Authors: Renee Manfredi
The night Greta called, Jack picked up the phone five minutes after it rang. “Jack speaking,” he’d said. “Who’s this?” Jack waited, presumably for Anna to finish her conversation.
Stuart had gone downstairs to the sunroom to read; Jack’s conversations might go on for an hour or more. When he’d finished two chapters of
The Red and the Black
—a novel Jack had recently enthused about—he picked up the phone to see if they were still talking. Stuart heard Jack say:
“the transfer of DNA” as casually as if he were talking about moving money to a different bank account. Stuart felt only a transitory guilt about eavesdropping; nobody would have expected him to hang up in the face of this intrigue. He made himself comfortable in the rocking chair, heard Greta say, “Lily is so wonderful, I can’t imagine not having another child. I had a miscarriage with my ex-husband. The only thing I regret about ending my marriage is not trying again for a baby. He had great genes. We would have had a beautiful baby.”
“Sweetheart, if it’s genes you want,” Jack had said, “I’m a virtual Calvin Klein. I’m six-two, Ivy-league-educated, a good athlete, cute as homemade shoes, funny as hell, verbally bright, good at math, and have above-average reasoning skills.”
“Which you are not exercising at the moment,” Stuart broke in.
“Hi, Stuart,” Greta said, as though she’d known he was on the line. Jack was unfazed.
“Stuart and I have been together for over twelve years. It’s the greatest sorrow of our life that we don’t have a child together.”
“Jack, what are you doing?” Stuart said, but both Jack and Greta ignored him.
Forty-five minutes later, Jack and Greta were talking about the possible baby as though it existed, discussing the merits of private school versus public, the rising price of college tuition, and at what age to explain to the child why he or she had two daddies and one mommy. Stuart unabashedly listened, breaking in every now and then to call one of them a horse’s ass or a raving lunatic.
“But getting back to nuts and bolts. So to speak.” Greta laughed. “How do we get your DNA without your virus?”
“Good question,” Jack said. “Maybe Anna can filter it out. Maybe there’s a way to get the virus out of the cells.”
“Maybe there’s a way to get the jackass out of Jack,” Stuart said.
“I haven’t really thought about that,” Jack said. “I have been extraordinarily healthy lately, and it seems the disease is completely remissed, but nonetheless, it will have to be Stuart’s seed.”
For the first time in over an hour, there was silence on the phone. Stuart hung up. In the following weeks, Jack’s enthusiasm grew, instead of fading, as Stuart thought—or hoped?—it might. But the more Jack’s intent
seemed in earnest, the more Stuart began to think about fatherhood. Objectively, he considered bringing a baby into their lives misguided, but there was a tug, an emotional pull; fatherhood was something he’d wanted his whole life. Stuart’s answer to Jack, finally, was a cautious yes.
Jack sidled up to Stuart now. “What do you think? Wanna head into town?”
“Not really,” Stuart said. “Were you listening to anything I said to you last night? About taking things in stages? What’s your hurry?”
“What’s my hurry?” Jack’s voice started to shake. “What’s my hurry? Do you really need to ask that?”
For a horrible moment he was afraid Jack was about to cry. Stuart sometimes forgot how much Jack loved Flynn, and how he, like Anna, was still grieving for her. “I’m sorry,” Stuart said quietly. “I want all the things you want. But I guess I just want to focus on each thing as it comes, even if it all happens quickly. Okay?”
Jack nodded, but didn’t look up.
They both fell silent. Stuart counted the ticks from the grandfather clock in the living room, the pendulum tracking the seconds. One hundred and twenty-two. Jack spoke finally. “It’s like I’ve spent my whole life riding backwards on a train. Not seeing things until they passed. I don’t want to lose you.”
Anna made sure no one was lurking in the hallway before she made her call. She hadn’t told any of them yet, but she’d had preliminary talks with a realtor about selling the house here in Maine, about what would be a reasonable price, and told the realtor, Lori, that she’d call back with a decision, which she now had. Two days ago, shopping for a butter dish to replace the one Jack broke, she studied this one and that, debated about Irish crystal or English bone, but then thought: what did it matter? Until now, Anna hadn’t realized how much of what she did was pointed toward the future; buying a new watch, a Stueben vase, was in part choosing for her granddaughter, the things that would last beyond Anna and become Flynn’s. By the time Anna had left the department store and picked up a cheap Rubbermaid version at the grocery, she had her answer about the house.
