Embracing Darkness (63 page)

Robert Poole sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly as he went back into the kitchen. He never was able to win an argument with his wife. The two had been at odds for years, even before Phineas was born. In fact, it was the events that led up to Phineas’s birth that caused the rift between Dr. Robert Poole and Mary Margaret Brennan.

In the fall of 1888 they had been married in a Catholic ceremony that none of the Poole clan attended. Seamus Brennan told his daughter as they left the church after the vows, “Don’t worry, darlin’. We don’t need their Orange souls ’round us. This assures that me grandson will be raised a Catholic, as he ought to be.”

Mary Margaret knew how important it was to her father to have a grandchild, more specifically a grandson. He had no other children and, as the only surviving child of his parents who had lost three other children before him, wanted to see his legacy live on before he died.

The new Mrs. Poole also believed that it was her duty as a good Irish Catholic to bear children. This was her purpose in life. She had recognized this desire at a young age, fifteen or so, in Ireland when she fell head over heels for a local boy by the name of Danny Jackson.

In fact, it was Mary Margaret who proposed to Danny on their second date. When he expressed hesitation on the basis of age, she had replied, “Oh, come now. We’re not too young at all. Me grandma and granddad on me father’s side were wed at thirteen!”

Danny Jackson was scared away by Mary Margaret’s persistence. Her track record in landing boyfriends and keeping them was poor, to say the least. She had four beaus after Danny, and they all lasted until the second date when, after popping the question, she would repeat the refrain about her paternal grandparents’ age upon entering into the sacred bond of marriage.

It wasn’t until Seamus Brennan brought his nineteen-year-old daughter to the hospital in Exeter, after she had scalded her arm while boiling potatoes, that she met with any success in romance. At the time she and her father had been in America less than two years and managed to meet no one. Her father needed her domestic help more than ever now that his wife Maureen was gone. While he did odd jobs around the community, Mary Margaret tended to housekeeping chores in their apartment located over a tailor’s shop in Exeter.

Resigned to never meeting anyone and getting married, she spent her evenings during those first two years in New Hampshire reading to her illiterate father, sewing the holes in his socks, and turning in before 8:00. All of this changed, however, on that fateful afternoon when, upon returning home from one of his miscellaneous jobs in town, Seamus found his daughter holding her forearm wrapped in a white towel.

“What have ya done ta yerself, darlin’?” he asked.

“I burned meself on the potato water.”

“The saints preserve us! We’ve got to be gettin’ ya to a hospital.”

“But father, can we afford it?”

“That’ll be for me to worry about, daughter,” he replied.

Had Mary Margaret’s father known what the result of that hospital visit would be, he’d just as soon not have gone. Seamus Brennan never did like Robert Poole, mainly because he wasn’t Irish but also because he was a Protestant. Some of this animosity stemmed from how he and his daughter had been treated in their new home in America. “People ’round here find out yer a Catholic,” he had been known to comment, “they treat ya like a darkie or a Jew.”

Nevertheless, it was hard for Seamus Brennan to forbid his daughter from seeing the doctor. Robert’s regard for Mary Margaret was equally as strong as hers for him, and he was, after all, a doctor so that Seamus knew his daughter would be well taken care of financially.

“As long as you be makin’ me a grandpa, that’s all yer old dad be wantin’,” he told Mary Margaret when she told him after her second date with Robert that he’d accepted her proposal. “Marryin’ for love is overrated,” Seamus continued. “I loved yer ma, truly I did. But I can’t say we was happy until you come along, darlin’. We need procreation to keep us around. People get married to have children, the way God expects us to.”

By 1890 Dr. and Mrs. Robert Poole were at each other’s throats. Their fighting had started within a year after they’d gotten married. From the night they consummated their vows to eleven months afterwards, the Pooles labored mightily day and night to conceive a child, but they wound up blaming one another for their infertility. Insults went back and forth, but still in bed every night they kept trying to achieve pregnancy.

In July of 1891 Mary Margaret had her good friend Edith Foster, a Methodist woman she’d met some time before at an ecumenical gathering, over for morning coffee. With Robert at work, the two had little reason to talk in code, as they tended to do when their husbands were around.

