I get home at a few minutes before seven. Jari and company should be here soon. The smell of karjalanpaisti drifts through the house. My head hurts. I’d like to lie down in the bedroom and rest for a little while, but the door buzzer rings.
Jari and his family come in, take off their shoes, and I make introductions all around. Jari’s wife, Taina, is a pleasant woman in her mid-forties. Their sons, Hannu and Martti, are seven and nine. They take after Taina, have her white-blond hair, look like the products of the Lebensborn Nazi eugenics program, like the last bastions of the Aryan race. More confluence. They brought toys and movies with them. They break out Legos and go to work building a pirate ship while they watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone .
We adults go to the dining-room table. I open a bottle of red wine and pour for all of us except Kate and Mary. I get them Jaffa. Mary loves the stuff. Jari and Taina both speak good English. He asks about my migraines.
Despite the pain medication, I feel like my head is in a vise. Even my teeth hurt. “It’s okay,” I say.
“Have you been using the drugs I prescribed for you?”
I haven’t used the tranquilizers yet. “Yeah, they help.”
“Your blood tests came back clean, and your MRI is next Monday.”
“Good to hear,” I say.
“Kate, what about you?” Taina asks. “How is your pregnancy going?”
“There have been some complications. I have preeclampsia, but I’ve been medicated for it, and the doctors say everything is fine. I’m due in eleven days.”
“Mary, do you have children?” Taina asks.
She says no.
The conversation bores John. He gets up from the table and goes to the spare bedroom. His suitcase is there. He’s taking a couple pops from the kossu bottle I gave him.
“How is prenatal care different here from in the U.S.?” Mary asks.
Kate shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant in the States, but I feel that I’ve been well treated. I had my first two exams at seven and twelve weeks. A midwife examined me…”
Mary interrupts. “A midwife instead of a doctor?” She sounds disapproving.
“She was quite skilled,” Kate says.
“I’m a midwife,” Taina adds.
I hope Mary’s small gaffe won’t grow into something larger. Kate keeps talking to prevent it from happening. “At week nineteen,” she says, “they did another ultrasound, and we found out we’re expecting a girl. They checked the baby’s brain and organs for abnormalities and measured her neck. Somehow, they can diagnose Down syndrome that way. Then a week later, we went to a private clinic and had a 4-D ultrasound made. We have a DVD of it. Watching her move her little arms and legs is so sweet.”
John comes back from the bedroom. He took big gulps. His eyes speak of satiety. He browses books and CDs in the living room.
Jari looks troubled. “Why the 4-D ultrasound? It’s usually only done if complications are feared. Was it because of the preeclampsia?”
Kate glances at me, looks down at the table. “I had a miscarriage last year. We just wanted to make sure everything was all right this time.”
“Why test for birth defects so late in pregnancy?” Mary asks. “Nothing can be done about it.”
“In Finland,” Jari says, “in case of birth defect, a woman may still abort at week nineteen.”
“I see,” Mary says, again disapproving.
Taina bristles. “My first pregnancy was terminated under just such circumstances.”
Mary sips Jaffa, says nothing.
Kate and I share a fleeting look. This dinner will go wrong.
Taina looks hurt. This is clearly a painful subject for her. “My child, a girl, had a defective heart,” Taina says. “Even if I had carried her to term, she would have had a short and painful life.”
Mary meets Taina’s angry stare with flat eyes, again says nothing. Her silence makes her condemnation more poignant than words.