. In many ways this broke her heart more than anything else.

  “Oh, Paul, please don’t ask me to go there. I loved you. I still love you. What can I do to help you now?”

  Paul wasn’t responding. Beth could tell he was still on the phone only because of the heavy rasping noise his breathing made.

  “Paul, Paul, are you there? Please answer me.” Beth heard the phone crash to the floor. She hung up and called 911. Then she dialed Helen’s cell phone. When Helen answered, Beth realized that she was there with Paul. She could hear sirens in the background.

  “Helen, what is going on?”

  “We’re on our way to the hospital. I’ll call you later,” Helen said. She was crying.

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “No, Beth, please don’t. Mom will be there, and she doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry. Please, just wait for me to call you,” and she hung up the phone.

  Beth stood for a moment considering her options. Should she bully her way into the hospital or respect Paul’s mother’s wishes?

  “When will this day end?” she asked herself out loud. Beth sat down on one of the store’s armchairs and slipped into a thoughtful, dreamlike state, not quite asleep, closer to meditation. It felt like she was there for only a few minutes, but by the time she regained awareness, the crowd had cleared, the window had been taped, and the firemen were gone—she’d missed them, dammit—and someone was knocking on the front door. She saw Isabel’s beautiful face peering through the storefront window. She smiled at the sight of her friend.

  Isabel was almost three months pregnant and had the unmistakable satisfied glow of a woman who wants to be pregnant and is. Beth was happy and relieved for her best friend, who’d been trying to conceive for the past two years. For many of their friends, it had become all too common to miscarry or to be unable to conceive at all. “It’s what we get for waiting so long,” Beth had once told Isabel, and regretted it immediately.

  Beth filled Isabel in on the telephone conversation with Paul. Isabel listened attentively as she always did, but Beth knew her friend was at a loss as to how to help her.

  “His mom still doesn’t get it?” Isabel asked.

  “No, she still blames me for his illness, which makes no sense whatsoever. You’d think she would have a clue between the pneumonia and KS.” As frustrated as Beth was, she stuck by her word not to out Paul while he was alive. It was his dying wish.

  They talked for a bit more and Beth left Isabel with a quick hug and returned to her office. She made another phone call to tell her office manager to have the window replaced tomorrow. As she jotted down notes of things to discuss with Maggie and Anna, Sacha poked her head in the office.

  “Maggie called and said she can’t make it into the city to meet with you and Anna. Something about her stepson having sprained his ankle playing basketball—she had to go pick him up . . . I told Anna, so she’s already left for the day,” Sacha said. “If there’s nothing else to hang around for, I think I’ll head out as well . . .”

  “Thanks for keeping your cool today, Sacha . . .” Beth thought to tell Sacha about the vandalized ad, but then thought better of it. Sharing it with someone would help exorcise the image, but she didn’t want to scare her assistant. Best it stay in my head for now, Beth thought. Maybe I can talk with Maggie about it later.

  Instead, she bid Sacha good night. “See you tomorrow . . . Thanks again!”

  Beth was suddenly weary and happy that the meeting had been canceled. Now she could surprise Jessie by getting home earlier than expected and take them to Jessie’s favorite burger joint for dinner.

  Maggie’s cancellation wasn’t a surprise, whatever the particulars this time. Maggie had enough to do, raising her own daughter at home in addition to the pressure of running her own consulting business. The extra work of taking care of her two stepchildren for a year while their mother was in France seemed to have put her responsibility quotient over the top. Maggie’s husband
, John, wasn’t a bad guy, but as far as Beth could tell he didn’t make Maggie’s life any easier, that was for sure.

  Beth grabbed her purse and ran out the door. When she got to the street, she was surprised to see Isabel still hanging around in front of the store. She lifted her eyebrows to ask her friend why just as a taxi pulled up and Christopher Bello emerged to beckon Isabel inside. Beth just rolled her eyes and raised a hand for her own taxi. She didn’t bother asking where they were going. The day had held enough surprises; she could wait to get to the bottom of this one.

