Late Air Page 2

  “What kind of accident?” she asked.

  “I’m a coach,” he said. “One of my runners was hit.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “How?”

  “By a golf ball,” he said. “We train on a course.”

  He’d lost sight of Becky just after the first 800 meters, at 2:30–2:31. He was sure he’d stopped his watch at 10:23.57. Exactly 7:53.57 that he’d been away. Wasn’t it?

  “Freaky,” the mother said.

  Danny’s head nuzzled deeper, closer to his mother’s breast. He wanted to ask her why she was here and not in the ICU.

  Had this woman done something that barred her proximity? Or was it simpler than that? Hospital rules were strict. She, like him, wasn’t immediate family.

  “She gonna make it?”

  When Murray didn’t answer, she said, “I’ll pray for her.” And then, “What’s her name?”

  “Jean,” he said, figuring that it had definitely been no longer than seventeen minutes by the time the medics arrived to give her oxygen.

  “Jean,” the woman said. “She’s in my prayers.”

  Murray’s fist tightened over his watch, numbers slipping like sand.

  TWO

  The night they conceived, Nancy would call her husband a liar. It was September, twenty years ago, Nancy and Murray’s second anniversary. Nancy had gone to the trouble of baking fresh halibut with potatoes au gratin and—hoping he’d indulge her that night—a strawberry shortcake for dessert. But he hadn’t shown. She was about to dump his portion in the trash, when she decided she might like to bring it to work with her tomorrow. She unpeeled a sticky note from a block on the kitchen counter by the telephone, wrote DO NOT TOUCH in thick red marker, and set the container in the refrigerator. Then she squirted soap into the pans in the sink, holding the spray nozzle like a gun as foam began to rise.

  Nancy had pinned up her rust-colored hair—in certain light it looked more gray—and had ironed her blouse, a clean blue paisley, before putting it on, leaving a few extra buttons open to expose some lace in her bra. She’d worn the pearl-drop necklace Murray had given her for their first anniversary to accentuate the freckles he liked along her breastbone. She unclasped the necklace before their bathroom mirror but didn’t bother putting it away. She splashed water over her face, working in cleanser gradually, head over the sink, then reached for a towel to pat her skin dry; she held the towel over her cheek as she looked back up into the mirror, scrutinizing a stubborn black streak below her left eye, part residue from crying, part new, from the futility of cleaning.

  She went to her dresser drawer for an oversized Michigan T-shirt. She’d grown up in Bloomfield Hills, to parents who’d wanted her to marry a doctor or lawyer, at the very least a professor, who’d have shared her fine taste in literature, art, music, her passion for travel. Murray barely read outside of the sports section of the newspaper (at least it was the Times), obsessively memorizing every stat. His coaching brain had no room to remember their anniversary. Nancy sat cross-legged in bed, circling this thought and craving a cigarette, even though she’d given up the habit, this other aspect of herself, for him. He had refused to marry her unless she quit.

  She heard his keys jingling at their apartment door, then his footsteps in the kitchen, not trepid, but audacious and confident, as he opened and closed the refrigerator and poured something—milk, she assumed—into a glass. She imagined him gulping as she slid under the covers and turned her back to the slightly cracked door. A few minutes later, he entered the room and called to her: “Nancy.” He walked around to her side of the bed. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and still, like a deer before a man discovers it.

  “How could you forget?” she said, knowing full well that if she hadn’t broken the silence, he would have pretended all was fine and just gone on with his routine of showering before bed. He answered, “I didn’t forget.” But he would not look at her carefully, guiltily, like she wanted him to do—to at least acknowledge her this. He just turned and headed straight for the bathroom and turned the hot water on.

  “Don’t walk away!” she yelled. She listened to the snapping shut of their wicker hamper. Either he hadn’t heard her or he was pretending not to. “You forgot. Just admit it!”

  He let the water run and returned to the bedroom naked. Even in the dim light, Nancy could detect every ridge of his abdomen: long, clean lines that separated oblique muscles and framed his narrow pelvis. At forty-two, he maintained the body of a twenty-eight-year-old.

