Page 14 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
She knew he’d say that. She always tells him where she goes. As soon as it was out of her mouth – before, even – she knew he’d want to know why she hadn’t told him already. A second later he’d realise it was because she wanted to hold on to the information for a particular time: now. Which meant it was something significant. And that would make him feel tense. She saw it in his jaw. In his brow. She knew all of this would happen but still she chose to wait, because she wanted this story to be hers to tell.
They share most things, but lately – with the most recent miscarriage – Dorothy’s become more conscious of the things they don’t share. Can never share.
‘I wanted to think about what he said,’ she replied, which was also true.
‘And what was that?’ Frederick’s ‘w’ sounds are still ‘v’ sounds.
‘He says there is … help I can get. With pregnancy. In-vitro fertilisation.’
She’d heard about it – ‘test-tube babies’ used to make news. Now they don’t because more and more people are having them, although it had never occurred to Dorothy that she might become one of those people. Because that would mean she’s failed. Doctors had to come in and help her have a baby. Just because it is true – shehasfailed – doesn’t make it sting less.
‘Was ist das?’
She shouldn’t have expected Frederick to know – he doesn’t have a female body, so why would he have any cause to know what in-vitro fertilisation is? But she didn’t want to explain its technicalities. To tell him that something they usually enjoy alone together – such a central part of their relationship – would be broken down to clinical rooms and vials and temperature checks and injections.
‘It’s a medical procedure. They take my eggs, they take your …’ She cleared her throat; they knew each other so well but there were still things she could not say. ‘They put them together in a laboratory to make embryos. Then any embryos that are growing, they put into me.’
He was silent. Thinking. She knew his thinking face.
‘So we have a Frankenstein baby?’ he said sadly.
‘Frederick, no! Frankenstein was made out of parts of other people. The baby would be completely ours.’
‘But it’s not natural,’ he said. ‘A doctor makes our baby. We don’t.’
‘We don’t make babies anyway,’ she snapped. ‘Something is going wrong! I keep losing them!’ Her breathing was ragged. She gripped the handle of the car door.
‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. That’s what he always says. They both know it can’t be true.
‘I think we need to accept that doctors might know better,’ she said, then looked out the window at the trees that were giving way to town dwellings. She was descending from her safe place to the real world.
‘I don’t want you suffering any more.’ His voice was quiet but strong.
‘I wouldn’t suffer!’ she said, but she couldn’t know if that would be true.
Frederick hasn’t said anything since then, not even when they arrived at work, and he hasn’t been looking at her. Not that she’s given him much chance. She’s staying at the desk or greeting people at the door, trying to ignore the pressure building inside her. Her mother tells her that she’s ‘too emotional’. Maybe today it could be true.
Dorothy glances around. There aren’t that many people in the café. She could leave for a little while. Go for a quick walk. She won’t even tell Frederick.
‘Tina,’ she whispers as she moves past the waitress, ‘I need to go out for a little while.’
The teenager’s eyebrows raise in alarm.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Dorothy says, squeezing her arm. ‘Get Frederick to help if you need it.’
She doesn’t wait for a response, and doesn’t turn back as she slips out the half-closed door and almost jogs to the corner. She sees the Kombi van that’s always parked in the same spot, with tie-dyed T-shirts hanging in the window, Greenpeace stickers on the side and the cloying waft of clove cigarettes from the back window. If she walks past, the hippies who live in it will talk to her, like they always do, and she doesn’t want to discuss whale extinction today, so she turns around and goes swiftly past the café in the other direction, feeling ridiculous but also righteous. She can leave if she wants. It’s her business too.
This street has more trees, so she feels calm straightaway. It’s longer and has fewer cars. No one is on the footpath, so she slows, trying to get her breathing to match. She’s breathing too hard; she knows this. If it continues she’ll have one of those turns she used to have as a teenager when she was worried about how she’d go in exams, because she knew she wouldn’t go well yet felt the responsibility of wanting to do well. Being an eldest child, responsibility is Dorothy’s blood type. By her teens she had developed an all-consuming need to always do the right thing. Which meant doing well in exams even though she would never be academic. Fretting about this unsolvable situation made her breathe faster and think slower. At first her mother would chastise her about being too emotional, then rub her back and tell her to breathe slowly. The paradox was confusing yet reassuring – and, now, helpful.
Breathe, Dorothea, breathe, she hears, and obeys.
With her hands on her hips, she lowers her shoulders from their regular location near her ears. She doesn’t so much carry the weight of the world on her shoulders as resist it. Or try to. Then she feels guilty about being so caught up in her own problems. They’re nothing, really, when compared to others’. Even in her own family.
When her sister, Cornelia, was born deaf Dorothy was young enough to not understand the impact it would have on her parents. On her. She thought Cornelia was the cutest thing she’d ever seen and was delighted to have her own living doll to play with. It wasn’t until Cornelia was walking that the directives started.
‘Dorothea, look after your sister. She isn’t like you.’
‘Dorothea, you have to make sure Cornelia doesn’t hurt herself.’
