Here to Stay (31 page)

“The buildup is worse than the shot,” Daisy said, managing to still be adorable despite the blue cap covering all her hair.

“You got it spaced over two weeks,” he said, conscious of his tongue and teeth and how his mouth moved. “I get it all in one go.” He closed his eyes, hoping he would drift off. Hard to do with his private parts on public display. Everything was so desexualized by now, he was beyond being embarrassed. Vulnerability, however, stuck close by.

I can live without having kids,
he thought.
You slip, cut the wrong thing and desexualize
me,
then it’s going to get ugly around here.

Daisy’s hand ran soft over his forehead. He smiled and opened his eyes. The room swam a little then focused again. Daisy smiled back and they stared.

“All right, my friend,” LeBlanc said. “Let’s begin.”

“Fuck,” Erik said as Daisy took his hand in hers. Then the stabbing pain that burned, froze and ached simultaneously. Something between a kick to the balls and an ice pick to the groin. The air crawled into his lungs and he had to grab it by the ankle and drag it back out.

“Jesus,” he said against his fist while his other hand squeezed Daisy’s fingers.

“Breathe,” she said.

“Doc, you bastard,” he said, laughing because it beat crying.

“Sorry,” LeBlanc said. “Two more.”

“Can’t wait.”

The second burned and ached. The third was merely pressure that aggravated the ache. In a few minutes, everything below his navel and above his knees disappeared and he could get a full breath in.

“All right?” Daisy said.

He managed a wobbly smile. “Nothing to it.”

Her hand caressed him. He focused on his breathing until the nausea dissolved away. Long minutes dripped by. He watched his heart rate on the monitor a while, until the beeps made him sleepy. He turned his head into Daisy’s hand and closed his eyes. Then yawned back into consciousness some length of time later. He felt vague pressure and pushing. The click and clink as instruments were passed. Daisy’s cool palm on his forehead.

“It’s going well, Erik,” LeBlanc said. “We’ve got two vials.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Daisy laid her head down next to his. “Whose balls are better than yours,” she whispered.

He chuckled. “I’m afraid my balls won’t be much use to you the next two weeks.”

“I have other uses for you.”

“What, catching mice and killing spiders?”

“It’s the main reason I married you. Live-in pest control.”

While he rested on ice in recovery, Daisy got a hormonal trigger shot to set ovulation in motion. Erik spent the rest of the day on the couch at Barbegazi, watching TV while he cozied up to bags of frozen peas. Daisy waited on him hand and foot, rotating the cold packs. Twenty minutes on. Twenty minutes off. With eleven Advil for breakfast, he’d be fine.

“I’m pleased with what we got,” LeBlanc said when he called that evening. “An excellent sample given your history.”

“Are they swimming?”

“Doesn’t matter. With ICSI, the first thing you do with sperm is cut the tail off.”

Daisy went back the next day for retrieval. Erik wasn’t allowed in during her procedure. He sat with his ice packs, reading, until they called him into recovery.

He eased himself into a chair next to the bed. Daisy was still sleeping. Her head drooped to one side and her hands rested on her stomach, the IV line running from the back of one to the pole. A blood pressure cuff on her arm and a pulse tracker on one of her fingers.

He looked at her. Looked into the past. The last time he saw her like this was after the shooting. Today was nothing like then, but still, the clinical smell of the room pressed his memory. The faint beep of monitors echoed in his mind and a sadness filled his chest, remembering how Daisy’s face had been so motionless and far away as he stood at her bedside that day. Gunfire still ringing in his ears. Her blood all over his shirt. Caked in his nail beds and smeared on his work boots. His palms and knees nicked and scratched because he’d crawled through broken glass to get to her.

We were so young,
he thought, taking her hand. His fingers played with her wedding rings, thumb running along the edge of the diamond.

“Where are you?” Daisy said. Her head lolled and settled toward him, her eyes still closed.

“Here,” Erik said. “I’m right here, Dais.”

The polite rattle of knuckles on the door and LeBlanc leaned into the room.

“I hear she did great,” he said. “Beautiful eggs and lots of them.”

“She’s generous,” Erik said, bringing Daisy’s limp fingers up to his cheek.

And forgiving.

LeBlanc stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Daisy. “I’m pleased,” he said. “Everything has been absolutely textbook. It’s going much better than I expected.”

“Dude.” Erik reached to knock on the wall. “Are you out of your mind saying that
out loud?
”

“Sorry, sorry, her eggs are rotten.” LeBlanc said, laughing and rapping his head. “This is going terrible. You’re doomed. I have no hope whatsoever.”

Thirteen eggs were retrieved from Daisy’s ovaries. Six were immediately frozen. The other seven were injected with a single sperm each.

They lay in bed that night: Erik black and blue, Daisy sore and cramping. They held hands and imagined what was happening in the lab. Two becoming one. Then dividing into two again. Four. Eight. Merging. Melding. Becoming something greater.

“I wish I could watch it,” Daisy said. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I think my head would explode.”

