A Theory of Small Earthquakes Page 26

  They paused at a vista point, looking down at the boxy crosshatch of Berkeley’s city streets, the maze of cars and houses converging at the shoreline, the tiny rainbow-striped sails of windsurfers skipping across the bay.

  “Beats Ohio, don’t it?” Zoe asked.

  “Good thing you got us out of there,” Alison said, waiting and trying not to wait.

  They entered a tunnel of trees, fragrant blue eucalyptus buttons crunching beneath their feet.

  “About the baby,” Zoe said.

  Alison caught her breath.

  “You know I always want to say yes to you.”

  Alison wanted to scream to keep from hearing the but she was sure was coming.

  “But some old stuff came up when Trudy and I were talking about it.” Zoe snapped a branch off a French broom bush, swatting its yellow flowers against her leg as she walked.

  “Old stuff,” Alison repeated.

  “My trust fund paid for the inseminations. If that’s where Corey came from, what happened is that you and I made a baby, and you and Mark got to be his parents. Now you’re asking me to do pretty much the same thing.”

  “But that’s not what happened.” Don’t piss her off, Alison told herself. Not now. “I mean, that’s not how I see it.”

  “Let’s sit for a minute,” Zoe said, nodding at a wooden bench that faced east, overlooking the San Pablo Dam. Unlike the wet playground of the bay on the west side of the trail, the human-made reservoir showed no sign of human life.

  “Trudy’s open to it,” Zoe said. “But she doesn’t want me to hurt myself to give you what you want.”

  Alison was stung. “Is that what she thinks you do?”

  “That is what I’ve done. Our relationship—our family—has been really good for me, Al. You know how happy it’s made me to be Corey’s goddessmom. But I don’t want to do what’s good for you at my own expense anymore.”

  “Trudy thinks our friendship is bad for you?” Alison heard herself whining, but she was too hurt, too worried to stop.

  “Case in point.” Zoe smiled, not unkindly. “Be a big girl, Al. Don’t make me take care of you. Tell me what you really want to know.”

  Alison took a deep breath and let it out. “This is the first time you’ve ever been closer to someone else than you are to me. To us. I’m scared we’ll lose you.”

  The whole truth, she scolded herself. “I’m scared I’ll lose you,” she said.

  Zoe took Alison’s hands and gazed into her eyes. “You’re never going to lose me, Al. I’ve been telling you that for twenty-one years. When are you going to believe me?”

  “July 4, 2008,” Alison said, pulling her hands out of Zoe’s grip. “That’s my target date.”

  “I’ll mark my calendar.” Zoe leaned back. She draped her arm along the back of the bench, her fingertips grazing Alison’s shoulder. “You and I have unfinished business,” she said quietly. “I can’t carry a baby for you until we clean it up.”

  Zoe’s fingers moved to Alison’s neck. Alison felt a jolt, their old electricity.

  Lightly, Zoe’s fingernails massaged Alison’s scalp.

  Alison had often wondered where their hunger had gone, where lust like theirs went to die. Now she knew. It wasn’t dead. It was right there, smoldering, ready to be ignited by a breeze or a breath, by the briefest of glances, the tiniest of moves. Ready to ruin all of their lives.

  Zoe’s fingers teased at Alison’s ear.

  Alison wanted to lie down.

  Alison wanted to lie down on that hard wooden bench and she wanted Zoe to kiss her and she wanted to kiss Zoe back and she wanted them to catch on fire, she wanted to feel the flame of them again.

  Alison’s brain said “Don’t.” Alison’s body leaned back, ever so slightly, into Zoe’s.

  “Al,” Zoe murmured.

  There it was, right there, the heat, the fire, hers, Zoe’s, theirs. Alison’s breathing scraped her chest.

  Zoe wrapped her hand in Alison’s hair and tugged, the tiniest of tugs. Come to me, her hand said, hot against Alison’s head. Come back to us. Right here. Right now.

  Alison’s body was smoldering. Alison’s mind cried, “Don’t, don’t, don’t burn it all.”

