11. Jo
CHAPTER 11
Jo
Her new story is occupying most of Jo's imagination these days, and as February merges into March, which fades slowly into April, she quickly works her way towards the first fifty pages of a novel that she feels proud to send to Martin Snell at Snell each of them has either experienced her own pregnancy-related sadness, or known a woman close to her who has.
“But I saw a doctor,” she says, turning to Carrie. “Though I have no idea what in the hell an acu—wait, a what?”
“Acupuncturist,” Carrie clarifies. “It’s a Chinese doctor who puts needles in all your pressure points. Trust me—it’s like magic. I heard about it at the health food store where I buy my wheat germ.”
Frankie is listening with an intent frown. She gives a crisp nod. “No,” she says flatly. “I’m not a pincushion. Next question.” She turns to Jude. “I want a boy or a girl. Or both. I want them all. Ed and I have waited so long for this that I’ll even be thrilled if it comes out rainbow-striped and whistling Christmas songs.”
Jo laughs as tears fill her eyes. She remembers the joy of finding out about each of her pregnancies, and it makes her so happy to imagine Frankie and Ed finding out and sharing their own good news with the world.
“And, Jo, speaking of Christmas songs, the baby should be here sometime around or right after Thanksgiving, so just in time for the holidays.”
The women launch into an excited list of names, share their own pregnancy stories, and laugh over the excitement of a new baby to pass around. Their joyful chatter filters up into the leaves and branches of the old southern magnolia overhead, and in the grass, their kids get sweaty with the exertion of play.
Jo smiles at Frankie—a private grin that only they share as their friends gab and talk animatedly—and she spots the glitter of happy tears in Frankie’s eyes.
This is good news. The best news. It’s going to be a wonderful year.
* * *
The man's name was Henry. Adeline had woken up in his barn on a Tuesday morning, and by Wednesday evening she'd discovered that she was no longer living in 1965, but instead--somehow, improbably--in 1894.
"Whoa," Henry said, pulling the reins of his horse as he slowed to a trot and came to a stop at the stairs of his house. On the porch, Adeline sat in a rocking chair, staring out at the horizon forlornly. Henry swung one leg over the horse and landed on both feet like a gymnast dismounting a beam.
Adeline wanted to say something, but as she watched this man she'd known for barely over twenty-four hours, she realized mere words couldn't possibly convey her current feelings.
"How are you, miss?" Henry rubbed his hands together as he approached her carefully, eyes averted.
Adeline felt like a skittish horse that he didn't want to spook. She stood, clasping her hands firmly. "I would like to say I'm fine," she said in a loud, clear voice. "But obviously I am not. I don't know who you are, I don't know how I got here, and what I want more than anything is to go home."
Henry, who had listened to Adeline's mad ramblings in the barn the morning before, showed no sign that he either believed or disbelieved her story about coming from a future time. What he seemed to grasp, however, was that she was a fish out of water.
"That's understandable," Henry said, putting his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "Being far from home isn't a favorable state to be in."
Adeline nearly stamped her foot. "Far from home? I'm not just far from home, Mr. Seekins," she said, using his surname to show him they were not yet well-acquainted enough for her to use his Christian name. "I have clearly traveled through space and time and landed in an unfamiliar setting." Adeline looked around her: trees, wide open skies, farmland, and silence. "I come from New York City," she said, enunciating the words as if she might be speaking to a dullard. "There are no cows in New York City."
A slow smile spread across Henry's face, but he stamped it out quickly like a small fire. "No cows, to be sure," he agreed, lifting his gaze so that it met Adeline's. "But surely you've seen one of these beasts before." He gestured at the horse that he'd just dismounted. "And maybe you even see stars in your sky, or trees in Central Park."
"You've been to New York?"
Henry pulled one hand from his pocket and scratched his head. "Sure have." He glanced out at the farmland that surrounded them. "Matter of fact, I was born there."
Adeline felt faint. She nearly sank back down into the chair. "You were?"
"I was." Henry was wise enough not to approach her and attempt to sit in the rocking chair next to hers. Instead, he sat on the top step and looked up at her, urging her to sit down again, which she did. "My parents came here from Great Britain and settled in New York. Once my sister and I were born, they moved south to try their hand at farming, and we ended up here."
