One Hundred Sixty Beats

Dess

"I'm going to need you to stop vibrating," said Joelle.

"I'm not vibrating."

"You are making the chair vibrate. I can feel it in my spine." Joelle did not look up from her phone. She sat in the waiting room of the Women's Health Pavilion at St. Brendan's with one clog propped on the opposite knee and a cup of vending-machine tea balanced on her thigh, a picture of calm professional repose, except that her foot was jiggling twice as fast as Dess's. "Breathe. You have a full bladder and a heartbeat, and you should be proud of both."

"It's hard to be proud of a full bladder."

"Then be proud of the heartbeat."

"We don't know there's a heartbeat yet."

"We know there's going to be a heartbeat. I've been looking at your face for ten weeks, and you're lit up like a Christmas tree on a ship. That's a woman with a heartbeat in her." Joelle finally set the phone down. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Do not ask me that."

"I'm asking."

"I have a list."

"Of course you have a list."

"It's short. It's ranked by probability." Dess pressed her knees together. The paper gown was folded on her lap with a white sheet on top, and the fluorescent light buzzed over the poster of a cross-sectioned uterus, and every muscle in her body was making a slightly different argument about whether she should run. "One, there's nothing there. Two, there's something there and it's not what it should be. Three, there's something there and it's fine, and I fall in love with it, and then I spend the next eight months waiting for the other shoe. Which, you know, is the one I'm best at."

Joelle was silent for a moment. Then she reached over and took Dess's hand and held it between both of hers, and the gold bangle on her wrist clinked against the arm of the chair.

"Listen to me," she said. "I deliver babies. Four, five a night, in a good week. You know what I've learned?"

"That a woman in labor will say anything about her husband?"

"That too. But mostly, that the ones who come in terrified are the ones who are paying attention. The ones who stroll in with a latte and a birth plan printed on cardstock, those are the ones who fall apart. Worry is just love with its shoes on." She squeezed. "You can be scared and fine. They aren't opposites."

"That was good."

"I know. I stole it from a poster in the break room."

"Odessa Rourke?"

The door to the exam wing had opened. A tall young technician in lavender scrubs stood there, holding a tablet, with a lanyard that read DENISE and a smile the size of a small continent.

"That's me," said Dess.

"Come on back, hon. You can bring your friend."

"I'm bringing my friend," said Dess, and Joelle, who was already on her feet, said "Obviously," in a tone of faint outrage, as if there had been any alternative.

…

The room was dim and cool and smelled of gel and warm plastic. A screen hung on a bracket above the table, black as a night window, and the machine beside it gave a small contented hum, like a refrigerator in a cabin. Denise showed her where to lie down. The paper crackled. Dess stared at the ceiling tiles, one of which had a stain shaped faintly like a rabbit, and counted them: twelve in the row.

"Okay, Mama," said Denise. "You're going to feel some pressure."

"That's what everyone says."

"It's because it's true. Lie back. Deep breath. And—"

A cold touch. A slow press. Dess shut her eyes.

For a long moment, nothing.

She heard the click of a keyboard, and the soft rubbing of the probe, and, from the corner, Joelle's chair creaking as she leaned forward. She heard her own pulse, slow and loud in her ears, and the machine humming, and a sound, very faint, from somewhere outside the room, of a child laughing in a hallway.

Nothing, she thought. There's nothing. You knew. You made a list. You knew—

"Aha," said Denise.

Dess opened her eyes.

The screen had come alive. It was a murky gray-black field, grainy as an old movie, with a curved white arc at one edge like the rim of a bowl. In the center of the field, floating in its own soft darkness, lay a small, pale, bean-shaped shape.

"There she is," said Denise. "Or he. Or they. I never guess. Look at that. Beautiful little yolk sac. Nice round gestational sac. Measuring right on schedule, ten weeks, two days." She tapped something. "And here—"

A tiny flicker.

At the center of the bean, a point of light. It blinked, and blinked, and blinked, a speck of white, a pulse of cold fire in a gray sea.

"That's the heartbeat," said Denise.

Dess didn't move.

"Let me turn on the sound."

There was a click.

Out of the speaker came a noise like a galloping horse heard from a long way off, soft and fast and wet, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, relentless, wonderful, a drum solo performed by someone no bigger than a raspberry. It filled the dark room. It went on and on.

"One hundred sixty-two beats a minute," said Denise, smiling. "Perfect. That's exactly what we want."

Dess made a noise.

It wasn't a word. It wasn't a laugh. It came out of her like air from a punctured tire, and she put one hand over her mouth and found, to her astonishment, that her whole face was wet, her eyes, her cheeks, the hair at her temples, tears running into her ears and onto the paper. She wasn't sobbing. She wasn't doing anything. They were simply coming, one after another, as though some valve she'd kept closed for three years had been quietly opened.

"Oh, Dess," said Joelle.

"I'm fine."

"I know you are."

"It's fast."

"It's supposed to be fast. They're all fast." Joelle was crying too now, silently, one hand pressed flat against her sternum, her mascara in a state of catastrophe. "It's a little train, honey. It's a little train and it's headed straight for you."

