beating like a second heart within my brain. The ceaseless tattoo grows louder, pulsing in my ears, throbbing in my temples, causing little storms of numbness along my upper forearms. These are parasthesias; I looked up the symptom late one night in one of Drewe’s medical books. Parasthesias are caused by extraordinary levels of stress. Everyone has a different tolerance, I suppose. What would terrify an equestrienne would not faze a bull rider.
I have carried my secret for a long time, and consequently thought I had learned to live with it, like a benign growth of some sort. Then, three months ago, I discovered that my secret had far more frightful consequences than I ever imagined. That my guilt is far greater than my capacity for rationalization.
And my skill at deception is crumbling.
Beyond this, I have an irrational feeling that my secret has taken on a life of its own-that it is
Erin joins hands with Holly as they dance across the grass, now closer, now farther away. They spin like dervishes in the August heat. The drone of medico-political conversation presses against my eardrums, blending with the sound of Bob’s bees in Bob’s bushes. Comparing Drewe and Erin now, I see beyond the physical. Their innermost differences are stark, essential. They can be divided by single words: Drewe is control, Erin chaos. Drewe is achievement, Erin accident. Erin’s eyes catch mine for the briefest instant. I try to blank my mind, to shake my preoccupation and smile.
But I cannot.
She spins more slowly, her eyes catching mine each time she turns. What is in those eyes? Compassion? I believe so. In these fleeting moments I sense an intimacy of such painful intensity that it seems almost in danger of arcing between us-of ionizing the air dividing our eyes and bodies and letting that which resides separately in both our souls unite, as someday it inevitably must. What is this power that burns so for unity? That threatens to declare itself without invitation? What is it but the truth? A knowledge that Erin and I alone possess, of
And what is the truth of things as they really are?
Holly Graham is my daughter.
CHAPTER 9
“Did you sense something wrong with Patrick?” asks Drewe.
We are already five miles from her parents’ house, rolling down the two-lane blacktop toward our farm, which is still ten miles away. With every mile we cover, my anxiety lessens.
“No,” I answer. “He seemed like his usual weekend self. Glad to be away from the hospital, wishing he was playing golf instead of sitting at your parents’ house.”
Drewe clicks her tongue. “I think he and Erin are having problems.”
“What?” I say a little too sharply. In fact, I know Erin and Patrick are having problems. “They seemed fine to me.”
Drewe looks at me, but thankfully her gaze is only on half power. “I guess you’re right. Sometimes I just get the feeling that Erin’s new life-her domesticity, I mean-is really just a front. That in her mind she never really left New York and all that other stuff behind.”
“New life? It’s been three years, Drewe. That’s a lot of commitment just for an act.”
She smiles. “You’re right. God, Holly gets more beautiful every week, doesn’t she?”
“She sure does.”
“And Erin’s so good with her. Did you hear her jump on Daddy about his racism? I think she really embarrassed him.”
“Impossible.”
She punches me on the shoulder. “I was pretty impressed with you, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You had Holly wrapped around your finger.”
Here it comes.
“You know,” she says-and despite her effort to sound as casual as she did a moment ago, I detect the tonal change-“I’ve been off the pill over five months now.”
I know exactly how long she has been off the pill. I can trace the date by the fight we had when she made this unilateral decision. My wife is not one to equivocate. When she decides on a goal, she takes the shortest path to it. In her mind, the time has come for us to have children. If I am opposed, it must be because I’m nostalgically clinging to my irresponsible youth, which is pointless. Neither of us ever liked using a condom or anything else during sex; thus, she assumed that when she stopped taking the pill it would be only a matter of weeks until she conceived.
The first four months were the grace period required for the artificial hormones to be purged from her system. At that time she had a vested interest-genetic-in keeping our sexual contact to a minimum. But we are at the five-and-a-half-month mark now, and despite her confidence in my uncontrollable lust, Drewe has yet to conceive. This is not due to a flaw in her judgment of my character. It’s just that she forgot to reckon EROS into her calculations. The computer forums-and certain women on them-have proved to be a vicarious but satisfactory outlet for my sexual energy. I think Drewe suspects this, and it accounts for her bitter resentment of the time I spend sysoping the forum.
“You love Holly so much,” she says, and I feel her looking right at me. “I can see it. I don’t understand why you don’t want a child of your own.”
“I do want one,” I say truthfully. “I want two.”
“But what? Just not yet? Harper, I’m thirty-three. At thirty-five, the odds for Down’s syndrome and a hundred other things go up dramatically.”
As neutrally as possible, I say, “We’ve had this discussion before, Drewe.”
The temperature in the car drops ten degrees. “And now we’re having it again.”
When I don’t respond, she sighs and looks out at the dusty cotton fields drifting by. The ocean of white covers the land as far as the eye can see. “I know I’m pressuring you,” she says in measured tones, “but I just don’t understand your reasoning.”
After a silent mile, she says, “Are we ever going to make love again?”
As if the situation isn’t complicated enough. Five minutes after discussing having children and being off the pill, she makes a sexual overture that by her tone I am supposed to interpret as passion?
“I do actually miss it, you know,” she says, looking straight through the windshield.
“Me too,” I murmur. What else can I say?
“Doubting my motives?”
I can tell by her voice that she has turned to face me again. Hearing a rustle of cloth, I look across the seat. Drewe has opened her blouse. Her bra attaches at the front, and she opens that too. Twice in the past month, advances like this have led to serious arguments. However, her nipples confirm her tone of voice. Maybe this is an honest approach.
She turns sideways in her seat, lifts one bare foot over the Explorer’s console, and lets it fall into my lap. She is very good with that foot. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she manages to unfasten the belt, snap, and zipper of my jeans.
“Obviously you miss it too,” she says.
“They teach you that in medical school? In case you have a hand injury?”
“Mmm-hm. We practiced on interns. The young, handsome ones.”
“Okay, okay.”
In one smooth motion she hitches up her sundress and climbs over the console. Then, facing me, she plants
