Barnegat Bay - 13. Chapter 13

Friday morning, I had the expected news for Mary, which I couldn’t give her till Friday night. I wouldn’t have given it to her on the phone anyway, and besides, her aunt’s store didn’t have one. Instead, I gave it to her with a nod at the train station, and she accepted it the same way, while Claire stood by, no doubt unaware. Then we all went to Jenkinson’s, me grabbing my usual sandwich on the way.

Spence was waiting for Mary, and they immediately danced. Al, Mike, and Larry were dancing with their own girls, but they all successively stopped past our corner table to say “hello.” Then they danced on. Nothing seemed to have changed, except Mary and I knew something the others didn’t, and we weren’t talking about it.

Saturday morning, I stopped by her aunt’s store. I waited till it had been open for a half-hour – that happened at nine – and then waited till the few customers had drifted out.

“How are you?” I asked.

“The same,” she said, smiling.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She continued to take this very seriously. But maybe she didn’t seem anxious because she thought I had a solution.

“Do you know someone who can take care of this soon?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, and it wasn’t a lie. I did know people. And I knew I could discreetly contact more.

“When?” she asked. “And how much? You still haven’t told me. And how soon will I need it? If it’s too much, that might be the hardest part.”

The last two questions were actually the easiest, and – for the moment – I told her not to be concerned about them. “The ‘when’ is going to take a little time,” I admitted. “Not very long, and we have time. But I need a week-or-so to make contacts.”

“To read,” might have been the simplest answer. “To study,” since I didn’t really want this go beyond the two of us. Though I still didn’t intend to change my mind about doing the procedure.

In a way, it was my relationship with Claire all over again. One moment, I wasn’t thinking about getting married. In fact, I was insisting – at least to myself – that it was years from happening. And the next, we were kind of engaged. With Mary, even as I was waiting for her test results, I kept telling myself that I’d never perform this illegal and possibly career-ending procedure. But I also knew that, if there was no other choice, it was a simple operation. So if Mary didn’t need to think, I did. And I needed to talk with someone.

Not to confide in, so much as consider with. But who?

No one on Barnegat. Absolutely nobody. They’d talk.

No one in my family. My parents would understand – and keep the secret. But they’d also be appalled at my even considering the risk.

None of my medical friends. The most trusted one of them still liked to gossip.

No one in my religion – my tangential religion. It would feel too hypocritical.

So on Thursday night, just in case, I found myself talking with a priest, sitting anonymously in a confessional.

“I’m not Catholic,” I began.

“Then you should leave.” The voice behind the screen sounded fairly young. But I knew from listening to the radio that voices didn’t always match up to ages and experience.

“What I need to discuss has nothing to do with religion.”

“Then it has nothing to do with the Church.”

“The woman is Catholic.”

There was no response. But since the priest didn’t tell me again to leave, it seemed I had his attention.

“I’m a medical student,” I lied slightly. “An unmarried nurse I work with is pregnant. But the possible husband is unsuitable.”

If he needed to think it was me, I’d let him.

“I know what I can do,” I went on, “but I don’t believe in it. Separate from it being illegal.”

“It’s a sin,” he said simply.

“I know that.”

I wasn’t about to tell him that Mary didn’t seem to care.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this story,” the priest continued, almost distantly amused. “There seem to be far more medical students than there ever are doctors. And they all seem to have pregnant, innocent nurses.”

I wanted to buy this seemingly understanding man a drink. But that was also illegal, if not a sin.

“I’m not asking what to do,” I assured him. “I already have that answer.”

“Then if you just want to hear yourself think, go home and write it all down. Or talk to your mirror. But don’t waste my time.”

I wanted to buy the man a drink less.

“Thank you,” I said, and I left. Then I did exactly what he suggested. I sat on a bench at the edge of Central Park, almost opposite the Museum of Natural History, and I thought.

I laid it all out, as I might have to the priest. Mary and Spence had made one mistake. I thought she was making several others. I could try talking her out of them. Or Spence could. Or Spence and I might try. Or Claire. Or Claire and Spence. Or Claire and I. Or any combination of Mary’s family and friends. But all that seemed too complicated when there were simpler ways.

I told Mary this on Saturday. She cried in frustration, and I felt like the stupidest man who ever lived. So I told her to come to my office on Monday morning. Then I found Claire, told her I wasn’t feeling well, and skipped back to the city.

Then I stewed for two days.

Monday morning, Mary arrived in the city, after calling on Sunday to tell me what train she’d be on. I met her at the station. She was nervous, but so was I. Both our lives were about to change. She thought we’d go back to my office, and I’d moved all my appointments to later in the week. But we went to a restaurant instead.

“I need something to eat,” I lied.

And once we were seated, and once we were partway through our meal, I proposed.

She was suitably stunned, and I hadn’t expected otherwise.

“Just hear me out,” I told her. “This is a much better solution.”

“What!”

She was still in shock.

“I don’t want to predict what will happen to you – and I’m not talking about the medical procedure. I could arrange that, and it would be ninety percent safe.”

“What about the other ten percent?” she grabbed onto.

“Yes. You could die.”

I let her absorb that while I pretended to be calm and ate. Then I looked at her again.

