Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  Sometimes, deep down inside, Maggie blamed herself too. She saw now that there was a single theme to every decision she had made as a parent: The mere fact that her children were children, condemned for years to feel powerless and bewildered and confined, filled her with such pity that to add any further hardship to their lives seemed unthinkable. She could excuse anything in them, forgive them everything. She would have made a better mother, perhaps, if she hadn't remembered so well how it felt to be a child.

  She dreamed that Jesse was dead-that in fact he had died years ago, back when he was still a sunny, prankish little boy, and she had somehow failed to realize it. She dreamed she was sobbing uncontrollably; there was no way to survive such a loss. Then she saw in the crowd on deck (for she was taking a boat trip, all at once) a child who resembled Jesse, standing with his parents, whom she had never seen before. He glanced over at her and looked quickly away, but she could tell that he thought she seemed familiar. She smiled at him. He glanced at her again and 'then looked away again. She edged a few inches closer, meanwhile pretending to study the horizon. He had come back to life in another family; that was how she explained it to herself. He wasn't hers now, but never mind, she would start over. She would win him to her side. She felt his eyes alight on her once more and she sensed how puzzled he was, half remembering her and half not; and she knew it meant that underneath, he and she would always love each other.

  Now, at this point Daisy was nine years old, or just about to turn nine-enough of a child still, you would think, to keep Maggie fully occupied. But the fact was that at that very moment, Daisy took it into her head to start growing away too. She had always been a bit precocious. In her infancy Ira had called her Lady-Baby, because she was so mature and reserved, her small face a knot of opinion. At thirteen months she had undertaken her own toilet training. In first grade she had set her alarm for an hour earlier than anyone else in the household and slipped downstairs each morning to sort through the laundered clothes for a proper outfit. (She could iron better than Maggie even then, and liked to look neat as a pin and color-coordinated.) And now she seemed to have leapt ahead to that stage where the outside world took precedence over family. She had four very serious, like-minded friends, including one, Lavinia Murphy, whose mother was perfect. Perfect Mrs. Murphy headed the PTA and the Bake Sale and (since she didn't work) was free to drive the little girls to every kind of cultural event, and she hosted wonderful slumber parties, with treasure hunts. The spring of ', Daisy practically lived with the Mur-phys. Maggie would come home from work and call, "Daisy?" but all she found was a silent house and a note on the front-hall bookshelf.

  Then one afternoon the house wasn't silent after all but murmury and conspiratorial, she could sense it the moment she entered, and upstairs, Jesse's bedroom door was closed. She knocked. After a startled pause, Jesse called, "Just a second." She heard rustles and whispers. When he came out he had a girl in tow. Her long blond hair was rumpled and her lips had a bruised look. She sidled past Maggie with her eyes downcast and descended the stairs behind Jesse. Maggie heard the front door open; she heard Jesse saying goodbye in a low voice. As soon as he came back upstairs (unashamedly heading straight to Maggie), she told him that the mother of that girl, whoever she was, would be horrified to know her daughter had been alone with a boy in his bedroom. Jesse said, "Oh, no, her mom lives in Pennsylvania somewhere. Fiona stays with her sister, and her sister doesn't mind." "Well, I do," Maggie said.

  Jesse didn't argue with that, and the girl stopped coming around. Or at least she was out of sight when Maggie returned from work each day. Though Maggie had a feeling; she picked up certain clues. She noticed that Jesse was gone more than ever, that he returned abstracted, that his brief spells at home were marked by long private conversations on the upstairs telephone and it was always the same girl's voice-soft and questioning-when Maggie happened to lift the receiver.

  He found a job in an envelope factory, finally, something to do with shipping, and started looking for an apartment. The only trouble was, the rents were so high and his paycheck was so puny. Good, Ira said. Now maybe he would have to face a few hard facts. Maggie wished Ira would just shut up. "Don't worry," she told Jesse. "Something will come along." That was toward the end of June. In July he was still living at home. And one Wednesday evening in August, he caught Maggie alone in the kitchen and informed her, very calmly and directly, that he seemed to have got this girl he knew in trouble.

  The air in the room grew oddly still. Maggie wiped her hands on her apron.

  She said, "Is it that Fiona person?" He nodded.

