Women Who Stay, 10

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

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The weather turned for the better overnight, replacing bitter gray skies with sunshine and a light, warm breeze. Janie met me outside the Somerset Diner, two to-go cups in hand.

"I wondered if we might take our conversation to the park today," she said. "I'd rather not be overheard this morning. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all," I assured her, though my stomach growled in protest. Breakfast seemed a small price to pay for discussion of topics on which she'd rather not be eavesdropped. She handed me my coffee and we wandered to Inman Park before sitting on an empty bench by the playground. She opened her purse and pulled out a small frame.

"I brought you a picture."

It was a wedding portrait of the young couple posed at an altar. She was radiant, sylphlike in a ripple of silk with flowers in her hair. He was stiff and pale through his smile.

"You look very happy."

"Don't I? You'd never know how nervous I was. Just terrified for the wedding night. I didn't have girlfriends, you know. I didn't have a mother. I'd never even had a boyfriend before Antonio. I had no idea what to expect from sex. All my life, I knew I had a purpose: to be a mother. It was instinctual. And, logically, I knew sex was necessary to become one."

"You didn't consider adoption?"

She scoffed. "Certainly not. I wanted my own flesh and blood. I needed to bring something into the world, to make it myself. And so, I read magazines and bought lingerie. I practiced batting my eyelashes in the mirror. I... groomed myself properly.

"When we reached the honeymoon suite in Atlantic City, I changed in the bathroom. I undid my dress myself. I refreshed my makeup. I wiped the nervous sweat from my armpits." She laughed. "I needn't have bothered. I presented myself to him, all trussed up in lace and ribbons. All he said was 'Don't you look nice?' before returning to his magazine."

"Were you disappointed?"

"I was so relieved. Every preparation sickened me. Looking at myself in the mirror like that, like I was evaluating myself through another's eyes, was excruciating. I never wore the lingerie again."

"So when did you consummate the marraige?"

"He put me off for another six months, saying he needed to settle into his role at the Bureau before we were ready for a child."

"Did it bother you, not having an intimate relationship with your husband?"

"We were very intimate," she protested. "It just looked different from the conventional grunt and thrust of intercourse. We had an intimacy of the mind. We talked for hours on end."

"What about?"

"Everything. Nothing. Literature, film. His work. The war. He was so clever, and his opinions were... Well, what I liked best about Antonio was how uniquely he looked at the world. How he interpreted people before they'd spoken. How he appreciated the history of an object, could find beauty in anything he saw. He was always bringing me little gifts from his day on the road. Out-of-print books. A Ming vase, some flowers to put in it.

"But eventually, I realized it was all a distraction. He used those presents to distract me from harassing him for what I really wanted. So six months in, during ovulation, I strong-armed him into bed. I turned out the lights and told him to do his duty. When it didn't take, I made him try again the next month. And then again." She sighed. "I think of all my regrets, that's the largest."

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Read on to Chapter 11