Her friend Kelly had given birth at home in a bathtub. Same with her friend Desia. There was a whole group of girls in Ojai who had put their babies up for adoption through a Christian organization called Philomena Family Services. All of them home-birthed with midwives.
“But here, in LA, the hospitals are really good, so you don’t need to do that.”
“You don’t need to tell me what I don’t need to do,” she said, narrowing her eyes. For a split second I thought she was going to push me against a wall. But no, of course not. That was all over.
EVERYONE AT OPEN PALM KNEW and thought it was big of me to take her in like this.
“She was already in — I just didn’t kick her out.”
“But you know what I mean,” said Jim. “Risking your job.” My job was in no danger; Suzanne and Carl routinely sniffed out news of Clee from my coworkers. After each prenatal checkup I made sure to circulate the update. Everyone assumed I knew who the father was, but I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. It seemed impossible to broach the subject without also recalling our past, the scenarios, my betrayal. The unspoken agreement was we wouldn’t look back.
In the middle of the second trimester I saw Phillip. He was parking his Land Rover just as I was leaving the office. I ducked into a doorway and waited for twenty minutes while he sat in his car, talking on the phone. Probably to Kirsten. I didn’t want to think about it. Everything was in delicate balance and it needed to stay that way. When I finally walked to my car my legs were shaking and I was drenched in a foul sweat.
Each night I listened as she stumbled to the bathroom, bumping into the doorway and then hitting it again on the way back. It was torture.
Finally one night I yelled out from bed. “Careful!”
She stopped abruptly and through my half-open door I watched her stand in the moonlight and touch the swell of her stomach with a look of shock, as if the pregnancy had just come upon her right then.
“Was it Keith?” I called out.
She didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if she was awake or had fallen back asleep, still standing.
“Was it one of the men from the party? Did it happen at the party?”
“No,” she said huskily. “It happened at his place.”
He had a place called his place and it happened there and it was sex. This was both more and less than I wanted to know.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said, holding her stomach.
“Is it?” I was desperate to know more. She lurched back to bed. “Is it?” I cried again, but she was done, already half-asleep. It could only be a nightmare, someone growing inside you who you hoped never to see the face of.
IN THE MORNING I TRIED for a more hard-nosed approach.
“I think for safety’s sake I should know who the father is. What if something happens to you? I’m responsible.”
She looked surprised, almost slightly moved.
“I don’t want him to know about it. He’s not a good person,” she said quietly.
“Why would you do that with someone who’s not a good person?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it was nonconsensual then we should call the police.”
“It wasn’t nonconsensual. He’s just not the type of person I usually go for.”
How did they form the consensus? Did they vote? Did everyone in favor say aye. Aye, aye, aye. I went into the ironing room and returned with a pen, a piece of paper, and an envelope.
“I won’t open it, I promise.”
She went into the bathroom to write the name. When she came out she slid the envelope between two books in the bookshelf and then carefully placed the tab from a soda can in front of the books. As if it would be impossible to re-create the position of a soda can tab.
I ACTED QUICKLY, SETTING UP an emergency therapy appointment before Clee had a chance to think harder about trusting me. Once I was behind the pee screen I asked Ruth-Anne to look in my purse.
“There’s a sealed envelope and an open empty envelope,” I said. “Open the sealed one.”
“Rip it open?”
“Open it the way you would normally open an envelope.”
A clumsy ripping sound.
“Okay. It’s open.”
“Is there a name on a piece of paper?”
“Yes, do you want me to read it to you?”
“No, no. It’s a man’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I shut my eyes as if he was standing on the other side of the screen. “Write that name down.”
“On what?”
“On anything, on an appointment card.”
“Okay. I’m done.”
“Already?” It was a short name. It wasn’t an unusual, long, foreign name with many accents and umlauts that one would have to double-check. “Okay, now put the paper back in the unsealed envelope and seal it.”
There was a complicated rustling of papers and some banging.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I dropped them. I hit my head on the table picking them up.”
“Are you okay?”
“A little dizzy, actually.”
“Is the envelope sealed?”
“Yes, now it is.”
“Good, now put the envelope in my purse and put the card with the name somewhere safe that I can’t see.”
She laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing. I hid it in a really good place.”
“It’s done then? I’m gonna come out. Okay?”
“Yes.”
Ruth-Anne stood wide-eyed and smiling with her hands behind her back. The envelope was in many torn pieces strewn all over the rug. When you get something notarized, there is a dignified feeling about the proceedings, even if the notary is just a stationery store clerk. I had expected this to be more like that.
“What’s behind your back?”
She opened her empty hands in front of herself. Now she was rolling her eyeballs to the side of the room in a strange way.
“What are you doing? Why are you looking over there?”
Her eyes jumped back. She pressed her lips together, raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
“Is the card over there?”
She shrugged again.
“I don’t want to know where it is.” I sat down on the couch. “This is probably unethical.” I waited for her to draw me out. There were still ten minutes left in the session. Ruth-Anne sat down and rubbed her chin, holding her elbow and nodding significantly. She seemed to be acting out the role of a therapist in a mocking way, like a child pretending to be a therapist. “I don’t want to break my promise to Clee,” I continued, “but I also want the option of knowing. What if there’s a problem? What if we need his medical history? Do you think that’s wrong?”
Something slid down the wall. Ruth-Anne’s eyes grew wide but she made a great show of ignoring it.
“Was that the card?”
She nodded vigorously. She had hidden it behind one of her diplomas. It now lay on the floor. I averted my eyes.
“It doesn’t need to be hidden like an Easter egg. Just put it in your desk drawer.” She leapt to the card and rushed it not to her desk but out the door to the receptionist’s desk, slamming the drawer as if the card was a rascally character, prone to escape.
“Where were we?” she said, returning breathlessly and folding herself back into the therapist pose.
“I asked if you thought this was wrong.”
“And I’ve been telling you.” She was suddenly herself again, dignified and intelligent.
“What do you mean?”
“You wanted to play like a child, so we played.”
I slumped back into the couch and my eyes ached with dry tears. This is why she was so good, always finding a way to take it right to the edge.
“You can throw out the card,” I said, winded.