Lies She Told

by Cate Holahan

  He stands and stares at me, waiting for me to follow. My hands are barbells in my lap. My stomach glistens from fallen tears. One drop has settled around my still distended belly button.

  He kisses the side of my head. “I’ll give you a minute.”

  I grit my teeth. A minute? You’d promised me a lifetime.

  LIZA

  The gynecologist chair is a modernized medieval torture device, coated with vinyl and topped with wax paper. Every time I’m in it, bare butt falling off the edge of the seat, legs spread in metal stirrups, I believe medicine has not come much further than the days of leeches. I’m wrong, of course. Researchers grow entire human organs from a smattering of microscopic stem cells. Babies are conceived in glass cylinders and installed in willing hosts. Yet none of these advances are aiding me.

  My doctor, Angela Frankel, enters with her practiced empathetic expression. Brows flat, mouth set in a line, eyes swimming with sympathy. I’ve watched her with other people, seen a smile light her face as she calls in couple after couple who will leave twenty minutes later twittering about genders and genetics. Her mouth has never curled when inviting me into her office.

  She takes the chart from a clear bin affixed to the door and asks after David. I excuse his absence as work related, refusing to admit the looming truth. David is done. He can’t deal with the specialists, hospitals, and clinics anymore. He’s finished with slathering scar solution on laparoscopy incisions in my belly and hearing me belch carbon dioxide. Done with ejaculating into sterile plastic containers destined for petri dishes.

  My doctor grabs a rolling stool from beneath a desk supporting a model uterus. The sculpture is propped on a metal stem like a carnivorous slipper orchid. It stands beside a tower of urine collection cups. In my mind, the other rooms have better knickknacks: model wombs split like walnut shells to reveal developing babies and gestational growth charts comparing average fetal sizes to common fruits. I’m always seen in room B.

  The snap of latex gloves focuses my attention back on my physician. Casters rumble across the tile floor, coming to rest somewhere between my legs. A gloved hand grabs for a long wand attached to a small monitor. The device is about the size of an electric toothbrush, only thicker, with a bulbous tip. I hear the embarrassing squirt of lubricant before the internal ultrasound disappears below my paper dress. Pressure fills my pelvis.

  “How are you feeling?”

  This question is one of those standard doctor diagnostic tools. She doesn’t expect a real answer unless I’m in serious trouble. I am to complain only if it’s time for the epidural.

  “All right. Thanks for asking.” I force a smile, unintentionally tensing my body in the process and worsening my discomfort. “How are you?”

  I pull myself up on my elbows to see her response. Between my legs is a wild mass of corkscrew curls, cut short to keep strands out of her eyes. She’s not looking at my face. “Okay. Just relax,” she says.

  I slurp air through clenched teeth. How am I supposed to relax with someone puttering around my womb, poised to certify my female handicap? No fertile ground here. I miss my last shrink. If only she could appear like the insurance agent in a State Farm commercial. It would be nice to have someone sympathize with the torture of wanting something so much that your cells ache. I haven’t seen Dr. Sally in nearly a year. Fertility treatments aren’t covered by insurance, and good psychiatrists also expect cash up front. My last book advance didn’t cover two out-of-pocket specialists.

  My fertility doctor stares at the monitor as she moves the wand around. I shut my eyes, unable to bare the familiar black void on the screen without clenching every muscle. “Well, the good news is there are fewer fibroids this time around, so the progesterone is helping.” A sharp pain radiates in my hips as the device probes further. “And the ovaries have multiple ripe follicles.”

  Before I knew better, the mention of “ripe” in connection with my female parts got me excited. The adjective brought to mind plump apple trees, limbs bending from the weight of swollen fruit ready to fall from the branches and accept a worm. I soon learned that in hard fertility cases, like mine, the follicles are rarely the problem. God, it turns out, is a pessimist. Instead of giving women five hundred or so follicles—one for each month of the forty-some-odd years that the average female is fertile—he starts us all off at puberty with more than four hundred thousand. Each follicle is capable of producing an ovum, so nearly all women have enough eggs for a hen house. Thanks to the drugs, I have half a dozen ready for market in any given month. If all my fertile eggs managed to hang on to the walls of my scarred uterus, I’d birth a litter.

