Saturday, March 14, 2004
Rose climbed up the trail beside Jack, a picnic basket carried between them. Though the vernal equinox was still almost a week away, spring was in the air. The sun was warm, but not yet hot, and grass covered the hills with green. Here and there, a mustard plant bloomed, the brilliant yellow blossoms proclaiming the renewal of life. A few tracks of small animals were visible in the still-damp ground as they made their way toward the top of the hill.
It had been over ten months since the afternoon they had met atop the hill, in those precious hours before the earthquake. Much had happened since then, but they had survived, and had come out stronger for their struggles. Now, it was spring again, and they were once more on their way to the place that meant so much to both of them.
Rose smiled as a gentle breeze ruffled her hair, tossing her red curls about her face. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she looked up at Jack as they reached the top of the hill.
He smiled, taking the picnic basket from her and setting it on the ground, then pulled her into his arms, kissing her as he had that first afternoon. Embracing him tightly, Rose returned the kiss, reluctant to end it.
When at last the kiss ended, Rose pulled a thin blanket from the basket and spread it on the damp ground, sinking down onto it. Jack took the food from the basket—fried chicken, French bread, oranges, and sugar cookies—and set it on the blanket. Pulling out two paper plates and two bottles of water, he served their food, sitting down beside Rose when he was done.
Rose sighed contentedly, leaning her head against Jack’s shoulder. It was a perfect afternoon, as perfect as the day they had been married atop another hill not far away. Jack looked at her as she sighed, wrapping an arm around her.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, handing her a plate of food.
"Oh, just about how perfect everything is." She smiled, biting into her chicken.
"It is pretty nice," Jack agreed, balancing his plate on his knees. "The sun is shining and warm, spring is here..."
"And we’re here together."
"That’s the best part."
Rose laughed. "Two and a half weeks ago, I would never have thought that we would be here together like this. We were so angry with each other...I almost thought that it was the end for us."
"I don’t like fighting, either—except for the making up part."
Rose kissed his cheek. "I’d rather do the making up part without the fighting."
Jack looked thoughtful. "You know, I can’t really remember what I got so mad about. I’m certainly not upset about becoming a father."
"I think you just weren’t prepared to have that particular surprise sprung on you. I probably would have been a little shocked, too."
"I’d be really shocked if I heard that you were going to be a father," Jack teased her, ducking as she tossed an orange peel at him.
Rose gave him a playful shove. "Ha ha. Very funny." She set her plate down, leaning back against him. Putting her hands on her stomach, she stroked it gently, as though caring for the child inside.
Jack pulled her closer, putting one hand over hers. "Our baby," he whispered, almost in disbelief. "You have our baby in there."
"A son or a daughter." Rose paused. "Jack, do you care whether the baby is a boy or a girl?"
He leaned back, thinking. "No," he finally told her. "It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll love it the same, whatever it is."
"Me, too." They leaned against each other for a moment, just enjoying being together.
Jack pushed the empty plates away, pulling Rose into his arms. "There’s just one thing I regret," he told her.
Rose glanced up at him. "What’s that?"
"That my parents will never meet their grandchild. They would have been very proud, I’m sure. They always wanted more kids, but something went wrong when I was born and Mom could never have anymore children. They thought about adopting, but it never quite worked out. They finally accepted that I would be an only child, but I think they would have been happy to know that they’re going to be grandparents."
"You still miss them, don’t you?"
Jack sighed. "Yes. I still do, even after all these years. It’s been almost eight years since they died, but I still miss them sometimes."
"I understand." Rose reached for his hand. "I still miss my dad, even though he’s been gone for almost four years now."
"At least you still have your mom."
"I just wish we got along better."
"Does she know that you’re pregnant?"
Rose shook her head. "No. I haven’t told her. She doesn’t know, unless Nana told her. I talked to Nana on the phone yesterday. She’s delighted that there’s going to be a great-grandchild. She gave me all sorts of advice."
"She likes to do that."
"It’s her profession. She can’t get away from it. It’s just what she does."
"I know. I have a therapist, too, remember?"
"Are you still talking to Ted?"
"Sometimes. I’m doing a lot better now than I was last summer."
"Definitely," Rose agreed. "A few issues here and there, but nothing major anymore." She expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. "Jack? Is something wrong?"
"No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know."
"That’s quite an answer."
He sighed. "Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve been thinking about Mom and Dad a lot, ever since Daniel was born. And now, knowing that I’m going to be a father myself—I don’t know what to think. I mean—I don’t know what I mean, actually."
"Were your parents buried, or cremated?" Rose wanted to know.
"Buried, in Chippewa Falls. Dad had grown up there, and even though Mom was from Green Bay, she considered Chippewa Falls to be home. They were buried together, just three days after the fire."
"Did you go to the funeral?"
He nodded. "Of course. They were my parents. It was a closed casket funeral—nobody really wanted to look at them after the way they’d died. I saw them, and it was horrible." He leaned back, his thoughts still on the past. "I didn’t cry at the funeral...I just kind of gave blank stares to everyone. People were very sympathetic—I was newly orphaned, and didn’t even have a roof over my head. Everything was gone. Uncle William was my closest relative, but he insisted that he didn’t have room for me, so I wound up in foster care. You know the rest."
Rose hugged him, looking at him with sympathy. "My God, how terrible. At least I still had Mom when Dad died. We didn’t always get along, but at least I had someone, and a familiar place to live. You didn’t have anything."
"I had the clothes on my back, and the little money that they had saved, which was given to me when I turned eighteen and got out of juvenile hall. I stayed with a neighbor for the first week after they died, and then a social worker put me into foster care. I haven’t been back to Chippewa Falls since."
"You were placed in foster care in another town?"
