It had been many years since she tried to ask him what was wrong. The first time she asked that, he’d snapped at her, ‘What’s wrong? You mean what’s right?’ he said. ‘You see where I’m at?’ It made her feel foolish and ashamed. So, she never asked again.
Instead, she did what she was doing today—she babbled, talking about whatever came to mind, desperate to distract him from the source of his upset, whatever that might be. But it didn’t have to be anything specific. He was in prison, after all.
His best window on the world came from her visits, and television. Ryann hadn’t been down there to see him for a while, because visits to the prison were all-day affairs, littered with a million tiny indignities. Things were too good lately, Ryann thought guiltily, to want to ruin it all with the soul-sucking experience of going to a men’s prison.
So, what she imagined Rick was seeing of the outside world lately were cheery beachy commercials on television, with women and children scampering on sand, men grinning from their place in front of a grill. The food on those grills, things that Rick might never taste again.
“Tell me ‘bout this nigga you tryna have a baby with,” he said unexpectedly.
Ryann hesitated. She wasn’t sure why.
“All of a sudden you got nothing to say?”
“No, it’s … he’s a good guy. In fact, I’m waiting for him now. He’s coming to take me out to dinner with a friend of mine. He’s … he’s a good guy.”
“This ‘good guy’ got a name?”
“Spencer. His name is Spencer.”
Rick snorted. “Kinda punk-ass name is that?”
“He’s far from a punk, believe me.” The snappish sound of her voice surprised her, and on the other end of the line, Rick chuckled, but it was a completely mirthless laugh.
“What?” he said, dragging the word out. “Baby girl got her dukes up over her man?”
They sat there for a few moments, silence on both ends. It was uncharacteristic of them, and tense.
“You said you didn’t want to see me alone …”
“I don’t,” Rick said. “’Course I don’t. But …”
“He’s going to be here soon,” Ryann said, cutting him off.
“You gotta go?” A note of bitterness was still there, just beneath the surface.
“I didn’t say that. Not right now, but in a min …”
“I can tell,” Rick said, talking over her. “You got things to do, places to go … a baby to make.”
“I didn’t say I had to leave this second …”
“We still got some time, but a’ight. You go do you.”
And then there was a sharp click. The call was over.
Ryann put her handset back into its cradle and braced herself against the counter for a moment, letting her head drop. This was the second time in as many months that they’d had a call that ended abruptly like this, and it didn’t hurt any less than the first time it happened.
Rick’s displeasure, even now, stung like no one else’s. And even worse, because she wasn’t even sure why he was displeased.
“Brittainy!”
Ryann looked around. Once again, she had walked out of her office only to find an empty, silent reception area. Her assistant came strolling in from the other room, a look of vague annoyance on her face, and the bleary-eyed look of someone who had been startled out of a nap.
Brittainy had first come to Ryann from a local temp agency, back when she was leery of making the kind of commitment that came from hiring permanent staff and renting out office space. Her office, when she first met Brittainy, was her kitchen table, and the then twenty-two-year-old girl, had taken the Metro from her home in Southeast DC to Ryann’s town, Largo, Maryland, where Ryann picked her up each morning at the train station.
Even then, three years ago, Brittainy had been somewhat of a lousy assistant, but at least she had the excuse then, of being a novice. Now, Ryann believed Brittainy was just bored with her job, but they were used to each other; and the idea that she might have to recruit, hire and train someone new only filled Ryann with exhaustion.
Plus, on those morning drives from the train station years ago, Ryann had come to learn that among her family—the brothers, sisters, and cousins and so forth, Brittainy was the success story. Now, even more so, with her job in a swanky office downtown. She knew too much about difficult family circumstances to become the reason for anyone’s reversal of fortune. Even lazy-ass Brittainy’s.
“Is that chewing gum?” Ryann asked her, when she noticed her assistant’s jaw working.
Brittainy’s face was suddenly motionless.
“Spit it out, Brittainy.”
Rolling her eyes, Brittainy reached for a napkin from the box on her desk. “You don’t have any appointments until later this afternoon, so it’s not like …”
“But you answer the phone, smacking in people’s ear. I’ve heard it myself when I’ve called in for messages.”
Spitting the gum into the napkin, Brittainy sighed. “You needed me for something?”
“Yes. I’m going out. I have a personal appointment that might take a while.”
“I didn’t see it on your …”
“I made it myself this morning. It’s not on my schedule,” Ryann said, gathering her purse. “I just need you to pay close attention to the time. I’ll try to call, but in case I don’t and am running late, I need you to reschedule some things. But only if I don’t get here a half hour before that first appointment.”
Brittainy’s eyes lit up with slight curiosity, probably wondering what would make it difficult for Ryann to place a brief call. She had no intention of satisfying that curiosity.
“I’ll take care of it,” Brittainy said, resuming her place behind the reception desk.
“Make sure you do, please.” Ryann gave her one last glance as she left the office.
Rather than getting her car out of the garage where she paid an astronomical monthly fee for parking, she hailed a cab and rode it over to the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates building on Pennsylvania Avenue then headed upstairs to her gynecologist’s office.
