by Emma Straub
“Good job, Gammy,” Cecelia whispered, nuzzling her face into Astrid’s bony arm. Astrid lifted her arm and hung it around Cecelia’s back. What would have happened in her life if she had been honest from the start? With her children, with herself, with her husband, with Birdie. What if all the fuzzy-type mothers had been right, and she’d been wrong? Astrid felt full of things she wanted to announce to a silent, respectful group. It was yet another example of Barbara’s earnestness winning out over whatever it was that had ruled Astrid’s life heretofore— triage, was how she thought of it. It had been triage with three small children, and then it had been triage as a young widow. She hadn’t had time to plan things perfectly, or to parent intentionally, the way some women she knew had, with well-considered questions on the tours of local preschools. Astrid had always been trying to survive one day so that she could live the next. It was something she had always thought she’d grow out of, but somehow, there always seemed to be so many things to do in a single day. Barbara had seemed to have time for everyone, if not herself.
Bob Baker sat in the front pew, surrounded on both sides by gaggles of women, each of their backs curled into a seashell, the stance of any woman putting a Band-Aid on a child’s boo-boo. They were easy enough to identify from behind—Astrid counted at least two widows in the bunch, plus a woman whose husband lived at Heron Meadows. There were some people who just needed to be married, who felt like they were only wearing one shoe when they were alone. Astrid had some friends like that—or she had had some friends like that. Women who needed a partner that badly tended to be unreliable friends, Astrid found, which was why they needed a new partner so badly when their first one died, smothered by all the marital attention.
The point, surely, was not to look around the room at everyone else, but Astrid couldn’t help it. She felt like she was on a ship, sailing across an ocean. In addition to Susan from the bookstore, there was Olympia, from Spiro’s, and the ditzy yoga teacher who’d been there when Barbara was hit. What would happen when she, Astrid, died? Would Birdie and Porter organize a service together? It would be just like this, Astrid thought, a roomful of old ladies and kind community members. Which of them would actually care that she had died? Cecelia would care, the sweet girl, but who knew where she’d be by then—back in Brooklyn, off at college, or somewhere else, too busy for her grandmother. There weren’t very many men in the room, and so Astrid started to count them. She started at the left-hand side of the room, all the way at the end of the aisle, and when she’d made it three-quarters of the way around the room, she counted Elliot as number four.
He was sitting alone—that is, he wasn’t with anyone she knew, but flanked on either side by white-haired ladies. Astrid gestured in the air, trying to get his attention, but Elliot didn’t notice, and instead Astrid got some weird looks from other people. Eventually the pastor stood up again and pronounced the service over.
“Come, come,” Astrid said, hoisting both Cecelia and Porter up by their armpits, and then guiding them into the aisle. Birdie followed behind, the caboose. “Excuse me,” Astrid said, and squeezed her way into a thicket of mourners. Astrid tried to get across the room to where Elliot had been sitting but was instead herded into the stairwell and down into the basement reception area. They were pushed toward long folding tables with carefully arranged cheese plates and brownie bites. She dodged Barbara’s sister by the pitchers of lemonade and iced tea, still swiveling, trying to find her son. When he finally made it through the crowd to them, Astrid found that she was sweating, and when she hugged him hello, she said, “It’s so warm in here, isn’t it?”
Porter shrugged. “I’m always hot, I’m growing a person.”
“Kind of,” Cecelia said.
“Not really,” Elliot said. “But women are always hot or cold.”
Porter smacked him in the chest. “That is so sexist, shut your face.”
“I didn’t know you were coming, honey, you should have come with us!” Astrid pushed aside Porter’s fist. “Why did you come?” Her face felt hot. He couldn’t know, about Barbara, about the phone call, could he? Astrid searched his face for clues but found nothing. Aside from Barbara, Elliot was the only one who knew that she was a hypocrite.
