by Ann Warner
Clare tilted her head and looked at the other woman. “Yes. It was.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to step on any toes...so to speak.” There was more than a hint of malice in Joyce’s smile.
It reminded Clare of Lisa, and was perhaps why she decided to not let Joyce get away with it. “That was quite good, actually. You’re very clever.”
Joyce blushed an angry red.
Likely it was a relief to everyone when the evening ended.
“So that was Joyce Willette,” she said as she and Rob cleaned up. “She’s very attractive.”
“She’s a barracuda. If you hadn’t come along, I might not have noticed until she devoured me.” He set down the stack of blue, green, and yellow plates and pulled her into his arms.
“You handled her perfectly.” He rubbed his chin gently against the top of her head. “I heard a rumor she interviewed at Michigan. If we’re lucky, and the stars are aligned, they’ll take her off our hands.”
“I bet she goes straight home and looks in her mirror, trying to figure out what you saw in me that you didn’t see in her.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Do you ever look at me, Rob?”
He pulled back slightly, his hands on her shoulders, frowning. “Of course I do.”
“What do you see?”
“The woman I love.”
“But my hair. It’s going white and I’m too thin.” The tears came before she could stop them.
“Clare, love, what’s this about?”
“I think something’s wrong with me.”
“What?” He rubbed her arms, giving her a worried look. “Are you okay? I noticed you hardly ate anything.”
She almost told him what happened to the casserole, but then she remembered, he’d had seconds. “I’m so tired all the time.”
He snuggled her against his chest. “Maybe you better go for a checkup.”
She was sorry she’d brought it up. She hated doctors. It was, after all, a doctor who kept insisting her leg would never again be strong enough for her to dance.
Rob looked up to find Greg Olson standing in his office doorway.
“Wanted to apologize,” Greg said. “For Saturday night. For bringing Joyce to your place. I had no idea.”
“I figured that.”
“I told her she stepped over the line. She didn’t like it.”
“Better watch your back.”
Greg frowned. “It also explains something else.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s made comments in the Tenure and Promotions Committee that your request for promotion to full professor is premature.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. She told me if I didn’t already have tenure, she’d do her best to ensure I didn’t get it.”
Greg smiled. “What did you do to her? Throw her over for Clare?”
“Exactly.”
Greg’s grin widened. “Damned if given the choice I wouldn’t have done the same thing. Don’t sweat the promotion. I’ll make sure you get a fair shake.”
“Appreciate it.”
“And I appreciate you giving me the chance to discover the real Joyce sooner rather than later.”
“Definitely my pleasure.”
Pregnant. It had taken the doctor Rob nagged Clare to see only a few minutes to pinpoint the cause of her listlessness. Rob. She needed to be with him. To share what was happening to her, to them, but when she arrived at Northeastern, he was in class.
“When will he be finished?”
The assistant glanced at the clock. “Fifteen minutes. You can wait here, if you like.”
“Please. Can you tell me what room he’s in?”
Clare found the door to the lecture hall propped partially open. She peeked in to verify Rob was there, then she leaned against the wall to wait, listening to the flow of his voice.
“The toxicology case for Monday is that of a young female who appears to be in good health until she starts to lose significant weight. She complains of fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and shortness of breath. She walks with a slight shuffle. Nothing else remarkable shows up on physical exam. Okay, what other questions do you have?”
“Does she smoke, drink?”
“Smokes ten to twenty cigarettes a day, has an occasional glass of wine.”
“Diet?”
“Vegan, when she can muster an appetite. Eats mostly apples, core and all.”
“She’s not a horse, is she?”
There was a ripple of laughter. The students were obviously fully engaged and enjoying the class.
“What does she do for a living?” “Where does she get her water?” The questions and Rob’s answers continued, but Clare no longer listened to the words.
After several minutes, the hallway began to fill as students poured out of nearby rooms. Then Rob was there. “Clare? What are you doing here? Are you okay?”
She straightened, wincing when both ankle and knee twinged at the sudden movement. “I’m fine. I just...I was passing by.” She faced Rob and made sure her expression was serious. “You know, the woman you were describing to your class? Maybe she’s pregnant.”
Rob froze and looked at her intently before taking a deep breath and pulling her into his arms. “Thank God. Thank God you’re all right.”
Only in that moment did she understand how worried he’d been about her—a woman who’d lost too much weight, had no energy or appetite, and although she might no longer walk with a shuffle, her gait was slow and careful. Rob leaned back and continued to examine her, as if he’d forgotten what she looked like.
