“I’ll take you, Tess,” he said earnestly. “I have the gas. We can cancel your hotel reservation and stay someplace very nice, all right? You’ll take your exam, and you damn well better pass it after all this nonsense.” He smiled at me, that smile I so rarely saw.
I didn’t know whether to trust him, his change of heart was so unexpected. My scribbled note must have had more of an impact than I imagined. I watched the businessmen board the train without me, and Henry reached for my gloved hand.
“Come on,” he said again. “What time do you need to be in Winston-Salem?”
“The exam starts at ten,” I said, falling into step next to him.
“Then we’d better hustle, hadn’t we?”
We walked quickly to his car and I fully expected him to drive out of the parking lot and head directly for home, but he turned in the opposite direction from Oakwood, and when he pulled onto Route 64, I put my hand to my mouth, stunned.
“You’re really taking me to Winston-Salem?” I asked.
He kept his eyes on the road and it was a moment before he spoke again. “I want you to be happy, Tess,” he said, his hands tight on the wheel. “I know you had other plans for your life. I know living … in this situation … has been challenging for you.” He gave a little shrug. “I also know that I’m not the best husband in the world. I work all the time. I have enormous responsibility, running the business, and it leaves little time for you. So if this will make you happy, I’ll help you. But”—he glanced at me—“it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want you to work, as a nurse or anything else. You can have the satisfaction of your degree or license or whatever you—”
“License.” I grinned. I felt ridiculously happy.
“You can have the satisfaction of having earned your license, but what I ask of you is that you devote yourself to our child. Our family. Not a job.”
I nodded. I was so touched that he was taking me to Winston-Salem that I would agree to anything, at least for now. I smiled to myself. I had a good, kind, and forgiving husband.
I moved closer to him, leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you so much for this,” I said, and I opened my handbook to study.
*
The exam was hard, but I’d anticipated that. What I hadn’t anticipated was the discomfort of sitting in one place hour after hour while pregnant. I prayed for the bathroom breaks.
Henry spent most of the daytime hours on the phone handling factory business long distance. At night, our relationship was the same as it always was, with each of us in our separate beds, reading. I’d wondered if, in a hotel room without his mother and sister nearby, he might be a bit more amorous, but no. I had to accept the fact that, at least while I was pregnant, Henry was not interested in a physical relationship with me. Not that I was particularly longing for one with him.
By the end of the three days, I was both exhausted and euphoric, certain that I’d passed. Even Henry seemed to catch my mood and he took me to his favorite Winston-Salem restaurant to celebrate before we headed for home in the dark.
“We are going to lie to my mother and sister,” he said, when we were about halfway to Hickory.
“About the last three days?”
“Yes. I told Mama this was a business trip and you decided to come with me at the last minute.”
“That’s fine,” I said. I liked that we shared a secret from Ruth. “What did I do all day while you worked?”
“Shopped?” he suggested. “Isn’t that what girls do?”
“I was never one of those girls, Henry,” I said. “And I never will be.”
He looked over at me and although there was little light in the car, I saw him smile. He reached across the seat to lightly touch my cheek.
“How did I ever get tangled up with the likes of you?” he asked.
40
I woke up in the darkness a week and a half after our return from Winston-Salem, a tight fist of pain in my belly. I’d been dreaming that a stomach bug had taken hold of me when one of the spasms finally jerked me awake. Gasping, I sat up and turned on my night table lamp. My alarm clock read 5:20 and the pain was passing. Maybe it really had been a dream. But even though the fist was gone, a vague discomfort lingered. Please, God, I thought to myself. Let this be a stomach virus and not the baby.
I got out of bed and tried to put on my robe and slippers calmly, as though there were nothing at all wrong. Once in the bathroom, though, I saw the blood and began to tremble. This can’t be happening, I thought. Please, no.
I was crying softly by the time I returned to the bedroom and shook Henry by the shoulder.
“Hm?” he said. Early morning sunlight now sifted through the sheer curtains at the windows, illuminating his face as he looked up at me from the bed. “What is it?”
“I’m spotting,” I said, although that was a gentle term for what I was experiencing.
“Spotting?” He raised himself to his elbows. “What are you talking about?”
“Bleeding. Something’s wrong.” I heard the shiver in my voice. “I shouldn’t be bleeding,” I said. “I’m only five months along. And I have some pain too.”
He was instantly on his feet, his arm around me. “Sit down,” he said, and I lowered myself to the edge of his bed. “I’ll call Dr. Poole.”
He threw his robe over his pajamas and left the room. I heard his quick footsteps on the stairs as he headed down to the kitchen and the phone, and I closed my eyes and whispered please please please. I’d seen Dr. Poole for the first time only the week before. He was a kindly man of indeterminate age who was clearly accustomed to keeping Hickory’s secrets, and he’d assured me that my baby and I were fine and healthy. He’d told me to order a special maternity girdle, but I’d seen no reason to bother with it, and now I wondered if that had been a mistake. Had my baby needed more support? I knew deep down that was crazy, but I felt crazy at that moment. Crazy and terrified.
I began to get dressed, moving very slowly as though I could keep my baby inside me if I was careful. I had put on my slip, dress, and mules by the time Henry returned to the room, ashen faced and grim.
“He’ll meet us at the hospital,” he said.
I didn’t seem able to move from where I stood at the end of my bed. “What did he say?” I asked. “It’s bad, isn’t it.”
He took my arm and guided me gently toward the door. “Let’s pray for a miracle,” he said.
41
The fetoscope jutted from Dr. Poole’s forehead when he walked into my room at the hospital.