by Nancy Thayer
“You don’t have any children,” she said.
“No.” Jerry still did not look up from his drink. “I wanted to have children, but Scotty didn’t.”
“You wanted children?” Daisy asked, surprised. “And Scotty didn’t?” She had always thought that all women wanted children and that all men, like Paul, could either take them or leave them, according to their careers or moods or financial situations.
“Well,” Jerry said, “Scotty gets bored easily. And she likes nice things, nice clothes, winter vacations, and so on. And then her own family was a bit strange…”
Jerry went on talking, telling Daisy about Scotty and Scotty’s parents, about his marriage to Scotty, and Daisy sat and sipped her drink and listened only half attentively. She was busy thinking. She was busy thinking: Why is this strange man telling me all this? How can he so easily tell me these intimate details of his life? Part of it, she knew, had to be that he simply needed to talk, he had to talk about all of this to someone. But why to her? Why was he talking so openly to her? He was going on and on, telling her private details of his life which all touched her as sadly as his description of the birds fluffed out against the cold on the feeder he had built. Why was he telling her all this? Was it because he thought she was wise? Perhaps it was just that he felt sure she was kind. And she did feel kindly toward him, kindly and generous and even slightly affectionate, because by his very vulnerability he was opening up to her a new way of viewing men. There were men out there in the world, then, who would want a home with children, who would want the stable, ordinary, mundane pleasures, who might want Daisy with all the homey opulence of her body and her life. Jerry was not going to be the new man in her life, she could tell that. Or rather, he was not going to be the new love in her life. It was quite possible that he would become a friend, a good friend, just as much a friend to her as Karen or Jane or Martha or the upstairs girls. It would be nice to have a man for a friend, Daisy thought, and then with a flash thought how very nice it would have been to have had him as a friend a few days ago, when she had to hang the heavy gilt-framed mirror back in the hall.
Daisy had been in tears trying to hang it, she had stood in the hallway panting from her efforts to lift the mirror back onto the hook, she had complained to Jenny and Danny, who stood watching her with open mouths: “It doesn’t matter how independent, how self-sufficient I am, I just am not strong enough to lift this goddamned mirror back up there, and I never will be!” That afternoon she had been exhausted and aching and bitter, wishing the baby would hurry up and come, wishing life were not so physically difficult. Her body had felt wretched and pressured in its every part. It seemed that the new baby weighed at least fifteen pounds and was standing upright with the full force of its body pushing against her bladder, so that she had to run to the bathroom constantly; if she coughed or sneezed or laughed, she wet her pants. The baby’s head was lodged into her lungs so that it took real effort simply to breathe. And she had incredible stomach pains and indigestion, because the selfish baby had shoved and bulged all her intestines into the corners of her stomach. She couldn’t imagine how her digestive system was still managing to function. She was tired. A brown blotch had shown up between her eyebrows, giving her a heavily moronic sort of look. It was not fair, she had thought, that all Paul had to do, all a man had to do, was to expel a bit of viscous fluid from his body and then walk away, all his organs and substance completely unchanged by the growth of a new life, while she, the woman, was stuck with a bulging heavy physical growth that caused her legs to cramp with pain every time she stood.
“What lamebrain half-assed idiot thought up this system?” Daisy asked Danny and Jenny, who of course did not understand what she was talking about or why she was yelling at them.
Daisy had finally gotten a chair, and climbed up on it, and eased the mirror up to the chair and then finally into its place on the wall. It had seemed absolutely essential to have the house back in order before she returned to it with a new baby. When she lifted the mirror onto its hook, she had felt as though tissues just under her skin were ripping. She had climbed back down and collapsed onto the chair, rubbing her painfully stretched stomach with shaking hands.
“This baby is not going to come out through my legs like ordinary kids,” Daisy informed Danny and Jenny with clenched teeth. “It’s going to pop right out through my belly. And I’m going to end up looking just like your beanbag chair with stuffing spilling out all over.”
“Really?” Danny asked, fascinated, staring at her belly, obviously hoping the baby would burst out then and there.
But Jenny began to cry. “You took the beanbag chair to the dump,” she said. “Will they take you to the dump?”
“They should, it’s where I belong,” Daisy said. “Right out there with all the other overused, torn-up rubbish.” But then she begrudged herself her bitterness, and pulled Jenny against her leg and fondled her. “The baby is not going to come out that way,” she said truthfully, wearily. “I’m not going to break apart, and I’m not going to the dump. I’m just very tired and very grumpy, but I’ll be fine in a few days. Don’t worry, honey, don’t cry. Don’t worry. Come on and smile for me, honeypot. Let’s go in the kitchen and find something yummy to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” Jenny sniffled, and Danny echoed her.
“Well, I am,” Daisy said, and hefted herself from the chair and lumbered into the kitchen to find something sweet. But even sweet food had not changed her sour disposition that day.