  All at once, the pressure releases. I remove my feet from the stirrups and scoot back into a more modest position on the examination chair. “If the fibroids continue to decrease, do you think in vitro could be an option? Maybe we could remove some of the eggs, fertilize them, and force them to implant?” My voice squeaks. Despair is awful, but hope can hurt worse. At least with despair, the cycle of destruction is complete. Hope is the Novocain shot before the surgery.

  Dr. Frankel takes a short breath. “We aren’t there yet.”

  I wipe the napkin sleeve of my gown against my lids before the tears can fall. My OB-GYN must be so sick of seeing me cry. God knows I’m disgusted with doing it.

  “There’s still a chance that an egg might implant naturally.” She stresses the word “chance.” There’s a chance of winning a casino jackpot, too, but few people stake their future on it.

  The casters roll to my right. I look up to see Dr. Frankel with her gloves off and an open laptop resting on her thighs. Since starting this experimental trial, our visits always end with her taking notes for the study. “So tell me, how are you doing emotionally?”

  “Okay.” I force another smile. “I try to save all my tears for this office.”

  She gives me a knowing look. “How are the mood swings?”

  “Swing” isn’t the right word in my case. My emotions don’t vacillate between happy and sad like a pianist alternating between major and minor scales. They’re stuck in a discordant chord. For the past six weeks at least, my days have started with a vague sense of foreboding. Throughout the day, my anxiety tends to intensify. Mild confrontations and disagreements have morphed from being uncomfortable to utterly panic inducing, leaving me unable to calm myself down.

  Admitting all this, however, could prompt Dr. Frankel to remove me from the trial. People with histories of depression or anxiety were barred from participating because psychiatric medications would complicate results. As I didn’t have a pill-treated mental problem, I’d signed up. But I’d also conveniently failed to mention that Dr. Sally had been pushing antianxiety meds for over a year, which I’d refused to take due to the increased risk of preterm birth.

  “I’m fine. If this works, I’m sure I’ll be the happiest person on earth.”

  She smiles at me, teeth pearly as a promise. “So how about physical side effects? Any nausea, cramping, headaches, migraines, or hot flashes?”

  This, I know, is safe to confess. Everyone feels premenopausal on fertility drugs. “All of the above.”

  “How often?”

  “The low-grade nausea is pretty constant, though it’s slightly worse in the mornings. The headaches tend to hit me more at night. I’ve always had occasional migraines, but they’ve definitely gotten worse with meds.”

  She nods while typing as though what I’ve said confirms some research thesis. “Some people have reported haziness or forgetfulness since taking the drugs. Have you experienced any such symptoms?”

  I wrack my brain for recent instances of absentmindedness: leaving the oven on, maybe, or misplacing a dry cleaning ticket. Have I parked the car in the past couple months and failed to remember the cross streets? Nothing comes to mind. Being a writer requires a certain attention to detail. I take many mental photographs.

  Dr. Frankel looks up from her computer. “So any memory loss?”

  T
he joke is a lay-up, and I want to show her that I am not always this weeping mess, that I’ve kept a sense of humor. “Memory loss? Nope. Not that I can recall.”

  She smirks at me. Apparently, she’s heard this one too often to fake a giggle. “Okay, then.” She rolls her eyes, showing that she’s not amused by my corny sense of humor. “See you next week. Same joke. Same time.”

  I force a chortle at her awkward attempt at a competing one-liner. She takes her computer and tells me that I can get dressed. Her secretary out front will make the appointment for next week.

  It’s not until the door shuts that it occurs to me: I might have delivered that punch line before.

  Chapter 3

  I roll the stroller back and forth outside the office of Dr. T. Williams, never moving it farther than ten feet from the door. A small speaker sits at the base of his locked entrance, pumping a baby-soothing static into the narrow hallway. Vicky sleeps, motionless, in her bassinet.

