Heartbeat Page 7

“I think we ought to think about it for a while, before we do anything drastic that we might both regret later.” She had friends who had had abortions and hated themselves for it, and admittedly, others who hadn't. But Steven didn't agree with her.

  “Believe me, Adrian,” he gentled his voice a little bit and took a step closer to her, “you won't regret it. When you think about it afterward, you'll be relieved. This thing could be a serious threat to our marriage.” This “thing” was their baby. The baby she had come to love in the four days she had known of its existence.

  “We don't have to let it be a threat to our marriage.” Tears started to fill her eyes as she leaned against him. “Steven, please …don't make me do this …please. …”

  “I'm not making you do anything.” He sounded annoyed as he walked around their bedroom like a caged animal. He felt threatened to his very core, and deeply frightened. “I'm just telling you that this is a rotten piece of luck, and a bit of insanity to even consider going through with it. Our lives are at stake. For God's sake, do what you have to.”

  “Why do you have to see it that way? Why is a baby such a big threat?” She didn't understand why he felt so radical about it, she never had. He had always regarded children as if they were the threat of enemy invasion.

  “You have no idea what kids can do to your life, Adrian. I do. I saw it in my own family. My parents never had anything. My mother had one lousy pair of shoes, one pair of shoes for my entire childhood. She made everything she could and then we used it till it fell apart, or the clothes fell off our backs. We didn't have books or dolls or toys. We didn't have anything, except poverty and each other.” She felt sorry, and it must have been terrible, but it had nothing to do with the reality of their lives, and somehow he refused to understand that.

  “I'm sorry that happened to you. But our children would never have to live like that. We both make healthy salaries and there's enough for us and a baby to live more than comfortably.”

  “That's what you think. What about school? What about college? Do you have any idea what Stanford costs these days?” And then, like a forlorn child, “What about our trip to Europe? We wouldn't be able to do anything like that anymore. We'd have to give up everything. Are you really prepared to do that?”

  “I don't understand why you see it in such extremes. And even if we did have to make sacrifices, Steven, wouldn't it be worth it?” He didn't answer her, but his eyes said it all. They said clearly that to him it wouldn't. “And in any case, we're not talking about planning to have kids at some future date. We're talking about a baby that's already here. That's very different.” To her it was, anyway, but not to him. That much was clear.

  “We are not talking about a baby. We are talking about a nothing. A spot of sperm that touched an egg the size of a microscopic dot, and that dot is a microscopic possibility of nothing. It's a question mark, a maybe, a possibility and nothing more, and it's a possibility we don't want. That's all you have to think about. All you have to do is go to your doctor and tell him you don't want it.”

  “And then what?” She felt anger boiling up inside of her as she listened to him. “Then what, Steven? He just says, Okay Adrian, you don't want the baby, no problem and he checks it off in the 'no' box on a little list? Not exactly. He pulls it out of me with a suction machine and scrapes my uterus with a scalpel, and he kills our baby. That's what he does, Steven. That's what 'tell him you don't want it' means. And the thing is, I do want it, and you need to think of that too. This isn't just your baby, it's mine too, it's our baby, whether you want it or not. And I'm not going to just get rid of it because you say so.” She had started sobbing as she spoke to him, but Steven acted as though he didn't hear her. He was so terrified that all he could do was act like an ice man. He was frozen with terror. And Adrian was overwhelmed with anguish.

  “I see,” he said icily as he looked at her with fresh distance. “Are you telling me you won't get rid of it?”

  “I'm not telling you anything yet. I'm just asking you to think about it, and I'm telling you that I'd like to keep it.” She had surprised herself by admitting that she wanted it. And asking him to keep it made it sound as though they were talking about a puppy and not their child, and it horrified her.

  Steven nodded miserably, and took her hand and pulled her down on the bed next to him, and suddenly she could no longer control herself as he put his arms around her, and she went on sobbing.

  All the shock and fear and tension and excitement of it bubbled up inside of her and exploded over the sides until she couldn't stop crying anymore, and she lay in his arms and sobbed as he held her.

  “I'm sorry, baby …I'm sorry this happened to us …it'll be all right …you'll see …I'm sorry …” She wasn't even sure what he was saying to her, but she was glad he was holding her, and maybe he would change his mind after he thought about it for a little longer. She thought that he probably would, but it was so emotionally draining dealing with this resistance.

  “I'm sorry too,” she said finally, and he wiped the tears from her eyes and kissed her. He began to stroke her hair then, and kissed the tears on her eyelashes and cheeks, and then slowly he undid her blouse, and slid her shorts and her underwear down past her ankles. She lay naked beside him and he lay admiring her. She had a beautiful body, and in his opinion defiling it with a baby would have been a crime. She would never have been the same again and he knew it.

  “I love you, Adrian,” he said gently. He loved her too much to let her do something so desperately foolish. And he loved himself, and their life, and everything they had striven for and accomplished and acquired, and no one was ever going to jeopardize that, certainly not a baby.

  He kissed her longingly, and she kissed him in return, thinking that he understood how she felt finally, and they made love to each other, quietly and gently. It was a time of feeling close to each other and putting their argument aside, as each one hoped that the other would come to understand their side, and afterward they lay in each other's arms and kissed again, feeling much closer.

