Seed on the Wind

After she quit her job, in October, she was amazed at the rapidity of the flight of time. She had supposed that with nothing to do the days would hang heavy on her hands, and she was afraid of them; she didn’t at all relish the prospect of so much time to sit and think when thinking offered no solution to the questions she had to answer. Insofar as she decided anything at all, she decided that the questions would have to answer themselves. Fate, or Pete, or the will of heaven, no matter what, had put the seed of a baby in her, and in the course of time it would be ready to come out. So much for that. Cecelia’s complicated plans seemed to her ridiculous and fantastic. None of them altered in the slightest degree the essential fact that the baby was there, and would soon be here. What to do then, when it actually was here, a living breathing kicking baby out of her own insides — well, that question too would apparently have to answer itself; certainly there seemed to be no answer handy at the moment. There was indeed one practical preparation that might be made, and Lora did not overlook it. It made her feel silly, and it seemed grotesquely unreal, but she visited the infants’ wear departments of the large uptown stores and acquired a complete wardrobe. Some few garments she made herself, sewing them delicately and laboriously by hand.

Cecelia was both moved and amused. “I’ve never understood how you can do that until you know how big it’s going to be,” she declared.

“Oh, they’re all about the same size,” said Lora, as one who should know.

To her surprise the time flew by. She seemed never to have got much of anything done — a little sewing, a walk down to the park and back, a trip uptown with Cecelia, a book read — in particular one called Before the Baby Comes which Cecelia brought her one day after having lectured her for not getting advice from a doctor — and the only tasks that immediately confronted her were inconsequential, just as good for tomorrow as for today — but it was amazing how quickly each Sunday came with Monday hardly out of sight yet and the new one waiting only upon the morrow’s awakening. She had quit her job four weeks ago — no, five — no, great heavens, six! She must count up again. It would be soon now, so soon it was no longer months, only weeks, and before she knew it would be days.

The calendar computation was verified by the evidence of her body. It was no longer merely swelling, it was positively a balloon; as Cecelia said, she stuck out like a sheet on a clothesline with the wind puffing it out until you expected it to pop. Of an evening Lora would lie on the couch, reading, and all of a sudden would call out, “Quick, Cece, come!” Cecelia would bounce out of her chair and run over and put her hand flat on the balloon, her eyes gleaming expectantly, and after a moment would say in a voice trembling with excitement, “I felt it! Just as plain! My god, it’s strong!”

“Sure,” Lora would nod complacently.

For one thing she was grateful: her body no longer yearned for Pete. The first month after his departure had been misery, plain physical misery. It might be felt at any time of day, on her stool at the switchboard, at home in the evening trying to read, at the movies, where she went frequently in desperation, but it was worst at night in bed. Whether with Cecelia or alone — on those occasions when Cecelia had at bedtime not yet returned from a party or the theatre — made no difference; she would squirm and turn and toss endlessly, she simply couldn’t help it. Her loins and limbs and all the inside of her were miserable with loneliness; time and again she would get into a half sleep only to awake with a groan and a start and feel the restlessness and woe swell again throughout her body until she wanted to scream. She dreamt of him by day and night, but never did she see his face or hear his voice; never indeed did she see him properly at all, but felt him with an acute and startling vividness. She talked in her sleep, Cecelia said; during all this period Cecelia had a good deal to say. Often after Lora had tossed and turned sleeplessly for an hour or more Cecelia’s tart voice would snap in the darkness:

“Your little playmate certainly taught you bad habits. For god’s sake, can’t you be still?”

Habits, ha, little she knows about it, Lora would think, not bothering to reply. Sometimes she would crawl out of bed and go to the front room and smoke cigarettes until Cecelia had had time to go to sleep.