Mixed Blessings (41 page)

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked quietly. He was worried about her. She hadn't been the same since the babies had been born and Grace had died. And he was almost sorry they'd had them. It was just so painful.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, as she held the sleeping baby.

And then she looked down at him, he was so perfect and so small, and yet so round and healthy. He was everything Grace hadn't been, with her tiny features and miniature face.

She had looked perfect, too, but infinitely smaller. "I keep trying to understand why it happened. Was it my fault? Was it something I did? Did I eat wrong, did I lie on one side all the time. . . . Why?" Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked at her husband, and he stood next to her as they looked down at Christian.

"We have to be careful not to blame him," Brad said, "not to make him feel later on that he somehow wasn't enough, and we wanted more. I suppose this is just what was meant to be," he said, and bent down to kiss her, and then Christian. He was a beautiful child and he had a right to a life of joy, not to the burden of having come into the world as a mixed blessing.

"I don't blame him," Pilar said sadly, crying openly. "I just wish she were here too." But perhaps she would be, in some way, a sweet presence, a loving spirit. It was so little to hold on to.

Pilar slept fitfully, and in the morning, she woke up feeling as though someone had dropped a ten-thousand-pound weight on her chest. She remembered what they were doing that day.

She showered, and fed the baby as soon as he woke up. Her breasts felt huge, and she had so much milk that she sprayed his face at first when he tried to eat, and he made such funny faces at her that she laughed in spite of the way she felt, and Brad heard her.

"What's going on in here?" he asked, as he came into the nursery wearing a dark suit. It was the first time she had laughed in days and it was a relief to hear her.

She showed him and he laughed too. "He looks like one of those little old actors in vaudeville getting it in the face from a seltzer bottle, doesn't he? . . . kind of like Harpo Marx."

"Actually," Brad said, smiling, "I think he looks a little like Zeppo."

He was surprised by how much he felt for him, how much he already loved him, and how sorry he was that he had come into the world without his sister. He seemed so innocent and so dependent on them-Brad couldn't remember his other children being quite so small, or so needy, or perhaps even the baby felt that something terrible had happened.

Where was she? He had lived with his sister for nine months, and now she was gone. It had to be traumatic for him too. Even he wasn't exempt from the pain they were feeling.

"Will you be dressed soon?" Brad asked gently. She nodded as she set down the sleeping baby after he'd eaten. It would have been so perfect if there had only been him, it would have been such undiluted ecstasy, and now it was so different. It was half happy and half sad, half agony and half beauty, everything was so bittersweet and so tender to the touch. She couldn't bear feeling anymore, and she stood looking at him for a long time, thinking how much she already loved him. But she had loved Gracie too . . . that was the amazing thing. She had known her little face the moment she arrived and it was carved in her heart for eternity, just as her name was.

She wore a simple black wool dress, which hung from her shoulders with no waist, that she had worn to the office when she was first pregnant. Black stockings, black shoes, and she found a black coat that fit, and then she stood mournfully and looked at her husband.

"It seems wrong somehow, doesn't it? We should be celebrating and instead we're mourning." And there were so many people to tell, everyone they knew had known they were having twins, and now they would have to be told they didn't.

Brad put the baby in the car, and he never woke when they put him in his car seat. And they drove to All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church in Montecito in total silence. There was nothing Pilar could say to him, nothing that would take away the pain, or make it any different.

He patted her hand when he parked the car, and Nancy and Tommy were waiting on the sidewalk with Marina. Tommy was wearing a dark suit, like Brad, and Nancy looked devastated as she held her baby. She hadn't been able to find a baby-sitter, so in the end she just brought Adam. And he screamed with glee the moment he saw Pilar and Brad. For an instant, it lightened the moment.

The minister was also waiting for them, and he had led them inside, but Pilar was in no way prepared for what she saw there, the tiny white casket surrounded by lily of the valley, waiting at the altar. It was a travesty, a lie, a cruel joke that Nature had played on her, first promising her so much, and then taking away half of it, and a sob caught in her throat the moment she saw it.