After checking in with the receptionist, Ryann settled in the waiting room, where three other women were waiting. Like her, they were dressed in professional attire. While their heads were down, staring into magazines or at their smartphones, Ryann scanned for wedding rings. Two of the three women were married. One had a rock that looked to be the size of the Hope Diamond.
Guiltily redirecting her attention to the mounted television screen, Ryann decided not to wonder why the marital status of three random women should matter to her.
She waited only ten minutes before Dr. Billingsley stuck her head out and called her in. A young, and practically brand-new doctor, whom Ryann had only been seeing for six months, Dr. Billingsley had a sunny smile and the kind of soothing voice that would naturally put just about anyone at ease. Ryann’s last exam had been only a month earlier, and everything had checked out well, but she hadn’t known then what she knew now.
“I’ve been trying to get pregnant,” she said, cutting to the chase once they were seated in the doctor’s office. “And I know you gave me a clean bill of health the last time I was here, but I just wondered whether there was something else I might need to know, now that my circumstances are different.”
Dr. Billingsley smiled and pushed one of her shiny dark-auburn locs behind her ear.
“Well, first of all congratulations,” she said. Reaching for what was likely Ryann’s medical history, she opened the folder and scanned the page. “Let me take a look here …”
“Thank you,” Ryann said. “I know that because of my age, things might be a little challenging, so I just wanted to make sure, y’know? And also, find out if there were any … tricks, or …”
At the word ‘tricks’, the doctor looked up again. This time, her eyes were kinder, sympathetic even. Ryann imagined she saw scores of women like her—of a certain age, edging toward desperat
ion, looking for assurances that the one thing they had deferred, would not be completely denied.
“The only ‘trick’ I know of to achieve pregnancy, assuming all things are physically as they should be, is to have intercourse often during your fertile days. Usually about 4-5 days during your cycle.”
Ryann must have looked skeptical, because the doctor laughed. “No, Ryann, I won’t be telling you to stand on your head, or anything like that. Sperm, it turns out, are resourceful little buggers. They know exactly where to go and how to get there. And if the highway is clear, and the egg is waiting, they do just fine.”
“And my … highways …”
“As far as I can tell, no problems there. Sometimes there’s scarring, or obstructions from an earlier infection that may have gone undetected, but I see no reason to believe that’s something you need to worry about.”
“Why? Why do you see no need for me to worry about it?” Ryann pressed. She knew she probably sounded like a lunatic, but now that she had an actual, real chance to have a baby, she just needed to be sure.
“No history of venereal disease that you’ve reported, no infections other than of the most routine kind in the urinary tract, regular menses … all of these are good signs.”
“But my age.”
Dr. Billingsley shrugged. “Well, younger is better for achieving pregnancy in most cases, it’s true. But your being …” She consulted the chart. “Thirty-five could mean nothing. On average, pregnancy happens more easily for younger women, but it doesn’t also stand to reason that all older women would not have an easy time getting pregnant. Some do. You may well be one of those women.”
“But you can’t say for sure that I’m likely to get pregnant soon.”
“We can’t say anything for sure when it comes to the human body. Particularly the reproductive system. How old is your partner, if I may ask?”
“Same age as me.”
“Perfectly fine, so long as there aren’t any other health issues, medications, or other habits that inhibit fertility. Do you know how to check your cervical mucus?”
Ryann grimaced. “I haven’t ever … No, I don’t.”
“Have you ever some days noticed a clear, discharge, like egg-whites … sometimes a slippery sensation when you wipe after going to the bathroom?”
“I think so.”
“That would be a great time to get busy.” The doctor winked. “Egg-white days and those leading up to it, when you might feel little twinges on one side of your abdomen, almost like menstrual cramps.”
Ryann nodded, sitting up straighter. “I’ve had those. And sometimes I thought maybe my period was coming early.”
“That’s the egg releasing. Some women get significant discomfort around the time of ovulation. Sometimes if you just listen to your body, and pay attention to what it’s telling you, you’d be surprised what you hear. Now, I have no scientific basis to confirm this, but I’ve even had patients tell me they knew the moment they got pregnant.”
Despite herself, Ryann smiled. She wouldn’t mind having that happen to her.
“Was there anything else, Ryann? We did your pelvic last month, so unless there’s a specific concern, I don’t see any reason to do another today.”
Ryann pursed her lips for a moment.
“You know,” Dr. Billingsley said after almost a minute of silence, “that anything you tell me, anything at all … is completely confidential. If someone called up, and asked me a direct question about your medical history, I could not, I would not share that with them.”
Ryann nodded.
“So then, perhaps there was something else?”
Taking a deep breath, Ryann looked up at her, and nodded.
Sitting at her dining table, cutting into the hangar steak Spencer had cooked for dinner, Ryann’s mind was still on her doctor’s appointment when he slid her a small, pink decorative bag, with white tissue paper sticking out of it.
Slowly, she lifted her eyes to meet his. He grinned at her, chewing at the same time so she saw some of his partially-chewed meal.
