How to Talk to a Widower

“Can I help you?”
    “Claire!” my mother shouts in his face.
    “Hey!” he shouts back at her.
    And then, from behind one of the doors, comes Claire’s voice. “Mom?”
    “Claire, honey?”
    “Mom!”
    I step past the technician in the direction of Claire’s voice and throw open a door. A half-naked woman in stirrups screams. The doctor working between her legs like a mechanic pokes his head up and slides back on his stool, granting me a cross-sectional view of the vagina that will from this day forward haunt my dreams like a demon spirit. “Wrong room,” I say, slamming the door on her outraged cries as the technician pulls me back.
    My mother opens the next door and there is Claire, lying supine on the table in a paper gown with her belly exposed, craning her head to stare at the monitor as the doctor, holding the transducer against her belly, turns to face us. “Hello,” he says, bemusedly. “Can I help you?”
    “They’re my family,” Claire says, and then, without prelude, bursts into tears.
    “Baby!” my mother says, running over to hug her, getting blue gel all over her blouse.
    “It’s okay, Will,” the doctor says, and the medical technician releases me. “Come on in.”
    We all gather around Claire as the doctor resumes the ultrasound. “So,” he says. “I was just showing Claire her baby’s heart.” On the screen, there’s a widening triangle of light, like someone opened a trapdoor into a basement. In the field of light are what appear to be two white threads crossing, and between them is a small throbbing bean. The doctor slides a second device over Claire’s belly and the room fills with the rhythmic hiss of rushing water, followed by a fast, staccato tapping.
    “Oh, Claire,” my mother says, putting her hand on Claire’s shoulder, her eyes welling up with tears.
    “I know,” Claire wails, still crying.
    “Listen to the little guy go,” Debbie says, taking Claire’s hand.
    The doctor adjusts the transducer and suddenly we can see the fetus in profile, the round, oversized head, the bud of a nose, the thin arms reaching forward, clasped in prayer.
    “Oh my God,” Debbie squeals.
    “You’re about twelve weeks in,” the doctor says.
    “I’m having a baby,” Claire says, staring in wonder at the screen.
    And looking at the screen, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by an uncharacteristic certainty that I could do this too. That I could conceive a baby and watch it grow in the womb, be there waiting for it when it entered the world perfect and untouched, and then devote myself to keeping it that way for as long as possible. That there are bigger, deeper things to feel than happy or sad, and I know that I’m a mess right now, but maybe, with time, all of this pain and uncertainty will add up to some small measure of wisdom that would make me a good father. And for the first time I can remember, it seems like a very viable option, and not a prospect that will make me break out in a clammy sweat even at the hypothetical stage.
    “Is it a boy or a girl?” I say.
    “I can’t tell in this position,” the doctor says.
    “It’s a girl,” Claire says, looking up at me, smiling through her tears.
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I’m naming her Hailey, so if it’s a boy, he’d better learn how to fight.”
    And then everything goes blurry as Claire reaches for me and pulls me toward her, and I close my eyes so that there’s nothing but the sound of that brand-new, still-forming heart, filling the room with the relentless rhythm of its tiny, hungry life.

32

    BROOKE’S PARENTS LIVE IN A MODEST, BOXY SPLIT-LEVEL that calls to mind the Brady Bunch house. It’s on the southernmost side of New Radford, where the houses are closer together and not quite as set back from the street, just a few blocks from Jim and Angie’s house. Her father is an engineer and her mother works for the Board of Jurors, and they’re both still at work when I come to pick her up. She’s wearing dark slacks and a white ribbed sweater, her hair tied up in a high ponytail, and when she steps back to let me in, she doesn’t step very far. It would make sense for me to lean in and give her a peck on the cheek, but I freeze up and then the moment’s gone, and to do it now will be awkward and contrived. I know there are men for whom this all happens effortlessly, just as sure as I know that I’m not one of them.
    Instead, I say, “I can’t remember the last time I picked a girl up at