Invasion of Privacy (17 page)

"No, honey. I married you because you’re Terry."

She lowered her lids until they covered half of her eyes. "If I hadn’t been pregnant, would you have asked me to marry you?"

"You look pretty in that red chair in the sunshine."

She refused to be placated. "I mean it. Answer me, Kurt."

"Maybe not that minute. But we were heading that way, Terry." He took one of her hands when he said the words, as if touching might convince them both.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Because I’ve been thinking ..."

"Hmm." He had grown tired of the conversation and wanted to get back to the newspaper. On the other hand, they were newlyweds. He left the paper on the table.

"I’m not ready for a child."

"Well, of course you aren’t," he said. "Luckily you’ve got several months to prepare. It’s natural to worry about it. This is something entirely new, but we can take a class or something. It’s scary, but there are two of us and we’re going to do great. We’ll still outnumber the little guy."

"Please, Kurt. Spare us both the lower-middle-class fantasy. Let’s set our heights a little higher, hmm?"

He withdrew his hand.

"You’ll be around long enough to change exactly one of each type of diaper. Then you’ll finally land a real job in music, just like you’ve dreamed of. You’ll take off for months to travel with some orchestra while I sacrifice all my own dreams to stay at home mopping up puke. I’ve thought this over. I’m telling you, I’m not ready."

"What are you saying?"

"It’s not too late. I checked." She rushed along. "I’ve got about a week or two to do an early procedure."

"You want to abort our baby?"

"It’s not a baby yet, Kurt. It’s a bundle of cells about this big." She pressed her thumb and forefinger close together in front of his face. "We can have a child later. We need more time together, just the two of us."

"No," he said.

"I don’t need your permission."

"Of course you don’t. It’s your decision, not mine. Your body, not mine. But you’re carrying my child and I’ve made a commitment to that unborn baby—"

"By marrying me? That’s what it comes down to. You never wanted to marry me."

"Don’t start on that."

"Didn’t you just say we were heading that way anyway? Didn’t you say you married Terry? Not Terry and a bunch of cells that are just nothing. Not Terry, a woman who stays home all day with a screaming infant and yells at her husband when he gets home because she’s used up before her time!"

"Why didn’t you tell me this before?"

"Before we got married? Why do you think? I knew you wouldn’t marry me!"

"You weren’t fair to me. You weren’t honest."

"Have you been honest with me, Kurt? Have you? Haven’t you wished things were better than they are? Haven’t you, once in a while, when you’re holding me, wished I was someone else?"

"Don’t try to distract me. You married me yesterday knowing full well you had made up your mind about not having this child."

"Yes, I did!"

Cold and hard as metal in the shade, she put cold fingers on his, trying to take the hand back he had taken away, but he would not allow it. "Having a child now is a mistake, Kurt. I’m not saying we should never have one."

"Terry, I’m going to tell you the truth now, because you want to hear it. Correct?"

She nodded.

"I don’t know what would have happened with us in the future. I only know, I married you yesterday because of our baby. Whatever I thought about it in the beginning doesn’t matter, because now I have pictures of it toddling around in my mind that I can’t just forget. If you decide to get rid of it, I’m out of your life."

"This is so wrong, Kurt. You shouldn’t make me have this child."

"I can’t make you! You have to decide. But I’m not going to pretend it’s okay with me for you to have an abortion. It’s not."

"So that’s the choice. You and baby or nothing."

"Your decision."

"You bastard!" She stood up, so he stood up. Making fists hard as stone, she beat on his chest and shoulders. "God damn you for making this so hard!"

"Terry, please, stop. Don’t cry."

"You don’t love me."

"I love you both. I’ll do my best to love you both forever, if you give me the chance."

Thanks to his parents, Kurt and Terry were able to stay in the small cabin on the fringes of Tahoe City, up a steep hill on the side of a mountain. They moved in after a disastrous honeymoon in which they did nothing but fight.