Under normal circumstances, and with anyone else, Ryann might have found that annoying. But Spencer had the kind of good looks that made just about everything forgivable. Today, he was particularly “forgivable” because while Ryann didn’t always share his appreciation for color, the orange long-sleeved tee he was wearing made his skin, slightly-darkened by time in the sun, look as lickable as honey.
“What’s this?” she asked, without touching the bag.
“So I’m in the mall with Greg today, right? And I’m impatient as hell ‘cause we got a meeting to go to and he’s draggin’ me around looking for a gift for his eldest, Sabrina, who’s turning sixteen. And this dude …” Spencer paused to shake his head. “He has no clue, right? Because Simone usually does all the shopping for the kids’ gifts and stuff.”
Ryann gave him a blank stare, encouraging him to get to the point.
“Okay, so I see this in the window …” He nudged the bag. “And I say to Greg, ‘That’s Ryann, all day. I have to get that for her.’ And so I go in, and it’s a store for girls like twelve to seventeen but I tell the saleswoman that I don’t care if she has to stretch one of those suckers …”
Ryann snatched the bag from the center of the table and pulled the tissue out. Shoving aside her plate, she removed a garment that had been rolled into a ball and opened it. It was pink; a t-shirt with an image on the front of a beautiful, snowy white Persian cat with green eyes, an imperious expression on its face. Above its head a crown had been fashioned out of pink and clear sequins, and beneath the cat, an elegant cursive read: ‘Feed me, and Tell Me I’m Pretty.’
The corners of her lips twitched, and Ryann looked up at Spencer, one eyebrow arched. “That’s me, huh?”
“All day.”
Ryann carefully folded the shirt and set it aside, pulling her plate toward her once again. “Well, you did feed me,” she said. “All that’s left is …”
“To tell you you’re pretty?” Spencer said. His face had grown serious, and he leaned back, taking a sip of his drink. “You’re the most beautiful woman I know, Ryann.”
She looked down at her meal once again, though now, she didn’t even really see it.
“You thirsty?”
Ryann turned toward the sound of Spencer’s voice, hoarse and sleep-clogged. He was still in bed, sprawled out on his back and—she thought—fast asleep when she slipped from beneath the covers. She often got up in the middle of the night, and thirst was her most frequent excuse. He had grown accustomed to that routine now.
“No. Just …”
He sat up. “Can’t sleep?”
Ryann shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”
“You want me to go home?” he asked. “Maybe you’re not used to, y’know … yet.”
Ryann ignored the possible implication of the word ‘yet’, choosing not to tackle, at three in the morning, his assumption that there would come a time when his sleeping over at her place would become even more routine. And choosing not to tackle just how good that assumption made her feel.
“No, that’s not it.”
Spencer patted the covers next to him and she went to him. Tugging her by the hand, he pulled her down so she was reclining against him.
“I used to have insomnia as a kid,” he said. “I don’t even know why, now. And I have this memory of my father, that he would take me outside into the backyard and we’d look at the stars until I got tired. One time, I think I asked him why he thought it was that I couldn’t sleep. And he just said, like it was obvious, ‘You just think too much, Spencer.’ Simple as that. So the question is, what’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know,” Ryann said.
And it was the truth. She didn’t know. Something was there, just offstage though, niggling at her, straining to get to the forefront, like the memory of where she might have set down her misplaced car keys. Part of the picture was in view, but nothi
ng that would help her locate the complete thought.
“Well then I guess you’ll just keep waking me up in the middle of the night, noisy as hell, while you call yourself tryin’ to be quiet.”
Ryann smacked him on the chest. “I was quiet. You’re just a light sleeper.”
“Prison’ll do that to a man.”
“Your father took you outside to look at stars when you couldn’t sleep?” Ryann asked. “Sounds like he was a good father. Despite everything else that went on.”
Spencer gave a wry laugh. “Yeah … that’s a funny thing. That memory, of him taking me outside to look at stars to put me to sleep? I remember thinking about it after he left, and missing that, and missing him. It was part of what made me so sure I wanted to go live with him when I was finally old enough for my mother to let me go. Just remembering things like that, and that bond, y’know?”
Ryann nodded though she did not know.
“And then when I was like, seventeen and he was being a real asshole to me and ignoring me, and taking his wife’s side over mine, I mentioned it to my sister. That I missed the father who was so concerned about me that he did that, y’know? Took his kid outside to soothe him to sleep instead of just barking ‘get your ass to bed!’ like most parents would do. And you know what she told me?”
“No. What?”
“She said, ‘Spence, Dad never did that. That was Ma.’”
Surprised, Ryann turned to try to make out his face in the dark. “Wait. But … so, which of them was it?”
“Joyce swears up and down that it was my mother. I remember it being my father. I mean, I can see it, picture it in my head, that it was him.”
“Then that means you must be right,” Ryann said. “Right?”
Spencer shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. I mean … memory is fluid. It can lie to you. And maybe I remembered that kind of father because that’s the kind of father I wanted him to be. Maybe, he never was.”
Feeling a slight chill, Ryann turned and pressed her face into Spencer’s bare chest. He held her tighter, and she heard his breath grow deeper and more even. He was falling asleep again.
The Lover Page 15