The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain
“Well!” he said. “That sounds promising, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” I felt the crack in my smile and hoped he didn’t notice.
“Not seeing as many pregnancies these days,” he said, “what with all the men overseas. Your man is home?”
How I wished my man had been home. None of this ever would have happened.
“Yes,” I said. “He has a heart murmur and isn’t able to serve, much to his disappointment.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure,” he said, looking down at the folder. He began asking me the expected questions. The date of my last period, which I knew off the top of my head because I’d been counting and recounting the days since that date for many weeks now. How did I feel? Nauseous in the morning. Were my breasts tender?
“Not too bad,” I lied.
He motioned me to lie down and I stared at the ceiling as he examined me. I’d never had an internal examination before and it felt humiliating. I wondered if he could somehow tell that I’d only had intercourse one time. That my so-called married state was a sham.
“Congratulations.” He smiled down at me, his fingers inside me. “You are indeed pregnant.”
“Don’t you have to do the rabbit test … the Friedman test … to know that for sure?” I asked. I knew that was the definitive test for pregnancy.
“Don’t need to,” he said. “I’ve been an obstetrician for thirty years and you can take this diagnosis to the bank. You’re definitely pregnant.” He rolled his stool away from the examination table. “You and your husband can celebrate tonight,” he said. “And you can go ahead and sit up.” He lifted my chart from the counter and began to scribble a note. “Are you a smoker?” he asked, his voice so nonchalant. He had no idea he’d just turned my world upside down.
“Yes,” I said, struggling to hold the sheet against my body as I sat up. “Not a lot. About ten cigarettes a day.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me as he wrote his notes, and I was glad. I had no idea what he would see in my face as I tried to look like a happy-to-be-pregnant wife. “It’s not the time to switch to a pack a day,” he said, “but not the time to quit, either.” He smiled at me, his pudgy red cheeks lifting his glasses a bit from his nose. “That would wreak havoc on your nerves and turn you into the sort of girl your husband wouldn’t want to be around, right?”
“Right.” I attempted to smile.
“Go easy on salty foods and nibble some crackers and ginger ale in the morning before you get out of bed. The nausea will pass soon.” He got to his feet. “And make an appointment with me for a month,” he added before leaving the room.
The door shut behind him and I didn’t budge from the examining table. I clutched the sheet to my body, torn between self-pity and self-hatred. Seven days until Vincent was home for Christmas. What was I going to do?
7
The day before Christmas, I rode with Mimi and Pop to Baltimore’s Penn Station to meet Vincent’s train from Chicago. Mimi could barely contain her excitement. “This is the longest I’ve ever been apart from my son,” she said, turning in the front seat to look at me. “I know you must be just as excited as I am,” she said.
“I am.” I smiled. Excited and terrified. Vincent would be home for three days and three nights. He’d expected it would be four days and four nights, but the trains were packed and he had been lucky to get a reservation at all. I was personally glad he’d only have three days with us. I’d wanted his homecoming for so long, but now that it was finally here, I simply didn’t know how I was going to manage it. The secret between us was enormous and insurmountable. How could I possibly act like my usual self around him? How could I think about a wedding when it now seemed like an impossibility? Sometimes I wondered if it was all a crazy mistake. Maybe I wasn’t pregnant at all. My stomach was still as flat as it had ever been, and the queasiness I’d experienced in the mornings had lessened dramatically in the past week. Maybe all the symptoms had been the product of anxiety. The doctor had never done the Friedman test. How could he know I was pregnant without it? Any day now, my period would show up and the last couple of months would be a bad dream. That was my fervent prayer.
Penn Station bustled with holiday travelers, many of them in uniform, as we stood on the platform, waiting and watching for Vincent to arrive.
“Oh there he is!” Mimi grabbed my arm, hopping up and down, waving to her son as he stepped from the train a good distance ahead of us. Mimi was fifty years old, but at that minute, she seemed more like an excited little girl than a middle-aged woman. I watched Vincent stride toward us carrying his suitcase, a shopping bag looped over his other arm. He wore an unfamiliar camel-hair coat, and it struck me that he’d left Baltimore in late summer and now it was winter. He would have had to buy a whole winter wardrobe, clothing I’d never seen before. He smiled, quickening his pace to get to us. My heart contracted in my chest and I battled tears. I loved him so much.
Mimi got his first hug and Pop received a handshake and a warm pat on the shoulder, but Vincent’s gaze was on me the whole time he embraced his parents, his smile broad. He had never looked more handsome to me, and when he wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear, “How’s my beautiful nurse?”, I rested my head on his shoulder and cried. I’d missed the solid feel of him beneath my arms. I’d missed the woody scent of his aftershave. The slightly rough skin of his cheek against my forehead. He rocked me a little as we stood there. “Shh, sweetheart,” he said, holding me tight. “I’m here. I love you.”
I couldn’t find my voice. I clutched his arm as the four of us walked through the train station and out to the parking lot. In the backseat of the car, I sat close to him, my head against the shoulder of his camel-hair coat, my arm across his body as if I were afraid he might rise out of the car and disappear again if I didn’t hold him down. I dared to feel happy. I was right where I wanted to be. Where I’d always wanted to be.