"Several other towns. First Eau Claire—two homes there. No one really wanted a grieving fifteen-year-old boy who put on a brave front by lashing out. After the second time I tried to run away, I was moved to Green Bay. I had a grandfather there, but he was in very poor health. There was no way he could have taken me in, and in fact he died soon after I was placed in a foster home there. I wasn’t allowed to attend his funeral—I was told it wasn’t good for me. I tried to run away again, and was placed in a group home. That was when I got into the gang, and got into trouble."
Rose wrapped her arms around her middle. "I just hope to God our child never has to go through that. It was bad enough that you lost your parents, but to be passed from home to home, and rejected that way—didn’t anyone care?"
"A few people did—some of the other kids knew well enough what I was going through, and my first foster mother really tried to help me. I guess I was just more than she could handle."
"But you’ve never been back to Chippewa Falls? Never visited your parents’ grave?"
"Not since the funeral."
"Do you want to go back there?"
He paused, thinking. "I don’t know. My last memories of that town are pretty sad. Still, it would be nice to see the people I knew again, and make sure that Mom and Dad’s grave is being cared for. I don’t know when I could find the time, though."
"Don’t you have vacation time coming up in late August or September?"
"Yes. It’ll be one year in mid-August, the time that I finally went back to work full-time."
"By mid-September, I’ll be on maternity leave. We could go there then."
"You want to go there? There’s not much to see. It’s a pretty small town."
"I’d like to see where you grew up, meet your old friends. You’ve already seen where I grew up, in Masline and San Bernardino. Besides, I think it would be good for you. Maybe give you...uh...whatever it is Nana calls it."
"Closure?"
"Yes, closure."
He lay back on the blanket, thinking. "It would be nice to see the kids I grew up with, and see Emmaline again if I can. Uncle William wouldn’t be happy to see me back in town, though."
"From the way you’ve described him, your Uncle William isn’t happy to not see you in town, either. In fact, he just plain doesn’t sound happy."
"He’s probably not happy. I guess we could go. But you know what they say—you can’t go home again."
"It’s because even if the place you left hasn’t changed, you have. That’s why you can’t go home again. But you can still visit. It’s still where you grew up."
Jack nodded. "We’ll go, then. For a few days, anyway."
"Good." Rose squeezed his hand. "It’ll be okay, you know. No one can throw you out of your old town, whatever is in your past."
"Yeah, but it’s the going there, after all this time, that’s the problem. Still, we’ll go. And we’ll be back in plenty of time for you to have the baby here."
Rose hugged her abdomen. "I’ll be as big as a whale by then."
"Ah…but whales are beautiful creatures."
"Not when they’re human."
"You’ll always be beautiful to me. Besides, how could your swelling middle be ugly? That’s our baby."
"Yeah...our first baby, but hopefully not our last."
"We’ll make more babies together. Trust me."
"I trust you," Rose murmured, kissing him. “We’ll have one more, at least.” Her expression grew pensive. "I just wish I could spend more time with the baby after it’s born."
"What do you mean?"
"I’ll have about six weeks after the baby is born before I have to go back to work—I already asked about that. After that, I’ll have to leave him or her with a baby-sitter, and that person will get to watch our little one grow up while we work." She sighed, sprawling on the blanket beside Jack. "I’d like a little more time with the baby before I go back to work. When I was little, I sometimes wished that Mom and Dad were around more. Of course, Mom worked as many hours as she could, trying to get ahead, and Dad was always away on his business trips. But a lot of times, Mom would pick me up from daycare at ten o’clock at night and drop me off at five o’clock in the morning. I hardly saw her sometimes. I would sleep on the way to and from daycare, and just see her for a few minutes a day. Of course, we’ll be home much more. Work ends at five in the afternoon and doesn’t start until eight in the morning, and I always have the weekends off. But still..."
"You know, maybe you could spend more time with the baby after it’s born. I forgot to tell you, but my boss gave me a raise yesterday—an extra two hundred a month. I think I could afford to provide for all three of us."
"I don’t want to live off of you..."
"We’ve been supporting each other for months, and we’ll be supporting the baby together. Here’s what I have in mind—you could keep working until you’re ready for maternity leave, then quit. You could take the fall semester off from college to have the baby and take care of it for the first few months, and then go back to school full time for the spring semester, when the baby is a little older. You’ve been talking about how you wanted to finish your education, and this could be a good time to do it. If you wanted to work, maybe you could take a part-time job with the college—they’re always looking for student workers, especially ones who do as well as you. It really wouldn’t hurt the baby to spend some time with a baby-sitter, or in daycare—it would give it a chance to start learning how to get along with other people. Everyone would benefit."
"Except you. You’d be paying for all this."
"I want to. It would make me happy. Our expenses aren’t really that great anyway. I think it might work out."
Rose mulled the idea over. "Well...maybe. I’ll think about it. I don’t need to decide for a few months yet, anyway. I just wish it was easier for working mothers…it would be nice to have more maternity leave, even to have daycare at work…" She sat up, glancing at her watch. "We’d better get going. We need to be at the theater at five, especially since I need to warm up my voice and they’ll probably want you to help with the set."
"Right." Jack stretched, getting up slowly. They’d both been working for months on the college’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, with Rose playing Mary Magdalene and Jack working on the set.
Rose picked up the plates, tucking them inside the basket. Grinning suddenly, she glanced up at Jack, who was folding the blanket.
"What?" he asked, seeing her sudden amusement.
"I was just thinking—a pregnant prostitute? That’s a side you don’t usually hear about."
"Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession..."
"And motherhood is the world’s second oldest profession." Rose laughed. "I see the connection."
Jack put the blanket into the basket and picked it up. Laughing, he linked arms with Rose.
"You’re not showing yet, anyway, and even if you were, your costume would cover it. Come on. Let’s go home."