Seed on the Wind

The two last Sundays in June they took trips to the lake shore, north of the city, a short journey by train to a spot where two or three dilapidated huts stood isolated on a sandy strip of beach. The huts were abandoned and Pete said he had never seen any sign of life around them; he had discovered the place by accident, the preceding summer on a walking trip. They took their lunch and ate on the sand in the sun, and Lora found that and the swimming delightful; but what she liked most about it was the hour after lunch in his arms on the sand with the sun insolently staring at them, and the cool breeze on her naked thighs as she would lie afterwards not bothering to put her skirt down, learning to breathe again. The breeze caressed her skin as she lay with her head on his shoulder, his arm encircling her and her own arm lying dead across him; his eyes would be open gazing at the sky above, while hers would open and close indifferently and indolently, and she would wonder what he was thinking about without daring or caring enough to ask. Or he would perchance talk, as he did when once the breeze deposited on his cheek a gossamer thread of white, lighter than a feather, with a tiny brown speck at one end. She picked it up and laid it on his lips, and he gave a puff and off it went again.

“Seed on the wind,” he said, gazing after it. “That one’s out of luck, destined for powder in the sand. Or who can tell, if the breeze stiffens a bit it may be lifted far across the lake and finally come to rest against a dirty board fence in a vacant lot in Gary. Ha, it will exclaim triumphantly, I guess this shows what a determined seed can do. Never say die.”

After a while they undressed again and plunged back into the water, laughing and shouting and leaping, and swam out to the little island and clambered up onto its ledge of rock.

But the second time she got a scare. On the train on the way back she was suddenly taken by a cramp in her abdomen that made her bend over double and bite her lip to keep from crying out. Pete, seated beside her, put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to look at her face.

“My god, you’re as white as a sheet,” he said, startled, “we’d better get off at the next stop and do something.”

“It’s nothing,” she gasped, “I’ll be all right in a minute.”

And in fact she was. Before they reached Chicago the pain was entirely gone, and she decided that it was merely that she had gone in the cold water too soon after eating. But she had been thoroughly frightened, and for days afterwards, when alone, she would put her hand on her belly and rub it softly, with a thoughtful and questioning look in her eyes.

Then something else came to drive that out of her head: the day of Pete’s departure for Canada was definitely set, July twelfth. He was really going. Originally he had meant to leave sooner, almost immediately after commencement, but there had been no specific date for it. Now it was different, you could count it up — just six more days! July twelfth. Five days after that, according to the doctor, she would know about the other business beyond all peradventure — though for that matter she knew that already, it was accepted. With Pete gone too — well, she thought, this is going to be altogether a little more than I bargained for — I don’t know, I really don’t know...

The Sunday before his departure they went again to the beach with the abandoned huts. Lora, afraid to go in, sat on the sand and watched him swimming, floating, diving, hurling taunts at her for clinging to an outworn superstition. The sun made her drowsy and sluggish so that even the thought, this is the last time we shall come here, induced only a dull and vague sadness, nearer to pleasure than to pain. When they left though she cast a lingering glance backward at the spot on the sand in front of one of the huts where she had lain in his arms, under the staring sun; and on the train on their way home she broke a long silence — Pete hated to talk on trains — by suddenly laying a hand on his arm and saying to him:

“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I’ve just got to. I’m going to have a baby.”

He replied at once, “I know it.”

She was amazed. “You know it!”

“Sure,” he said. “I knew it a week ago. Your breasts show it. It’s hard to see, but I was curious, and I looked at them carefully with my scientific eye. I’ve seen them that way before, had it all carefully explained — I tell you, education owes a lot to exhibitionism. There have been other indications, of course, the boomerang tendency of your breakfasts, the hiatus in your tidal schedules...”

“Oh,” said Lora. Her voice wanted to tremble, and that made her furious. But it was simply impossible to say anything else; all she could do was repeat it, “Oh.”

“I thought if you didn’t mention it there was no occasion for me to,” Pete explained. “I can’t do anything anyway; what it takes is money. It can be done as cheap as fifty dollars, but you get a much better job for a hundred. Do you know a doctor?”