  “I didn’t know about dinner. You didn’t say anything.”

  “You’re such a liar.” There, she’d said it, crying this time.

  Murray remained in the crinkle of light, shower water raining heavily from behind. She turned her focus to the single lamp still burning, the one for reading; it was green shaded with a yellow porcelain base.

  He went on about his need to work late, to clock an extra training run, the pressure he was under. But she didn’t want to hear it; she stuffed her face into a pillow, felt the heat in her tired cheeks, the tears that wanted to come down harder.

  “I’m so close. Remember?” he said. “The promotion?”

  He had gotten into bed next to her. “I love you,” he said. He held her hands and kissed her mouth. Tears mixed with the salt on his skin. “I didn’t forget,” he said, his hand brushing her collarbone. He kissed her breast.

  She said, “I don’t believe you,” but her voice wasn’t forceful anymore. His lips moved around her belly button, between her thighs and over the side of her hips, where goose bumps formed.

  He removed her shirt and guided her to the bathroom. They paused and kissed by the sink. The steam made her heavy. Droplets had condensed over their metal toothbrush holder. When they moved to the shower, he turned her body, which she knew, at forty, had begun to droop. She gripped the metal safety bar as he entered her from behind, his palm pressed into the space between her shoulder blades. Her hands were plastered against the blue tile when they finished. She smelled the minty bar of soap as he ran it gently along the nape of her neck, then down her back. She’d been born with a minor case of scoliosis, a left-leaning curve of ten degrees that caused unevenness in her shoulders and hips. That he forgave such deficiency was one of the things she loved most about him.

  She took the soap from him, afraid it might slip in her hands, but managed to run it carefully over every rippling crevice, every bony edge. They shampooed and conditioned separately, taking turns rinsing, and then afterward Nancy shut off the faucet, while Murray reached for a single towel to wrap them in. They made it into bed, where Murray’s blue eyes seemed softer, and then a clean click of the lamp sent them into darkness.

  Three weeks later, they went to Mystic Seaport for the weekend and passed a cart selling hot dogs. Never had the scent of oiled meat smelled so vile. Nancy ran to a ledge rail off the boardwalk to vomit. She told Murray she was sure she’d caught some sort of stomach bug, but the next day it happened again, when they sat down for lunch at the marina. Grilled cheese sandwich, french fries, plus most of the chips that’d come with Murray’s: Nancy ate all of it. But when a woman nearby lit a cigarette, Nancy felt the food begin to rise.

  She said nothing at first, but then her curiosity bloomed, and bloomed. A few nights later, Nancy found herself light and dizzy in their bathroom, gripping the edges of the sink, studying her face in the mirror for balance. The pregnancy test showed a plus sign through its gray oval. In the mirror, Nancy had more miniature wrinkles around her eyes and mouth than she could count, and her hair seemed to turn grayer by the minute. She and Murray had married late in life, both so focused on their careers a child hadn’t seemed part of the picture. Even if they’d wanted one, or had agreed they wanted to try, she’d assumed it would have been a planned effort. How would he handle the surprise?

  They were seated on their bed when she told him. She had her hand pressed to her belly. Murray just stared at his feet and nervously twisted the end of his mustache. />
  “What are you thinking?”

  When he didn’t answer, she reached for his hand. “Are you happy?”

  His face went rigid. He waited several more seconds and worked his mouth into a smile.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course I am.” Two years before, just after they’d married, she’d been so quick to anger any time he didn’t express the right emotion, but she was learning to accept Murray’s reticence. He implied his love, didn’t he?

  The morning after their anniversary, he’d proved he hadn’t forgotten it by surprising her with a first-edition copy of Giovanni’s Room from Argosy Book Store in the city; he had rushed to the Metro-North after practice, but then had missed the 6:47 p.m. train coming back.

  It was true, she could be too hard on him sometimes, defensive, like her mother had been with her father, accusing him unfairly, ruminating over the slightest mistakes. Nancy was trying to be different. More patient.

