Still Life with Husband

by Lauren Fox

  I wonder where Kevin is now, if he’s gone home, if he’s still wandering the streets. If he’s packed his bags and headed back to Oregon. Meg loves Kevin. She’d probably rather be with him, comforting the one who deserves it. But she’s my best friend, so she holds me, she rocks me back and forth a little bit as I cry and cry. After a few minutes, during which the only noise in the room is my pathetic hiccupping and wheezing, Meg gently pulls away from my soggy embrace, then climbs into the bed next to me. “Okay, sweetie,” she says softly, her arm around my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

  It’s probably not. But what else can I do but try to believe her?

  As much as I’d like her to, Meg can’t babysit me for the whole day. She’s meeting Steve at the doctor’s office for her first ultrasound. And despite the thundercloud over my head, she can barely contain her excitement at the prospect of hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time, of seeing an image of the tiny black-and-white blob that will, months from now, be her baby. After another sympathetic half hour, during which she doesn’t tell me that I’m a faithless slut and I don’t tell her that I’m a faithless slut who might be pregnant, she leaves me to get ready. She hugs me again and asks if I want to come to the appointment, but of course I don’t. I can’t imagine injecting my vile self into Meg and Steve’s beautiful moment. Meg’s been waiting for this ultrasound for weeks. Although the thought does occur to me that maybe the doctor could just glide that contraption from Meg’s belly to mine, and I’d have an answer.

  When she leaves, I pick up the phone to call Heather. Luckily, Heather had transplanted herself from Kevin’s and my apartment (is it still Kevin’s and my apartment?) to our parents’ house two days ago. So at least she wasn’t propped up on the couch fixing her gimlet eyes on me while I flew through the place gathering my things. At least I didn’t have to face her questions and recriminations, what would surely have been her judgmental response to my situation, born of her newfound monogamous and maternal zeal. I can just picture her steady, passive-aggressive gaze; I can hear her saying, “You must feel really bad about yourself, Emily. That’s how I felt when I used to cheat on my boyfriends.” My finger hovers over the last nine in my parents’ phone number, and then I put the phone down abruptly. Ambivalence is the only constant between Heather and me. Sometimes she’s the first person I want to talk to, sometimes the last. I can’t deal with her now. And if Len or Barbara were to answer the phone, I just might break into a thousand tiny pieces. Thanksgiving is in six days, anyway. When I show up at my parents’ door with a bottle of wine and no husband, I’ll have plenty to answer for.

  I rub my freezing-cold feet together under the blankets and consider my options. On the surface, I feel like a blind, miserable bottom-feeder crawling around in the sludge. Deeper down than that, I feel like a shameless, guilty wretch who leaves a toxic wake wherever she goes. But deeper down than that? I feel sort of calm. Not good, certainly not good, but steady. For someone whose entire web of relationships has just unraveled, I feel surprisingly un-alone. I still don’t know what I’ll do if there is a baby. But right this second, I don’t need to know that. Right now, there’s only one thing I need to find out. So what else is there for me but to take the test? Meg’s gone; I have the house to myself. I don’t have to work today. And my social calendar is wide open. A small shiver wriggles through my body, up and down my arms and legs: my first sad wave of unrequited desire for David. But the voice in my head that has been, up to now, fairly unreliable, has changed pitch, become recognizable. Proceed, it says. Face this. If Meg has any pregnancy tests left over from before, I know exactly where they’ll be. She showed me, back before her miscarriage, before everything. She kept them upstairs, in the bathroom cabinet, behind the toothpaste. So I grab a sweater—baggy, with pink and orange stripes and a huge hole in the elbow; I couldn’t have dreamed up an uglier sweater—from my suitcase, wrap it around myself, and trudge upstairs.

