The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (13 page)

“I wanted to talk to you this morning,” Walter is saying, “but I was afraid Em might hear.”

She realizes what's happening: he wants to marry her. That's what this is about. He's asking her permission to propose. The first thing she feels is relief, that it isn't something worse. The second, unreasonably maybe, is anger at Joe. This should be
his
question. This is the father's responsibility. Unless Walter has already talked to him. Maybe they've already had some backslapping, congratulatory conversation, and Walter just doesn't want Charlotte feeling left out. Because Joe would condone the marriage, of course. Bless it. No, “bless” is the wrong word. Nothing about Joe has ever been religious, not even superficially.

Charlotte blinks. Her mind is sprawling nervously, illogically. An image of a pale blue mother-of-the-bride dress with pearl brocade floats through her brain, quickly replaced by an image of Valerie in burgundy lipstick, sipping a glass of champagne and leaving a deep red stain.

“She doesn't know I'm talking to you about this.”

Charlotte nods, tries to focus on his words.

“She's going to kill me when she finds out.”

Of course. Emily would find the idea of asking permission for anything—much less her own marriage—unacceptable.

“Go ahead, Walter,” Charlotte says. To her own ears, her voice sounds impossibly calm. Her thumping pulse has quieted now, ready for his question. “You can ask me.”

Walter gives her a funny look. “There's nothing to
ask,
really. But it's something I think you should know.”

At that, the heartsound Charlotte had tamped down a moment ago rises again full force. Blood crashes in her ears, her head, at the surface of her chest. So strong is the sheer force of it
that she can't imagine her body isn't physically jolting with each beat.
Something I think you should know. Something I think you should know.
Her heart beats in the palms of her hands. This isn't a marriage proposal. This is something awful. Unimaginable. An eating disorder, an illness, the reason Emily seemed so listless and out of sorts. It's something threatening to harm her daughter, consume her, eat her alive.

“Walter.” Charlotte's voice is surprising in its force. “Tell me.”

His eyes flicker to her face, then drop to the ground. “Em's pregnant.”

It is as if all of her senses stop working at once. Instead of being one loud pulse, she is a silence. An absence. Curiously, she wonders if her heart has in fact stopped beating. Numbness spreads inside her, a literal numbness, pins and needles shutting her down limb by limb. The prickly sensation crawls up her legs, down her arms, into her fingertips. She is reminded of her mother, of how she taught Charlotte to fall asleep as a child:
Say good night to each body part, one by one, and let them drift off to sleep
…

Good night, toes,
Charlotte would think in the darkness.
Good night, foot. Good night, heel. Good night, ankle.
The numbness is spreading up her neck, into the tops of her ears. Her cheeks begin to tingle. If Walter held her wrist now, she would feel nothing.

“Em didn't want you to know.”

She can hear him speaking, but faintly.

“I know it's not fair to get you involved, but here's the thing. I want to keep it, and she doesn't.”

“What?” She looks at Walter's face, trying to extract meaning from the sounds of his words. “She wants to what?”

“Get an abortion,” he says. “You know, terminate the pregnancy. I was scared she was going to do it when she came down here. I seriously think she would have, but I made her promise not to, said I wanted to be there with her, but the truth is—” He pauses and his face looks firm. Determined. As determined as Emily's has ever looked. “I'm not letting her do it. I won't.”

Hearing the conviction in his voice, seeing his hard jaw, Charlotte feels afraid. Not a fear born of a creak, or hum, or a voice startling her from behind. This fear is bigger, unspecific; it has no bounds. She has no idea whose life she is living, whose patio she is sitting on, whose condo is propped behind her, who this boy next to her might be.

“I was hoping you could help me talk her out of it,” Walter is saying. “I know it's kind of shady, going behind her back, but she won't listen to me. I thought maybe she would listen to you.” He pauses. “I mean, I assume you don't want her to get rid of it, right?”

In some instinctive part of herself, Charlotte hears the words “get rid of it” and feels relief. To get rid of it, get rid of all of it—the drama, the decision, this conversation. “It” represents the new world Charlotte has found herself living in. “It” is her new and unrecognizable life. To excise “it” means a return to normalcy, to familiarity, to life as she knew it.

