terrible news.
Sally’s pats gradually grew less and less emphatic and more and more punitive.
“What?” I asked, when it dawned on me that she looked sour rather than sympathetic.
“Not about you, is it?” she asked brusquely.
“What?”
“All this. Your stepfather’s sick, so your mother is preoccupied with him, as she should be. Your husband’s niece is missing and her husband is dead, so Martin’s thinking more about his family than he is about you, for once.”
I stared at Sally like a landed fish. Was I really that selfish? Or had Sally been so jealous of me all these years, and I hadn’t noticed? I felt like I’d been negotiating a minefield and the soldier behind me had started chucking rocks over my shoulder.
“You know, Sally, this maybe isn’t the best time to tell me about my character flaws,” I said in as even a voice as I could manage. “I had in mind something like you telling me, ‘There, there, you poor thing,’ rather than implying I’m a selfish bitch who thinks I’m the center of the universe.”
Of course, no matter what I said, I was wondering how much of what Sally had said was true. Did everyone see me that way? Oh God, had all the friends I’d had all these years looked at me and thought, That Roe, she’s okay, but talk about egocentric!
Sally looked stricken, thank God. But my relief faded when she said, “Roe, my timing stinks, I apologize for that. But you’ve never known how lucky you’ve had it. Your mother does everything but wipe your rear for you, and your husband not only thinks he should protect and pamper you, but he has money!”
“And that’s my fault?”
“No!” she said. “No! But it’s your-responsibility!” She looked at her watch and gasped. “City council meeting! I have to go now, Roe, I’ll see you soon.” And she grabbed her purse and flew out the door before I had a chance to respond.
I scooped up the sleeping Precious Burden, and watched through the window as Sally crossed the yard, pausing to talk to Martin and the sheriff. I was glad to see Martin was wearing his waterproof jacket, since the day was overcast and every now and then the sky spit some rain. The sheriff strolled away from Martin, and leaned on Sally’s car, talking to her through the partly open window for a moment before Sally gave a quick wave and swung her car around.
I picked and puzzled at the scene with Sally, which had upset me deeply. I felt like I hadn’t known the lion was within when I’d shut the village gates for the night. Gee whiz-Roe Tea-garden, Monster of Selfishness?
I’d always thought of myself more as Roe Teagarden, the Incredibly Lucky. Well… sometimes. Maybe not a few years ago, when my steady boyfriend had suddenly married the woman he’d gotten pregnant while he was dating me… but then again, I’d been lucky I hadn’t married him, right? And maybe I hadn’t been so lucky when my father and stepmother had moved my half brother out of state, making it almost impossible for me to see him… but then again, I’d saved his life, and I’d gotten to fly out to California to visit Phillip twice since then.
This “good luck” evaluation was just as helpful as opening the closet full of bridesmaids’ dresses I’d kept in my storage closet before I’d met Martin. Time to shuffle off this coil of introspection and deal with a here-and-now situation.
Hayden was asleep. His eyelids were so pale the veins stood out clearly, making his skin look almost translucent. I lowered my head to inhale his scent.
“I cheated you,” Martin said. He was standing in the archway to the dining room. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair was rumpled. The stubble on his cheeks was white, like his hair, not black, like his eyebrows.
I wasn’t in the mood for any more deep emotional scenes.
“How do you figure that?” I asked, my voice hushed and level because of the baby.
“We could have explored other options,” he said, his voice equally subdued. “Maybe your”-he nodded toward my mid-section to indicate my malformed womb-“could have been corrected surgically, or something. We could have adopted privately; we have enough money.”
I looked at my husband for a long, wake-up moment before I said, “And these are new thoughts to you?”
I carried Hayden up the stairs, and laid him in his crib.
Then I marched downstairs. Martin was standing right where I’d left him. I said, “I shouldn’t hop on you with both feet because something was more important to me than it was to you.”
It was like my words didn’t register, as if Martin had become deaf to anything that didn’t resonate with some mysterious preoccupation. “We should start out tomorrow morning,” he said.
“We’ll have to drive. Given the circumstances. Maybe you should go to the store and get whatever the baby will need for the trip.”
Like I knew? I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it again. Sally’s observation had stung me where it hurt, had made me doubt my every impulse. I went to the desk to make a list of things I might need, but instead I sat with my hand on the telephone. Despite a nagging fear that somehow this conversation, too, would be dispiriting, I called the one person I could count on, my best friend, Amina.
Wife of a Houston lawyer, Amina was a mother (and I a godmother) of a lovely little girl, Megan. Amina, an only child, and her husband, oldest of two siblings, were happily indulging Megan (now a Terrible Two) and threatening her with a brother or sister.
“Amina,” I said, relief throbbing through my voice, when my friend answered the phone.
“Roe,” she said, in a curiously hushed voice. “I can’t talk long, Megan’s got the measles.”
Of course.
“Is she very sick?” I asked, trying to sound Deeply Concerned.
“Just the usual case, I guess.” Amina was trying to be brave, not doing a very good job of it. “But she just needs me every minute, or at least she thinks she does. I’ve been taking her Popsicles and playing games with her all day. Do you think she’s a little spoiled? That’s what Hugh’s mom says.”
“Only as much as any only child,” I told Amina somewhat grimly. I had grown up as an only child.
“We’ll take care of that soon,” Amina said, with the confidence that comes of getting pregnant on your honeymoon. “Thank God I’m not pregnant now, since I have to take care of her and measles are so scary if you’re expecting. Oh hell, I hear her calling. Again.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Amina was wearing a little thin in the nursing department. I wasn’t surprised. Tall, energetic, and attractive, Amina had always been a person who had to keep moving, had always had a project in the wings and another to keep her currently occupied.
“I’ll let you go in just a minute,” I promised, “but I need some information first.”
“What can I help you with?” Amina’s voice had fallen even lower.
“What supplies do you need to take care of an infant for maybe two or three days?”
After a moment’s thoughtful silence, Amina began, “Four sleepers, about twenty diapers…” I wrote furiously on the notepad I kept by the phone. Bless Amina, she didn’t ask any questions. If I wasn’t going to get to cry on her shoulder, I might as well not go through the whole explanation.
After I hung up and checked on Hayden, I found my coat slung over a chair in the dining room. I put it on and grabbed my purse. Martin and Rory had a football game on in the den. I didn’t think either of them could have told me the score if I’d asked, but I wouldn’t have put money on it. To make sure I had their attention, I stood in front of the screen.
“Martin,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a total shrew, “the dishes are still on the counter from lunch. Please do them by the time I come back. Rory, you listen for the baby. He’s asleep upstairs.” They both stared at me groggily, so I didn’t move until I had confirming nods from both of them.
It was a real pleasure to leave the house.
I turned a country music station up real loud as I drove to that new southern cultural center, Wal-Mart. Somehow, country music seemed to fit the low-down strangeness of the past two days. “My Husband’s Niece Done Shot Her Man”-how would that play? Or “Whose Baby Am I Feeding?” Nah, couldn’t think of a chorus for that one. What about “There’s a Dead Man on My Stairs and a Baby ‘Neath the Bed”?
That kept me smiling until I got past the greeter (who happened to be a cousin of my husband’s secretary and always had to pass the time of day with me due to that connection), got my cart (known locally as a “buggy”), and set off down the main aisle. I wheeled my buggy toward a corner I seldom visited, the corner full of baby paraphernalia. I had my little list with me, the list I’d scribbled while I was on the phone with Amina, and I studied