"I want—" Dess's voice broke. "I want to say something, and I don't know what."

"Say hello," said Denise gently.

Dess looked at the screen. The tiny pale bean. The flickering point of light. The impossible, galloping sound.

"Hello," she said, in a whisper. "Hi. It's me. It's your—" She hiccuped. "It's Dess. I'm the one with the green sweater. I'm the one who's going to be doing most of the worrying. I just wanted to say. You sound great. You sound really great. Keep doing that."

Denise made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a sniffle.

"I'll print you a picture," she said. "Two copies. One for the fridge, one for the wallet. Unless you want three."

"Three," said Dess and Joelle, in perfect unison.

…

She held the pictures in the elevator. They were small, curling, shiny black-and-white squares, and on each one a white arrow pointed to a smudge, and the smudge was a person.

"Look at that nose," said Joelle.

"It doesn't have a nose. It has a bean."

"It's going to have your nose. I can tell. It's a very determined bean."

"It has no face!"

"Yet. It will. And it'll be a very opinionated one." Joelle linked an arm through hers as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby. "Dr. Pratt said everything looks wonderful. Dr. Pratt said, and I quote, 'Textbook.' She has never in her life said 'textbook.' You know what that means? That's the Pratt equivalent of a standing ovation."

"She also said I'm not supposed to lift anything over twenty pounds."

"So we'll buy you a smaller purse."

"I have a smaller purse. I have a wallet."

"You have a briefcase with a thermos and a set of Allen wrenches in it. I've seen it. It's like carrying a mid-sized hardware store." They crossed the atrium, past the gift shop with its balloons and bears, and out through the automatic doors into a cold bright November noon. The wind off the river smelled of salt and wet leaves and diesel. "I've got to go back up. I'm covering for Marcy till two. Are you okay to go to work?"

"I'm okay."

"Eat something."

"I will."

"A real something. With protein. Not a granola bar."

"I will eat a real something, Jo."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Joelle kissed her on the cheek, hard, and went back in, with her clogs squeaking on the tile. Dess stood on the pavement with the pictures pressed to her chest and her eyes still wet, feeling like a glass of water that had been filled too full.

One sixty-two, she thought. She'd always thought of her own heart as a rather mournful, accurate instrument, a thing for counting. It had never occurred to her that she might one day carry another one around, running at double speed, in the dark.

She took out her phone. She typed a message to her mother: First ultrasound. Perfect. Heartbeat 162. I'm sending you the picture. She attached it and hit send. Then she stood for a moment looking at the small black arrow on the screen, and laughed, and wiped her nose on the back of her glove.

She didn't see the black SUV at the far end of the lot, parked in a no-stopping zone with its engine running.

…

"I'm just saying," said Gabe, "that if you're going to keep me in the dark about whatever this is, you could at least tell me what to order."

"I'm not keeping you in the dark."

"You've been to the doctor four times in three weeks. You've been eating crackers like a deer at a salt lick. You nearly cried over the copier."

"The copier was broken."

"The copier has been broken since 2019. You cried because the sticker on it said Please Be Patient With Me." Gabe pulled out her chair at the little corner table at Tidewater Coffee, with a flourish, like a waiter in a bad movie. "Sit. I'm getting you a grilled cheese with the tomato soup, because it's the least offensive thing on the menu and because I've read that pregnant people can only eat beige."

Dess dropped into the chair.

"I haven't said I'm pregnant."

"I haven't asked."

"You said pregnant people."

"I said people. You inferred." He grinned down at her, tall and shaggy and ridiculous, in a gray sweater with a hole at the cuff. "I'm going to go and order lunch. When I come back, you can tell me whatever you want, or nothing. I'm fine either way. I'm just telling you the grilled cheese is on me."

"Gabe."

"Mm?"

"Thank you."

He shrugged, with the elaborate carelessness of a man who has been caught doing something good. "It's grilled cheese, Dess. I'm not donating a kidney."

He went to stand in line. She watched him go, across the warm, steamy room, with its mismatched chairs and its chalkboard menu and its barista with the tattooed forearms. He stooped to talk to a toddler in a stroller. He held a door for an old man. He was, she thought, the most straightforwardly decent person she had ever met, and it had never once occurred to her that he might be waiting for something.

Oh, she thought, with a sinking feeling. Oh, no.

He came back with a tray. Soup, two sandwiches, a pot of ginger tea, which she had not asked for. He set the tea down in front of her very carefully, then sat opposite and unwrapped his own sandwich with the intense concentration of a man defusing a bomb.

"I've been meaning to say," he said, to the sandwich, "that there's a thing at the Biltmore. Next month. The company holiday party. It's black tie optional, which means half the department will wear a clip-on and the other half will wear a feather boa. I thought I might go. I thought, if you weren't doing anything, and if it wasn't weird, maybe we could go together. As friends. You don't have to decide now."

Dess put down her spoon.

"Gabe—"

"I know. It's—I know." He still wasn't looking at her. "You've got a lot going on. Whatever it is. And I'm not trying to make it complicated. I just thought it'd be nice. To have someone to dance with who isn't Peg. She dances like she's directing traffic."

