March

The line was pink. She tried to see it as a smear, as a darkish wine-color that might be looked upon as a sort of pink, perhaps, under the right light, or at least a very, very purplish sort of blue. If she was not mistaken, there was no line, and she would start bleeding soon, and the wait would be over. But she was no virgin, no fool, she had done this twice before. The line was pink, no, pinker than pink; it was magenta, mulberry, bright as a cloud of cotton candy or a bottomless sloe gin fizz.


No doubt about it. She was pregnant.

Meri put her head down on her folded arms on the table. Dear God, all saints in Heaven, how could this have happened again? But she knew without bothering to argue with herself or with God, how Joe had rolled hard against her in the night, had slipped between her thighs while she drowsed, and somewhere between waking and sleep, they pressed together in muzzy warmth and quiet, familiar passion, with Annie sleeping in the crib across the room, until it was suddenly too late. He hadn't pulled out in time, and she had lain in the dark, knowing she was ovulating, knowing she would be pregnant in a matter of moments, tears slipping down her cheeks as her husband fell back asleep. She had been powerless to stop it, and could only wait and cry until enough time had elapsed and the stick turned pink.

She raised her head and looked at the clock. Kindergarten was out at 11:50, and Caitlin would be waiting for her there when the bell rang. Meri got up and went to check on Annie, who still took a morning nap. Annie stirred when Meri leaned over the crib in the bedroom, then raised her head and gazed somberly at her mother.

"Time to get up, sweetie. Time to get Caitie." Meri lifted the toddler and took her to the changing table. She changed the baby's diaper, then they went to the kitchen for a tippee-cup of juice and some animal crackers for the short walk to school. Annie dropped the cup on the floor, and though it righted itself immediately, still some grape juice dribbled onto the floor. Meri grabbed a paper towel and wiped it up, knowing she'd have to mop now, something she'd been trying to avoid for a week, though the floor clearly needed it. With some difficulty, she stuffed the protesting Annie into a too-small sweater, pulled a stained sweatshirt over her own head against the chilly March wind, and shut the front door behind them.

Annie wanted to push the stroller herself, but they were already late.

"C'mon, honey. We've got to go!"

Though Annie didn't have much of a vocabulary yet, she could scream, and did so, piercingly, as Meri struggled to get the child into the stroller. Annie bucked and arched her back, still screaming, and fought as Meri tried to buckle the strap. The neighbors must surely be watching, must hear the noise, must be about to call Child Protective Services, and a social worker would come and take her children away, and all the newspapers would read, "Local Mother Arrested for Public Child Abuse."

"C'mon, honey, c'mon, sweetie," Meri crooned to the sobbing child. "You can walk when we get Caitie, OK? OK?"

The buckle slipped into the clasp. With a single deft motion, she lifted the battered stroller on her hip down the two steps, then headed down the sidewalk toward the school, Annie still wailing. Eventually the sobs subsided, and by the time they had walked the four blocks to the school, Annie was able to sit up and eat the crackers Mary gave her. They heard the bell ring before they got there, and Caitlin was waiting at the door of the kindergarten classroom, one of the last few children remaining.

"Mommy, Mrs. P wants to talk to you. Can I go play on the swings?"

"No, wait a second while I talk to Teacher. Play with Annie, will you?" Meri left Caitlin with her sister and went into the classroom.

Mrs. Parker was pinning drawings to a bulletin board. She smiled at Meri. "Hello, Mrs. DeAngelo."

"Caitie says you want to talk to me?"

"Oh, yes. Nothing serious. It's just that Caitie is the only one who hasn't turned in her money for the circus next week. It's ten dollars. Can she bring it in tomorrow?"

"Oh, yeah. No problem. Tomorrow. Absolutely." Meri turned and walked back to the stroller.
Caitie was making the animal crackers talk to each other in a little puppet show for Annie. She made the lion roar at the giraffe. "The giraffe is so scared it runs into a cave," she said as Meri approached, and popped the cracker into her mouth. Annie's giggles turned to a shriek of rage.

"Oh, for the love of God, let's just go," Meri said over Annie's cry. Caitlin sulked and wouldn't take Meri's hand when they went to cross the street. Meri was forced to seize her by the wrist and pull her along before the light changed.

Caitlin hung back and twisted her wrist as they crossed and whined loudly, "Ow, you're hurting me, Mommy!" Other mothers -- calm, patient mothers and their perfectly behaved children -- stared as Meri and her children reached the opposite curb and strode away.

It wasn't enough for her children to squall and grizzle in the streets, before every other parent in sight. It wasn't enough to be pregnant with her third child, too close to Annie in age, and no room for more in that tiny house. It wasn't enough for them to be broke half the month, living on odd leftovers from the freezer, the day-old bread outlet and the vegetable garden, whatever cheap cut of meat was on sale, what strange meals she could cobble together out of nothing. Joe was working so hard, bless him, all day long at whatever job sites needed him, fitting cabinets and shelves into new homes; on Thursdays he taught wood-craft at the adult school, but it still wasn't enough. Half the time they didn't have two cents left to rub together after paying the mortgage and the bills, barely enough for postage stamps or parking meters or the ice cream man, much less money for the circus. Ten dollars seemed an enormous sum, an insurmountable sum that Meri knew they didn't have, but she couldn't tell the teacher so, she wouldn't ask for charity, and she'd have to find the money somewhere, because the only ten dollars she'd had stashed she'd just spent on a stupid pregnancy test.

