Kids These Days (22 page)

“I had a feeling.”

“You have to have a different feeling. Let's get you home.”

I slid another quarter his way, and he swept his winnings off the dash.

Alice was in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, pants down around her feet. The door was open. “I'm bleeding,” she said. She'd been crying. She wasn't anymore.

“How much?” I said.

“Not very much.”

The inside of my head went church-still. “It's probably the same thing as before.”

“It's not the same. It's new. Something's wrong.”

“We don't know that.”

“We have to call the doctor,” she said.

“Is Delton coming to live with us?” I was floating, confused. “Did that happen?”

“Walter. Go call. Please.”

I went to the kitchen, dialed the number off the fridge magnet, waited while music played on the other end of the line. I could only see directly in front of me. Everything on the edges blurred and dimmed. A nurse picked up and I told her Alice's first and last name, her date of birth. I told her about the blood. She wanted to know how much. “Not very much,” I said.

“Well, we're probably not supposed to be bleeding at all, are we?” she said. Everything was always very
we
at North Florida Fertility.

I said, “Probably not.”

“So let's just go on and get you in here this afternoon, then. How's two-thirty?”

I checked the digital on the stove. One o'clock. “Sure,” I said.

“Super. Now the most important thing we can do between now and then is to relax. Can we do that?”

I figured it was best to give her the answer she wanted. “We can do that.”

“Great,” she said. “So we'll see you soon, alright?”

“OK,” I said, and hung up the phone.

One thing I knew without question—of the many places where my life didn't add up anymore, here was a good one: I still and still did not want a child, did not want to be up at three in the morning singing Steely Dan into a screaming baby's ear, did not want to have to decide between cloth diapers and whatever disposable chemical weaponry was on sale at the big box. And I did not want, later on, to have to explain the vagaries of half-cooked semi-sexual attraction in our busted species to a crying twelve-year-old home too early, heartbroken, from her seventh grade Winter Ball—if they even had such a thing in a place like Florida.

But in equal and opposite measure—and this was true, gravitationally so—I did not want anything to be more difficult for Alice than it already was, than I'd already made it. I did not want the bogeyman arriving at our doorstep in the form of undercover cops, of Mid kicked out of his house, of Delton running from Mid, or from Nic, or from herself. And I knew this, too: I surely did not want calamity to present in the form of two teaspoons of bright red blood in the toilet. As much as I was wholly unprepared for a child to arrive, bidden or unbidden, in our lives, I did not in any way want Alice to bleed her into the middle of Aunt Sandy's ducks-and-geese wallpapered bathroom on the fourth floor of a beachfront condominium we had no business living in. That we had no real business living anywhere else anymore didn't play much into the equation. Nothing did. There was no equation. There was only Alice, and there was only me. And even those numbers weren't exactly right.

We got her dressed and out the door and down to the parking garage, got her belted in, got us out on A1A and then the interstate. Alice was far away, off somewhere else—back in Charlotte, maybe, before any of this. Back to when we could grow flowers out by the little brick stoop of our little brick house, when we could sit in the lawn and do nothing other than watch the weeds grow. I held my hands at ten and two, checked my mirrors. I wanted to throw up. Palm trees and pine and swamp ran by us on both sides of the road, interrupted only by the occasional crane supply company or low-rise call center. We went over the river and I looked down at the naval base, at the outline of the few downtown skyscrapers there were. Jacksonville. It could have been any city. I found our exit. Everything was still in the same place it had been last time. I drove Alice right up to the door, stopped there in the drop-off lane.

“I'm OK,” she said.

I said, “I'll walk you in.”

“I'll be fine. Just park the car.”

“Are you sure?”

She stared out the windshield, ran one finger along the smooth hollow of her neck. She didn't get out.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too.”

“We'll be fine,” I said, hearing it, knowing I sounded like Mid. “This will be fine.”

“You can't know anything about that,” she said.

“Sure I can.”

She said, “I thought you were the one who was panicking.”

“I am,” I said. “That's me.”

“Then what's this?”

“I'm on morale,” I said. “For right now. I'll go back to panic soon.”

“The BOJ is not happy,” she said.

“I know that.”

She sent the lock up and down in the door. “I told Carolyn that Olivia could come and live with us,” she said.

“Mid was saying.”

“I think she needs something. I think maybe we could give her whatever that is. Is that alright?”

I said, “I think it's the same as anything else.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we'll learn to live through it,” I said.

