Barren (standard:drama, 4767 words)
Author: stevet	Added: Feb 09 2001	Views/Reads: 3603/2271	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A desperate, depressed man sees a skillfully-worded ad in a university newspaper from a couple looking to adopt a child. He decides to respond to the ad himself.

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the eyeballs. It was an ad in the personals column. Norman repeated the 
word "barren" several times, his lips curling around it, his breath 
blowing out in little bups. 

BARREN: Young married couple unable to conceive. We're college educated,
financially secure. Long to share love and home. Can we help you? Call 
collect 241-2233. 

Norman made an admiring mouth. To him, a student of words, the ad struck
a perfect balance between desperation and restraint. These were 
educated, successful people, the composers of this ad, yet they were 
driven to admit their biological failure. He admired their courage and 
wished them luck. More than wished, he longed for them to have luck. 
Why? he wondered. 

He gave the Barren ad a second reading. He was fascinated by the
question, Can we help you? Not, Can you help us, but, Can we help you? 
How could any woman in trouble resist such an offer of salvation? For 
that matter, how could Norman? 

Then heat rose in him--a surge of anger. Who in hell did they think they
were conning? Longed to share love and home, did they? With whom? Can 
we help you, indeed. You, who? He took several breaths, trying to calm 
himself. 

After a third reading of the ad, Norman decided the couple, the man and
woman, had each composed a separate ad, then they had combined the two. 
Making compromises when necessary. Sacrifices. Suddenly, like a night 
sky split open by lightning, the ad opened up for Norman. Each phrase 
became a meteor that he could trace back to its origin by snatching 
hold of its streaking tail. 

The he of the couple was arrogant, boastful and scheming. The second
line (We're college educated, financially secure) was his. The third, 
the longing to share love and home, was hers. Norman imagined the two 
of them clashing over the first line. Or, was she capable of clashing 
with him? Either way, she had given in and taken full blame for their 
infertility on herself. 

Norman considered "barren" a word to be spat at a woman. He couldn't
bear to think How much pain it had caused her. His breathing became 
rapid and shallow. It-the stalker, the thing that separated him from 
ordinary life-was ephemeral as smoke, Norman discovered, and seemed to 
have drifted some distance away, on a current of desire.  He could not 
stop blinking his eyes. He felt woozy and disoriented, as he had felt 
when he had first fallen in love. 

Norman was on his feet before he knew it. What sort of man would
bludgeon his wife with that word? He hurried to the pay phone, cursing 
under his breath. The phone was in a dark alcove near the rest-rooms, 
and it donged and hummed while he strained to read the number from the 
ad by the light of a Lowenbrau sign. A fat man, on his way to the 
men's, groaned privately and farted. Norman punched the numbers. 

One ring. Her voice, Norman decided, would be difficult to hear over the
bar noises. It would be plaintive. Two rings. But not whining. He 
prayed she was not a whiner. Three rings. His arms ached. One hand was 
balled in a fist, ready to punch the husband through the receiver, and 
the other had a death grip on it. Four rings. He, not she, would answer 
the phone. Norman couldn't picture her sitting by a phone, so vivid was 
his image of her jumping with alarm at an unexpected ring. 

"Hello," she said, almost in a whisper.  Norman did not reply. "Hello?
Who is this? Who's calling? Oh, wait. If this is about the ad in the 
personals, this is, uh..." Don't say that word, he wanted to shout. She 
said, "This is 241-2233." 

He sighed and said, "Can you hear me over the noise? I'm calling from a
tavern near the campus." 

"I think you dialed the wrong number." She sounded wary, as he had
expected. "Did you?" 

"Did I what?" 

"Dial the wrong number?" 

"No, I've got the right number." Norman felt on more solid ground than
he had in nearly a year. "I recognize your voice from the ad in the 
Campus News. You're, Young married couple unable...uh, unable." 

"You're very kind. Yes, that's...us." She had acknowledged Norman's
kindness in such a submissive voice, he felt obliged to apologize 
further. But, no time. He heard her take a deep breath-she was 
definitely going to say it this time. No, don't. He jumped in with: 
"Yes. College educated, financially secure. Yes." 

Norman listened for clues in her breathing, imagining the receiver very
close to her lips. She said, "I wasn't expecting a man. I expected a 
young woman to call." 

