Spring 2004
For
almost half her life now, she had lived in places where there were
four distinct seasons, not just cool, warm, and hot. She had grown
used to winter, learned to tolerate snowfalls that paralyzed traffic
or air so cold it made
her cough just because she inhaled, but she still loved the first
warm days of spring. Every March she began to watch the trees for
buds and leaves. She studied the ground for daffodils and crocuses.
In her mind and on her calendar, she marked off the days in a countdown
to warm.
But this year, the days moved faster than she wanted. April seemed intent on becoming May and there wasn't anything she could do to convince that that was just a bad idea. By April thirtieth, her palms felt permanently itchy, the butterflies in her stomach were choreographing ballets, and she jumped every time she heard his voice or little AJ's name. She felt foolish, almost ridiculous as she watched him through her office blinds. She tried to time her entrances and exits so that she would just miss him and hoped that he didn't think she was avoiding him.
Harriet
was throwing two birthday parties for little AJ, one for family and
one for his friends. She told Mac as they sat at her kitchen table one
night that she didn't think it was fair to make the adults suffer their
way through a
party with twenty five year olds. Mac's already frayed nerves agreed
with her.
"Plus," she added, "if we have the party late enough, AJ will go to bed and then it'll just be a nice evening for the adults."
"Sounds like a good idea," Mac murmured as she studied the invitations.
"I thought we could use a party. A lot has happened this year." Harriet divided the stack in half and gave a pile to Mac. "Thank you so much, Ma'am, for helping." Harriet nodded towards the family room. "Bud and I can use the extra hands."
Mac smiled and cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. A flickering blue light cast shadows on the foyer wall. AJ's laugh bounced into the kitchen as he watched a cartoon with his father. Over the baby monitor at Harriet's elbow, Jimmy's soft breaths whispered through the room. "I want this." Mac sighed the words out in a low voice.
"What's that, Ma'am? Mac?" she corrected herself. She glanced up from the invitations.
"Oh," Mac waved her hand a little, brushing aside the want, "don't mind me." She shook her head and went back to the stack of cards in front of her.
"Harriet, can I talk to you about something?" she asked after a minute. "And you have to promise that you won't talk to anyone else about it, not even Bud."
Harriet put her pen down and looked at Mac. "Are you okay?"
She nodded and smiled. "It's nothing bad, really. I just don't want it being discussed, I guess."
"Then what is it?" Harriet rested her forearms on the table and leaned closer.
Mac
took a deep breath and let it out in a soft whoosh. After another steadying
breath, she said, "Okay, you have to promise not to interrupt.
See, Harm and I," she began and then laughed self-consciously.
"Oh, this sounds so
stupid when I say it out loud to someone that isn't Harm. We made a
deal when AJ was born."
"You made a deal?" Harriet echoed.
She nodded. "Yes. You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything." She started to rummage around her feet for her purse, getting ready to run and forgetting about the invitations she promised she'd help with. She stilled her motion when Harriet laid a hand on her arm.
"What kind of deal?" Harriet asked softly.
"That," she blew her hair back from her face and cupped her hands around her cheeks to cover the blush that was spreading across them, "if neither of us was in a serious relationship in five years, we'd have a baby together."
Harriet took a long drink from her water glass before squeaking out, "You made a deal to have a baby?"
She shifted a hand from her cheek to her eyes. "Yes," she nodded. Cracking her fingers open, she said in a small voice, "So what do you think?"
Harriet's chair scraped against the tiles as she pushed herself back from the table. Mac watched as the other woman leaned against the sink before pouring herself another glass of water. Rubbing her forehead, she turned to face Mac, the small of her back resting against the countertop. "Do you," she paused, catching her lip between her teeth as she contemplated the ceiling. "Do you want my honest opinion?"
"Yes," Mac whispered between her hands.
Harriet inhaled and exhaled slowly. "With all due respect, I mean it's a bit of a shock." She took another long pull of water. "Frankly, Ma'am, it sounds awful."
Tension slid under her skin and raised goose bumps along her arms. "That bad, huh?" she asked weakly.
"It
- it just doesn't seem like a good way to bring a child into the world."
She shrugged. "It sounds a little, I don't know, cold, I guess."
She ran a hand down her arm and glanced towards the doorway. "And
you must have some
misgivings or you wouldn't have asked."
Mac lowered her hands and twisted them together, pinching her fingers tightly between each other. She studied the tabletop as she weighed and measured her words. "I do," she agreed softly. "But the thing is, I want to have kids and I'm getting older. Eventually, time is going to run out."
"What about adopting?"
Her shoulder hitched. "I've thought about it." She paused. "But I live alone and I have a pretty demanding career and that's going to make it harder for me to adopt a child."
She sighed and forced her fingers to uncurl. "It doesn't matter anyway. Harm and I, well, we're barely friends now and he has Mattie." She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and angled her face to see the flickering lights. Turning back to Harriet, she said, "You don't know how lucky you are."
"Yes, I do," Harriet disagreed quietly. "But, Mac - Sarah, you can still have it. I just don't see that a deal is a good way to bring a child into the world."
A soft breeze ruffled the curtains on the kitchen windows and made a set of wind chimes tinkle somewhere in the distance. She exhaled softly as she thought about her dark apartment. "Would it be the worst thing to happen to a kid? It would still have two parents that loved it."
She tapped her finger against her chin. "So its conception wouldn't be the most romantic one but it would still be wanted and loved. That's more than some people can say about their parents and their childhoods.
"I want a family, Harriet. I've given up on finding a man that will love me for the rest of my life. I've given up a lot of things I used to want, but I just can't bring myself to let go of the idea of having children." She studied the pale blue network of veins in her wrists and waited for Harriet to comment. Minutes passed and silence filled the room, spreading outward from the two women until there wasn't any room for words left in the kitchen.
Harriet eased her body into the chair next to hers and curled her fingers around Mac's. "Maybe it's not such a bad deal," she said in a low voice after time had passed.
"Maybe,"
she shrugged and ran a finger over one of the invitations. "But
it's practically null and void now." She suppressed another sigh
and picked up her pen. "Let's get back to these invitations or
AJ will have to have his
birthday party in July."
She
concentrated on writing dates and times. Her vision narrowed on he black
ink curlicues of the invitations. She tried not to notice when AJ ran
into the kitchen pretending to be an airplane and demanding juice. Or
when Bud
brought the baby into the room because he was fussy and needed his mother.
It didn't matter, she told herself, that the thing she wanted most in
life was all around her and completely beyond her reach.