I know that Fielda and I had no part in this and the fact that crucial minutes are being squandered in that consideration makes me ill.
I recall feeling the same when Fielda left me, the second of two instances when we have been apart, a panicked, out-of-control sensation that started in my extremities and coursed through my veins toward my center, tossing me off balance. Since the day Fielda and I were married, Fielda spoke of children, a home full of curly- haired, dark-eyed babies who loved books as I did and who loved food as Fielda did. To be honest, I was so astonished to have this wondrous, beautiful woman next to me, the whole of being married seemed unreal to me, magical. I viewed children in the same manner. I could not imagine being a father.
Fielda would spend hours looking through parent magazines and children’s clothing catalogs, perusing and planning. I always nodded and made a noncommittal noise when she showed me a particular article about prenatal health care or organic baby food. Months passed, then a year, and no baby. Looking back, I should have seen the change in Fielda—the gradual slump of her shoulders, the slight pull of the corners of her mouth downward, the way she would stare at new mothers in grocery stores and at church—but I did not notice.
For two years, three, then four, Fielda continued to pore over parenting books. All she could talk about was babies. How to become pregnant with one, having one, raising one. I’m ashamed to say that I lost patience with her. I’m not a handy individual, but once in a while I’ve been known to try and tighten a pipe or replace a fuse. I went down to our basement where I keep my toolbox, nearly pristine from lack of use. I was going to attempt to change the showerhead in our bathroom. I don’t know why the box caught my eye, but it did. It was a large, plain, clear plastic container with a blue lid and it appeared to be filled with clothing. Maybe it was the bright pink fabrics that were such a contrast to the gray dark basement that made me take notice. I don’t know. But I pulled the box down from the shelf and opened it, almost fearfully, as if I was doing something wrong. Inside were dozens of tiny baby outfits in pinks and blues and yellows with the price tags still hanging from them. There were dresses for a girl and overalls for a boy, there were socks that would barely cover my thumb. There were bibs in bright colors that said Daddy’s Little Girl or Got Milk? It wasn’t the money, though the amount of clothing in that box must have cost a small fortune, that bothered me. It seemed to me so sad in some way. Pathetic, really. Looking back, I can see that it was simply hope. That for Fielda, purchasing the clothing meant that she was going to conceive and have a child. She had to, she already had the outfits. I didn’t look at it that way, though. I grabbed a fistful of the clothing, dropping impossibly small T-shirts and booties behind me as I stomped up the steps.
“Fielda!” I bellowed, startling her so that she dropped the pot of spaghetti she was carrying to the sink to drain. She hopped back to avoid the scalding water, and limp strings of pasta slid across the floor.
“Martin!” she snapped back impatiently. “What’s the matter?”
“This is the matter!” I said, holding out the baby clothing. “Are you crazy?” I asked. Words I immediately regretted because, by the look on her face, I think she may have wondered the exact same thing of herself. Still I ranted on. “Fielda, there is no baby. There may never be a baby. Maybe it’s time you faced it.”
“I’m going to have a baby, Martin,” she told me, her voice low and dangerous. “I can’t
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I said cruelly. “I’m not going to sit by and watch you waste money on a baby that doesn’t exist.” I might as well have slapped her. The hurt on her face still takes my breath away and the fact that I caused it to be there still makes my face burn with shame.
She stalked out of the room, nearly slipping on the spaghetti as she left. She didn’t talk to me for nearly a week. And even after she did begin to talk to me, she didn’t allow me to touch her. She spent endless minutes in the bathroom and she would emerge with red, swollen eyes, but she never cried in front of me. One day I found the sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. Good, I told myself. Maybe she would begin to sleep through the night again instead of the endless pacing, pacing. If I had thought about it, I would have known. I should have known. I should have thrown that bottle away the minute I saw it.
Then one day it was as if nothing had ever happened and she appeared to be the same old Fielda. I thought she had come to her senses, decided to let nature take its course. But I was wrong. Her mission to become a mother was as strong as ever, and I found out about the doctor’s appointment when the receptionist from the office called to confirm the appointment. “We have the test results in,” the receptionist explained. “He’d like for Fielda to come in to discuss them.”
