Summer’s End

25

“‘Good morning, darling. You slept well?” He looked down at her in bed.

“Did you miss your plane?” There was no mention of the past week, of the fact that she had literally run away from Paris.

“I did. Stupidly. I couldn’t get a cab, there was a traffic jam, ten thousand tiny incidents, and I had to wait six hours for the next flight. How do you feel?”

“Decent.”

“No more than that?”

She shrugged in answer. She felt like hell, and she wished she were dead. All she wanted was Ben. But not like this. Not with Marc-Edouard’s baby.

“I want you to see the doctor today,” Marc said. “Shall I have Dominique make an appointment for you, or do you want to do it yourself?”

“Either way.”

Why so docile? He didn’t like what he saw. She looked haggard and pale, nervous and unhappy, and yet indifferent to everything he said. “I want you to see him today,” he repeated.

“Fine. Can I go by myself, or will you have Dominique take me?” Her eyes spat fire into his.

“Never mind that. You’ll go today?”

“Count on it. And where are you going today, Athens or Rome?”

She walked past him into the bathroom and quietly closed the door. It was going to be a delightful eight months, Marc thought grimly. When the baby came a month later than Deanna expected, he was simply going to tell her it was overdue. That happened all the time, babies born three weeks late. He had thought about it all the way over on the plane.

He walked to the bathroom and spoke firmly at the closed door. “I’ll be at my office if you need me. And be sure you see the doctor. Today. Understood?”

“Yes. Perfectly.” She kept her voice steady so he wouldn’t know she was crying. She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t live with it. It was too much. She had to leave him, to find her way back to Ben, with or without this damned child. But she had an idea. When she heard the front door slam, she emerged and went directly to the phone. The nurse told her he was busy but when she had the woman explain who was on the phone, he took the call.

“Deanna?” He sounded surprised. She rarely called anymore.

“Hi, Dr. Jones.” Her voice sagged with relief just to hear him. He would help her. He always had before. “I have a problem. A very large problem. Can I come see you?” He could hear the urgency in her voice.

“What did you have in mind, Deanna? Today?”

“Will you hate me if I say yes?”

“I won’t hate you, but I may tear out the little hair I’ve got left. Can it wait?”

“No. I’ll go crazy.”

“All right. Be here in an hour.”

She was, and he settled back in the huge red-leather chair that she always thought of when she thought of him. “So?”

“I’m pregnant.” His eyes didn’t waver. Nothing moved in his face.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Awful. It’s the wrong time… and everything about it is wrong.”

“Marc feels that way too?”

What did he have to do with it? What did it matter? But she had to be honest. “No. He’s pleased. But there are a thousand reasons why I think it’s wrong. For one thing, I’m too old.”

“Technically, you’re not. But do you feel too old to cope with a small child?”

“It’s not so much that, but… I’m just too old to go through it again. What if the baby dies, what if something like that happens again?”

“If that’s what you’re worrying about, you don’t have to, and you know it. You know as well as I that the two incidents were totally unrelated, they were just tragic accidents. It won’t happen again. But I think what you’re telling me, Deanna, is that you just don’t want this baby. Never mind the reasons. Or are there reasons you don’t want to tell me?”

“I… yes. I-I don’t want Marc’s child.”

For a moment the good doctor was stunned. “Any special reason, or is that a whim of the moment?”

“It’s not a whim. I’ve been thinking of leaving him all summer.”

“I see. Does he know?” he asked. She shook her head. “That does complicate things, doesn’t it? But the baby is his?” He would never have asked her that ten years before, but now things were apparently different, and he asked with such kindness that she didn’t mind.

“The baby is his.” She hesitated and then went on. “Because I’m two months pregnant. If I were less pregnant, it wouldn’t be his.”

“How do you know that you are two months pregnant?”

“They told me in France.”

“They could be wrong, but they probably aren’t. Why don’t you want the baby? Because it’s Marc’s?”

“Partially. And I don’t want to be tied to him any more than I am. If I have the baby, I can’t just get up and leave.”

“Not very easily, but you could. But then what would you do?”

“Well, I can hardly go back to the other man with Marc’s child.”

“You could.”

“No, Doctor. I couldn’t do that.”

“No, but you don’t have to stay with Marc because you’re having his child. You could get out on your own.”

“How?”

“You’d find a way if that was what you wanted.”

“It isn’t. I want… I want something else.”

And then he knew.

“Before you tell me, let me ask you how your daughter fits into all of this. How would she feel, one way or the other, if you had another child?” But Deanna was looking somberly into her lap.

At last she looked up at him. “That doesn’t matter anymore either. She died two weeks ago, in France.”

For a moment everything stopped, and then he leaned forward and took her hand. “My God, Deanna. I’m so sorry.”

“So are we.”

“And even given that, you don’t want another child?”

“Not like this. Not now. I just can’t. I want an abortion. That’s why I’m here.”

“Do you think you could live with it? Afterward, you know, there’s no getting it back. It’s almost always a situation that creates remorse, guilt, regret. You’ll feel it for a very long time.”

“In my body?”

“In your heart… in your mind. You have to want to get rid of it very badly, in order to feel comfortable about what you’ve done. What if there were a mistake in their diagnosis in France, and there was a chance that this were the other man’s child? Would you still want the abortion?”

“I can’t take the chance. I have to get rid of it in case it’s Marc’s. And there’s no reason to think they made a mistake.”