But this is only abstract thinking. These thoughts don't have eyes, ears, toes, a face. As soon as she stops to imagine the reality of “it”—an actual baby—the phrase “get rid of it” is like a blow to her chest.

“Charlotte?” Walter is saying. “You okay?”

She blinks, looks at him, feels herself returning to her skin. “Yes,” she says, tentatively waggling her fingers. “Fine.”

“You want her to keep it, right?”

“Of course,” she says. “Of course I do.”

Walter leans his head back and covers his face with his long hands. Charlotte wonders if he is going to cry. Instead he sighs, a deep-down sigh, a sigh of immense relief. He drops his hands to his lap and lets them dangle between his knees. “I can't watch her every minute, you know? Em does what she wants.”

Yes, Charlotte thinks. That she does.

“And usually, you know, that's her thing. That's cool with me. But—” He presses his fists to his eyes, then exhales slowly and lowers them. He looks at Charlotte. “But this is my kid we're talking about. This is my life too.”

Charlotte hears the bathroom door open behind her. She hadn't noticed the water stop trickling, hadn't heard the guttural sounds of the bathtub draining. Now, at the sound of Emily's approach, she feels nothing short of terrified.

“Wal?” Emily's voice floats toward them from inside. Walter looks straight ahead. Charlotte keeps her eyes on his face. She hears Emily at the door behind them. “Hey, what's this? Are you two bonding without me?”

She hops onto the patio, wrapped in Charlotte's orange robe, her wet hair hanging loose and uncombed. The smell of lavender trails behind her. Barefoot, she hops lightly on the smooth concrete stones, and perches on Walter's lap. She hooks her legs in the crooks of his knees, then looks at Charlotte's face. There is just a moment more, just a beat, and then it's over.

“Oh my God.” Emily jumps to her feet. She looks at Walter, and whatever panic she must have seen on Charlotte's face is confirmed by the seriousness on his. “You didn't.”

“Em—”

“I can't believe you would go behind my back like that. I told you not to tell!”

“Em.” Walter stands. “I love you.”

“You don't! If you loved me, you wouldn't have told!”

“But I am not letting you do this. I'm going to do whatever it takes. And if it means telling your mom—”

“Let me? It's not about
letting
me. It's my body!”

“But it's my kid.” Walter's voice is trembling. “And you don't get to make this decision on your own.”

“Wrong.” With her eyes sparking, her hair flying, Emily seems much bigger than her body. The bit of silver flashes on the tip of her tongue, igniting her every word. “I
do
get to make this decision, Walter. It's my fuckup, my baby, my body, my decision. Mine. Read the fucking literature. It's a woman's choice, and there's nothing you”—she turns to Charlotte—“or you can do about it.”

She turns and runs inside. Walter runs after her. Charlotte hears fast footsteps on the rug, bare feet slapping the tiled floor, Emily yelling, “Get out!” and the front door slamming. And then, nothing.

Charlotte stares into the yard. Silence rings in her ears. She is beginning to distinguish her own pins and prickles. Feeling the absence of feeling: it must be like being in a coma and knowing it. Faintly, she detects the sweet scent of lavender in the air. How innocent, she thinks. How naive. Buying bubble bath, stocking up on root beer. Worrying about getting up too early. Worrying about traveling to New York. Worrying about offending Walter, the blinds, the sunlight, the unlocked door. Everything that an hour ago seemed so threatening is now just a tiny, laughable problem from a distant life.

She hears a stir behind her, and Emily appears. She curls into the empty chair, tiny again. Her eyes are red, her body lost in the folds of the robe, hands swallowed by the sleeves. There
is a child in her, Charlotte thinks. There is a child inside my child.

“What's ironic,” Emily says. Her voice is soft, tenuous, as if testing this new reality, stepping onto new ground that may break beneath her feet. “What's ironic is that I was taking a bath, and I didn't even want to. I was only doing it because you bought all that stuff for me. I did it because I felt
bad.
”

She tucks her feet beneath her, swallows, shuts her eyes. Charlotte focuses on the tips of her toes peeking out from under the robe, raw and pink from the bath, like a row of freshwater pearls.

