Night after night, Nora would put the babies to bed then make a quick batch of cookies or open a bottle of wine or heat up something easy for dinner and look through boxes while Russell pored over records and transcripts. One night a song came up on shuffle, and he didn’t even look up from his paperwork when he said, “This was the theme song at my senior prom.”
“Mine too!” Nora said.
And he looked up at her then and removed his glasses and came around the table and took her hand and led her out onto the dance floor, which was just the other side of the kitchen table, and took her in his arms and pressed her to him, and very, very slowly they danced, and when the song was over he drew back to look at her, and she whispered, “I did not dance like that at my prom,” and he whispered, “Me neither.”
I think I remember that, though I couldn’t possibly.
They fell asleep working sometimes, but Russell did not otherwise spend the night. He had a hotel room when he was in town, but usually he wasn’t. He had a wife at home of whom Nora had been surprised but relieved to learn, surprised because he knew everything about her life and it turned out she knew so little about his, relieved because unrequited love of one’s lawyer seemed more likely to result in good legal counsel than the requited kind, and that was a trade she was willing to make. His office was in New York, a city he described as loud and bustly and smelly compared to wide, green, open, quiet, poisoned Bourne, and he told Nora, “I wish I could stay here,” and Nora told him, “Stay then,” but after a few days of work, he always left.
Still, surely it didn’t stop at dancing. I don’t know the details because I was a child and because I was her child, but I know it happened. For a while. And then his wife got pregnant.
Russell is a good guy, the adultery notwithstanding, but it wasn’t the prospect of becoming a father that stopped it. It was actually becoming a father.
One morning he knocked on the door, soaking and lost. He wasn’t scheduled to be in town—he’d been coming less and less—so when Nora opened the door and found him on her front step, she was surprised then delighted then worried in very short order. It was pouring, and he was drenched, but he didn’t even look up when the door opened.
“Russell?”
“Nora.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so glad.”
Nothing.
“Come in.”
Nothing.
“Russell, you’re soaking. Come inside.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Nothing. Then finally he looked up from his sodden shoes. “The baby was born,” he said.
“Oh, Russell,” she gasped. “I’m so glad.” And she looked it. That’s what I remember from that moment: she was truly glad, truly happy for him, like he was her best friend and not her lover, which, I suppose, he was.
“No,” he said.
“No?” she said.
And then Russell whispered, “He has Down syndrome.” Her face fell, and he dropped to his knees right there on the front porch, and she bent down over him, an attempt to shield him, which did not work.
“Did you know?” Nora asked, as if that were the point.
He shook his head. “Sarah said no to all the tests. The midwives told us they were unnecessary.”
“Is he okay?”
“Who?”
“The baby.”
“No, Nora.” His eyes focused on her clutching him in the rain. “He has Down syndrome.”
“Yes, I know,” said Nora, “but is he okay?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes were wild. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“As long as he’s healthy,” Nora said, “as long as Sarah’s okay, you’ll be okay. You’ll all be okay. There are so many worse things than Down syndrome.” Maybe this was fumblingly put. Heat of the moment and all that. Shock and sadness and no time to pick your words over like lentils, looking for stones. And to her credit, her eyes did not so much as flicker in my direction. But I know she thought it all the same. Me. I am what’s worse than Down syndrome. Among other things.
“We were wrong,” Russell said.
“Who?”
“You and I.”
“About what?” said Nora.
“It wasn’t the water. It wasn’t the chemicals. It wasn’t the plant. Who knows what it was.”
“What are you saying?”
“So many things can ruin a baby. So many things get broken on the way. No one can ever say why.”