Enlightenment for Idiots

by Anne Cushman

  But the first thing that Tom told me—after the initial hugs and hellos—was that he’d started seeing someone. Her name was Rebecca; she was a few years older than he was, and taught art in a private high school a few miles from his new house.

  “Well, that’s convenient for you,” I said, brightly. To my surprise, my stomach was sinking. All along, Tom had been my emergency fallback plan. He was like the box of canned food and bottled water Ernie insisted we keep in the basement in case there was an earthquake—we hoped we never needed it, but it was comforting to know it was there. I tried to arrange my face into an enthusiastic expression. “She can just drop by your house for dinner right after work!”

  “Well, actually—I think she’s going to move in next month. She might as well. We’re spending every night together anyway.”

  Move in? Into our house? “Wow! How terrific!”

  “Yeah. There’s even a spare room she can use for an art studio.”

  You mean, my yoga studio??? “Yeah. I remember from the pictures.”

  “That’s right. I forgot I showed you those.” Tom pulled out his Treo. “Want to see some pictures of Rebecca?”

  Sure. And then I want you to jab toothpicks under my toenails. “I’d love to.”

  He handed it to me. I looked down at a woman with straight, shoulder-length red hair, translucent skin, luminous gray eyes, and a warm, shy smile.

  “Isn’t she great?” Tom looked at me eagerly.

  I remembered how unfailingly kind he had always been to me; how willing to forgive me for bailing out on him to chase after Matt. Come back! I wanted to tell him. I’ve made a mistake! I do love you, after all! Dump Rebecca! I’m the one you really should be with!

  I handed the Treo back to Tom. “She’s beautiful,” I told him. And as I said it, I knew it was true: “I hope you guys are really happy.”

  Friends, I know nothing which brings suffering as does an untamed, uncontrolled, unattended and unrestrained heart.

  —The Buddha, Dhammapada, ca. 500 BC

  CHAPTER 25

  WHEN I HIT THIRTY-EIGHT weeks, Dr. Pat informed me that I could get off bed rest. My cervix was 50 percent effaced, three centimeters dilated, she told me, pulling off her rubber gloves. The baby was full term. It could be born any time.

  “Wow. Should I stick kind of near the hospital until it comes?” I pictured my uterus unzipping like a flimsy purse, the baby tumbling out of me while I walked down Mission Street.

  “No, don’t worry. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of warning. Just time your contractions the way they taught you in your childbirth class. When they’re about ten or fifteen minutes apart, just come on in.”

  Out in the waiting room, Devi Das sat reading an article called “Pumping Breast Milk at the Office” in Working Mother magazine. He’d been planning to give me a ride home in Lori’s car. Instead, we decided to leave the car parked in the garage and take a celebratory walk over to Golden Gate Park.

  After a couple of months on bed rest, it was exciting to be walking down the street, even if my walk was more of a waddle. It was a bright afternoon at the beginning of June, with blue skies and a cool breeze. I was wearing a red maternity sundress that Lori had picked out for me at the Goodwill, and my newly shaven legs were bare. At a corner deli, we picked up cheese and tomato sandwiches, which Devi Das tucked in his cloth bag, and made our way through the park toward Stow Lake. I didn’t even realize myself where I was leading Devi Das, until I found myself crossing an arched stone bridge over a waterway dotted with ducks, their green heads glistening. Only then did I know where I was going: to the little dell by the pond where Matt and I had shot the cat calendar so many years ago.

  We stopped by the waterfall and I sat down on a park bench, out of breath. After so long without exercise, my heart was pounding as if I’d just pumped through second series.

  “Mind if we borrow your phone?” asked Devi Das. “We want to give Ishtar a call and tell her your good news.”

  “No problem.” I handed him the phone and leaned back on the bench, watching a pair of ducks dive, tails up. A couple of teenagers rowed by in a flat-bottomed rowboat, their oars splashing. I stood on the cobbled stones by the waterfall and dropped into a deep backbend. Matt knelt in the grass, his camera trained on me, his body still a mystery. Our romance stretched out in front of us, bright with promise. It might as well have been a memory surfacing from a past life: I was a queen in ancient Egypt. I was one of Jesus’ disciples. I wondered if Bigfoot still lived around here. No, he probably died long ago. I hoped he went out happy, his belly full of mice.

