Turn a corner, bump into another rule, another shaking head, another set of hands, cold metal—this was the path to motherhood, as far as Susannah could tell. It was Susannah’s path at least. But she couldn’t bear to listen to the doctors anymore, to stay in bed, have tea brought to her, read a novel, nap. It made her feel like an old woman, made her feel sick. Susannah could not believe her barrenness was a sickness, or even that she was barren—she was pregnant, after all! She had several friends who had borne children—“friends” perhaps a stretch, though she liked these women and they seemed to like her, the wives of Josiah’s business cohorts, who were not exactly his friends either; his friends were back on Mason Street, where he rarely had time to go. The point was none of those women had spent their days in bed. They were educated, like Susannah, if not at college then by tutors. Their ambitions ranged, however rangily, beyond their children, a hazy, appetizing swirl of benefit dances and easels and bagging trousers. They were too busy to lie in bed. Susannah wanted to be busy, too. She was happiest busy: swimming, shopping, visiting the quarry, advising Josiah. She missed the men standing from their benches to greet her, missed the smell of dynamite and dust. Her legs bounced when she sat, twitched when she lay down. Besides, she had stayed in bed last time, and what difference had it made?
She found the box of flags on top of a steamer trunk. Her sweat was monumental now, stinging her eyes, dripping from her fingers and nose, slicking the floor. She breathed deeply. It felt good. It would have felt even better if she could dive into the ocean afterward. The tide was high. Maybe she would. Maybe she would dive off the dock—or, a fair concession, jump—and be instantly cleansed, one salt replaced with another, her mood remade. Ten minutes would be enough, even five. Then she would go home, take a bath, get in bed, and wait for Josiah to come home. She would pretend to have lain in bed all day like a good patient and ask Josiah questions about the quarry without betraying her longing for it. If he asked about tomorrow’s party she would tell him the long table linens were pressed and that her father had fetched the flags, the minor lie a precaution in case she miscarried again, for no matter how gentle Josiah was about her losses, she knew he—like her doctors—must blame her in some way. Then they would share a nice supper and go to sleep holding each other’s hand (his left, her right) and though at some point in the night he might leave the bed for a few hours, in the morning he would be there, his rumpled face against her hair.
She knew about Josiah’s affair. Of course she did. Not the details but the basic fact of it. She was not stupid. She had noticed when he took her necklace. And she did not always sleep as well as she had when she was a child. Josiah assumed it of her but he was simply nostalgic for something he’d never even known, pining for the myth of her.
She loved this about Josiah: his capacity for belief, his willingness to be swept up in a good tale.
Susannah opened the box and grabbed a bunch of flags, then she dropped the flags back down and picked up the whole box. It was not that heavy. On her way to the ladder she picked up the lighthouse, too. Josiah would like it, she thought, and he would like the story that went along with it. And maybe, just maybe, there would be a child, and the child would like the lighthouse, and sleep with it, as Susannah’s brothers had.
With both her hands occupied, the ladder proved a bit tricky, but the rungs were flat and Susannah welcomed the challenge, shifting her weight into her toes, winging her elbows for balance. Her skin rose into goose bumps as she reached the bottom.
“Susannah?”
Her father. He was galloping up the stairs from the first floor, his short legs like springs. He spent his days in his office, with the door closed. Susannah had not considered his emergence a possibility. He was looking at her, and past her, at the ladder, with unmistakable anger.
“I was only going to get the flags,” she said. “I’m fine.” And she was. She was better than fine. In her mind she was swimming already. But her father would not see this. He would see only the heat in her cheeks, the sweat rolling down her skin.
“Susannah,” he growled. He took the box from her, then the lighthouse. “You know you’re not—”
“Please don’t tell.”
“Tell who?”