Motherhood_A Novel

by Sheila Heti

  I spoke about not having children as a sacrifice, and he said, but what are you sacrificing? I listened to him very carefully, then remembered the sensation I had of utter deepening—once, when we were in the kitchen; about how if I stayed with him, that’s how deep I would go into writing and life, into the darkest corners of myself and the earth.

  Then perhaps I should be grateful if he doesn’t want us to have a child. In a sense, I should be grateful.

  *

  Before going to bed tonight, Miles and I argued about money. Who should pay for what, and how—that is what started the fight. He is in debt from law school, and sends money away for his child, while I have never been in debt, having worked all the way through university—my fear of debt being so great. I have never put my money together with a man, or taken money from a boyfriend before, or ever supported a man, or been supported by one, either. I have so many awful memories of my parents arguing about money, and in trying to keep my money separate, it was fights like these I strove to avoid.

  *

  Last night, I dreamed Miles broke up with me on a bus, and as soon as he did it, he put his arm around a small, demure, brunette young woman who was sitting beside him. I was devastated that I had acted in such a way—emotional, difficult—as to make him want to leave me. But I kind of wanted to break up, too, and I had a hard time explaining to him that I was the way I was—sensitive, difficult—as a result of who he was; that I wouldn’t be this way with another man.

  Eventually my jealousy will fade, I hope. Miles has said he thinks the only thing worth being in this world is a decent person with courage, and that he has never done that—lied to a woman or deceived her. I have only two choices: to trust him or be suspicious of him; to believe in him or to doubt. Then I ought to make the choice to trust him, because what good does it do me to be suspicious or to doubt? That is causing myself pain in advance of any real pain.

  I have to ask, am I like those pale, brittle women writers who never leave the house, who don’t have kids, and who always kind of fascinated and horrified me?

  yes

  Is there anything I can do to avoid being that way?

  no

  Is there real shame in being that way?

  yes

  Is that way basically selfish?

  yes

  And not as connected to the life force as other women, being so shut up in my thoughts and my head?

  yes

  Is there a male equivalent to this, well, barrenness?

  no

  Is there a romantic female figure that equals those male, romantic, artistic figures?

  yes

  Women artists with children?

  yes

  If I have children, will I be like those women?

  no

  Would I have to give up writing in order to be?

  yes

  And dedicate my life to a man?

  yes

  To Miles?

  no

  To my father?

  yes

  Will dedicating my life to my father and giving up writing make me into a romantic female figure?

  yes

  Should I move in with him now?

  yes

  But wouldn’t that make me unhappy?

  yes

  Wouldn’t I be happier here?

  yes

  Does it matter whether a person is a romantic figure or not?

  no.

  *

  When I moved out of my parents’ house the week after high school ended, my mother gave up raising me. She says she should have given up long before. I remember the first time she and my father visited me in the little room I had rented. It was such a depressing little room, with a tiny bathroom attached. But for me, it was absolute heaven. My mother stood there crying, hurt. Why had I left our family, and why had I left our beautiful home, to live in this lonely little room, with only a hot plate, no kitchen, and just enough room for a bed and a desk?

  My mother also left home when she was seventeen—to attend medical school in the nearest town. But she didn’t see my moving out as a similar act to hers—moving out in order to start my life and write, both of us ready to work as soon as we could, eager to work forever. My mother works hard, and I work hard, too. I took the lesson of hard work from her. That is what a mother does: she sits in her room and works hard.

  When I was younger, thinking about whether I wanted children, I always came back to this formula: if no one had told me anything about the world, I would have invented boyfriends. I would have invented sex, friendships, art. I would not have invented childrearing. I would have had to invent all those other things to fulfil real longings in me, but if no one had ever told me that a person could create a person, and raise them into a citizen, it wouldn’t have occurred to me as something to do. In fact, it would have sounded like a task to very much avoid.

  Not that it really matters, the question of what my authentic or original desire might be. I know a person can enjoy things they never thought they would, and regret terribly things they wanted very much, or can come to want things they didn’t want before.

  *

  What I need is so small: to eradicate any sentimentality from my feelings and to look at what is. Today, I defined sentimental to myself as a feeling about the idea of a feeling. And it seemed to me that my inclinations towards motherhood had a lot to with the idea of a feeling about motherhood.

  It’s like the story my religious cousin told me when we were at her home for Shabbat dinner—of the girl who made chicken the way her mother did, which was the way her mother did: always tying the chicken legs together before putting it in the pot. When the girl asked her mother why she tied the legs together, her mother said, That’s the way my mother did it. When the girl asked her grandmother why she did it that way, her grandmother said, That’s how my mother did it. When she asked her great-grandmother why it was important to tie the chicken legs together, the woman replied, That’s the only way it would fit in my pot.

