Wanting Rita (30 page)

“About what?”

“Having your child.”

“Having our child,” I corrected.

Pleased, she smiled. “Have you thought about it?”

“…Yes.”

“I’m still so damn scared. What happens if I get pregnant and something happens again. Something awful.”

“Nothing awful is going to happen.”

“But it could, Alan James. You know how unpredictable and terrible the world can be.”

“Rita,” I consoled, soothingly, “the world can also be beautiful. The world also contains happiness. Just look at the moon and stars. Look at us now. Aren’t you happy right now?”

She smiled. “Yes, Alan James. I am very happy.”

“Okay then. There’s no need to be scared or create a problem where there is none.”

“Maybe I’m not ready yet to get pregnant. Maybe I’ll never be ready. Maybe God is punishing me.”

“Don’t say that, Rita. Nobody is punishing you.”

The dim porch light caught the side of her face, and she fixed her eyes on me solemnly. “Do you want a child, Alan James? Did you and your wife want a child?”

I considered all the possible responses. I considered lying and continuing to withhold the truth. I closed my eyes and tried to anticipate her response, her expressions, her actions. Would she crack apart if I told her of my failure; if I revealed my darkest secret? How would I feel? Would the truth set us free or destroy us?

“Rita…,” I faltered.

“You don’t want a child, do you?” she asked, her voice sad and flat. “That’s why you didn’t have children.”

“No, no…it’s not that. I do. Of course I do. Especially with you.”

She sat up straight. Her eyes brightened. “God, Alan James. God, I love you for saying that.”

I swallowed hard. “Rita…”

She brought her face close to mine. “Why so serious? You are always so serious, Alan James, and after all my hard work.” She tried to lighten the mood.

“Rita…I have to tell you something. I should have told you, but I…well, I couldn’t.”

Her expression registered sudden fear. “You’re not going through with the divorce, are you? You’re not going to divorce your wife?”

“Of course I am. No, it’s just that… Rita…” I released the imprisoned demons of failure, with a deep stuttering sigh. “Nicole and I didn’t have kids… because there was a fertility problem… It was me. I was infertile. It broke us apart.” Something in my chest, near my heart, ached. I paused to take a breath. “Something else would have broken us apart, anyway, but it was the infertility that finally did it. Nicole couldn’t handle it. Hell, I couldn’t handle it. There were so many alternatives we could have explored; so many other possibilities but…we couldn’t do it.”

My pulse quickened. I rose and stepped to the banister. I spoke in a contrite, nervous manner. “I was going to tell you but…I couldn’t. I just felt so damn bad about everything. My marriage, my life… And I was afraid I’d lose you. I couldn’t risk that. I can’t lose you again.”

I turned to gauge her reaction. Her eyes filled with questions.

“…But I’m taking a new medication and I’m exercising. I feel strong and healthy. I know things will be different with us. I feel it.”

I waited for her swift disappointment and wrath. I waited, peering out into the warm darkness, feeling a mustache of perspiration form. I wiped it away.

When I finally faced her again, heart racing, Rita’s eyes were uncertain, moving. Then she was calm, contemplating my words with disbelief, with a struggle to understand and even, perhaps, to forgive. But slowly, a vague compassion gleamed in her eyes that soon gave way to a bright illumination. She folded her hands; moved her thumbs and tipped her head in thought.

“She didn’t love you enough, Alan James.”

My eyes must have conveyed confusion.

“Don’t you see? It won’t be a problem for us, because I love you enough to make it happen. You’ll help me and I’ll help you. We love each other enough to have as many babies as we want, Alan James. Now, I’ll stop talking and thinking about the past and you stop thinking about the past too. We’re only going to think happy thoughts about the future. Happy and positive thoughts. Okay?”

I felt too much emotion to speak. I stared at her as the wind blew warm and soft across my face. I sat next to her, quiet and relieved.

Rita gave a little silent smile and I felt her head, sweetly heavy on my shoulder. “You know, Alan James, it was so smart of you to become a doctor. Think of the doctor bills we’ll save.”

I leaned and kissed her, feeling her gentle breath. That old Rita fever had returned.

Our lovemaking that night was patient and tender. A gentle wind ruffled the curtains as a smoky moon slid from purple clouds, crept across our window and dropped soft light across the floor. The bedroom was a sanctuary of peace.

Chapter Eight

Over the weeks, Rita’s sleeping improved while my nights grew shorter and more restless. I dreaded leaving her every Monday morning to return to New York.

In June, I had rented a one-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive, near Columbia University, but I spent very little time there. The weekdays were painfully slow and stubbornly demanding. The nights were lonely. I called Rita and invited her to visit, but she said she wasn’t ready. She still needed the peace of the house and the support of Hartsfield.

I finally felt strong enough to meet with Nicole, at her request. We met for lunch in a Greek diner on West 68
^th
Street on one of the hottest days of the summer. Heat shimmered off the streets and taxis, as weary citizens puffed along the sidewalks, wilted and damp. Stale cigarette smoke and exhaust lingered, cooked in the pot of steamy air, assailing the nose and eyes.

I waited for Nicole in a booth, on red plastic vinyl, sighing into a cold glass of water in an atmosphere of welcomed air-conditioning.

She arrived late and irritable from the weather. She flopped down into the seat and blew out a heavy, exhaustive groan, blotting her hot forehead with a tissue. “God, I hate this weather. Should have been in the Hamptons. Damned trial. I thought they were going to settle.”

It was the weather that offered us a grateful common ground of conversation, allowing our racing pulses and anxious gazes to settle.

“Yeah, I never much liked summer,” I said, “unless I was at the beach.”

