The Third Child

by Marge Piercy

  She held him, she held him tight, her cheek pressed to his chest, the sparse wiry hairs tickling her.

  THREE WEEKS passed, exams came and went, papers were due, and it seemed as if nothing was happening. The first snowstorm of the season muffled everything in puffy white globules, a wet snow that bowed branches and striped tree trunks. Andrus Field was studded with kids throwing snowballs. Snowmen, snowwomen, a big dog of snow stood here and there on campus. By the end of the week everything was drooping and grey. She was delighted with a thaw on Sunday, even though it made the world a soggy mass of dead leaves and choked gutters.

  Monday everything froze and campus was a sheet of bumpy ice. They were going to class when Emily slipped and landed on her butt. Now she was hobbling. Melissa was already worrying about Thanksgiving. She was nervous about going home. The farther she stayed from her parents, the better for her. She did not want them questioning her, she did not want to have to lie, to be afraid all the time she would let something slip. She was worried too that if she went home, they might somehow keep her there.

  “It might be a good idea to go and scout them out,” Blake said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “You could find out what they know.”

  “I doubt it. I’ve never been great at getting stuff out of Rosemary. I’m not her confidante.”

  “But Merilee is. Maybe you could get her to talk.”

  “Blake, I’m ten times likelier to spill something by accident than to learn anything useful.”

  Tuesday started off as an ordinary day of classes and bad weather, sleet on top of ice. She got the results of her tests and found she had done uniformly well. Marriage must be good for her studying. Maybe feeling more secure with Blake improved her concentration. She was set to see him after supper, but he appeared outside her Sociology of Politics class, waiting for her.

  “Roger has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating the theft of documents from the governor’s office.”

  “Oh, shit! You still don’t want to run?”

  “Roger’s going to plead First Amendment, freedom of the press, the right of a journalist to protect his sources. We’re his source, and he promised he’d protect us. There’s a lot of precedents for a journalist refusing to testify. Besides, the papers went through Phil, and Roger sure doesn’t want to implicate his own son. Right now I’m off-the-wall glad we didn’t bypass Phil.”

  Still they were scared. They sat drinking coffee in the student center, not saying much. She felt years older than the kids around her, some from her classes, some she knew from the dorm or previous classes. She was married already, she had adult worries. She was in danger. She might even be arrested. It was not like she was still worrying about boyfriends or grades or her complexion, like them, like Emily even.

  They watched the evening news together. Of course there was nothing on the local, but on the national news, there was Roger, who only faintly resembled his son, being ushered into a courthouse surrounded by a clicking rustle of cameras—the sound of a horde of insects—and reporters sticking mikes in his face. He drew himself up and spoke resonantly: “I’m defending the freedom of the press. I’m fighting for all of you as well as myself. If I have to go to jail to protect my sources, then I’ll go to jail. We have to stand firm or we can’t do investigative journalism any longer. A free country must preserve its free press.”

  “I thought he was pretty persuasive,” Melissa said.

  “It’s a question the grand jury and judge will decide. He’s our hero. He may not be theirs. Maybe the judge who will hear him was appointed by Dick.”

  She put her head into her hands. “It’s not a game anymore.”

  “It never was a game, babes. You ask your aunt.”

  “But it felt like one. I mean, we were just harassing him. Nipping at him. Playing tricks. Finding things that were hidden. Now it feels so heavy, so serious. Like we could maybe go to jail.”

  He looked at her for a long time. “Of course we could. Or at least, I could. After all, you’re King Richard’s daughter.”

  “That’s not fair. I’ve done everything you’ve done. Except the computer stuff. I don’t know how to do that. I’m your wife. We share everything, the good and the bad. That’s what getting married means.”

  “We’ll just hold on and see what happens….”

  They learned that Roger’s papers and computer had been confiscated along with his phone records. The Inquirer had stopped running the articles. That seemed to upset Blake more than anything else. “If they turn coward over those articles, then it was all for nothing.”

  “Maybe they’re just waiting to see what happens in the courts.”

  “But the news is now. It’s a hot story. If they wait six months, it’ll just be a little story in the back of the paper. This is our chance.”

  The next weekend Blake disappeared with two of the guys from the African-American caucus who had been in the demonstration with them last year. He didn’t tell her where he was going or how long he would be gone. She was worried sick, and furious too because he wasn’t confiding in her. It wasn’t fair! If she was his wife, he had to tell her things. It just wasn’t right to treat her like this. All of a sudden, he trusted these two guys he had hardly said boo to for weeks, and she was left hanging, waiting on him, not knowing where he was or why he was there or when he was coming back. Could he have fled, the way she suggested? Had he abandoned her? She was terrified. Maybe he had listened to her advice and run off to Mexico. He said that the two of them together were too striking, too visible; maybe he really meant that, and he had taken off on his own, leaving her to face her parents and the law and the government and everything.

  In desperation she went in search of Florette, finding her at the table her group usually occupied. “How the hell would I know where Blake is?” Florette glared at her. “You been seeing far more of him than we do. I hear you really hooked up. Why you suppose I know where his ass is at? You think he’s getting some on the side? Don’t come running to me, white girl. I don’t keep tabs on him. That’s your job.”

