MISTRAL BY Bob Morrill Monday Although dawn comes early on July mornings in New Hampshire, the sun had barely punched in when I delivered a mug of green tea to Jen—for thinning her cervical mucus— seriously! She was still under the covers, which is where I would have liked to have been, a pillow elevating her hips. Her eyes were closed, a beatific expression spread across her face. I knew it wasn‟t from the baby dancing we‟d done earlier. She was dreaming of the baby we had just conceived; a little girl with adorable little fingers, gossamer hair, and eyes so loving and innocent that you could spy heaven through them. Her granite-green eyes opened, and she smiled coyly. While she pulled herself into sitting position, I spun the wheelchair with my foot so it faced the bed and handed her the green tea. She clinked it against my coffee cup. “Let‟s hope this is the month.” I took a sip of my coffee, holding the mug‟s warmth with both hands. We had been trying to conceive for ten months without success. Ten months didn‟t feel that long to me, but it seemed more like ten years to Jen, who was approaching thirty-five and wanted at least a couple of kids. To add to those pressures, like a lot of paraplegics, Jen was fiercely determined to prove how normal she was. And pregnancy would be one large, irrefutable manifestation of normalcy. “I‟m beyond hoping,” I joked. “I‟m begging.” By then I should have learned not to kid around about conception, but I had already been doing stud service for the previous two days, based on Jen‟s meticulously maintained basal body temperature chart or BBT for short. But when Jen‟s urine turned the ovulation predictor paper blue, as it had that night before, we went into high gear. “It‟s blue” was neither a bit of news nor a phrase of affection. It was a command. There was no tarrying, no waiting for the Bob Morrill 2003 2 mood to strike. “It‟s blue” meant only one thing: it was time…time to get it up, get it in, and get her pregnant. “You want a baby, too, remember.” “I don‟t think our chances are increased by having sex before dawn.” “I thought it would be easier while Brittany was still asleep.” My nine-year-old niece had been staying with us since Saturday, when her mother and father had left for a three-week trip to Italy to celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary. She was sleeping in the guestroom across the hall. To help with Brittany‟s adjustment, we left both doors open and the nightlight on in the hall. I wanted to say that we could have waited until that night, but diplomatically just nodded instead. Jen insisted on good “coverage,” — six days of a baby-dancing-fest (“BDF”), as her TTC (trying-to-conceive) internet community called it—even though her fertility books said every twenty-four to forty-eight hours was adequate. Her bedside table was a small shrine to the gods of fertility. Books, magazines, and pamphlets fought for space with pill bottles, a fertility candle (originally a joke gift from one of my sisters, now no longer so funny), a bottle of Robitussin (again to decrease the viscosity of the cervical mucus—truly!), and a new addition, a small bottle of olive oil—organic, cold- pressed, and, of course, extra virgin. I made fun of these accessories as unnatural— “if God wants you pregnant, He‟ll do it on His schedule” —and unnecessary— “I‟m Italian from a big family.” Still a bottle of multivitamins with extra zinc and vitamin C sat on my bedside table. And yes, I took one of each every morning. Jen finished her tea and waved me out of her wheelchair. “Okay, honey, we need to get moving.” Bob Morrill 2003 3 Grabbing her legs, she swung them over the edge of the bed where they hung limply. She put on her bathrobe and vaulted into her wheelchair with a grace and agility that still amazed me. Even crippled, she was still as beautiful as the prancing UNH cheerleader I had adored at a distance seventeen years earlier. Playfully, she slapped my rump like I was some horse. “You truly are an Italian stallion.” She giggled musically. * * * Around seven, while Jen prepared Brittany‟s breakfast, I went to get her up. It was good that I was the one to wake her and not Jen, for Brittany was sleeping like an angel, cuddling her stuffed brown horse, her black hair framing her face. That picture of a sleeping child, as beautiful and innocent as the Madonna, would have only whipped Jen‟s desire to conceive into a frenzy. Brittany woke easily