she followed him to the counter and arranged her offerings across it: cheese and crackers, ginger ale, chocolate, four large cans of yellow pea soup, a tiny bottle of dill pickles.
Gretchen tutted over her supplies, shaking her head as Sarah placed them on the table. “Rather a poor showing, my daughter. I had higher hopes.” Her voice had returned to normal. “Do you remember that hunter’s stew you brought last year? And the garlic-stuffed olives from Trader Joe’s?”
“Are you kidding?” Sarah said, baffled that the conversation had somehow already moved on. “At least I remembered a can opener.” There had been one or two bad years when everyone forgot. It would probably be another couple of years before her parents managed to buy one for the cabin.
Gretchen shrugged, then began putting some of the food away into the cupboards. “No need to get upset,” she said, unflustered. “That’s the first thing you learn as a mother. Everyone expects you take care of them.”
“I’m having the baby by myself,” said Sarah, once they moved to the living room, determined not to let her parents’ nonchalance set the agenda. Her knit woollen sweater was stretched tight over her stomach. She had taken to swathing herself in things that gave her belly the comforting aspect of a familiar old blanket or stuffed animal. Nubbly brown wool or plaid flannel to neutralize its bulging, disorienting effect.
“Having children is what produces adults,” Frank said. “Or so the saying goes.” He squinted at his wife. “Who said that, dear?” Gretchen shrugged.
Sarah turned her attention to her father. “Are you saying I’m too immature to have a child?”
“No,” he said, looking alarmed. “Of course not.”
Now, as they sat together, settled on the worn sofa and armchairs, Sarah switched her focus from Frank to Gretchen. “I thought you guys would be supportive. But you clearly don’t even want to talk about it.”
Her mother acted surprised. “Of course I’m supportive. Why wouldn’t I be?”
But Sarah just stared at her, feeling her mouth settle into a hard little knot of resentment—what Elliot always called her “prune face”—but she could do nothing to stop it. “You haven’t even asked if it’s a boy or a girl.” She realized it was just another way her parents could prove themselves extraordinary, by being extraordinarily relaxed.
Gretchen sighed. “Give me time. I can’t be excited about something that doesn’t exist yet.” She leaned over the arm of the couch to rub Sarah’s belly with a strong, circular touch that stirred the baby and struck Sarah as wise and intuitive. When the baby kicked, she withdrew her hand.
“I just wonder,” her mother said, sitting back, “given the state of the world, whether we ought to be bringing more children into it.” Next to her, Frank was nodding.
“Well, you had us,” said Elliot, sounding exasperated. He was over at the stove now, feeding it more wood. “It’s not like everything was a picnic back then either.”
“No, but it’s worse now. Plus, the idea back then was that having children would be good for your art.” Gretchen had been a poet for a brief but fiery period before she was married. She started her academic career after Frank, though she had by now eclipsed him. “But the time constraints can be prohibitive, no matter your new depths of feeling for the human experience. Plus, you haven’t even started your career yet, not really.”
“I have a job, Mom,” said Sarah. “I did my degree. What more do you want?”
“I want you to want more.” It was an old conversation between the two of them.
“I want this baby,” said Sarah. “That’s what I want.” Throughout all her years at Living Tree, it was the one and only thing that had continued to feel right: a baby on her hip, staring up at her with a dazzled, trusting face. A clarity of need and response. Giggly smiles and silly dances and nonsense reigning as the prevailing order among all the children in her charge.
“You know,” said Frank. “I’ve never even met the father.” In his voice was a kind of wonder as to whether this should appall or impress him.
“Neither have I,” said Sarah. “I went to a sperm bank.”
In any other family, she thought, there would be protests of disbelief or dismay. But she was known for her straightforward, serious bent. From time to time it had helped a joke go over huge, but now her parents just stared at her.
Elliot stood abruptly. “The stove,” he said, moving towards it.
“I’m