She dialed the real estate office, left a voice mail for Lori: “It’s Anna Brinkman. I’m ready to sell.” There. A decision that would become the
right one, even if she didn’t completely feel that it was so now. Uncertainty was normal, she told herself, picking up her cello and starting back in on Bach’s Suite no. 1 in G major. After Flynn, Bach was all she wanted to play. When grief surged acutely, Suite no. 2 in D minor matched what was inside her exactly. After thirty years with these pieces, mastery had come at last.
There was a knock at the door, then Marvin walked in. “Good afternoon, Anna,” he said, elongating the vowels into something menacing.
“Yep. Just a bit slow today. On my way downstairs.”
Marvin nodded. “I’ll fix your coffee.”
Anna sat in the back seat of her Volvo with Baby Jesus, while Jack drove, and Stuart fussed at the dog who was pawing Stuart’s jacket. Every few minutes Baby J. stuck his snout in the front seat.
“VJ, no!” Jack said, and reached back to push the dog’s head away. “See? He responds to a voice of authority. Good boy, good Velcro Jesus!”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Anna said.
Within seconds, the dog was again nosing at Stuart’s pocket. “Ha,” Anna said. “Baby Jesus! No stealing.” The dog gave her a look of reproach, as though he considered himself blameless. “Do you have something in there he would be interested in?”
“I have leftovers from my breakfast, which I was going to finish later.”
Anna reached in Stuart’s pocket and took out the foil-wrapped food. “Bacon. You have bacon, and you blame my poor dog for his persistence. Sorry,” she said, feeding the strips to the dog. “Teasing an animal means automatic forfeiture.”
“So, where’s the best jewelry store?” Jack looked at Anna in the rearview mirror.
“Boston,” she said.
Stuart snorted. Jack gave him a look.
“Though Seavey’s on Main and Third has nice bridal sets. Wedding bands, I mean.” She leaned forward. “At the next light, left. The college will be on the right.”
The three of them rode the rest of the way in silence. Anna felt the anxiety and fear coming from the front seat. Jack had asked her to check his viral load, and to test Stuart.
Earlier Jack said, “I feel so amazing that I’m nearly convinced of a
spontaneous healing.”
“You know that’s not possible,” Anna had said.
“Also, we’ve been extremely careful, but we want to reconfirm Stuart’s status.” Anna reminded Jack that sero-conversion could take months, and that a false negative was possible. “I know. But we’re taking precautions and extra-precautions.”
The three of them walked into the lab, the dog trailing behind. Jack, accustomed to needle sticks, barely flinched. But by the time she rewashed and regloved, Stuart was shaking so badly Anna couldn’t get a steady draw from the vein. “Take a deep breath,” Anna said softly. “Try to relax.” Jack, on the other side of Stuart, squeezed Stuart’s hand, whispered something Anna couldn’t hear. Stuart nodded, and clenched his fist tighter. The blood started to flow. “Done,” Anna said. Stuart let out a deep breath, and collapsed into Jack’s embrace.
Anna walked out into the hallway to give them a private moment. She read the bulletin board twice. Free kittens, furtniture for sale, typing services, and a bake sale benefiting the Bible Baptist Church Youth Group.
Jack and Stuart walked out, hand in hand. “We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Jack said.
“That’s not necessary. I can have results in fifteen minutes.”
Jack shook his head. “We want a little time.”
“Okay. Not a problem. Go pick out some beautiful wedding rings.” She took her wallet out of her purse. “In fact, I was hoping that you would let me get them for you as a wedding present.” She handed Jack a credit card.
“That’s very generous of you, Anna,” Stuart said. “But truly, it’s not necessary. You’ve done so much for us already.”
“Please.” The idea hadn’t occurred to her until the moment the words came out of her mouth; she’d only wanted to reassure Stuart, to steer him toward positive thoughts. But now she found that she truly wanted to buy their rings. “I really want to do this. I mean, please. I have no other family to buy for. Let me.”
Jack took her card, kissed her. Stuart smiled wanly and thanked her.
“Back soon,” he said.
Anna prepared Jack’s slide first. Something amazing
had
happened. His viral load was nearly nonexistent. She checked his white count. In the high range of normal, what a healthy person might show with a mild infection.