Almost immediately after speaking the words, Kurt realized he had made what might be an irrevocable error in telling Terry he would leave her if she didn’t have the child. He had put things wrong, he knew that, but he found it impossible to put them right. No matter what he said or did, no matter how concerned and caring he was, she rejected the feelings he offered her. She never let him forget that he was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do.

He could never see it her way. Soon after their marriage, his father died, followed closely by his mother, and Terry attended the funerals with him. She stood by him. He would do the same. The baby would make up for everything wrong between them, he told himself

As time passed, and her pregnancy progressed, he did everything he could to make it easy on her. He took over the majority of the chores, which was easy, since he had an undemanding part-time job with the U.S. Forest Service that held them together financially while he searched for something in his field. He cleaned, cooked, shopped, and did the laundry while Terry sank into an exhausted stupor.

She had the child in November, at home, which had been her wish, with a midwife in attendance. She screamed and cried for a full day.

Kurt named the child, a girl, Lianna, after his mother.

Lianna and Kurt developed a deep relationship from the start. Terry refused to breastfeed, so it was Kurt who got up to rock and change the crying baby, and Kurt who, at four months, was favored with Lianna’s first real smile, a smile of great regard and charm that made him into her willing slave.

Terry never took to her. During the day, while Kurt worked, they hired sitters. At night, Kurt kept the baby propped on his knees while they watched television, or played with her on the floor, endlessly amused at her antics. Terry watched them.

He and Terry quit having sex during her pregnancy. After the baby was born, they tried a few times, but everything had soured between them, including sex.

In the spring following Lianna’s birth, Kurt quit trying with Terry. He harbored resentments that had grown over the months. All conversations about sex ended with them blaming each other. Yet she was so possessive, she had to know where he was every minute, and constantly accused him of being with other women.

And, most disturbing, he couldn’t stand the neglect of Lianna. What kind of a person could ignore her child so utterly? He had caught the fleeting glimpses of repugnance on her face, when, forced to touch her own child, she would hold the curly-haired baby in her arms, squeezing too tight, pinching or prodding, laughing when Lianna cried.

He knew he had to leave her.

He took her to the Christiania Inn for dinner.

"Isn’t this wonderful?" she said, looking around happily at the white tablecloths and bustling waiters. "Just us. It’s like it was before." She put a hand up to his cheek. "Maybe there is life after baby. Let’s drink a toast." She raised her glass. "I’ve signed up for a summer course at UCLA film school," Terry said. "I’m leaving next week."

"What?" Kurt said, unable to believe what he had heard.

"Only for six weeks," she said. "This is just too good an opportunity to pass up."

"You never said a word about it."

"I didn’t know I’d get in. I filled out the forms months ago."

"It’s a good idea, Terry," he said, adding quickly, because he could sense her wariness, "it’s what you’ve always wanted."

"I arranged for the sitter and a backup, so it shouldn’t disrupt your working routine too much."

"Thanks."

"We’ll talk every day. You won’t even notice I’m gone."

Guilt at the relief he was feeling washed over him. Maybe this was his way out. Where her career ambitions were concerned, he and Lianna did not fit in. If she got going in that direction, found a substitute for him in her work, found him useless and peripheral to what she really wanted out of life, he would be free.

"Terry, we need to talk. Things aren’t working."

"I warned you that having a kid wasn’t going to be easy," she said, sipping her wine, looking out at the lake in the distance, smiling. "Just don’t expect me to pick up the slack. Now it’s my turn again."

What was she talking about? "This isn’t about the baby." He intentionally didn’t use Lianna’s name. He found that, with Terry, just mentioning the child by name, lending her human being status, could degrade an ordinary conversation into a painful scene. "This is about the fact that we have no sex life—"

"Oh, Kurt, is that what you’re all worked up about? I told you, that’s not a problem. We just need to give ourselves plenty of time, plenty of opportunities, get to know what we both want."

"You don’t understand, Terry. I don’t want to try anymore. Our relationship is over."

"Jesus, you men. Such a catastrophe! You can’t get it up a couple of times. Big deal. Why don’t you grow up and get over it."