A couple crossed in front of our car. “Do you think I'm ruining our lives?” she said.

“Do I think you're what?”

“Ruining our lives. Yours, at least.”

“No,” I said. “That's me. I'm the one doing that.” I was supposed to have found some way to stand between Alice and the world, between Kitchenette and the world. That was my job. It was all of our jobs, what we were supposed to do for each other. “I know I'm supposed to be better,” I said. “I know I'm supposed to be some kind of father.”

Alice took my hand and held it, rested it on the gearshift. A bus rattled by out on the road. “Park the car,” she said. “Park the car and meet me in there.”

“I'll take you,” I said.

“I want to do it.”

“Alice,” I said.

“I want to do it. Really.” She sounded recorded, her voice drained out of a jar. She got out, shut the door softly, then turned and walked inside the building. The mirrored double doors opened and shut for her automatically, swallowing her, and then all I could see was the wavy reflection of our hatchback, of some dumbass guy—me—sitting behind the wheel. I checked her seat for blood. There wasn't any. I found a space and parked the car.

The waiting room was completely empty. No Alice. She was gone. All the frosted windows up at the desk were closed. I heard a child crying somewhere behind one of the walls. I stood there as long as it took the Muzak to cycle through a song, or maybe two or three. I couldn't tell. It would be so much easier, I'd thought the whole time, if there was no baby. Now I knew that was not true. That there was no easy thing, no simple place to land. And if we lost it—would she think I was secretly happy? That this was what I'd wanted all along? My ears were ringing. Another song came on. A nurse in turquoise scrubs opened a door, leaned out into the waiting room like she didn't actually want to set foot in it. She said, “Mr. Ingram?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why don't we come back this way.”

“Where's Alice?” I said. “My wife?” I walked toward her.

She checked her clipboard. She said, “Let's get set up with the doctor, and he'll answer all your questions.” She moved to one side to let me through the door, and when it closed behind me, there was quiet. No music. Nothing. “We're just right down here,” she said, easing past me, and I followed her down the hallway, past scales and benches and bathrooms. When she got to the last door, the door that had to be Alice's, she stopped. “Sir?” she said. I was too far behind her to see into the room. I stopped walking, stood still. I could feel my heart pushing blood through my body. “Sir,” she said again, only this time it wasn't a question at all.

“Hey, there he is,” said Dr. Varden, who was standing at the counter, pulling on gloves. There was another nurse in the corner of the room. “Now we're ready.”

“Where were you?” Alice said.

“In the waiting room,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“Waiting.”

“You took a long time.”

“I didn't mean to.”

She was already in the paper gown. Varden rolled a stool over, had Alice put her feet in the stirrups. He said, “All we're doing here, Dad, is eliminating a few of our questions from the get-go. I think we're going to find that all's well, but let's take a peek to be on the safe side.” I'd expected him to talk to us first. There was nowhere good for me to sit. Three different corkboards covered in pictures of babies hung on the walls. He said, “So here's one possibility. That cervix is pretty inflamed. He could certainly be our culprit.” He looked up at Alice. “Bright red blood?”

“Yes.”

“And only today, right? Not regularly?”

“Right.”

“Pain? Any cramping?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Mom, when you say ‘not really,' what is it that you mean?”

“You didn't tell me that,” I said.

She said, “Just let me think.”

“Take your time,” Varden said, gently. He'd slid across the dial—he was more priest now than motivational speaker. It was impressive. He opened a drawer in the exam table, dropped the speculum inside. There was blood on it, I could see, before he knocked the drawer back closed with his knee.

“Not cramping,” she said. “Not pain. Just this morning I felt—weird.”

“Weird how?” Varden asked her.

“Weird like something was going on, I guess.”

I said, “Why didn't you call me?”

“You were at work. It didn't seem like a big deal.”

“Isn't it a big deal now?”

“And here you are,” she said.

“We're alright,” Varden said. “Really we are. I don't think we need to get too fired up about this yet.” He stood up and opened a cabinet, got out a fetal Doppler. “Let's dial the little one in for a minute,” he said.

“Ours still hasn't come,” Alice said, meaning the machine.

He ran a couple of sliders back and forth. “I don't know why these people can't be in a better hurry. We'll send you home with this one, alright? Give you some peace of mind. If yours ever turns up, just ship it back.”

“Thank you,” said Alice.