The recombination of the protease inhibitors was working beautifully. Jack’s physicians in Boston had recently started him on a new drug cocktail after the ones he’d been on began to lose their effectiveness, and the results were textbook perfect. “Holy Jesus! He’s going to outlive me.” The dog, at her feet, thumped his tail. Who knew how long the effectiveness of shuffling and recombining drugs could last?
She shook as she prepared Stuart’s slide, then went out to have a cigarette while waiting for his results. She imagined calling Stuart’s cell phone the second she saw good news. But Jack said they wanted time. Even good news could be a shock when it came before you’d weighed both possibilities. And how much sweeter to be called back from the precipice after you’d toed the edge.
From the end of the driveway, Jack and Stuart saw Anna on a bench just outside the lab. Jack drove slowly, held his breath until Anna spotted him. She rose when she saw the car, gathered up her things. “Thank God!” Jack said.
Stuart looked at him, alarmed. “What?”
“You’re negative,” Jack said, and gripped Stuart’s hand.
“Don’t say that! You don’t know that.”
“I do know. I know just by Anna’s posture.”
And when she smiled at them, they both knew. Jack and Stuart stepped out of the car. “Plan your future,” Anna said. “Negative. And Jack, your T-cells are beautiful. The knights have slain the dragons. Well, most of them; your viral load is way down.”
“Thank you, Anna,” Jack said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything.” She slid into the back seat, Baby J. hopping in after her. “Did you find some rings?”
“No. Nothing we liked. We did make reservations at Boatwright’s for an early dinner. Our treat, of course,” Stuart said. “And, as a gesture of goodwill….” He handed a grocery bag to Anna. “For your boy back there.” Anna opened it. Two pounds of bacon. “Baby Jesus, manna has fallen from heaven,” she said. “From the great space hogs in the sky.”
They drove in the bright afternoon. It was a good day, today was a good day—Anna turned the words over in her mind. Jack caught her eye in the mirror and winked. Anna fluttered her lashes in return, a gesture
she’d picked up from Flynn, who couldn’t manage to close one eye at a time. Sometimes when Anna looked at Jack, she saw his boyhood and youth, the toddler, grade-schooler, and pimply adolescent, as if all his years were layered one over another like the transparencies in medical texts. She knew exactly what he was like at twelve—through his stories and her imagination—almost as if he were part of her own history.
Today was a good day—now she believed it—a dry, sunny patch of grass, just big enough for the three of them, after a downpour that had soaked through everything.
Back at home, Anna quickly listened to the messages while Jack and Stuart were unloading groceries from the car. Two from the realtor, whose voice was so chirpy and annoying that Anna deleted them halfway through after getting the gist: Lori would be over Monday to put a sign in the yard; Anna should stop by the office to start the paperwork; the two of them needed to decide whether to set the price according to appraisal or by market value; please call, earliest convenience. The next two were from Greta: “I don’t think I’ll be able to drive up before Saturday.” And the second: “I definitely can’t come till Saturday, but I definitely will be there. Jack, please call me.”
Anna relayed the message as Jack and Stuart walked in. “Greta wants you to call her.”
“Okay,” Jack said, and walked into the kitchen. Anna followed.
“What’s up?” she said.
“What do you mean?” He picked up a note on the counter. “Marvin drove into Boston to take his sculptures to the gallery. He’ll be back late tonight,” Jack said. He pushed the note toward her. “Do you know, those wacky sculptures are selling like crazy. He’s getting rich.”
Anna raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me.” He walked out. “Stuart?” Jack called.
“In the sunroom. Reading,” Stuart called back.
“Okay, just checking. I’ll be down in an hour. I’m going to take a little nap.”
“Uh-huh,” Stuart said. “Sure you are.”
Anna unloaded the groceries, got out a skillet to fry bacon for the dog. Reread Marvin’s note, sifted through the mail, then picked up the phone.
Jack was on the upstairs extension. Anna put the skillet on the back burner, covered the mouthpiece with her hand, and listened quietly.
Jack was talking to Greta. Anna put the skillet on the back burner.
Greta’s voice: “Did you ask Anna about the possibility of its being your baby?” Greta was saying.
“No. The whole day was about peace and relief. Stuart wanted to be re-tested, and that’s always a major trauma. I mean, we were pretty sure, but it’s completely nerveracking. I used to absolutely unravel every six months when I tested.”