  "So now what?" Maggie asked. She was as cool as he was; she surprised herself. This seemed to be happening to someone else. Or maybe she had expected it without knowing. Maybe it was something that had been heading their way all along, like a glacier bearing down on them.

  "Well," Jesse said, "that's what I needed to discuss with you. I mean, what I want and what she wants are two different things." "What is it you want?" Maggie asked, thinking she knew.

  "I want her to keep the baby." For a moment, that didn't register. Even the word itself-"baby"-seemed incongruous on Jesse's lips. It seemed almost, in an awful way, cute.

  She said, "Keep it?" "I thought I'd start hunting an apartment for the three of us." "You mean get married?" "Right." "But you're not even eighteen years old," Maggie said. "And I bet the girl isn't, either. You're too young." "My birthday's in two weeks, Ma, and Fiona's is not long after. And she doesn't like school anyway; half the time she skips class and hangs out with me instead. Besides, I've always looked forward to having a kid. It's exactly what I've been needing: something of my own." "Something of your own?" "I'll just have to find a better-paying job, is all." "Jesse, you've got a whole family of your own! What are you talking about?" "But it's not the same," Jesse said. "I've just never felt ... I don't know. So anyhow, I've been looking for a job that pays more money. See, a baby takes a lot of equipment and such. I've written down a list from Dr. Spock." Maggie stared at him. The only question she could come up with was: "Where on earth did you get hold of a Dr. Spock?" "At the bookstore; where else?" "You went into a bookstore and bought a baby-care book?" "Sure." That seemed the biggest surprise of all. She couldn't picture it.

  "I've learned a lot," he told her. "I think Fiona ought ta breast-feed." "Jesse-" "I found these plans in Home Hobby Journal for building a cradle." "Honey, you don't know how hard it is. You're children yourselves! You can't take on a baby." "I'm asking you, Ma. I'm serious," Jesse said. And he did have that sharply etched look to his lips that he always got when he felt strongly about something.

  "But just what are you asking me?" Maggie said.

  "I want you to go and talk to Fiona." "What? Talk about what?" "Tell her you think she should keep it." "You mean she wants to put it up for adoption," Maggie said. "Or else . . . um . . . stop the pregnancy." "Well, that's what she says, but-" "Which?" Maggie asked.

  "The second thing." "Ah." "But she doesn't really want that. I know she doesn't," he said. "It's just that she's so stubborn. She expects the worst of me, seems like. She takes it for granted I'm going to, like, ditch her or something. Well, first off, she didn't even tell me about it-can you believe it? Hid it from me! Went through weeks of worrying and never breathed a hint of it even though she saw me every day, near about. And then when the test came out positive, what does she do? Asks me for the money to get rid of the babv. I sav. 'Huh? To do what? Now. hold on a sec.' I tell her. 'Aren't you skipping over a few of the usual steps here? Whatever happened to "What do you.think, Jesse?" and "Which decision are we two going to settle on?" Aren't you going to offer me a chance?' I ask her. She says, 'Chance for what?' 'Well, what about marriage?' I ask her. 'What about me taking on my proper responsibilities, for God's sake?' She says, 'Don't do me any favors, Jesse Moran.' I say, 'Favors? You're talking about my son, here.' She says, 'Oh, I have no illusions'- that is how she talks when she gets on her high horse. 'I have no illusions,' sh
e says. 'I knew what you were when I first laid eyes on you. Footloose and fancy-free,' she says, 'lead singer in a hard-rock band. You don't have to explain yourself to me.' I felt I'd been, like, stenciled or something. I mean where did she get this picture of me? Not from anything that happened in real life, I can tell you. So I say, 'No, I will not give you the money; no, sir, no way,' and she says, 'I might have known to expect that'-purposely misunderstanding. I hate when people do that, purposely acting so wronged and martyred. 'I might have figured,' she says, 'that I couldn't count on you for the simplest little abortion fee.' Says the word right out, kind of like she cracked the air with it; I honestly couldn't speak for a second. I say, 'Goddammit, Fiona-' and she says, 'Oh, fine, great, just cuss at me too on top of everything else,' and I say-" "Jesse. Honey," Maggie said. She rubbed her left temple. She had a sense that she was losing track of some important thread here. "I really think that if Fiona has made up her mind-" she said.

