You Deserve Nothing

by Alexander Maksik

  When they were alive, I’d sit with my parents around the tree and we’d open presents. On Christmas Eve, a few months before they died, we drove up to spend a week with them. The four of us had dinner while it snowed hard outside.

  My parents. Me and Isabelle.

  My dad built a fire after dinner and we all sat in the living room eating pecan pie. Afterward, Isabelle lay on the couch with her head in my lap. The four of us stayed up for hours watching the snow fall out of darkness through pale porch light.

  Now I sat at the small table in my apartment. There was the hum of the room. The sound of the blade cutting through the chicken. The sound of wine in my throat. Returning the glass to the table. I tried to be perfectly still. I held my breath and imagined myself alone in Paris. In a room in a city holding my breath.

  * * *

  A few days after Christmas she sent me a message.

  I was alone in a café reading Hopscotch.

  I’m pregnant.

  MARIE

  We went to Megève for Christmas. The whole family thing. My sister was there. The four of us. My parents had rented a chalet for the break. It was cozy with a wide stone fireplace and everyone was happy. I loved being with my dad who’d promised to stay the entire time. Sometimes we skied together, just the two of us. He was very sweet. He drank less than usual. He asked about school and I remember wishing I could tell him everything about my secret life. We’d sit on the lift together, warm in the sun, all wrapped up in our parkas, and talk and talk. He made me laugh. He told me stories about China, where he’d been spending most of his time. He’d been gone so often I’d forgotten how much I adored him and I kept wanting to tell him the truth. Somehow I don’t think he would have been angry. He would never have made a scene, or gone to the school or anything like that.

  It doesn’t matter. In the end I never told him.

  * * *

  I was late.

  I stayed home that day and while everyone else was skiing I went to the little pharmacy on the square by the church and bought a pregnancy test.

  I took it home and sat in the bathroom and when I saw it was positive I went numb. After a while I sent him a message. I can’t imagine what it did to him. All I wrote was, I’m pregnant. That’s it. I mean after all the messages I’d been sending—I miss you, I miss you. And then this. But it was what I could manage. Maybe I wanted to punish him, I don’t know. I didn’t say a thing to anyone. I kept it to myself until one night I didn’t think I’d survive. I got out of bed and snuck out of the house. It was late. Cold. The streets were covered with fresh snow and there was that round silence that comes in the winter at night in the mountains. I walked and walked and then I called him. He sounded so far away. But he was nice to me.

  You couldn’t have asked for more. He said he’d be there. We’d get through it together. We’d do whatever I wanted. I needed to think about it. To really think about it. I told him I didn’t want to think about it. I told him I wanted him to tell me what to do and he said he couldn’t do that. He said it wasn’t his choice, that it was my body, and all that. I was standing in the snow crying, feeling the way I’d felt on the bridge the night I’d called Ariel a bitch. He said, Try to sleep, Marie. I’m here for you. I’m right here, he said, in the saddest voice I’d ever heard.

  The next night I called back and told him I didn’t know what to do and then he said that he didn’t think it was a good idea to have the baby. Something like that. He kept saying, But Marie I don’t want to push you to do anything you don’t want to do. He said over and over again, I’ll be there no matter what. I mean, he was perfect. His words were perfect. But it was also as if he was reading a script. Part of me just wanted him to say, Get a fucking abortion goddamn it. You know, to prove that he cared at all. I mean about anything. But all he said was, I’m here, Marie. I’ll be there the whole time. No matter what happens. Which is what you want someone to say to you. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling, that same feeling that I’d had from the beginning, that he was only a ghost, vacant, repeating lines.

  For the rest of the time we were in Megève I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. And I could do it during the day. I skied hard and stayed as close to my dad as I could. Sometimes on the lift, when it was just the two of us, I’d lean my head against his shoulder while he looked at the map and I’d cry beneath my goggles.

  Then at night I’d lie in bed and try to imagine a child inside me, what it would look like, how it would resemble him, you know? Slowly I began to love it. Slowly it took on a personality. It had a face. I began to see it as a boy and then I imagined him with eyes just like his. Despite all the panic and dread of those last few days in the mountains, I was able to find a sort of center of warmth in this fantasy that I would give birth and the three of us would live together in his apartment in Paris. It’s what kept me alive.

  * * *

  He insisted I see a doctor as if there might be a doubt. I knew. I was pregnant. There wasn’t a question. But in Paris I went, for him. The day we got back I told my parents I was going to see Ariel and I went straight to the clinic. I waited there alone for hours. I was in a trance. I sat staring at the wall numb and frightened. He wanted to come but I told him not to. I think I was afraid he’d be angry, that he’d hate me for being pregnant.

  By the time it was over it was nearly dark, and I had to go home. They did the tests and handed me the papers and I took them to school, which was the first place I saw him after break. It was terrible. We walked around and around the field with kids whispering and looking at us and me handing him the papers like we were doing some illegal business deal. I couldn’t even touch him. I couldn’t even look at him really. It was cruel and it was brutal. Walking there together, this baby inside me, his baby, and I couldn’t even touch him. My God, you should have seen his face.