“Fall is your favorite season, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…and yours is spring?”

“Yes…”

Nicole looked stunning, as though she’d just left the spa and the boutique, wearing a pale gray suit, blue blouse and pearl earrings. Her short hair was stylishly cut, her skin a deep golden brown.

I wore shorts and a T-shirt, having changed at the office before coming.

She looked at me vaguely, and then evasively, finally allowing her eyes to rest on her water glass. “I wish you would have returned my calls.”

“I should have.”

I folded my hands on the table and tried for calm, though I was repressing a towering anxiety. Seeing her again had accomplished everything I thought it would: it reawakened every raw and tender nerve.

She noticed my clothes for the first time. “Aren’t you working today?”

“Yes. I changed. It’s too hot to wear long pants. I have to be back by 2 o’clock.”

“God, isn’t it too hot.”

She ordered a tuna fish on rye and an egg cream. I ordered egg salad and a coke.

“Still the egg salad,” she said.

“Yes… I know. You don’t trust the egg salad to be fresh.”

She glanced about. “Well, maybe they have a lot of turnover here. For your sake I hope so.”

“Why did you want to meet in person, Nicole?” I blurted out, not wanting to prolong the ordeal. “Our lawyers can do all of this. We’re not going to fight over money, the flat screen TV, the iPhones, the DVDs or the books…”

She cut me off. “…Because our last conversation was dreadful. I didn’t want you thinking I was a heartless bitch.”

“I didn’t think that. I don’t think that.”

“It was a terrible day.”

“It was.”

“I’ve been so damned angry and confused. I’ve been confused for a long time.”

“Me too.”

“And when I played back all of the conversations of the last three or four months, I realized I sounded…well, like a horrible bitch.”

“And I, a bastard… Is that the equivalent to bitch?”

“Son of a bitch, I think, although I loved your mother and wouldn’t call you that, although I think I did a few times,” Nicole said. “I wanted to be like her. I was sorry I only knew her for a year or so.”

I watched the waiters scramble about, trying to keep up with the lunch crowd. “Nicole… Look. Things just, I don’t know, didn’t work out.”

“But I wanted them to, Alan! I wanted us to work out.”

“So did I.”

She twisted up her emotional mouth. “Dammit…I just…well. I didn’t… I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. I hate what happened to us, but I don’t hate you.”

“Well, all our friends are siding with you. They’re all saying that I was such a selfish bitch because I couldn’t…”

I interrupted. “Then they’re not friends, Nicole! Most of our ‘so called’ friends are losers anyway.”

Her full brown eyes opened on me. “I tried, Alan. I tried as hard as I could… But I wanted our child. Does that make me a terrible person!? Can I help it if that’s what I feel?”

“It was more than that, Nicole. You know it was.”

“More?”

“You know it was. On some basic level, we never, I don’t know, connected.”

She seemed hurt by my words.

“Don’t you think?” I added.

She pulled back. “No…No, I don’t think that at all.” She turned defensive. “I really don’t agree with that. That’s just…I don’t…” she left her thought in the air.

I suddenly felt Rita’s absence, and I shifted my weight.

“How didn’t we connect?” she persisted.

I looked away, crossing my arms tightly across my chest. “I don’t know.”

“No, Alan, I want to hear this. It’s important.”

“It’s over, Nicole. What does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

I shut my eyes and took a breath. “…Nicole…we should have been able to get through all of that stuff.” I opened my eyes and narrowed them on her. “We should have. We should have been strong enough. Couples who really love each other and are committed should be able to find support in each other.”

She flicked my words away with her hand. “I hate this ‘should’ bullshit. And you’re still evading my question.”

“I’m not on trial.”

“Okay, just forget it then,” she said, curtly. “I mean, we did the best we could…I know I did. I did everything I could and then some. Sometimes, things just don’t work out and it’s nobody’s fault!”

I nodded, grateful for her response. “Yes… sometimes…”

We sat in a tense silence as our food was delivered and we took fretful bites.

Finally, I pushed my half-eaten sandwich aside. “You have a new life now. You’re a partner…you have a new relationship.”

Her eyes darted up at me, with surprise. “What relationship?”

“Come on, Nicole…I’m not an idiot. I know you’re with Walker. I knew you were with Walker back in April. Maybe even sooner.”

She pushed her sandwich aside. “All right, look, it just happened, okay,” she said defensively. “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t want it to happen like it happened…It just did.”

“Okay…fine.”

“I always hate it when you say ‘fine’ like that. ‘Fine’ doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means, get on with your life, Nicole. We’re finished.”

She fumbled for her purse; on edge and despondent. “I just wanted to meet…I didn’t want to leave it like I left it.” Her eyes filled with tears, as she looked at me. “We had so many wonderful times, Alan. We really did.”

I reached for my coke, beating back emotion. “Yes…we did.”

She examined me, closely. “I heard that you’re seeing your old high school girlfriend. The one whose daughter was killed.”

“Yes…”

“Have you been seeing her for a long time?”

“Not while you and I were trying to work things out.”

She seemed relieved. She stood, staring into the floor. “Whenever you talked about her, your eyes would brighten. Did you know that? I was jealous of that.”

I remained silent.

“I hope it works out for you, Alan. I really do.”

I nodded, avoiding her eyes. “You too.”

“Okay…Alright then. I really need to go.”

I developed insomnia and spent hours pacing my room or reading old paperback mysteries, purchased from sidewalk book vendors. What would I do if I lost Rita again? What if she didn’t get pregnant, regardless of our persistent love? So I prescribed myself a non-controlled substance to help me sleep. Silenor had worked in the past and its only side effect for me was constipation.