Page 21 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

On the day of my scheduled obstetric appointment, Ray drove me to La Junta to see Dr. McCutcheon.

In the morning, the skies had been cloudy, threatening rain, so we left early and ended up arriving in town almost an hour before my appointment time.

Instead of waiting in the office, we went into the Fred Harvey House at the train depot and managed to snag a table by the window in the dining room. We ordered coffee and slices of pie.

Ray sat across from me. He fingered his keys on the tablecloth and stole looks out the window.

As the waitress came to deliver our plates, I noticed that he gazed up at her with an expression I could only guess to be pride.

I saw it again when he looked up as I was returning to the table from the ladies’ room.

Then it occurred to me. A married man sitting with his pregnant wife, and all in public to witness his accomplishment.

Under normal circumstances, his pride would be understandable.

But what of our situation? Wouldn’t some people inevitably question the paternity of this child?

But I wasn’t sure if that kind of tawdry thought ever occurred to Ray.

“What is it?” I asked him as I sat back down at the table.

“Nothing,” he answered.

“You looked happy.”

Now he smiled. “Something wrong with that?”

I looked around at the other customers. Couples, mostly couples, sitting together, smiling, eating, and chatting away.

Probably they had done things the right way.

Most likely they had met, dated, fallen in love, then gotten married.

If they had both wanted a baby, they had probably sat down and planned it.

Ray’s voice was low as he began to speak.

“After the baby comes ...” But then the waitress returned with our bill.

Ray looked over the check, up at me, then out the window.

People stood outside waiting for tables, and by then, it was time to be on our way.

Therefore Ray paid the bill and never did finish his sentence.

My checkup began with an examination that detected no problems or abnormalities. Then the nurse ushered me into Dr. McCutcheon’s office for an opportunity to ask questions. After the door closed behind me, I sat on the edge of the chair and stated the truth. “I’m nearly four months.”

Behind the desk, Dr. McCutcheon rocked back in his chair. “That’s about what I would have guessed. Were you told a date?”

“Early March. And not a bit premature.”

“March looks about right.” The old doctor smiled. “And we never want premature babies.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You know, Mrs. Singleton ...” He looked me over as he toyed with a pen on the desktop.

“I doctor both young and old. And I’ve had countless wonderful experiences during all these years of caring for families.

” He paused. “But the best of all things is getting to bring babies into this world.” He glanced over at a wall of newborn infant photos. “A healthy baby is always a blessing.”

I shook my head. “This was a mistake.”

He looked at me with resolve. “Once the baby gets here, you won’t see him or her as a mistake anymore.”

I’d heard this before. I remembered one of Mother’s friends, at least her age or older, who had become pregnant just about the time her two sons went off to college.

Mother had whispered to me that the baby was unplanned, obviously.

But once that little girl had arrived, she had stolen everyone’s heart with her flashing dark eyes, auburn hair, and smile.

Mother’s friend never missed an opportunity to show her daughter off in public, always dressing her in the finest clothing from shops in downtown Denver.

I took a short breath. “I’d like to believe you. ”

“Then do so, Mrs. Singleton.” He picked up his pen and tapped it once on the desktop. “I’ve cared for others in your situation, and many times the babies turn out to be some of the most loved of them all.”

For a few minutes, we sat in silence. Then he asked, “Any questions?”

When I shook my head, he slipped the pen into his chest pocket. “Then we’ll give you a booklet to read, and we’ll see you in a month.” He rose from his chair. “See you out?”

As Ray and I later walked down the sidewalk, he asked, “Everything go okay?”

I looked at all the people bustling by on the sidewalk. Groups of soldiers, married couples, children. “Everything’s right on schedule.”

“Did he tell you when the baby’s coming?”

“March,” I replied, then looked his way. “I could have told you that before.”

Ray led me to the truck. He opened my door and helped me in. Then he walked around, slid in himself, and sat focusing out the windshield. “I guess I couldn’t ask you before. I could see it hurts you.” He glanced my way. “Salt in a wound, you know.”

I’d been thinking lately of the pyramids, not the ones in Egypt, but the ones closer by in Mexico.

The ancient civilizations of Mexico had been much more advanced than what early explorers ever realized.

The Mayans and their culture were some of the most mysterious and misunderstood.

