Ruby was resentful whenever Don arranged an evening with one of his post-docs, especially if it happened to be with Valerie and her husband Caleb. She wasn’t sure why; there was just something about Val. Maybe it was the tight tee shirts or the way she clicked with Don intellectually. Ruby’s stomach always let her know. It knotted up as soon as he suggested having dinner with them. But here they were again at Shorty’s, a sports bar on the trendy Park Hill side of Denver at 7:30 on a Saturday night, about to meet Valerie and Caleb.
The Sonnets, a striking couple in their thirties—he late, she early—made their way across the packed restaurant. Ruby was wearing a scarlet peasant blouse, jeans, and super-high chocolate-brown clogs with wooden soles. Don, tall and muscular, his long sandy-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, guided her through the throng. She smiled confidently, enjoying the attention they invariably commanded when they entered a room. You’d never know about the knot in her stomach.
She spotted Caleb and Valerie, who were already seated in the corner booth, and gave Don a heads-up. The couple appeared to be in serious conversation. Both of Caleb’s elbows were on the table, and he was holding one of Val’s hands between his.
“Think we should give them a minute?” Ruby asked Don, but he’d already begun pushing her toward them.
Ruby slid into the booth beside Valerie, startling both of them.
“Sorry to barge in!” she said.
Caleb looked up, over his granny glasses, dropping Val’s hand to brush away a long strand of hair that had fallen over his eye. “No problem. Valerie’s been filling me in on the latest in cell growth regulation.”
Ruby knew better. Caleb was a psychiatrist, much more interested in people than data. Besides, she’d noticed their tense body language as she approached them, and Valerie was still looking upset.
“What’s up, Val?” Don asked, oblivious to their discomfort as he sat down across from her. He was always ready to hear about lab results.
“We got some interesting data from our diabetic rat model that seems to indicate malfunction of a G-Protein Coupled Receptor. It’s early, but it could be that we’re really onto something.”
As soon as Valerie uttered the word G-protein, Ruby’s eyes glazed over.
“Can we skip the shop talk?” she said. “It’s a Saturday night and my brain’s fried.”
Caleb raced to her defense. “Yeah. Why don’t you guys catch up later? Can I pour you some beer?” He lifted the pitcher and reached for their glasses.
Their waitress dropped off some menus before disappearing into the forest of well-nurtured plants that surrounded them in the dining room. In the adjacent bar area, multiple large-screen TVs were broadcasting competing sports events, and there were loud rhythmic bursts as people cheered for or cursed their teams. It was a typical Saturday night at Shorty’s, small talk and burgers. When the waitress returned with another pitcher of beer, everyone at the table but Ruby ordered a burger and fries. She opted for a chicken salad and immediately tuned out what was going on around her. She was weeks away from defending her PhD thesis on Yeats’s lyric poetry, and for months she’d been tracking and analyzing dream imagery in A Vision, so when she heard Valerie say something about a weird dream she had last night, Ruby snapped to attention.
“Let’s hear it,” she said. “Maybe we can help you figure it out.” She wondered whether Valerie would be willing to share it. They really didn’t know each other very well.
But Val didn’t hesitate. “I was sleepwalking in the dream,” she said. “I went downstairs into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, and there was this weird neon-blue glow. The refrigerator was empty except for a plastic bag. I reached in and pulled it out.”
“Then what happened?” Ruby asked. She slid closer to Val in the booth.
“I held it up to the overhead light, and this is where it gets creepy.”
“Yeah?” someone said.
“There was a dead cat in it. A tiny one. Or maybe it was a kitten. I don’t know. That’s when I woke up.”
“You’re right, that’s really weird,” Caleb said.
“What do you think it means?” Val asked.
Nobody wanted to say anything. The dream had an ominous quality.
Don made a scary face and said something about Rosemary’s Baby, which nobody registered because suddenly all eyes were on Ruby, who blurted out, “Wow! I’m pretty sure that’s an abortion dream. You know, the opposite of bun in the oven?”
“Yeah right,” Valerie said. Her face paled.
