THREE Saturday, March 13, 1999 (Henry is 35, Clare is 27)

THREE


Saturday, March 13, 1999 (Henry is 35, Clare is 27)

HENRY: Charisse and Gomez have just had their third child, Rosa Evangeline
Gomolinski. We allow a week to pass, then descend on them with presents and food.

Gomez answers the door. Maximilian, three years old, is clinging to his leg, and
hides his face behind Gomez’s knee when we say “Hi Max!” Joseph, more
extroverted at one, races up to Clare babbling “Ba ba ba” and burps loudly as she
picks him up. Gomez rolls his eyes, and Clare laughs, and Joe laughs, and even I have
to laugh at the complete chaos. Their house looks as though a glacier with a Toys “R”
Us store inside it has moved through, leaving pools of Legos and abandoned stuffed
bears.

“Don’t look,” says Gomez. “None of this is real. We’re just testing one of
Charisse’s virtual reality games. We call it ‘Parenthood.’”

“Gomez?” Charisse’s voice floats out of the bedroom. “Is that Clare and Henry?”

We all tromp down the hall and into the bedroom. I catch a glimpse of the kitchen
as we pass. A middle-aged woman is standing at the sink, washing dishes.

Charisse is lying in bed with the baby in her arms. The baby is asleep. She is tiny
and has black hair and a sort of Aztec look about her. Max and Joe are light-haired.
Charisse looks awful (to me. Clare insists later that she looked “wonderful”). She has
gained a lot of weight and looks exhausted and ill. She has had a Caesarean. I sit
down on the chair. Clare and Gomez sit on the bed. Max clambers over to his mother
and snuggles under her free arm. He stares at me and puts his thumb in his mouth. Joe
is sitting on Gomez’s lap.


“She’s beautiful,” says Clare. Charisse smiles. “And you look great.”

“I feel like shit” says Charisse. “But I’m done. We got our girl.” She strokes the

baby’s face, and Rosa yawns and raises one tiny hand. Her eyes are dark slits.

“Rosa Evangeline,” Clare coos to the baby. “That’s so pretty.”

“Gomez wanted to name her Wednesday, but I put my foot down,” says Charisse.

“Well, she was born on a Thursday, anyway” explains Gomez.

“Wanna hold her?” Clare nods, and Charisse carefully hands her daughter into
Clare’s arms.

Seeing Clare with a baby in her arms, the reality of our miscarriages grabs me and
for a moment I feel nauseous. I hope I’m not about to time travel. The feeling retreats
and I am left with the actuality of what we’ve been doing: we have been losing

children. Where are they, these lost children, wandering, hovering around confused?

“Henry, would you like to hold Rosa?” Clare asks me.

I panic. “No,” I say, too emphatically. “I’m not feeling so hot,” I explain. I get up

and walk out of the bedroom, through the kitchen and out the back door. I stand in the
backyard. It is raining lightly. I stand and breathe.

The back door slams. Gomez comes out and stands beside me.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I think so. I was getting claustrophobic in there.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

We stand silently for minutes. I am trying to remember my father holding me
when I was little. All I can remember is playing games with him, running, laughing,
riding around on his shoulders. I realize that Gomez is looking at me, and that tears
are coursing down my cheeks. I wipe my sleeve across my face. Somebody has to say
something.

“Don’t mind me,” I say.

Gomez makes an awkward gesture. “I’ll be right back,” he says, and disappears
into the house. I think he’s gone for good, but he reappears with a lit cigarette in hand.
I sit down on the decrepit picnic table, which is damp with rain and covered with pine

needles. It’s cold out here.

“You guys still trying to have a kid?”

I am startled by this until I realize that Clare probably tells Charisse everything,

and Charisse probably tells Gomez nothing.

“Yeah.”

“Is Clare still upset about that miscarriage?”

“Miscarriages. Plural. We’ve had three.”


“‘To lose one child, Mr. DeTamble, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose three
looks like carelessness.”

“That’s not really all that funny, Gomez.”

“Sorry.” Gomez does look abashed, for once. I don’t want to talk about this. I have
no words to talk about it, and I can barely talk about it with Clare, with Kendrick and
the other doctors at whose feet we’ve laid our sad case. “Sorry,” Gomez repeats.

I stand up. “We’d better go in.”

“Ah, they don’t want us, they want to talk about girl stuff.”

“Mmm. Well, then. How about those Cubs?” I sit down again.

“Shut up.” Neither of us follows baseball. Gomez is pacing back and forth. I wish
he would stop, or, better yet, go inside. “So what’s the problem?” he asks, casually.

“With what? The Cubs? No pitching, I’d say.”

“No, dear Library Boy, not the Cubs. What is the problem that is causing you and

Clare to be sans infants?”

“That is really not any of your business, Gomez.”

He plunges on, unfazed. “Do they even know what the problem is?”

“Fuck off, Gomez”

“Tut, tut. Language. Because I know this great doctor....”

“Gomez—”

“Who specializes in fetal chromosomal disorders.”

“Why on earth would you know—”

“Expert witness.”

“Oh.”

“Her name is Amit Montague ” he continues, “she’s a genius. She’s been on TV

and won all these awards. Juries adore her.”

“Oh, well, if juries love her—” I begin, sarcastically.

“Just go and see her. Jesus, I’m trying to be helpful.”

I sigh. “Okay. Um, thanks.”

“Is that ‘Thanks, we will run right out and do as you suggest, dear Comrade,’ or

‘Thanks, now go screw yourself?”

I stand up, brush damp pine needles off the seat of my pants. “Let’s go in,” I say,
and we do.