Barefoot: A Novel

Melanie pressed her lips together. The same, meaning he was stil screwing the girl down the hal ? Melanie wouldn’t ask; she didn’t care. She did care about the state of her garden, however—her poor perennial beds!—but she wouldn’t ask about that either.

“Okay, wel , I’m just cal ing to let you know . . .” God, was she real y going to say it? “I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

“I’m pregnant.” The words seemed smal er when she spoke them than they did in her mind. “Pregnant with a baby. Due in February.”

There was silence on Peter’s end. Of course. Melanie focused on a nine- or ten-year-old girl walking into the market with her father. Bubble Gum Princess, the girl’s T-shirt said. She had long, thin legs like a stork.

“You’re kidding me,” Peter said. “This is a joke.”

“It is not,” Melanie said. Though wasn’t it just like Peter to think so. “I would never joke about something like this.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re right, you wouldn’t. But how? When?”

“That time,” she said. “You remember.”

“During the thunderstorm?”

“Yes.” She knew he remembered, of course he remembered. Even if he’d had sex with Frances Digitt a hundred times that very week, he would remember. Melanie had been out in the garden cutting lilies. She ran into the house because it had started to pour. In the mudroom, she peeled off her soaked clothes and announced to Peter that she was al done with IVF. The disappointment was kil ing her, she told him. She wanted to get on with life. Melanie’s face had been wet with raindrops and tears, natural y. Peter cried a little, too—mostly out of relief, she suspected —and then they made love, right there in the mudroom, up against the porcelain front of her gardening sink. Outside, it rained harder and harder; there was a sharp thunderclap that sounded like a very large bone breaking. Peter and Melanie made love like they hadn’t in years—she hungrily, he grateful y—while the stamens of the lilies bled a deep orange into the sink.

Afterward, Peter said, We could never have done that if we had children.

The stains from the lily stamens remained in the sink, a lingering reminder of their coupling, which made Melanie wistful before she learned about Frances Digitt and bitterly angry afterward. She had been able to forget those stains now that there was something even more permanent. A heartbeat. A baby.

“You’re sure, Mel?”

“I went to the doctor,” she said. “I’m ten weeks along. I heard the heartbeat.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus,” he whispered. And then he was silent again. What was he thinking? Melanie was pleased to discover that she didn’t particularly care.

“So, anyway,” Melanie said. “I just thought you should know.”

“Know? Of course I should know. I am the father.” His tone was approaching that of an accusation, but Melanie would not be bul ied. He had given up the right to the secrets her body contained when he slept with Frances Digitt. Melanie could close her eyes and picture Frances rounding the bases of the softbal field, pumping her fist in the air.

“I wanted to wait until I’d been to the doctor before I told you. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“How do you feel?” he said.

“I’ve been pretty sick,” she said. “I’m tired a lot, but otherwise, I feel fine.”

“You sound great,” Peter said. “You sound real y great.” He paused, cleared his throat. Melanie listened for the sound of his fingers on the computer keyboard. It would be just like him to check the market or play Snood while he was on the phone with her. But what she heard was silence; he didn’t even seem to be breathing. “God, I can’t believe this. Can you? After al we went through?”

“I know,” she said. “Pretty ironic.”

“You do sound great, Mel.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Okay, wel , I’m on a pay phone so I should probably hang up. I’l see you . . .”

“When?” Peter said. “I mean, when are you coming home?”

Melanie laughed. “Oh, geez,” she said. “I have no idea.” She felt wonderful saying this. She was 100 percent in control. When she got back to the house, she would kiss Vicki and thank her again for letting her come to Nantucket. Tonight, she would kiss Josh, and then some.

“I’l be in touch, Peter,” Melanie said.

“Um, okay, I’l —”

Melanie hung up.

Every morning when Josh walked into Number Eleven Shel Street, he asked himself what he was doing. What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing? The answer was: He was sleeping with Melanie Patchen, a woman both married and pregnant, he was having an affair with her, and he was keeping it a secret not only from Brenda and Vicki and his father, but from Blaine and Porter. He felt the guiltiest, perhaps, when he looked at the two kids, because he wanted to set a good example for them. They were going to emulate him any which way, a fact that would be easier to accept had he not been screwing their mother’s best friend. It was always first thing in the morning, when he saw their round, wide-eyed faces at the breakfast table, that his remorse was the keenest. By ten o’clock at night—which was when he met Melanie