  I looked across the water and saw, rising over the park in the distance, the highest windows of the UCSF Medical Center, where I would be delivering my baby. How odd that I had literally been able to see, right at the beginning of my relationship with Matt, the place where it would ultimately take me.

  Devi Das hung up and sat down next to me. “What are you thinking about?”

  I sat up and put my hand on my belly. “I was just hoping that my kid doesn’t have to struggle with his love life as much as I have.”

  Devi Das reached into his bag and pulled out our lunch. “There’s a story we heard a long time ago about how the native people in South America used to grow hemp to make rope from the roots.” He unwrapped the sandwiches and handed one to me. “They grew it in these really rocky fields, so they didn’t harvest very much, but what they did was unbelievably strong. Then the Spaniards came. They decided it would be way more efficient to clear all the rocks out of the fields so they could grow more hemp.” He took a bite and chewed, a bit of lettuce bobbing out the corner of his mouth. “They got more hemp, that’s for sure. But guess what? It was useless. It turns out it was growing around all those rocks that gave the hemp its strength.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich, tasted the tang of mustard, the juicy sweetness of tomato. The closer I got to delivery, the more acute my senses became. The sandwich was almost psychedelic in its intensity. “So are you telling me that all my struggles have made me stronger?”

  “Stronger. More flexible. More resilient.”

  “I don’t know. I think I’d rather be weak and happy.”

  “Yeah. We know what you mean. Sometimes we think that all the bad things that have happened to us have just been life’s way of hammering away at the armor around our heart. Other times we think we wouldn’t have even needed all that armor if life hadn’t been such a bitch.” He paused, chewing. “We never would have gotten started on our spiritual path if our brother hadn’t died. And our spiritual path is the greatest thing that ever happened to us. But still, we never would have chosen such a loss. Or wished it on anyone else, for that matter.”

  We finished our sandwiches in silence.

  “Do you mind if we take off now?” Devi Das asked. “We promised Ishtar we’d meet her for coffee.”

  “Go ahead. You take the car. I’ll just take the bus home.”

  “Are you sure? We don’t want you having your baby on the Number 16.”

  “Don’t worry. The doctor told me I’d have plenty of warning.”

  I watched him walk off. He had stuck a daisy in his dreadlocks; it waved like an antenna. But in San Francisco, he didn’t even draw a second glance. I slid off the park bench and lay down in the grass next to a snarl of blackberry brambles, their white spring blossoms tangled with the glossy red of poison oak. The sun was warm, but there was a cool edge to the breeze, and the grass was slightly damp. I’d have grass stains all down the side of my dress. But who was looking?

  I was just starting to doze off when I heard a plaintive meow. I opened my eyes to see a gray tabby cat picking its way through the grass. “Bigfoot?” But of course, when I looked more closely, I saw that it wasn’t. This cat was smaller and more delicate, and its ears weren’t tattered. Its eyes were golden, not green. It was looking wistfully at the remains of my sandwich.

  “Here you go.” I sat up and held out a scrap of cheese, which it took
delicately from my fingertips. I rubbed its head, ran my fingers down its spine. It pushed its head against my hand, arching its back and purring.

  “Still a cat person, I see,” said a voice behind me.

  I jerked around.

  “I went by your house, and Ishtar told me you were here. She said if I drove right over I might catch you.” Matt had a camera around his neck; except for his gray-streaked hair, he could have stepped straight out of my memories. But he stood a few feet away, looking unsure of his welcome—an unfamiliar look, as if he had borrowed an expression belonging to someone else. “I hope I didn’t just scare you into premature labor.”

  “Too late for that. I’m already full term.” My voice came out a little shaky. “You’re not exactly early, you know.”

  “Ouch. I guess I deserved that.” He took a tentative step toward me. “I would have called first, but I was afraid you’d refuse to see me.”

