The Abortionist's Daughter (30 page)

At which point she’d had to look away. She’d envisioned a wisp of smoke: sharp and well defined but always rising out of sight, the baby that never was. No. She couldn’t.

Ben was born on a warm spring day when the mountains were melting and everywhere, it seemed, you could hear the sound of rushing water. The hospital staff was ready for them. There was apprehension in everyone’s eyes—who was this child, and what would he be like?—but Diana focused instead on the normalcy of it all, the nurses’ subdued excitement as they hooked up the fetal monitor, with Frank bowing his head in somber concentration, and Diana cheerful and upbeat as her belly tightened rock hard, chatting away until the real contractions suddenly bore down, breathing in and out like Darth Vader until the urge to push overwhelmed her and she gave two long vein-bursting screams and delivered her second baby into the hands of the waiting obstetrician.

He had round, wide-spaced eyes and a head the size of a grapefruit. His trebly cries tore at her heart, and she held him to her breast, but he was unable to suckle. Her breasts stung as he batted his head against them.

“He’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

“They always are,” the nurse replied.

She recalled Frank lifting him from her chest, taking the flannel blanket from the nurse and wrapping Ben in its soft folds. There was nothing wrong with him, she had thought as Frank took him away. Nothing. Nothing at all.

But there was, of course.

She lifted her head. The kitchen seemed foreign and disorganized, and she felt like she was in someone else’s home. After a while she heard Frank come back downstairs. She heard the front door open and close, and noticed the Beekmans’ lights turn off. Nosy bitch, she thought. Numbly she wandered back to the solarium, where she switched off the lights and sat on the edge of the pool. They should have faced things a long time ago, she told herself. It was true. Ben had blasted a hole in their marriage. Even more than that: the whole experience of waiting for Ben, and loving Ben, and losing Ben had triggered such a tectonic split in their marriage that after Ben died they’d been living on separate coastlines. And no matter how hard they tried to carry on with their lives, that sea of loss had always been there, cold and gray as the North Atlantic.

Had she really railroaded him into doing everything her way?

For a long time Diana went back and forth like this: hating Frank, hating herself, hating Frank again. So engrossed was she in this debate that at first she didn’t hear the knock on the sliding-glass door. But whoever it was knocked again, and this time she glanced up.

There on her back porch stood Bill Branson, wearing a bomber jacket that was lightly dusted with snow. With great agitation he motioned with his hands, and for a second she felt like an exasperated young mother again,
No, it’s not time to come in yet, go build an igloo, go sledding, I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.

In any case, the mere sight of the boy sucked any remaining resolve out of her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what she’d done to deserve a day like today. She wouldn’t wish a day like today on her worst enemy. She started to get up to unlock the door, but Bill had already given it a tug and the door slid open, and she recalled one more thing on her to-do list that remained undone, calling a locksmith.

Snow flurried inside, and a gust of wind chilled the room. “Whoa-whoa-whoa!” she exclaimed as he started forward. “Don’t you dare come in here with wet boots!”

Bill bent down and removed his boots and left them outside on the porch. Then he slid the door shut. He slipped off his jacket and pulled off his gloves, dropping everything in a heap on the scuff rug. It was, for Diana, the last of the last straws.

“Your timing, Bill,” she said wearily, “is just stellar.”

Bill padded over to the pool and squatted down and stuck his hand in the water. He sniffed loudly and ran his hand up over his nose and wiped it on his pants.

“Oh god,” Diana murmured, for she could see that he had been crying, and knew it was about Megan.

“I’m freaking out,” he wept.

“Bill. You’ve got to stop this.”

“I can’t,” he said, sniffling. “Every day it just gets worse and worse.”

Diana was so tired, so drained from everything else that she was afraid not only of snapping at the boy but of ridiculing him as well. She flashed on what she’d said back in the hospital, to Jack Fries. She closed her eyes and willed herself to keep her mouth shut for any but the most benign words of support.