"Our marriage is over." He took the time to make her understand, using the exact words he intended, saying them slowly and solemnly enough to penetrate the defensive walls of her fortress.

The idea got through. She had a look he’d seen a few times over the past year, a look that worried and unnerved him on more than one occasion. Her face collapsed onto itself, the whole thing vacuum-sucked, the skin stretched over her cheekbones, her eyes protruding unnaturally, as if she had to implode, preparatory to exploding.

"Over my dead body!" she said, throwing her glass to the floor.

A couple passing by their table turned to eye them, but when they maintained a silence punctuated only by Terry’s ragged breaths, they went on without comment.

"Can you cool it with the hysterics? This can’t be a surprise to you."

"We have a fabulous marriage. The best!"

"Terry, we don’t sleep together. We don’t laugh anymore. There’s no there there."

"Ha! Gertrude Stein, turn in your grave! Here’s a man using your words to dump his wife!"

"I’m not dumping you, Terry. This is not a situation that demands blame. I’m just stating the obvious. We have no marriage."

"Well, let’s see. Maybe if you were more than half a man. Maybe if you hadn’t insisted on having a child when I never wanted one. Maybe if you could just love me like you love that damned kid—"

"Don’t bring her into this," he warned. "This is about you and me. Let’s concentrate on that."

"How can we have a conversation that doesn’t include the third party who intrudes on everything? Every evening we deal with her needs, her hunger, her dirty butt, her wheezing, her sniffles. Every evening I wait for you to turn to me, to need me, to need something from me—"

"This is not another lover you’re talking about! This is our child! She needs both of us. Maybe if you had some attention to spare for her instead of some obsessive love story spooling around inside your head all the time—"

"I spend plenty of time on her! What the hell do you know about it? What about all the times the sitter is late? Or sick? Who’s gonna be there when the school calls a few years along the line because she’s skinned her knee or gotten into trouble?"

"Me. That’s what I’m trying to tell you." Her words, her demeanor, everything conspired to tell him what he didn’t want to know about his wife—how much she hated their child.

"You? An excuse for a man who can’t even keep his wife happy in bed? You’re going to be both mother and father to our child?"

"Right. Why would you want a man like that, Terry? What use am I to you now? If you really let yourself think about it, you deserve better."

"I deserve a man who loves only me! And that’s the way it was with you and me, remember? Whole days in bed together. I can satisfy you better than anyone, if you’ll only let me!"

"Why would you want to? Even if the sex was good, Terry, that wouldn’t be enough." He wondered how Lianna was doing with the sitter. He wondered if she was still awake. He felt tired and unhappy. He wanted to go home to his daughter. "This is not an argument, you know. This is not a situation where you can win a debate and persuade me that I’m wrong."

"You don’t even want to give me the common courtesy of dealing with my pain."

"I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t believe I am hurting you. The circumstances are painful. Our marriage is over. Now we need to move forward and past a lot of broken-up hope."

"What a weasel. That’s so irresponsible. ’The circumstances are painful,’ ha!"

"I have plenty of responsibility here. This has been a mistake since the beginning."

"He admits it! We never should have had a child!"

"That’s the only thing we’ve done I’m proud of."

"What about how much we’ve meant to each other?"

"Terry, it’s not real. There’s never been much more than sex between us, and now that’s not working out either."

"Don’t deny you love me. Don’t you dare."

He got up to leave. She followed him outside.

"I want a separation. This trip to L.A. is a good time to try one," Kurt said.

"Don’t leave me, Kurt, please." She tried to kiss him, but he turned from her, hurrying around to the driver’s side of the car. "I can be a better mother, if that’s what you want."

"You’re a good mother," he said, unwilling to kick her while she was down, as if his faith could make it so. "I’ll never say you didn’t try your best.’’

"But you insist that we separate."

"Yes."

On the ride home she leaned her head on her arm, resting it across the open window of the car door. "Wait until I get back before you do anything drastic, okay? Don’t move out. We’ll see how you feel when I come back," she said. "Six weeks is a long time. You’ll see then how much you need me."