Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [147]
And Zenia would finally have to go. Charis had been a teacher to her, but if Zenia failed to take advantage of what Charis had given her, that was her own concern.
Enough is enough, said her grandmother’s voice within her head. First things first. Blood is thicker than water.
She tells them one at a time, Zenia first. They’re having dinner – baked beans from a can, frozen peas. Charis has not been so meticulous about organic lately; somehow she lacks the time. Billy’s in the city, again.
“I’m going to have a baby,” Charis blurts out over the canned peaches.
Zenia is not hurt, not the way Charis has feared she would be. Nor does she offer any wistful congratulations or woman-to-woman hugs or pats on the hand. Instead she’s contemptuous. “Well,” she says, “you’ve certainly screwed up!”
“What do you mean?” says Charis.
“What makes you think Billy wants a kid?” says Zenia.
This takes Charis’s breath away. She recognizes that she’s been going on a certain assumption: that everyone else will welcome this baby as much as she does. She also recognizes that she hasn’t been taking Billy into account. She did make one attempt to imagine what it would be like to be a man, to be Billy, having a baby, but she just couldn’t do it. After that she made no effort to divine his reaction.
“Well of course he does,” she says, trying for conviction.
“You haven’t told him yet, have you,” says Zenia. It’s not a question.
“How do you know?” says Charis. How does she know? Why are they fighting?
“Wait’ll he finds out,” says Zenia grimly. “This house is going to be one whole hell of a lot smaller with a screaming brat in it. You could’ve waited till I was dead.”
Charis is amazed by her brutality and selfishness; amazed, and angry. But what comes out of her is close to appeasement. “There’s nothing I can do about it now,” she says.
“Sure there is,” says Zenia, patronizingly. “You can get an abortion.”
Charis stands up. “I don’t want one,” she says. She is close to tears, and when she goes upstairs – which she does right away, without for once doing the dishes – she does cry. She cries into their sleeping bag, wounded and confused. Something is going wrong and she isn’t even sure what it is.
When Billy gets home she is still lying on the sleeping bag, with the light out and her clothes still on.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” he says. “What’s happening?” He kisses her face.
Charis heaves herself up, then throws her arms around him. “Haven’t you noticed?” she says tearfully.
“Noticed what?” says Billy.
“I’m pregnant!” says Charis. “We’re going to have a baby!” She’s making it sound like a reproach; this isn’t what she means. She wants him to celebrate with her.
“Oh shit,” says Billy. He goes slack in her arms. “Oh Jesus Christ. When?”
“In August,” says Charis, waiting for him to be glad. But he isn’t glad. Instead he’s treating this like a big catastrophe; like a death, not a birth. “Oh shit,” he says again. “What’re we gonna do?”
In the middle of the night Charis finds herself standing outside, in the garden. She’s been sleepwalking. She’s in her nightgown and her feet are bare; the mud and leaf mould crumble under her toes. She can smell a skunk, a distant one, like those run over on highways; but how could a skunk be here? This is the Island. But maybe they can swim.
Now she is fully awake. In her hand there’s the imprint of another hand: it’s her grandmother, trying to tell her something, trying to get through. A warning.
“What?” she says out loud. “What is it?”
She’s aware that there’s someone else in the garden, a dark shape leaning against the wall by the kitchen window. She sees a small glow. It wasn’t a skunk she smelled, it was smoke.
“Zenia, is that you?” she says.
“I couldn’t sleep,” says Zenia. “So, how’s Big Daddy taking it?