Great With Child

by Sonia Taitz

Abigail heard Richard Trubridge put the phone down. She remained frozen in the bathroom, stunned. Wasn’t he ever going to tell her he had at some point gotten married? Was he telling her now, in some blasé, sadistic fashion, or did he think she was deaf? Kids, too.

  Maybe that’s what he had meant, earlier, by his comment, “Do you do this often?” Not sex, but adultery. Jaded junketeering. Of course, he hadn’t worn a ring; that would have been disrespectful to “hon,” not to mention the fort she was so laudably holding down. Abigail knew that people were often cynical, that they used others, but this level of cool deception disgusted her. And she’d fallen for all of it. Golf tips, gazebo, champagne. Some manipulative flattery, a few sensual spots woken up by a pro. So obvious, really. What a fool she was. Men like Richard knew exactly which buttons to push. That looking into your eyes thing. Classic.

  Abigail left the bathroom, picked her clothes up from the bedroom floor, and put them back on. She dressed with a philosophical slowness. Then she spoke, her voice just a whisper:

  “OK, I guess I’m leaving now. It was—it was fun.”

  Richard was asleep again, his body radiating its tempting, treacherous warmth. She watched him breathe, enthralled still. She would have loved to lie back down, snuggle this man, forgive him, beg him for more. But Abigail fought her weakness back: If the longing hurt now, how much worse would it be in the end?

  How could she be so wrong? How on earth? And was this why he was so pro-father? He had his own brood stashed somewhere? She even felt sorry for his wife—to be married to so sociopathic a liar. How smooth he’d been. She’d been completely taken in!

  She wanted him to know she was leaving. She wanted to rouse him, jar him awake. So Abigail raised her voice to the level of a closing argument:

  “Richard,” she pronounced, “I have to go now.”

  She was glad to be in his room, a room she could leave. She could not have borne his leaving her alone in her own little rectangle of space. She’d walk out, take a shower, start packing. Her head would be high. She was not the happily married one. She was not the cheater.

  “What, sweetie?” he said, stirring. Richard’s voice was scarcely audible. “Sweetie”: Was he burbling to her or to the other one? You know, the wife he’d conveniently forgotten (and forgotten to mention)?

  “Open your eyes and look at me,” said Abigail, looking down. She felt cold and cruel and sad.

  “What—what is it? Oh, I must have fallen back asleep. You’re getting up?” Richard rubbed his eyes and looked at Abigail. “Come here, hey now, where’re you going?” His voice was thick with sleep, vulnerable.

  “I’ve gotten in over my head,” said Abigail, not moving, though.

  “Please don’t leave; what time is it?” He reached for his glasses as his weak eyes searched pleadingly for meaning. They were near the phone. By the time he had put them on, she was stepping out of the suite.

  “I want more,” said his voice, calling out from the bedroom. Abigail froze at the doorway. Those were her very words, that first night. It had cost her some pride to say them, and it shamed her to think he remembered them enough to repeat them. His audacity in the face of the sordid facts said something about Richard Trubridge’s character, but it was something Abigail, surprised to be openly crying, was in no position to explore.

  5

  As she walked away, Abigail coldly recalled that she had not taken her pill that night. She’d have to take it as soon as she got back to her room, at the less chic end of the grounds. Apart from the fact that she’d just met this man—this unavailable man—the last thing she wanted was a baby to need her.

  Since her younger sister had become a mother, Abigail had avoided visiting her. Annie’s brood, Abigail’s niece and nephews, were as wired as terriers. The seven-year-old boys, Jared and Jesse, tore around the house touching everything; the five-yearold, Jaycee, whined chronically; and the baby, Todd, was a projectile vomiter. Annie, of course, acted as though they were precious gifts from heaven above, but was it not more likely that these blobs of flesh were punishments, put on earth to prevent women from remembering what they were put on earth to achieve? Like Bottom’s ass, they bewitched you into cooing love notes. Then they grew up, becoming hairy and rough and smart-mouthed, and then they left you. They stole your mind, as Fudim had said. They stole your life, thought Abigail. Annie had no life now. She’d been thoroughly annexed.

