Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  James shook his head, smiling. “I love you, Cass. You are one in a million. Make that one in a billion.”

  “Shouldn’t you make that ‘one of a kind’?” I asked. “Otherwise that means there’s still at least a few other women out there exactly like me.”

  “I’m glad to know that, actually,” he countered, “in case I can’t get you to marry me after all.” We laughed, but I had a sinking sensation in my gut for not sharing the whole truth. This couldn’t work. Not with James. But could it? He said he loved me and still wanted to marry me. Maybe Daniel was right, and that would be enough.

  At the I-90 East on-ramp we noticed some highway patrol cars whizzing past underneath, headed the opposite direction into downtown Seattle. “Someone’s trying to make it onto the evening news,” James joked, raising his eyebrows at me. Although I wouldn’t know it for several hours more, the attempt would be successful.

  • • •

  The snow at the top of the Pass had icy patches and the occasional tip of a rock showed through, but the ranger promised it got better as you went along the loop trail. Because the guided hike scheduled for 10:00 had left some time ago, with the next one not till 11:30, James and I decided to strike out on our own and possibly catch up with the others.

  “It’s more fun this way, anyhow,” he declared, “because now we don’t have to behave ourselves.” Meaning, he could tackle me when we got around the first bend, sending us crashing into the snow bank. Punching him, I scrambled back to my feet, laughing while I brushed myself clean, only to look up and get a snowball full in the face.

  “You jerk!” I shrieked. The fight was on. Snoqualmie snow is never ideal for building snowmen and makes for terrible snowballs that disintegrate mid-flight, but we gave it our best. Ten minutes later we were flushed and disheveled, our hair dripping with melting snow. “You missed some,” I said, pretending to reach for his shoulder to brush it off but then dropping a last icy hunk down the back of his neck.

  “That’s it!” James roared, floundering after me as I tried to take off running in the dumb snowshoes. If a mountain lion or a Sasquatch decided to make a meal of me, there wouldn’t be much I could do about it with those things on. And sure enough, James caught me after a few yards. “Kiss me,” he ordered. “Kiss me, or I’ll bury you in the snow and leave only your head sticking out.”

  Clearly we weren’t going to catch up with the 10:00 guided snowshoe hike, and the 11:30 might even have come upon us not a quarter-mile up the trail, had James not broken off and muttered in my ear, “Let it be today, Cass. Tell me today that you’ll marry me.” I gasped and pulled away from him, and he frowned at me. “What?”

  Taking an unsteady step back, I tried to screw up my courage. “James…there’s something I haven’t told you.” The air was cold and thin up here, and when I tried to take deep lungfuls of it, it burned on the way down.

  When I didn’t continue right away, he tried to tease me out of my seriousness. “This looks bad. Let me guess: Troy is still alive. You could marry me, but we’d have to move to a bigamist compound. Fine by me—I’m still in.”

  “Nadina’s going to give up her baby for adoption,” I said, not able to bear his happy unawareness anymore, “and I’m the one adopting it.”

  James grew very still, only his eyes moving over my face, trying to read the truth. I bit my lip, my heart going a mile a minute. Everything depended on this.

  “Say that again?” he asked.

  I complied.

  “I thought you didn’t want children,” he said at last.

  “I didn’t,” I breathed.

  “You mean, you didn’t want to have children with me.”

  “No, no!” I objected. “I didn’t want to have children with anyone,” I tried to explain. “It’s not that I want this child, even—it’s that I feel I’m supposed to take it.”

  “Supposed to take it?” he echoed incredulously. “What does that mean? You’re her mentor, Cass, not her mother, not her social worker. You’re supposed to pray for her and encourage her, not bail her out when she gets pregnant by taking the baby!”

  “I don’t mean ‘supposed to take it’ as an obligation, James,” I pleaded. “I mean that, when Nadina and I were talking about it, I felt in my gut that this was what was supposed to happen with this baby. This was God’s plan to take care of all three of us: Nadina and the baby and me.”

  “God? God? How exactly does this take care of you, Cass?”