“I felt
bad,
“ Emily says again, irony giving her voice a notch of strength, “so I'm in there trying to be a good daughter. Meanwhile, Walter's out here stabbing me in the back.”

“Where is Walter?” Charlotte asks. Her mouth is dry. “Did he leave?”

Emily continues as if she hasn't heard. “It's like you two planned this or something. You set me up with the bath stuff, make me feel guilty, he catches you alone—” She hiccups, part laugh and part cry. “God, I sound as paranoid as you.”

Charlotte knows she shouldn't ask again, but can't stop herself. “Did he leave for good? Did he—go back to New Hampshire?”

“God, Mom.” Emily turns to her. “Yesterday you hated the guy, now you don't want him to leave. What, are you afraid to be alone with me or something?”

Charlotte says nothing.

“Are you afraid you'll have to take a stand?”

“No,” she whispers, stung.

“Well, you don't have to bother.” Emily burrows deeper in her chair. “Because I'm not having this baby.”

At the words “this baby,” Charlotte is recalled to reality again. She remembers watching Emily sleep as a child, the peaceful look on her face, the rise and fall of her chest. She remembers how she would tuck her tiny, balled fists under her chin. When she was nursing, her dimpled fingers splayed so wide they looked translucent.

“Having a baby is a choice a woman makes,” Emily is saying, “and I'm choosing not to have one.”

“But why?”

Emily looks at her.

Charlotte swallows, feeling the thick presence of her voice in her throat. “I just don't understand why you don't want it.”

“I just told you.”

“But you love Walter, don't you?”

“Not at the moment,” Emily quips.

Charlotte recoils. Her tongue feels heavy, unwieldy. “If you need help—or, or if it's because of money—I can—”

“I don't want help. I don't want money, I don't want advice. I just want everyone to leave me alone.” She squeezes a palm against her forehead, then rakes it through her damp hair. “This just wasn't my plan right now.”

“But that doesn't mean—”

“It's my decision. It's a woman's decision.”

She's quoting from a brochure, Charlotte thinks. She's reciting a stance, the way she's recited them for years—alternative learning and veganism and mindfulness—wafting in and out of them with more and less conviction. Charlotte has always indulged Emily's whims, nodding along, happy just to hear her happy. But now, her instinct to protect her daughter's feelings is outweighed by another instinct: to protect her daughter's baby.

“You're not going to talk me out of it,” Emily is saying, “so you can just go back to pretending like you never knew.”

“I can't do that,” Charlotte says.

Emily's eyes narrow, then drop to her thumbnail, inspecting it with seeming indifference.

“This is a life, Emily, a human life—”

She drops her hand. “You sound like a fucking bumper sticker, Mom.”

She's right, Charlotte thinks. She does. Her words sound as recycled as Emily's. It isn't the concept of “human life” she's worried about. Her opinion has nothing to do with ethics in general, but this situation in specific: this baby, this life.
This
life.

“You're right,” Charlotte says.

Emily looks at her.

“I don't care about saving a human life. I care about saving my grandchild.” Just saying the word makes her eyes fill.

“Mom.” Emily's voice is tight. “This isn't about you. It isn't about Walter. It's about me.”

And under normal circumstances, Charlotte would have been too intimidated to go forward. Too threatened by Emily's anger, too afraid of estranging her. But now, she feels no fear. There's no room for fear; too much is at stake.

“Emily,” she says, “I've always tried to do whatever made you happy.”

Emily's face furrows.

“I've tried to let you make your own decisions.”

“Mom,” Emily says, sounding uneasy. “Why are you saying this?”

“Because you're wrong,” Charlotte says, as gently as she can. “You're wrong this time, sweetheart.”

Pink blotches are beginning to rise on Emily's cheeks. “Why are you trying to ruin my life?” she says in a fierce, tear-filled whisper. “It's
my life.
”

“It always was,” Charlotte says, like an apology. “But this time, it's not.”