Blood Memory

Chapter 13

I press my garage-door opener and anxiously watch the white panels rise. Sean’s car is parked inside my garage. A dark green Saab turbo, ten years old.

I walk into my house with my purse in one hand and a paper sack in the other. The sack holds a bottle of Grey Goose, already half-empty. I pass through the kitchen and den like an exhausted soldier, then climb the stairs to the living room, which looks out over Lake Pontchartrain. Sean is waiting on the sofa, facing the lake. The picture window is covered with drops of condensation from the air conditioner, but I can still see sails on the horizon.

Sean isn’t watching the sails. He’s watching a golf tournament on ESPN. He points at the paper bag. “The news about Malik’s teeth bum you out that bad?”

I set my purse on a glass-topped table in the corner. Then I take a highball glass from a shelf on the wall, pour two fingers of vodka into it, and take a bittersweet sip.

“I’m not thinking about Malik.”

“Hey.” Sean stands and comes to me. “You need a hug.”

I do, but not the kind he wants to give me. As his arms close around me, I feel the temptation to yield to his embrace. He squeezes gently at first, working his fingers into the muscles of my lower back. A week ago I would have loved this. Now I feel a manic pressure building within me. As predictably as the evening tide, his erection presses into my abdomen. I feel only revulsion.

“Hey,” he says as I pull away. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t want that.”

His green eyes soften. “It’s okay. I can wait awhile.”

“I don’t want it later either.”

Sean leans back to study me but keeps his arms around my waist. “What’s the matter, babe? What’s happening? Another depressive episode?”

His casual use of medical jargon irritates me. “I just don’t want to, okay?”

“But you always want to.”

“No, you always want to. I just never say no.”

He stares at me in disbelief. “You mean you make love to me when you don’t want to?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes? Like how many times?”

“I don’t know. More than a few. I know how important it is to you.”

His hands drop from my waist. “And you waited over a year to tell me this?”

“Looks like it.”

The look of pain in his face is like the look of dumb hurt on an animal when it’s been struck for no apparent reason. God, I think. Is there anything on earth more fragile than male pride?

Sean swallows hard and gazes out toward the lake. After a while, he looks back, his face composed. “You and I have been through some serious shit together. Your mood swings, some bad arguments. I’ve spent the night here and done nothing but hold you all night when you were suicidally depressed.”

This is true, though on most of those nights he tried to make love with me.

“You have to tell me what’s going on,” he says.

I want to. Yet I can’t. I take another sip from my glass.

“Why did you stop drinking? I mean it’s great that you did, but what prompted it? Was it just another crazy tangent, like yoga? And why are you drinking again now?”

It would be so easy to tell him. But why do I have to? He’s a detective, for God’s sake. Why can’t he figure out the situation and just tell me it’s okay, without me having to say it? Is the answer that hard to see? Has anything else ever prompted me to stop drinking?

“Cat,” he says softly. “Please.”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt, and tears fill my eyes.

Sean blinks. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Buthow? I mean, you’re on the pill, right?”

“Yes. I was. But I took those antibiotics for my bladder infection, and that interfered with my pills.”

He nods for a few moments, then stops. “Didn’t you know that could happen?”

Here it comes. The accusation. “I only took three Cipros. I didn’t think that would make a difference.”

“But you’re a doctor. I mean-”

My composure snaps like brittle glass, and suddenly I’m screaming. “I didn’t do it on purpose, okay? You gave me the goddamn infection! You’re the one who wanted to have nonstop sex for three days!”

Clearly unprepared for this level of anger, Sean takes two steps backward. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, Cat. It’s justa lot to get my mind around. How long have you known?”

“Three days, I think. Almost four now. I’m not sure anymore. My sense of time isn’t working too well. I’ve been off my meds for three days. I know that for sure.”

“Off your Lexapro?”

“And the Depakote. Depakote can cause spina bifida if you take it in the first twelve weeks.”

“Okay, but shit, you have to get back on the Lex. You know what happens when you skip.”

Yes, I go manic

“You stopped drinking when you found out you were pregnant,” Sean thinks aloud.

I can’t think of anything to say.

“But you’re drinking again now. Did you lose the baby?”

“No. I couldn’t tell you I was pregnant without a drink. Isn’t that pathetic? I’ve been taking Valium, too.”

His eyes narrow in anger. “What the hell for?”

“To keep from getting the d.t.’s.“

He tries to take the glass of vodka from my hand. When I resist, he grabs my wrist and jerks at the glass with his other hand. I let him take it, but then I get the bottle from the table. “Try to take this away and I’ll brain you with it.”

He starts toward me, then stops. “Jesus, Cat. Think about the baby, will you?”

My laughter rides an undercurrent of hysteria. “Is that what you’re thinking about? Or are you thinking about the wife and kids you already have? And whether you can still keep me a secret through all of this?”

He rubs his forehead with both hands, drags his fingertips back through his hair. I see more gray when he does that. “Look, I just need some time to absorb this. To think about the implications.”

“The implications,” I echo. “Let’s seethey’re pretty straightforward. A: I’m pregnant. B: I’m keeping the baby. C: a baby needs a father as well as a mother. D: this baby either has a father or it doesn’t.”

“It sounds simple,” Sean agrees. “But it’s not. You know that. Look, my honest answer right now is that I’m not sure what to do.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

He gives me a pleading look. “Did you think I’d know in the first five minutes?”

“I hoped you would.”

He tries to come to me again, but I hold up my hands. “Just go, okay? Leave me alone.” The next words spill out almost of their own accord. “And leave your key here when you go.”

“What? Cat-”

“You heard me!”

Sean stares at me in silence for nearly a minute. In his eyes I see a long history of hurt and confusion. He looks away, then pulls his key from his pocket and lays it on the glass table. “I’m going to check on you tomorrow. Even if you don’t want me to.”

Then he goes downstairs.

When I hear his car start in the garage, I feel my chest caving in. But I have the antidote for that. Taking the Grey Goose bottle from the bag, I go down to my bedroom and lie on the duvet. With my free hand, I rub a little circle on my tummy.

“Just you and me now, kid,” I say in a desolate voice. “Just you and me.”

I sip from the bottle, savoring the anesthetic bite as it spreads across my tongue. I hate myself for doing it, but I swallow anyway. Self-hatred is a familiar emotion to me, and familiarity brings comfort. As the chemical warmth diffuses through my veins, I hear the sound of rain again. The rain from my waking dreams. Not the soft hiss of drops falling on my shingles, but the hard percussive patter of rain hitting a tin roof.

I hope oblivion comes soon.

I awaken to the hiss of rain, but this time the sound is real. My bedroom window stands open, and Sean Regan is leaning in through it, his hair and shoulders soaking wet. A corona of gray light shows behind him. I look at my alarm clock: 11:50 A.M. Sixteen hours have disappeared down a hole.

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