  I think that is how childbearing feels to me: a once-necessary, now sentimental gesture.

  *

  There is a feeling I have of life standing by, twiddling its thumbs, waiting for me to have a child. I have sensed it creeping over my skin—the sensation of life tapping its foot, waiting for me to give birth to a child who could only be given birth to through me. Sometimes I feel there’s a specific human life I’m denying—actively and selfishly denying—if I don’t have a baby. I don’t know where this idea comes from, or if every woman feels it, or if it’s something from the past—from a historical event that happened when I had my abortion. Someone was being grown and I prevented that life from being. Yet I think of it, strangely, as a present-tense issue: there’s someone I’m not letting be born, or a future-tense issue: there’s someone I won’t let be born.

  Is there a part of me that thinks I can return to that life—re-animate the specific human life I ended? The same way it can be that for years after a break-up, you project yourself back before the break-up occurred, and live in the relationship as though it’s still going on, fantasizing, Maybe I can un-break their heart and bring us back together again.

  What should I do about the soul I blew out the life from, like blowing out a candle on a birthday cake? The Jewish religion says it’s not a child until it’s two-thirds out of the woman’s body—until the head has completely emerged. I have a feeling like if I open my mouth too wide, a baby will pop out, like something I didn’t want to say—I might slip up and say the unsayable thing. A baby’s right there, building up at the back of my throat, a self that wants to come through me—not necessarily even my child—I don’t even feel this child wants to be raised by me, only that I’m the vessel through which it must come. Should I do it? Let this thing be born—not for me, not for Miles, but just for that single, solitary soul?

  If I accept the idea that there is a creature waiting to be born through me, and it’s not some vague guilt about my abortion, then I
become calm. Then it seems like the main thing about motherhood is letting another creature come through you, whose life is entirely its own. A child is not a combination of you and your partner, but a reality all its own, separate and unique—a distinct point of consciousness in the world. I don’t think this was something I ever felt—that my body, my life, belonged to me.

  *

  This evening, Miles came into my study where I was writing—he had been putting the laundry together, and he said to me, Why don’t you write a book about motherhood? Since you’re thinking about it so much. And talking about it with everyone you meet. Then he returned to cleaning up. It’s true. Lately I have been asking everybody, Do you want to have kids? Every conversation I get into with anyone, he has seen me turn in this direction.

  Does your mother know the exact moment she became pregnant? The moment he entered my study and said that, I felt the first stirrings of new life. I knew there would be no turning back.

  What kind of creature is gestating in me, that is half me and half him? What is this creature that is half the creation of a writer, and half the creation of a criminal defence lawyer? Of course, a woman will always be made to feel like a criminal, whatever choice she makes, however hard she tries. Mothers feel like criminals. Non-mothers do, too. So this creature, which is half me, half him, will be in part a written defence. Like Miles, it will want to help, to stick up for the accused. As his colleague once said to me of the work they do, There are only two people on the side of the accused—his mother and his lawyer.

  NEW YORK

  This afternoon, a psychic lady—a spiritual healer or fraud—stopped me on the street as I stood in the West Village, window-shopping after an interview. The interview had been conducted by a reporter who was writing for a ‘things to do in New York’ website, who was going to mention my reading that night.

  I was standing in the sunny street, looking at puppies in the window of a shop, when an older woman stopped me and showed me the goosebumps on her arm—told me to touch them. Then she pulled me over to a bench on the other side of the street. Money didn’t come up till later. Meanwhile, she could see it in my eyes—whatever it was she saw—that the Lord on high destined us to meet. The angel Gabriel was perched on her right shoulder, and the angel Michael was perched on her left (she told me, touching them).

  She said my three colors were lavender, turquoise and silver, and that I should write with my left hand, because my power is on the left side of my body, which is where God has put my femininity. She asked me to point out the hand I write with, and I of course put out both my hands. But from now on I will write with my left hand, slowly and awkwardly, in a white notebook, as I’m doing now.

  Do I have a gullible face? I must have. A hundred and forty dollars I gave her!—as she stood behind me at the ATM. But I justified it to myself by saying, It cost less than a therapy session—and this was better than that.

  She asked me to make three wishes, but I could not. I cannot make wishes right now. I know that whatever you wish for has its dark side, too. But it was not so hard to come up with three questions, so I asked if I could provide her with three questions instead. She said yes. First I asked her how long it would take me to finish this book, and she closed her eyes and asked God (if it was God, but maybe it was the angels) and the answer was that I would write it in days and weeks and months and years, and that the book would lead me, but that eventually it would be done, and it would be my number one bestseller. She pointed out that I have to remember how many people have the same problems I do. The only reason I brought up the book is because she brought up the strength of my mother and grandmother, saying they had been the backbones of their families.