  It was the middle of the afternoon by the time they woke up the next day, and Steven suggested they take a swim, which they did, after they showered and had breakfast. Adrian was in a quiet mood, and she didn't say anything as they went out to the pool holding hands and feeling pensive. It was a pool shared by all the residents of the complex, but there was no one there today. It was a beautiful sunny May afternoon and people had gone to the beach, or to see friends, or they were just lying on their decks, out of sight, getting suntanned and most of the time, lying naked.

  Steven swam laps, while Adrian swam for a little while and then lay in the sun and dozed. She didn't want to talk about the baby anymore, not now. She was hoping that eventually he would calm down and adjust, now that he knew. It had been a big adjustment for her, too, and she knew it would be an even bigger one for Steven.

  “Ready to go in?” he asked finally, after five o'clock. They had barely spoken all afternoon and after their emotional debate of the night before, Adrian was still feeling exhausted.

  They went inside quietly and after Adrian showered, Steven put the stereo on, and they listened to UB40 while she made dinner.

  Adrian wanted to spend a quiet evening with him. They had a lot to think about, a lot to consider.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as she made pasta and a big green salad.

  “I'm okay. I'm just kind of tired,” she said softly, and he nodded.

  “You'll feel better next week when you get it taken care of.” She couldn't believe he had said what he just did, and she stared at him in amazement.

  “How can you say a thing like that?” She looked horrified, and she realized suddenly that he wasn't reconsidering at all. He was as adamant as ever.

  “Adrian, all it is right now is a physical problem. It's making you feel lousy, so fix it. That's all. You don't have to think of it as anything more than that.” She couldn't believe how totally unemotional he was, how totally uninv
olved with their baby.

  “That's disgusting. It's a lot more than that, and you know it.” She hadn't planned to mention it again that night, but now that he'd brought it up, she was going to discuss it. “It's our baby, for God's sake.” Tears filled her eyes again and she hated herself for it. She didn't normally cry, but he was pushing her to extremes, with his casual attitude about her having an abortion. “I'm not going to do it,” she suddenly said as she left their dinner on the kitchen counter, and hurried upstairs to their bedroom, and it was over an hour later when he finally came upstairs to continue the conversation. She was lying on the bed and he sat down next to her and spoke very softly. “Adrian, you have to have an abortion,” he said calmly. “If you value our marriage. If you don't do it, it'll ruin everything.” As far as she could see, it would ruin it either way. If she didn't have the baby, she would always feel the loss, and if she did, Steven might never forgive her.

  “I don't think I can.” She spoke from deep in her pillow and she was being honest with him. The last thing she wanted was an abortion.

  “I don't think you cannot. It'll destroy our marriage and cost you your job if you don't have the abortion.”

  “I don't care about my job.” And the truth was, compared to the baby she didn't. It was amazing how quickly the baby had come to be important to her.

  “Of course you care about your job.” To Steven, it seemed as though overnight she had become a different person.

  “No, I don't …but I don't want to destroy us,” she said sadly, turning over to face him.

  “I can tell you one thing I do know for sure, Adrian, and that is that I don't want a baby.”

  “You might change your mind later. People do,” she said hopefully, but he shook his head.

  “I don't. I don't want kids. I never have, never will, and you used to think that was all right too. Didn't you?”

  She hesitated and then admitted something to him she never had before. “I thought that maybe eventually …you might change your mind one day. I mean … if we really never had kids, then I suppose it would be all right. But in a case like this … I thought maybe … I don't know, Steven. I didn't ask for this. But now that it's here, how can you just sweep it from our lives without a second thought?” It was awful.

  “Because the quality of our lives will be better if I do, and you're a lot more important to me than a baby.”

  “There's room for both,” she pleaded, but he shook his head.

  “Not in my life there isn't. There's room for you and no one else. And I don't want to compete with a baby for your attention. I don't think my parents said more than two words to each other in twenty years. They never had the time or the energy or the emotion. They were drained. There was nothing left of them when we grew up. They were like two used, finished, old dead people. Is that what you want?'

  “One baby isn't going to do that,” she said softly, pleading with him again, and clearly getting nowhere.

  “I'm not willing to risk it, Adrian.” he said, looking down at her. “Get rid of it.” His voice trembled as he spoke to her, and he went back downstairs for a long time, just to get away from her, and the threat of the baby she carried within her.

  She thought about it for a long time as she waited for Steven to come back upstairs, and she knew that if she gave up this baby, an important part of her very soul would be lost forever.

  SUNDAY AND MONDAY WERE A NIGHTMARE OF ARGUMENTS and recriminations between the two of them, and at six in the morning on Tuesday before Steven left, Adrian finally collapsed in hysterical sobs and agreed to do anything he wanted. She hadn't been to work in two days, and she didn't want to lose the husband she loved, even if it meant giving up their baby. She promised to take care of the abortion while he was gone, and that day all she did was lie in bed and sob until she went to see the doctor at four-thirty.

