The Forever Marriage (35 page)

The doctor was squinting, moving the wand by millimeters, back
and forth. “Uh, I can’t see yet.” His face was slightly red and he looked embarrassed, this man who had stared directly into the space between her open legs. “I need a better view. Could you turn just a little to your left?”

Carmen shifted and a couple teaspoons of urine leaked out, wetting her thighs. “I’m serious, I really need a bathroom,” she said. But when she looked over her right shoulder, the doctor’s face was like thunder.

“What’s wrong?” Her pulsing bladder faded into the background, a faint but persistent ache. Now the thing Carmen felt most vividly was the icy fist inside her chest. The certainty that something terrible had happened without her knowing. A wild loneliness for her mother, or Olive, or even Jobe.

“Don’t move,” he said sharply. Then, more kindly: “Relax. I’m just having trouble getting the picture I need.”

But Carmen knew this wasn’t true. After she had been allowed to rise, clenching her bladder as if she were carrying it, to use the toilet and dress, Carmen sat alone in the doctor’s office, waiting. She had never been in here before. It was a stately room containing a heavy oak desk, two easy chairs, and bookcases lined with fat textbooks. She wondered if they were real or only for show.

As if to answer her question, the doctor came in at precisely that moment, white coat flapping, and pulled a book from the shelf. He stood flipping through the pages. Again, he was squinting. Then he replaced the book and walked around the desk to sit behind it, facing her.
Don’t talk to me
, she almost said.
I don’t want to know
.

What he’d seen on the screen—which he had never turned toward her, she realized now; nor had he given her a little black-and-white picture of her baby, the way obstetricians did on TV—was a small pool of fluid on her baby’s neck. There was, in addition, a strange brightness to the bowel. And he had measured the baby’s nose; it was unusually small.

The doctor paused and Carmen’s brain worked frantically, trying to add up these things. Surely someone smarter than her could see
the sum of them. But nothing appeared to her. And then there was something: a wide, gold, fat zero in her mind, like an angel’s halo that had grown.

“Our next logical step …” he had grown so
formal
, this doctor who once told jokes while sliding his lubed fingers in and out of her, “is an amniocentesis. There’s a four percent chance it will cause preterm labor, which probably would result in bed rest for the remainder of your pregnancy. Our other option is simply to … wait.”

“For?”

“Do you think you should call your husband, Mrs. Garrett?” he asked.

Coward! He couldn’t bear to answer her question. He wanted another man in the room, someone to calm her. “No,” she said. “He’s working. I don’t want to bother him.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“No.” Carmen straightened. She was glad now that she hadn’t wiped herself off carefully with water. It was good that she was leaving urine streaks on this man’s expensive upholstered chair. “What are we waiting for?”

The man sighed and looked at the ceiling. He felt caught; Carmen had seen this expression before. “Your baby has several of the markers for Down’s syndrome.” It was as if he was reciting some sentence out of his book. “I can’t be certain, not from looking. A very small percentage of normal fetuses also have these features.”

Carmen folded her hands over her midriff and squeezed in. She didn’t want to hurt the baby, just mold it into normal shape.

“We elected not to do fetal testing because of your age.” The doctor had opened a drawer and was riffling through some files. “I have the document right here.”

“I know I signed it.” Her voice was flat, suddenly old; she could hear it. “You don’t have to show me. I’m not going to sue you.”

He cleared his throat and reluctantly shut the drawer. “It’s too late to terminate your pregnancy here, in the state of Maryland,” he said. “By law, there would have to be some risk to your life.
And you’re one of the youngest, healthiest patients I have.” He raised his hands in the air as if, once again, his point had been made. “However.” He cleared his throat. “There are a few places where you could …”

Carmen let this hang in the air. She envisioned the procedure, like the gutting of the wolf at the end of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Her belly would be slit open with a knife and a whole human pulled out. But then what?

They sat without speaking for a time. Then the doctor shifted in his big chair. “I’m sorry, I have other appointments,” he said softly. He did sound genuinely sorry.