  Alison bent over, away from Zoe, head between her knees. She took a deep breath, another. She untied her bootlaces and tied them again, tighter this time. And then she sat up and rested her elbows on her knees, holding her body to herself, as far from Zoe’s fingers as she could.

  “Al,” Zoe said.

  “I know.”

  A moment passed. Another.

  Zoe took her arm off the back of the bench, gripped her knees with both hands. “I want us to get Corey’s DNA tested,” she said.

  Payback, Alison thought. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  Alison stood up, zipping her jacket. Silently, the width of a body between them, they walked back down the hill.

  When they got to the trailhead, Zoe leaned against her car and Alison leaned against hers.

  “What about the baby?” Alison asked.

  “I’ll think about it,” Zoe said.

  For the next three days, Alison and Zoe didn’t speak or email or see each other. On the fourth day, the phone rang while Mark and Alison were doing the dinner dishes. “It’s me,” Zoe said.

  “Hey, you.” Alison sank into Corey’s chair.

  “I’ll do it,” Zoe said.

  Alison had wanted so badly to hear these words. Now she could barely wrap her mind around what they meant.

  Mark touched Alison’s arm. “Yes or no?” he whispered.

  Alison nodded yes. Mark’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Alison was croaking, not talking. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Zoe said. Her voice sounded strangely flat.

  “Let me talk to her,” Mark said. Alison handed him the phone.

  “You’re really going to do this for us?” Mark asked. As he listened, his smile faded. An alarm sounded in Alison’s head. He heard it too. Zoe sounded strange.

  Mark handed the phone back to Alison with a puzzled look.

  “Are you sure about this?” Alison asked Zoe.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is Trudy okay with it?”

  “Yup.”

  “What’s wrong?” Alison asked.

  “I’m just tired.”

  “You’re never tired.”

  “Well.” Zoe sounded annoyed. “I’m tired now.”

  Alison had spent forty-two years duking it out with ambivalence, her closest companion, her nemesis. For the first time ever, she felt it in Zoe. She thought, This must be what it’s like for her, trying to get the truth out of me.

  “Trudy and I thought we’d come over for dinner tomorrow. So we can all tell Corey together.”

  “Perfect,” Alison said. “Zoe—I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.”

  “You’re the best!” Mark shouted into the phone.

  Alison waited for Zoe to say how happy it made her.

  “Good,” Zoe said.

  “I love you,” Alison said. She heard the plea in her own voice.

  “See you tomorrow,” Zoe said.

  29.

  san francisco

  February 2005

  Mark stood at Zoe’s left side, holding her left hand. Alison stood at Zoe’s right. Lowell turned the monitor on.

  “I’m inserting the catheter now,” Dr. Schrier told Zoe. “You’ll feel a pinch.”

  They all watched the screen as Schrier threaded the catheter, loaded with three microscopic embryos, into Zoe’s uterus, a thin white line in a sea of grainy gray. Zoe gasped.

  Alison remembered that pain. “Squeeze my hand,” she said. She couldn’t believe Zoe was going through this for her. Zoe, who refused mammograms and dental X-rays, and ate only organic food, and cured her headaches with milk thistle, her mood dips with Saint John’s wort. Zoe, who had as much respect for Western medicine as she did
for George W. Bush. Zoe, who’d been taking blood tests and gynecological exams, meeting with experienced surrogates, undergoing sessions with the asinine psychologist who’d grilled her, and then Mark and Alison, about how they’d deal with every possible worst-case scenario: fetal reduction, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects.

  Never having used a contraceptive in her life, Zoe had taken a month’s worth of birth control pills to synchronize her cycle with Alison’s. Trudy had been giving her hormone shots every morning and night. And she hadn’t complained once—not to Alison, anyway.

  Alison was incredulous and worried. Zoe was still as flat as she’d been since she said yes. Alison felt she was racing Zoe’s ambivalence to the finish line, hoping that yes would hold—exactly as Zoe must have felt, doing battle with Alison’s ambivalent yeses for the past twenty years.

  Three days before, Dr. Schrier had harvested twelve eggs from Alison’s ovaries then mixed them with a fresh batch of Mark’s sperm. Three grade-A embryos had been selected, and Zoe’s uterus was primed to receive them.

