The Son
EXCERPT
IT ALL BEGAN WITH THE dress. Her mother had found it at the thrift shop, a
beautiful wedding dress with a veil, and shoes to match. Each night, after she did her homework, she would
try it on, gazing at herself in the mirror, imagining how it would be next
summer, when Ricky came back home on leave, and she would surprise him with the
dress, and they would get married She
would be out of high school then, all grown up.
Once, she took a picture of herself in the dress, using an old Polaroid
camera she had found in the dining room chest, and she mailed it to Ricky, in
one of the letters she wrote to him every day or so, and he didn’t write back for a long time. But then again, he didn’t always get a chance
to check his mail; maybe he was off somewhere isolated doing his training.
But then, one night, she tried the dress on and
it didn’t fit. She took it back off (she
always put on the dress after she had showered,…to
make sure she didn’t get it sweaty) and looked at herself in the mirror. There was something wrong. So she asked her mother, and her mother
laughed, and said maybe there was more than just the dress that was going to be
a surprise for Ricky.
“It’s a
good thing you have it,” her mother added. “Don't worry, we can
always let it out. See, they make them
with extra fabric, just in case.”
When she
began to cry, her mother hugged her. “It
happens all the time, honey, where do you think you came from? But I think we need to have a little talk.”
So she told her mother what she had done, and
when, and they agreed that there was plenty of time. It was surprising that she was showing so
much so early, but the baby shouldn’t arrive until well after the wedding.
But the next week, the dress was even
tighter. “Something’s wrong,” her mother
grumbled, “you’re a lot further along than you should be. What haven’t you told me?”
But there was nothing to tell. Ricky had left right after he graduated from
high school. He came back for Christmas
and she gave him a special present, then he was gone again.
“How did it happen then?” Her mother was getting angry now. “These things don’t just happen, do
they?”
“God only knows,” she answered, “God only
knows.” There was no one else. And they hadn’t really done anything. Well, they had done something, but not
that. She was ashamed to tell her mother
what they had really done, embarrassed to tell her that she was, technically,
still a virgin. What sense did that make?
“Don’t you dare talk to me about God, you
little slut. What are we going to do
now?”
Then her mother slammed the door, and she
turned out all the lights but one, and pulled the dress on over her shoulders,
and put on the veil, and cried as she looked at herself in the mirror. She had always known that she was very
beautiful, and that everything good in life lay ahead of her, but what was
going to happen to her now? So far she
had worn a baggy sweater into school, and no one had noticed, but that wasn’t
going to last much longer. How could
this be happening to her? What was going
on?
She remembered how, the night she had given
herself to Ricky (she had wrapped herself with ribbons and bows and tape, and
he had laughed as he peeled off the layers), that night they had gone to the
evening services, and they had listened to the story of Mary, the story of how
God had told Mary she was going to have a special child. Was she like Mary? Had God ever talked to her? If He had, she must not have been paying
attention. So she lay in bed, crying,
praying to God for an answer, for an assurance.
The next morning she got up to go to school,
but her mother was sitting in the kitchen.
“Why aren’t you at work?”
“We’ve got something we’ve got to take care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry. Here, take one of these.”
Her
mother handed her one of her worry pills, and everything became slow and
hazy. She remembered that they were in
the car, and then they were walking into a building, and there was an ancient
looking nun outside. The nun and her
mother started arguing with each other, and the nun gave her a piece of paper
that she took without looking at it, and her mother was screaming that she had
no choice.
“There is always a choice,” the nun replied
with a sudden calm that seemed to freeze time.
“You just have to have the courage to make it.”
But her mother pushed her through the door, and
they went inside.
It was cold inside, too much air conditioning
for this early in the summer, and dark.
There was a nurse at the desk. “Do
you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“It may be a while.”
“Can you do it today?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Okay, we’ll wait.”
“Have you been here before?”
“No”.
And there were forms to fill out. “Insurance?”
“We’ll pay cash.” And her mother took a lump of bills and
handed them to the nurse. “Okay honey,
I’ve got to get to work. I’ll pick you
up this afternoon.”
“What?”
But she was too dreamy to make much protest, and before she realized
what was happening her mother was gone.
So she sat in the waiting room, reading baby
magazines, wondering what it would be like to have a family. Maybe she should have tried to go to college
instead, like all her friends. The worry
pill began to wear off, and she began to get edgy.
“Do you need something to drink,” the nurse
asked, “or maybe something to eat? How about some yogurt?”
But that just made her queasy.
She threw up in the bathroom, and suddenly the baby was there more than
ever. She staggered back out to the
waiting room, and the nurse saw the way
she looked, and they took her through the doors into the back, and they made
her take off her clothes and put on a little robe that wouldn’t fit around her,
and then she had to lie down on a cold hard examination table. After that she fell asleep for a while. When she woke up there was a doctor with her
in the room.
“What is this?” he was saying. “I can’t do anything for her, she’s much too
far along.” And then, her body gave one
great heave, and there was a baby’s cry.
“Well, that’s a first,” the doctor said.
“What the fuck do we do now?”
All at once she knew she wasn’t dreaming. The world was sharp edged, sharper than it
ever had been before. She knew that she
was at a turning point, that all the future she had ever imagined was about to
vanish. And she remembered the nun, and
the piece of paper that was sitting on top of her clothes piled on the
chair.
So the nurse took the piece of paper, and went
outside. The nun was still there, although
no one had stopped to talk to her for a long time.
“Can you come inside with me?” The nurse asked.
“Inside?” The
nun’s eyes flashed in horror. “How can I
go into a place like that?”
“Please,” the nurse said, “we have a
situation. We need your help.”
“My help? How can
I possibly be of any help to the likes of you?”
“Please, just come inside.” So the nurse came back into the room, and the
doctor showed the baby to the nun, and then she explained to them all about how
it couldn’t be Ricky’s and she didn’t know how it could have happened, and the
doctor shook his head and said he didn’t believe any of it. But the nun looked at her differently. “It’s a miracle,” she said, “a gift from
God.”
“Isn’t every baby a gift from God?” The nurse murmured. Then the nun asked her how she could work
here, and the doctor said gruffly he didn’t believe in any of that anyway.
“There are some papers we need to fill out,” he
said, and she signed her name a few times.
The doctor left for a moment, and came back in the room with the bundle
of bills her mother had left. “Here,” he
said, “I can’t take this.”
But she didn’t want them. “Take them,” she gave the bills to the nun,
“buy something for the baby.” And the
nun was gone, and so was the baby. All
of a sudden she was scared. “What’s
going to happen,” she asked, “when my mother comes back and there is no sign of
a baby?”
“Honey, why did you think you were here in the
first place?” The nurse was trying to
hold back tears.
So she put her clothes back on and went out
into the waiting room. The music from
the ceiling speakers blared out, glory to God in the highest, peace on earth,
goodwill to men. What were they doing
playing Christmas music in May?