“Sorry! It just popped into my head,” Ruby said. “It probably doesn’t mean anything at all.”
Don glared at her.
At that point, Valerie bolted for the ladies room. Ruby was right behind her.
* * *
Ruby found her just inside the door, leaning against a long bank of sinks with lighted mirrors above them. Val was sobbing into her hands.
“Holy shit. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. It was a wild guess.” Ruby pried Val loose from the sinks and managed to get an arm around her. “Honest.”
The ladies room was empty except for them. It was brightly lit, over-air-conditioned and modern, sterile in contrast to the warmth of the bar. They were both shivering. Valerie’s back was to the mirrors, so Ruby was looking directly at herself as she listened to Val talk.
“It may have been a wild guess, but you were spot on,” she said. “I did have an abortion. Years ago. Before Caleb and I got together.”
“So, uh, why would you be dreaming about that now?” Ruby caught a smug smile on her own face in the mirror.
“Because Caleb and I have been trying to get pregnant, and I can’t,” Val said.
Ruby watched the face in the mirror start to contort.
“I went alone to an obstetrician last week,” Val continued. “He told me I have extensive scarring. That even if I do manage to get pregnant, I probably won’t be able to hold on full-term.”
Ruby’s eyes teared up. She squeezed Val tighter and said, “That’s really tough. I’m sorry I made it worse for you.”
“I have no idea what to tell Caleb,” Val said. “He doesn’t know about the abortion.”
When Ruby looked in the mirror this time, the face she saw was frozen in fear.
“What would you do?” she heard Val ask her.
“I don’t know.”
Valerie pushed away from her and studied her face.
“I said I don’t know.” The second time, she said it more harshly than she intended. Ruby felt herself withdrawing from Valerie—swept into a torrent of emotion carrying her from empathy to anger. She was trying to keep herself out of it, but in the end she couldn’t. “I guess I’d come clean and tell my partner what’s going on,” she said. Then, swirling in the torrent, she added, “It’s tough when you’ve made a decision a long time ago that affects someone you love, someone who loves you and trusts you.”
Valerie’s face drained of all color.
“That didn’t come out right,” Ruby said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Valerie backed away from her and headed out the door.
Ruby took a minute to compose herself. By the time she got back to the table, Valerie and Caleb had left the bar.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Don asked.
“Nothing. I tried to apologize.”
“Whatever you said in there, you made things worse.”
“Turns out I was right.”
“Right about what? Oh. Was it his kid?”
“I don’t think so. No.”
Ruby put her hands on her stomach, an impulsive gesture she had given up long ago. The knot deep inside her felt heavy, like a stone. She managed to pick at her food. Don did the same. Their conversation was stunted by what neither of them dared to say. Eventually, Don asked for the check and drove them home.
* * *
Don lit a fire and turned on the stereo. He chose one of their favorite disks. As Bowen crooned Gordon Lightfoot, Ruby handed him a beer and was about to sit down next to him when he said, “Caleb didn’t know about the abortion, did he?”
“Nope.”
“And it wasn’t his kid, was it?”
“It happened before she met him.”
There was a long pause.
“So…what don’t I know about you?” He was patting the cushion beside him.
“You’re joking, right?” She hadn’t told Don a lot of things that happened during the years she’d spent as a graduate student at Berkeley. Before she moved to Denver. She’d told herself they had nothing to do with him. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Once he had told her about being attacked by a gang with guns and not having any way to protect his girlfriend, who was molested by them before they were run off by the cops. “It changed me,” he said. “After that I got strong and street smart. And I always carry a knife.”
She remembered that for months after he told her, she felt scared when they walked alone late at night. It took a long time for her to trust him again.
She did not want to answer his question.
She sat down beside him facing the fire. It was a chilly fall night. They hadn’t put the heat on yet, so the fire felt warm and toasty. She sank deeper into the leather cushions of the couch and looked at the cozy sitting room they had built together—from the wood timbering on the ceiling, to the slate hearth in front of the stone fireplace with its wrought iron screen and tools. Photographs they’d taken of mountains and woodland birds surrounded them. The heavy linen drapes she’d made from fabric she’d hand dyed were drawn.