Tears pooled in her eyes as Mary pushed the stroller up the street, with sullen Caitlin dragging the toes of her school shoes against the asphalt behind her, all the way home.

* * *

After the kids were in bed, and the dishes done, two loads of laundry dumped on the couch and another chugging in the washer in the closet off the kitchen, Joe finally got home from work. He greeted her with a quick kiss on the top of her head and went straight into the bathroom to shower. Meri put his plate into the microwave and turned it on to warm, then sat on the edge of the couch and folded the tiny underpants, matched socks and laid aside blouses to iron. When Joe came out of the bedroom, he was clean and damp and sweet, and he leaned down and kissed her again. The timer went off and he went to get his dinner.

"How was work?"

"Not bad. Looks like it'll pick up pretty soon, with spring and all," he said around a mouthful of macaroni and cheese. "How was your day?"

Mary folded a yellow towel in thirds, and into thirds again. "OK."

Joe watched her, chewing, ate another bite, his gaze on her face. "Did it come?"

"No." She folded another towel, a pink one, as pink as the stick she'd peed on. "I took a home test."

He didn't prompt her. He took another bite, waiting, knowing the answer already by her pause. Meri looked over at him and tried to smile, but she couldn't even fake it, and she started to cry, bending into the hot, dry towels spread across her lap.

She heard him come to her, felt his arms go around her, and she leaned into his shoulder and cried all the harder.

"Honey," he said to her, the same coaxing tone she had used with her own daughters that morning. "C'mon, babe, we'll be all right. It'll be OK."

"But this house, the money, we just can't do it now. We just can't. I'm exhausted, you're exhausted. How will we manage three kids? It's too much."

"We'll be OK," he said again. "God will provide. Everything happens for a reason, and God obviously means for us to have another child. Don't worry, Mere, it'll be fine. You'll see."

She didn't know what to say when he talked like that. She didn't have that kind of faith. God would provide for them? How? God was going to come rock the baby in the night? God was going to magically bestow another couple of hundred dollars in their checking account every month? She wanted to laugh, but he wouldn't appreciate her bitter attempt at humor.

She smiled at him instead, her words unsaid, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. God would provide? He'd damn well better.


* * *

In the morning, early, after Joe left, but before the kids got up, she was prowling. She felt between cushions on the couch, looked under all the furniture with a flashlight, opened every drawer in search of coins. There were a couple of dollars in Annie's piggy bank, but she didn't want to touch that; Caitlin had five dollars in hers. Well, if Caitie wanted to go to the circus, she would have to help out. Meri took the bills and slid them into an envelope. She would put the money back later, when work picked up for Joe, and they had a little extra. She found a couple of quarters in a kitchen drawer, and a handful of change at the bottom of her other purse, and when she counted it up, it came to nine dollars and a few pennies. Still not enough for the circus. But there was no other money to be had, nothing till late next week, and then all the bills and grocery and still not enough for the circus. Meri sealed the envelope with the nine dollars and pretended it was ten. They just didn't have it. It would have to do.

The sun was barely at the horizon, just peeking over with bright molten rays that lit up the kitchen. Meri turned off the overhead light and watched the sunrise warm the room. Outside, the Japanese maple had begun to leaf out, and its tiny leaves unfurled and caught the sun, so that the windows and the kitchen were bathed in a green glow of spring light. She watched the sun, the leaves, saw robins land on the lawn behind the house, pecking at worms and hopping away.

She held a hand to her soft belly and thought about the speck that had just begun to grow. Meri closed her eyes and breathed a silent, wordless prayer, sent unformed thoughts of gratitude toward the sky, of thanks for the beauty of the day, or the unspoiled morning, and she asked for strength to carry the child. "Help me, please," she whispered. "Help me be strong. Help us through this. Let it be all right. Let me believe it, anyway."


* * *


When Joe came home that night, he gave her a terse smile at her greeting, and when she handed him his dinner, he sat, slumped, staring at it. The noodles started to congeal again in their starchy sauce on the plate. Meri sat on the couch working at her cross-stitch, waiting for him to speak.

“There’s no more work at the job site.” He picked up his fork and speared a limp piece of salad.

A wave of dread rushed through her. “What do you mean? I thought they needed --”

“Well, they don’t.” He bent over his plate.

Meri sat and waited. Don’t cry, just wait, he’ll explain, but she knew there was no hope, that it was even worse than before, and there couldn’t be a worse time for a baby. She didn’t tell him about the bills that came in the mail, with their dire OVERDUE in bold red letters, and the electricity bill that threatened to shut off their power within a week if it wasn’t paid. She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to hear, just wanted to curl into a ball and cry. But she sat and drew the needle through the cloth, red against the white like a bloodstain, waiting, knowing, in dread.

Mary Mary

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

and pretty maids all in a row.

NaNoWriMo deathmarch to begin Nov 1

Mr. T made me do it. So I'll either write the 1666.666 words per day or I won't. Because why not?