Part 17 (1/2)

”I guess you don't want me to stay for dinner now,” Terry said, glancing at Laura. For answer she only turned away and began to cry. Terry walked over to Jack and knelt before him on the floor, putting his hands on Jack's shoulders. ”I do love you, Jack. I never lied about that. I didn't know it was so bad. For you, I mean. I still don't see how it could have been. But I don't want to mess things up for the kid. Shall I go? You tell me.” He waited, watching Jack's face.

”I told you to leave me once, Terry. I haven't the strength to say it again. It's up to you.”

Terry leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. ”If you haven't the strength to say it, I haven't the strength to do it. No matter what she says,” he said.

Laura came at him suddenly from across the room. ”Go!” she flashed. ”Go, d.a.m.n you, and never come back!”

Terry looked uncertainly from Laura to Jack, and Jack covered his face abruptly with a noise rather like a sob.

Terry stood up. ”All right,” he said in a husky voice. ”I'll go. I'll go for the baby's sake. But not forever, Laura, Not forever.”

At the front door he turned to her. ”You say you love him,” he said. ”Then you must understand why I can't leave him forever. I love him too.” He said it sadly but matter of factly. And Laura, staring at him through tear-blurred eyes, realised that he never would understand what he had done to Jack or how. He thought it was a simple matter of giving a kid a break. And because he loved Jack enough he was able to do it.

”Enjoy your flowers,” he said with a rueful grin, and then Terry went out the front door and shut it carefully behind him. Neither Jack nor Laura stirred nor made a sound until they heard the elevator arrive, the doors open, shut again, and the elevator leave.

”He's gone,” she whispered. ”Dear G.o.d, don't let him ever come back.”

Jack rolled over, his back to her, and wept briefly and painfully with desperate longing. There was a moment of silence while she watched him fearfully. And then he stood up and headed for the door. Laura threw herself against it.

”No! Don't follow him, Jack!” she implored, her voice rising.

”I won't,” he said, trying to reach past her to open the door, but she threw her arms around him and begged him to stay with her.

”I got him to leave, Jack. He won't dare come back for a long time. Maybe he'll find somebody new. Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll never come back.”

”I should be so lucky,” he said acidly. She looked at him, dismayed. ”Isn't that what you wanted?” she asked.

He stopped trying to grab the doork.n.o.b for a minute to look at her. ”Yes,” he said, with effort. And after a pause, ”You were masterful, Mother. You really played your scene.”

She looked at the floor confusedly, hearing all the sarcasm and the hurt and the grudging admiration in his voice. ”Do you hate me for it?” she asked.

”No. I'm grateful.”

”Do you still love me?” she whispered. ”Yes. But don't ask me to prove it now.” He got the door open in a sudden deft gesture, but Laura was still clutching him.

”Where are you going?” she asked fearfully. ”For a bottle.”

”Oh, G.o.d!” she gasped. ”Then it's all been for nothing,” she said despairingly.

”No,” he said. ”I'm not drinking this for Terry. I'm drinking it for the baby.”

”The baby?” she said tremulously.

”The little kid who wasn't there.”

He turned to go and she followed him into the hall.

”But Jack” she protested as he rang for the elevator. ”Jack, II” She looked up and saw the long bronze needle moving swiftly toward ”three” as the elevator ascended, having barely emptied Terry into the first floor. It seemed to be measuring off the last seconds of their marriage. She had to do something. Trembling and scared, she caught his lapels and said, with great difficulty, ”I meant it, Jack.”

”Meant what?”

”About the baby.”

He stared at her, one hand holding back the door of the just-arrived elevator.

”I'll have a baby,” she said. ”If you still want one.”

For a while they stood in the dim little hall and gazed at each other. And then Jack let his hand slip from the elevator door and, circling her waist with his arm, led her back into the apartment.

”He'll be back, you know,” he said, stopping to look at her.

”I know. But by that time he'll know we aren't kidding, she said, looking dubiously at her tight, flat stomach. ”By that time you'll be strong again. And ready for him. You'll know he's coming and you'll be able to take it. It won't be like now.”

He kissed her. ”G.o.ddam it,” he whispered, grateful and amazed. ”I do love you.”

CHAPTER 9.

THE DOCTOR'S WAITING ROOM was crowded, heavy with the eager boredom of people waiting to talk about themselves. It was the fourth doctor they had been to see within a week. Jack, as Laura might have expected, was in a hurry. But he had to find the right man, tooa man he genuinely liked. Not just any bone-picker was going to perform the wizardry to bring his child into being.

Laura had simply sat in red-faced silence through Jack's expositions of their supposed marital troubles, both unwilling and unable to contribute a word. And the whole thing had been lengthy and bewildering and not a little tiring.

But when they finally got into Dr. Belden's plush, paneled office, it went well. And she knew, suddenly paying attention to the words of the men, that it was going to be settled. And it was.

She answered the standard questions, her voice low with embarra.s.sment. They always bothered her excessively, like so many spiders crawling over her tender shame. Other girls might not mind, or even liked to yammer to doctors about their intimate selves, but not Laura.

Jack bolstered her up as they were leaving. ”You were heroic, Mother,” he a.s.sured her. ”I know you hate ityes you do, don't lie,” he added impatiently when she tried to protest. ”It's all right, honey, it's all in a good cause.”

”Don't call me honey.”

”Why?”

”Terry calls everybody honey.” She was in a grumpy mood; he saw it and let her be for a while. ”When do I have to go back?” she asked as they rode home in a taxi ”A week from Thursday.” He looked at her somewhat anxiously as if wis.h.i.+ng that Thursday had already come. ”You won't change your mind, of course,” he said to comfort himself. His voice was calm but his eyes were worried.

”No,” she sighed. She looked at her gloved hands until his anxious gaze moved her to give him one and make him smile.

He looked strangely different, almost young. Jack had the kind of a face that must have made him look forty when he was twenty. In a sense it was an ageless face because it had hardly changed at all. Laura supposed that when he was sixty, he would still look forty. But for the few weeks after Terry disappeared it looked young. And Laura thought with an ache of how much of that was due to her. How much she had forced him to depend on her. She was deeply committed now. There was no retreating.

Laura saw Doctor Belden three days in a row, and it was unspeakably humiliating for her. But she endured it. By the time her appointment came due, she was too afraid for Jack not to go. But she prayed when she was alone, with big wild angry sobs, that the artificial insemination wouldn't work; that she was barren or Jack was sterile or the timing was off; any thing. And she felt a huge, breathtaking need for a woman that absolutely tortured her at night.

After her first examination with Belden she went out of the office to meet Jack and told him she was going to the Village.

”I don't know why I need to. I just do,” she said.

”Sure, sweetheart,” he said at last, standing facing her on the pavement outside the doctor's office. ”Go. Only, come back.”

”I will,” she said, near tears, and turned and almost ran from him. She couldn't bear to touch him, and it was painful even to look at him.