“How did you know, I mean, when you first got pregnant?”
In her hurry to get to Longs drugstore the minute they open — eight a.m. on Sundays — she hardly gives a thought to anything but the astonishment of the moment, of what’s happening to her, or could be happening to her. It’s a walk of three blocks, past the place where she hit the squirrel — nothing there but a stain on the pavement now — then across the freeway bridge and into the long winding strip of the lower village. She takes extra care at the crosswalk, holding herself as if she’s already cradling a newborn in her arms, thinking only that she’s got to know for sure, though her mother accepted it as a fait accompli. Her mother just hugged her, bending awkwardly to press a cheek to hers in a ferment of heat and emotion. Then she straightened up and let out a laugh. “I had my suspicions,” she said, her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side, beaming, absolutely beaming, “but I didn’t want to say anything. And for the life of me I don’t know why they call it morning sickness — I must have puked morning and night for six months straight till I thought it would have been easier to scale Mount Everest in a bikini than carry you around a single day more, but your father was sweet about it. He was good that way. Totally supportive. And did he love you from the minute you came out. Doted on you.” There’d been more, a whole rhapsody about giving birth at home with the help of a midwife because a sterile overlit hospital room was no place to enter the world — they’d had a birth party that night, did she know that? And they’d filmed it too—“You could see your little head emerging, a soft red little thing so tiny I thought I was giving birth to a mango”—but unfortunately, somewhere along the way the tape had got lost.
It’s not till she has her hand on the home pregnancy kit, studying the directions in the too-bright aisle while women whisper by in running shoes and tennis clothes, averting their eyes, that she finally thinks of the prospective father, of Tim. Tim, who’s islanded at the moment, beyond the reach of cell phone service, stalking goldens. She can see his face floating there before her as she scans the package (Accurate Digital Results 5 Days Sooner; 99 % Accurate), see the way he draws down his mouth when he’s surprised or puzzled, and he will be surprised, no question about it, because they’ve never discussed the possibility of having a child, or not seriously anyway. They use birth control, rigorously, and while they gave up condoms for Tim’s sake, she never fails — never, no matter how swept away they are — to insert her diaphragm. They’re both committed environmentalists. Dedicated to saving the ecosystem, preserving what’s left, restoring it. To bring a child into an overpopulated world is irresponsible, wrong, nothing less than sabotage. .
But then why does she feel so elated? Why does she feel enormous suddenly, dominant, vastly superior to all these other women who aren’t weighing pregnancy kits in their hands? Because she’s a living thing, that’s why, and living things reproduce. The only discernible purpose of life is to create more life — any biologist knows that. She’s thirty-seven years old. The clock is ticking. She’s a unique individual with a unique genetic blueprint, representative of a superior line, in fact — in cold fact, without prejudice — and so’s Tim, with his high I.Q. and mellow personality and his long beautifully articulated limbs, and they have an obligation to pass their genes on if there’s any hope of improving the species.
The woman at the cash register — post-menopausal, her hair brittle, lines tugging at the corners of her mouth — looks like a mother, albeit one whose pregnancies are long behind her, and she gives Alma a shy collusive smile as she scans and bags her purchase. And Alma, enormous still, towering, locks eyes with her and smiles in return. “You have a nice day,” the woman says and the tired phrase carries a whole new freight of meaning. Alma can’t seem to keep herself from grinning as she takes up the plastic bag and stuffs her receipt inside. “Oh, I will,” she says, “I’m sure I will.”
At home, with her mother hovering outside the bathroom door, she tries to concentrate on working up a pee, but for some reason it won’t come. She sits there on the toilet a long while, thinking of Tim and how she’s going to deliver the news to him, because she’s bursting with it, all but certain the test strip she’s clutching in her hand will show two bright pink bands of color, proof positive. She could get him on the radio at the field station, of course, but what’s she going to say, How’s the weather and by the way I’m pregnant? He’ll be home in four days. She can meet him at the boat, take him by the hand, lead him up the stairs to the Docksider and settle him in a booth with a pint of Firestone and a plate of fried calamari, look him deep in the eye and give him a mysterious smile. What? he’ll say, grinning in anticipation of the joke. And she’ll toy with him a moment, reach under the table to stroke his thigh, lean in for a kiss. Take her time. Enjoy it. . But then she’s getting ahead of herself, isn’t she? Because she hasn’t peed in the cup yet and hasn’t used the dipstick and doesn’t know anything at all, not for sure.
“Alma?” She can feel her mother shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the floorboards communicating the movement to her through the tiles of the bathroom floor and up into the soles of her bare feet. And she feels ridiculous suddenly, like a child, a toddler, her mother out there listening for the tinkle of her urine the way she must have all those years ago at the Takesue household or in the cramped little head of the Black Gold. Potty training. That’s the term for it.
She’s drawing in her breath to answer, to say “Not yet” or “Give me a minute,” when it comes, hot and sudden. She barely has time to maneuver the cup to catch a portion of it — for a moment there, drifting, she’s forgotten entirely the purpose of the exercise — but here it is, her urine, an inch or more of it, captured in the plastic throwaway container the manufacturer has thoughtfully provided. Immediately, even before getting up to wash her hands, she thrusts the dipstick into it and sets it on the tiles between her slim splayed feet. “Alma?” her mother calls, rattling the doorknob now. “Don’t keep me in suspense out here.”
The seconds tick by. Nothing happens. Heart pounding, feeling feverish and weak, she leans forward to pick up the container and give it a shake — maybe it needs to be stirred, that’s what she’s thinking, maybe there’s not enough contact between strip and solution or she’s been doing something wrong — when suddenly the second line appears below the first, as pink as cotton candy.
Her mother insists on celebrating, just the two of them (“And Ed doesn’t have to know a thing about it till it’s really sunk in because he can just sit in front of the TV and entertain himself with his ball games”), taking her out for the Sunday brunch at the hotel down the street because she’s going to have to eat for two now and yes, she can have one mimosa, only one, and that’s the last alcohol she’ll see for the next nine months. “You won’t miss it, honey, believe me, and I just pray you don’t inherit my — what would you call it? — propensity for morning sickness. Or morning, afternoon and evening sickness,” she adds with a laugh. “But everybody’s different, every pregnancy’s different, and I’m sure you’re going to be fine.”
Sitting there on the patio of the hotel and looking out across the barbered lawn and the strip of blacktop road to where the sea beats immemorially at the beach, the salt scent strong in her nostrils and the symbolic baggage of all that seething oceanic life as apparent as if she were rocking below the waves with her mask clear and her snorkel jutting high, she begins to doubt herself all over again. Does she really want to go through with this? Is there really room for another hungry mouth on this sore and wounded planet? And Tim. What of Tim?