That started a sinking feeling in his chest. "If you don't want this to
go any further..." 

"No, wait. If you're serious...I mean, it's just that I'm not prepared."


"Then put him on. Your husband." Dead air. "That word in the ad was his
choice, not yours. I may as well speak directly to him." 

"How did you...you're guessing. Aren't you?" 

"Call it a logical assumption." Norman was about to say, for someone in
my field, but thought better of it. "That word, you know the one I 
mean, it's not a word you would use. But he would, I know he would. Let 
me speak to him." 

"William isn't...William can't come to the phone right now. I'm sorry." 

William, Norman thought. "Then I guess I'll hang up." 

"No, don't. Please don't hang up. You must represent someone, you must
be calling on someone's behalf. We don't want to discourage anyone, 
William was adamant about that. B-but, you see, he's not here. He's 
supposed to handle the calls. He was adamant about that, too. But he's 
away on business." Several silent beats. "Until later tonight. O-or 
tomorrow." 

Norman said, "I'd hoped to finish this business tonight." But he
thought, No, not finish. For the first time in a year, he wanted 
something to go on, to progress. He asked for directions to their 
apartment. 

"Not an apartment, a house. William and I own a house. It's very nice.
I...oh. I didn't mean to brag. I just...but you can't come now. William 
isn't here." 

Norman said, "I see. And you don't think William will be perturbed if
you let this opportunity, uh, slip away?" 

Though silent, such a struggle took place Norman was sure he could hear
it. More strained silence, but finally, haltingly, she admitted she and 
William lived in a carriage house behind a converted mansion. She gave 
him the address. 

He asked which bus he should take. She had no idea, she never rode the
bus. William had bought her a car. A Volvo, Norman guessed, but kept it 
to himself. "Never mind, I'll find you. I'm on my way." 

* * * 

This was it, the street where she lived. She. Norman preferred the
impersonal pronoun to that word. But he couldn't get it out of his 
mind; it haunted and angered him. She and William. Their street was 
wide and elegant -a boulevard. The residences were multi-storied and 
substantial, set considerably apart from each other and back from the 
street. The sidewalks were lined with beech trees, and Victorian-style 
iron lamps stood ready to disperse any threatening shadows. Except for 
Norman, the street was deserted. 

He found the huge graystone mansion that had been divided into
apartments, exactly as she had described it over the phone, and 
followed a cobblestone driveway around to the rear. There, enclosed by 
brick walls, he found an English garden. His feet crunched on a pebbled 
path which meandered among immaculate islands of lilies and pansies, 
peonies, mums and pachysandra. And there was the former carriage house 
-Norman's mouth fell open- rebuilt to resemble a 19th century brick 
cottage. It had a stone chimney, a slate roof and wooden gables. He 
thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

She had been watching for him. Norman noticed the front door beginning
to open as he approached, and the light of twin brass lanterns reached 
out to him from their sconces on each side of the door. He could see 
her staring at him through a leaded-glass panel. She had wide, daunted 
eyes -they were gray, or maybe green- that reflected the yellow-gold 
lantern light and looked like the eyes of a frightened kitten. Her hair 
was haloed with light, like a madonna's. 

She was taller than Norman; he hadn't expected that. He tried to brace
himself against other disappointments that were bound to come: who but 
an angel could fit the image he had fantasized for her? The door 
opened. 

"Please," she said urgently, as if she feared some dangerous thing
lurking in the shadows. She opened the door just enough for him to slip 
inside, then shut it again. "Come in. Oh, you already are." With her 
hand flat against her chest, she backed away. He wasn't insulted. In 
the time since their phone conversation, she must have considered her 
options and decided to be bold. She was doing her best. 

She had poor posture. She was five ten or eleven, thin and
round-shouldered. Norman's first impression of her was of awkwardness 
and fragility. A second glance changed his mind, but only slightly: she 
was broader through the hips than across the shoulders and chest, 
giving her a somewhat more substantial look. She had clear smooth skin, 
which Norman, who still needed to use Clearasil, admired. She had 
straight, boyish-cut auburn hair that he could hardly keep from 
reaching out to touch, and she had a delicate, sculpted head and a 
graceful neck. All things considered, she would make a fine-looking 
mother. Silly thought, considering that she was...that word. But she 
looked like a mother. Or an angel. A taller one than Norman would have 
imagined, but an angel. And her round-shouldered posture might well 
have been caused by the weight of invisible wings. 