“It's what we do,” he said, waving us off. He slid another switch and traced the wand over Alice's belly. Varden was tanner than the last time we'd seen him. He was like something browning in the oven. He held the wand near her left hip, closed one eye, tuned the thing in, and then there wasn't any mistaking the heartbeat, the staticked
wow-wow-wow-wow
. He smiled. We all did. “A mile a minute,” he said. He looked at the display. “High 150s. Perfect. Would you like to hold it, Dad?”

“Sure,” I said. I was wanting to get his questions right this time.

“Well,” he said, “come on over.”

I took it from him, held the thing in place while he marked Alice's chart. He pulled a cardboard wheel from a drawer, spun it around, said something about due dates. Then he set the clipboard on the counter, slapped his hands on his thighs, and said, “Folks, we could do a quick ultrasound if you like, but I think that guy in there's telling us just about everything we need him to. That right there is a textbook beautiful heartbeat. Listen to him go.”

“Him?” I said.

“Figure of speech. He, she, it, whatever you like. Animal, vegetable, mineral. It's not on the chart, so I don't know. Anyway, let's run through a few possibilities here.”

Alice sat up and pulled down her gown.

Varden said, “One thing that can happen with our older mothers—which doesn't mean one thing, except you waited until you were ready—is that sometimes we get a few adventures. Not complications, necessarily. Just a few more balls in the air. So, for instance, that cervix in there—” He pointed at Alice's belly. “That guy's a little bigger around than we'd like him to be. There's a condition we sometimes see where the cervix wants to go ahead and open up too soon, which is not what we want. Think of it like a door on a submarine. We want that sucker good and closed until the end.”

We nodded. We didn't know what else to do.

“So here's a ridiculous term, OK? Incompetent cervix. I hate that phrase, and I still don't think it's us yet—”

I said, “What kind of cervix?”

“It only means it might not be doing its full job. In a very, very few cases, we need to go in with a stitch to hold things shut.”

“A stitch,” said Alice.

“But listen.” Varden held his hands out. I felt like we were at the mechanic, and he'd taken us into the shop, stood us under the lift, pointed up at things we didn't know the words for, and started telling us how bad things weren't. How much worse they could be. “We're not there yet,” he said. “And probably won't be at all. This is more than likely just a hiccup. I want you to know that. You'll come back in ten days, and everything will probably be all settled and lined up exactly like it should be.” He was talking more quietly, taking us into his confidence. “That's what I'm expecting, anyway.”

“We come back in ten days?” I said.

“That's best for now, until we get everything calmed back down in there.” He pushed his stool closer to the wall. “The most important thing for you both to know is that you're fine right now. And we'll send you home with the Doppler so you can tune in any time you're feeling hinky. Crank that bugger up and listen in. Does wonders to calm the nerves.” He smiled. “And one last thing. I'd like to have us on pelvic rest, see how that goes.”

“Is that bed rest?” Alice said.

“No, no. You can be up and around. You
should
be up and around. Pelvic rest means no sex.” He winked at me. “Sorry, Dad.”

“It's OK,” I said.

“Sex can inflame the cervix. So let's lay off until you come back in. And maybe no heavy lifting,” he told Alice. “Nothing you wouldn't normally pick up. Just relax a little more. Notch it back a speed.”

“I can do that,” she said.

“Of course you can. Look. Both of you. This happens. I don't mind a little blood. I don't even mind a little cramping. What I do mind is if we get those things at the same time. That happens, I need you to call me.”

Alice said, “Is that going to happen?”

He said, “I can't tell you yes or no, but I think all we've got here is the body saying, ‘Hey, now, let's take it just a smidge easier.' And the body knows. The body always knows.” He looked at us each again, made sure to make eye contact. I wondered if he might have a list of rules in his desk drawer. Affirmations and reminders. Smile. Eye contact. Be positive. “What I always tell my pelvic rest patients is that they should use this time for other kinds of intimacy. Massage is good. Or just listening. Charting your fears.” He walked over to the door. He had other ports of call. “Any questions, you two?” he said. “Anything at all?”

He'd bulldozed us. I felt like we were at the go-carts, maybe, like I should be on the lookout for sucker-punching fathers.

“You're doing a beautiful job,” he said. “Just beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Alice said.

“We'll see you in ten days,” he said.

“Ten days,” Alice said, and then Varden was gone, and the nurse went with him, and we were alone in the room. There was a yellow biohazard container on the wall. Underneath the
BIOHAZARD
lettering, it said
BIOPELIGRA
. That'd be a name. Alice nudged one of the stirrups back and forth. I got her jeans. “Pelvic rest,” she said. “And what kind of cervix?”