“I’ve tried dating,” Bill was saying. “I’ve tried counseling. No matter what I do, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“Oh Jesus, Bill,” said Diana, “do you know—”

“You think I’m crazy,” he said. “I know.
I
think I’m crazy.” He gave short staccato laugh. “You wouldn’t believe the things I think of doing to myself. It just seems so hopeless. Like why go on? Everybody I meet feels sorry for me. They can tell. I don’t even have to say anything. They look at me and they say to themselves, Yup, there goes another loser.”

“Bill, we’ve all—”

Bill jumped up. “Don’t tell me we’ve all been through this!” he shouted. “You haven’t! Nobody’s been through what I’m going through! Don’t you get it? Don’t you see what the obstacles are? You want me to spell them out? Fine, I’ll spell them out! First, I have to get over her, which I can’t do. But even if I could, then I’d have to meet someone else—which isn’t going to happen since nobody’s going to want to talk to a loser.” He began cracking his knuckles. “And even if
that
happened, we’d still have to
like
each other! What are the odds there, huh? Why don’t I just kill myself today and save my parents the cost of feeding me for another fifty years?”

Diana knew how futile it could seem; after breaking up with her college boyfriend, she’d been convinced that entire galaxies would have to align for her to ever find love again. Then she met Frank, and everything changed in a day.

“You’d be surprised—” she began, but Bill cut her off again.

“I don’t want to hear it. My mother says that all the time. ‘You never know what’s just around the corner.’ Buncha crap. Besides, I don’t want anybody else. I want Megan.”

Diana fought to stay calm. “Bill, listen. I’m saying this as a doctor. You’re obsessed. You’re completely obsessed. This is not normal. You need to see someone about getting some medication.”

“You’re saying I’m crazy?”

“No, I’m—”

“Because you’re right!” Again that staccato laugh. “I’m crazy! I’m nuts! I’m absolutely completely off my rocker!”

“You’re not crazy,” Diana said calmly. “You’re just obsessed. A doctor could help. I have a lot of names, you know.”

Bill’s face hardened. “I don’t want names. I want Megan.”

Now her patience had completely vanished. They were going in circles. He wasn’t even listening. Suddenly she wanted to vaporize this boy who just wouldn’t go away. She pictured Indiana Jones shooting the native in exasperated disgust and felt capable of a similar deed.

“You want Megan?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, guess what, Bill,” she said meanly. “You can’t have her.”

“Oh yes I can,” he said.

She almost laughed, he sounded so childish. “How?”

“You’re going to help me.”

Hearing these words sent a chill down her spine, as though he’d suddenly brought out a gun. She wished Frank would come back. She bent over and turned on the jets and slipped into the pool, letting herself sink up to her neck in the foaming wrath.

“Look, Bill,” she said, gathering her hair into a ponytail. “I’ve had a day the likes of which you can’t even imagine. You are pushing me over the edge. I have no patience whatsoever for you right now. Now listen. I’ve been available to you for an entire year. It’s over with my daughter. There is nothing you can do to get her back. And I certainly will not help you.”

“Look.” Proudly he reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small velvet box. “I bought her a ring.”

If Diana had previously thought she’d been at the end of her rope, then she hadn’t known how long it was in the first place. It always amazed her, how much you could pull out when you needed it. “Don’t show me,” she said calmly. “I don’t want to see any ring. Put it back in your pocket and return it to the store. Leave her alone. Leave me alone. If you can’t do that, we’ll get a restraining order.”

Still, Bill seemed not to have heard. “I have tickets to Cancún too,” he went on. “The rest of our lives would be like this. I’d give her anything she wants. I’d get down on my knees for her.”

Without responding, Diana lowered herself and swam into the jets. Bill tapped her shoulder. She ignored him and continued to swim. He tapped her shoulder again. This time she found her footing and lifted her head.

“Don’t ignore me,” he said.

“Bill. Pick up on the social cues. Time to go.”

“But what about my plan?” he exclaimed. “You don’t get it, Diana! This is my last chance!”

The rope was gone. The reserves used up. She had nothing left inside. The banality of the situation astonished her.

“Oh, Bill,” she said wearily, “would you just . . . quit . . .
groveling.
” She ducked her head underwater, and when she came back up, she saw Bill with his jaw hanging open, like Ben’s, only goofier.

