Part 14 (1/2)
Jack teased her about it when they met briefly in the kitchenhe to make drinks and she to get more hors d'oeuvres from the refrigerator. ”Looks like you got a live one,” he said.
Laura blushed. ”Was I too obvious?” she asked, scared.
”No,” he said. ”I just have X-ray eyes, remember?”
”I shouldn't”
”Oh, h.e.l.l,” he said with a good-natured wave of his hand. ”Flirt, it's good for you. Just don't elope with her.” He gave her a grin and went out, holding five highb.a.l.l.s precariously. She felt a flush of love for him, watching him.
It was three a.m. Christmas day before they got rid of everybody. Laura threw herself in their expensive new sofa and surveyed the wreckage with a sigh.
”I'm not even going to pick it up,” she said. ”I'm not going to touch a thing till morning.”
”That's the spirit,” Jack said. He fixed them both a cup of coffee, settled down beside her in the rainbow glow of the Christmas tree and took her hand with a sigh of satisfaction.
”That's the first G.o.ddam Christmas tree I ever had,” he said. And when she laughed he protested solemnly, ”Honest. And this is the first Christmas that ever meant anything to me.” He turned his head, resting against the back of the sofa, and smiled at her...
”You shouldn't swear at Christmas,” Laura told him.
He gazed at her for a while and then asked, ”Are you in love with Kristi? Wasn't that her name?”
”Yes, it was her name. No, I'm not in love. With anybody.”
”Me?”
”Oh, you. That's different.”
She smiled a little and sipped her coffee, and then she leaned back on the sofa beside him, absorbed in the soft sparkle of the tree.
Jack was still watching her. ”Laura?” he said in an exploratory voice.
”Hm?”
”What would you think of adopting a child?”
She stared at a golden pine cone, her face suddenly a cautious blank. ”I don't know,” she said.
”Have you ever thought about it?”
”A little.”
”What did you think?”
”I told you. Kids scare me.”
He bit his underlip, frowning. ”I want one,” he said at last. ”Would you be willing tohave one?”
”You mean” She swallowed. ”get pregnant?”
”Yes,” he said, smiling at her outraged face. ”Oh, don't worry, Mother. We'd do it the easy way.”
”There is no easy way!” she fired at him. ”What way?”
He took a long drag on his cigarette and answered, ”Artificial insemination.” She gasped, but he went on quickly, ”Now before you get your dander up let me explain. I've thought it all out. Either we could adopt one, orand this would be much betterwe could have one. Our own. We can tell the Doc we've had trouble and let him try the insemination. There's nothing to it, it doesn't take five minutes. It doesn't hurt. And if it worked ... G.o.d! Our own kid. You wouldn't be afraid of your own, honey.”
There was a long pause while Laura sweated in silent alarm. Why did he bring it up tonight? Why? When they were so contented and pleased with each other, and the world was such a place of glittering enchantment.
”Couldn't we wait and talk about it later?” she asked.
”Why not now?”
”Couldn't I have time to think about it?”
”Sure. Think,” he said and she knew he meant, ”I'll give you five minutes to make up your mind.
”Jack, why do we have to do it right now? Why can t wait? We've only been married five months.”
”I can't wait very long, Mother,” he said. ”I'm forty-five. I don't want to be an old man on crutches when my kid is growing up.”
”Maybe in the spring,” she said. The idea of becoming a mother terrified her. She had visions of herself hurting the baby, doing everything wrong; visions of her old pa.s.sion coming on her and shaming them all; selfish thoughts of her beautiful, new, leisurely laziness being ruined.
”What would I ever tell any child of mine if it caught mewith a woman?” she said awkwardly.
”Tell it for Chrissake to knock before entering a room,” he said, and something in his voice and manner told her that he had set his heart on this long ago.
”Would you insist on having a baby, Jack?” she asked him defiantly.
He was looking at the ceiling and he expelled a cloud of blue smoke at it and answered softly, ”I want you to be happy, Laura. This marriage is for both of us.”
There was a long silence. ”I think I would hate myself if I ever got pregnant,” she said, ashamed of her vanity but clinging to it stubbornly. ”G.o.d, how awful. All those aches and pains and months of looking like h.e.l.l, and for what? What if the baby weren't normal? What if I couldn't be a good mother to it.”
He shrugged and then he said, ”All right. We'll adopt one. That way at least we can be sure of getting a girl.”
Laura wrung her hands together in a nervous frenzy. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Jack. And yet she could feel the dogged one-mindedness in hi, feel his enormous desire.
”A man needs a child,” he said softly. ”So does a woman. That's the whole reason for life. There is no other.” And he glanced up at her and all the Christmas lights reflected on the lenses of his gla.s.ses. ”We can't live our lives just for ourselves,” he said. ”Or we live them for nothing. We die, monuments to selfishness ... I want a child, Laura.”
”Is that why you married me?” she asked with sudden sharpness, feeling as if he had cornered her.
”I married you because I love you,” he said.
”Then why do you keep badgering me about a child?” she demanded.
”This is the first time I've mentioned it since we got married,” he reminded her gently.
”You act as if just because you want one it's all settled,” she said, and surprised herself by bursting into tears. He took her in his arms, abandoning his cigarette, and said, ”No, honey, nothing's settled. But think about it, Laura. Think hard.”
They sat that way, hugging each other and watching the Christmas tree, letting the cigarette slowly burn itself out, and they didn't mention it again. But from that moment on it was very big between them, unspoken but felt.