  Though she held an M.A. in developmental psychology, Annie never even thought of applying her skills outside the house. (She might have had an office! There might have been clean walls, with no fingerprints, grape-juice splatters, or ketchup smudges on them!) Instead, Annie was usually to be found stuffing the fridge with free-range poultry, fish (which the children threw at one another), organic fruits, and cruciferous vegetables, or checking the catalogs for next season’s cotton children’s clothing from Sweden.

  How could Annie stand it? Was she some kind of saint, or a brainwashed fool? And what had brainwashed her? Motherhood itself—with its infamous hormones of gestation and lactation? Was it the trend now, to have kids and drop out? Hadn’t Annie learned a thing from the past?

  Abigail thought about her own mother. If only Clara Milch Thomas had gotten out of the house and made a contribution in all those years. She was responsible, good with children; she could have taught somewhere. She might have lived longer, left more of a mark. As it was, her life was a moaning wind, a twist in the bedclothes, a raking of nails at the air. She had needed her children too fiercely; she had needed to be a mother even when her children had grown and gone.

  Abigail was never going to let that happen to her.

  When she entered her room, however, she had a shock. Searching first her cosmetics bag and then every corner of her purse and suitcase, she didn’t find what she was looking for. Her little beige pill case was there, yes, but the card was empty, with punched-out holes where the pills had been. She had accidentally packed last month’s used package. Abigail had followed her usual travel checklist, but perhaps she’d been duped by the tranquilizers she’d taken on the morning of the journey. She’d enjoyed the rare tranquility they brought as she packed her pills (as she’d thought), electric toothbrush, high-SPF sunblock. Since working at the firm and hearing about all the different ways that aircraft fail, Abigail had developed a secret terror of flying. Two Ativans in her system, and she could get to Palm Springs in unashamed calm. But apparently not with a full pack of contraceptive pills.

  After returning to New York, she told herself, she’d get right back on schedule. Besides, Abigail was sure she was the type, common in these hectic times, who did not impregnate easily. (Half her sisters’ friends complained about this.) No matter what she had done (or forgotten to do), there had never been even a single missed period in Abigail’s life. She would be all right this time, too. Just to make sure, she did fifty jumping jacks before showering in a haze of boiling water and antibacterial soap. Science had never been her subject, but Abigail had often heard that tense people did not easily conceive—in which case she’d be fine. Being with Richard was the first time in her life she hadn’t been tense.

  But now she was rigid with fear whenever she thought of the man, married liar and powerful lawyer, husband and father of kids. No condom for this guy. And he would probably tell the next girl nothing about her and their baby scare. Not that there would be any baby scare. Tense people did not conceive, right? And even if they did, there was always the smart girl’s early out, still legal. She could probably get some quick little sucking procedure done, a touch of blood, and be none the worse for wear.

  When, despite resuming the intake of birth control, an incredulous Abigail missed a period, then another, she had had to concede that there were some inexorable forces she had not tangled with before. Whatever she did next, she acknowledged her surprise—that a living being was taking form inside of her, even as she and Richard did not speak (or need to speak) another word to each other, much less touch.


  With her mother gone, death had become something Abigail took less abstractly. This new lesson—in the form of a spinning mass of life that took off inside her, without her permission—seemed even more invincible. It was stronger than her will, stronger than her plans, stronger than her wish that she be left alone, free and untouched. Death would leave you alone and at rest. Not so new life.

  Abigail went back to the obvious option of “losing” the baby—the fetus—but something (new hormones, perhaps?) made her feel, instead, as though her shrinking sense of self was all that mattered in this world. What was this weird, surrendering awe? Was this what pregnancy did? It felt almost painful, fate taking over all the plotting and planning, ego stepping aside and letting a mystery grow. Yes, it was a growing pain she felt, an instructive pain, and these were rare.