  She had lain in bed all that afternoon with a feeling of dread that grew to blind terror by the time she was dressed, and she wanted to run away from all of it as she hurried out of the apartment. She wanted to run away from what was happening to her, from what she had to do, from what Steven expected of her, and what she felt she owed him if she valued their marriage.

  “Adrian,” the nurse called as she stood up, looking very nervous. She had worn black slacks and a black turtleneck shirt and black shoes, and with her white skin and dark hair, she looked unusually somber.

  She led Adrian into a small room and told her to get undressed from the waist down and put on a gown. She had been there before but it had all seemed less ominous the other times when she'd been there for birth control advice or her annual checkups.

  She sat on the exam table in her black silk shirt, with the blue paper gown covering the rest of her, and her bare feet tucked under her, and she looked like a little girl, as she tried to keep her mind off why she was there and what was going to happen. She kept reminding herself that she was doing this for Steven because she loved him.

  The doctor came in finally, and he smiled as he glanced at her chart and recognized her. She was a nice girl, and he had always liked her.

  “What can I do for you today, Mrs. Townsend?” He was a pleasant old-fashioned man, about the age of her own father.

  “I …” She couldn't bring herself to say the words, and her eyes looked huge in her pale face as he watched her. “I came here …for an abortion.” The words drifted away, spoken so softly, he could barely hear them.

  “I see.” He sat down on a small revolving stool, and glanced at her chart. She was married, thirty-one, in good health, none of it added up. Maybe the baby wasn't her husband's. “Any special reason?”

  She nodded painfully. Everything about her told him that she didn't want to be there. The way she was curled up on the table, as though to protect herself from him, the way she shrank backward every time he went near her, the way she spoke, barely able to say the words. He had seen a lot of women in distress, women who would have done anything to get rid of babies they didn't want, but this girl was not one of them. He was willing to bet she didn't really want an abortion.

  “My husband doesn't feel this is the right time for us to have children.”

  The doctor nodded again, as though he understood perfectly. “Is there any reason why he feels that way now, Adrian? Is he out of work? Is there a health problem?” He was looking for why this girl was there, and without a good reason he was not going to do the abortion. Legal or not, he still had a moral responsibility to his patients. But she was shaking her head to all of his questions.

  “No, he just …he just doesn't feel this is the right time for children.”

  “Does he want children at all?” She hesitated, and then shook her head as her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “No.” It was the merest whisper. “I don't really think so. He was one of five children, and he had a very unhappy childhood. It's hard for him to understand that things could ever be different.”

  “I should think they could be. You have a fine job, and I suppose he must be fairly stable. Do you think he might change his mind in time?” She shook her head sadly as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and the doctor was quick to tell her something that he suspected might make her a little less nervous. “I'm not going to perform an abortion today, Adrian.” He had switched to her first name as soon as he understood the gravity of the problem. This was no time for formality, she needed a friend, and he wanted to help her. “First, I want to make sure that you really are pregnant, and there isn't a mistake. Have you had a pregnancy test?” He assumed that she had or she wouldn't be there.

  “Yes. I did it at home. Twice. And I'm two weeks late.”

  “That would make you four weeks pregnant the way we calculate it. And I'm sure you are, but we'll just check to see in a moment. And after that, I'd like you to go home and think about this, just to be sure. If you still feel you want to terminate the pregnancy after that, you can come back tomorrow. Does that sound reasonable to you?” She nodded, feeling bo
th hysterical and numb. She felt as though the emotional trauma she was going through was going to kill her. But the doctor was gentle and kind, he confirmed what she already knew, told her to go home and think and try to talk it over again with her husband. He felt that since she felt so strongly about not wanting to abort, surely her husband would come around if she explained it to him. What he did not take into account was the fact that Steven was rabid on the subject. And when he called her that night, he sounded clearly annoyed that she hadn't already had the abortion.

  “Why the hell didn't he do it today, for chrissake? What's the point of waiting?”

  “He wants us to think about it before we do anything drastic. And maybe that's not such a bad idea.” The realization of what she was going to do left her with a crushing feeling of depression. “When are you coming back?” she asked anxiously, but he seemed not to hear the panic in her voice as she asked him.

  “Not till Friday. And Mike and I are playing tennis on Saturday morning. Maybe you and Nancy can join us afterward for a set of doubles.” She couldn't believe what he was saying to her, either he was completely insensitive, or just plain stupid.

  “I'm not sure I'll be playing tennis by then.” The sarcasm in her voice was both obvious and brutal.

  “Oh, that's right … I forgot.” In ten seconds? How could he forget so soon? How could he let her do it in the first place?

  “I think you should be thinking this over again too. Steven, it's not just my baby, it's yours too.” But she could feel the walls go up even as she said the words.

  “I told you how I feel about it, Adrian. I don't want to discuss it anymore. Just take care of it, dammit. I don't understand why you have to wait until tomorrow.” She didn't answer him, crushed by the brutality of what he was saying. It was as though the baby was threatening him, and she had betrayed him by letting it happen, and now she had to fix it at all cost, no matter what it did to her to do that. “I'll call you tomorrow night.” Adrian caught her breath as the tears stung her eyes.