"I can't bear it," she whispered to Brad as she dropped her face into her hands, and Nancy began to cry softly, while Tommy took the baby, and Christian lay sleeping peacefully in his car seat. They were the ways of God, the minister reminded them, to give and to take, to laugh and to cry, to mingle joy with sorrow, but the pain of it was almost too great to bear as he blessed the little girl who had been theirs for only a moment.

Afterward, Pilar felt as though she were in a dream, a nightmare, as she followed Brad outside, and they followed the hearse to the cemetery. At the gravesite they stood silent and miserable in the rain, as Pilar began to panic.

"I can't leave her here She choked on the words as she clung to Brad, and Brad's son-in-law stood near them, with Marina close to them, but at a discreet distance. Nancy had stayed in the car with both little boys, she just couldn't stand it anymore, she had told her husband. It was too awful, too sad, that tiny box, and their ravaged faces. It was a terrible time for all of them, particularly Pilar and Brad. He looked a thousand years old, and she looked as though she were going to collapse as the minister gave little Grace a final blessing.

Pilar put a small bouquet of tiny pink roses on her casket and stood staring at it for a long time, sobbing softly, and then Brad led her away and back to the car, but she almost didn't seem to know where she was going. And then she sat staring straight ahead as they drove home, and she said nothing. Brad and Marina held her hands, but she had nothing to say to them, or anyone.

Brad didn't know what to say to her, he didn't know how to comfort her or what to do. Even though Brad felt the loss when Grace was born, she had been a stranger to him. But Pilar had carried them for nine months, and she knew them intimately in a way no one else did.

"I want you to lie down," he said as they got home after they'd dropped everyone else off. And the baby began to stir when he put him in his basket.

She nodded and went to their bedroom, and she lay there in her black dress, saying nothing and staring at the ceiling, wondering why she couldn't have died, and they have lived. Why wasn't one given different choices? Who would she have chosen? What would she have done? She knew in an instant that she would have gladly sacrificed herself to save them. She tried explaining that to Brad and he looked
 
horrified. As much as he mourned their lost child, he would never have wanted to lose his wife, and he was furious at the suggestion.

"Don't you realize how much we need you?"

"No, you don't," she said bleakly.

"What about him?" He motioned to the next room. "Don't you think he has the right to a mother?" She shrugged, unable to answer. "Don't talk like that," he said. But she was depressed all day, she wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink, it affected her milk eventually, and it made the baby fussy. It was as though they all wanted to cry and object to what had happened to them, and none of them knew how, least of all Pilar, who wanted to scream until she couldn't breathe anymore, but instead, she just sat and stared at Christian.

"He needs you, and so do I," Brad reminded her again. "You have to pull yourself together."

"Why?" She sat and looked out the window, and then finally he got her to drink some tea, and then a cup of soup, and at least she had enough milk to feed the baby.

She got up with him several times that night, as Brad slept. It had been an exhausting day for him, too, and he was desperately worried about Pilar. And as the sun came up, she sat in the rocking chair, holding Christian, and thinking about both her babies. They had been separate entities, separate people, separate lives, each with their own destiny and future. Christian had had his own fate to fulfill, and Gracie's mission had been accomplished early. Perhaps it was as simple as that perhaps she was destined to be with them only for a moment.

But suddenly Pilar realized that she had to let her go, that she had to touch her memory now and then, but she could not take her with her.

And Brad was right, Christian needed her. Hopefully, he would have a long life with them, and she wanted to be there beside him. For the first time in five days, she felt at peace as she sat holding him. The blessing was theirs, not as they had expected it, or thought it would be, but as it was meant to be, and as it was, and she had to accept it.

"You up?" Brad stood sleepily in the doorway. He had looked for her in their bed, and he hadn't found her. "Everything okay?"