And the ruins of their cities often perched on rises overlooking blue-green seas and surrounded by big-leaf jungles holding parrots in the trees.

I said, “It can’t be changed.”

Ray seemed reluctant to start driving, as if he had more to say or to hear.

After almost two months together, he was finally breaking out of his shyness around me.

And I decided that he might as well hear thoughts from the darkest corners of me, this woman he thought he loved.

“Early on, I kept praying to lose the baby.”

He didn’t move in the seat. Even his hands were motionless on the steering wheel. “But then, you wouldn’t have come here.”

Of course, I wouldn’t have. Because of Mother’s illness, I had missed my summer classes, but by the end of the fall term, I would’ve caught up again.

I would’ve finished my master’s degree and started planning field studies.

“People will notice, Ray. People will notice that the baby is early. What will they think then?”

“I don’t care what people think.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. Why did people pretend to be immune? “Everyone cares. The child was conceived before we were married. Soon that will be apparent to everyone. People judge, people gossip.” I stopped. “Even here.”

“They won’t say anything.”

I turned away. “How do you know?”

“I lived here my whole life. Trust me. No one will say anything to you.”

I wanted to understand. “Out of respect to your family?”

“Something like that.” I heard him take a big breath and felt him look my way.

“Livvy,” he said, “when Reverend Case got that call from your father, he could’ve picked any number of ole bachelors living out here on their own.

But he picked me.” Now he whispered the words, “This is the best thing to ever happen to me.”

I fought back the sting of fresh tears. At first this whole scheme of Father’s seemed as if it would hurt only me.

I hadn’t planned to hurt anyone else. When Father said I would marry a bean farmer, I was in such a state of worry for my own self, I couldn’t imagine any of the consequences.

I’d never even pictured a real person, a real family, not until I arrived here.

My own pain was acceptable, but the pain I was causing Ray was too awful to face.

Closing my eyes, I said, “Ray, I don’t know what this is.”

I could barely hear him say, “It’s a beginning.”

Then I started sneezing and couldn’t stop until my head felt as if it would blow right off of my shoulders.

After that, Ray drove us away, and we didn’t talk about it anymore.

But by that night, any reserve I had left started to crumble away.

My own selfishness at accepting Father’s plan, such an easy way out and at others’ expense, ate at me like termites in the marrow.

After midnight, I was still listening to the clock ticking on my nightstand, and from miles away I heard a train whistle calling out like a lure, telling all of us lost souls to jump on board and run away.

Perhaps the sterile conditions of the physician’s office had sent the visions flying back to me.

As I lay there, I remembered back to the days in May when I had to put Mother to bed for the last time, and how Father had found so much church work of dire importance to do that he left Mother to suffer out her last days on her own, alone except for me.

I was the one who learned to inject the morphine that would relieve her pain.

I was the one who got up with her in the night.

I cleaned and cared for her while he went about his business caring for others and not his own.

Mother appreciated every last thing I did for her.

But she never ceased longing for Father’s company.

Sometimes she would startle herself awake, having heard some noise, real or imaginary, that came from within the house.

Then she would whisper to me, “Is your father here?” And I would have to tell her that no, he wasn’t.

Abby and Bea made time to come and spend hours during the day with her, holding her hand or trying to feed her soup or pudding, but Father, for all good purposes, vanished before our very eyes.

On one of her last days, she asked me to take her outside in the garden where she could feel wind and sunshine on her skin.

I carried her brittle cage of a body and set her on a cushioned chair among the flowers.

Mother was dying in May, when the irises were blooming.

Irises, which took their name from the Greek goddess of the rainbow, whose duty it was to lead the souls of dead women to paradise.

A moan came out of my throat, startling me awake.

I hadn’t realized I was dreaming, hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep.

In my dream, Mother was in the arms of the goddess of the rainbow, flying off to heaven, but something had gone wrong, and then she was falling, falling down to earth with no one there to catch her.

I could still see the speck of her, so insignificant against a huge yellow sky. A snivel of pain escaped out of me.

Ray was in the room. I could see his shadow in the moonlight that shafted in from the window. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I answered.

Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pretended to go back to sleep. Instead, within the dark closet of my closed lids, I listened to him breathing. I expected him to turn around and leave, but for reasons I couldn’t imagine, he stayed in the doorway and watched over me for a long time.