  NO MATTER WHAT kind of day she was having, the moment Beth started for home, she began to feel an anticipatory joy. Jessie was like a present waiting for her every night when she got home. That Jessie had arisen from the tragedy of Paul’s life deepened her gratitude for her daughter even as it tinged her immense joy with sadness.

  As Beth put the key in the door she heard Hanna say, “Jess, I think your mom is home already . . .”

  Before she could push the door open she heard Jessie running toward it, shouting, “Mom! Is that you?”

  “It’s me!” Beth called, pocketing her key and waiting for Jessie to open the door. Ever since Jessie was old enough to reach the handle, she loved to push up on her tippy-toes to open the door when her mother came home from work and jump into her arms. It was a point of pride when she was three, and now that she was seven, the homecoming every evening was ritual. Like her mother, Jessie was strong and lean, but compact, so Beth was still able to pick her up easily.

  Hanna had already prepared dinner, so Beth canned the idea of going out for burgers. The three sat down together, as they had for many evenings before, and shared a meal of chicken and dumplings.

  After dinner, Hanna kissed Jessie and Beth good-bye. Once they were alone, it was clear to Beth that Jessie was in a talkative mood.

  “Why did Paul call you here today? He didn’t sound like himself on the phone. Didn’t he know you were at work?”

  “I think he just forgot. He wasn’t feeling too well.” Beth was hoping Jessie wasn’t going to be too inquisitive.

  “Is Paul going to die?” Jessie always referred to her father as Paul, though she addressed him as Pop in person.

  Beth knew this was an unavoidable conversation. “We all die, Jess, but Paul will probably die sooner than he ought to since he is very sick. I’m sorry that’s true, but it is.”

  “Why is he so sick?”

  Jessie seemed to be trying to pry something out of her mother. Beth understood Jessie’s natural curiosity, but she had a hard time navigating it. It had taken years for Beth to come to terms with Paul’s HIV.

  “He has something called an autoimmune deficiency. That means his body is no longer able to fight off illnesses. When you or I get a cold and we get better all by ourselves, it’s because our body fights the cold and wins. Well, Paul’s body doesn’t know how to fight anymore, so he can’t get better. Does that make sense?”

  Explaining it now to Jessie made it new for Beth all over again. She shivered for a moment and hoped Jessie didn’t pick up on it.

  “Why won’t his body fight?”

  “It lost its ability to do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he has the AIDS virus.”

  “How did he get the virus?”

  Beth felt that old surge of anger over Paul’s illness and worked to push it aside. She wanted to assure Jessie that she couldn’t get the virus from her father but wasn’t quite ready to explain the details. Beth understood that Jessie would be worried, and she wanted to respect that. Still, she was stymied.

  “We don’t know how he got it, but you don’t have to worry about getting it. You are healthy. Okay?” Beth thought she sounded unconvincing; Jessie had touched a button.

  “Will you get the virus and die too?”

  Beth knew that she and Jessie were HIV negative, but macabre fantasies haunted Beth where her status as a healthy person would be revoked by some previously unknown trait of the virus. It had taken three years after Paul’s diagnosis for her to stop periodic testing, and then only because her doctor had told her to stop punishing herself for testing negative in the first place.

  Beth finally believed it. “No, sweetheart, I won’t get it either.”

  Beth’s silent but constant angst was that somehow either she would be taken away from Jessie or Jessie would be taken from her.

  THE NEXT DAY at the office, things were a little quieter, if only for the fact that there weren’t hundreds of screaming protestors outside the building. The press continued to call, and Beth turned down one request after another to make TV appearances. She had been tempted by a last-minute invite by David Letterman the previous day, having been a fan since her college years, but knew he would have gotten the better of her. Instead, she and Maggie got RHM model Agnes Seymour on the show, which worked out perfectly. They showed the ad on the screen several times and Agnes talked about what fun she had modeling for the shot. She talked openly about nursing and expressed confusion about those who would find it anything short of natural and beautiful. Letterman had a ball with that one but stopped short of being disrespectful. The audience cheered Agnes.