  There were even times that Abigail sensed her own mother alive still, within her, a quickening love she could carry to term. Could she really bring a wandering soul into the world? Would her mother have wanted her to?

  Abigail thought guiltily about her mother’s death. There had been such fury in it, not only at cancer, but at her, Abigail. There had been a bitter scorn. She had had her eyes opened by illness, and had seen Abigail for what she was—a cold person, absent of vegetative growth, a withholder of life and of love. And now, Abigail could feel it, see it—the daughter who had rejected her own mother. There must be a place in hell, she saw, for those who spurn the teat. And she had spurned it, preferring the steely gray embrace of male ambition to anything else in the world, however sweet.

  There were glimmers of painful new knowledge inside her now. Her mother had been good! Her mother had helped others! Her mother had done all she did to make the world more comfortable and safe! Abigail felt humble. If goodness were the ultimate lasting status, she would have to explore it. Was motherhood goodness? The hormones were making her say “yes,” not only to that question, but to all unanswered questions, and to life. Maybe Richard was rotten after all—her heart ached at this reversal—but she could become a better person.

  And then, too, maybe it was better this way. The timing was somewhat advantageous, Abigail thought, her mind struggling to be practical. She was no longer young enough to presume fertility for very much longer. If she was ever going to be a mother, she’d better act before it was too late, before the well was dry. As for her single state—how contemporary, how brave it was! It would actually be like some challenging extra-credit problem: Could she reach for partnership, be a mother, succeed at both—without a husband? The answer, she knew, was “of course.” Best foot forward, and always marching away from the Dana Kidder paradigm.

  She’d actually be a pioneer. Someone to watch, like Susan B. Anthony, if perhaps more vulnerable, and already prone to acid reflux.

  6

  A week later, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Abigail’s cellphone vibrated. It pierced the late afternoon library silence even with that smallest of sounds. Abigail felt vital when summoned that way, as though she were an emergency room doctor. Swiping it up before the second shudder, she expected to hear Mr. Fudim’s secretary, Leona. Instead, she was greeted by a flirtatious male voice:

  “Found you, didn’t I!”

  “Who’s this?” she whispered, keeping her head down.

  “Tim!”

  A pause.

  “‘Coffee Shop’ Tim!”

  “How’d you get my cell phone number? Hang on.”

  She walked out into the echoey marble hallway.

  “I called your office,” he said. “Took me a long time to remember the name. Then it came to me. Fletcher—the bow and arrow, shades of Cupid. I called them, and told them it was urgent, so they told me where you were.”

  “Who’d you say you were?” It was a pretty small firm, and reception knew the clients, by and large.

  “I told them it was Tim Vail from the offices of Vail, Sun Valley, and Gstaad, and your gal put me right through. Even asked me to spell ‘Gstaad.’ It is hard to spell.”

  “A silent g, I know.” She’d seen the place in magazines, gossip columns. He, of course, had probably been there, schussing from peak to peak.

  “And don’t forget the double a.”

  “No, rest assured that I won’t.” Abigail paused. “Let me call you back. I’m in the middle of something,” she said, almost hanging up before Tim could give her his number.

  Pacing the library, Abigail felt herself getting annoyed, not only by the topic of conversation (if that’s what it was) but by the fact that she was having one at all. During work hours. In the sanctum of the Bar Association library. Where were her doorkeepers? No pro like Fudim’s Leona, Abigail’s assistant, Tina, was a chatterbox who mixed up messages and asked impudent questions about her gestation. For example, Tina was very interested in who the father was, and frequently let Abigail know about the office “pools” in which the support staff voted. Was the “baby daddy” (she’d had the nerve to say) someone Abigail knew, or just some sperm from a refrigerated bank? Why did she need to go to a bank, the gossiping staffers had argued, when most of the guys she knew were probably tall and brainy anyway? Pick any of the associates, you’d make a winner—and these guys were going to be good providers, too.

  “So you know who I guessed it was?” Tina had confided not long ago at the office. “Someone you knew, definitely. That psycho guy who used to work here, Richard something?”