  My second question was, Why am I so sad? She squeezed her eyes shut, then revealed that a man and a woman had put a curse on me, my mother, and her mother, while my mother was pregnant with me. She looked a little deeper into the unknown, then said, appearing to almost vomit in her mouth, It’s worse than I thought. I asked if the people were alive or dead, and she said they were dead, but that only made the curse stronger. She put her hand on my belly and told me I was fertile—my machinery worked—but later she admitted that I had precancerous cells in my womb.

  She had me squeeze her finger three times hard (harder—I can take it) and push like I was pushing out a baby to reverse the curse (and, I think, the cancer). I repeated after she said it, evil be out! evil be out! evil be out! Then she said, I see the head! (she’d had me uncross my legs) and with the final push, I saw the whole thing come out, too.

  At this point we talked about Miles, and she said we would be together the rest of our lives. She saw two girls for us. I would carry them nine months—to full term, not preemie. I said he was a noble man and she said I was a noble woman. I said, Do you want to see a picture of him? She said, Thank you. I do! I showed her his picture on my phone—us smiling in bed together.

  She saw that he was honest and true. It’s good, she said. He loves you and wants to take care of you. She gave me a little bag of stones in blue velvet to illustrate this, and made me cup it in my hands: You can trust your life in his hands. And he can trust his life in yours. Tears came into my eyes when she said we’d stay together. A man like this doesn’t grow on trees. Take it one day at a time.

  She said my task in life was to speak for the people who could not—and something about the four corners of the world—that my married name would be remembered, and my maiden name would be, too.

  I had one final question: Should I live in Toronto, where I feel more at home, or in New York, which feels so free? She thought and said, You will remain in Toronto until you finish your book, then you will move here.

  But what about Miles? You said we would be together forever. I was thinking about Miles’s job, and how he cannot move. She said that Miles would move with me.

  It was the best psychic reading I have ever had.

  The next morning, before I flew home, I had breakfast with a young editor from an intellectual magazine. The restaurant was down a short flight of stairs. It was dark inside with round marble tables, cloth napkins, and a handwritten menu with only six items, all of them perfect.

  What do we need to know about a person in order to like them? Before she wrapped her leftover buttered toast inside a paper napkin, I didn’t know whether I liked her or not. Then, when she wrapped up her toast in the napkin, I suddenly loved her. Before she wrapped up her toast, she had been making an effort to show herself to be a sophisticated and an impressive young editor from a respected magazine. Then, when she did that, the performance dropped; not only was she underpaid, the gesture said, but she really liked toast. She liked toast even more than she liked being admired.

  *

  The night before, I had gone out with some friends, and the topic of having children had come up. Everyone had so much to say. One of the men, a sort of Marxist intellectual who was committed to not having children, pointed out that Walter Benjamin had rightly expressed that revolutionary anger and the spirit of sacrifice is better nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.

  The conversation went on for another half hour, before this man’s girlfriend, who had not said much of anything until then, remarked, Being a woman, you can’t just say you don’t want a child. You have to have some big plan or idea of what you’re going to do instead. And it better be something great. And you had better be able to tell it convincingly—before it even happens—what the arc of your life will be.

  HOME

  I got out of the cab with my suitcase and felt a sense of peace and calm, standing in front of our home—a pretty apartment on the second floor of a very old house, with its tangled lawn.

  I had a memory from our first year together: Miles was standing at the living room window, watching the first snowfall of the year, and turning to me while I was lying on the couch, under a blanket and reading, he held up four fingers. Four seasons, he said, because I had once told him
that my religious cousin said we should be together four seasons before we decide whether to marry. He said, We have been together four seasons now.

  I can hear the vacuum cleaner in the next room. Miles spent the last few minutes fixing it. We bought it last week and already I broke it. Now it seems to be working again.

  I just went into the living room and told Miles that at my reading in New York, I met a woman who I liked and trusted right away. She told me, as we stood by the bar in the darkened club—she was a little bit witchy, and a little bit psychic—that she could see it: I would have one vaginal baby and I would have it for karmic reasons, not because I wanted to.

  Miles replied, If I met some guy in a bar and he told me that one day I’d own a Corvette, I don’t think I’d go around telling everyone.

  I had bad dreams again last night. I have had terrifying dreams since my childhood, and I don’t know why. Do these dreams visit me to balance out something in my conscious attitude?

  no

  Am I just cursed by a demon, sort of randomly?

  yes

  Should I pay any attention to my dreams—imagine they say something real about my life?

  no

  All they can tell me about is the demon?

  yes

  Would it be useful to pay attention to my dreams, to learn more about the demon?

  yes

  So I can fight it?

  yes

  Is there any chance of me being successful in the fight?

  no

  Do I fight this demon, which brings me nightmares every night, in a logical and systematic way?

  yes

  Do I fight it also in random and magical ways?

  yes