  Now that she’s down, I wish his door would open. It’s uncomfortable hovering outside a plaque bearing the abbreviations “MD PsyD.” I could run into another mom, some woman who will recognize me later at the park and wonder aloud, “Is she crazy?” And I’m not. Damn it. I’m not. Though every moment that passes with me standing outside a shrink’s office drives me increasingly insane. Why am I even here? This doctor can’t help me. He can’t patch my marriage. He doesn’t even know there’s anything wrong with my marriage. I’m sure when Jake booked the appointment, he said it was because I needed antidepressants.

  I won’t take drugs. Something horrible has happened, and I feel appropriately awful. I don’t want to medicate away my legitimate feelings or deal with any side effects. Yet here I am, still, because I have no one else to talk to. I can’t share this with my friends. They’d spout girl-power mantras. Kick him to the curb, Beth! They’d rebuke me for staying, thinking only of the indignity of being cheated on. I know, though, that the real humiliations would start after the divorce finalized. Jake, doted on in his girlfriend’s sex den. Me, crammed in a small condo, working long hours to pay Vicky’s sitter, spending every second outside the office playing mom and dad in a desperate attempt to give our baby a “normal” childhood.

  No. I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to leave him. I want this other woman to go away, stop messing with my hard-earned life. And I want my husband to feel very, very sorry.

  The door opens. A girl exits wearing an NYU sweatshirt and sunglasses. She passes me, staring at her shoes, as though she were schlepping back to her apartment Sunday morning in Saturday night’s cocktail dress. I direct my attention into Vicky’s carriage, fussing with the blanket at the base of her tiny feet.

  A deep voice calls me inside. I push the stroller in first, chasing it with apologies. “I’m sorry. We don’t have a nanny, and my husband is at work. She’s asleep. I hope you don’t—”

  The sight of the doctor stops my speech. He stands in the middle of the room, a hand outstretched, back hunched to lessen the impact of his imposing height. He’s easily over six feet tall, with a muscular body that his thin summer sweater can’t hide. Handsome isn’t an accurate description for the man. He has a face that could sell cologne: skin the color of roasted coffee beans, full lips, high cheekbones, and large brown eyes. As if things weren’t bad enough. I’ll be confessing my humiliation to a Ralph Lauren model.

  “It’s a little unorthodox,” he says, dropping the doubled consonant in “little” so that the word sounds gentler than I’m used to. I guess that his faint accent hails from the West Indies. There’s a slight Caribbean ring in the way he stresses his syllables.

  “But that’s all right.” His mouth stretches into a wide smile. “I can’t imagine it’s easy finding a sitter for only an hour.”

  “Thank you.” I feel my face flush. I’m hot, though the air is going, and I’m wearing a cap-sleeve dress, one of my few former work outfits that still appears business appropriate on my swollen chest.

  He extends a hand. I shake, starstruck for a moment. He gestures to the love seat behind me.

  There’s a sweet, comforting scent in the air, like the smell of old books, though I don’t see any. The couch is a gray leather, worn lighter in the center. That’s where I’m supposed to sit in this medical office that’s been camouflaged as a living room so that I’ll delve into dark secrets.

  The doctor sits, back to the window. A blackout shade has been pulled low for privacy, though sunlight breaks in from the sides. Most of the light rains down from bulbs embedded in the ceiling. One beam reflects off a tasteful black-and-white print of a tree. In the photograph, the sun breaks through clouds, creating an angelic glow above the branches.

  “It stood out at an art fair. You like it?”

  “‘Only God can make a tree,’” I say, quoting the famous Joyce Kilmer poem.

  He nods. “I see you made this beautiful child recently . . .”

  Cue segue to discussion of postpartum depression. I perch on the edge of the couch. “Um, I think I should clear something up. I’m not here because of Victoria.”

  The doctor’s face remains relaxed. “Well, what brings you here today?”