  She believed Florette. So where was he? She was embarrassed she had bothered Florette; Blake would be annoyed. But she did not know what to do with herself. Oh, she studied, she worked on a paper, she did her laundry, she trimmed Emily’s ends, she answered Rosemary’s weekly e-mail, but all of the time like a sore tooth she probed his absence. Could he have abandoned her?

  Emily was less than sympathetic. She was painting her toenails, using shiny black polish. “So he’s gone off with a couple of guy friends. Do you want him to stop having friends? Marriage isn’t supposed to be a box. You got married way too young, and now you think you own him body and soul so he can’t sneeze without your permission. Lissa, you’re dead wrong.”

  “But I don’t even know where he is. He could have told me.”

  “He probably needed to feel he still has a life. The two of you spend so much time together, maybe he just had to take a breather.”

  There was no way she could make Emily understand her anxiety, because she could not tell Emily what she had been doing with Blake. Things were closing in on them. How dangerous their project had turned out to be. She imagined Emily’s surprise when the police came to haul her away. Maybe the FBI? Then Emily would see she had not been frightened without cause. It came down to her wondering again if Blake really, truly loved her. Maybe someday she would be free from the underlying fear that he was conning her, using her, but when she was frightened, that old worry surfaced. Ultimately, could she trust him? Was he really for her, as well as with her?

  She called Karen. “Go out to a pay phone and call me collect,” Karen said. “They could be tapping your phone.”

  She felt more than ever like someone in a thriller, a film about spies and secret documents. She obeyed Karen and called her collect from the only working pay phone she could find on campus, in the student center. Most everybody used cell phones, so there were fewer and fewer pay phones around. Blake
had told her that cell phones were even less secure than regular phones, or she would have used hers.

  Karen, like Emily, did not see it as terribly important that Blake had gone off without telling her where. “Guys will be guys, whether you marry them or not. Probably he’s just pushing against the bars. Wanting to prove to himself he’s still one of the pack and not always accountable.”

  “But I’m afraid of getting busted for giving that information to the reporter.”

  “Now that’s something to worry about. I don’t think you’re about to go to jail. It would be too much scandal for your father. More likely they’d get you committed for general nuttiness. But being married should be some help.”

  “If he’s around.”

  “Melissa, you trust him or you don’t. If you don’t trust him, you should never have married him. If you do trust him, stop climbing the walls. You have to assume he had some errand he didn’t think you needed to be involved in. Maybe he went to consult his father on the legal situation. Hasn’t he ever gone off without you?”

  “When he was meeting hackers to get programs.”

  “There you go. He’s probably trying to find a program to erase every trace of what you’ve been doing from both your computers.”

  She thanked Karen profusely. That was the first thing anyone had said to her that made sense. “That must be it.”

  “I bet he’ll be back Monday. Don’t get all worked up—it’s not fair to yourself or to him. This hysteria about him being gone overnight is not becoming. Put a lid on it.”

  She nodded, even though Karen could not see her. “Okay. I will.”

  She felt much better. She went back to her room and apologized to Emily for making a fuss. But she felt she could not sleep or draw a deep relaxed breath until Blake was back with her and she knew they were still together.

  • CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX •

  When her cell phone rang Sunday at nine, Melissa was sure it was Blake.

  Alison spoke earnestly. “I wanted to tell you, Melissa, that your mother is much relieved that you’ve stopped consorting with the son of that murderer. I have to say that you troubled Rosemary greatly. She’s a splendid person, Melissa, and you should be more careful in future. She was beside herself, such as I’ve seldom seen her.”

  “Did Mother ask you to talk to me?”

  “She doesn’t know about this call. I want you to understand how troubled you made her. Your mother is the most brilliant woman I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I would do anything for her, and I’d expect you to feel the same way. But you put her through a difficult time.”

  Melissa felt like hanging up, but she suspected Rosemary might be listening on an extension. “Well, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry for upsetting her, but I need to live my own life too.”

  “She gave you life….”

  Melissa tuned out. She had always hated that phrase. She had always thought it meant, She gave you life and she could take it back. And Rosemary did try to take it back. Control.

  “…make sure that you understand these are rocky times. I find it hard to see her so besieged. We all have to pull together. They’ve given you so much that it’s a small thing to ask that you do nothing to aggravate her further….”

  “I think it’s wonderful how loyal you are to her,” Melissa said carefully.

  “As you must be.”

  “Shit,” Melissa said to Emily afterward. “Alison’s given up her life to Mother and she expects me to. She’s pitiful.”

  “She probably thinks the same of you, not appreciating the great and glorious Rosemary.” Emily had just had a haircut at a local salon, and she kept fiddling with her suddenly very short very blond hair. “What did she want?”

  “To continue the campaign. They think I’ve stopped seeing Blake, and they want it to stay that way. They don’t trust me.” And they shouldn’t.

  BLAKE SHOWED UP outside her eleven o’clock Public Opinion and Electoral Politics class on Monday as Melissa was leaving. “Lunch?” he greeted her.