  “Because I didn’t trust God anymore. I didn’t want to invest. But when I was trying to tell Nadina how much God cared what happened to her, I realized that God cares what happens to me, too. That He loves me. That it was okay to invest.”

  “Hell, yes, it was okay for you to invest,” said James, his voice hardened with anger and hurt. “What have I been saying to you? I’ve been asking you to invest in us—every step of our relationship. And you’ve been pushing back and pushing back and saying you’re not ready, and I’ve been giving you space and time, and now you go and tell Nadina you’re ready to invest? Why the hell couldn’t this revelation be that you’re ready to invest in us, and you come and tell me?”

  I felt the tears coming. It wasn’t just that he had never before spoken angrily to me; it was that Joanie was right. I had hurt James beyond imagining. “Listen to me, James,” I urged in a choked voice, “this is totally separate from what’s going on with us. It wasn’t that I chose Nadina’s baby and didn’t choose you. I did choose you! I have chosen you! Even before I knew for sure she was pregnant, I was already thinking that, yes, I did want to marry you, if you would still have me, fearful and broken and all.”

  He was breathing hard, his gray eyes like metal. “Is this true? You want to marry me?” I managed to nod, and he exhaled slowly. “Then, can you wait on the decision to take Nadina’s baby? Can you tell her you’ll help her get it adopted, but it may not be you?”

  “James, I can’t,” I said, my anxiety rising again. “Even if I didn’t feel absolutely certain that this is what I’m supposed to do, Nadina won’t even consider having the baby and giving it to strangers. She’s already said so—she’d rather abort it.”

  “That’s emotional blackmail, Cass,” he snapped. “Listen to me: you are not responsible for her actions. You can’t let her manipulate you like this. If you don’t take the baby, and she decides to get an abortion, that’s her choice and nothing to do with you.”

  Putting my hand on his arm I said gently, “I know that James. I said ‘even if I didn’t feel absolutely certain that this is what I’m supposed to do.’ I’m supposed to adopt that baby, and I’m going to.”

  We looked at each other for a long time, each one of us searching for something in the other’s face that we didn’t find. James was looking for wavering on my part; I was looking for acceptance on his.

  He turned away at last, a sob choking in his throat, dragging his clenched fists through his curling hair. Feeling my own tears running down my face, I stumbled after him, tripping in those idiotic snowshoes and having to heave myself back upright.

  “James, I’m sorry,” I cried, everything spilling out at last. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. If you could get your mind around it—it’s kind of an unorthodox beginning to a life together, but it could still be a life together.” In my clumsiness I ran against him, and for a second he clutched me to him, squeezing the breath out of me. Then he gently pushed me away from him.

  “Cass, forgive me. I don’t think I can.” His voice was soft, the anger gone. “It’s—it’s not what I pictured for my life.”

  “Not what you pictured?” My voice strangled against the words. “Not what you pictured? Not one minute of the last twenty-one months has been what I pictured for my life, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good—that it wasn’t worthwhile—that there wasn’t joy. You don’t think God might have more for you than what you can picture? That He can’t work with this? That we can’t work with this because we love each other?�
�

  I could see from his face that it was no use.

  He couldn’t go there. Or he wouldn’t. It was that gap in our experience that I felt from the first.

  Without speaking, we headed back to the trailhead. Who knows what the ranger thought of us, shambling out of the woods a mere half-hour after heading in, not looking at each other or talking. Maybe he’d even been able to catch some of our fight in that clear mountain air because he didn’t ask any questions or pester us with joviality.

  It was all I could do, the entire forty-five minute drive home, to swallow repeatedly, blinking back the tears. Without so many months of practice, I’m sure I couldn’t have pulled it off. When we reached the Palace, my hand hesitated on the car door handle. “James. I’m sorry about all this, and I wish you the very best. I think you’re wonderful.”

  He nodded, and his gray eyes met mine sadly. “I’m sorry, too. That I can’t—that I’m letting you down. You’ll still go through with it—?”