He licked his lips. “What did you say?”

She sculled away from him. “I said quit groveling. Jesus, you’re nineteen—”

He reached out and grabbed her ponytail and whipped her around so that she was facing away from him. “Groveling?”

Diana reached up in pain. She thought she told him to let go, but wasn’t sure if the words made it out of her mouth. “Hey. Bill. Let go,” she said again. But he yanked her back again. Now her neck was in genuine pain, and when he loosened his grip for a moment, she found her muscles had locked up.

“You think I’m
groveling
?” He gave her neck another snap, this time with enough force that the back of her head hit the edge of the pool. “That’s how you see it? You bitch.” He yanked her head back once more, and now hot searing pain flooded her field of vision. She felt herself begin to flail, but he pushed her head down and held it under water like a toy. Her neck felt like someone was cutting it with sharp scissors. You little twerp, she thought, and she felt a sudden burst of energy that allowed her to lash and writhe about in an effort to escape his grasp. But she wasn’t strong enough, and he held fast; although she managed to surface briefly, he shoved her down again. Pain stomped on her chest as she fought for air. Finally she managed to reach up from behind and grab his wrists, but he, with his more leveraged position, was able to wring his hands free and in one split second managed to cross both her wrists behind her and lift up, and she felt something rip across her chest. She surfaced and gasped and tried to kick off from the wall, but felt another burst of pain rip through her shoulders as Bill hung tight to her wrists.

“I don’t grovel,” he said. “I make a lot of concessions but I don’t
grovel.
” Holding her wrists with one hand now, he grabbed her ponytail and snapped her head back against the wall once more. He kept her facing away from him, but as he yanked, again and again and again, small chips of his face darted in and out of her vision. “I may be an asshole some of the time but I do not
grovel;
I do not
lick anyone’s feet.
”

Once more she tried to twist out of his grasp, to kick off with her legs, but there was nothing left to work with. Her legs floated away from her. Her arms dissolved. Bullets sprayed from her eyes as he yanked hard, one final time.

The last thing she saw was the water, sparkles above her head, the color green, columns of bubbles rising away from her.

—————

She was floating on her stomach, and he pushed her away.

“Hey,” he said. Diana didn’t move, and he gave her another push. “Hey. I’m sorry. Diana.” He reached into the water and pulled her by the arm and rolled her over. Her eyes were open, and still she did not move. He shook her gently, then hard. “Diana. Hey.”

His heart began to pound as it became clear to him what he had just done. Hastily he wiped his hands on his jeans. Panicked, he looked from one floor-to-ceiling window to the next, but saw only the black reflective shine of the night beyond. He looked at Diana one more time and then suddenly and clumsily bolted toward the sliding door, grabbing his coat and gloves, bunching them in his hands and using them to slide open the door because of course he couldn’t touch anything with his bare hands; he was a criminal now. He loved a girl, and he killed a woman because he loved a girl. Nobody would understand.

Outside he stamped his heels into his boots and lumbered off through the snow into the dark void beyond the fence, kicking things into a mess behind him to cover up his footprints.

—————

But as for any footprints, he needn’t have worried; by the time Frank got home from his visit with Edgar Love, it had snowed another four inches, blurring Bill’s bootsteps, leaving at most a dim line of vague impressions, themselves to be smoothed over by a few strong gusts of wind.

Next door Susan Beekman let her dog out one last time.

In his small overheated house Huck Berlin forlornly opened up his Chinese takeout.

And across town, in her cinder-block room at the university, Megan and her roommate Natalie cut the second green tablet in half.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

——————

ONCE UPON A TIME
Huck believed that when the time was right, he would make not only a good husband but a good father as well. He saw himself settling his family in one of the outlying developments, maybe on a cul-de-sac where kids could ride their bikes. He’d fix faucets and clean the gutters, perhaps tackle a home project once a year, like the playhouse Ernie had built for his daughters when they were young. He envisioned himself like the fathers he saw in the video store, renting five, six, seven movies at a time on a Friday evening, arguing over ratings but caving in on the giant boxes of Red Hots, because he liked them too.

Now he wasn’t sure.