“Look, you don’t ever have to sleep with me,” I promised. “We’re very good friends, but it doesn’t need to go beyond that. We’ll live together. I’ll get an apartment separate from my office. We’ll pretend to be newlyweds, and for however long it takes, you can enjoy living in the city while I work.”

“I could never...”

“Please. Let me finish.”

I smiled at her, until she nodded.

“After almost nine months – babies are frequently premature, and maybe this one’ll be politely late – you’ll have the baby, we’ll celebrate, and then – not surprisingly – we’ll discover it’s changed our lives. Too much. The romance is gone. The communication. We’ll separate. We’ll divorce when that becomes necessary, and you can raise the child – or if that’s really impossible – we’ll find it a better home. But please, consider this before you do anything else.”

She just looked at me.

“And you obviously don’t have to tell me today. As I said, we have some time.”

She continued to look at me. Then the questions started in a jumble.

“Why would you... How could we... What about... And what about... And who would believe... And how could we ever...”

They continued, without one ever being completed.

“Look,” I said, continuing to smile steadily, “Let’s finish eating breakfast.” When she seemed to question that, I amended it to, “Let me finish breakfast and you possibly lunch. Then let’s just spend the day together, in the city. We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to think. We can do the kinds of things any tourists would do, if there were still tourists, and if anyone had extra money. For one day, I have enough to cover us. We can walk in the park. We can go to the museums. We can stop by the zoo. We can go to a movie. We can have dinner. Then I’ll put you back on the train. And you can think till Friday – and talk with anyone you might want to – and we’ll see how we’re feeling then.”

“That sounds impossible,” she told me calmly.

“I know.” I grinned. “But just consider it for a couple of days.”

She didn’t say she would. But we did spend the rest of the day almost pleasantly together. After all, we were friends.

Starting Tuesday morning, I kept expecting a message from Claire on my answering service. Or one from Mary. Or even Spence. But nothing came.

Nor on Wednesday. Or Thursday. Or Friday – up until the time when I needed to be heading for the station. And Claire and Mary met me on Barnegat. Without fuss.

I felt nothing had been said. Then Mary left.

“She told me,” Claire began.

“I hoped she would.”

“Are you serious?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. It could be asking so many questions.

“About what?” I had to ask. And Claire immediately understood.

“I’m not worried about us,” she assured me. “I think we’re fairly sure of each other, or you’d never have taken this chance.”

I smiled at her, and we held hands.

“That’s true.” I admitted. “And if there’d been any way, I would’ve talked with you first.”

“You couldn’t, and I know why. And I love you for this, Doc. And for so many other things.”

“Thanks.”

Her compliments were leading somewhere.

“But I worry about Mary,” she went on. “Not only for living in the city – where you know she won’t be happy...”

“It’s just for a while. And you know how quickly time passes.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Yesterday, I was fighting to go to college.”

“And the day before, you were five.”

Claire laughed at that. “You’re too young to be that reflective.”

“She won’t marry Spence.”

Claire laughed at that, too, though I didn’t know why.

“No – they’d be as bad a match as the two of you.”

I didn’t see it that way. I thought that if someone had the money to give them – to help them through the first few years – and if Spence were lucky enough to find a decent job – everything might be fine. Though I also trusted Claire’s judgment, and she definitely knew Mary better.

“Has she told him?” I asked.

“She’s not planning to. She’s planning to marry you.”

I was shaken. And I think just a little scared. Claire couldn’t have known, but she still laughed again at me.

“If you could see your face,” she said, grinning as widely as I ever remembered, “You’d be laughing with me.”

“You’ve had a couple of days to get used to this,” I defended.

“No – we just decided tonight. That it was the best thing to do. That it could all be arranged. That Spence will mostly be gone after the weekend – he’ll only be back for a handful of days – just like the others. They’ll all be back in school. And our parents – and Mary’s – don’t know who’s been seeing who this summer. So if you suddenly seem to be in love and are finally interested in getting married, the worst everyone’ll think is, ‘It’s about time.’ And no one can afford even small weddings these days, so if you and Mary run off to Niagara Falls...”

“I hope you’re not planning to come with us,” I joked.

She simply pushed past that.

“A year will be over before we know it,” she insisted. “Then we’ll see what there is to do about the baby.”

We’d been walking slowly towards the boardwalk – still holding hands. But when we got to Jenkinson’s, Claire said, “I don’t want to go in.”

I was surprised. “Won’t Mary be expecting us?”

She shook her head. “I already told her we might not show up.”

“And she won’t think I’m backing out?”

Claire simply kissed me. “You wouldn’t do that any more than Spence.”

And for a moment, we looked into each other’s eyes.

“We can go to the boat,” I finally suggested. “If no one’s finished my Scotch, it’s pretty decent.”

“I’ve got a better idea.” And she began to smile. “My family’s all here, so the house in Toms River’s empty. And the cook has the weekend off. And I can take my father’s car...”

She was fully grinning now and let what she was saying trail off. We both knew where it was heading anyway, and I kissed her again.

Then we drove to Claire’s. And we made dinner – me cooking less well than she did. And we drank a bottle of her parents pre-Prohibition wine. And we listened to their records. We also ended up in their double bed, but we were careful. We knew better. And in the morning, we slipped back to Barnegat. To begin to plan the rest of our lives.