the ceiling, the pale-yellow light through the drape of the curtains from the streetlight across the lawn, the odd blotches, like old faces, made by the cabbage roses on the wallpaper, the sliding shadows of the six-paned windows as a car came up and around the street, its engine wheezing in the still night air. Against the wall was a composite picture of her three oldest children: Maggie holding Terence holding Damien, ages seven, six, and one, and then individual portraits of each, the baby a little spastic propped on a platform, the other two wearing fixed, forced smiles. Between the first two and the next two she had had two miscarriages, surges of odd clots that had made her think she was being punished for not loving her children enough, for not believing they were what she had always thought they would be to her. The pregnancies were always difficult, too, kneeling on the bathroom floor, staring into the water in the toilet bowl. The first time she had thought she was dying, or would have a retarded child, a baby with no fingers, or seven fingers, or a mongoloid like Leonard Fogarty. “Listen, kid,” Celeste had said, “everybody throws up when they’re in the family way. That’s how you know you are.” Like almost everything her cousin said, it sounded improbable; like almost everything she said, it turned out to be right.
Connie had never had a pregnancy test. One night soon after Maggie was born she had eaten a bad clam at a Coney Island clam bar and had spent the next week wondering how they would afford another baby. It had seemed sort of ridiculous until two months later, when she was sick again and it turned out that she was pregnant with Terence.
Her sisters-in-law were never ill when they were pregnant. Joe’s wife, Annette, had played tennis up until the week before she had the twins, although everyone had made such a fuss about it that Connie was more amazed by her ability to withstand the criticism than to rush the net. James’s wife had admitted to “a little gas,” but quietly and with a guilty manner, as though she thought it might be seen as some reflection on her husband’s professional skill.
This afternoon Connie had been at a card party with all of them, at one of the boys’ schools just north of Kenwood, a big Gothic building with a Latin inscription over the double doors, and they had all exchanged glances when she had leapt up to find the one women’s bathroom in the whole cavernous place. “She really has a hard time, doesn’t she?” Jack’s wife, Maureen, had said, with an air of assumed sympathy, and they all nodded and thought to themselves: God, the fuss.
But their eyes all seemed to meet in the vicinity of Gail’s long, faintly equine face. Then they looked at the cards in their hands, which they busily rearranged. “She certainly does,” Gail said, looking around. She often felt that she was unfairly lumped with Connie, that because she had been born Protestant and converted to marry Mark she too was considered an outsider. She made every attempt to show that this was not the case.
“Are you all right?” Annette had asked when Connie came back to the table, her face newly powdered, fresh lipstick dark against the white. She had not been able to find the right bathroom, and had thrown up in a stainless steel sink in the chemistry lab.
“Fine. I’m used to it.”
“What about some tea with milk?” Cass had said.
“Nothing. I think I’d better go.”
The women had looked around at one another. One of them would have to drive Connie home, and the petits fours had not even come around yet, nor the door prize been announced. The prize was a black cashmere sweater with a dyed mink collar, and everyone had exclaimed over it except for Mrs. O’Neal, who said she already had one, and Mrs. Malone, who said she’d give it away if she got it. “You could give it to Helen,” someone said. “It’s just the color of her hair.” Everyone was quiet for a moment. “Helen’s lost her mind,” Mrs. Malone said drily, “but I haven’t.”
Finally Connie said, “Gail, could you give me a lift?”
“Of course,” her sister-in-law said, and the others had leaned back and looked at their cards as the two women gathered up their pocketbooks and their white summer gloves. “Tommy looks tired these days,” Cass said,