“I’ve never been more serious,” Don said. “What is it you’re not telling me? There was something about the way you exposed Valerie ‘s secret tonight. That kitten could have meant a million things. But you somehow zeroed in on the right one.”
“Are you accusing me of having had an abortion? I didn’t.”
Don maneuvered himself out from under her and sat on the edge of the couch. “Then what is it you’re trying to hide? What made you go after her like that?”
“I told you, it just popped into my head. I’ve been reading too much about symbols.”
“I don’t think so.” His eyes cut into her.
She knew she was cornered. This wasn’t just about Val and how she’d treated her. It was about something far deeper in their relationship.
Time moved at an unbearably slow pace as she uncurled her legs and sat up, never taking her eyes off him. Finally she said the words she vowed she’d never utter to another soul. “I got pregnant while I was at Berkeley, but I didn’t have an abortion.” She cleared her throat. “I had a child. A son. Brian. If that’s still his name. I gave him up for adoption when he was less than a month old.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I had him while I was a graduate student at Berkeley. He’ll be ten in a few weeks.”
She forced herself to keep looking at him.
“How is that possible? We’ve been together for all these years and it’s never come up? You’ve never gone to see him?”
“No.”
“Don’t you have any feelings for him? Don’t you care what happened to him?” Don was looking at her as if she were some kind of a freak.
“How dare you judge me? Of course I do. I brought him home. Breast-fed him. Changed him. Tried to make it work.” He was forcing her to defend herself. It was exactly what she wanted never to have to do. “Don’t you get it? I did what was best for him. What I had to do. I didn’t want him to starve.” Don was still gaping at her. She couldn’t stand it. “I didn’t know his father. I didn’t even tell him I was pregnant. We were graduate students. It was a one night stand.”
She put her head in her hands. She was crying. Gulping in air and crying. She couldn’t look at him anymore, but she had to finish it. “My friends helped me. We found a middle-aged couple. Doctors. Both of them. Really nice people. They couldn’t have children of their own, and I knew they would take better care of Brian than I could. I let him go.”
“That’s it? You let him go?”
Ruby forced herself to look at him. “Yes.”
“Were you ever planning to tell me? Don’t you want to see him, or at least know how he’s doing?”
“I don’t know. I did what I had to. I try not to look back. Every once in a while something reminds me. Like tonight. I know better than to share it with anyone.”
“Not even with me?”
“Oh come on, Don. I don’t have to apologize for what I do.”
He stooped down next to her and patted her back. She brushed him off, his awkwardness reminding her of her own with Valerie earlier that evening.
“For what it’s worth,“ she said after an interminable silence, “I didn’t mean to hurt Valerie. It was unintentional what I said. Or maybe I did mean it. I don’t know why I didn’t have an abortion. It wasn’t a religious decision or anything like that. I just made it and stuck to it, that’s all.” She still didn’t know why. She remembered being in denial about the pregnancy for months. And then it seemed too late.
“At least I understand what happened between you and Valerie tonight.”
He was quiet again for a few minutes. It was too much for him. She saw that, watched him struggle with it. She knew he wasn’t thinking about Val anymore. He was thinking about them and her reluctance to start a family.
“Look I get it,” he said. “I get how hard it must have been. I don’t know if I’d have had the guts to do what you did.”
Ruby glared at him. “You don’t get anything. You couldn’t. You couldn’t know what it feels like to have a child ripped from your arms while you’re still nursing him, to bind your breasts till the milk dries up, to cry yourself to sleep with worry.”
He tried to take her in his arms, but she collapsed onto the couch and pulled the afghan over her, the one he’d given her last Christmas.
“You’re right,” he said, “I can’t know what that feels like. But I can try.” He got up and turned away from her. “I get that you thought you were doing the right thing for the kid. I even get it that you never told the father. I don’t agree with it. But I get it. What I don’t get is why you’ve never gone to see him or contacted the family to ask about him. I don’t get that, Ruby. I don’t get that at all.”
She looked up at him. Her face was mottled and she was crying through her fury. But she was done defending herself.