“He said he didn't think you had that.”

She said, “He might be a little intense.”

“He knows things,” I said.

“He's supposed to know things. He's a doctor.” She was dangling her legs off the side of the table. She looked like a kid in a swing. “Do you want to know what I want?” she said.

“Are we charting our fears?”

She balled up the paper gown, held it there in her lap. She looked strikingly beautiful to me in that moment. She said, “You think I've got it all figured out.”

“I really don't,” I said.

“I just want to be pregnant. I want to get to be pregnant and not have to fight about it and not have to keep coming in here.”

“I want that, too,” I said.

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

She got down, got dressed. “We need to go home,” she said. “I'm tired. Let's go home.”

“Alright,” I said.

“We'll go home and not have sex and not drink wine.”

“Sounds relaxing.”

“I have to call Carolyn. She'll be freaking. Like she needs one more thing.” She'd forgotten to put on her shoes, was holding them in one hand. “We need to find out what they want to do about Olivia. I don't know what the hell they think they're doing.”

“You don't want to do it? I thought you guys had a thing.”

“It's you two,” she said. “You're the one who talks to her. And it hardly matters what anybody wants. They're family.” She stared at a poster that was all about making sure your baby slept on her back. She said, “I'm sorry I made us come in.”

“We needed to come in,” I said. “You heard him.”

“I just want it to be easy,” she said. “Is that so much to ask?”

I said, “I never once thought it would be easy.”

She kissed me then—a quick, dry kiss. A competent kiss. She said, “And boy were you right.”

I pointed at her shoes, and she put them on. Somebody paged a nurse over the intercom. We followed the maze of hallways back out, scheduled our next appointment, left through the sliding doors. Like that, we were in the world again. Still pregnant. Still chugging along. I wondered if they measured that way, if back inside the office some bell was ringing. We'd get to keep our names up on the tote board one more day.

I hated above all else the crushing uncertainty—if you had to be pregnant, I thought, you should at least get to know that everything in there was dividing and conquering according to plan. You should get to have regular, normal terror. We drove back south with all the sun everywhere making the interstate look even flatter, and what I started wanting—what I thought might really help—was some kind of converter for the Doppler, some way we could plug it into the cigarette lighter and ride along with the heartbeat keeping its own kind of time. Or better: Pipe it into bullhorn speakers we could mount on the roof of the car, play it for the whole world. Then everyone would know how we were holding up. Everyone would know exactly where we were. I felt certain that would make things better. I wanted to tell Alice, but I wasn't sure if she'd trust it. I didn't know if I did. But there it was anyway, a new idea taking up residence, something else for which there was no room.

Three days of no bleeding, no cramping. Three days of breaking the Doppler out as needed, Houston to Tranquillity, to check in and make sure. The BOJ slept and spun, made ear tubes, made retinas. I held just outside of Alice's orbit, tried to get her things she needed. I tried to keep us each calm. Monday night we went over to the castle to talk through the prisoner exchange. Alice said I wasn't allowed to call it that. The twins were at a friend's house for a sleepover. Carolyn and Mid took turns reading Maggie down—stories about pigs, stories about foxes driving delivery trucks. That went on for an hour. I looked for corners to hide in while it lasted. I couldn't find any. I ended up on the sofa, with Delton, while she flicked through channels on the TV.

“You're leaking,” she said, without looking at me. On the screen: an ad for a station wagon that looked like a spaceship; a show with ten kids living in a house; ice skating.

I said, “I'm what?”

“You're leaking. You're like, not totally put together. That's what we say now.”

“We?”

“We,” she said. “The youth. You're leaking.”

“The youth,” I said.

“I'll behave. In case you're worried about that. I won't light anything on fire or smoke or sneak out the window.”

“I'm not leaking,” I said.

“You completely are. But it's OK.”

“How can you tell?” I said.

“It's what we do.”

“The youth,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “Something like that.” She turned and looked at me, and for half a second I thought she was about to tell me that this too might pass, or maybe even tousle my hair—but instead she just seemed to be on input, or at least that's what I decided. She was taking it all in, making note of the gory details so that she could repeat it, chapter and verse, the next time she had somebody good to tell it to. That's what I would have done at her age. Check this out, you guys. Wait till you hear this.