Adeline looked around again, narrowing her eyes. "And where, precisely, is 'here'?"
"Virginia," Henry said, leaning his back against a wooden post. "We came here to farm wheat."
Adeline sighed. Farms. Wheat. Small towns. None of this appealed to her whatsoever.
"And you live here alone?" she asked, which she assumed to be the case, as she'd spent the night in a guest room of the farmhouse, emerging in the morning to find an empty, cold kitchen with no wife to stoke a fire or make a pot of coffee or an egg. By the same token, there appeared to be no siblings living in the house, no parents, and (she had noted with dismay) no hired help to prepare the meals or do the housework. "You live here alone and do… everything?"
Henry shrugged. "I do everything that needs to be done. I can cook for myself sufficiently, and while laundry isn't my favorite task, I know how to do the washing and hanging. So, yes, I can do everything."
Adeline blinked. And then blinked a few more times. She'd never known a man who could take care of his own basic needs. Furthermore, she herself could barely take care of her own basic needs. From birth, her parents had employed a full serving staff, and while she did not consider herself spoiled or unappreciative, she knew wholeheartedly that her station in life granted her the ability to wash her hands of trivial things like cooking and cleaning.
In fact, in her real life--which Adeline was quickly feeling as though she may never again inhabit--her time was her own. She woke with the sun and was immediately served coffee and breakfast by her kitchen staff, and shortly after, Adeline always made her way to Central Park with her sketch pad and charcoals in hand, ready to find inspiration for her art or to meet other well-heeled friends for coffee and conversation. But a farm would certainly not allow for such pleasures. Never had she heard of a farm where its owners were free to sip coffee at midday or to pursue artistic endeavors.
"May I ask," Adeline said, coming out of her own reverie, "where is your family? Why have you no wife and children of your own?"
Henry laughed at this--a real, hearty guffaw. "Well, I suppose I never felt the need for a wife when I'm more than capable of feeding myself."
It was Adeline's turn to huff in disbelief. "Surely a wife is good for more than a meal."
He shrugged. "Surely some are. But the ones I've known seem to only require more of their men than they themselves are able to give."
Adeline considered this; perhaps he wasn't entirely wrong on that front. She herself knew plenty of demanding women, and plenty of unhappy, put-upon husbands.
"And you," Henry went on. "Do you have a husband and children in New York?"
Adeline narrowed her eyes at him, wondering for just a moment whether he was perhaps only humoring her by pretending to believe she had a whole other life in New York.
"A husband and children to care for?" Adeline wrinkled her nose. "Now why would a woman want to give up her own happiness for--"
"Jo?" Bill closes the door from the garage to the kitchen, startling Jo so that she nearly jumps out of her chair at the table.
"Oh," Jo says, putting a hand to her chest to quell the wild beating of her heart. "You scared me."
Bill looks around, puzzled. "Where are the children?"
Jo stands, stretching her arms overhead. "Frankie asked if she and Ed could take them out for burgers."
This makes Bill laugh as though she's playing a trick on him. He looks like he's waiting for the punchline of a joke.
"No, I'm serious," Jo says. "She said Ed needed practice at making conversation with children. You know, because..."
"Oh, right!" Bill says, remembering. "The baby."
Jo had come home from the park two days before, eager to tell Bill all about the pregnancy, but he'd been distracted. Still, a kernel of her excitement must have lodged in his brain somewhere, as he seems to recall the entire conversation now.
"They'll be parents by Christmas, right?" Bill asks. Jo nods. "Well, they'll have a couple of years anyway before they need to be prepared for full-blown conversations."
"Bill," Jo says, swatting the air playfully. "They're just excited. And the kids seemed thrilled about having dinner with adults who are far more interesting than their own parents."
Bill sets his briefcase on the table near the door. "So where does that leave us?"
"As far as dinner?" Jo glances at the sheet of paper in her Remington. She'd been so engrossed in Adeline and Henry's story that she'd forgotten all about the fact that she herself was not a woman who was free of domestic duties. On a whim, she shrugs. "I thought we could go out--just the two of us. We rarely do."
Bill nods as he glances around at the cold stove and at the dishes that have long since dried on the rack. He never judges what or how Jo handles the affairs of the house, and she knows he's not looking at the kitchen disapprovingly. Still, she's eager to move him out of the house and to sit down at a table across from her husband without three kids vying for their attention.
