Bishop's Road by Catherine Hogan Safer Page B

we’re ever going to have a baby.” She stopped crying and they bought a few bonsai trees and a Great Dane. For the next seven years they lived happily enough. They bought more bonsai trees and another Great Dane. In the evenings they would walk the dogs and chat about their days. They invested wisely and dreamed of early retirement and trips to exotic places. They bought books about Cuba and the Galapagos, Egypt and South America. They began to tell people that they never wanted children anyway. There were so many other things to do with one’s life.
    Mrs. Eldridge was a good four months pregnant before she noticed anything amiss. Her skirts were tight. Her bras were not as comfortable as they had been and they were the expensive ones too. For years she hadn’t noticed her cycle at all. When she couldn’t remember her last period, she went to see her doctor. She told Mr. Eldridge the news and he smiled which made her very angry indeed.
    â€œDo you think?” she said, “that I’m going to be dragging a youngster to kindergarten when I’m fifty? That’s what I’ll be, you know, fifty years old. I could be a grandmother by now for God’s sake. There’s no way I want a baby at this stage of the game. I’ll have an abortion, there’s no more to it than that.”
    Mr. Eldridge was not happy with her decision but there was little he could do about it. Her mind was made up. The doctor had other ideas. “You’re too far along for an abortion. It’s against the law to have one now. You’ll have to have the baby.” And so she did. Gained the appropriate amount of weight and not an ounce more. Bought baby clothes and furnished a nursery. Worked right up to the last minute of her pregnancy and was backat it as soon as she delivered. She told Mr. Eldridge that since he was the only one interested in having a child around, he could look after it himself.
    He named the baby Margaret for his favorite sister who had died. He doted on her but only when Mrs. Eldridge wasn’t looking - which was quite often when she was given a promotion at work and usually came home late after that. He and the old dogs would walk with the baby every evening. He held her in his arms until she was big enough to sit in a carrier on his back. When she learned to toddle they went ever so slowly, at her pace, he holding her little hand and bending over as far as he could to hear her every word. He fired babysitters as fast as he hired them, rushing home from the office more than once if he sensed the slightest anxiety in her voice during his daily phone calls. He took her to school, joined the PTA, volunteered to haul kids to field trips, signed her report cards and helped her with her homework. He was a dear dad.
    Life was grand until Margaret was fifteen and her father developed heart trouble. Surgery was scheduled and during his recovery the world came to an end. Margaret sat by his bed and held his hand until her mother shooed her away. The time for having fun, just Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge, had come and gone and the only one who had gained anything from it was Margaret. Jealousy reared its head and Margaret’s mother devoted her days to destruction. She picked and picked and nagged and bitched until Margaret could take no more. Retaliation came in the form of drugs and boys - the ones who like to play with lonely girls.
    In a one-hour session, Mrs. Eldridge convinced a psychiatrist that the only recourse was to have Margaret committed to a private mental institution, the kind where bad kids go to straighten out when there’s nothing else to be done. They came for her in the middle of the night and dragged her, kicking and screaming for her father, into the dark. Strapped down and terrified, druggedand finally oblivious to life, she sat still for the next six years. Until the insurance ran out. Until the final diagnosis that this young woman was never going anywhere again,