  “No, I’m not lunch. I’m your wife. I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Yeah? Those rumors of man-eating lions on the Jersey Turnpike are not true, I can tell you. All the rest stops looked safe to me.”

  “You were in Philadelphia?”

  “The same dirty old town.” He slid his arm around her as they walked.

  “Did you see Si and Nadine?”

  “They give you their love.”

  “I wish they would. I really like them.”

  “You impressed them much more favorably last time. You’re winning that battle. What have you heard from your folks?”

  “I managed to convince Rosemary I’ve stopped seeing you, and she has bigger problems now than me, or so she thinks.” She watched him to see if he would be angry and pull that bit about being ashamed of her pet darky, but he seemed not to take offense.

  “Good, good. Now I am starving. I got back here late this morning, and I’ve had nothing to eat but a stale doughnut, so let’s mosey toward food.”

  When they were seated in the student center with plates of tacos, she asked, “So what were you doing that was so important?”

  “Just things I needed.”

  “Programs from your hacker friends?”

  “I wanted to talk with Si face-to-face. It seemed like a good idea.”

  He hadn’t answered her about the programs. That was usually New York.

  “Did you get a chance to stop in New York?”

  “Not this time. God, am I tired. I’m going to sleep through my afternoon classes after missing my morning classes. Tonight I want to hit the sack early and pile up some z’s.”

  “You don’t want to get together?”

  “Sure I do.” He patted her hand. “Couldn’t do without it. But I’m going to throw you out by nine thirty.”

  “That’s fine. I have a paper to write for sociology. That project I’m doing with Lindsey in the mall.”

  “Sounds thrilling. If you were named Lindsey, we’d never have hooked up. That name gives me hives. I bet her family is loaded.”

  “Good guess. But it thrills my mother to hear I am hanging with her. Merilee knows her brother Stu.”

  “Then mall away. It should help keep Rosemary off our tracks.”

  He was in an oddly jolly mood, although he kept rubbing his bloodshot eyes and yawning. Maybe Si had given him more hope than he had left with. But why wouldn’t he share any good news with her? She could use some cheering up.

  That evening he was more forthcoming. “Si had me talk to a guy, without naming any names, somebody he got off who’s a flaming computer genius. He advised me to stop monitoring Rosemary’s e-mail. It’s possible if she brings somebody in who knows their shit they could find out what I’ve been doing. So, sadly, my girl, we’re going to have to forgo reading her communications. I’ll miss it and I know you will.”

  “I don’t care, really. I know how she writes to each of us now. I know where I stand with her—down at the bottom of the list, the way I always thought.”

  He rubbed his sore eyes. “When you go home at Thanksgiving, see if you can sneak in and get on her computer. I’ll give you her passwords.”

  “I so don’t want to go back there Thanksgiving.”

  “If you don’t, babes, she’ll be suspicious. Business as usual, that’s the way to go. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

  “Suppose they don’t want to let me come back to Wesleyan?”

  “You said she’d dropped that. She’s too worried about what’s going on with the exposé to worry about your love life. Just stick to the story that you’re not seeing me any longer, and talk up Lindsey the Mall Girl. Tell her nothing and keep your ears open and your eyes peeled for a chance to get into her stuff.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

  “Don’t be so down. You might grab a break. They go out a lot, right?”

  “Thanksgiving they have the multitudes in.” She sig
hed. “Will we ever, ever have a holiday together?”

  “The rest of our lives. Every single holiday. Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Arbor Day, the works. We’re still in school, babes, and we have to not freak out the elder folks.”

  SHE DEVELOPED a stomachache the night before she was to leave, but she didn’t see how that would absolve her from going. Alison drove up to get her. “I could have taken the train, easy,” Melissa said. “How come she made you drive all this way?”

  “We decided it was safer. Your parents are feeling quite vulnerable right now, and they want you protected. You said you aren’t well?”

  “Just a stomach virus. Or something I ate in the food hall.”

  “Right before Thanksgiving, that’s so sad.” Alison shook her head. “If you reach into the backseat and look in my bag, you’re find several remedies. Why don’t you try one of them, and if that doesn’t work, try another in an hour or so. We want you in fine shape for tomorrow’s feast.”

  Melissa entertained the fantasy of staying in bed, then sneaking down later and helping herself to leftovers. But Blake had severely warned her to act normal at all times, and skipping Thanksgiving was not her usual behavior. Besides, Rosemary would never grill her in front of guests. She was probably safer at dinner. If she were alone, Rosemary might well come upstairs on the pretext of commiserating with her sick daughter and begin to ask all the questions that Melissa feared.

  “Who’s coming?” she asked Alison.

  “Let me see, Tony and Kurt, of course; then the Senator’s interns…”

  “Did you ever notice,” Melissa said slyly, “that my father always has male interns?”

  “Of course,” Alison said. “With all that’s gone on in Washington in recent years, the Senator wants to avoid even the possibility of impropriety. Rosemary vets them. We had one project manager in the Senator’s campaign who was gay, and he turned out to be a renegade. He stole papers from the office and tried to discredit your father. You must have seen something in the papers?”