She nodded and smiled at him, looking very wise, and very sad, and also very lovely. "I love you," she said quietly, and he sensed that something had changed in her, something deep inside had broken and torn, and almost ripped her apart, and  now slowly it had begun healing.

"I love you too." He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, but he didn't know how to tell her anymore. There were no words, just very deep feelings.

And then suddenly Christian stirred. He yawned and then opened his eyes and looked at them very intently.

"He's quite a guy," Brad said proudly.

"So are you," Pilar said as they kissed in the morning sunlight.

Todd came home to them for Thanksgiving that year. He wanted to see the baby, who was two and a half weeks old, and he also knew what an ordeal they'd been through and he wanted to be there with them.

Pilar already looked a little better by then, although she still had a lot of weight to lose, and she wasn't going out yet. She was still weak, and drained by the ordeal, and she didn't feel ready to face her friends and start explaining. It was still too painful.

Todd didn't know what to say to her about it at first, and then eventually he told her he was sorry they had lost the baby.

"What a miserable thing to go through." His dad had seemed very shaken up when he'd called to tell him of Christian's birth, and Gracie dying, but Pilar was taking it much harder.

"It was awful," she admitted quietly, though the wounds were healing slowly. She still felt a terrible ache when she thought of her, but she was beginning to allow herself to enjoy Christian. She was talking to her mother more frequently, and some of what she'd told her of her own experience had helped Pilar. It helped talking to someone who'd been through it, but she still didn't want her to come out. She didn't feel up to seeing anyone, not even her mother.

"Nothing's ever as simple as it looks," Pilar said quietly to Todd, thinking of what agony it had been to get pregnant, and then her miscarriage . . . and now Gracie. "You think it's all going to be so easy, and just the way you plan, but sometimes it isn't. It's taken me forty-four years to figure that one out, and believe me, it hasn't been easy." Childbearing had not been the easiest thing she'd done so far.

Her career had been a great deal simpler, and even marrying Brad. But somehow, she knew in her heart of hearts that all of this was worth it.

She wouldn't have given up Christian for anything. And even at the price she'd paid, she knew he was worth it, at twice the price, although even thinking that amazed her. "What are you two doing? Solving the problems of life?" Brad teased as he sat down next to them.

"I was about to tell him how much I love him." Pilar smiled at her stepson and then her husband. "He's a very special person."

"That's a nice change after being a pretty rotten kid." He grinned.

He was a handsome boy, and he looked a lot like Brad.

"You were okay," Brad conceded half-heartedly, but with a teasing smile. "And you're not bad now. How's Chicago?"

"Okay. But I've been thinking of coming back to the West Coast. Maybe getting a job in L.A. or San Francisco."

"Boy, would that be rotten luck!" his father teased again and Pilar smiled broadly.

"We'd love to have you back out here."

"I could baby-sit on weekends."

"Don't hold your breath," his sister advised Pilar as she joined them.

"Every time he stays with us, he sleeps right through Adam's screams, lets him play with the phone, and feeds him beer to keep him mellow.""

"Yeah, and he loves it, right? Who's his favorite uncle?"

"He doesn't have a lot of choice there, does he?" his sister razzed him.

A little while later Christian woke up and shouted loudly for his mother. She went to feed him, and when she came back, the young people were ready to leave, and Todd kissed her and held her in a warm hug.

"You look great, and my brother is gorgeous."

"So are you. I'm glad you came home." He looked down at her and nodded, and he was glad too. They looked like they'd been through a lot, especially his dad, who seemed to have aged, and was obviously still desperately worried about her, but they seemed to be doing okay.

And Pilar was sad, but she seemed to be coping.

"Do you think they'll do it again?" Todd asked his sister after they left, and were driving back to her place in the car.

"I doubt it," Nancy said, and then added confidentially. "A friend of mine went to a fertility specialist in L.A. and she said she saw them there. They never said anything to me, but I don't think Pilar had such an easy time getting pregnant. They kind of acted like it was a big surprise, but I don't think it was. I think it was hard work. And now they've had such a hard time with the baby dying."