Carmen stood easily. She’d never gotten awkward, the way a pregnant woman was supposed to. Obviously she had been doing something wrong. “Go ahead,” she said, then lied: “I’m fine.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s, ah, a boy. Did I tell you that?”

He hadn’t, but Carmen nodded anyway.

Later, she would not remember driving home, parking, going inside, or making lunch. But she found herself there, in the empty brownstone, staring at half a sandwich (had there been another half originally? had she eaten it?) and leafing through her folder of brochures. Africa, Japan, Antarctica. She’d done this so often they were soft with wear, the paper like cotton.

There are a few places where you could
… The doctor’s voice escaped the privacy of Carmen’s head and echoed in the air around her.

It was possible, still, to take that flight to Buenos Aires. For all she knew, it was one of those places where a baby could be erased. And if she were lucky, no one would be able to track her; they would never have to know what she’d done. Over time, Jobe and Olive—even the baby himself—would grow faint.

Carmen rose and went to the entryway where a small black-framed mirror hung. This was one of Olive’s only contributions to the décor: She’d said it would open up the small foyer. Carmen stood
in front of it and stared directly into her own eyes. They were not the same as the ones she’d seen on her wedding day, less than a year before. Her face was leaner even despite the pregnancy, with large eyes and hard planes. It was—the thought popped up, like the ghost that burst out of a Halloween pumpkin toy when she pressed a button, which she’d had long ago—more like her husband’s. She was carrying his child, a deformed boy who would probably never look like either of them, and somehow absorbing Jobe through the baby’s genes.

The front door opened, catching her at the elbow. She moved to the side and Jobe suddenly appeared next to her. This was not like the pumpkin at all. In childhood, the surprise had been the same each time.

Carmen backed up, her tailbone touching the wall. She remained held in the mirror and watched as her face receded; she saw his both real and reflected, furrowing and dark.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Anyone watching would have thought she was frightened of him, that he was an intruder in her home.

“There’s something wrong,” he said.

“Yes.” She continued to watch herself. There were tears running down her cheeks that she could see but not feel.

He turned and took a step, and she was dizzy for a moment as the actual Jobe moved toward her but the flat image of his back in the mirror moved away. It was as if he were separating, becoming two people. Then he was inches from her, smelling of fear and opening his arms. She bumbled in, placing her cheek against the soft fleece of his JHU sweatshirt, and gratefully closed her eyes.

“Maybe the doctor was wrong,” she said.

Time had contracted and it was evening, a fresh, rose-and-lavender spring dusk that could not help but fill her with hope. That, and the full glass of white wine she’d drunk after a completely alcohol-free seven months.

“He said he saw a…” She strained to remember, her head blissfully light and fuzzy. “I don’t know. A short nose. A bright bowel?” She nearly laughed. Could he really have said that? “And fluid on the”—she touched her own, without thinking—“neck.” She looked longingly at the open bottle but one glass was already too much, especially given what she was proposing. “He never said he was
sure
. We’d need an amniocentesis for that. I could do it tomorrow.” Her voice spiked, too shrill.

“Isn’t that the test with the long needle?” Jobe’s face was long and sad. He wasn’t going to let her hope and she knew very soon she might hate him for that. “I don’t think you should. I mean, I don’t think there’s any point. The doctor isn’t wrong.”

Fury rolled in Carmen. She felt like slapping him but balled her hands so she wouldn’t. “How can you know that?” Slowly, the impulse ebbed.

Jobe shrugged and stared at the fireplace in which there was no fire. “I just do.”

“The same way you know you’re going to die?” She was taunting him, but also considering. If both things were true, what else did Jobe know and how much of it did he control? Why was she alone tumbling through life without information, making all the wrong choices?

“Not really,” Jobe cut in. “That’s more of a …” He stopped and kneaded his head. “That’s a feeling; I’ve had it for years—practically as long as I can remember. But this is a fear. It just started a few days ago. I told myself it was irrational.”

How’s the baby doing?
she remembered him asking. Was that just last night?

“But,” he continued. “When I saw you today, I thought …”

She waited. “You thought what?”