  “Yes. But it’s okay,” I said again. “It’s my choice.” Quickly I got out and tried to maintain some semblance of dignity until I got inside and heard him pull away. Then I didn’t bother anymore, leaning my head against the back of the closed door and bursting into tears.

  There was a scrambling sound in the kitchen, and Phyl came running into the hallway. “Cass?” I transferred my wailing from the door to her shoulder, flinging my arms around her neck. Loyal Phyl rocked me back and forth, making comforting sounds and rubbing my hair. “I’m sorry. So sorry, sweetheart.”

  “Joanie was right,” I hiccupped after a few minutes, raising my head and trying to wipe my streaming eyes. “I’m glad she’s not here to say she told me so.”

  Joanie wasn’t there, but while I’d been bawling all over Phyl, Daniel had entered the kitchen unnoticed. I saw him now, watching us through the doorway. But, as I well knew, when your life is going to hell in a handbasket, it’s hard to drum up lesser, workaday emotions. Embarrassment was too far down the list to trouble me.

  Giving him a shaky smile, I said again, loud enough for him to hear, “Joanie was right. And you were wrong.”

  • • •

  It was only hours later, when I was curled up on the couch under the afghan, comforting myself with Phyl’s madeleines and taking a break from thinking about the latest shipwreck in my life, that I spared a thought for how Nadina’s day might have gone. Even then nothing might have been able to penetrate my self-absorption, had not Daniel decided to watch the news. He had the good sense not to try to talk to me, leaving me to dip my cookie moodily in my tea, while he sank into his favorite armchair and flipped on the television.

  The footage ran for at least ten seconds before it got my attention, and I looked up to see an overhead shot of the highway patrol officers zooming down I-90, the ones whose path had crossed James’ and mine that morning. “The suspect led officers on a high speed chase across the I-90 bridge into downtown Seattle this morning,” read the anchor gravely, “nearly running down several pedestrians and causing at least two other vehicle collisions, before finally crashing his car into one of the barriers police had erected at Aurora and 85th. The police then chased him on foot for several more blocks before finally catching up with him in front of the Sunset Motor Inn. The suspect appears to have been under the influence of narcotics at the time and was currently on probation from an earlier arrest for drug possession. He is now in custody at the King County Jail and will face arraignment tomorrow.”

  Oh, I thought, watching the police officers yank on the slight, tow-headed figure to get him off the ground and push on his head to force him inside the patrol car. Nadina’s had a crappy day too. Looks like Mike didn’t take the news any better than James. Maybe even a little worse.

  Hearing my stifled gasp, Daniel glanced over at me. “Another of your friends, Cass?”

  Unbelievably, I felt a giggle escape me. “No, not a friend. Just the father of my baby.”

  Chapter 37: Disaster Recovery

  “Did you drink the whole thing? Show me the bottle.”

  Nadina groaned dramatically. “I can’t drink anymore, Cass. I’m about to friggin’ pee my pants! Where the flip is that nurse? Let me just go pee a little of it off, okay?”

  “No,” I insisted. “They need your bladder full, or they can’t get a good look. It doesn’t take too long, and then you can go pee to your heart’s content.”

  “I don’t see why we have to do this,” she grumbled. “Especially on my birthday. The doctor already smeared me in that cold-ass goo and took a look. Flipper’s got a friggin’ head and heartbeat.”

  “Well, now they want to do a more thorough job and measure Flipper’s growth, Birthday Girl,” I reassured her, not for the first time. “Since you can’t even say when your last period was, it’ll help them nail down how far along you are. Think about something else as a distraction. Tell me what your Aunt Sylvia found out about that school.”

  “St. Helen’s Institute for Girls,” droned Nadina obediently, “an all-girls school for 9th to 12th grade in the heart of Cleveland. I’ve totally memorized their hokey brochure: ‘Is the public school system not working for your child? Has your child struggled with substance abuse, promiscuity, or negative peer influences?’ Then, have we got the friggin’ school for you! You need nuns with rulers to keep your kid’s sorry ass in line! Cass, did I tell you I figured out why St. Helen’s isn’t co-ed?”

