Family Matters (38 page)

“He's come around,” Betsy felt impelled to say. “He's being very, very nice about the baby now. You did him a lot of good, Emily.”

Over the phone, she heard Emily set her teacup down with a clank. “Well, that's something!” Her voice was pleased and gratified, even amused, but that was all she said, and she changed the subject quickly.

Two weeks after the Great Blizzard, the weather turned unexpectedly springlike, and snow dripped off the roof and down the windows. Betsy began taking a walk each day. She walked up Westcott Street to the supermarket, and to the university to check her mailbox. When Mrs. Brodsky told her about nipple shields (she had taken to sharing Pregnancy Club gossip with her landlady), she walked all the way to a drugstore on Genesee Street to get some.

She even went on foot down University Avenue for her weekly trip to the obstetrician—hoping all the walking would speed things up. She was officially overdue, though Dr. Levine assured her that everything was fine, everything was perfectly normal.

“I think you'd tell me that if I was pregnant with an alligator!” she said in exasperation.

He stripped off his rubber glove and smiled at her. That was normal, too: overwrought, overdue women.

Betsy walked slowly home, longing for her child—for the company the child would be. She was lonely. Her life seemed empty without her mother, without her grandfather—most of all without her students, she was beginning to realize. She did miss teaching, as she knew she eventually would: the daily bouncing off of ideas, the purposeful reading, the academic politics—even her grungy, cluttered office with its stained coffee mug and all her favorite books. Crawford had told her, in passing, about the proposed renovation of the Hall of Languages. She felt left out; she wanted to be in on the bitching and grousing at the inconvenience.

But she was not unhappy. Expectation filled her, and she was proud of her patience. If she could wait this out without going crazy, she could put up with anything in the future. Pregnancy was a better discipline than studying for language exams.

When Judd did, finally, ring her doorbell, she had ceased to expect him. She thought it might be Caroline at the door; Betsy had invited her for dinner. But it was still light when the bell rang, and it was Judd.

He wasn't wearing the cape: that was her first thought. He had a new jacket—brown leather lined with sheepskin. He threw it on a chair back, and she picked it up and hung it in the closet—like old times.

“I'm sorry about your mother,” he said, sitting down.

She sat beside him on the sofa, but at a distance. He looked different—was his hair longer?—and then he looked just the same, so familiar she could, just looking at him, remember precisely the feel of his rough cheek on hers.

“I appreciate your going to the funeral, Judd.”

“Well, I liked her.” Silence. The baby gave a kick. “How's your grandfather?”

“He's taking it pretty well.” Betsy smiled. “He's gone to Florida with my Aunt Marion.”

“Oh,
really?
” he asked, raising his eyebrows and inclining his head—a gesture she remembered with affection—and they both laughed.

It seemed to release some constraint in him. He moved closer to her and began to talk. He never used to talk much; now his face contorted with the necessity of it, and the words poured out. His work had suffered since they split up, he had found himself getting sick a lot, a series of colds, then flu, he thought he might be getting an ulcer.…

“You aren't very good at living alone, are you?” She meant it as a mild joke—knowing as she did that he probably hadn't been alone much—but he regarded her soberly.

“No, I'm not.”

When she said no more—merely sat, staring down at the books on the coffee table—he continued. He had missed her so much, they had had something so good going.…

He said nothing about Joan Arletta, and Betsy didn't either, afraid he'd tell her some shabby lie. And he didn't mention the baby; it was as if the huge belly under the maternity top didn't exist. More sham! More evasion! She had tricked him—yes. But all the cards were his, nevertheless.

She understood fully what she had dimly sensed last spring: that between them there would never be anything but the narrowest, shakiest bridge—one that would not hold her new weight.

His feverish words ran on, and it became almost visible to her as he talked—the bridge like a spider web, so vivid that she moved her hand, to destroy the fragile thing. He caught her hand and held it tight, and at his touch her detachment almost deserted her. He rubbed her hand slowly between both of his; she was ashamed of her swollen fingers, and of the small flame of desire he was bringing to life. “I'm never unhappy and never happy, but I don't want it back,” Emily had said. But I do, Betsy thought—a loud, insistent thought I
do
want it back.

She knew, though, that if the shaky bridge held, it would be only because she put her back under it, gave all her strength to its preservation. She would be the waiter, the watcher, would spend all her life—or however long he gave her—spying out his moods and shaping herself to them. And then what? Emily in her lonely house, Marion perpetually rouging her cheeks—and her mother, with her gentle, out-of-it, accepting smile.

“I want us to get back together, Betsy.”

“How? How together?”

He smiled briefly. “This time, let's be honest with each other,” he said, looking at her straight. She took the words, meekly, as a rebuke, and nodded. “I'm still not the marrying kind,” he went on. “I still don't mean that. Not yet, anyway.”

“Have you noticed I'm going to have a baby any minute?”

He looked down at her stomach, then at her linked hands. “We can work things out,” he said vaguely. “I just want you in my life—somehow. If you don't feel the same way—” He raised his pale eyes to her face. “Then I guess I'll go back to Texas. For a while, anyway. There's nothing keeping me here but you.”

“Back to Texas? To do what?”

“There's a lot more I want to photograph.” The glitter of excitement in the pale eyes was brief, but it made Betsy wonder. Would he really give it up for me? or does he know I'll refuse him? There was no telling; there never was, with him. There was just the impetuous outstretched hand followed by the turning of the Lincoln profile toward the future. And, for her, the old, silent struggle, the familiar headaches, the tears ready to slop over.

“You go back to Texas, Judd,” she said unsteadily, and then didn't know how to take it when he bent his head over her palm and kissed it. Was it gratitude? anguish? remorse?

“I'm glad we saw each other again,” she said, and when he let her hand go she stood up and got his jacket from the closet.

When he was gone, she wandered into the baby's room. The last bit of sun lit a patch on the rug; Betsy stood in it, and it warmed her bare feet. She stretched out her hand and moved a toy train, idly, back and forth on the shelf.

Ah, what will become of us? she asked the imaginary baby. But of course the baby didn't answer. She was closing her eyes, nodding off, her tiny pink fingers clenching and unclenching, a dribble of milk down her chin. In her mental picture, Betsy wiped the milk away, knowing herself to be rescued by such acts.

And, in fact, in years to come, when life was easier, there were times when Betsy would look on her daughter as her saving grace, as if it really were that simple.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1979 by Kitty Burns Florey

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9343-2

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