  They sat together in silence for several long minutes, until Murray said, “We should move things around this weekend. To gauge space for the baby.” Nancy sighed, then nodded, surveying their queen-sized bed, their two old dressers from the Salvation Army, their single bookcase tilting from the weight of her literary anthologies and reference texts competing for space with Murray’s training manuals. The room’s only window was steel blue in the early evening light. It had rained for most of that day, and for the first time, they felt the lingering dampness, the quiet of time stopping. They turned to one another confounded. Nancy laughed, then Murray did too. Was there something forced in his? she wondered, but then thought she was once again being too hard on him. She shouldn’t overanalyze; it wasn’t worth that now. They leaned back on the bed together, fingers locked.

  Over a week later, a Monday, they both took off from work and went to see an obstetrician. Because Nancy was technically a high-risk case—any woman over thirty-five was—she had pushed hard to see Dr. Edmund Weiss, a world-renowned expert on fetal therapy. While they waited in the exam room, Nancy was possessed by another violent bout of morning sickness and thought about leaving the appointment. But in strode Dr. Weiss as she was pacing the room. He was tall and thin, with crow-black hair, and held a miniature Dixie cup with a tiny pocket of water.

  “Take a seat,” he said, and she calmed. He smiled. “The test didn’t lie. We’re looking at a four-week-old embryo.” He went through the results of Nancy’s physical exam and blood tests. Everything was looking good: her weight, blood pressure, reproductive health. “Since you want to be conservative, we should run a few screenings. An amnio at seventeen weeks can tell us a lot more.”

  “Like what?” Nancy asked. Her body ached. She sipped from her cup, fingers clammy and tremulous.

  “Down syndrome is the big one,” he said. “There is a one in one hundred chance.”

  “That high?” said Murray. His shoulders scrunched to his ears.

  “None of this is meant to scare you. It’s simply important to be aware. Especially since many abnormalities can be prevented. I’d advise you to read these.”

  He handed Nancy a stack of pamphlets listing terms like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and vascular disease, and a folder with information on the risks of miscarriage and preterm birth.

  “The most important thing,” he said, washing his hands, “is that you’re both in good health, with strong genetic histories.” He turned the faucet off and reached for a paper towel. “I recommend checkups every other week. If we find anything along the way, we can always up the visits.”

  Nancy bit her lip and shook her head slightly. She had slipped on her reading glasses and was perusing a sheet on metabolic disorders.

  “Lots of fluids and simple foods,” Dr. Weiss reminded her. “See you in two weeks.”

  In the car on the way home, Nancy burst into tears. She was suffocating and asked Murray to roll down the window. Murray pulled over and unbuckled his seat belt. As she went on about how she couldn’t quit her job at Beinecke Library, that she didn’t know if she could make it through all these tests, he told her to take deep breaths. “It’s alright,” he said. “Doctors always give worst-case scenarios.” He reminded her they needed to take things one day at a time, that certain factors were in their control. For instance, she could try to cut back her hours. He would apply for a raise and start running private training classes. He could help prepare meals and regiment her exercise. They would figure out finances. Nancy was rubbing her reddened knuckles. She nodded but words wouldn’t come. They drove the rest of the way in silence. Murray steered with one hand. The other he rested over Nancy’s, her fist bound tight with a clump of tissues.

  The next day, Nancy checked out every book she could find on pregnancy planning and fetal development. She went into the stacks, where it was quiet, and read about the first trimester. Already their baby was the size of a green pea, with a primitive backbone curled like a tail. A U-shaped tube formed the heart, rapidly pumping.

  She confirmed all signs of early pregnancy, penciling tiny check marks on sticky notes inside the pages. She’d need to consume a delicate balance of vitamins, protein, and fat, she learned, but the things she craved most were full of empty calories: fresh bread, mashed potatoes, and butter-drenched noodles with parmesan. Ice cream.

