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The first time she became pregnant, Elizabeth congratulated herself on completing another mission successfully. It was easier to think of it in terms of the job, to carry out the necessary steps of seeing yet another long con through, than to think about the life growing inside her, the person that would imprison her permanently even as it proved her dedication.
Step one: count days carefully so she only had to lie back and think of Russia as many times as absolutely necessary. Step two: trade dead drops and secret meetings for eating for two, doctors’ appointments, forced smiles as neighbors and co-workers cooed over her stomach and threw small, fluffy, wasteful clothing at her. Step three: forgive herself for her moment of weakness, crawl out of the bed she wanted to stay in forever and go home to where she belonged. Step four: grit her teeth and push. The nurses and doctor all expressed their awe at how quiet, calm and stoic she was throughout the entire labor. They had no idea what true pain was. What true sacrifice was. Step five: night after night after night of crying and feeding and diapers. Of Philip pacing the floors with the child in his arms, miraculously soothing her fussing. Of loathing him for it even as she sighed in gratitude and fell back to sleep.
The only step that had never made the list was loving the child. Caring for it, raising it as best she could – teaching it her own values even while protecting it from the full truth – that was expected and manageable. But the clutch at her heart when Paige reached her chubby arms out for her, when she babbled in her crib as Elizabeth walked into her room, when she squealed with laughter at her father’s antics?
Somehow, Elizabeth felt like she had blown the mission after all.
“Mom?”
Elizabeth glanced up as Paige walked into the doorway of the kitchen hesitantly. She stopped before she even completely entered the room and placed one hand on the frame. A light blush rose to her cheeks as she looked at the floor. Elizabeth fought the urge to remind her that she should act and speak with conviction and without shame. That if she was embarrassed to talk to her own mother about something, how would she ever face the world? Elizabeth inhaled and exhaled slowly.
“What is it?” she finally asked.
“Um,” Paige began softly. Elizabeth’s heart swelled the moment she saw Paige steel herself and look up. “I think – I’ve started my period,” she said with bashful pride.
Elizabeth blinked. Then she matched Paige’s smile with one of her own. Walking around the counter, she stepped up to Paige and pulled her into a hug, quickly kissing the top of her head.
“Congratulations.” Elizabeth tried not to notice the way her throat choked up.
Luckily, Paige’s response – an exasperated but secretly pleased Mom as she pushed her away – made her laugh, and the moment was broken. Elizabeth stepped back, brushing her hair behind her ear.
“Do you know how to, you know, deal with it?”
When Paige bit her lip and shook her head, Elizabeth took her hand and led her out of the kitchen to the bathroom.
“You probably don’t want to start with a tampon, but there should be some pads in here,” she informed Paige as she bent down to open the cupboard under the sink. She trailed off, however, as she had to reach to retrieve the half-empty pack pushed to the back.
“What’s wrong?” Paige asked nervously.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I must have just forgotten to buy some more after my last period,” she answered breezily. “Dad’s still at work. I’ll call and tell him to pick up some more.”
Paige blanched. “Oh my God, Mom. Don’t tell Dad!”
Elizabeth’s laughter was enough to get her back to the kitchen. But as she dialed the phone with one hand, she reached out to the calendar with the other. Her smile faded as she counted back the days.
The second time she became pregnant, Elizabeth was blindsided. She had resisted any and all hesitant, patient advances Philip had made, oddly becoming angrier each time at his weakness, his gentleness, even as she was grateful he didn’t force himself upon her. They would have another child eventually, she knew, to complete the picture of the perfect American family. She just wasn’t ready yet. And unfortunately there was only one person who could be the father this time. Some morbid part of her laughed as she imagined the nurses’ reaction if she delivered a dark-skinned baby. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine Philip’s.
Not that it could or would ever come to that.
She passed The Day in a haze. She remembers eating breakfast, reading an article in the newspaper about some trial out of Texas that might someday make the whole thing much more feasible, going through the motions at the travel agency, kissing Paige’s head as she left after dinner, ignoring Philip’s questioning look. Meeting Gabriel, who escorted her to the office the Center had established for just this purpose. Holding her hand over her belly as she allowed herself one more fantasy image – the joy on Gregory’s face as she told him – before the doctor entered.
After Paige went to her room to work on homework, Elizabeth crept up to the attic. She wondered, for the first time ever, if there had been some subconscious reason they had separated things so completely. Storage of family stuff in the attic, work stuff in the basement. And was there a deeper meaning behind those locations, up vs. down, superficial vs. buried? Or was it just how it happened?
Those thoughts left her head as she reached her destination. She pulled the box out of the dusty, cobwebby crib. Placing it on the floor, she sat down cross-legged and opened it. Blankets, stuffed animals, tiny clothes, toys. She leaned closer, smelling cautiously, imagining the traces of baby powder.
She shook her head, laughing at herself. When did she become so sentimental? So weak?
She remembered, as she looked at the creepy doll with the white dress, how Paige would hold weddings between it and her teddy bear. How minutes later, they would have two little children. How Paige would make childlike predictions of her own wedding, her own family. She remembered watching her play and wondering if she had ever been the same way – and realizing…no. Even before the KGB had dictated her life, she couldn’t recall ever wishing and hoping for a future like that.