“Bob works for Dutchess County Electrical, we’ve done a lot of work with them.” He was looking over her shoulder at the snacks. “Porter, grab me one of those cookies? Yes, those. Holding hands in public, it’s a big step.” He nodded at the clasped knot of Birdie’s and Astrid’s hands. She wondered who else was clocking them, who else was taking note, which book club would be gossiping about them over caprese salads and pesto pasta. Let them talk, she thought, and pulled Birdie even closer.
Astrid watched as Elliot folded a whole cookie into his mouth. Elliot coughed and then shoved in a second. Wendy would not have approved. Once she’d served a half watermelon in place of a birthday cake at the twins’ party, claiming that they didn’t like sugar. “I have to get back to work.”
“So soon?” Astrid said. “You have to go?”
“Mom, I have to go. Bye, all.” Elliot scooped up one last cookie for the road, and they all watched him weave his way through the silver- and white-haired attendees, until he vanished back up the stairs. Astrid wanted to stop time, to run outside, to be his mother, properly. How many chances did she have? That was the point, wasn’t it? That was what Barbara had meant—the bus, not the phone call—Astrid watched the back of Elliot’s head disappear and knew that, once again, she had lost her shot to say the right thing.
Chapter 30
Alarm Bells
When Porter was feeling low, the goats always cheered her up, and when she was feeling giddy, their nuzzly noses made her feel positively euphoric. She bent over to dust some goat slobber off her calf and felt a sudden pain in her belly. The closest bathroom was inside, a Sheetrocked corner of the office that she’d been meaning to turn into a nice bathroom for years, but it worked well enough, and so she hadn’t. Porter sat down on the toilet and leaned forward, her elbows digging into her thighs. It felt like cramps, but it couldn’t be cramps. She reached between her legs with a wad of toilet paper and drew her arm back slowly, revealing a small archipelago of blood. Porter had her telephone in her other hand and dialed Dr. McConnell. In five minutes, she was on her way to the hospital. She texted Rachel on the way, even though they hadn’t spoken since their dinner. Fuck, she dictated into the air of her car. Scary stuff happening, heading to doc, if you’re free, I would love you there. I miss you. When she didn’t hear back right away, she texted her mother too, and told her where she was going. Then Porter started to cry.
Only one woman was in the waiting room when Porter arrived, knitting a powder-blue baby blanket, the expanse already knit lying over her mountainous belly. She was making warmth in real time, inside and out. Porter hovered at the desk, waiting for someone to appear, clutching her hands to keep her from ringing the small bell that was there to be rung. The receptionist came back, a woman old enough to be a mother, a woman who might be a mother, and Porter reached for the lip of the counter to keep herself standing. It wasn’t pain that was pulling her down, it was fear. With Jeremy and Astrid and Birdie and Cecelia, so many distractions, Porter had let herself forget how much she wanted this. She’d spent years thinking about it, imagining her body pushing out to a smooth curve, imagining a tiny, soft person of her very own. She wanted it. She wanted the baby. She wanted to be someone’s mom. The lack of sleep, the frazzled nervous system, the sore nipples, who cared! She wanted those too. Porter was sick of seeing old friends and having them humble-brag about their early wake-up calls, their spit-up–stained T-shirts.
“Strick?” the woman asked. “Room three. Dr. McConnell will be right in.”
Porter hurried into the room and lay back on the chair, her hands pressed against her belly. It didn’t hurt anymore, not the way it had at the farm, which made Porter feel both relieved and scared—what if it
didn’t hurt anymore because no one was there? You heard about things like that, heartbeats fading to black.
There was a quick knock at the door, and Dr. McConnell poked her head in, followed by Astrid. “I found your mother in the hallway; can we come in?” Porter nodded. Astrid hurried to her side and gripped her hand, a worried look on her face.
“What’s going on? Let’s take a look. You said there was some blood?” Dr. McConnell sat on the wheeled stool and put on gloves.
How emotionally tricky, to be a doctor. Any other profession had the leeway of white lies, of truths softened by hopes and niceties. Doctors couldn’t lie. They gave you the results, which were never graded on a curve.