  Beth was so pleased with the way the backlash was playing out, she began strategizing for the next series of ads. She ran into the marketing director’s office. “Sally, can you get me twins? I want to do before and after shots for a series of ads.”

  “You want me to find twins who are pregnant?” Sally asked.

  “No, not pregnant twins, someone pregnant with twins. I would love to be able to shoot the mother during her pregnancy, while she is giving birth, and afterward with the babies. We’ll even design hospital gowns for the delivery. They had a problem with one infant? Let’s give them two.”

  Sally frowned at the last thought. Beth saw her disapproval and checked herself. She knew she had a tendency to cross the limits from provocation to bad taste.

  “Okay, maybe not the delivery gowns, but twins, I definitely want twins. Get your assistant on it now.” When Beth got fired up about something, she tended to bully her way through it and wanted results immediately. It was a problem before she owned and ran a company. Now it was her privilege to be aggressive.

  Beth went to find Anna to see what she would think of the twins idea. Anna, more conservative than Beth, often was not ready to back Beth in taking risks, especially if it would help the bottom line. Anna had a clear way of thinking through to the economic effect of any decision. With Anna’s recent fragile mood, however, Beth couldn’t be sure what to expect.

  Anna’s door was closed. Beth knocked and opened it slightly. “Anna, can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Anna sounded tired.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. The baby was up all night teething. I got three hours of sleep. Yesterday morning, when I was spending a few minutes with Jason and the boys in the backyard before I left for work, Oscar turned to me and said, ‘Mama, leave now. We’re blowing bubbles with Papa. Go, now!’ He didn’t want me around.”

  Anna struggled like no one else Beth knew with being away from her children every day. She and her three-year-old, Oscar, had an intense bond that had begun in utero. Anna had cried for a month after coming back to work after maternity leave.

  “Jessie used to do that too, except she would kick me out of the house when Hanna came. I used to think, Great, my kid prefers her nanny to me, what am I doing wrong? Then I realized that kids try to establish routine to make order out of their world. ‘In the morning Mom goes to work. I accept that. Morning comes, time for Mom to go.’ They sense your ambivalence and it makes them uncomfortable, so they impose order by saying, ‘Leave now.’ You know Oscar has no idea he’s hurting your feelings, right?”

  “I know, I know. I overreact because I don’t want to leave him. It’s not that I don’t want to come to work, but I also don’t want to leave. It all makes me feel crazy.” Anna’s eyes filled with tears and
streamed down her face. “I never got used to it. I don’t know why. I thought it would be easier once Henry was born, but it isn’t.”

  Anna hadn’t taken a real maternity leave when she’d had her second son. Things were so busy at RHM that she worked every day from home and went into the office for meetings. Six weeks after Henry was born, she was back in the office full-time. Beth understood that Anna never felt that she had spent proper time with her boys during that early stage. Maybe that was why she never quite adjusted, although Anna had never once complained about it.

  “Listen, Anna, you’ve been struggling with this for a while now and I’ve been thinking about it. Would it help if you took a sabbatical? Maybe you could stay at home for a month or two and see if it works for you. When I need you for strategic decisions, I’ll call. In the meantime, Eric can handle the day-to-day financials. Consider it makeup time from when you had Henry.” Eric was Anna’s incredibly competent associate, and Beth knew he could handle things just fine for a few months.

  It was a calculated risk: Beth was counting on a change of heart from Anna and a renewed commitment to her professional life after some extended time at home. Anna was a whiz at what she did, and Beth would do whatever she had to do to keep her—even if it meant giving her up for the short term.

  Beth added, “If after a break you want to come back, then you can come back fresh. If you decide ‘profession be damned, I’m staying home with my kids,’ then just help me make the transition of finding someone to fill your position. Think about it.” Beth didn’t believe for a second that Anna would opt for a stay-at-home motherhood, so this last statement stung in her mind like the lie that it was. Still, she hoped it sounded convincing in the delivery.

  Anna perked up noticeably. “I will. Thank you, Beth.”

  Beth thought better than to bring up the twins idea just then. Instead, they covered some important catalog questions and she headed back to her office.