Love Potion #2

by Margot Early

  Not from me, Cameron reminded herself.

  “What is it with women?” Paul said, still evidently thinking about Mary Anne, Jonathan Hale and Graham. “Actually—” he glanced warily at Cameron “—that’s not what I mean. But this is proof that humans are not inherently monogamous.”

  Any heart, any optimism, Cameron retained after the catastrophic morning seemed to fail her. I’m capable of monogamy, she thought. But it didn’t matter because the trait wasn’t going to be called upon—not by Paul, at any rate.

  Starting down the trail ahead of him, she said, “You know, you really might want to talk to someone about your feelings around your parents’ divorce.”

  “Is that what Sean suggests?”

  Cameron spun around on the trail, her eyebrows drawing together. Just behind her, Paul stopped. “No. But he has had therapy, if you want to know. He’s not afraid to talk or to reveal his emotions, none of which are shameful characteristics, by the way.” Be calm, Cameron, she told herself. “I’ve found out more about what he thinks and feels in a couple of weeks than I’ve learned about you in years.”

  Looking skeptical, Paul remarked, “And that makes you want to hitch your cart to his horse.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “It’s all the same to me, but you—in contrast—think ‘counseling’ is a dirty word. And where has all this manful silence and stoicism gotten you? You have a belief that defies what you see around you. Many people marry and stay married. Your parents didn’t, and so you assert that nobody can be monogamous, nobody can stay married. Really what you mean is that you personally hate the idea of being tied down.”

  “No, that is not what I mean. And infidelity isn’t the only reason people divorce. Look at my parents. They just stopped getting along. That’s what they said when my father moved out. ‘We’re not getting along. We think it will be better this way.’ I mean, I was six years old, and I was expected to get along with Bridget. I wasn’t given the option of moving out. I thought it would be better if we gave her to a neighbor. But these adults couldn’t handle what they demanded of me.”

  Cameron said, “That’s what they told you.”

  Paul squinted slightly, gazing down at her. But he said nothing, then finally shrugged as though to admit that she might be right.

  She turned again and started walking, and Paul wanted to tug on one of her two long, messy braids. He wanted to reach around her and hug her, backpack and all. And he did reach forward, pulling her back against him. He said, “If you were my sister, I wouldn’t have wanted to give you away.”

  Cameron’s heart thudded hard in her chest. She looked down and saw one of his big calloused hands. I can tell him now. She opened her mouth, and he released her.

  She turned to look at him, and his eyes were right on hers.

  If she told him, what would he do? Would he marry her out of duty? Or would he simply refuse to marry her?

  He said, “You know, they’re still friends. I think what they told me was true. They couldn’t live together and get along. It just happens, Cameron. That’s with normal people, not men who basically hate women or women who hate men.”

  “You don’t really think I hate men, do you?” she demanded.

  “No,” he said. “But I sometimes think you want men to act like women. Or you think you do.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it!”

  He seemed to consider something—perhaps the wisdom of answering. He said, “I meant that you say you want men to be more open, to talk about all their interior feelings, to constantly—” he held up fingers to indicate quotations “—‘talk things through.’ This is the way women behave. It is unnatural to men. Men tend to express emotions in action. But you say you would like to meet a man, maybe have a relationship with a man who bends your ear with blow-by-blow accounts of his inner turmoil. I contend, however, that you would not like that.”

  “Sean’s like that!” she exclaimed.

  “So hook up with him. He seems willing.”

  Cameron tried to see if Paul actually hoped she would do this, if Paul actually wanted her to be in a relationship with Sean.

  She had her answer in a moment.

  He said, “But I don’t see you doing that. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

  Cameron frowned. Paul was watching her with a look she caught on his face sometimes. She thought it was affectionate. But she also thought it was like the way she looked at Mariah when she was a puppy. She and Mariah would be at the park, playing on the ice, and Mariah would see another dog and start her bad bitch routine, barking and snarling, and then she’d slip on the ice in the middle of it and fall down.

  Cameron wheeled around and started down the trail. She kept talking, not wanting to see his face. “You’re saying that I’m not attracted to Sean because he talks to me about his emotions, but that’s not it.”

  Paul made a sound that indicated he was listening.

  “There’s no chemistry there, that’s all.”

  “There’s nothing unknown there,” Paul answered.

  Cameron frowned. “Anyhow, therapy isn’t something you do with your partner. A partner isn’t a therapist. But everybody can do with figuring out why they are the way they are.”

  “Presupposing that there’s something wrong.”

  “There’s always something wrong,” she answered. “We’re none of us perfect.”

  Behind her, Paul wished he could see inside her head. She was nervous. What was going on with Cameron?

  “In any case,” she continued, “I seriously doubt your parents just stopped getting along. Since they obviously do get along to a certain extent.”

  “But they couldn’t live together. My mom loves being a midwife more than anything else. Or anyone.”

  In front of him, Cameron heard these words and wondered if they were true. She thought they might be. It was something to think about. Like the way to tell Paul she was pregnant.