Paul had called early in the morning to say that something had come up—friends had given him and Monica tickets to a concert—and so he would not be taking the children to spend the night with him that night after all, but would take them the next day. Daisy had longed to say: “Well, you have to take them. I was planning to get into bed the minute they left and stay there till the minute you returned them; if I don’t get some rest I’ll go batty.” But she had been too weary to try to argue. Perhaps Sara or one of the other girls would take the children for a walk, she thought, then she could lie down and rest for a while. Still it chewed at her heart that Paul, who had helped create these children, could so easily slough off responsibility for them. She knew she could not rely on him for help; he would be moving to California in a matter of weeks, and she was aware that his connection with the children would quickly grow less and less strong. She realized that before long all she would receive from him would be the child-support checks he was legally bound to send. She hated Paul that day, purely and cleanly, she hated him. She thought perhaps she hated all men, all men with their inviolable bodies.
But she had not really wanted to hate men, and it was not in her character to nurture bitterness, and so tonight she was glad to have Jerry sitting across from her, distraught and vulnerable, as vulnerable as any other human being. And because she had had a nap that day, and was looking forward to a good dinner, she had flipped out to the other extreme of mood, where she found herself perched on her pregnancy like a bird at the top of a marvelous tree. If she had the burden and the weight, she also had the richness and the joy. She was more complex than the man sitting there before her, she thought, she was truly a more complicated being. All he had was his lone body, which could never change as dramatically as hers. While she could change shapes like a sorceress, she could sit looking perfectly still, and have extraordinary and elaborate magic bubbling away inside her. She could grow and carry secrets, the ultimate secret. And it occurred to her to wonder as she sat there what Jerry would think if she suddenly acted on impulse and interrupted his monologue to say, “Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa! You can’t do what I do, you can’t do what I do!”
Oh, it was clear that the fluids from the unborn baby were pressing on her brain and making her feel and think strangely. For as Daisy sat smiling politely at Jerry, nodding and commenting at appropriate times, all the queerest thoughts were running through her head. She wanted to taunt him like a child with a new toy, a better toy. She wanted to interrup
t him to ask, “Tell me. You’re a man. Do you think I’m sexy? Do you think any man will want to marry me? I mean after I’ve gotten back in shape. Do you think anyone would want to marry a woman with three children? What do you think of my legs, look at my legs, they’re still good.” What would poor Jerry do if she pulled up her skirt and showed him her legs? Daisy wiggled on the sofa. She felt restless, crazy. She wanted suddenly to turn on the radio or a record and dance, she really felt like dancing—although she knew that if she did she would probably pass right out on the floor, because she could scarcely walk anymore without struggling for breath. But Jerry did not sense her itchiness; he talked on.
Finally the children came thundering into the living room with Sara behind them.
“Are you still here?” they asked, and Jenny attempted to jump on Daisy’s lap while Danny stood openly scrutinizing Jerry with the same suspicious look Daisy’s father had worn on his face when she had started dating at fifteen.
“We’re just leaving,” Jerry said, to Daisy’s relief. “Good Lord, look how long I’ve been talking. We’ll be late; I made reservations.”
Daisy struggled up from the sofa, kissed the children goodbye, and awkwardly fit as much of her body as she could into her coat. Last week she had tried to button the coat and the strain of her enormous belly against the fabric had made two of the buttons pop right off, so now she had to be satisfied with having her arms and back covered while her stomach sailed ahead of her into the cold, covered only by the bright blue wool of her dress. Jerry was a gentleman; he took her arm and steadied her as they went out the door and down the steps to the car. He was quiet in the car for a while until they were headed in the direction of the restaurant, and when he finally spoke he said, “I should apologize. I can’t believe I talked so much. I hope I didn’t bore you.”
“No, no, not at all,” Daisy answered, smiling. But, in fact, her mind was wandering even then, so that she had to almost physically force herself to pay attention to him. She was foolishly staring at the lights of cars and houses and shops they drove past, she was letting herself get lost in the patterns of light. She found it difficult to concentrate on the man sitting next to her.
“I don’t usually talk so much about myself,” Jerry said. “But you are so sympathetic. You’re so nice.”
“I’m so pregnant,” Daisy said. And as she spoke, she felt a most surprising warm gush of fluids between her legs. It startled her. Her first thought was that she had wet her pants, but then she realized that she hadn’t sneezed or coughed or laughed and that in fact this fluid felt different. It was so warm, so sticky—there was so much of it—”Oh, my God, Jerry,” Daisy said. “My water just broke!”
“What does that mean?” Jerry asked, looking sideways at Daisy with apprehension.
