In private reproach he’d blamed her for years for she’d been the one who’d wanted kids and it was futile to remind him how he’d wanted kids too, how proud he’d been, the first babies, his first sons, dazed and boasting to his male friends he was catching up with them God damn it and boastful even to his father the old sod he couldn’t abide, as the old sod could not abide him.

And she’d been a beautiful woman. Beautiful body he’d been mesmerized by. Soft skin, astonishingly soft white breasts, curve of her belly, hips. Oh, he’d been crazy for her! Like a spell upon him. Those first years.

Six pregnancies. Not wanting to acknowledge—(except to her sister Irma)—that these were, just maybe, at least two pregnancies too many. And then, the seventh . . .

After the first pregnancy her body began to change. After the second, third. And after the fourth it began to rebel. Cervical polyps were discovered, that (thank God) turned out to be benign and could be easily removed. Another kidney infection. Higher blood pressure, swollen ankles. The doctor advised terminating the pregnancy. But Lula would never have consented. Jerome would never have consented.

It was not something that was discussed. Not openly and not privately. They were Catholics—that was enough. You just did not speak of certain things and of many of these things there were not adequate words in any case.

As boys went unquestioningly to war, in the U.S. military. You did not question, that was not how you saw yourself.

Those weeks, months your mother spent most of each day lying down. Terrified of a miscarriage and terrified that she might die. Praying for the baby to be born healthy and praying for her own life and in this way Lula Kerrigan not only lost her good looks (she’d taken for granted) but also became permanently frightened and anxious, superstitious. Looking for “signs”—that God was trying to tell her something special about herself and the baby growing in her womb.

A “sign” could be something glimpsed out a window—the figure of a gigantic angel in the clouds. A “sign” could be a dream, a mood. A sudden premonition.

In the later stages of her pregnancy no one could induce Lula to leave the house. So big-bellied, breathless and pop-eyed she’d become. Eating ravenously until she made herself sick. Gaining more weight. Knowing that her body disgusted her husband though (of course) (like any guilty husband) Jerome denied it. Last thing Lula Kerrigan wanted to do was expose herself to the eyes of others who’d be pitiless, mocking.

My God. Is that—Lula Kerrigan? Looking like an elephant! Making a spectacle of herself parading around like that.

Scornful expressions you would hear through your childhood, girlhood—making a spectacle, parading around. The harshest sort of denunciation a woman might make of another woman.