“So what was wrong with the woman? The one you told the class about?”
“Oh. Cyanide poisoning.”
“I thought cyanide killed you in like, five minutes.”
“If you take a big enough dose. She was poisoning herself slowly, with apple seeds and cigarettes.”
“On purpose?”
“Not on purpose. Clare, you’re happy about this, aren’t you?”
Clearly, he was. She leaned in to hug him, hoping he’d accept it in place of an actual answer, and was relieved when he took her arm and walked with her to his office.
As soon as they were inside with the door closed, he took her back in his arms. “So, when are we having this baby?”
“Late August.” And impossible to imagine on this freezing cold day the heat that would be baking the city into somnolence by then.
“You’re happy about it, aren’t you?” Rob tipped her chin and searched her eyes.
She couldn’t duck the question a second time. “It’s a huge surprise. I’m...still getting used to the idea.”
Rob didn’t seem to be having a problem adjusting. His lips stretched into a broad grin. “Guess it’s a good thing we have seven months then.”
Later, Rob would decide the slow downward slide of their marriage from happiness to despair began before Clare’s pregnancy, but at the time, he was certain it explained her poor appetite, growing indifference to her appearance, and lack of enthusiasm.
Then she lost the baby.
He knew she needed time to recover, but now, weeks later, she still wasn’t eating, was increasingly lethargic. He tried to hide his own grief from Clare, not wanting to add the weight of his sadness to her burden. Although, sometimes he wondered if she would notice if he grieved openly.
Then came the morning he found Mona had died in her sleep. He’d knelt to give the little dog a pat. She had gone deaf and didn’t always react when he came out of the bedroom. Today there was no response to his touch, no tongue swipe in greeting. The small body was no longer even warm. He wrapped Mona in a towel then went to tell Clare.
He sat on the side of the bed and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Clare?”
After a moment, she stirred and opened her eyes.
“I have bad news, love. Mona died last night.”
Clare blinked, then her expression changed to comprehension and pain. “No. No. She c-can’t hav
e...”
He lay alongside her, holding her shaking body in his arms. Her tears soaked the shoulder of his shirt. She hadn’t cried, at least in his presence, after she lost the baby. So perhaps these tears were for both her losses.
He made no attempt to stem his own tears, and together, in each other’s arms, he and Clare wept.
“What are we going to do, Rob? We d-don’t have anywhere to bury her.”
“We can have her cremated, then the next time we go sailing we’ll take her with us and sprinkle her on the waters. Would that be okay?”
After a moment, still clinging to him, Clare nodded her head. He continued to hold her until she moved out of his arms. He waited while she dressed, then she went with him to the vet’s. Two days later, he collected the ashes, but by the time the weather was warm enough to go sailing, the rhythm of their life together had fixed into a new pattern.
Now, when he arrived home, not only was there no furry greeting from Mona, there was no scent of something delicious floating in the air. Dinner had become an endless series of frozen entrées smelling of damp cardboard as they heated in the microwave. There was also no kiss from Clare followed by her sitting with him, sipping wine, as they shared the details of their days.
He suggested she go to a therapist, something she repeatedly rejected. Finally, in desperation, he called Clare’s mother.
“Rob, oh my God, is something wrong?”
The panic in her voice was understandable given the last time he’d called her was after Clare lost the baby and was admitted to the hospital.
“No, no. It’s...I wanted to talk to you about Clare. Did she...that is, did you know Mona died?”
“Oh, what a shame. No, she never mentioned it.”
He could hear sympathy but also relief in his mother-in-law’s voice. “She does call you though, right?”
“Every Wednesday afternoon, like clockwork.”
“Did she ever talk about the baby?”
“She said she feels tired and sad. Do you think it’s more than that?”
“I’ve tried to get her to see someone. She won’t go.”
“Do you want me to come out?”
“Please. I’ll pay your way.”
“That isn’t necessary. I’ve wanted to visit, but I didn’t want to be a bother. But if Clare needs me?”
“She does.” Although it hurt to admit he wasn’t enough.
“Clare, it’s me.” The voice was Denise’s. “How about lunch? I’m free any day this week. So call me. Bye.”
Clare deleted Denise’s message and went back to bed. She never answered the phone when it rang. Easier to ignore messages than to speak to Denise or Lynne, neither of whom would believe she was too busy to make time for them. Her only outside contact was her parents. She called them once a week in order to head off the possibility they might call her at some random time. Much easier for her to manage the conversation when she initiated it.