  A little boy in the elementary school Nancy had attended as a girl had walked around with an oxygen tank. He had a congenital heart condition that made his lips blue. Years later when Nancy was selling magazine subscriptions for a fund-raiser, she’d rung his doorbell. His mother had answered, her skin bone colored, eyelids swollen. Behind her there’d been an empty wheelchair and discarded tank, its disconnected tubing visible.

  Some form of exercise every day was ideal, Nancy knew. She’d never liked running, even after Murray had tried to help her build up to a mile around their neighborhood last summer—but cardiovascular health was important, especially with her lungs at a disadvantage already, after all the time she’d spent smoking during her PhD, when the pressure of producing pages for her dissertation, all those hours spent alone in the archives, had weighed on her.

  Nancy started a daily habit of fifty jumping jacks and thirty toe touches. Murray showed her how to lift his free weights, the ten-pound dumbbells he used to practice his arm swing before the mirror, and she learned to focus on the different core muscle groups Murray said she’d need to keep strong these nine months.

  Although several books made an allowance for the occasional slice of cake, block of chocolate, or celebratory sip of champagne, she tried not to indulge. To prevent dietary slips, she posted a note with Every bite counts over the refrigerator door, next to a magazine clipping of a perfect baby.

  One morning over breakfast, Murray commented on the photo. Usually Nancy didn’t rise this early with him, but she’d been unable to sleep. He asked her if she really believed their baby would match the image.

  “Why does that matter?” She was sipping orange juice, aware of the bitterness in her tone but more concerned about the pH level of the juice. She’d left her diet books upstairs by their bed, by her glasses and the reading light.

  “Just curious.” He sighed and tore his slice of toast in half. He scribbled notes on his pad.

  “Don’t you ever get bored?” she asked, the irritation still there, exacerbated by this pressing need for her nutrition checklist.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Tweaking the same plan?”

  “It’s not the same,” he said, gulping the last of his juice.

  “More or less.”

  Well into his second year as assistant coach, Murray was obsessed with proving himself, physically and professionally. She wondered if he’d always be this way. Would he be a good father, a healthy model for their child? Did he even want to be a parent, or was he ambivalent?

  Murray hadn’t yet affirmed, at least not fully, Nancy’s growing desire, her curiosity, about what it might be like to guide a young mind through life. She could admit she’d felt,
since her late twenties, some envy for mothers with children at bus stops, or in restaurants and shops. How wonderful it seemed to explain simple words and arithmetic for the first time, and to be confronted with much larger conundrums, such as why up was up . . . or a sound, a sound . . . or the question of forgetting; she had once heard a child ask, Mommy, why do you forget?

  Nancy’s own mother had forgotten nothing, the way she’d been quick to remind her of every possible threat, every potential germ or disease. Most days, her mother had been too afraid to leave the house, and Nancy would run countless errands for her, mostly to the drugstore for all the special creams and vitamins her mother claimed she depended on.

  Murray mumbled something when he stood up from the table. She wanted him to speak louder, but he shrugged her off. She pressed him again by the door on his way out, where he stood with his coffee mug and newspaper. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “For us.”

  She pinched away tears, said she was sorry. Then she trudged upstairs to try and sleep off the last hour before she had to get ready for work. But when she couldn’t relax in bed, too distracted by her books, which she’d thrown onto the floor, she slipped on a pair of sweatpants and took a walk around the neighborhood. The sun had just begun its ascent, illuminating a distant bridge of girder steel.

  Nancy was thankful for the fresh air. Walking helped her clear her mind before the day grew too busy or weighted down by other concerns. She resolved to make this her habit: a long walk every morning, well before sunrise. She could exercise and let her shape disappear into shadow. She could think. And when she finished, even though Murray wasn’t there to see her, she began a habit of stretching her hamstrings and calves in the yard. Sometimes she added a set of lunges, like she’d watched him complete many times after a run.

  When she and Murray first met, Nancy had wanted to understand marathons, what it felt like to complete one.

  They had taken ham sandwiches to a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, in Paris, where Murray used to train every morning, and she still liked to picture the stone-faced guards during each one of his laps: twelve times around the perimeter.