  "She's got an appointment the first thing Monday morning, at this clinic over on Whitside Avenue. Monday is her sister's day off; her sister's going with her. See there? She doesn't invite me to go with her. And I have talked to her till I'm blue in the face. There's nothing more I can say. So here's what I'm asking: You be the one. You go to the clinic'and stop her." "Me?" "You always get along so well with my girlfriends. You can do it; I know you can. Tell her about my job. I'm quitting at the envelope factory. I've applied at this computer store, where they'll train me to fix computers, pay me while I'm learning. They said I have a good chance of getting hired. And also Dave in the band, his mother owns a house in Waverly near the stadium and the whole top floor's an apartment that'll be vacant by November, cheap as dirt, Dave says, with a little room for the baby. You're supposed to let the baby sleep in a separate room from its parents; I've been reading up on that. You'd be amazed how much I know! I've decided I'm for pacifiers. Some people don't like the looks of them, but if you give a baby a pacifier he won't suck his thumb later on. Also, it is absolutely not true that pacifiers push their front teeth out of line." He hadn't talked so much in months, but the sad part was that the more he talked, the younger he seemed. His hair was tangled where he'd run his fingers through it, and his body was all sharp angles as he tore around the kitchen. Maggie said, "Jesse, honey, I know you're going to make a wonderful father someday, but the fact of the matter is, this really has to be the girl's decision. It's the girl who has to go through the pregnancy." "Not alone, though. I would support her. I would comfort her. I would take care of her. I want to do this, Ma." She didn't know what more to say, and Jesse must have realized that. He stopped his pacing. He stood squarely in front of her. He said, "Look. You're my only hope. All I'm asking is, you let her know how I feel. Then she can decide whichever way she likes. What could be the harm in that?" "But why can't you let her know how you feel?" Maggie said.

  "Don't you think I've tried? I've talked till I'm blue in the face. But everything I say seems to come out wrong. She takes offense, I take offense; we just get all tangled in knots, somehow. By now we're used up. We're worn down into the ground." Well, she certainly knew what that felt like.

  "Couldn't you just consider it?" he asked.

  She tilted her head.

  "Just consider the possibility?" "Oh," she said, "the possibility, maybe . . ." He said, "Yes! That's all I'm asking! Thanks, Ma. Thanks a million." "But, Jesse-" "And you won't tell Dad yet, will you?" "Well, not for the time being," she said lamely.

  "You can picture what he would say," he said.

  Then he gave her one of his quick hugs, and he was gone.

  For the next few days she felt troubled, indecisive. Examples came to mind of Jesse's fickleness-how (like most boys his age) he kept moving on to new stages and new enthusiasms, leaving the old ones behind. You couldn't leave a wife and baby behind! But then other pictures came too: for instance, the year they'd all got the flu except for Jesse, and he had had to take care of them. She had glimpsed him blurrily through a haze of fever; he had sat on the edge of the bed and fed her a bowl of chicken soup, spoonful by spoonful, and when she fell asleep between swallows he had waited without complaint until she jerked awake, and then he fed her another spoonful.

  "You haven't forgotten, have you?" Jesse asked now whenever he met up with her. And, "You won't go back on vour promise, will you?" "No, no . , ." she would say. And then, "What promise?" What had she let herself hi for, exactly? He tucked a slip of paper into her palm one evening-an address on Whitside Avenue. The clinic, she supposed. She dropped it in her skirt pocket. She said, "Now you realize I can't-" But Jesse had already evaporated, dexterous as a cat burglar.

  Ira was in a good mood those days, because he'd heard about the computer job. It had come through, as Jesse had foreseen, and he was due to start training in September. "This is more like it," Ira told Maggie. "This is something with a future. And who knows? Maybe after a bit he'll decide to go back to school. I'm sure they'll want him to finish school before they promote him." Maggie was quiet, thinking.

  She had to work on Saturday, so that kept her mind off things, but Sunday she sat a long time on the porch. It was a golden hot day and everyone seemed to be out walking infants. Carriages and strollers wheeled past, and men lunged by with babies in backpacks. Maggie wondered if a backpack was one of the pieces of equipment Jesse considered essential. She would bet it was. She cocked her head toward the house, listening. Ira was watching a ball game on TV and Daisy was away at Mrs. Perfect's. Jesse was still asleep, having come in late from playing at a dance in Howard County. She'd heard him climb the stairs a little after three, singing underneath his breath. Girlie if I could I would put you on defrost , . .