  Meg and Steve’s bathroom is the best room in their house. It’s huge and inviting, with an enormous claw-foot bathtub and a big purple plush rug a person could sleep on. Hell, maybe I will. Maybe I’ll move into their bathroom, make it my new home. With a hot plate and some new curtains, I could be very comfortable here. I dig out some apple bubble bath from Meg’s side of the medicine cabinet and turn on the water. Then I root around a bit more, and sure enough, there’s an unopened package of Easy One-Step Early Pregnancy Test. As the room fills with steam, I peel off my clothes. The last time I undressed in the middle of the day, it was for a different reason. Naked, my clothes in a heap on the rug, I sit down on the toilet. The test instructions are complicated, or maybe my brain is just frozen, but it takes me a few minutes to figure out exactly what to do. Hold the indicator stick under the stream? What stream? I picture a babbling brook filled with tiny swimming babies gurgling and clamoring to be noticed. Here I am! Pick me! I’m the one! If Kevin had written these instructions, they would be simple and elegant, clear but with respect for the enormity of the task. If Kevin had written them, I believe I would know exactly what to do. Finally, after reading the same three sentences a dozen times, I understand. I maneuver the little plastic stick under myself. It’s an ignominious way to determine a pregnancy, really: a whole new life announces itself in the splash of urine. The test is supposed to be “mess free!” but of course in one second my entire hand is wet, and the tester stick, which is supposed to stay dainty and dry except for the tip, is dripping. With my dry hand, I grab a tissue and spread it out on the edge of the tub. Carefully, I lay the wet stick on top of it, and I climb into the warm water. A song we played on the ancient record player the day I helped Meg at school pops into my head, replete with cheery bells and whistles: “Engine, engine, number nine, rolling down Chicago line. If that train goes off the track, do you want your money back? Yes! No! Maybe so! Yes! No! Maybe so!” Of course you would want your money back if your train derailed. What kind of idiot wouldn’t want her money back? Yes! No! Maybe so! The Easy One-Step Early Pregnancy Test requires three minutes for the results to appear in the “indicator window.” Yes! No! Maybe so! Three minutes. I’m not wearing a watch, but I am determined not to stare at the stick. I close my eyes and start counting. I lean back against the tiles and sink as low as I can into the deep tub. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three. Dr. Miller has already offered me full-time employment, in the wake of Dick’s death. So I know I’ll be okay financially. I suppose I could move back in with my parents for a while. Barbara would surely get over her disappointment in me when she holds her grandchild in her arms. I can picture Len in the early morning, the baby resting against his shoulder. “Look here, little baby, out the back window, at the maple tree. Did you know that the earliest settlers in Wisconsin, approximately two hundred years ago, used the same technique for procuring sap that maple syrup manufacturers use today?” Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Is it really over with David? I can practically feel the texture of his skin, his thick hair, taste him as if I’m running my tongue lightly over his lips. Did Kevin actually find out? Jesus, was he really standing there? The hugeness of this reality explodes like a volcano in my brain, creating an ugly new landmass there. Kevin found out. Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. There’s a billboard on Capitol Drive that advertises DNA testing for the general public. “Daddy, Daddy, Where Are You?” a fat cartoon baby pleads, in bold black letters. I’ve always scoffed at this sad, bizarre advertisement as I’ve driven past it. What kind of mother needs a DNA test to determine her baby’s paternity? Seventy-four, seventy-five. The bubbles make white peaks like frothy waves on my knees and my stomach. One hundred two, one hundred three. There’s no way I’m pregnant. Surely I’m the kind of woman who will need complicated hormone treatments to get pregnant someday, injections and patches and petri dishes, not the type who accidentally gets knocked up when she’s not looking, not the type whose body wantonly gives up its eggs to the highest bidder. I straighten my legs, rest my feet against the tiles. I�
��m starting to feel a little bit relieved. One hundred forty-four, one forty-five. This is just the last hurrah of the dream that was David. I’m such an idiot. I miss Kevin. I’ve been married to him for five years; I’ve loved him for nine. And now, my God, I’ve ruined him, ruined us. One hundred eighty. My eyes are still closed. Two lines mean yes, one means no. Yes, no, maybe so. Three minutes are up. One hundred ninety-two, one ninety-three. I have to stop counting now and open my eyes. I squeeze them shut, try to take a snapshot of everything this moment holds: the heat of the water on my body, the lingering apple scent of the bubbles, the pulsing in my veins. My eyes don’t want to open. I breathe, and breathe some more, and then I open them. Eight lines dance in a blur as I try to focus—eight? The instructions said nothing about eight—and slowly the eight dwindle to four, then to two, and then one, but then two again, and two lines squirm in and out of focus, yes, no, maybe so; two lines, two lines like tiny pink minnows swimming toward me, yes, no, maybe so, yes, yes, yes.

  When the phone rings, probably no more than ten minutes later, but I don’t know for sure, since I stopped counting at 193, it doesn’t even occur to me to answer it. I’m still submerged up to my chin in water that has grown tepid. I’m thinking about nothing. I’m thinking about the chipped grout on the bathtub tiles and the way the apple scent of the bubble bath is beginning to make me nauseous. I’m thinking that I’m going to have to emerge from the tub soon, at the very least because Meg and Steve will be home before too long. So I’m only half-listening when the machine picks up.