  That afternoon I took the train straight to his apartment where we got into bed and I cried and cried. Then I sat up and looked at him. I’d never felt so hopeful in my entire life. It only lasted a moment. I was so happy for those few seconds, a sort of short burst of hope, of joy. As if we’d be O.K., the two of us. Together. Me and him.

  WILL

  I came back to school and met Marie at lunch. She handed me an envelope. “In case you don’t believe me,” she said.

  We walked long, slow circles around the field.

  “Of course I believe you, Marie. Whatever you want to do. Whatever you decide. I’m here. No matter what,” I told her looking at the thin piece of paper.

  “I want to get an abortion,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry for all of this. But you know, we’re going to be fine. We’ll be great, the two of us. One day we will.”

  She stopped walking and turned to me and forced a smile. “Us. I’m not stupid. No, listen to me. No matter what happens, Will. All of this? Nothing. It’s. It’ll be nothing. You’re going to be great no matter what. You’ll see. Trust me. I’m young, but I know some things.”

  She moved her hand as if to touch my face, caught herself, and started walking again. She whispered, “My God, you look sad.”

  We walked in silence for a while.

  And then I said, “Just think about it, Marie. For you. Whatever you want to do. I’ll support anything you decide. And when you’re sure, tell me.”

  “Hey,” she said. “You don’t have to be any better than you are, O.K.? And I’m sure.”

  * * *

  One of those days, Lily’s white dog, missing a leg, limped across a field covered with snow. The bell rang and they left with their clean copies of As I Lay Dying.

  * * *

  It was very early. I’d forgotten to leave the heater on and from beneath the blankets I could see my breath in the morning air. I forced myself out of bed, took a shower and got dressed. The moon was a fang in the lightening sky.

  I stood close to the heater but couldn’t stop shivering.

  I locked the door behind me and put my coat on in the staircase.

  I turned
up my collar but it did no good. I walked faster. There were street cleaners moving along the rue de Seine spraying away the night’s garbage, avoiding two neighborhood drunks lying unconscious together on the sidewalk. The guy working the hose turned it off and signaled for the truck to stop. He kneeled down and shook the one who wasn’t wearing shoes.

  “Il est vivant ou quoi?” The driver asked leaning his head out, laughing.

  The heaters were out on the train and I pulled my coat tighter. I was grateful for the cold. It gave me something to focus on. It kept me awake. I watched as we passed through station after station, the blank-faced commuters waiting in the dark for their trains. No one spoke. There was only the sound of the rattling car.

  I was early and found a café by the RER station. I stood at the bar and drank a coffee, but couldn’t face eating anything. The man standing next to me was smoking with a trembling hand. There was a beer on the bar in front of him. For a moment I thought I might order one too. It had been a long time since I’d had a drink so early in the morning. I knew Marie would’ve been disappointed to smell alcohol on my breath. I ordered another coffee and waited.

  When it was time, I paid the barman, walked up the street, and found her waiting by the taxi stand. When she saw me she pushed herself off the wall. We stood looking at each other, the street between us, waiting for the light to change, cars speeding by. I crossed and held her to me, my lips against her hair. It was the first time we’d touched in a public place.

  In the taxi she gave the driver the address. We sat holding hands. Marie looked out her window and I looked out mine.

  At the hospital, I paid the driver. The streetlights flickered off as the taxi drove away.

  Not speaking, we walked along the straight stone hallways. The sound of our footsteps echoed off the stone walls and the vaulted cathedral ceilings. In the clinic there were green plastic chairs and Formica tables. There were polished floors and a nurses’ station encased in glass.

  They took us after an hour and put us in a room with another couple. The woman was on her side, her back to us, arms around her belly, in a black recliner in the corner. The man sat next to her and nodded at me. The nurse touched the woman’s arm.

  Marie and I sat at a table in the center of the room. “O.K.,” she said squeezing my hand. “It’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”

  The nurse brought a small cup with the pills inside. Marie took them with water and went to the bathroom to change her clothes.

  When she came back she wore a hooded IFS sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants “to hide the diaper,” she said rolling her eyes.

  We sat together reading magazines and waited and when we heard crying we locked eyes and didn’t look away. Marie leaned forward and whispered to me across the table, “It won’t be like that for me.”

  “It’s O.K. if it is,” I said.

  “But it won’t be,” she promised, squeezing my hand, looking directly into my eyes. She was so sure of herself. She put her magazine away and began to read her copy of The Waves, underlining for Mia as she went.

  They brought her some food but she refused to eat. I ate the crackers.

  I watched her try to read and imagined a different life, where at the end of the day we’d have a child rather than be rid of one. Where I’d come home joyful instead of unburdened.

  From time to time Marie would look up at me from her homework and smile. I imagined her sitting at our kitchen table, our baby asleep in the other room.

  When the pain began she clenched her jaw. I touched her hand. She looked at me and I felt, again, what it was to be loved like that, and not to love in return. Soon she let go of my hand, stood up and walked awkwardly to the bathroom.

  I watched the door close behind her. I heard the bolt slide into place.