She offered him a hand that was so thin, in better light he might have
been able to see through it. Before he could take the hand in his own, 
however, she lost her nerve and clutched it to her chest. 

"H-hello, I'm...I'm..." She stopped, obviously upset with herself. "I
was going to call myself, Barren. What a horrible word. That was 
William's idea, not mine. But you already knew that, didn't you?" 

"And you're wondering how I knew." Norman hoped a drawn-out shrug would
make him look more nonchalant than he felt. "I'm a linguist, words are 
my business. There are words women never use. Not profanities, I mean 
words that no woman would use, and that word is definitely one of them. 
Why, I know women who would kill rather than be called that in public. 
It sounds like a curse." 

Her mouth dropped open. She closed it again. Her gray-button eyes crept
toward the door, and Norman wondered if she would skitter away. She 
said, "William didn't mean to anger anyone, and I didn't, either." She 
hesitated. "I thought it sounded too, too...but William insisted. Said 
it would attract attention. William is intelligent about words, too. I 
didn't want to be called that, but it was more important that the ad 
stand out from the others. That the right person notice it. Well, it 
worked, didn't it? Here you are." When she stopped talking, her lip 
quivered. "Besides, barren describes my condition exactly." She fled to 
the interior of the house. 

Norman fidgeted for a few moments with his hands in his pockets, waiting
for an invitation, then trailed after her. He turned left out of the 
foyer and paused before descending three steps to a sitting room. A 
stone fireplace with heavy black andirons dominated the room. The 
furniture was Early American, and the flooring was dark and rough, like 
varnished railroad ties. 

He found her perched on the edge of a Harvard rocker, chewing one of her
fingernails. Her invisible wings looked very heavy. She said, "I've 
been terribly rude. Please, sit down." As he settled into a 
spindle-backed chair, Norman realized that he was in a safe place; that 
he had found sanctuary from the thing that had been stalking him. He 
marveled at the way events had brought him here from a noisy barroom. 
But had he managed it by bullying her? 

He said, "Why are you putting yourself through this? It can't be worth
the humiliation. Opening yourself up to strangers. Just to get a kid? 
For the privilege of being a mother?" She nodded. Her mascara had run 
and her eyes looked bruised. He said, "I didn't think yuppies cared 
about that sort of thing." 

She hung her head again, arching her neck like an injured swan. Norman
wondered at his own brutality. It was as if her submissiveness were 
goading him. "But I'll bet the childlessness isn't your fault. 
Wait...I've got it. William's got a low sperm count. That's it. A 
pathetic number...." She shook her head, no, but Norman babbled on. 
"It's a common enough problem. Some people have maybe one part per 
million wigglers, or whatever. William sounds like the type to me." 

The more he babbled the more miserable she became. She tried to smother
her sobs -to avoid troubling him with them- but he could see silent 
tremors of her throat and neck. Her alabaster swan's neck. She was no 
longer an angel in Norman's imagination, she was a swan. How fitting, 
because she was just that sort of creature: lovely and shy and 
graceful; not particularly small or delicate, but possessing a majestic 
dignity. Norman wondered if there weren't something about such 
creatures that brought out the beast in a man. 

He had to look away from her grieving. "You have a lovely place here,
really lovely. They certainly knew how to build charm into these old 
places, didn't they?" The furniture, floor planks, ceiling beams, in 
fact everything in the room, glowed as if she had hand-rubbed them all. 
That too irritated him. He tried to imagine paying the mortgage with 
his own meager linguist's paycheck.That reminded Norman of his earlier 
conversation with Professor Chiselle, and he wondered how much longer 
he would be drawing a paycheck. He said, "I have to hand it to William. 
He does pretty well, doesn't he, at whatever he does." 

"Mummy and Daddy bought us the cottage." 

"Mu-" Norman's throat jammed at the very thought of Mummy and Daddy. 

She mistook it for ridicule. "William didn't buy the cottage, Mummy and
Daddy did. So what? It happened to be an anniversary present, our 
tenth." As she went on, a distracted Norman left his chair and wandered 
over to the fireplace. "William is a systems analyst. He does do pretty 
well, as a matter of fact." 