  “If I had any sense, I probably would.”

  He sat down on the grass a few feet away. His face was pale under his tan; there were circles under his eyes. “Look, it’s not like I’ve been avoiding you. I just got back from Bangkok yesterday. I went to your house as soon as I got up the nerve. I wasn’t even sure you were there. Next, I was going to call your mother.”

  “Not a good idea. For one thing, she’s gone back to Hawaii until the baby comes. For another, she’d cut your balls off.”

  “She wouldn’t be the first to try.” Matt looked at my belly. “You look…amazing. You must be almost due.”

  I nodded. “Any day now.”

  “And…how are you feeling?”

  “Great, now. But I’ve been on bed rest for the last two months.”

  “I know. Ishtar told me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for it.”

  I shrugged, tried not to sound bitter. “That’s okay. I’m used to it by now.”

  Matt leaned his forehead against his knees. “I guess I deserved that, too.”

  “To be honest, you’re lucky I’m even talking to you right now.”

  He looked at me. “Look. Amanda. I don’t know any graceful way to say this. So you have to just let me spit it out somehow. I acted like a jerk last time I saw you. I know that. And I’m sorry. It’s just that—I couldn’t believe how angry I got when you told me you were pregnant. It was like a tidal wave. And along with the anger was this feeling like…like I was going to die if I didn’t get away from you as fast as I could.”

  I watched a pair of seagulls dive-bombing a duck on the pond, trying to snatch a chunk of bread from its mouth. “You know what, Matt? I don’t have a whole lot of energy for processing your fear right now. Given that I’m going to go into labor like, any second. So you better get to the point pretty quickly.”

  “So, anyway—I left. And I went back to Thailand and went deep-sea scuba diving. Alone,” he added, reading my mind. “Or mostly alone, anyway. I was trying to get my mind off the whole thing by doing something as exciting and potentially dangerous as possible. But it didn’t work. I knew I had to do something to get my head together. So I wound up in this monastery in Burma, doing a two-month meditation retreat.”

  “Great. Your girlfriend’s pregnant? Join a monastery.”

  “The few weeks were hell. I spent most of the time in a rage. I went over the situation again and again in my mind, trying to think myself into some reality where this”—he gestured at my belly—

  “wasn’t happening. Or wasn’t my problem.” The cat had climbed into his lap. He stroked its head with his hand. “But when I finally sat still long enough, what I got was that underneath all that anger was just sheer terror. You know, my parents were so screwed up that I never really got to be a kid when I was a kid. I’ve been making up for that my whole adult life. And now I was supposed to have a kid myself? I was terrified that I was going to lose everything I’d worked so hard to maintain over all these years. My independence. My ability to walk away from anything.” He looked at me. “My freedom to never again care about anything so much that if I lost it, it would break my heart.”

  I shrugged, refusing to soften. “I guess that’s the great thing about being the dad, not the mom. You have a choice about whether you’re going to sign on.”

  “Well, you had a choice, too, Amanda.”

  I shook my head. “No. I didn’t. Not really. Not if I was going to live with myself for the rest of my life.”

  He leaned toward me. His eyes were intense. With the pond and the sky behind him, the gray eye looked almost green and the green almost gray, as if the two sides of his face were finally melding into a unified whole. “But that’s what I’m saying, Amanda. That’s what I finally realized, too. That if I walked away from you—if I walked away from this baby—then all my precious freedom, my so-called autonomy…it would be totally empty.”

  Something twisted in my chest. “So what are you telling me?”

  He reached out and picked up my hand. It was as if my heart had been plugged into an electrical outlet: Against my will, something lit up and began to hum. “I’m telling you that—I want us to get back together. I want to be here for you and for the baby. I want you to give us another chance.”

  “OH, GREAT, NOW he shows up.” Lori set a bowl of guacamole down onto my kitchen table with a brisk thunk. “Waltzes in just in time for the birth.” She sat down across from me, tore open a bag of tortilla chips, and dumped them into another bowl. Even in the midst of a crisis, Lori was not one to eat chips straight out of the bag. “He’s like those guys who watch TV all afternoon while their wives slave away in the kitchen getting ready for a dinner party. Then, when the guests arrive, the guys toss the steaks on the grill and take a bow. I’d love to have seen his face when you told him to take a hike.”