  I sat at the table beneath the fluorescent light and listened to it hum. Then I heard the toilet flush, the deep groaning of liquid being sucked down into the bowels of the building.

  When she came out she was dressed in her street clothes. She had her bag over her shoulder. None of it was invention or artifice. Whatever lies she’d told me made no difference. As I watched her walk toward me I wanted to protect her. Whatever pain she’d endured she’d looked at me steadily, barely winced, and refused any weakness.

  “That’s it,” she said. “You call the nurse.”

  They took Marie’s temperature. Listened to her heart.

  Then we were back in the long stone hallways trying to find our way out.

  Just before walking into the day, we sat together on a low bench. I kissed her forehead.

  “I’m happy,” she said, looking at me with her flashing eyes.

  We took separate taxis back to school, where she returned to class and I returned to work.

  MARIE

  He looked terrible—pale and exhausted with such dark circles under his eyes. God he was thin. He crossed the street and kissed me and held me tightly. It was the first time we’d touched out in the open. We were in front of the station with all the taxis in a row, their lights on.

  Then we were in the back and the taxi was moving. He didn’t say anything so I told the driver where to go. I thought, I’ve never really heard him speak French. And then I felt as if I might take care of him. I tried to imagine what it would be like to introduce him to my parents.

  When we stopped in front of the hospital there was a part of me that was happy to be there. Maybe that’s disgusting. The idea that I’d have been happy, that anything that morning would have brought me pleasure. But it wouldn’t be true to say otherwise. Amid the fear, the nausea, I was there with him. Just the two of us. We sat in that dreary waiting room holding hands. There were other couples there, people around, but he still kept his arm around me the whole time. I mean like he didn’t care who knew. I think I’d have waited forever with his arm around me like that.

  Anyway, I’d taken the first pill the night before. It had already started.

  Eventually they called us. Inside there was another couple. She was miserable. She cried and cried but I shut her out. I didn’t want her there and all that noise was making me crazy. I sat at the table and pretended to read whatever book I had with me. But what I was really doing was hypnotizing myself. I stared at a point and focused on it until I disappeared into myself, until everything inside me slowed down.

  I felt humiliated wearing those horrible pads under my sweatpants, sitting with him in that terrible room with that crying girl. So I wished myself away. Stare at the wall and vanish.

  If nothing else, we had that in common, I think, our ability to disappear.

  He kept touching my hand and asking me if I was O.K., but even he started to get on my nerves. I wanted to be absolutely alone or to lose consciousness, to have the thing happen and wake up in his bed. But on the other hand, I was sure that once it was over, he’d leave me.

  Then I kept seeing the baby’s face. I mean this face I’d imagined for it. Clear. There was a photograph in his apartment of him as a baby with his mother holding him. They were sitting on the beach and his mom, who was so beautiful, was holding him in her arms and he had these big eyes and he was wearing a little white cotton sun hat. And that’s what I imagined our baby looked like. Would look like. And no matter how focused I became, no matter how hard I tried to disappear, it was that face that kept bringing me back. I knew it was dead already or dying. I mean I knew that it wasn’t a baby, that it wasn’t really formed. Still, I kept imagining it struggling inside me. I kept seeing it reaching out for me. And all the time I’m sitting there thinking of its little hands and that pretty round face and he’s holding my hand saying, Do you need anything, Marie? Are you O.K., Marie? Does it hurt? And I’m thinking, Yes, it hurts. I want to say, Yes, it hurts, Yes. I want to say, I keep seeing the baby and it looks just like you in that photograph in your apartment with your pretty mother and I don’t really want to kill it. I want to have it. I want to have it and live with you, the three of us together for the rest of our liv
es.

  But I don’t say a thing, I just sit there pretending to be fine, pretending to read.

  I don’t know how much time passed. Hours I think. And then I started to feel dizzy and feverish. I thought I might vomit. I stood up and as I did a shock of pain went through me hard and my knees nearly gave out. He was looking at me holding my hand sitting there with his face upturned and me standing looking down at him. Everything was spinning. I thought if I moved I’d fall over. I stood looking at him holding his hand until another cramp came. I think I flinched this time because he looked terrified. When I could, I walked to the bathroom. Maybe he came with me. I don’t remember. I was very dizzy. There was a lot of blood. I sat doubled over on the toilet with those cramps rippling through me one after another just stabbing away over and over. And then they passed and whatever had been inside me was out. I looked down into the water.

  Then I flushed and it was gone.

  * * *

  It’s still hard to believe, but we went to school afterward. We took separate taxis. I spent the day there as if nothing had happened. He taught his classes. Twice I passed him in the halls.

  * * *

  That afternoon I met him at his apartment. He undressed me and we got into bed and held onto each other. I kept my palm against his chest so I could feel his heart beating. I cried and cried. He stroked my hair and for a long time didn’t say anything. He never let go, never shifted. He kept me pressed against his warm body and eventually I was able to take a full breath and slowly I stopped crying. I fell asleep. I was exhausted. I don’t know if he slept but when I woke up we hadn’t moved. My hand was right there on his chest.