  But before she did that, she had an appointment with a midwife—and not Clare Cureux.

  THE MIDWIFE SHE FOUND was named Beulah Ann Cockburn. Beulah Ann operated out of a clinic in Welch, in McDowell County. When Cameron arrived in her clinic the Monday before Thanksgiving, she discovered that Beulah Ann was a full-bodied blonde around Cameron’s own age, perhaps a bit older. She was the divorced mother of two children.

  Cameron felt comfortable surrounded by the same sort of handouts and posters available at the Women’s Resource Center. She knew most of Beulah Ann’s clients were probably low-income and maybe not very well-educated.

  After a pregnancy test—just to double-check—and a pelvic exam, Beulah Ann sat down with Cameron and looked at her thoughtfully. The midwife was from Louisiana somewhere and still sounded like it. “You’re tiny, but your pelvis looks normal to me. This isn’t a case of true CPD—cephalopelvic disproportion. Just because you have a sister who had trouble, that doesn’t mean that’s going to happen to you.”

  Cameron felt a new ray of hope. It was safe, then, to believe that this pregnancy would go well. In fact, it was imperative to do so, to think positively.

  “In fact, I’d suggest you completely forget about the possibility. You should start believing that you can have a healthy pregnancy and a normal vaginal delivery.”

  “Because if I don’t, I will have caused it.”

  Beulah Ann made a dismissive gesture with her hands. “To be honest, I have more faith in your pelvis than in your ability to make yourself miscarry through worry. Let me give you a list of books to read.”

  Cameron stopped at a used bookstore on the way home. The only book from Beulah Ann’s list that she could find was a very battered copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Cameron was walking to her ancient Datsun when her cell phone rang.

  It was the number of the zoo, Paul’s work number. She decided to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Want to come to the Last Dol
lar Saloon tonight? I’m playing.”

  “No. Too smoky.”

  “Are you mad at me?” he abruptly asked.

  Cameron wondered what the question meant. She’d never known him to ask this before—probably because she usually let him know when she was mad. “No,” she answered.

  “You have a date with Sean, don’t you?”

  “I’m not dating Sean.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Then, what’s wrong? Is this about what hap—”

  “No,” she cut him off. “Of course not.” She wondered what would happen if she told him now that she was pregnant and that she’d just been to see a midwife. Why wasn’t she telling him now?

  Because she knew he wouldn’t marry her. She doubted he would want to commit to her. And she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wanted him to know that she was carrying his child.

  “Are you mad because you want to be my girlfriend?” he asked.

  Cameron’s breath caught. She couldn’t tell whether he liked this idea or whether he was concerned that she wanted to get her claws into him. “I’m not mad,” was what she finally said. I’ve got to tell him.

  But Paul would laugh, laugh because she was days pregnant and already knew and was already worried.

  “I have something to tell you,” she blurted out.

  “Did you give me a love potion?” he demanded.

  Cameron couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “Why would I give you a love potion?”

  Sitting in the primate keeper area, gazing through a reinforced window at the chimpanzees, Paul regretted the question. He spent too much time thinking about Cameron, wondering what it would be like to be…well…to have a different relationship with her.

  “Do you feel as though someone has given you a love potion?” Her voice sounded suspicious. “Like you’re in love with me or something?”

  “No!” This word felt like a lie and a cruelty on his tongue. He almost choked on it. “I mean—I love you,” he mumbled stupidly. “You know, in a way. I mean, we’re good friends. Where are you, anyhow?” he asked. “The people at the resource center said you took a vacation day.”

  “Just something I have to do once in a while, especially toward the end of the year, or I lose them, you know.”

  Paul noticed she didn’t say where she actually was. “Okay,” he finally said. “We’re having a family dinner Friday night. My mother asked me to invite you.”

  “Sure,” she said. Clinging to her cell phone, her eyes suddenly flooding though she didn’t understand why, she said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

  My mother asked me to invite you.

  Meaning he hadn’t thought of it.

  Cameron hung up and checked her phone. She had a text message from Sean.

  Haiku for C

  Fairy-tale princess

  Long braids and dark eyes. I’ll take

  Care of you and baby.

  Her throat was dry. She knew Sean and knew that he was offering friendship, would offer more if she wanted it. She wondered how much of her fear of telling Paul had to do with her certainty that he would not be able to vow to do what Sean had just said he would.

  All of your fear, Cameron; that’s how much.

  She texted Sean back.

  Haiku for S

  Thank you for being

  the grown-up you are. We’re just

  fine, baby and me.

  Myrtle Hollow

  CAMERON FELT decidedly off. Queasy with the horrible reality that she was pregnant with Paul’s child and hadn’t yet told him so. The sight of Bridget gutting the last pumpkin of the season nauseated her. Especially as Bridget had paused to discuss love potions with Paul and her father.

  Mary Anne and Graham’s engagement announcement was in the paper.

  Paul said that the love potions clearly didn’t work, because Mary Anne had dosed Jonathan Hale with the love potion. This was conjecture on his part and entirely wrong. But Cameron was sworn to secrecy.