  She snapped the plastic wrap off the guacamole and looked at me. “You did tell him to take a hike, didn’t you?”

  I picked up a chip, scooped it into the guacamole. “I told him I needed to think about it.”

  “What’s to think about?” Ishtar plopped herself down in the chair next to Lori. “He’s your tantric consort. Not to mention that he’s the father of your baby. It’s incredibly romantic.”

  “Consort! Give me a break.” Lori glared at Ishtar. “The consort who responded to the news that you were pregnant by going scuba diving in Thailand. What’s he going to do when the baby’s born? Go kayaking in Alaska?”

  The guacamole was tangy with lemon and garlic. I fought the impulse to put my hands over my ears. We lay on the grass together, talking, until the fog came in and I began to shiver. Matt’s arm around my shoulder, the warmth of his hand holding mine as we walked to his truck; two puzzle pieces clicking back together. “Want to grab a bite to eat?” he asked. “Yes,” I wanted to say. “Yes. And then I want to go back to your apartment, and never leave.” It had taken all the strength I had to tell him to drive me here instead.

  “Well, technically,” said Ernie, leaning back against the kitchen counter and frowning, “she can’t just tell him to take a hike. Legally, he’s still the baby’s father. He does have certain rights.”

  “Rights come with responsibilities,” Lori snapped. “Let’s see how many he’s willing to take on. Precious few, I’m willing to bet.”

  “Maybe he’s changed,” said Ishtar dreamily. “People do.”

  “Not that much. Don’t you ever watch Dr. Phil? ‘The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.’” Lori turned to Devi Das, who was standing at the stove making a stir-fry. “What do you think, Devi Das?”

  I look at him, my stomach churning. Matt and I were on trial, and this ragtag jury of friends got to decide our fate. I wasn’t sure what I hoped their verdict would be.

  “We think the eggplants are done.” Devi Das peered into the pan, frowning. “But the broccoli needs a few more minutes.”

  “Great,” I said gratefully, heaving myself to my feet. “I’ll get the plates. I’m starving.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Matt any more. I
was regretting telling Lori in the first place. I wanted to take my memory of the afternoon off to my room with me, alone, and turn it over and over like a glowing ruby. I didn’t want to put it under a jeweler’s microscope to see if it was a fraud.

  LATE THAT NIGHT, I lay in my bed in the only position that was remotely comfortable: on my side, with two pillows wedged between my legs, two more propped behind my back, two more under my head. It took ten minutes to wedge myself into position; then I got up to pee and had to start all over. Only after I got myself settled did I allow myself to take out my fantasies, like a rich dessert I’d been waiting all evening to savor.

  You can move into my studio, Matt had said. Sure, it’s small, but we’ll make it work. I’ll stop traveling and get a real job—maybe as a photographer for the Chronicle. Or doing graphic design for a small press. Once I’m earning some real money, we can get a bigger place.

  I closed my eyes, put my hands on my belly. Me and Matt and the baby, cozied up in Matt’s loft bed. Matt’s workstation under the loft replaced with a ExerSaucer and a diaper changing table. Matt walks in the door, home from work, swoops the baby up off the floor and into his arms. “Honey! I’m home!” I’m at the two-burner stove in the kitchenette, stirring a pot of vegetable soup. “How was your day at the office, dear?” The baby goes to sleep, gurgling. Matt and I make love on the floor.

  The Photographer’s Bride. The Naughty Yogini.

  But against my will, the story in my mind kept shifting. The baby is screaming and won’t go to sleep. It’s getting later and later, and Matt isn’t home. The phone rings; when I answer it, the caller gives a little gasp—unmistakably a woman’s—and hangs up. Finally, Matt walks in the door, smelling of cigarette smoke and Scotch. He’s full of apologies: The art opening went later than he thought; afterward, he went out for drinks with the gallery owner. He doesn’t say the gallery owner’s name.