“Lil!”
She started guiltily. Greg was home. The front door panel on the wall was blinking brightly, but she hadn’t noticed.
“Lil! Where are you?”
She shoved the tile back into position and stood up, hastily smoothing her skirt down over her hips. On her way out, she tapped the panel on the wall and was rewarded with the quiet, somehow comforting whirring of the house beginning to make dinner as she went down the stairs.
Greg had gone straight to the bar. This was another thing Lily had noticed lately: Greg used to drink only when something good had happened at work, but now it seemed to be every night, and his intake was increasing. They didn’t all turn into bad nights for Lily, but she couldn’t help noticing the correlation, the way Greg immediately went for the booze every night now, the way he drank as though he were trying to escape from something.
“How was your appointment?”
“Good. Dr. Davis said it’s looking better.”
“What’s looking better?” He came toward her, tumbler in one hand, and wrapped an arm around her waist.
“He thinks my body will respond well to something called Demiprene. It stimulates my ovaries.”
“To release eggs?”
“Yes.” The lies flowed glibly, well rehearsed, from Lily’s mouth. She had done her research two years ago, knowing that the time would come when Greg would demand real information about what the hell was wrong with her reproductive system. But his questions grew more pointed all the time, and Lily had begun to have the uneasy feeling that he was doing his own research now.
“I got good news today,” Greg remarked, and she relaxed a bit; there would be no real interrogation tonight.
“Really?”
“Ted said–well, hinted–that there’s a Senior Liaison spot opening up next year. Sam Ellis is retiring. Ted says I’m in line for it.”
“That’s good.”
Greg nodded, but his hands were already pouring another glass of scotch. Lily saw that something was troubling him, badly. “What’s wrong?”
“Ted said I was in line for the job, but he made a crack when I was leaving. I think he meant it as a joke, but–”
“What was it?” Lily asked, but that was merely routine, the routine of comforting her husband at the end of the day. She already knew.
Greg’s cheeks had stained a dull brick red. “He said that if it wasn’t for my little problem, I would have been an SL last year.”
“He was joking.”
“The first couple of times, maybe. Now I don’t think so.”
Lily took his hand, trying to project more sympathy than she felt. Greg was under enormous pressure, certainly, but it was a pressure with which Lily couldn’t identify. She had never been ambitious. She didn’t care whether Greg made senior anything, so long as they had a roof over their heads and a decent life. Other wives at the club took great pride in their husbands’ advancements, as though they were all still in high school, where dating the starting quarterback meant you were somehow superior to every other girl in your class. But not Lily. Greg had a good job, and his superiors liked him. He was in no danger of being fired. Who gave a fuck if he became the youngest Senior Liaison in the history of the Pentagon?
Greg does, she reminded herself. But that fact no longer carried the weight it once had. It would have been much easier to cheer for Greg if he had shown some reciprocal concern for her. Early in their marriage things had been better; Greg had treated her like a separate person once. But the tone had shifted, and now all of Lily’s actions were evaluated in terms of the main chance, as though she were merely a booster engine on Greg’s rocket. These little stories from the office were always the same, and while Greg was certainly looking for reassurance, he was also looking to goad. The message was clear: Lily’s shriveled uterus was impeding his career path. The possibility that Greg’s testicles might be an issue had never even come up. Lily felt anger climbing up the back of her throat, but then Greg leaned forward, elbows on the bar, burying his head in his hands. He wasn’t crying, not Greg; his hateful father had smacked that out of him long before Lily had ever come on the scene. But this was as close as he ever got.
“Greg.” She bit her lip, trying to gather courage. She had broached this topic twice in the first year of their marriage and Greg had shut her down each time, but now it seemed like a moment when he might actually be able to listen. Lily reached out and took his hand. “Greg, you know, maybe it’s okay.”
He raised his head, looking at her as though he’d never seen her before. “What?”
“Lots of people don’t have children. Maybe it’s not the end of the world.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve always wanted kids.”
No I haven’t! She bit back the words, but they continued as a kind of scream deep in her mind. You assumed I did! We never discussed it! You never even asked!
Lily swallowed, trying to get her anger under control. This was her husband, and once they had been able to talk honestly, sometimes even for hours on end. She reached out and touched Greg’s hair, took a deep breath, and continued. “Greg, if we never had kids, I would be okay with it.”
He wrapped his arms around her with an incredulous chuckle. “You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not.” She pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Greg, we’d be fine.”
He reared back, his eyes filling with hurt. “You think I’m infertile, don’t you?”
“No, of course not–”
He grabbed her shoulders, clenched fingers digging into the soft skin just above her collarbone. Lily could almost feel the bruises starting. “I’m not.”
“I know,” Lily whispered, looking away. Already she could sense herself shrinking inward, her personality diving behind any cover it could find. What point was there in pressing onward, when it only made Greg worse?
He shook her, and Lily felt her teeth rattle. “What?”
“I know you’re not infertile. You’re right. It’s important.”
He watched her narrowly for a moment longer, then smiled, good humor easing back into his face. “Absolutely, Lil. And I’ve had an idea about what we can do.”
“What’s that?”
He shook his head, smiling, the barely hidden grin of a boy who knows he’s been naughty. “I have to look into it first, make sure it’s viable.”
Lily had no idea what he was considering, but she didn’t like that grin. It reminded her of a time in college when Greg’s frat had been under investigation for assaulting a pledge. Despite Princeton’s best efforts, the news had trickled all over the nearby campuses. When Lily asked Greg about it, he claimed that he’d had nothing to do with it, but the same little gleam had been in his eyes then. The younger Lily just hadn’t been smart enough to read the forecast.
“Dr. Davis says the odds are still very good–”
“Dr. Davis is taking too long.”
Lily stood still, almost frozen, as he wrapped his arms around her again. “Think how wonderful it would be if we had a baby, Lil. You’d be such a good mother.”
Lily nodded, though her throat felt as if there was a tennis ball in there. She thought of being pregnant, having Greg’s baby inside her, and a ripple of revulsion traveled just beneath her skin, making her shiver, making Greg clutch her tighter.