Like all soon-to-be mothers, both those who plan it and those who don’t, Colleen had immediately done the math in her head: it was November, and, depending on how long she’d been pregnant, that meant the baby would arrive sometime in the early summer, right when she and Scott were supposed to begin studying for the bar exam, something she had thought of as certain and impending, something that seemed much more daunting and real than the baby the test had revealed to be growing inside her—the proof of it floating in a plastic test tube right there on the bathroom counter.
Colleen tucked the framed photograph under her arm and walked up the stairs into her old bedroom. It had remained virtually untouched since she’d left for college. A four-poster bed with a white lace canopy rested on the same brown shag carpet that covered the floors in the rest of the upstairs. The bedspread was an orange quilt she had used since junior high. Posters covered the walls: a moppy-headed David Cassidy leaning against a tree as if posing for a senior photo; a Fleetwood Mac poster in now-dull neon colors; Joan Jett leaping into the air against a yellow background, a white guitar in hand, her lips puckered in enviable confidence. Her old, olive-green rotary phone rested as if waiting for her on the white wicker table beside the bed.
Colleen slid her bag from her shoulder and tossed it onto the bed beside her suitcase. She looked again at the wedding photograph of her and Scott, and then she opened the top drawer of her dresser, moved lonely, mismatched socks and old underwear out of the way, and slid the photograph inside—facedown—before closing the drawer.
She picked up the telephone and carried it over to the tan beanbag chair that sat beneath the window, the paper with Scott’s office number curled in her hand like a scroll. She lowered herself onto the beanbag chair and felt the tiny Styrofoam balls give way to her weight. The sticky leather rose up and closed around her body. She placed the phone in her lap and stared at it.
They had decided to get married and have the baby. Somehow, they had also decided that she wouldn’t sit for the bar since she wouldn’t be taking a job after the baby was born. All that—the bar exam, the job, the career—would come later, at least for her anyway. Scott had the federal job waiting for him in Dallas. He’d begun interviewing and had been offered the position—and others—not long after becoming president of the Student Bar Association at Chapel Hill. He had wanted to be editor of the North Carolina Law Review, but he didn’t have the grades, so he settled for running for president instead. It suited him better anyway. People liked him. He could build consensus, and, no matter what he said or did, he never made waves, even when he talked about using the association’s limited budget to lure Jesse Jackson to speak on campus. In the meantime, Colleen had been a dutiful first lady, although no one called her that or thought of her that way, especially when it became clear that she was a pregnant 3L without a job offer who would not be sitting for the bar that summer.
She didn’t tell anyone—she still hadn’t—but she’d had better grades than Scott. She’d pulled straight A’s except for the B in Con Law I and the C+ in Secured Transactions. But Scott was president. He had a job waiting for him. He would soon be a father, but of course you wouldn’t have known it by looking at him unless Colleen had been standing by his side. It was supposed to be her turn after the baby was born. She was supposed to spend the fall and winter studying for the Texas bar. Scott was going to help with the baby so she could prepare. They would find a good day care once she began working. It would be everything she had never considered wanting but felt she was getting nonetheless.
And now, sitting in her old bedroom with more than half the country separating her from Scott, she knew that the only thing she wanted was her son, and no matter what happened after this was over—whatever that meant—he was the only thing she could never have.
She lifted the phone from the cradle and held it to her ear. She listened to the dial tone and took a deep breath and began to dial. While she dialed, she pictured Scott in his office in the federal courthouse in downtown Dallas, the silvery sheen of glass windows reflecting the setting sun, the dull noise of traffic echoing below. She could not help but compare their current views: the stale, musty bedroom of an adolescent girl against the dignified office of a man who’d grown up to do exactly as he’d wished. Scott had made it all seem so easy because things were easy for him. Colleen could think of nothing that he had reached for that he had not grasped.
The phone rang a few times, and then Scott answered. “Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m at my parents’，” she said. “My mom said you called.”
“Well, I called our house all morning,” he said. “And then I drove home at lunch, and you weren’t there.”
“Can you call me back?” she asked.
“Call you back?”
“This is long-distance,” she said. “From my parents’ house. Can you call me back?”
“Yeah,” he said. She heard him sigh.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “You’re the one who called here. I’m just calling you back.”
“No, I will,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. She hung up.
She realized her heart was racing, her blood pounding in her ears. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking slightly. She closed her fingers over the phone, waiting for it to ring. And then it did.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Scott said.
“Hello?” her mother’s voice said. Colleen could hear her from the kitchen phone as her voice snaked its way up the stairs. “Scott?”
“Hey, Marie,” Scott said. “I was just calling Colleen back.”
“Mom, I’ve got it,” Colleen said. The heat in her body broke toward a cold, sweaty frustration.
“Okay,” her mother said. “Okay,” she said again. “I hope everything’s okay.”
“It is,” Scott said. “Thanks.”
“Okay,” her mother said again. “Bye.”
“Bye,” Scott said, but Colleen’s mother hung on, waiting a beat for someone else to speak before relinquishing her role in their lives.
“Okay,” she said.
“Mom,” Colleen said, “I’ve got it. Please.” She heard the phone hang up. “Jesus,” she whispered.
“How’s it being back home?” Scott asked.
“About how it sounds,” Colleen said. “I literally just walked in the door.”
“When did you decide to do this?” he asked. “I called home and couldn’t get you, and then I drove all the way there at lunch, and you weren’t there. It scared me,” he said again.
“Sorry to put you out.”
“You’re not—” But he stopped. “Colleen, listen.” He pulled the receiver away from his mouth and spoke to someone else in the room. Okay, he said, his voice muffled by a hand he must have placed over the receiver. Okay. Thanks. Colleen pictured a flustered secretary or a young clerk standing at Scott’s door, a handful of papers for him to sign. Or maybe it was a seasoned attorney who Scott was anxious to impress, who was perhaps already frustrated that Scott had taken the time to drive home to check on his still-mourning wife.