  “My husband is having an affair.”

  I expect him to raise an eyebrow or squint, do something to show that he now understands why a perfectly sensible person is in his office. Instead, he nods, conveying only that he comprehends the meaning of my words.

  “I saw him and a woman at a restaurant. He didn’t see me. They were flirting, sitting really close. He held her hand.”

  Dr. Williams’s mouth pinches on one side. “I can understand that being very hurtful.”

  The statement is too careful. I want him to side with me, tell me my husband is a jerk and I don’t deserve that kind of treatment. His lack of indignation indicates that he’s reserving judgment. Maybe he wonders whether my husband is fleeing a paranoid, jealous type that stalks his every move.

  “I wasn’t spying on him. I’m not like that. It happened by accident. I was out walking the baby and thought I’d surprise him at work. I passed a restaurant near his office, and he was in there with her.”

  “Is this the first time you believe he’s been unfaithful?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve thought he was unfaithful before?”

  “No. I always thought he was happy.” My voice cracks as I lament my own naïveté. I try to cover it with a fake laugh. “Clearly, though, I’m not that observant.”

  He winces at my self-criticism. “Well, it could be that this is his first time. And,” he says, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, “here’s the big secret about cheating. Most people who do it aren’t unhappy in their marriage. Usually, they’re unhappy with themselves.”

  The statement sounds like a shrink platitude. The third-person equivalent of “it’s not you, it’s me.” I don’t buy it. Jake’s job is intense, but he enjoys it. And he wanted to be a father. I must be doing something, or not doing something, that is driving him away. Or she’s doing something that I’ve never thought of.

  “So how are you handling this?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Does he know that you know?” His expression is blank, nonjudgmental. His big eyes say, You can trust me. I’ve fallen for that before.

  “Look. I know I’m supposed to be a feminist and rage against him. Tell him that I will not stand for this. He can leave. I’ll do it all on my own. Take care of the baby, of myself, of our finances.” I gesture to the carriage. “But she’s not even six weeks old, and I had this idea of her life, you know? It involved two parents.”

  “Well, she can have two parents whether or not you stay with your spouse.” He tilts his head and gives me a weak smile. “In my line of work, you see plenty of separated couples. As long as both adults agree to be part of their kids’ lives, the children will have both parents.”

  Until someone gets a job offer several states away or remarries or has children
with someone else. I close my eyes to keep them from rolling. “That wasn’t my experience.”

  “Your parents aren’t still together?”

  “Like half of America’s.”

  “When did they separate?”

  A familiar anger wells within me. Questions about my childhood pick at old wounds. I can’t handle them while licking fresh ones. “Does it matter?”

  “It can.”

  “I’m sorry, I just really didn’t come here to talk about my youth. I’m here to discuss my husband.”

  He sits back in the chair and bestows a kind smile, showing he doesn’t take offense to my snippiness. “Of course. What do you want to tell me about him?”

  I picture Jake’s clear-blue eyes. The way he rubbed my back last night, playing the supportive spouse after sleeping with another woman. The smell of his freshly washed skin. “We can start with him being a lying psychopathic shit.”

  “And yet you’re thinking of staying with him.”

  “For Vicky.”

  “Only Vicky?”

  An image of Jake’s face on a recent dinner date flickers into view. He’s laughing. I can always crack him up. For a moment, I think I might start crying again, but I’ve used up my supply of salt water. The prior night has left me with an emotional hangover. There’s nothing left in me except bile. “I don’t know,” I say finally. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.”

  Dr. Williams scratches at the side of his goatee and nods for me to continue. I lack the energy. Instead, I unlock the stroller and pull it toward me so that I can be cheered by my baby. She lies inside, button nose and bald head. The sight threatens more dry sobs. She resembles her father.

  I direct my attention to my lap. The air conditioner hisses. Children play outside. High-pitched conversations and squeals penetrate the window. I try to pick out words. Identify street sounds. Anything not to feel.

  “What do you think would happen if you left?”

  “She’d win.”