“How can you have done that?” he asked.
When she didn’t respond, he grabbed his jacket off the hook near the door and said, “I’ve got to get out of here. Get some air.”
She heard the front door close. She lay back on the couch and watched the fire burn down. At some point, she got up and raked it to a red blaze. Then she covered herself again with the afghan. Eventually she tamped down the fire and headed upstairs.
* * *
She kept listening for Don. She wanted him to come back. She didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t. She tried not to think. It was too late and she was much too tired. She took as long as she could getting ready for bed—washing her face, brushing her teeth, combing her hair, lingering in front of the mirror. Her face, without makeup, still looked young and pretty, but there were lines around the mouth and eyes.
She remembered the sharp pain she used to feel. She touched her belly, aware that over time the pain had worn away to something dull, like a heavy stone she carried deep inside her. She’d met Don a few years after she ran away from Berkeley. She was waiting tables in a bar and going to graduate school, slogging away at her still unfinished PhD when he sauntered in with some of his buddies and came back later to ask for her phone number. She hesitated giving it to him. Her relationships didn’t seem to last very long, so why bother. With Don it was different. They dated for a long time before they moved in together. Finally he surprised her with a ring on her thirtieth birthday and took her to the City Clerk’s Office to get married. That was three years ago.
Ruby closed her eyes and prayed to the vague gods from her childhood, Please let him come back to me. When she opened her eyes, she pictured Don standing behind her at the mirror, admiring them together as he had done so many times over the years, admiring them and planning their future. Now he knew why she kept making excuses whenever he asked about starting a family. She wanted the chance to reassure him that she would get there, even though she wasn’t sure how.
Finally she went to bed alone. She felt the cold sheets against her body, and she missed him. It was impossible to sleep.
* * *
Hours later, Ruby was awakened by a noise downstairs. She must have fallen asleep after all. Now she listened closely, pretty sure it was Don. The sound of keys dropping on the hall table convinced her. She lay still as he came quickly up the stairs, undressed in the dark, and slipped into bed beside her. She was lying on her side, facing the opposite wall, and she held her breath as he moved toward her and pressed his cold body into hers. The shock of it made her start, and she turned toward him, shuddering as she took his freezing hands into hers. She brought them to her lips, and then interlaced her fingers to form a warm cocoon around them.
“Promise me that you’re not going to carry this thing around alone anymore,” he said. “We’ve got to figure it out together.”
She hoped he could feel her nod in agreement. Her throat was too tight to speak. She was relieved that he had come back to her and terrified that he would leave again.
“I know you think it’s impossible for me to understand what you’ve been through. Maybe it is. But you’ve got to let me try, Ruby.” She stiffened. This time he did not let go of her. “I’m not judging you. I want to help. Give me a chance. It’s not just about you; it’s about us.”
They were breathing together—in and out, in and out—for a long time.
Finally she said, “You have to understand. I did the right thing. I know that. The selfish thing would have been to keep him with me.“
“What about now, Ruby? Are you still so sure? Maybe they’ve told him about you. He’s old enough. Maybe he wants to meet you or at least to know who you are.”
“I don’t want to complicate his life. Or theirs. And I’m scared about what it would do to me.”
“Don’t you at least want to know that he’s all right? I think it’s been haunting you.”
Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’s time to let it go and get on with our life.” She breathed in deeply, and then sighed as she released the tension and felt her stomach relax.
Don didn’t say anything. But he held her until they both fell asleep.
Ruby dreamed about Valerie and Caleb—that they moved to Texas and adopted a child. The dream woke her up and she looked over at Don, anxious to tell him about it. He was still holding on to her and smiling in his sleep, peaceful. As she watched him, Ruby imagined he was dreaming about her: She was pregnant—in a flowered dress. He was holding her hand as they walked together in bright sunshine. She leaned into him.
Marlene Molinoff’s stories have appeared in The Alembic, Amarillo Bay, Crack the Spine, Ducts, EDGE, Forge, Good Works Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Steam Ticket, Sweet Tree Review, and the Iowa Summer Festival Anthology.