  “Here we go,” Dr. Schrier said.

  Zoe’s lips were white. Her hand in Alison’s shook.

  Alison had never loved Zoe as much as she did in that moment. She squeezed Zoe’s hand. “I’m here,” Alison said.

  On the monitor, three white specks erupted like tiny cannonballs from the catheter’s tip. Slowly, Schrier withdrew the catheter.

  Alison’s chest ached. Mark’s sperm, my eggs in Zoe’s body, she thought. How could I deserve this?

  In that moment, all the complications and permutations of her love for Zoe—the pulls and tugs of lies and truth; of past, present, future; of man, woman, child; the questions of possession: sexual, biological, emotional—evaporated. All that was left was the love, the love, the love.

  Dr. Schrier set the catheter and speculum on the instrument tray. “You can sit up,” he told Zoe.

  Alison saw that Zoe’s face was green.

  “I’ll give you an injection to help those embryos along,” Schrier said. “And then we’ll see you in two weeks for a pregnancy test.” As he aimed the syringe at Zoe’s belly, Alison turned her head, unable to watch.

  When she heard Dr. Schrier snap his gloves off, Alison turned back to Zoe. Zoe’s face was closed into itself, contorted with pain. Alison had seen her like that only once before: the day Alison left her.

  As Mark drove them across the bridge, Zoe said, her voice faint from the backseat, “That really hurt. I don’t feel well.”

  Alison swiveled to look at her. Zoe’s hands were resting on her abdomen. Beads of sweat were pooled on her face.

  “You didn’t tell me it was going to hurt this much,” Zoe said.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alison said. She felt utterly helpless. “I’d go through it for you if I could.”

  Zoe’s eyes lit with anger. “How generous of you.” She unlatched her seat belt, curled up in a ball, and closed her eyes.

  Mark shot Alison a worried look. Alison’s own worry burrowed into her chest.

  Alison called Zoe the next morning and asked how she was.

  “Worse,” Zoe said.

  Alison’s heart sank. “What hurts?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it.” Zoe sounded small and young. “Maybe I have the flu.” She paused. “I have a rash too.”

  “Have you taken your temperature?” Alison asked. “Corey used to get hives after he had a fever, remember?”

  “Corey used to get that rash all over his body. Mine’s only in one place.”

  “Where?”

  “On my right breast.”

  “Your breast?”

  “Trudy called a doctor friend. He said artificial hormones can cause all kinds of weird side effects.”

  “My breasts hurt the whole time I was pregnant with Corey,” Alison said desperately.

  Zoe yawned. “I’m going to try and sleep it off.”

  “Sleep well,” Alison said. “I’ll check in on you later.”

  How could I have done this to her, she thought.

  Alison awoke the next morning with a plan. As soon as Mark and Corey left, she went to the kitchen and started mincing garlic and chopping onions. She sautéed them until their fragrance filled the house. She added the carcass of chicken they’d eaten the night before, filled the pot with water, and set it simmering on the stove.

  While the soup cooked, Alison went upstairs to check her email. There was a message from an editor at The New York Times Magazine. She wanted to buy the midlife motherhood story.

  The good news registered in the small sector of Alison’s brain that was still interested in anything besides Zoe’s symptoms and what they might mean.

  I got an assignment from The New York Times, Alison told herself, waiting for the thrill of it to kick in. She didn’t feel a thing.

  Alison emailed a quick reply to the editor, now her editor, agreeing to the terms of the assignment. Then she went downstairs and chopped carrots, sliced mushrooms, and shelled fresh green peas. She cooled the broth, shredded the meat, picked out the bones. Then she put the pot in the Saab and drove it to the cottage.

  Trudy’s worried face at the front door answered Alison’s question. It wasn’t the answer she wanted.

  “I brought soup.” Alison hefted the pot in her hands. “Can I come in?”

  Trudy hesitated and then stepped aside. “Of course. Zoe sleeps.”

  Alison went to the kitchen and set the pot on the stove.

  “Thank you,” Trudy said. Sank you. “Would you like to have a coffee? A tea?”