“Yes,” Porter said. When her animals were hurt, she did not waver. She called Dr. Gordon and took stacks of blankets into the pen and they would be there, together, until the trouble had passed. She could do that for herself too. Stay calm. Keep breathing.
Dr. McConnell had her strip from the waist down and put a thin hospital blanket over her knees. Porter lay back and thought of herself as an animal. Dr. McConnell was quiet, just listening to Porter’s belly with her stethoscope, pressing different spots and asking if it hurt. Astrid looked away from any bare flesh, as if she hadn’t seen every inch of Porter’s naked body, as if Porter’s naked body hadn’t passed through Astrid’s own naked body.
“I’m going to do a quick pelvic exam, just to make sure everything’s okay, Porter, all right? Everything seems fine so far. A little blood is scary, but it’s just blood. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong. If it continued, yes, like a heavy period, or if the pain increased, yes, but right now, you feel okay?” Porter nodded. “And the bleeding seems like just a tiny bit of spotting, is that right?”
Porter nodded. She closed her eyes. She could hear Dr. McConnell and her mother breathing, and the squeak of her stool moving around the floor. “Okay, that all feels fine, let’s take a quick look.” She squirted a little pile of warm goop onto Porter’s belly and spread it out with the sonogram wand. Immediately, the sound of a heartbeat filled the room, a horse galloping. Porter opened her eyes and watched the baby perform an elaborate water ballet. Astrid gasped and squeezed Porter’s hand even tighter. When Porter looked up at her mother, her eyes were damp and twinkly. “Wow,” Astrid said. “There she is! Oh, honey.”
“There she is, looking and sounding totally healthy and great,” Dr. McConnell said. “You’re fine, she’s fine. Nothing to worry about. Are you feeling stressed otherwise? Anything going on?” She left the wand in place, so that any and all conversation would occur over the comforting percussion. Some doctors were better than others. Porter felt a brief twinge of pity for any pregnant woman with a male obstetrician.
There was a question. She’d been thinking about it all morning. Porter looked at her mother, who was now holding on to her shoulder lightly, the way a queen holds the edge of the king’s throne.
“Mom, don’t have any kind of reaction, please,” Porter said, “but because of my abortion . . .” Porter paused here. She didn’t look at her mother, but she didn’t have to look to hear Astrid’s sharp inhale. “You know. I had an abortion, a long time ago, and afterward, there was bleeding, and this morning, that’s what the bleeding reminded me of. But that’s not happening, right? I’m not losing this baby, right?”
“No, you’re not,” Dr. McConnell said. “Your uterus is beautiful, your pregnancy is healthy, everything is fine. There’s a lot going on in there, you know? And there’s a lot of blood in your body, moving around, and doing its job. A little bit of spotting can be alarming, but it does not mean that anything is wrong. You did the right thing, by coming in, and now we know for sure, all is well.”
“What about sex?” Porter asked.
“Sex is totally fine during pregnancy,” Dr. McConnell said. How did people have such incredible straight faces? There must have been whole semesters in medical school where doctors had to say things that would make any normal human being laugh, and then not laugh. Porter could picture it, rows of future doctors staring into each other’s eyes while saying the words penis, vagina, testes, feces, et cetera.
Astrid let go of Porter’s shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest. “Porter. This is why I asked about Jeremy Fogelman. Don’t think that I don’t have eyeballs.”
“Never mind, Mom! But she’s okay? I’m okay?”
“You’re both fine.” Dr. McConnell handed Porter a washcloth, to wipe off the goo. It was the color of toothpaste, an unnatural blue, and no matter how thoroughly she scrubbed, she knew she would find bits of it later, caked into the band of her underwear or just under the lip of her belly button.
“How do you know if you’re going to be good at it?” Porter asked.
“Good at what?” Dr. McConnell was cleaning up. There was no doubt another patient was waiting, another woman to be reassured.
“Being a mother.” Porter sat up, her belly now cold and damp. She tugged her shirt back down, where it stuck to her skin in spots. “You know, just that.”
Astrid cleared her throat. She had hardened back into her normal shape.
