said, "Roe, my timing stinks, I apologize for that. But you've never known how lucky you've had it. Your mother does everything but wipe your rear for you, and your husband not only thinks he should protect and pamper you, but he has money!" "And that's my fault?"
"No!" she said. "No! But it's your - responsibility!" She looked at her watch and gasped. "City council meeting! I have to go now, Roe, I'll see you soon." And she grabbed her purse and flew out the door before I had a chance to respond. I scooped up the sleeping Precious Burden, and watched through the window as Sally crossed the yard, pausing to talk to Martin and the sheriff. I was glad to see Martin was wearing his waterproof jacket, since the day was overcast and every now and then the sky spit some rain. The sheriff strolled away from Martin, and leaned on Sally's car, talking to her through the partly open window for a moment before Sally gave a quick wave and swung her car around. I picked and puzzled at the scene with Sally, which had upset me deeply. I felt like I hadn't known the lion was within when I'd shut the village gates for the night. Gee whiz - Roe Tea-garden, Monster of Selfishness? I'd always thought of myself more as Roe Teagarden, the Incredibly Lucky. Well. ...ometimes. Maybe not a few years ago, when my steady boyfriend had suddenly married the woman he'd gotten pregnant while he was dating me... but then again, I'd been lucky I hadn't married him, right? And maybe I hadn't been so lucky when my father and stepmother had moved my half brother out of state, making it almost impossible for me to see him... but then again, I'd saved his life, and I'd gotten to fly out to California to visit Phillip twice since then.
This "good luck" evaluation was just as helpful as opening the closet full of bridesmaids' dresses I'd kept in my storage closet before I'd met Martin. Time to shuffle off this coil of introspection and deal with a here-and-now situation.
Hayden was asleep. His eyelids were so pale the veins stood out clearly, making his skin look almost translucent. I lowered my head to inhale his scent. "I cheated you," Martin said. He was standing in the archway to the dining room. He hadn't shaved, and his hair was rumpled. The stubble on his cheeks was white, like his hair, not black, like his eyebrows.
I wasn't in the mood for any more deep emotional scenes. "How do you figure that?" I asked, my voice hushed and level because of the baby.
"We could have explored other options," he said, his voice equally subdued. "Maybe your" - he nodded toward my mid-section to indicate my malformed womb - "could have been corrected surgically, or something. We could have adopted privately; we have enough money."
I looked at my husband for a long, wake-up moment before I said, "And these are new thoughts to you?"
I carried Hayden up the stairs, and laid him in his crib. Then I marched downstairs. Martin was standing right where I'd left him. I said, "I shouldn't hop on you with both feet because something was more important to me than it was to you."
It was like my words didn't register, as if Martin had become deaf to anything that didn't resonate with some mysterious preoccupation. "We should start out tomorrow morning," he said.
"We'll have to drive. Given the circumstances. Maybe you should go to the store and get whatever the baby will need for the trip." Like I knew? I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it again. Sally's observation had stung me where it hurt, had made me doubt my every impulse. I went to the desk to make a list of things I might need, but instead I sat with my hand on the telephone. Despite a nagging fear that somehow this conversation, too, would be dispiriting, I called the one person I could count on, my best friend, Amina.
Wife of a Houston lawyer, Amina was a mother (and I a godmother) of a lovely little girl, Megan. Amina, an only child, and her husband, oldest of two siblings, were happily indulging Megan (now a Terrible Two) and threatening her with a brother or sister.
"Amina," I said, relief throbbing through my voice, when my friend answered the phone.
"Roe," she said, in a curiously hushed voice. "I can't talk long, Megan's got