“I was sure.” He put his hand out and covered her belly with it, long fingers draping over in a melting way. “But I also thought it was …” He paused again. This was, Carmen noted, the first time Jobe had reached for her in weeks. “Necessary.”

“Necessary for
what
?”

The doorbell rang then and Carmen heard it echo from a distance inside her head. “Just a minute,” Jobe said, and extracting his hand slowly, as if it had been suckered to her stomach, he got up. “I ordered dinner,” he announced when he returned holding two brown paper bags. “Chinese. I didn’t know what you’d want so I just …” He dragged the coffee table over and started unloading the bags. Little white cartons piled up like toy soldiers. “Got a lot.”

Carmen lay against the couch and mused while he went to the kitchen for plates and one fork. Jobe would use chopsticks, but she never could quite master them and didn’t have the patience tonight. “It’s handy, isn’t it?” she asked when he came back, napkins fluttering like birds on top of the stack he was carrying. “You never, ever have to stop and question. Do I have enough money? Should I order dinner? Can I pay for this? You just go ahead and do whatever you feel like.”

“Yes.”

He’d agreed with her, but his one-word answer seemed inadequate. It made her angry, even as she piled her plate with Mongolian beef and moo shu pork. “I mean, you do get that the rest of us don’t live that way, right? We can’t just do or buy anything we want. It’s harder than that.”

Jobe stared at her. He hadn’t even begun filling his plate. It was as if he was doing this deliberately, further separating them. Making her eat alone. He didn’t speak but she heard his answer anyway:
But it’s not harder for you, Carmen. You’re like me now
. She looked around at the ornate, expensive furniture she’d purchased on a whim. She had spent more than a year’s salary for the average art history major on outfitting their apartment and still, they sat on the floor.

“Okay,” she conceded, though Jobe had not yet said a word. And finally he began spooning out food for himself. “It’s just weird that having all these options can make you feel so … trapped.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he said, as Carmen sat up. He’d sounded, during those five words, like the person she met in Kensington Park. She ached for that day, for the gangly, sweet boy whose
grin had flashed so unexpectedly. “All my life, whatever I’ve wanted, it’s been there. Money to travel, the schools I want. You.” He was concentrating on the inside of a carton of fried noodles. “It’s too easy, too much. There are no rules. There’s no, you know.” Jobe raised his head and locked eyes with her. If she were encountering this brash, free-speaking man every day, she might not be collecting travel brochures. “Order.”

“And this”—Carmen gestured at her body, the part that looked like a snake’s belly after he’d swallowed a baby giraffe—“gives you order.”

“It does.” Jobe lay back and dangled the noodles into his mouth. Truly, she had never even met this guy before. He was like a slightly older version of that strange, brave boy from London, and so much more interesting than the man she’d awakened next to fourteen hours before. “It gives
us
order. Hell, I think it probably gives the whole world order. Seemingly random events provide the structure in any complex system, mathematical or otherwise. It sounds backward, but I really believe it’s true.”

“You believe?”

“Yeah, that’s actually the basis of my research project.” He’d already had a couple of beers but now he emptied the wine bottle into his glass and drank, eyes glinting. Carmen moved a tiny bit closer to where this different new Jobe lay sprawled on the rug.

“I didn’t know that,” she said. “You never told me.”

“I never thought you’d find it interesting. People don’t.”

“I’m not people, I’m your wife.” The word felt strange and antiquated in her mouth, like a dusty thimble.

Jobe snorted, bull-like, which made her smile. It didn’t fit him at all. “I guess. Whatever that means.”

She liked him so much more this way: coarse, confident, almost rude. “It means, we have to decide what to do about this baby.”

“Yup. The ugly genius and his pretty little wife are going to have a retarded baby. Did you ever hear that joke about George Bernard Shaw?” Carmen was leaning in, one hand gathering to stroke his
chest, anticipating the narrow lines of it. Her stomach was pleasantly full. The baby was sloshing around in its private place. The spot between her legs was warm and wet. “He met this beautiful woman at a party and she told him they should have a child together because it would have her looks and his brains. So he said to her,
But what if the baby has
my
looks and
your
brains?
”