“People do. I sometimes do myself.” He smiled benevolently at her, then frowned as he had another thought. “Given what just happened to Pilar, do you feel able to cope with this now?”

“I have to. Will you do it?”

“If it’s what you want. But first I want to examine you and make sure I agree. Hell, maybe you’re not even pregnant.”

But she was. And he agreed, it was probably two months though it was always difficult to be precise so early in a pregnancy. It was just as well to do the operation quickly, Deanna seemed so determined on it.

“Tomorrow?” he asked her. “Come in at seven in the morning, and you can go home by five. Will you tell Marc?”

She shook her head. “I’ll tell him I lost it.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to work that out.”

“What if you decide to stay with Marc and have another child, but after this one you find you can no longer conceive? Then what, Deanna? Will you destroy yourself with guilt?”

“No. I can’t imagine that happening, but if it does, I’ll just have to live with it. And I will.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Totally.” She stood up, and he nodded and jotted down the address of the hospital where he wanted her to go. “Is it dangerous?” She hadn’t even thought to ask until then. She didn’t really care. She would just as soon die as be pregnant now with Marc’s child.

But Dr. Jones shook his head and patted her arm. “No, it’s not.”

“Where are you going at this hour?” Marc picked up his head and glanced at her as she slid out of bed, annoyed at herself for having awakened him.

“To my studio. I can’t sleep.”

“You should stay in bed.” But his eyes were already closed.

“I’ll spend a lot of time in bed today.” At least that much was the truth.

“All right.” But he was sleeping again by the time she was dressed and he didn’t see her go. She left him a note: She had gone out and would be back in the afternoon. He might be annoyed, but he would never know, and when she came home it would be too late. As she got into her car and started the motor, she looked down at her sandals and jeans. She had last worn them in Carmel with Ben. As she waited for the car to warm up, she found herself thinking of him again and looking up at the pale morning sky. The last time she had seen a sky like that, it had been with him. Then for no reason at all she remembered what the doctor had asked her: What if the baby were Ben’s? But it couldn’t be, how could it? Two months before, she had made love with Marc. But she had also met Ben at the end of June, it could have been his too. Why couldn’t she be certain? Why couldn’t she be only one month pregnant instead of two? “Damn.” She said the word aloud as she put her foot on the gas and backed out into the street. But what if it were his child? Would she still want the abortion? She suddenly wanted to talk to him, to tell him, to ask him what he thought, but that was insane. She drove straight to the address, her mind beginning to swim.

She looked pale and drawn when she got there. Dr. Jones was already waiting. He was quiet and gentle, as always, and he touched Deanna’s arm.

“You’re sure?” he asked. She nodded, but there was something he didn’t like in her eyes. “Let’s go talk.”

“No. Let’s just do it.”

“All right.” He gave instructions to the nurse, and Deanna was led to a small room where she was told to change into a hospital gown.

“Where will they take me?”

“Down the hall. You’ll be gone all day. You won’t be back here all day.” Suddenly for the first time she felt frightened. What if it hurt? If she died? If she hemorrhaged on the way home? If… The nurse proceeded to explain the suction technique to Deanna, and she felt herself grow pale.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.” It was all Deanna could think to say. She suddenly, desperately, wanted Ben.

“Are you afraid?” The nurse tried to look gentle but didn’t succeed.

“A little.”

“Don’t be. It’s nothing. I’ve had three.” Jesus, Deanna thought. How wonderful. At a discount?

Deanna sat in her little room, waiting. At last she was led down the hall and then put in a room, where they positioned her on a sterile table, her feet strapped into the stirrups. It was like the delivery rooms she’d been in when she’d had those two baby boys, and then finally Pilar. A delivery room-not an abortion room. She felt herself break into a sweat. They left her alone for almost half an hour. She lay there, with her feet up, fighting the urge to cry and reminding herself that it would be over soon. Over. Gone. They’d pull it out of her with that machine. She looked around her, wondering which piece of ominous-looking machinery was The One, but they all looked equally terrifying. She felt her legs start to shake. It seemed hours before Dr. Jones came into the room, and she felt herself jump.

“Deanna, we’re going to give you a shot to make you a little woozy, and a little more at ease.”

“I don’t want it.” She tried to sit bolt upright, and struggled with her legs in the air.

“The shot? But it will be a great deal easier for you if you take it. Believe me. It’s a lot harder like this.” He looked immensely sympathetic, but she shook her head.

“I don’t want it. Not the shot. The abortion. I can’t. What if the baby is Ben’s?” The thought had gnawed at her for the last hour, or was that only an excuse to keep it? She wasn’t sure.

“Are you certain, Deanna? Or are you just afraid?”

“Both. Everything… I don’t know.” Tears filled her eyes.

“What if the baby were just yours and no one else’s? If there were no man involved. If you could just have the baby to yourself. Would you want it then?”

She raised her eyes to his and silently nodded.

He undid her legs. “Then go home, love, and work things out. You can have that baby all by yourself, if that’s what you want. No one can take it away from you. It’ll be all yours.”

She found herself smiling at the thought.

Marc was in the shower when she got home, and she quietly went up to her studio and locked the door. What had she done? She had decided to keep the baby, and what the doctor had said was true. She could have the baby alone and just make it hers. She could, couldn’t she? Or would the baby always be Marc’s? Just as Pilar had been. Suddenly she knew she would never escape. The baby was Marc’s. She didn’t yet have the courage to have it alone. And what did it matter? She had already lost Ben.