  Bridget said, “Hey, Cameron, who is that incredible-looking guy I keep seeing you with?”

  Paul, Cameron noticed, did not so much as look up, but he said, “I told you who he is, Bridget.”

  “I’m asking Cameron.”

  Cameron told her.

  “Are you seeing him?” Bridget asked.

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Would he like to be more?”

  Cameron knew that Sean probably would like to be more, but she didn’t want to think about that possibility when Paul didn’t even yet know that she was pregnant—pregnant with his child. Suddenly she could no longer remain at the table. She needed to get to the bathroom, and she jumped up and hurried down the narrow hall of the cabin toward Clare Cureux’s clean and simple bathroom, with plants on the windowsill, the walls a sunny yellow. The house seemed to be tilting back and forth.

  She knelt beside the toilet and vomited violently. It was the worst nausea she’d ever experienced in her life.

  “Cameron?”

  She’d heard footsteps beside her, and she recognized Paul’s running shoes.

  She reached for some toilet paper to wipe her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re sick.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she answered in a hissed exhalation.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PREGNANT?

  “No, you’re not,” Paul said automatically. No one had slept with Cameron lately but him—he was fairly sure of that—and they had used birth control. But Sean Devlin… “Oh, yes, I am.” She put down the toilet seat cover and rested her arms on it.

  Paul stepped into the tiny bathroom far enough to close the door behind him. “Are you serious?”

  “I always joke about this.”

  Paul gazed into her dark brown eyes. To him she looked like some princess of Norse saga. And abruptly, she also looked like a pregnant woman, a mother. I’m not ready for this. He decided not to ask if the child was his. Cameron was capable of screaming at him over the question. So he asked, “What are you going to do?”

  Cameron sank back on her heels, beyond sobs, beyond tears. “What do you mean?”

  He knew he was making all the wrong responses and had no idea what the right responses were. He couldn’t stop himself. “Is it mine?”

  “You foul—” She swore at him, colorfully and at length.

  “I guess that answers my question.” Then he said, “Have you seen anyone? A professional? Obstetrician, maybe? You’re going to have the baby. I’m reading this right?”

  “Don’t you think I should?” she demanded.

  He realized that he couldn’t really imagine her doing anything different. “I’m glad,” he said, surprised to find it was true.

  Cameron swallowed, relieved and thankful. She searched his face, looking for some sign that he was happy that she was pregnant, that she had become pregnant with this baby that she suddenly wanted desperately to survive. It would be part of Paul and part of her. Being that she was pregnant, they seemed to be somewhat on the same page.

  Well, that was plenty to be grateful for.

  Her mind fought what she was understanding and did not want to understand or know. What she didn’t want to be true.

  I can’t be in love with him.

  Being in love with Paul Cureux was a cataclysm.

  And it had befallen her.

  Paul wavered, uncertain of his role. No, he knew his expected role, but he never did things simply because they were expected or because everyone else did them. Some people—not his parents, his mother, at least—but some other sorts of people would expect him to marry Cameron. Or move in with her. Because she owned her place and it would be absurd for her to move in with him and his housemate, Jake. Or he should buy a house…

  A baby.

  “So …” He chose his words carefully, finally deciding to repeat his earlier question. “Have you talked to a doctor?”

  “A mi
dwife,” she said, straightening up and sitting on the edge of the tub. “I’ve been reading. And, I mean, Paul, your mom’s a midwife. The midwife I saw, she said my pelvis is fine. So I want to have a homebirth.”

  “A what?” he said, as though the word was unfamiliar.

  “It’s better for the baby. You know it is. Of course, I’m terrified, but I want to do it. I want soft lights and the smells of home. I want only the people close to me there—and a trained midwife, of course. I mean, if I have to go to an obstetrician—and to the hospital, for that matter—I’ll go. I’m going to do what’s best for the baby. Don’t doubt that. But for now I’ve been to a midwife.”

  Paul leaned back against the door.

  Someone knocked on the other side of the wood.

  “What?” he said, louder than necessary.

  “Just wondering if everything’s okay,” said Bridget, sounding mischievous. And, to him, extremely nosy.

  Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he yelled back. “If we needed your help, we’d have asked for it.”

  “Pardon me for living,” replied his sister, and he listened as her tread receded.

  He told Cameron, “She gave you something so you’d get pregnant.”

  “Your mother and sister don’t make such preparations,” Cameron retorted. “Stop being paranoid.”

  “Then she gave you a love potion. That little bottle…”

  Cameron felt her face heat. “What makes you think I’m in love with you?”

  Paul flushed and changed the subject. “So—homebirth. I might be mistaken, but aren’t you the woman who is terrified of pregnancy and giving birth?”

  “You need to support me!” she cried. “Of course, I’m scared.”

  Paul had no wish to support her in insane ideas of homebirth, but he decided to let his mother and father dissuade her. He fully believed in homebirth, knew it was the place for a normal birth. But he wasn’t convinced that birth for Cameron would be low-risk.