I gave her the message, trying to conceal my wounded feelings at being left out of this part of Fielda’s life. Though I must say, I couldn’t really blame her. I had told her to stop, which is something Fielda never did, give up, I mean. She thanked me for the message, staring at me levelly as if daring me to call her on it. I didn’t.
Instead I canceled and rescheduled my classes that drizzly October afternoon to accompany her. In the office I tried to hold her hand, which she shook impatiently away. I tried reading aloud bits from outdated magazines but she ignored me. Instead, she paced around the waiting room, looking at walls tacked with Polaroid snapshots of weary mothers holding tiny babies in their arms, sometimes a shell-shocked husband or boyfriend standing nearby. When the nurse called her name, Fielda marched back to the examining room without a backward glance toward me. Moments later, however, the nurse returned to the waiting area and called my name.
“Mr. Gregory, would you please come on back? Dr. Berg would like for you to join us,” she said, smiling.
I followed her, heartened at her smile. Good news, I thought. Fielda will return to her former self, her shoulders would straighten and laughter would return to her eyes. When I entered the room Fielda sat, fully dressed, on the examining table, crossing and uncrossing her ankles nervously. The doctor was a dark-skinned man with a serious face. His hair was black and slicked back from his forehead, and he had caring eyes.
“Mr. Gregory, I am Dr. Berg, Mrs. Gregory’s gynecologist. Please, take a seat.” He indicated a plastic chair across the small room.
“No, thank you,” I replied and continued to stand next to Fielda.
“We asked you both to come in today to share with you the results of some initial tests that we have done in order to find out why Mrs. Gregory has not conceived.”
I nodded and reached for Fielda’s hand. This time she did not pull away.
“The good news is, we cannot find anything conclusively wrong that is preventing conception with Mrs. Gregory. There is, of course, further testing that we can do, but I would recommend that you try some other avenues.”
“For example…” I began.
“For example, I would suggest that you, Mr. Gregory, have a sperm sample taken. This could address any concerns with sperm viability.”
“Oh,” I laughed uneasily. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I believe that these things come in due time. Perhaps parenthood is not for us.”
I felt Fielda pull her hand from mine. It was not a violent pull, more like an easing away. It did not alarm me. Fielda’s next act, however, did. She slid off the examination table and breezed out of the room without a backward glance or an acknowledgment to the physician, which surprised me, as Fielda is normally unfailingly polite. I thanked the doctor for the both of us and quickly made my exit. When I stepped out into the wet parking lot I could see Fielda speeding away in our car.
I walked the nearly two miles home, ruining my dress shoes, the chill of autumn pouring into them as I sloshed through puddles. When I arrived at our house Fielda was not at home. I decided to give her some time to think, to be on her own, but the minutes stretched into hours and evening arrived. I finally called the Mourning Glory and asked Mrs. Mourning, albeit awkwardly, if she had seen Fielda. She had not.
“Did you all have your first fight?” Mrs. Mourning teased good-naturedly. “Bout time, you’ve only been married four years!”
I laughed feebly and asked her to tell Fielda to call me if she happened to hear from her.
It had stopped raining, but darkness was gathering, pressing in on the house so that I nearly choked on its emptiness. Finally, I abandoned the notion that Fielda needed some time to herself and climbed into our other car, “the regular folk” car Mrs. Mourning would say, a Chevette that was a shade of bronze that fortunately covered the rust stains eating away at its edges. I spent the next hour driving up and down side streets, looking for Fielda; I drove past the library, the fabric store, the candy shop, searching to no avail. I even paused briefly in front of the Mourning Glory and glanced into its gleaming storefront, lit warmly, but did not see Fielda or our Camry. I decided to drive into the Willow Creek Camping Grounds, a dismal, junky spot, I thought, to which people who had nothing better to do with their time would pull cumbersome campers in order to sit around a fire and drink beer all day and