  “Hey, Emily.” Meg’s voice is crackly and distorted. “Are you there? If you’re there, could you please pick up?” Is she calling to tell me that they found out the baby’s sex? Is it too early to know that information? I can’t remember. For the first time, and surely not the last, I imagine the tiny tadpole swimming around inside of me. A boy, I think, and then, Oh, crap, because I don’t want this, my God, I don’t want this. I realize I have no idea what he might look like at this moment, just a few weeks from his sordid beginnings. I’m picturing a tiny, fully formed, fully clothed little man, a homunculus, a small sprout of a human wearing a top hat and tails and twirling a miniature cane: Mr. Peanut. A tiny flame of tenderness lights in me; I douse it, fast. I hoist myself out of the bath, wrap a towel around myself (it’s slightly damp; I decide not to think about it), and grab the phone just as Meg is saying, “Okay, I guess you’re not there….”

  Is she calling to describe the sound of the heartbeat, the feeling of hearing it for the first time? I don’t want to steal her moment, but I’m going to have to tell her my news, too. I won’t be able to wait. “Don’t hang up! I’m here!”

  Meg bursts into tears immediately. It’s a full minute before she can get any words out, but even as I’m waiting for her to speak, my heart sinks, and I know. “There’s no heartbeat,” she says finally, still sobbing. “They couldn’t find a heartbeat.”

  “Oh, Meg.”

  “The baby’s gone. It’s dead.”

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  “Again,” she whispers. She cries, the most racking sobs I’ve ever heard. I can make out Steve’s low tones in the background, a soothing murmur. I’m sitting on the edge of their bed in a towel, marveling at the small-scale meanness of the universe, its banal cruelty. Meg is not pregnant, but I am. In seventh grade, Amelia Huber, the prettiest, most cold-blooded, and, not coincidentally, most popular girl in our class, asked me if I wanted to eat lunch with her and her friends. The entire day I was giddy with anticipation. When I finally sat down with them, she and her friends giggled, gathered their trays, and got up and moved. The universe is Amelia Huber. “I wasn’t expecting this,” Meg says after a while. Her voice is high and small.

  “No,” I say. “I know.”

  “Emily, what am I going to do?”

  “It’ll be okay,” I say stupidly, an echo of her words to me just an hour ago. They sound as wrong coming out of my mouth as they did coming from hers. “Where are you now? Are you at the doctor’s office?”

  “No, we’re in the car,” she says. “We’re on our way home.” Meg used to call me in the car on her way home from school to tell me all the silly details of her day, and she loves to annoy Steve by phoning from the passenger seat when they’re heading somewhere together. “We’re going to a movie!” she’ll say happily. “Steve’s wearing that awful shirt his mom got him for his birthday!”

  “Is there anything you need? Do you want me to be here when you get home?” I ask.

  Meg confers with Steve for a moment; I hear their muffled voices. “Actually, maybe could you go to your parents’ or something for a while? I’m sorry. I think I’m going to need to go to bed…” She and Steve need to be alone, but she’s too polite to say that. Meg, poor Meg.

  “Of course. I’ll get out of here.”

  “Call me later, okay?” Meg sounds like she’s about five years old.

  “I love you,” I say, and think, which is worth very little in today’s market. After we hang up, I quickly towel off, put on my ratty clothes, and gather my things together. I could go to my parents’, and I might even be able to make up a plausible lie so as not to arouse suspicions—the heat’s out in the apartment; there’s a mouse infestation; all of my possessions have mysteriously been incinerated—but the fact is, I need to go home and talk to Kevin. He deserves that, at the very, very, very least.

  In the car on the way back to the apartment, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was pregnant; not exactly. The news I had just learned felt strangely like something I had known for years, for my whole life. I felt a weird tingling in my limbs. I was alone, and pregnant, and I didn’t know who the father was. But I was anesthetized. There was so much to freak out about, I couldn’t pick just one thing, so I somehow abstained completely.