  "Music is so different now," she had said to Jesse once. "It used to be 'Love Me Forever" and now it's 'Help Me Make It Through the Night.' " "Aw, Ma," he had said, "don't you get it? In the old days they just hid it better. It was always 'Help Me Make It Through the Night.' " A line came to her from a song that was popular back when Jesse was a little boy. / must think of a way, it went, tactfully, tentatively, into your heart . . .

  When Jesse was a little boy he liked to tell her stories while she cooked; he seemed to believe she needed entertaining. "Once there was a lady who never fed her children anything but doughnuts," he might begin, or, "Once there was a man who lived on top of a Ferris wheel." All of his stories were whimsical and inventive, and now that she considered, she saw that they had had in common the theme of joyousness, of the triumph of sheer fun over practicality. He strung one particular story out for weeks, something about a retarded father who bought an electric organ with the grocery money. The retarded part came from his aunt Dome, she supposed. But the way he told it, the father's handicap was a kind of virtue. The father said, "What do we need food for anyhow? I like better for my children to hear nice music." Maggie laughed when she repeated the story to Ira, but Ira hadn't seen the humor. He took offense first on Dome's account (he didn't like the word "retarded") and then on his own. Why was it the father who was retarded? Why not the mother, was probably what he meant-much more realistic, given Maggie's shortcomings. Or maybe he didn't mean that at all, but Maggie imagined he did, and it developed into a quarrel.

  They had quarreled over Jesse ever since he was born, it seemed now, always taking the same stances. Ira criticized, Maggie excused. Ira claimed that Jesse wouldn't keep a civil tongue in his head, refused *o wipe that obstinate expression off his face, acted hopelessly inept when helping out at the shop. He just had to come into his own, Maggie said. For some it took longer than for others. "Decades longer?" Ira asked. She said, "Have a little patience, Ira." (A switch. Ira was the one with the patience. Maggie was the rusher-in.) How was it that she had never realized the power of the young back when she was young herself? She saw it now as a missed opportunity. In her girlhood she'd been so easily cowed; she hadn't dreamed that children were capable of setting up such storms in a family.

  She and Ira tried to keep their own storms
private, but no doubt Jesse overheard at least a little. Or maybe he just sensed how they felt; for more and more, as he entered his teens, it was to Maggie that he offered his few crumbs of conversation, while he grew steadily more distant from Ira. By the time he told her about the baby, Maggie felt fairly distant from Ira herself. They'd been through too many arguments, rehashed the subject of Jesse too many thousand times. It wasn't merely her promise that kept Maggie from telling Ira about the baby; it was battle fatigue. Ira would hit the roof! And rightly so, of course.

  But she thought of how Jesse had nudged her lips with the soup spoon, coaxing her to eat. Sometimes, at the height of her fever, she had wakened to hear thin, sad, faraway music emerging from the earphones on his head, and she had been convinced that they were the sounds of his innermost thoughts made clear to her at long last.

  Monday morning she went to work as usual at seven but begged off sick at a quarter till nine and drove to Whitside Avenue. The clinic was a remodeled store of some kind, with a curtained plate-glass window. She spotted it first not by its street number but by the knot of picketers outside. There were three women, several children, and a small, dapper man. THIS CLINIC MURDERS THE INNOCENT, one sign said, and another showed a blown-up photo of a beautiful smiling baby with GIVE HER A CHANCE printed in white across her mop of black curls. Maggie parked in front of an insurance agency next door. The picketers glanced over at her and then went back to watching the clinic.

  A car drew up and a girl in jeans got out, followed by a young boy. The girl bent to say something to the driver, after which she waved and the car moved on. The couple walked briskly toward the clinic, while the picketers swarmed around them. "God sees what you're about to do!" one woman called, and another blocked the girl's path, but she veered away. "Where is your conscience?" the man shouted after her. She and the boy vanished behind the door. The picketers straggled back to their places. They were discussing something heatedly; they appeared to be disagreeing. Maggie had the impression that some of them felt they should have been more forceful.