It was impossible that her mother had gone to sleep angry when Gwen so longed for her; never before had Gwen, in need, been left alone to cry. Her first thought on waking was that, despite evidence to the contrary, there must have been some mistake, half expecting to find Julia sitting quietly beside her bed, as she had so many nights in childhood. Her second realization was that it was still only four a.m., and many hours lay ahead before she could make right what yesterday had gone so very wrong. She felt feverish and queasy. She needed her mother to understand—she could not be pregnant, she was only a child, she needed to be swept up, herself a babe in arms. Her unhappiness was abject, and complete.
She lay in a mounting agony of indecision. Not once since James invaded had Gwen been up to the top floor. To enter their room was impossible. To wait, untenable. She found herself in a state of ferocious concentration, hoping her mother would sense her need and float downstairs, gather her into safety and rescue her. As a little girl she would remain in bed and shout, louder and louder, till the thud of approaching footsteps heralded relief; in later years she had realized that deliverance came faster if she flew to her parents’ bedroom, though the midnight flight itself held unknown terrors. She would gather her strength and run up the stairs and throw open the door into the moon-softened darkness. On the left would be her father; on the right, her mother. Always a space between them, Gwen-sized. Julia fast asleep was all wrong, for how could she guard Gwen in her own unconsciousness? Off-duty, vulnerable, her mind who knew where? Gwen would whisper for her over and over until Julia opened her eyes, and then her arms, and made right whatever was wrong.
How soon could this be made right so that her mother might forgive her, and how would it be? She did not know what abortions entailed but found herself picturing a high-necked white cotton nightgown, strawberry jelly and melting vanilla ice cream, the mint-green paper curtains of the hospital ward on which she had eaten these after the removal of her tonsils. Julia on a camp bed, by her side. Loving, ministering, proud of her brave girl. The thing now inside her was only the size of a poppy seed, far smaller than a tonsil, and could surely be shaken loose. A speck. She felt twitchy and restless, and to think of cells colonizing and proliferating made her skin crawl. There was not a moment to lose; she must have freedom from it. She could not quite imagine Nathan’s reaction but surely he would not be angry? He would support her, and they would come through it bound tightly together with the dark velvet bonds of a secret, but while her mother felt such paralyzing disappointment, Nathan remained out of focus. She couldn’t breathe; she longed for absolution. One could not stay angry about a mistake the size of a poppy seed.
Upstairs she listened and, hearing only silence, knocked softly. Nothing. After a moment she pushed the door open and took a single step into what once had been her parents’ bedroom. As she adjusted to the gloom she could see Julia, sound asleep, not on the expected right but in the unimagined center. Entwined with James, face-to-face, breathing one another’s slow breath. A beefy bare arm slung over her delicate mother.
Gwen stared, arrested by curiosity, and revulsion. What betrayal had filled the last waking moments before this easy, slumbering union? I’m sorry about my daughter, or perhaps, Never mind, nothing matters as long as we have each other. Sleep had softened her mother’s face to girlish smoothness as she lay in her lover’s arms; her brow was open, her hand resting upon James’s bare chest. She did not look like a woman worried for her only child. She looked contented. She looked as Gwen had never known her.
Gwen backed away and closed the door, softly. On the landing she stood very still for a long time. She feared she might be sick. What truths had lain hidden in plain sight: she was alone. Fuck you, she thought, and then whispered it louder, to steady herself. She was drowning; she must evaporate her terror with burning rage.
Fuck you.
You didn’t choose me.
You don’t get to decide.
? ? ?
A SERIES OF THUDS and scrapings brought Julia downstairs early the next morning. The night before, James had steadied and calmed her, and they had already taken decisive action. Falling asleep she’d remembered Claire, James’s former registrar, young and approachable and direct, with an easy manner that Gwen would appreciate. She had asked James to e-mail her and they’d received an instant reply, though it was almost three a.m.—Claire was on nights. She would go home to sleep and would then make herself available for a checkup, a scan, a chat, a cup of tea. Julia descended the stairs aching to put her arms around her daughter who must—now that anger no longer occluded her vision she understood—feel so lost and frightened. Julia longed to tell her she’d taken steps to help. But overnight, Gwen had made radical alterations of her own.
Apparently unaided, Gwen had wrestled the mattress off Nathan’s single bed, deconstructed the slatted base, and reassembled it in her own room. What had once been Nathan’s room now resembled a university study, their pair of pine desks back to back on opposite walls. Gwen’s room, the larger of the two, now contained nothing but an improvised double bed. Julia entered to find Gwen in a burst of furious energy, pulling taut a fitted sheet to unite the two single mattresses. She was red-faced and slightly damp with sweat, and did not look up as Julia came in.
“What are you doing?”
Gwen did not answer. She was on all fours, straining to tuck the sheet beneath the corner. Then she succeeded and sat back on her heels, satisfied.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Moving a mattress.”
“You moved the mattress. And a divan.”
“Yup.”
Julia sat on the edge of the newly enlarged bed. “Can you stop, please? I need to talk to you. I’ve made an appointment with James’s friend—”
“—Nearly done, one sec.”
“Gwen, stop right now.”
“What?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m nesting,” spat Gwen, with heavy irony. “Can you stand up, please, I want to put the duvet down.”
Julia stood up, casting around for something on which to fix, and feeling faintly hysterical. “You’ve lost your mind. This is not your house, Gwendolen. Darling, I know you’re upset but you can’t just— Help me, please, you will not believe this,” she told James, who had just appeared in the doorway with a tray, and three cups of tea. He peered in, looking bewildered. “What’s going on in here?”
“Gwen moved the beds. Herself. She’s apparently taken up weightlifting.”