I was quiet during the nonstop conversation between Vincent and his parents. He told us he’d had to stand for ten of the twenty hours on the train. He tightened his arm around me as he spoke. “It was worth every minute,” he said, pressing his lips to my temple.
He and his parents talked about their Christmas tree, the best they’d ever had, Mimi said, but she and Pop were waiting for Vincent to put the star on top as he did every year. My mother was preparing the Feast of the Seven Fishes that afternoon. Although she never made more than five fish dishes, we still called the Italian meal by its customary name. For our Christmas dinner tomorrow, Mimi would make her famous roasted pork loin and antipasto platter.
“But only fruit for dessert this year, Vinnie, what with rationing,” she said. “We have enough sugar for your coffee, but that’s about all.”
I only half listened to her chatter, too preoccupied with my own dilemma to really care about Christmas dinner.
In the Russos’ house, Vincent set the star on the top of their tree before he even took off his coat, much to Mimi’s delight. Then he lifted his suitcase in one hand, took my hand with the other, and we walked together up the stairs to his bedroom. The small room was still filled with pictures and memorabilia—photographs and ticket stubs and restaurant matchbooks—from our years together and I looked at them all with a mounting sense of loss. Vincent closed the door and turned to face me, that smile of his making me weak with desire for him. He unbuttoned my coat, then slipped his hands inside to pull me close. Silently, I breathed him in. I memorized the feeling of being this close to him. This is what I was going to lose because of the baby. Because of my foolishness. All I would have left was the memory of this closeness. The memory of loving him.
“This feels so good,” he said after a moment.
“Yes,” I agreed. He lifted my chin to kiss me. It was a tender kiss, his lips warm and soft and so familiar, and when I drew away, I discovered I couldn’t look him in the eye. “Should we unpack?” I asked, turning toward his suitcase.
&
I smiled, my gaze darting over his, coming to land somewhere in middle of the room. “Never too cold for that,” I said.
* * *
Our breath formed puffy clouds as we walked to St. Leo’s. We held gloved hands, not saying much, eager to get to the church.
We sat in our usual back pew, away from the few people who came and went in the hushed silence. We kept our coats on—it was never warm in St. Leo’s—but we took off our gloves to hold hands.
“You’re very quiet, Tess,” he said. “You usually can’t stop talking when we see each other after an absence.”
“When have we ever had an absence?” I asked. “I think the longest we’ve ever been apart were those ten days you spent with your New York cousins when you were twenty years old.”
“True,” he said. “But what I mean is, even when we’ve been apart for a day or two … or even a few hours … you always have plenty to say. Plenty to tell me. All the minutiae of your day.” He let out a quiet, teasing chuckle. “I expected you to flood me with information the moment I got off the train.”
I sighed. “After all this time apart, maybe there’s just too much information,” I said. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Well, give it a try,” he said. “When do you have to take your licensing exam for your RN?”
“March,” I said. How I would study for that exam when I had so much else on my mind, I didn’t know.
“And how are the wedding plans coming along?” he asked. “Did you decide on a dress yet?”
I didn’t think he really cared which dress I selected. He was just trying to get me to talk.
“Not yet,” I said. “There’s still time. Everything else is in place.” Everything, I thought, except the wedding itself. I could think of no way Vincent and I could possibly get married.
“When do the invitations go out?”
“Not until March,” I said. My chest contracted. I didn’t see how those invitations could ever go out.
He was quiet. After a moment, he put his arm around me. “I’m worried about you, sweetheart,” he said. “When we talked on the phone the last couple of times, and now in person … you seem withdrawn. I think you’re angry with me. Maybe you think I took advantage of your good nature. You’ve been extremely patient and a big support to me. I know it’s been hard on you. If you’re angry, just tell me. Yell or whatever you need to do to clear the air. I wouldn’t blame—”
“I’m not angry. I’m just…” I began to cry softly and he wrapped both his arms around me. Rocked me gently like a child. “I’m just tired and I missed you and it’s been hard not having you here,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But only a couple more weeks till the doctor I’m covering for is back and then I’m home for good.” He gave me a squeeze. “You really have been strong through all this, Tess,” he said, “and I appreciate it. And soon, you and I will stand up at that altar”—he pointed toward the front of St. Leo’s—“and say ‘I do’ and have the rest of our lives together.”
I pictured the scene at the altar. Standing next to him in my white dress. Maybe the one with the rosettes that my mother loved. Gina by my side. And I suddenly thought of a way to make marrying him a reality. He was home for three days and three nights. I could sleep with him. I knew that went against everything either of us believed in, and yet … I could play on his guilt. Tell him how hard it had been for me, being without him. How desperately I needed him. I could pass this baby off as his. But even as the thought came to me, I knew I couldn’t do it, and the fantasy of our wedding slipped away. I couldn’t go into our marriage with a lie.
I couldn’t go into our marriage at all.