Dess found, to her mortification, that she was smiling.

"I'd love to go," she said. "As friends."

His head came up.

"As friends," she repeated, firmly. "Because I think you should know, Gabe, that I'm in a place right now where I can't be anyone's anything. I've got a whole life to build and about eight months to build it in. I'm not—" She struggled for the word. "I'm not available. In the sense that you mean. But I'm incredibly grateful for you, and I would love to dance with someone who doesn't direct traffic."

He considered this. His expression went through three distinct phases: disappointed, rueful, and finally, to her great relief, amused.

"That's the nicest rejection I've ever received," he said.

"It wasn't a rejection!"

"It was a gentle redirection."

"It was a—it was an acceptance of a different thing."

"It was an acceptance of a different thing." He picked up his sandwich. "I'll take it. I'll take it with both hands. I'll even wear the clip-on." He bit into the grilled cheese, chewed, swallowed. "For the record, I wasn't proposing marriage."

"I know."

"Just a waltz."

"Just a waltz."

"With the potential for a really exciting buffet."

"God, the buffet."

"There's going to be a carving station." His eyes crinkled. "I've heard it's a whole ham."

Dess laughed. It was a good laugh, loose and unguarded, and for a moment she felt the particular lightness of a woman who had expected a fight and been handed a sandwich.

Outside the window, across the street, a black SUV sat at the curb with its engine idling.

She noticed it the way you notice a stranger's face on a train: briefly, without alarm. It had tinted windows and Rhode Island plates and a polished look that did not belong to Fox Point. A driver sat behind the wheel, a broad man with a gray beard, reading a newspaper. He seemed to be waiting for someone.

Not for me, thought Dess, and turned back to her soup.

…

It was after six when she got home.

Ives Street at dusk was a canyon of wooden triplexes, three-story gray boxes pressed shoulder to shoulder, with sagging porches and rattling storm windows, and in the half-dark they looked like a row of sleepy elephants. The streetlights had just come on. A radio played somewhere, a Portuguese ballad drifting from an open kitchen window, and the cold smelled of fried onions and woodsmoke and a faint, distant undertone of the sea.

She climbed the steps to her building, the front one, number 13, with its peeling green door and its three buzzers, and fished in her bag for her key. The picture of the bean was still in her coat pocket. She had touched it four times on the bus. She would, she thought, probably wear it out.

It was only when she stooped to put the key in the lock that she saw the envelope.

It was lying on the welcome mat, square against the door, white and crisp against the gray boards. It had not been put through the mail slot. It had been placed, with obvious care, so that it would be the first thing she saw.

She picked it up.

The paper was heavy, cream, expensive, with a deckled edge. There was no stamp. There was no return address. On the front, in a firm upright hand, in black ink, someone had written:

Ms. Rourke.

Dess stood on the porch in the failing light with her bag over her shoulder and her heart doing something it had not done since the ultrasound.

It's a flyer, she told herself. It's for a landscaping company.

It wasn't a flyer.

She opened it carefully, with her thumb. Inside was a single card, thick as a coaster, engraved at the top with three raised words and nothing else.

THERON C. WEXCOMBE

Beneath it, a telephone number. And beneath that, in the same black ink, in the same upright hand, a message:

I owe you an explanation, and you owe me nothing. If you are willing, I would be grateful for twenty minutes of your time, at any place and hour of your choosing. If not, I shall not trouble you again. I am so sorry about the circumstances. —T.W.

The cold seemed to come up through the soles of her shoes.

Wexcombe.

She read it again. Then again. She read it the way she read fraud reports at work, line by line, searching for the false note: the wrong date, the altered signature, the line that had been erased and written over. She turned the card over. The back was blank. She held it to the streetlight and checked the watermark, which was a small, discreet anchor.

The Wexcombe family, said her professional memory, in the dry voice of the database, owns Wexcombe Marine Holdings. Bristol. Yachts. Our largest commercial account.

The Wexcombe family, said another memory, much newer and much colder, lost a son. A young man with a plane in his hand and a wood shaving in his fist.

She knew it, all the same, with the swift terrible certainty of a woman who works in claims and has spent her life listening for the moment when a story stops adding up. The way the boy had died. The way his face had looked at her from the screen. The boat line. The last vial.

Five went out into the world a long time ago, and nobody came back for a sixth.

You've got the last of him. Literally.

Her hands began to shake.

Behind her, across the street, a car door shut.

She turned.

In the blue dusk, at the far curb, beneath the dead streetlamp, stood the black SUV. The driver, the broad man with the gray beard, had gotten out and was standing beside it with his hands at his sides, looking, with great courtesy, at the sidewalk.

In the rear window, a pale shape sat very still.

It was a man. She couldn't see his face. She could see only the dark outline of his shoulders, and the pale oval of a hand, resting on the glass. He didn't wave. He didn't move at all. He simply sat in the back of the car and looked at her across the street, with the patient, unreadable stillness of someone who had been looking for a very long time.

Dess stood on her own porch in the cold with a card in one hand and an ultrasound picture in her pocket.

Then she went inside, and shut the door, and turned the deadbolt, and did not breathe out until she reached the third landing.