She felt vulnerable, exposed, angry at herself for dreaming, for the first time, of such a thing. She loved Paige and Henry, despite all her best intentions, and she wouldn’t deny that. But they were created out of duty, not love. Would things – could things – be different this time?
The third time she became pregnant, Elizabeth’s body betrayed her – completely and at every turn. Morning sickness all day every day for weeks. Groaning over the toilet, wanting to kill Philip as he hovered behind her in his stupid, constant concern, reaching out but not quite touching. And then, as soon as that passed, being so completely on edge, wanting so much, needing touch. Glancing out of her peripheral vision at Philip as he smiled at Paige, shivering as he brushed past her. Wanting to kill him as she pleasured herself in the shower, biting the heel of her palm to muffle her cries, because her mind was stronger than her hormones and she wasn’t going to change – ruin – the balance of power, the nature of their relationship just because he made her lust after something else, something more. And then, a month before he should have arrived, Henry waking her up with sharp, shooting pains. Wanting to kill Philip as she lost the battle within herself and screamed, cried, and eventually passed out. Waking up to learn it was over, that she had nearly bled out on the table but everything was fine.
Wanting to kill Philip as she watched him hold Paige up to see the sleeping baby and realized there was a chance she could love him, if she ever dared to let go of her control.
Elizabeth smiled to herself as she rubbed lotion onto her elbows, before capping the bottle and placing it on the nightstand. But the smile faded as she glanced at the clock. He wasn’t too late, she knew, and he could take care of himself. And it didn’t bother her that he had to meet Annelise between leaving the travel agency and stopping at the drugstore. It didn’t.
And she certainly wasn’t going to think about the long silence that followed her instructions of what to buy from the drugstore.
Elizabeth sighed and leaned back against the pillows. And then she caught sight of her socks, blue tonight and just a little scratchy, and couldn’t help but laugh at her subconscious. She couldn’t determine exactly when it would have happened – she and Philip had been far too intimate far too frequently lately – but part of her felt or maybe just hoped it must have been the last time she had worn those socks to bed. She had woken up in the morning slowly, finally realizing it was Philip’s chuckle that had pulled her out of sleep. She turned, then followed his gaze to see one sock pushed down low, the other still pulled up, and both her feet stuck between his and yet still cold as always.
She had felt her cheeks burn with a sudden blush and moved quickly in an attempt to fix them somehow, but he had stopped her.
“Leave them like that,” he had said, his voice deep and sparking something low in Elizabeth’s gut, before he rolled her over and pulled her close.
It was different now between them, in so many ways. But one thing had remained the same. She was herself with him, honest and true more than she had ever been, even with Gregory. The first time she and Philip had been together, when she felt his hot breath against her face as he pushed into her, Elizabeth hadn’t pretended. She hadn’t moaned or cried out like she had with so many men, stroking more than just their ego. And now, all these years later, she still wasn’t pretending. She didn’t fake anything that day, with her morning breath and mussed hair and silly socks, as she mouthed his shoulder so she wouldn’t say any of the things she had started to feel for him.
The fourth time she became pregnant, Elizabeth had no idea who the father was. She hadn’t let Philip touch her since Henry was born, but she had so far stuck to her wavering resolution to avoid Gregory too. But that still left at least three easy marks that month who might have given her something more than just information. Before it even became an issue, she dodged a bullet (literally) but not a kick that sent her over a railing to the floor below. Which gave her a convenient excuse to take it easy for a few days.
It had been just over two excruciating hours since Elizabeth had given up hope of any sleep at all and crawled out of bed to start setting up the kit. The facing-a-firing-squad expression on Philip’s face in the bathroom mirror when he followed her reminded her of the one on her own in the framed photograph in the living room. The one taken just outside the courthouse after they made everything official and hoped no one noticed that the smiles didn’t quite reach their eyes. The only difference this time was his look had a bit more excitement underlying it, like he wasn’t quite sure if he should be happy.
They sat side by side in bed while they waited, staring straight ahead and gripping each other’s hands tightly.
“What are you thinking?” Philip finally asked, his voice gravelly from disuse and an emotion that Elizabeth didn’t want to examine too closely. “What…do you want?”
Elizabeth paused, then answered. “It’s bad timing. It’s been so busy, too much stress. And the way things have been escalating, I’m not sure the Center would let me be out of the field so long, even if – ”
His head turned to the side quickly, and she couldn’t bring herself to look. She didn’t want to see the hope.
“Even if?”
She shrugged. And then the alarm went off, saving her from the conversation. She reached over to turn it off, then stood. Gesturing at Philip to remain where he was, she walked into the bathroom.
The fifth time she thought she was pregnant, it was a false alarm. “Negative,” she had said as she walked back into the bedroom. She ignored Philip’s attempts to talk, to reach out to her, as she pulled on a robe and went to make breakfast. Later that morning, she undressed and discovered she had finally started her period, delayed perhaps from the stress she had been living under the last few months. She cried in the shower, but when she left the bathroom, no one would have been able to tell. Her hair was perfect; her make-up was perfect; and she was the perfect American wife.
The End