  “No, thanks.”

  They sat at the table together. It was covered with a hand-embroidered linen tablecloth Alison had never seen. Alison imagined Trudy’s grandmother in an easy chair in some German town fifty years earlier, tiny skeins of red, blue, and yellow silk thread in her aproned lap.

  “Sorry I came over without calling,” Alison said. “Whenever I call, Zoe just says she wants to sleep.”

  “She is very tired,” Trudy said.

  “I’m worried about her. Are you?”

  Trudy got up and filled the kettle at the sink. She put the kettle on the stove. The right front burner lit with a huge blue whoosh, just as it always had.

  Trudy busied herself shaking tea leaves into the strawberry-shaped teapot that Alison had bought with her first paycheck from PMC. Its spout was chipped, Alison noticed, white clay showing through red glaze.

  Trudy sat down. She didn’t look at Alison. “She gets a tiny bit better each day.”

  She blames me, Alison thought. She thinks the hormones are making Zoe sick. And she might be right.

  “Trudy. Please. At least tell me why she won’t talk to me.”

  “It is for Zoe, not for me to tell you about that.”

  They sat in strained silence. Then Trudy looked over Alison’s shoulder, and her tense face collapsed into a smile.

  “I just need a little space to think,” Zoe said from the doorway. Alison was shocked by her appearance. Her skin was flushed. Her face was haggard. A rumpled pair of white cotton pajamas hung on her thin frame.

  Trudy waved Zoe into a chair. “Alison brought soup,” she said. “Would you like some, darling?”

  Darling? Alison wondered if the word had a different meaning to a German. Who said darling?

  “No thanks, babe.”

  “I go to work in the garden,” Trudy said, and she left.

  “You sure you don’t want some soup?” Alison asked.

  “Positive.” Zoe fidgeted with a loose thread on the tablecloth. Finally, her eyes met Alison’s. “I want to help you and Mark. I really do. But I’m not sure this is good for me.” Her lips quivered. “I think the hormones are making me sick.”

  Good Alison wanted to say, Stop, then. Thanks for trying. Bad Alison wanted to say, I need you to do this for me.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alison said. “I had no idea this would be so hard on you.”

  Zoe’s eyes fille
d with tears. “I don’t want to let you down.”

  “Let’s not make any decisions till the pregnancy test next week.”

  Zoe’s face relaxed. “Thank you for understanding,” she said, a flicker of light in her blue eyes. “Thank you for not pressuring me.”

  “Let’s get you back to bed,” Alison said, hoping she could make it to her car before she cried.

  The four of them met at Mark and Alison’s house the afternoon of the pregnancy test. Mark looked shocked by the sight of Zoe.

  “Are you okay?” he blurted.

  “Pretty much,” Zoe said.

  Trudy’s Rabbit was even older than Zoe’s Volvo, so they took Mark and Alison’s Saab. As they passed the exit for Treasure Island, Alison watched in the rearview mirror as Trudy loosened Zoe’s seat belt to slacken it across her chest.

  “Fifteen years since the earthquake,” Mark said, navigating the orange cones and barriers and narrowed lanes, “and this damn bridge is still a mess.”

  Fifteen years since the earthquake, and Zoe’s still taking care of me, Alison thought. Fifteen years since the earthquake, and I’m still counting on her for what I need. And what’s she getting out of it? Sick.

  You’re a user, Alison’s mother said. Always have been, always will be.

  Mark pulled into the Sutter-Stockton Garage. Alison caught Zoe wincing, unlatching her seat belt. Trudy helped her out of the car.

  Nancy greeted them in the waiting room.

  “This is Trudy,” Mark introduced them. “Zoe’s girlfriend.” If Nancy was taken aback by this latest addition to their entourage, she didn’t show it. A San Francisco fertility nurse, Alison thought. I bet she has some stories to tell.

  Nancy beckoned to Zoe. “I’m going to borrow you for the blood test. As soon as the results are confirmed, Dr. Schrier will meet you guys in his office.”

  “I come with you,” Trudy said, helping Zoe out of her chair.