While the two ladies sat at the table in the Poole kitchen, Mary Margaret broke with tradition and blurted out, “I can’t get pregnant.”

“What?” asked Edith.

“Well,” Mary Margaret replied, “I don’t know who is to blame, but I can tell you that it’s as though God doesn’t want us to have children. I mean, no one can accuse us of not tryin’ hard enough. Me father is beginning to think it’s because I married a Protestant. No offense, Edith.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. That’s just silly superstition. Robert doesn’t have a religious bone in his body. So I doubt that a man with no religion can impact a potential pregnancy.”

Mary Margaret wiped a tear from her eye, sniffled, and said, “Well then, maybe God doesn’t want me lying with a man who doesn’t believe in Him.”

“Nonsense,” Edith replied.

“But me dad wants a grandchild. I can’t disappoint him.”

“Do
you
want children, Mary Margaret?”

“Of course I do. What else is there for a married woman? It’s me duty. But if I can’t conceive, what else is there to do?”

“I know!” exclaimed Edith Fisher. “Why don’t you adopt?”

“Me dad wants his
own
grandchild,” said Mary Margaret, “one that comes from
his
blood. He won’t see someone else’s child as his own flesh.”

Edith huffed at the notion and said, “Well I think that most times the problem stems from the woman not being able to conceive. If that’s the case, then, just stuff a pillow under your dress for nine months, adopt a baby, and say it’s yours. I’m just kidding, of course.”

“That’s brilliant!” exclaimed Mary Margaret.

“Wait,” replied Edith. “Let me get this straight. You want to try to dupe your father into thinking that you’re having a baby? Do you know how long it might take you to adopt a child? I mean, you have to think this through carefully and that’s only if you’re crazy enough to go along with this scheme.”

“It was your idea!” retorted Mary Margaret, angered at her friend’s apparent unwillingness to help.

“I mentioned it as a joke only to cheer you up. Besides,
you
said that your father wanted a grandchild of his very own, not just someone else’s.”

Mary Margaret grabbed her friend’s hands and said, “But he will never know it’s not mine!”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” replied Edith Foster. “Where are you going to get this baby?”

After thinking for a moment, Mary Margaret came up with a plan. Her husband would conceive a child with another woman, who would give birth to an infant and then transfer it to the Pooles. Meanwhile Mary Margaret would pretend to be pregnant. The only question that remained was that of who was going to be the host mother.

“OH NO!” shouted Edith Foster, leaping up from the table. “I’M A MARRIED WOMAN, AS ARE YOU! HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK I WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?”

Mary Margaret intercepted Edith before she could reach the door. Putting both hands on her friend’s shoulders, she sought to reassure Edith. “Easy now. Sit back down and have some more coffee. I want to go over the details.”

“There are no details to go over,” replied Edith, “because I’m not doing this. And besides, your husband is a doctor. He’ll know that you’re not pregnant.”

“We can tell him the truth eventually,” said Mary Margaret, “but if we tell him now he won’t agree to it. If he ends up finding out, then so be it. He’ll have no choice except to go along with it. Anyway, the child will be his.”

“No, Mary Margaret. You get this idea out of your mind right now. I am
not
doing it!”

Mary Margaret faked a sigh. “I didn’t want to go this route, Edith, but you leave me little choice. You talk of infidelity, you and me both bein’ married and all, but have you forgotten how I covered for you last March when you and Allen Reid went away for a weekend together. You told me to tell Ralph that it was just goin’ to be us girls headed down to Newport for a spell. Afterwards you confided how Allen had taken you to a place of ecstasy that you’re husband never could, and I don’t mean where you and Mr. Reid drove to.”

Edith was speechless. “I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” she replied.

Although Edith Fisher was more than upset, Mary Margaret was as calm as ever. “So are you going to do this for me?” she asked.

Edith covered her face and began to weep. Without taking her hands away, she nodded in acquiescence.