  As I merged into three lanes of light traffic, I convinced myself that Kevin would not be there. I figured that he would have fled, that he would have hastily packed his bags, a rerun of my actions earlier today, and booked the first flight back to Oregon. Simultaneously, I came to believe, as I was driving over the Hoan Bridge, that Kevin would in fact be home: that he would be holed up in the living room with some canned goods, a flashlight, and a few blankets, vowing never to leave, and that he would have chained the door, and maybe propped some heavy furniture against it for good measure. Why would he want to see me? I wouldn’t want to see me. I would knock on the door a few times and then turn away in resignation, allowing Kevin time, the one thing I could give him. I even started to relax a little bit, believing that I was about to receive a stay of execution, a snow day on the morning of a math test I hadn’t studied for.

  “Hey, kid, your mom’s a coward,” I said out loud to the fetus. “But starting today, I’m going to try harder.” I nodded and gripped the steering wheel. Then I thought that those words might have confused the fetus: try harder? Try harder to do what? To be a coward? The fetus hasn’t had any experiences yet in the world. For all he knows, being a coward might be something to aspire to. I tried to explain. “What I mean is, I’ve behaved terribly. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.” I was gesticulating, and rambling, and when I flicked on my turn signal to change lanes and glanced out the window, I noticed that the man in the green Honda in the next lane was staring at me as if I were crazy. I gave him a little wave.

  Now, trudging down the hallway to our apartment, I see Kevin’s shoes lined up neatly on the doormat—even in crisis he remains steadfastly tidy—and I know that the lock will not have been changed and the door will not be barred, and that this, to put it mildly, is it. “Brace yourself, kid,” I say to the fetus, and I slide the key into the lock and open the door.

  I sense Kevin’s presence before I see him. If this were a horror movie, all the ten-year-olds in the audience would be shouting at the screen, “Don’t turn the corner! Don’t turn the corner!” But, just like in a horror movie, the girl never heeds the warnings. I plod through the empty, darkened kitchen to
the living room. The only light is coming in through the half-open blinds, dim and diffuse. The first thing I see is my collection of colored glass bottles smashed, the carpet littered with pretty shards of red, blue, yellow, and green. I swallow thickly. I deserve this, and more. The next thing I see is Kevin, sitting primly on the couch. His hands lay folded on his lap. He looks up at me, as pale as I’ve ever seen him, which is saying quite a lot; he’s as white as a mushroom, and the skin under his eyes is an alarming shade of gray. He looks like a corpse. This is how I’ve made him feel.

  Kevin gestures at the wall and the broken glass. “Sorry about that,” he says, no trace of irony in his voice.

  I nod, swallow again.

  “Why are you here?” he asks politely, as if he’s never seen me before.

  “I thought you—” I have to clear my throat. “I thought you might want to talk. Or yell at me. Or throw things at me.” I smile wanly.

  Kevin shakes his head. “No.”

  “Okay. Um.” I clear my throat again, hug my arms close to my chest. “How are you? How’s it going?”

  He looks at me calmly, icily. “It’s going fine. It’s going great.” He lifts his hands and thrusts them into the air as if he’s about to conduct a symphony, then just as abruptly drops them back into his lap, defeated. “It’s going fucking swimmingly, Emily. How’s it going with you?”

  “Oh, um, okay. Okay.” I survey the living room again, wonder if I should gather up the few things I feel attached to—my grandmother’s candlesticks, the potted begonia, Aunt Mimi’s blanket—to protect them from Kevin’s wrath. But he seems pretty wrathed out; he seems to have wreaked what wrath he had. “Okay,” I say again, stupidly. I look away from Kevin; I can’t bear his gaze. My eyes land on our wedding album, displayed neatly where it always is, on top of the bureau. At least he hasn’t destroyed it. I probably would have. I have the urge to grab the pretty white photo album and run. Our apartment suddenly seems like an archaeological site, the foreign habitat of a lost civilization, and I want to flee with the most important relic. My favorite picture in that album is a candid one of the two of us, taken just after the ceremony. After the guests had descended upon us like pleasantly scented preying mantises, had bestowed their good wishes and kisses on us, and had moved on to embrace our families, Kevin and I sneaked off behind the big maple tree, to where we thought no one could see us. One of the guests, armed with a disposable camera, caught us there, holding hands, our foreheads together, leaning into each other. In that photograph, I look giddy and keyed up; Kevin looks relieved. We look happy. I remember feeling at that moment that Kevin and I had blended together, that our wedding ceremony really had created something new and better out of us, a lovely sculpture from two hunks of clay. I think of that photograph now, and it’s a picture of somebody else’s life. We’ll never have a moment like that again.