  “To keep girls like you out of trouble, I imagine,” I answered dryly. “Mike was substance abuse, promiscuity, and negative peer influences all rolled into one.”

  “Wrong!” she sang. “It’s because if they took boys too, then they’d be St. Helen’s Institute for Teens. Get it? They’d be S.H.I.T.! God, I bet their sweatshirt sales would go through the roof! I should suggest it to them as a friggin’ fundraiser. It makes me want to go out for cheerleading: S-H-I-T, Helen’s is the place to be! S-H-I-T, watch us go for victory! SHIT! SHIT! Go-o-o-o, SHIT!”

  The ultrasound doctor chose this moment to come in, naturally. He merely smiled, however, and said, “I see you’re feeling energetic today, Ms. Stern.”

  “You’re a guy!” she said accusingly.

  “I am,” he replied evenly.

  Nadina muttered something under her breath that sounded like “friggin’ pervert,” which I tried to cover with loud chitchat, but, whether from embarrassment or resignation or both, she settled down after that and submitted to the examination.

  We already knew, from the cursory ultrasounds in the Ob/Gyn’s office, that the baby had all its limbs, a head and a heart, but Nadina still had some questions for Dr. Keenan. “Can you tell if it’s a dwarf?”

  “Does dwarfism run in your family?” he asked in the same imperturbable voice. I suppose if you had a job like his, you learned to filter out reactions of horror, wonder, or even surprise, lest you freak out the patients.

  On the other hand, we could cross “radiologist” and “ultrasound technician” off the list of Nadina’s possible future careers. The mysterious show of lights and shapes on the screen played out to the soundtrack of her questions and exclamations: “Aaah! What the hell was that? Ohmygod, why is the head so friggin’ huge? That is not coming out of me—no way. Does it already have friggin’ scoliosis—why is it all hunched over like that? I hope this is how it’s supposed to look—I swear to you, Cass, I haven’t hardly drank anything or smoked anything for months, so if it’s all effed up you can blame Mike and his retard felon sperm.”

  This last comment must have been beyond what even Dr. Keenan dealt with in his day-to-day experience because the ultrasound probe paused, and he glanced at me. I smiled noncommitally, it not being my story to tell, but Nadina looked rather triumphant to have finally penetrated his professional reserve. “Yeah, this is a sad and sorry case, Doctor. My boyfriend, Flipper’s dad, is a convicted felon doing 2-5 at Coyote Ridge for vehicular assault and driving while stoned and eluding capture. So he really is a felon, but I added that
bit about him being retarded. I’m still kind of mad at him.”

  Dr. Keenan’s eyes had bugged out somewhat, but he cleared his throat a few times and continued with his examination. “That is quite the story, Ms. Stern. I hope he gets his life straightened out. It may help you both to hear that everything is looking good. I would say the measurements and developments are in line with a fetus roughly 19-20 weeks along. Heartbeat is strong; everything checks out.”

  “Yeah,” sighed Nadina, “sounds good to me, but I don’t think Mike would be so cool with it. He wanted me to get rid of it—that’s why he wigged out that day and got into so much trouble. Even though I told him I was going to give the baby away and it wasn’t like he was going to have to change any friggin’ diapers or anything.”

  “Yes, well,” said Dr. Keenan placatingly, “people feel ready for parenthood at different times. It sounds like…Mike…wasn’t quite ready.”

  “You can say that again,” Nadina agreed. “Cass’s boyfriend wasn’t ready either,” she volunteered, pointing at me. “This is Cass—she’s adopting the baby, and when her boyfriend heard about it, he freaked out too.”

  Turning red, I ground my teeth together. “Certainly, he was upset, but you’ll notice James isn’t currently incarcerated.”

  “I meant he dumped you, just like Mike dumped me.”

  “Yes,” I answered briefly. “So he did.”

  The doctor laid down the probe and passed his hand over his eyes, probably wondering if he’d accidently wandered onto a daytime drama set. After this brief indulgence, he pinned his professional neutrality back on and asked, “Would either of you like to know the sex of the child?”

  We looked at each other. “It’s up to you, Cass,” she said after a pause. “Your baby.”