"How about Raymond's Steak and Seafood? On the water?" Bill puts his hands on his hips as he leans toward Jo for a peck on the lips. She stands on her toes and reaches for his collar gently, pulling him closer and kissing him with meaning.
"That sounds amazing. Let me put on my shoes and some lipstick. Be right back." As Jo leaves the kitchen, she sees Bill bend forward at the waist, reading the lines of her story that are visible on the page that's in the typewriter. "Don't read that! I'm not done!" Jo calls from down the hallway, feeling giddy at the prospect of sitting in the passenger seat of the Corvette as she and Bill coast towards the restaurant on the beach.
Frankie had asked for the kids to join her and Ed, promising to keep them out until eight so Jo and Bill could have an evening together. While Jo had protested repeatedly that it wasn't necessary for Frankie to do that, Frankie had still insisted. And now, as she leans over the sink, washing her hands in the master bathroom, looking at her face in the mirror, Jo is actually glad for the reprieve from the crushing repetition of cooking, cleaning, and going right into the motions of homework and bedtime for the kids.
"You ready, Jojo?" Bill shouts from the kitchen.
"Almost!" she yells back, flipping on the light in the closet and sliding her feet into a pair of navy blue flats that go with her navy-and-white striped sundress. A swipe of red lipstick completes the look, and she rushes back to the kitchen, following her husband to the garage and climbing into the car. The top is already down as they back out of the driveway.
"I have some big news," Bill says as they hand their menus to the waiter, having ordered the shared surf and turf platter and two glasses of wine. He leans closer to the white votive candle in its hurricane lamp, fixing his gaze on Jo's intently. "But this is still very classified, and technically, we aren't supposed to be discussing it yet."
Jo is intrigued. She leans back as the waiter sets a glass of wine in front of her and waits until he's done the same for Bill. "Okay, I'm all ears," she says, feeling a nervous anticipation bubbling inside of her belly.
Bill breathes out through pursed lips and nods like he's digesting something. "Jo," he says. "I've been chosen for a mission in August."
Jo sucks in a loud breath and makes a surprised sound. Her hand flies to her mouth and she laughs. "Sorry," she says in a whisper, putting her other hand over her mouth as well for good measure. “I wasn’t expecting that."
Bill leans forward again, talking in a low voice. "You know how seriously I take the confidentiality of my job, but you and I have taken a vow, and we're partners," he says gravely. "I need you to know what I have on the horizon, and I need your support."
"You have it," Jo says without a moment's hesitation. "The kids and I are so proud of you, and you always have my support." Jo pauses here to sip her wine, and her eyes dance and shine with pride.
"Thank you, sweetheart. That means the world to me. You know the past year has been really hard, and a lot has happened at work. So getting chosen for this is a real vote of confidence. It wasn't something I even thought was possible, given the circumstances."
Jo sips her wine again. "They must be impressed with your commitment to therapy," she says carefully, trying to decide whether dipping a toe into this area of Bill's life and their marriage is the wisest choice over a rare dinner out. "Maybe the doctor gave a good report to NASA."
Bill sets his glass down on the table with a clink . "I asked her what she was allowed to tell them, and she said she can give a general impression, but not the private details of my life or my thoughts. Whether or not she's given them her professional opinion yet is something I don't know."
Jo is itching to dive deeper. She so badly wants Bill to open up to her about his visits with Dr. Sheinbaum; if not the intimate details of their discussions, then at least some reassurance that what he's discovering isn't that he no longer loves her, or their life. She wakes up at night sometimes feeling afraid, and the only thing she can attribute it to is the notion that some stranger is hearing things about her marriage that Bill is afraid to say to her.
"Do you think..." Jo starts. She fiddles with the stem of her wine glass, turning it around and around on the table as she pretends to be occupied by the swirling liquid in the glass. "Is it possible that the things you're discussing with Dr. Sheinbaum will have any real, lasting impact on us, Bill?"
He frowns at her as she looks up to clock his reaction. "On us? As a family?"
"On us, as in you and me." Jo can feel a hard lump forming in her throat. "Have you told her about your… romantic feelings?"
"For you?" Bill looks as though he's working hard to keep his face completely neutral, but Jo knows him well.