“It means I’ll owe you some money to get your upholstery cleaned,” Daisy said. Even as she spoke she could feel the fluid seeping through the material of her dress and coat and into his car seat. But she felt strangely apathetic about it all; the fluid was warm, and the car heater was warm, and she was both comfortable and uncomfortable; most of her body had gone relaxed and somnolent, but her belly was drawing into itself with a deep pulling cramp. She put her hands on her belly to check; it was as if she had become schizophrenic and had to feel with her hands and see with her eyes if that strange foreign country, her stomach, was doing what she thought it was. It was. Her belly was as hard as the shell of a walnut, but it was a vulnerable, living hardness, an animate hardness, and as she moved her hands over her stomach she felt the hardness relax of its own accord.
Daisy sat very quietly for a few minutes, intent on herself, on the workings of her body, listening with her hands: and there it was again, that deep and irresistible pull. So it was starting. The baby was finally coming. In a few hours she would hold her new living child in her arms; in a few hours her life would be once more completely changed. She was ready for it, she was more than ready, she was eager. She welcomed the labor, the entire wracking process of giving birth: giving birth, giving life to a new person through her own efforts. This time she knew she would not be afraid of the pain, for she had been through it all before. The first time, with Danny, she had been frightened. She had lain in the high labor-room bed for hours, trying to breathe, trying to be brave, and staring at the chart on the wall that showed how the cervix dilates from two centimeters to something the size of a grapefruit. And she had tormented herself with crazy, uncontrollable fears: that might be what happened to other women, but it could never happen to her. Her body couldn’t possibly change that much. It would be impossible for something as large as a baby’s head and body to push its way through her muscles and bones without breaking her apart in the process. And with both Danny and Jenny, as the pain had grown stronger, she had really been convinced that she would die, with the next contraction, of a broken back. She had thought the pain truly unendurable.
But she had endured it. She had endured it twice, and her back had not broken after all, and she knew now that it would not break with this new baby. She knew now how babies came, she knew that on the other side of the mountain of pain which she was beginning to climb was a really glorious valley of hormonal delights, a sensual paradise of relief, relaxation, rest, and love. With Danny she had felt, at a certain point, when the labor pains grew severe, that she had somehow gotten on a roller coaster: it was just as it had been when she was a child, and had willingly sat down on a roller coaster, and then realizing the inescapability of her act, had screamed and screamed as the rickety cars went clanking up and up and up the steep incline, “I didn’t mean this at all! I don’t want this! I’m scared! Let me off, let me off!” It had been terrifying to realize that there was no way off that particular mad ride, that she was locked into it, and had to go through with it, even if it resulted in her death or in pain past describing.
But this time it was different, this time it was better. She felt so much more supported than before, she felt supported by the memories of the births of Danny and Jenny, she felt supported by the love and concern of her family and friends, and she felt really strengthened within herself by what she had gone through in the past few months. If she could go through all of that—the pain of the divorce, the pain of the loss of Paul and her marriage, which in its own way had been as intensely agonizing as the pain of labor—if she could go through all of that, and come out on the other side intact and smiling at life, then she could certainly go through the birth of this new and already loved child. This time she was not on a dry dreadful roller coaster whipping up and down toward a fate she could not foresee. This time, she could feel already, was more fluid, more graceful; as if she were riding the surge of a wave. Yes, it was like that, as if she were a raft, a liferaft, being borne forward by a great and billowing wave, and the wave supported her, held her up, carried her forward with no effort on her part, and she in turn supported the baby, she was the vessel that would carry it safely to the shore. And so she was not frightened; she was glad.
Her stomach continued to tighten and release rhythmically. It was all coming on very fast this time. The contractions were less than four minutes apart, and were rapidly growing fierce.
“Jerry,” Daisy said, “I don’t think we’re going to make it to dinner tonight. I think you’re going to have to drive me to the hospital instead.”
“Really?” Jerry asked, turning to her with a face bright with surprise. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But the contractions have started, and they are serious ones. God, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend for this to happen at all.”
“Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay. My God, it’s wonderful! It’s exciting!” Jerry stopped at a red light and frankly studied Daisy’s body as if by looking he could tell what was going on.
“Yes, well, just don’t let it worry you if I should all of a sudden stop being a good companion,” Daisy said. “You see, usually the pains start at four minutes apart, and then gradually come quicker and quicker, but no
w it seems to be hitting me hard all at once. I’m going to have to do some breathing exercises, and I’m going to have to—Just a minute—” And she ignored Jerry and began the quick shallow panting that she remembered from her earlier labors. There it was, for sure, just like the other times, the enormous hand that grasped her body and squeezed. She knew she would have to give in to it, she knew she would have to not fight, but surrender. She pulled her coat about her as tightly as she could, wanting not to look too horribly disheveled and out of control in front of the poor man she had so inadvertently trapped into sharing this particular trip. The next contraction was so hard that she scrunched down in the seat and pressed her knees up against the dashboard of the car, and grabbed onto the door handle. “Ouch,” she said. “Oh, my God. Jerry, you’d better drive fast.”
