Goodbye Without Leaving by Laurie Colwin Page B

of June to avoid the heat.”
    â€œPoor old Gertrude,” Mary said. “She’s always so anxious for everything to be right.”
    â€œPoor old me,” I said. “I’m the thing that’s never right.”
    â€œOh, you’ll do,” Mary said. “William says the first three months are usually lousy.”
    â€œOh, how interesting,” I said. “And how does William know this?”
    â€œHe has three. He and Madeline live in adjoining houses since they have joint custody.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” I said. “Why don’t they just live together?”
    â€œThey don’t live together well and they can’t divorce,” Mary said. “It’s a moral issue—they’re Catholic.”
    â€œOh, I see,” I said.
    Actually, I never did quite see. I never really understood the way in which Mary was Catholic. At college she had gone off to Mass and once in a while she had dragged me along with her. Although I never told her, I stopped going because I could not bear it when she got in line to take communion. At that moment it was glaringly clear to me how different we were. Not only was this experience closed to me, but I could not believe that Mary believed in it. If she did believe in it, a huge and important part of her was totally mysterious to me. I felt I bore this stoically: I could not bring myself to discuss it with her, but it pained me.
    If I said to her, “Do you really believe all that stuff?” she would peer at me over her glasses and say with a quizzical voice, “Just because it’s difficult to believe it is no reason not to.”
    On the subject of my impending baby, Mary said, “It will give your life some structure.”
    â€œStructure? I get up every morning. I go to the foundation. I do my work, do my shopping, come home, make dinner, visit Johnny’s parents, go to his friends’ dinner parties, see my parents. How much more structure do I need, for Christ’s sake?”
    â€œInternal structure,” Mary said. “It’s different.”
    I looked around her stark apartment, once partially mine. Evidence of internal structure was everywhere, from the neat little bed she slept in, to the desk she worked at, to her books about the civil rights movement piled neatly on the floor. Chapters of her dissertation were stacked on various tables and shelves.
    Part of William Hammerklever’s role in her life was to help her with her statistical research. Many an afternoon I had appeared to find them bent over the calculator.
    As I was lying on the couch, figuring out how to break the news of my pregnancy to my mother, I heard a key in the lock and William Hammerklever walked in. He was one of those small men with a handsome, leonine head, a head that seemed meant for a larger man. He had a full mouth, green eyes and curly hair. His hands were strong, large-veined.
    â€œOh, hello, you two,” he said, as if we were little girls. He put his coat in his room and came back and stood behind Mary at her desk.
    Mary was illuminated by her gooseneck desk lamp. From where I lay, she and William looked like figures in a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby. When she looked up at him I saw an expression on her face I had never seen before. Oh, the things I would never know about her!
    She was in thrall to him. He looked down at her and put his hand on her shoulder.
    â€œI think you’ve finally got that data right,” he said to her. It was clear that I was totally superfluous and it was time to go home.

27
    The thing that is never emphasized enough in books on pregnancy is that it takes forty weeks, not nine months. On the other hand, it takes three trimesters of three months each, which equals nine months but does not equal forty weeks. The whole thing was explained to me by my husband, who shoved a hefty book at me and told me to read about the lunar calendar. I was emerging from my