The clinic called daily with updates and, to the Fiskares’ fascination, even emailed pictures. Daisy printed out all seven and tacked them to the refrigerator.

“I think this one has your eyes,” Erik said, peering close at the black-and-white blobs.

“This one has your ass,” Daisy said. “It gets my vote.”

On day three the lab reported two of the fertilized eggs did not mature to the blastocyst stage. Day four’s status was given as “normal.”

“We have five beauties,” Dr. Alibrandi said the morning of the fifth day. “Given your age, and that this is your first IVF cycle, my recommendation is to implant three and freeze the remaining two.”

The next day, Daisy and Erik witnessed as the embryos were selected and loaded into the catheter. They watched on the monitor as the sonogram showed the catheter being placed.

“You so much,” Erik said, holding Daisy’s hand tight.

“So much you.”

He began to softly whistle “Daisy Bell.” The nurse joined in. Then Alibrandi. With a puff of air the embryos were released. The catheter was examined under a microscope to make sure they left.

“A successful transfer,” Alibrandi said. “Well done.”

Daisy rested for twenty minutes at the clinic, then went home to recline as queen for another seventy-two hours. Sara Kaeger took this quite literally and brought over a tiara. Daisy wore it the rest of the night.

Francine called. “How are you, my loveys,” she said. “What are you doing now?”

“Hatching,” Daisy said.

The blood work said yes. The urine tests said yes. Progesterone levels insisted yes. Daisy wouldn’t accept anything until she saw it with her own eyes. Even the onset of morning sickness didn’t convince her.

“Believe it now?” Erik said as she came out of the bathroom, green and shaky.

“Stomach bug,” she said. And continued to say nearly every day, living in benign and superstitious denial until the first ultrasound.

“We could walk out of here the parents of triplets,” Daisy said, pausing with her hand on the clinic’s door. “I kind of feel like running.”

“Go big or go home,” Erik said, feeling a little terrified himself, but opening the door with purpose. “After you.”

“One,” the technician said.

The Fiskares peered closer. “Are you sure?” Daisy said.

“Just one.” The technician circled the screen with a fingertip. “And look at that heartbeat. Fantastic.”

Daisy started crying.

“Hey, we were braced for triplets,” Erik said, gathering her against him.

“I was braced for
none,”
she cried. “I can’t believe it worked.”

“Congratulations,” the technician said.

Erik kept staring at the monitor. “Holy crap, I got her pregnant.”

Daisy cried harder. Her arms tightened around him and his shirt grew damp under her tears. His hand stroked her hair, but his eyes never left the black-and-white image. He gazed at the little blob with its fantastic pulsing heart. He felt his own heart beat against the wall of his chest as the gold chain around his neck grew heavy and warm.

“Hey, little fish,” he whispered to the screen.

IN SEPTEMBER, TRUDY AND Kirsten went on a New England-Canada cruise. One of the ports-of-call was Saint John, and Erik took them to lunch at one of his and Daisy’s favorite haunts.

“Well, isn’t this nice,” Kirsten said, unfolding her napkin.

“We didn’t have much time to chat properly at your wedding,” Trudy said.

“Which we’re still talking about,” Kirsten said, patting Erik’s hand. “Such a good time.”

Trudy was digging in her handbag. “Now let me show you this right away or I’ll forget later and be mad at myself.” She drew out a small, black drawstring bag. She tipped something out of it into her hand and put it into Erik’s palm.

It was another fish charm. Identical to Erik’s, save one detail.

“It’s silver,” Erik said.

“Of course it’s silver,” Trudy said. “It was for a little girl. This is Beatrice’s fish.”

The little twin died less than a year into her life. Marianne Dupre Fiskare wore the fish pinned inside her bodice until she died. In her will she left it to her only granddaughter, Gertrude.

“Shame I have no daughters,” Trudy said, taking the fish back and putting it away. “And currently, only grandsons. But it will stay in the family either way. Now, tell me, what’s good to eat here?”

Over lunch, the aunts told stories about the family, Clayton, life in the hotel and on the river.

“Can you tell me about my dad’s accident?” Erik finally asked.

The ladies exchanged a glance Erik couldn’t interpret. Then Trudy began to tell how Byron and Xandro had been racing their boats in the early morning hours. A foolish stunt on the St. Lawrence River because of the fog that poured off Alexandria Bay at that time of day. The river was treacherous enough with shoals and rapids. The fog made it doubly dangerous.

“Your father knew better,” Trudy said. “He was only fifteen, but he grew up on the river and knew the risks.”

“River rats drove boats before they drove cars,” Kirsten said.

“You learned the rules and got your ass handed to you if you broke them. Both Byron and Xandro knew better.”

“Xandro had Elsa in the boat with him,” Kirsten said. “She certainly knew better. Then again, she always had a funny hold on Xandro. Something was strange about the whole incident. Like it was a dare gone horribly wrong.”

“They were racing to the bridge,” Trudy said. “Going past Fishers Landing. Bunch of little islands clustered in the river around the Niagra Shoal. It’s a tricky place. The currents are strong.”

“And unpredictable,” Kirsten said.