“Be comforted, Edith, dear.” Mary Margaret said, sounding patronizing, “After all it’s only a fifty percent chance that
I’m
the unfertile one.”

Mary Margaret planned it for an evening when Robert would be working late, because when he did Mary Margaret would already be in bed. He’d come home, eat his supper, walk into the bedroom, undress, and copulate. Nothing would be different this time except that Mary Margaret would be hiding under the bed while her husband made love to Edith Fisher. It was simple, to be sure,
if
all went according to plan.

“Now you just lie there in bed, deary,” Mary Margaret said patronizingly. “You and I are of the same size, and our hair is roughly the same length and texture. He won’t dream of its being anyone else but yours truly. What I’ll be wantin’ you to do is sprinkle a dab of me perfume on yourself. I always wear it before we make love. It entices the beast in Robert.”

“What do I say if he speaks to me? I can’t imitate you. We don’t sound anything alike.”

“We never speak while we’re makin’ love. It’s always been that way. He won’t say but three things to ya: “Hello,” “That was incredible,” and “Good night.”

Everything was set for that Wednesday night. As expected, Robert came home at a little after ten. While Mary Margaret slid under the bed, Edith quickly got into Mary Margaret’s nightgown, blew out the kerosene lamp, got under the covers, and waited.

Edith was so nervous about the whole thing that she could not remain calm. Not only had she been put into a situation where she was cheating on both her husband and her lover, but she also was being forced to have her first baby, one she ultimately would have to relinquish.

As planned, Robert came into the bedroom after finishing his dinner. He quickly undressed and then crawled onto the bed over Edith. He bounced lightly on the bed to arouse the woman who he assumed was his own wife.

“Hello,” he whispered.

Edith said nothing, keeping her eyes shut and trying her hardest to breathe rhythmically.

Robert brought his lips to her ear and whispered, “I’m excited.”

Edith’s eyes opened wide. She thought to herself,
What
about
saying
only
three
things
to
me?
Maybe
he
won’t
say
it
was
incredible
.

Robert and Edith conceived that night. Nine months later they would find out whether Seamus Brennan would have a granddaughter or a grandson.

Edith knocked on the Pooles’ front door. As expected, Mary Margaret answered it. Edith had just spent the morning vomiting. What’s more, she had missed her period the month before and was late this month. She was two-months pregnant.

Mary Margaret was so excited that she jumped up but landed on her left ankle, breaking it. For the next several weeks Mary Margaret had to stay off her foot, and her preference was to sit on the sofa in the living room. There she spent those weeks knitting baby booties, shirts, and pajamas, all the while humming nursery songs and trying to think of the right time to tell her father the good news.

About two weeks later, when her ankle had healed, Mary Margaret made her grand announcement.

“Now you be sure to raise that baby a Catholic!” Seamus said sternly to his daughter.

“Of course,” she answered. “Robert doesn’t care what religion the baby is. He’s just happy that he’s going to be a dad.”

Shortly thereafter Dr. Poole was leaving the house to go to work. Mary Margaret had instructed Edith Fisher to be at the house precisely at nine so that they could compare waistlines. They had to be sure that, when Edith began showing, Mary Margaret would start doing the same.

“Pssst!” came a noise from behind a tree in front of the house. Robert surveyed his surroundings but, seeing no one, turned and continued walking. “Psssssssst!” The noise was louder this time. Dr. Poole turned toward the sound again and saw a figure come out from behind the tree.

It was Edith Fisher. She looked from side to side as if paranoid that someone might see them.

“Hello, Edith,” Robert Poole said politely.

“We need to talk,” she answered.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing how worried she seemed.

“Can we go somewhere?”

Edith didn’t know how she would tell Robert the awful truth or how he would react to it. After all, it isn’t every day that your wife blackmails her best friend into sleeping with you just to have a baby. Edith prepared herself for the worst.

“Your wife has done a terrible thing, Robert.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his friendly smile quickly fading into a suspicious frown.

“We can’t talk here. I don’t want her to know I’ve told you.”

“I’m due at the hospital in fifteen minutes, and it’s a ten-minute walk.”