Norman said, "You're very lucky to have parents still alive. I lost mine
in an automobile accident." He toyed with a silver-framed photo from 
the mantel. "It happened last December. My folks were coming for a 
visit for the holidays, but Dad fell asleep at the wheel. Merry 
Christmas, Norman." He waved the photo carelessly about. "So I'm an 
orphan." 

She looked confused. "That's terrible about your parents. Without Mummy
and Daddy...I don't know what I'd do. But I wouldn't have said I was an 
orphan. Grownups aren't orphans, are they?" When Norman shrugged, she 
added, "I could look it up in the dictionary." 

"Don't bother. Didn't I say I was a linguist? I wrote the book, so to
speak. Believe me, by definition, I'm an orphan." 

The mantel held enough bric-a-brac to stock a Cape Cod gift shop: glass
eggs, a hand-painted cup and saucer set, soapstone figures, wine-bottle 
corks and a wood carving of a fisherman wearing a yellow rain slicker 
and sou'wester. Only after carefully returning the photo to its place 
on the mantel did Norman actually look at it. It was of a group of 
children at a school crossing. In the foreground was a young boy 
wearing a tassel cap and a Sam Browne belt. 

Norman said, "Is this-" She nodded. "That's William. It's Daddy's
favorite picture of him. He thinks it epitomizes William's personality. 
Daddy says William never got over being a safety patrol boy." 

"At least William isn't an orphan." She didn't reply, but Norman could
see from her face that he was correct. "Another lucky guess." He 
shrugged. "I was sitting in that bar near the campus thinking that my 
life was in the dumpster. I'm forty years old. A linguist with few 
prospects. I was refused tenure this morning." 

"You lost your job?" 

Norman straightened William's photo and returned to his chair. Her eyes
were full of concern for him. He said, "Not yet, not officially, but 
for all intents and purposes, yes." 

"And you're an orphan." 

"What a word. It's a lot like...like a curse. Had you noticed?" 

She radiated approval of Norman. "You thought barren was ugly." 

"I'll never forgive you for allowing William to use that word." Her
smile held, and Norman exhaled noisily. "Okay, I admit it did the job. 
William knew what he wanted every word to do, and they did it. Every 
word in that ad was like a hook, sinking deeper and deeper in my cheek. 
I was aware of it happening but I didn't care. I thought, What a beauty 
of an ad. What an awesome, dastardly, beautiful ad. I just had to meet 
the son of a bitch--excuse my French--the guy who wrote it." 

She pounded her knees in frustration. "Oh, why isn't William here? The
one time he didn't think of everything, he's not here." Norman enjoyed 
perplexing her, but he watched her eyes carefully, promising himself 
that he wouldn't hurt her again. 

She said, "I've never heard an adult call himself an orphan. I've heard
a few say they used to be an orphan when they were a kid. I think they 
meant they grew out of it." She smiled at him. 

He yearned to touch the fair hairs on her arm. He thought, The moment I
saw you through the glass... But he actually said, "On the way here 
from the bar, I said to myself, 'Why not? You've got no one, no ties to 
anyone, no place where you'd be missed.' " He paused to mentally cross 
his fingers. "'Why not be adopted?'" 

As long as it had remained unsaid--Norman had put it off as long as he
could--she had been able to postpone dealing with it. He'd thought it 
was too obvious to come as a shock. But it did, it knocked the breath 
out of her. She finally managed to say, looking pained, "Oh, please 
don't be hurt, Norman, but William and I had a baby in mind." Then she 
forced a smile. "Oh, you're such a fraud. You knew that all along. You 
did." 

Norman said, "Look, I know you weren't prepared to tackle this without
William, but are you sure you'll only consider a child? You won't 
consider me?" 

"No. I mean, no. I mean, William didn't leave any instructions. No, I
guess I'm not exactly sure." She seemed to have alarmed herself by 
saying that--her eyes went wider than ever. Her fingers knitted cat's 
cradles in her lap. She said, "You're staring at my hands. Please don't 
stare, it's not polite." 

"Was I staring? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I was admiring your
fingers. They're so long and lovely, like a pianist's." Norman held up 
his own. "I've got the hands of a plumber." 

