Page 54

Losing Track of Who I Am

“Did you know that Sylvia was still going to the rocking chair at night?” I asked Arden as soon as he had come home and I could be alone with him in our bedroom.

He paused as he changed out of his business suit and stood there thinking. “You know, there were times when I woke to the sound of her shuffling along, I think, but frankly, I was too tired to get up and chase her back to her room. Audrina, I’ve told you many times to get rid of that chair and everything in that room. Why do you ask?”

“She would agree to go into the downstairs bedroom only if we brought the rocking chair to the room. I told her you would.”

“You told her I would? Half of the problem here is that you feed this insanity,” he said.

“That’s not fair, Arden. Sylvia is delicate.”

“Don’t blame it on Sylvia. You’re still afraid to throw out that chair and empty that room. You’re the one keeping the ghosts alive here, Audrina, not Sylvia.”

I looked down, tears bubbling like boiling milk. I thought I heard footsteps in the hallway. Mrs. Matthews had moved into her room, which was only a little way down and across from ours. The old wooden floors creaked and complained whenever anyone walked around up here. Was she eavesdropping? How much did she know about us? How much did she want to know? There were more than ghosts watching and listening to us now. It was embarrassing to have arguments in front of a stranger. How did people in big homes with servants keep their privacy?

“Okay, okay,” Arden said. “I’ll bring down the rocking chair. It’s not light, you know.”

“I can help.”

“I’ll manage,” he said. “Or I’ll ask Mrs. Matthews to help.”

“Why her and not me?”

“You’re pregnant, Audrina, remember?”

“What?”

“You’ve got to convince yourself, or you won’t act properly in front of people. And it would set a very bad example for Sylvia if she saw you carrying something heavy while she’s been told not to do that. When you’re taking special care of yourself, you’re taking special care of her. I thought you understood that.”

“I do. I just forget sometimes. You can’t blame me, Arden. I’m not really pregnant.”

“Well, we’re doing this for Sylvia as much as for us,” he said.

“I know, I know.”

“Shouldn’t you be moving what you need to your room?” he asked as he started to put on more casual clothes.

“I’m just as unhappy as Sylvia is about doing this. I don’t know why Mrs. Matthews is so insistent about her being downstairs. She acts like going up and down the stairs is the same as climbing a mountain. She’s not elderly.”

“The woman knows what she’s doing, and making the right decisions is what we’re paying her to do. She’s been hired to make sure this all works out well for us.”

“I would have hoped you would be more unhappy about my moving out of our bedroom, Arden.”

What really bothered me was that our space for any sort of privacy would be even more limited once we didn’t share the bedroom, but he thought I was referring only to sex. He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you company until you’re tired enough to sleep. I’d do more, but we have to be careful. We don’t want to get a pregnant woman pregnant.”

He laughed, and before I could protest that I wasn’t referring to that or say that he could use birth control, he went into the bathroom and closed the door. For as long as we had been together, he hadn’t used any protection. We were always supposedly trying to have a child. I didn’t

want to emphasize that now, because it wasn’t the point I was trying to make.

Frustrated, I started choosing the clothes I would bring downstairs, and when he came out of the bathroom, I went in and gathered my toiletries without saying another word. I had to have as much in my downstairs bedroom as Sylvia did, or she would wonder why I didn’t. At times, she seemed more intense about my mimicking her pregnancy than Arden, Mrs. Matthews, or I were. As it was, we were taking the prenatal vitamins together and being examined together. We were now eating the same foods, too. Mrs. Matthews explained that she didn’t want us gaining too much weight. Of course, she was saying this for Sylvia and not for me, but the way she looked at me when she spoke gave me the eerie feeling she really meant it for both of us. It was as if she was so focused on her work that she forgot or ignored that I wasn’t really pregnant.

“It’s a tricky balance sometimes, because you have to eat enough for two, and in the case of twins, three,” she continued to explain at dinner. “But I’m relying on the most up-to-date nutritional information for pregnant women.”

Arden smiled and complimented Mrs. Matthews on how thoroughly she went about her work. He thought it was wonderful. He thought almost anything she did or said was wonderful. Again, I wondered how he knew so much about her abilities. What gave him so much confidence in her medical abilities, or was it simply that she was someone who would keep a secret? I would have thought that was the main reason he had any interest at all, if it wasn’t for how much concern he sincerely showed for Sylvia’s well-being. Whenever he could, he would cross-examine me like a nervous father.

“Are you making sure Sylvia’s following Mrs. Matthews’s orders, Audrina? Are you helping to keep Sylvia calm? Are you letting her do too much when Mrs. Matthews isn’t around?”

I constantly reassured him about Sylvia, but he was just as anxious about how well I was mimicking her pregnancy so that Sylvia would be happy. As time went by, he was more intense and nervous about it. If I questioned him about that, he would explode in a rant about his reputation. Any exposure would destroy our ruse.