She tried to paint an optimistic picture for her mom and dad, but she could no longer summon the energy to move through the rest of her life. And she was hiding not only from Denise, Lynne, and her parents. She was also hiding from Rob—her thoughts, her feelings, the fact she spent most of her days sleeping. Rob made her deception easier by not expecting her to get up with him in the morning. To fool him, she had only to get up in time to heat one of the pre-packaged entrées from Star Market for dinner.
Sometimes Rob had evening meetings and didn’t get home until late enough she could justify being in bed. Those were the best days.
When she was awake, time unfolded, an endless, featureless span. Asleep, dreams, when they came, flickered out of her grasp before she could catch them, like firefly flashes caught with the corner of the eye.
“Don’t bother with dinner tonight, love. I’ll be home early. We’ll go out.”
Clare clicked the answering machine off, glad she’d thought to check for messages. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and dragged herself back to the bedroom. She’d need to take a shower, then, wash her hair. Damn Rob, anyway. It wasn’t their anniversary or either of their birthdays. Screw it. She was going back to bed. She could say she had cramps.
“Clare?”
Rob’s voice yanked her out of a deep sleep, and left her shaking.
“Love, didn’t you get my message?”
“Message?”
“About dinner.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I have cramps. I was trying to sleep them off.”
“Your period was last week.”
Damn, she didn’t think he paid that much attention. “Maybe it’s a stomach flu. All I know is, I feel lousy.” She rolled over, rubbing her eyes. “Mom? What are you doing here?” As she sat up, Rob backed out of the room, the coward.
“My, it’s so dark and fusty in here.” Her mother pulled the shades open. “Now why don’t you get dressed, hon. I’ll make chamomile tea to help settle your stomach.”
“I feel awful.”
“I can see you do, sweetie.” Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and scooped her into a hug. “Oh, my, Clare, you’re so skinny. I’ll have to make chicken soup for you.”
“Oh, Mom...” Suddenly she was crying so hard, she could barely catch her breath. Through it all, her mother held her, patting gently.
After her mother’s visit, Clare was more restless. She began spending her days reading books she went to the library to pick out. Many she returned after reading a page or two, but in every batch at least one book was good enough to distract her, although it did take a toll on her limited store of energy for forays into even imaginary lives, imaginary tears.
Gradually, she began to seek out books about people who had surmounted problems. But after reading several such stories, she still had no faith in her own ability to overcome.
Her restlessness continued to increase until, abruptly, reading was no longer enough. Instead, she began to leave the apartment shortly after Rob and spend her time sitting in coffee shops or wandering the aisles of busy stores or riding a trolley to the end of the line and back. All the while, she examined those around her. Listening in on conversations, watching mothers struggling with toddlers, business men and women shuffling through briefcases, students moving in response to silent music, street people going through the trash.
One day she stumbled and, when there was no pain, she realized how much her leg had improved, something she hadn’t consciously noticed before although she now walked miles every day and climbed on and off streetcars with ease.
It no longer mattered, though. Sometime during those weeks spent sleeping, she’d let go of her goal to dance again. In its place, she had a life as the wife of the good man who’d saved her.
Chapter Eleven
Dissonance
Harsh, discordant, a lack of harmony
“Sorry I’m late.” Rob kissed Clare, but with only the briefest touch of his lips. If he tried for more, she would simply pull away, and he couldn’t bear it.
“That’s okay.” She sounded calm, as if she were uninterested whether he was at home or at work.
He forced himself to smile. “Did you have a good day?”
“It was fine.” No smile in return.
After her mother’s visit, she’d seemed better, and he’d felt hopeful, but now she’d returned to shutting him out. While he changed clothes, Clare heated the food, and after they ate, she would spend the rest of the evening reading. He’d begun to hate the sight of the books piled beside the bed.
He took his seat at the table. “What did you do today?”
“Oh, you know. The usual.” She set a microwave-heated entrée down and walked over to turn on the television, another unwelcome alteration to their dinner routine.
He stood and turned the television off. Clare blinked in surprise.
“Tell me, Clare. What you did today.” He spoke softly but firmly.
She chewed her lip, staring at him with wary eyes.
“Please, Clare.”
“Well, I got up and showered. Dressed. Ate breakfast. Then I did my exercises, went to the grocery store. After that I…ate lunch, went to the library, read a little bit, cooked dinner.”
Lots of busyness, but nothing of substance. And the cooking of dinner involved only setting the timer on the microwave.