Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“I heard you,” he mumbled. “I must not have gotten it.”

“Oh,” she said. That stopped her for a while, long enough for Mickelsson to drift back toward sleep. “Shit. I wish you’d gotten it,” she said. Her tone was cranky, as if perhaps she suspected that he had indeed gotten it and had simply failed to open it. “Do you want to know what I wrote you?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. “What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He had his headache back. He let a minute pass, maybe more. She did not repeat what she’d said. She knew pretty well that he’d heard. At last he said, softly, neutrally, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

They both lay unnaturally still.

“Mmm-hmm. I’m really late. Almost three weeks.”

He had a distinct impression that he had reason to know that what she claimed was impossible. How long ago was it that he’d handed her that plastic box of contraceptive pills? But he’d lost all sense of time. The gin, probably. It would make his head hurt more to strain to remember. “Sometimes these things fool you,” he said. His voice let out a hint of the anger he hadn’t earned a right to. “Sometimes just worry can do it.”

“I’m never late. I’m like clockwork.”

He could think of nothing to say, though he moved his hand on her arm, partly in the vague hope of comforting her.

She asked again, “What are we going to do?”

“I realize it’s a stupid question,” he said, almost keeping the annoyance out of his voice, “but why do you say ‘we’?”

“You’re the father,” she said. She spoke, it seemed to him, with crazy conviction, like one of Jessica’s Marxists.

He asked, “Doesn’t that seem to you a slightly strange thing to be sure of, all things considered?”

“But you are,” she said.

“Why me? Why not one of your Fellini freaks? Why not”—he snatched for a name. “Why not Tim?”

“Nobody’d believe that,” she said. “Tim’s a fag.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mickelsson said, offended now. “He’s got a wife and child!”

“OK, maybe he did it once. But Tim likes boys, everybody knows that. Boys and whips and Jesus knows what—anyway, he’s never done it with me.”

“That may be or it may not be—” He lost his train of thought, trying to readjust his image of Tim. She was probably lying, but he was suddenly not sure. It flitted through his mind that the murdered man, Professor Warren, had been, according to Nugent, homosexual, and that Tim had known him. Some faint possibility that he didn’t yet have words for made his skin crawl, and he wished his headache would let up for a minute, allow him to think. “I don’t know about Tim,” he said, “but God knows there have been plenty of others.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “I let you think that, because you seemed to enjoy it, but the truth is I never slept with anyone but you. I was a virgin. I swear to God.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, actually believing her for an instant; then he rolled his head from side to side on the pillow, wondering if all this could be a nightmare, in a minute he’d wake up. “That’s easy to say,” he said, knowing the futility of saying it, but plunging on, “you don’t believe in God.”

“Well, then I swear on my honor.” Abruptly, as if the whole thing had been a joke from the beginning, she laughed.

He got up on one elbow, pain soughing through his head. “What the hell are you saying?” he asked angrily. “What is all this?”

“I’m telling you I’m pregnant and you’re the father and I want you to help me,” she said. No one would have guessed that a moment before she’d been laughing.

“And I’m telling you that’s bullshit.”

“Maybe so, but I bet you’d really hate having to prove it in court.”

“Jesus,” he whispered, and let his head fall back on the pillow like a stone.

Her body was rigid, and she’d drawn away from him a little. “All you ever think about is yourself,” she said with surprising bitterness. “What am I supposed to do? A person has to take care of herself in this world. You say you ‘love’ me. Ha! You think I believe that for a minute? You use me. I’m just meat!” In a moment she’d be crying, sobbing with self-pity. And maybe it was to some extent justified, in fact. How he wished his headache would quit.

“You’re not just meat,” he said. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Then give me the money for an abortion.”

After that, he was silent for so long that she again raised up on her elbow to look at him. He met her eyes, two bright glints in them, reflections of the pale snowy light beyond the window.

He said, “Do you want me to marry you?”

“Jesus,” she said, and turned her head away.

“Do you?” he asked. “I’ll do it, if you want—if my damn divorce comes through. I can push harder, get it into court.”

Donnie shook her head, and he made out that there were tears on her cheeks. “I like you. OK? But you’re old. I mean, I’ve got my whole life to live. I can’t marry you. It would be stupid. You know it would. Your fucking checks bounce.”

“We could deal with that. I’ll work it out.”

“No!” she said, and snapped her face at him, eyes widened. “Just give me the money for an abortion. Period.”

“I don’t really like abortions,” he said. “Why can’t I give you the money to have the kid and put it up for adoption—or raise it, if you want. I’d pay for that too.”

“No, no, no. It hurts, having a baby. Sometimes people actually die. I guess you’re not aware of that.”

“They don’t,” he said, angry but controlling himself, speaking almost gently to persuade her. “At least not often, these days.”

“Why should I chance it? You’re crazy! All men are. If it was you, you’d run and get an abortion just like that. But since it’s not you, it’s just