  “Trubridge?”

  “No, that doesn’t sound right. I’m sure it was Richard, though. Wait—you’re right! It was Trubridge. Funny name, Trubridge. Hmm.”

  “Did you say you knew him?”

  “Don’t you remember why he left? Fired. Some big crooked deal he was in. Got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. That happens more than you or I would like to think, you know?”

  “I do know.” Abigail was a lawyer, after all. Crookedness, both in the field and out (where lawyers policed it) was not altogether new to her. And in the case of Richard, it was, sadly, no surprise.

  “But you mean he—” she began.

  “Maybe he hid something—anything to win, huh?”

  “Well, there are rules of discovery for that—”

  “Hey, rules are made to be broken. We’re all human. But who’s surprised, not me. Come on, the rich get richer, right?”

  “That’s what I hear,” said Abigail, more confused than before the conversation started. But Tina was just warming to her subject.

  “So you’re human, huh?” She chuckled in a weird, warm way, like “Welcome to the club, girl. We’re none of us perfect.” Tina had continued reassuringly, “He was over in Palm Springs, right? Heard you two spent some time together.” Tina was silent for a moment, as though trying to imagine what a junket like that would be like, to “spend time together” in a nice place, far away from the office.

  “You—you say he used to work here?” Abigail stammered. “I—I don’t fully recollect, there were a lot of . . .”

  “Yeah. He was cute in a way,” said Tina. “I could see the attraction. And he smelled nice, like a kind of woody thing. But didn’t you know about the scandal?”

  Abigail tried to remember. A few years back, there had been some buzzing in the higher echelons about hidden evidence, and then a few lawyers had seemed to leave rather abruptly. At the time, she hadn’t thought much about it. Richard had been in the family law division; not her area.

  “Of course I heard something about it,” said Abigail. “So—so that was Richard?

  “Yeah, but he looked different then, I don’t know, I haven’t seen him lately. But they say he’s got a different look. Supposed to be a lot hotter—”

  “Tina,” said Abigail, cutting her off. “I’m serious. He’s not the guy, I’m not interested in his ‘hotness’—and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sit around spreading these rumors at the firm.”

  “I’m not the one making the noise here,” said Tina with sudden exasperation. “He is, believe it or not. This Two-Bri
dges guy, or whatever his name is. He had the nerve to call you the other day and was so pushy—I transferred him to personnel to get rid of him! I mean, he acts like he’s still a big shot here, which I can tell you he’s not.”

  “Well, what did he call for?”

  “Look at you. You’re all red.”

  “I’m pregnant, Tina. I’m overheated.” Did men have these intrusive conversations with their assistants? At the same time, part of Abigail liked having another woman she could talk to—one who was down to earth and all too honest.

  “You just said you don’t care.”

  “Yes, I did. But—but maybe there was some legal issue I need to know about. Or assist with.” She cleared her throat in a professional’s way. “Like getting down to brass tacks, come what may. Important matters to be discussed.”

  “Nope—wait, you OK? First you get red, now you’re choking—anyway, no, we don’t do any business with him anymore. And Abigail, he sounded kind of, like, quiet, like a stalker. You know, creepy. So that’s why I thought, I’ll get rid of him. I like to think I keep the weirdos away, right?”

  “Oh. Oh, good work, then.”

  “Thanks. So tell me, if it’s not the stalker, is it the freezer sperm, or what?”

  What could have prompted this call, thought Abigail, wondering if Richard Trubridge knew just how much of a fix he’d gotten her into (not that she couldn’t deal with it masterfully on her own). Did he want her to “take care of it”? Promise not to shame him? Pay her off? No, she argued with herself. Despite Tina’s confidential prattling, no one knew what had actually happened between her and Richard. Certainly no one would have taken the leap and told him. Either way, she didn’t need this man, with all his complications, professional as well as personal. Not with her career, her resourceful mind, her savings.

  “. . . so it’s been almost a week since he called. I think I really got rid of him for you,” Tina was saying.