“Are you worried about something specific? There are some great childbirth classes in town, and newborn care support groups, lactation specialists . . .” Dr. McConnell trailed off.
Porter laughed. “Yes, sure, all of that. But mostly I’m afraid that I’m not going to be enough. Good enough, smart enough, patient enough. That sort of thing.”
Dr. McConnell nodded. She had heard this before. “Here’s what I can tell you—most of the time, if you are concerned that you’re not being a good enough parent, it means that you are a good enough parent. If you are self-aware enough to worry about your child’s mental and emotional health, you are also going to be supportive of it. I’m not worried.” She put her hand on Porter’s forearm. “Just try to relax. Take good care of yourself. Prenatal yoga. Acupuncture. Meditation. You’re in a dialogue with your baby all the time. Talk to her. Tell her how you’re feeling. You’re going to be in it together, you know?”
“Okay,” Porter said. She stared down at her bump.
“I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay? Astrid, good to see you. Take care of your baby, too, okay?” Dr. McConnell hugged both Porter and Astrid and then vanished into the hallway. Porter could hear her welcome her next patient into an exam room. That was parenting, too, helping so many women (and their partners, she supposed) move from one side of their life to another, to cross this profound barrier. No one Dr. McConnell saw was the same when they were done with her. Rachel had told her that she’d heard that giving birth was the number one reason women became doulas or midwives, that they felt so altered by the experience of pregnancy and childbirth that they were like junkies, loath to leave the cozy, warm zone of uteruses.
When she got into the hallway, Porter expected to see Rachel—Porter would have come, if she’d gotten a text like that, but Rachel wasn’t there. Friendship was as mystifying as love, with none of the rules. Or maybe there were rules, but Porter didn’t know them. She had never been a bridesmaid. That seemed, suddenly, like a shameful admission of failure. Out of all the brides in the world, how had not one of them wanted her by their side? She called, she wrote emails, she sent baby gifts, she made dinner dates. Some people seemed to move through life in herds, surrounded by friends like baby elephants surrounded by their mothers and aunties, protected from life’s dangers. Porter felt—had always felt—like she was alone. Maybe her mother was right, and having this baby was foolhardy, but even Astrid didn’t understand why. Porter wanted to love someone fully, and to have them love her back. She wanted to be so indispensable to someone, to be so important that a casual erasure was impossible. Other people had that with their partners, didn’t they? The legal webbing that made a knot that much harder to untangle? Porter was happy to be tangled up with her baby, their bodies working so hard together, already a team. Was she a g
ood mother or a bad mother? Porter wasn’t sure she believed Dr. McConnell, but she wanted to. I love you, she said, on the inside. I love you I love you I love you.
Porter and Astrid walked slowly back to the elevator.
“You never told me that you had an abortion,” Astrid said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, sure,” Porter said. “I’m sure that would have gone over great. Like, the day after I was Harvest Queen, want to take me to Planned Parenthood? I’m sure you would have been super excited.” She didn’t want to sound like a petulant teenager, but she couldn’t help it.
“It’s not about being excited, Porter.” Astrid stopped walking. “It’s just a big thing to have carried around on your own for so long.”
“Well, you had a secret. I’m not judging your secret. So don’t judge mine. Would you rather that I had had a baby when I was in high school? I’m sure your gardening friends and town council friends and tennis friends would have loved it. Oh, and Dad too. That would have been great, for Dad to have known. It might have killed him even faster!”
“Porter Strick!” Astrid covered her eyes with her hands. “Stop! Stop it.”
A massively pregnant woman waddled down the hallway toward them. She took slow, small steps, and every few steps, she paused to breathe with her eyes closed.
Porter was just about to ask if she needed help when a man with an overnight bag and a breastfeeding pillow tucked under his arm leapt out of the elevator and took her elbow.
“We’re almost there, honey,” he said, and led her down the hall toward labor and delivery.
“Can we just not, please?” Porter said when they were gone, and she pushed the button for the elevator. “And how long have you known about Jeremy?”