She looked up through her eyelashes. "No, they're businessman's hands,
like William's. He says he has pencil stubs for fingers, and they come 
in very handy." 

Norman looked at his hands with new respect, but he wondered why. Did he
want to have fingers like William's? He said, "Are we in for a long 
wait?" 

She shrugged. "I've learned not to expect William at a specific time.
"Did I mention, he's a systems analyst? His company, I mean the one he 
works for...it's not his, they make electronic devices for nuclear 
plants: monitors and safety controls. They design them, assemble and 
install them in power plants." She deliberately crossed two fingers of 
each hand. "They work flawlessly." 

It was evidently their private joke, hers and William's. Norman, feeling
like a voyeur, shifted in his chair. "Don't you ever call him Bill or 
Will or..." She shook her head. He said, "His friends call him William, 
too? Oh, well. So, William is a systems analyst. What exactly is a 
systems analyst?" 

"Well, I can only tell you what William told me. He has to understand
nuclear reactors, electronic devices, steam and hydraulic devices, and 
human beings, too. He has to have a perfect grasp of, well, just about 
everything." She was recalling it word for word. "And, and he has to 
understand the interplay between them all. I've been asked this before. 
I had to memorize it. Anyway. The systems analyst determines what 
combination of men and machines will achieve a certain desired result. 
Or, if a failed system is the problem, why it failed and what will fix 
it. William's specialty is nuclear crisis management." 

"You mean, when one of the company's flawless controls fails, when a
nuke gets hot-" 

"They send for William." 

Norman's right eyebrow rose. 

"Oh, no, it's not dangerous. William says it's not. You'll discover when
you meet him, it's not like William to take risks. The company's 
equipment and William's systems are reliable. He trusts them -and 
almost nothing else. You'll see. When the latest crisis, wherever it 
is, has passed, he'll come right home even if he has to travel day and 
night to get here." 

"A regular romantic, our William." 

She said, "No, it's just that he tosses and turns in a strange bed." 

"Then he could walk in at any moment." 

She nodded. They both turned toward the door. William did not appear. 

She asked Norman if he had eaten dinner. At first he said yes, then
admitted that he hadn't had a thing since lunching on a cheeseburger 
and fries. She rose from her chair, looking relieved to have something 
to do, and loped out of the sitting room. She bobbed on her toes at the 
top of each long stride. Norman decided that he loved tall women. 

The kitchen too was Early American: there were butcher-block counter
tops, copper-bottomed pots and pans, wrought-iron hangers, a parson's 
table and chairs. Here, too, everything looked hand-rubbed. Norman 
wondered how she managed to keep her kitchen looking so clean. She 
interrupted the thought. "William and I eat out a lot." 

She warmed a leftover bean-and-noodle casserole in a microwave oven and
placed it, along with a glass of skim milk, before him. Wanting to 
impress her that he had a good appetite, Norman chewed the first 
mouthful with gusto, but quickly lost his enthusiasm. 

She said, "William is away a lot. It's just too much bother to cook for
myself. I don't have much appetite. I guess it shows." 

He shoved his plate away. "I don't understand why you're so set on
adopting a child. Have you considered, maybe you don't have the 
necessary skills? I'm not certain they come naturally." Damn! He had 
promised himself that he wouldn't... 

He talked faster. "Consider the advantages of adopting a grownup: no
dirty diapers, no crying at night. Well, lately I have been, but with a 
mother nearby I'm sure I wouldn't. I never did before. I can cook a 
little and sew on buttons and darn socks and, and, I do windows, haha. 

"Please. I don't want to be an orphan anymore. I'll be good, I promise.
What do you think William will say? I guess we'll just have to wait and 
see. We could have something very special, he, you and I. Not a family. 
It wouldn't be that, exactly. It would be...a community. Yes, a 
community." Her lips formed the word silently. Norman said, "Community 
is definitely something worth belonging to. Please..." Norman held his 
breath for a few beats, then said, "Mother. Give it serious thought." 

With lips pursed, she watched Norman's face for a time. Then she went to
the stove for the kettle. "I think I'll make some tea. Wouldn't a hot 
cup of tea be nice? Oh, and I bought cookies at the market today. Do 
you like chocolate chips? They're my favorite. We can set up the tea 
things by the front window. We'll be able to see William from there the 
instant he turns into the driveway." 

The end. 


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