"For anyone," she says, knowing that it's too late to back down now. "Have you told her whether you have feelings for anyone aside from me?"
In a display of horrible timing, the waiter stops at their table right at this moment, setting down their plates and leaving behind the distraction of steaming, fragrant food. Jo ignores the meal entirely.
"Did you tell her about the way I wrote about us? About you? Or how you spent time alone with Jeanie at The Black Hole--that time I saw you in the parking lot?"
"Jo," Bill says sternly. "Now, let's not go making a mountain out of a molehill..."
"I'm not!" Jo says, her words coming out in a higher, screechier pitch than she would have liked. "I know what I saw, Bill, and I know what I feel."
Bill glances around self-consciously; ever since the day he and the other guys were presented to the media at Cape Kennedy as the newest batch of astronaut hires, he's been far more attuned to his surroundings, to who might be watching him, and also to who might be listening.
"Keep your voice down, please," Bill says in a low, calm manner. "There's no reason for you to be shouting in here."
"I'm not!" Jo says again, but this time she is shouting. Her nerves are frazzled, and after months and months of pretending everything is fine, that she's just the supportive wife to Bill as he goes through therapy, that she has no fears surrounding Bill's beautiful, younger coworker, a cord in her has snapped. She is unraveling. Jo shoves her chair back and stands, tossing her linen napkin onto the table. "I'm not shouting, but I am done with this, Bill. I deserve answers. I'm your wife, not your housekeeper. I'm not just here to raise your children and to occupy myself with my 'little stories,’ or to volunteer in the community to make you look better. I'm a woman with a heart. I have needs ," she says, pointing at her chest as she says these words. Her eyes glass over with unshed, angry tears, and her vocal cords are strained. This is a speech she knows she cannot come back from. "I don't know what's going on with you, but you can't just give me a morsel here and there and expect me to feel like I'm a part of your life, Bill. I am your wife ," she says tightly, holding his eyes for a long heartbeat.
Bill does not respond. He stares up at her, awed and cowed and shocked at her behavior. It’s so out of character. Jo does not yell. Jo does not make demands. She is becoming a woman he seems not to recognize, based on the look he's giving her as she stands there, heaving with emotion.
"Enjoy your dinner," Jo says, grabbing her purse from where it sits on the chair next to hers. It catches on the edge of the table cloth and she yanks it gently before she frees it, her cheeks burning with shame.
Outside, the night air is warm and traffic streams down the street. The headlights of passing cars illuminate the palm trees lining the sidewalks. Jo stalks along angrily, holding the handle of her purse as she takes long strides. The humidity causes sweat to pool in the hollow of her clavicle, and as she walks, it streams down her cleavage, sliding between her breasts. There's a pay phone ahead on the corner, and as cars fly past her, dragging their headlights across her body, Jo keeps her eyes trained ahead. She has change in her purse; she will call Frankie's house first, and then if there is no answer, she will try one of the other women. The realization that Bill himself will have to answer for why his wife is stranded on a street corner in Stardust Beach tempers the humiliation of asking to be picked up at a phone booth on a weeknight. The men at work will surely have questions for Bill if one of their wives is called to come and fetch Jo like this.
Jo is about a block from the phone booth when a car pulls to the curb and idles just feet ahead of her, its red taillights burning in the twilight. The passenger door opens, and a woman steps out.
"Jo?" Frankie asks, looking puzzled. "What the hell are you doing out here?" she calls over the rush of cars as they breeze past. "Where is Bill? Is everything okay?"
It's the sound of Frankie's voice that breaks her; Jo begins to sob.
"Come here," Frankie says, waving her over. "Get in."
And so Jo allows herself to be tucked into the backseat, her three worried, frightened-looking children squeezed to one side so that she can sit there with them. It's clear from the energy in the car that they have been laughing and talking up until this moment, but all of that is dead now as everyone watches Jo, even Ed, who is looking at her in the rearview mirror while he waits for Frankie to climb back in and close the door.
"Mommy," Kate says worriedly, her little face collapsing in fear. "What's wrong?"
Ed clears his throat. "Let's clear that up later," he says in a gruff voice. "For now, let's get you all home."
Jo rides along in silence, the headlights and taillights and streetlights blurring like a watercolor painting through her tears.