8
I clutched Gina’s hand in the back of the taxi as we rode through an unfamiliar Baltimore neighborhood. It was January third and the Christmas decorations that hung in the air above the street looked tired. The chilly gray day didn’t help. I felt sick with nerves. I only had to get through this day, I told myself, and I could get my life back on track. If I made it through today, wedding invitations would go out as planned in March. I’d buy the dress with the rosettes. Vincent and I would have a future together, the future we’d always planned for. As long as I made it through the horror of today.
The few days with Vincent had not gone well. I hadn’t been able to feign joy over his homecoming and I finally pleaded a headache that simply wouldn’t go away. I was sure our parents talked to each other in hushed, worried voices, wondering what was wrong with me, and Vincent sat on the edge of my bed, gently pressing a cool washcloth to my forehead or rubbing my temples. I didn’t even go with Mimi and Pop to take him back to the train station. By that time, though, I’d made up my mind. I knew what I had to do. It was a terrible, unthinkable sin but it seemed like the only way out of the dilemma I was in.
“It’s going to be all right,” Gina whispered to me now as she squeezed my hand in the back of the taxi. Her palm was as damp with sweat as my own. “It’ll all be over soon. A bad memory.”
I swallowed hard. Gina had been shocked when I finally got up the nerve to tell her I was pregnant.
“Did he rape you?” she’d asked in a horrified whisper. She couldn’t believe I would sleep with a stranger after saving myself for my wedding night all these years.
I shook my head. “I was … intoxicated,” I said. “But he didn’t force me.” I wished I could blame Henry Kraft for what had happened. I only blamed myself.
“You’ve got to get rid of it,” Gina’d said. We’d been sitting in her bedroom, our voices quiet because her mother was down the hall in the living room. I could barely hold my emotions together.
“Get rid of it?” I’d said, shocked. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that, Gina. It’s a sin, not to mention it’s illegal.”
“It’s illegal but not impossible,” she said. “This girl I sort of know did it. She said it wasn’t so bad. I can find out where you can go to have it done.” She leaned across the space between her twin beds to look hard into my eyes. “Do you really have a choice?” she asked.
“I can’t do that,” I said. Yet what option did I have? I had no husband. The man I was engaged to—kindhearted and loving though he may have been—would never marry me if he knew I was pregnant with another man’s child. There was no way I could tell him what I’d done. It would kill him.
“I think I’ll have to go to one of those homes where you have your baby and put it up for adoption,” I said. “Maybe the church can help me find a home like that? Everything would be hush-hush, and my baby would go to a good family. Have a good life.” My own well-planned good life would be over, but at least I would have done the right thing by my baby.
Gina looked horrified. “Those places are terrible,” she said. “They’ll treat you like trash and you’ll never know what they really did with your baby. Where they really put it. And what will you tell Vincent? If you have an abortion, you get to move on with your life.”
“It’s wrong,” I argued.
“Why are you making this so hard on yourself, honey?” Gina said. “Right now, what you have inside of you is a fetus. Not a baby. It won’t be a baby for months and months.”
I wished I could see things as simply as Gina. We’d been raised in the same church. Made our first communions together. Learned about sin and heaven and hell from the same nuns. Yet somehow, with Gina it never took and she was freer for it. Even with the baby gone, I knew I would never feel free of what I’d done. It was the one thing I would never be able to admit to in confession. I’d carry it with me forever, but at least I could marry the man I loved. We would have other children. Our children.
Gina was able to get the details from Kathy, the girl she “sort of” knew who’d had the abortion, and she made the arrangements for me, even giving me one hundred of the exorbitant two-hundred-dollar fee. “W
“Kathy didn’t say,” Gina’d said. “Probably just cramping, but it will be worth it. You’ll have one bad day and then you’ll be free for the rest of your life.”
Now, Gina leaned forward to instruct the taxi driver. “I think you make a right here,” she said. We turned off the street with the Christmas decorations onto a narrow road lined with dark, three-story brick buildings. Apartments, maybe? Offices? I had no idea. I tried not to notice their ramshackle condition. The sagging shutters. The trash in the street.
“Stop here,” Gina said suddenly. “That must be him.”
A man stood on the corner near a black sedan. He reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of my grandfather. Iron-gray hair. Rotund build beneath a heavy black coat. The slightest hint of a hunchback. He wore thick glasses in wire-rimmed frames. I knew what would happen now. Kathy had given Gina the details. The man would drive us to the house where the abortion would take place. “His sister does it,” Gina had told me. “Kathy said she’s really nice.”
“Is his sister a doctor?” I’d asked.
“I don’t think so, but she has more experience than most doctors,” Gina’d reassured me.
I paid the taxi driver, slipped on my gloves, and we got out, shivering in the chill, damp air as we approached the man.
“Which one of you is the girl?” he asked. “Only the girl can come with me.”
I grabbed Gina’s arm, my grip tight through her coat.
“I have to come with her,” Gina said calmly. She patted my gloved hand. “I promised.”
“I only have the one blindfold, so only one of you can come,” he said.
“Blindfold?” I looked at Gina. I wished our taxi hadn’t already driven off. I wanted to get back into it and ride away from this neighborhood.
“It’s all right,” Gina reassured me, but there was a shiver in her voice. “We can use something as a blindfold for me,” she said to the man. “My scarf?” She started to unknot the scarf at her throat.