Natasha took a long breath, looking down at her own hands.
“Why?”
“When is the latest time for aborting a pregnancy?”
“Excuse me?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Just — look. I want to know.”
“You’re married, right?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t — you don’t want to have this baby?”
“I want to want it.” The tears came.
“That’s a normal kind of feeling, honey. It is a big thing, and a little scary for some.”
Natasha heard her own low sigh.
“How does your husband feel about it?”
“We both — we want children.”
“So—”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.” She sobbed and coughed.
“A lot of us feel that, the first time.”
“I don’t know,” she said, sniffling. “I don’t know.”
The other stood closer and put a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, do you want to talk?”
Natasha put her hands to her face, covering her eyes, and looked into the dark her palms made. She couldn’t speak. She heard the door open and shut. The nurse had gone, and she and the doctor were alone.
“Tell me,” the doctor said, handing her some tissues.
“I’m sorry,” she burst forth. “I’m so sorry. I’m okay. Really.”
There was a long space while the doctor waited for her to gain control of herself. Then: “This is a happy thing, sweetie. And it’s quite normal to feel scared about it. But it’s gonna be perfectly all right. You have to trust it.”
Natasha nodded, wiping her eyes and her nose. “Really. I know.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being worried.”
“Just — really scared.”
“It’s all going to work as it should. You’re very healthy. Nurse’ll give you a bottle of prenatal vitamins and a pamphlet. There’s a good book called What to Expect When You’re Expecting. And there’re others. We’ll call you with the results of the blood test, but I’m pretty sure. You come see me again in two weeks, okay?”
“Yes.”
“And congratulations. Really.”
“Thanks. Thank you. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for. Now you take it easy.”
She was in a kind of daze walking out to the counter and taking the card with the date for her next appointment.
Out in the warm sunlight, she walked to her car and got into the very hot interior and felt sick. She opened the door and put her legs out and sat there for a few minutes, breathing deeply and holding her arms over her stomach.
At last she turned and closed the door and got the car started and drove with all the windows open to Iris’s. When she got out she looked up and down the street. Parked cars. Nothing moving. She daubed at her eyes and nose with the tissues, then got back into the car, left the door open, and used the rearview mirror to put on some lipstick and make sure of her eyes. She walked up to the door and let herself in. Someone was talking in the kitchen. She heard a man’s voice.
“Iris?” she said, suddenly filled with the urge to turn and run.
“In here, baby,” Iris said.
Natasha made her tentative way in, imagining Duego sitting in there with his polite overly formal air and his speech that was so much like rehearsed phrases. But it was a man Iris’s age or older. He was seated across from her at the kitchen table. The room smelled strongly of coffee. The man had a shaved head, was soft featured though a bit emaciated, his cheekbones standing out, with deep-set light blue eyes, and a well-trimmed white beard that made the hairless scalp all the more striking. He reached forward to shake hands, half-rising from his chair.
“This is Liam Adams,” Iris said. “An old friend.”
Natasha shook hands, staring at him. He did not look the slightest bit familiar.
“Hello,” Liam Adams said.
“Mr. Adams and I go way back.”
Natasha stood silent, with a half smile of greeting.
“I’m visiting from New York,” he said.
“We knew each other in the mayor’s office,” said Iris. “When you were small.”
“I remember you when you were this big.” Mr. Adams held his hand out below the level of the tabletop.
“He’s moving back to Memphis.”
“Because of the attacks,” Natasha guessed.
“Actually, I’d been planning to for a couple of years.” His smile was wide, and he had small yellow in-turning teeth. His blue eyes seemed too young for the elderly features. “But the Twin Towers got me focused on it, I guess. I grew up here, you know. And — and New York requires so much energy.”
Soon they were all three seated at the table. “Did you know my mother?” Natasha asked.
“No.”
“It was just you and me, honey, when I took the job in the mayor’s office.”
“And I came in a year later, right?” Mr. Adams said.
“That’s right.”
He shook his head, smiling wistfully. “I got married in New York. Twenty years we were together. Never thought I would get married. I’d been single so long.”
The other two were silent.
“She passed away in ’96.”
“I’m sorry,” Iris said.
“March.” He sipped the coffee, staring out the window.
She stood and moved to pour more coffee. He watched her and, thanking her, lifted the cup and drank again. Iris sat down, moved the flat of her hands across the surface of the table. “Well,” she said. “This is certainly strange.” Then she laughed. “I can’t believe it. All these years—”
“You were going to say?” Natasha asked her.
“Well, it’s just been so long.”
There was a pause.
“I couldn’t come to Memphis and not call you,” Mr. Adams said.
“That would’ve upset me.”
Natasha thought of the news she had and stared at them both. Iris asked him where he was when the towers were hit.
“I was walking my dog. Eighth Avenue, up on Ninety-First. I didn’t see it until I went in and made some toast for myself and sat down in front of the TV.”
“Such a terrible thing,” said Iris. “Natasha’s husband was there, too. In New York. But like you, a few blocks north.”
“I lost a neighbor. Didn’t know him that well. But I saw him that morning, and he talked about not going to work that day. But he went. There are so many ironies like that in it — people going along at the beginning of a working day like any other and something so bad coming.”
“Would you like to stay for lunch?”
“No, I should go. Some other time.”
Iris saw him out, then sat at the kitchen table and looked at the coffee in her cup. “Imagine,” she said.
Natasha watched her, and when she put one hand to her forehead and seemed about to cry, Natasha pulled her chair around and sat close.
Iris looked at her. “What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Little headache. Had it before he got here.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Her grandmother turned to her and stared, eyes wide, mouth open as if she might shout or cry. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “Is it true? Is it really true?”
5
ARTICLE 3. Whether it can be said that a person may still be in love with someone other than her spouse and decide against acting on it out of fear of hurting him, who is dear to her?
We proceed thus to the Third Article: It seems that it can be said that a person may still be in love with someone other than her spouse and decide against acting on it out of fear of hurting him, who is dear to her.