and a few minutes later was washed and dressed in her riding habit: paddock boots, jeans, and a tee shirt with a silk-screen of horseback rider under a setting sun. Sitting on her Aunt Jenny‟s lap, Brittany was explaining something about dressage, demonstrating with her stuffed horse. Her breakfast was untouched. “Come on, Brittany, I have to get to court.” While their parents were away, Brittany‟s two younger brothers were staying with neighborhood friends in Dover. But, because Bartholow Farms, where Brittany spent the summer mucking out stalls, grooming horses, and getting some dressage training, was not far off my commute, she was staying with us for three weeks. The plan was for me to drop her off and Jen to pick her up at four. Today was the first day. Bob Morrill 2003 4 “Okay, Uncle Tony,” she answered cheerfully, leaning forward to eat a spoonful of Lucky Charms. “Wait till you see Mistral. He‟s the most beautiful stallion in the world.” “Can‟t wait.” Mistral was probably the most famous four-legged resident of the seacoast. Even I who knew nothing about horses had heard of him. A few years earlier he had won the Preakness and a bunch of other races, but what really set him apart, as I understood it, was his perfect racehorse physique. Apparently he was one of the most sought after and expensive breeding stallions in the world. Brittany jammed her lunch and stuffed horse into a knapsack that was already full to overflowing and nearly as large as she. In the backseat of my Saturn she rummaged through her pack. “Uncle Tony, I forgot something.” I groaned quietly, but she was already out of the car and dashing back into the house. She returned with a pair of Walkman headphones, which she immediately slapped on. * * * My bailiff, Lionel LaCasse, was waiting for me to pick him up, as I had done almost every morning since beginning as a judge three years earlier. He was in his usual spot, the sunny kitchen alcove of Widow Buehler, his downstairs neighbor and landlady, who doted on him. LL took a few final sips of coffee from a teacup far too delicate for his big hands. When he was finished, he waved acknowledgement and handed the cup to Widow Buehler. For years LL had been head of the Major Crimes Unit of the New Hampshire State Police. Many considered him to be the state‟s best cop at the time, in some eyes his skills were legendary. So were his less savory exploits. After his retirement—I had heard rumors that he was forced out for one too many peccadilloes—LL became a bailiff. It was at about the same Bob Morrill 2003 5 time I was appointed a judge, and we were thrown together. Despite are difference in ages, I was thirty-eight and LL was fifty-two, we became best friends. LL eased his large bulk into the front seat of my compact. Before buckling his seatbelt, he turned to greet Brittany. “Hi.” Brittany looked up blankly and then removed her earphones. LL tried again. “Hi, I‟m LL. You must be Brittany.” “Yes,” she answered politely. “I‟m your Uncle Tony‟s boss,” he said brightly. “Oh,” she replied, putting her earphones back on. In a moment, mouthing the music, she disappeared into the impenetrable world of children. LL, facing front, grabbed my copy of the Coastal Courier, roughly unfolding it. After skimming the sports pages and surveying the obituaries, he began harrumphing his way through the front section. In a few minutes we were wending our way along Shore Road, laid out over three hundred years ago to connect Portsmouth to Rye Harbor. Taking advantage of every inch of shoreline, elegant seaside homes packed both sides of the road. Although designated a scenic highway, the homeowners‟ tasteful efforts to keep the views to themselves granted only occasional glimpses of the ocean. Homes well beyond Jen and my means unless I started taking bribes. Bartholow Farms was hard to miss. The march of homes ended, replaced by untamed tidal marsh on the ocean side and forest on the other. A quarter of a mile later Bartholow Farm‟s signature white board fences appeared. Then the farm came into view, an oversized white colonial, commanding the first major rise in elevation about a half mile from the North Atlantic. Nothing, no beach homes, no seaside motels, no condominiums, interfered with its panoramic vista of fields, salt marsh, and the Atlantic. Bob Morrill 2003 6 It was all owned by the scion of one of Portsmouth‟s oldest and richest families, Edward Ramses Wingate Bartholow or E.R.