Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  Lately though, even when she was home, her attention was divided. She forgot things now and overlooked things that just a few short months ago would never have escaped her notice. Like his absences.

  His schedule of after-work entertaining hadn’t lightened up much, but now she didn’t hassle him about it, or even ask any questions. If he came in at three in the morning, she was asleep. If he came in at ten, she was already in bed. Brendan had begun racing home, anxious to catch her and Layla awake, just to catch up with them.

  No longer did Tracy didn’t deluge him at breakfast with a rundown of activities that she hoped he would come to, like some ballet recital for three-year olds, or a soccer game. Now, the activities were fewer, and those Layla still had, she posted beneath a magnet on the fridge, but never said a word to point them out.

  Reaching for his phone, Brendan dialed his parents’ number. They were planning a quick trip to Cuba this month, but he couldn’t remember what day his mother said they’d be gone and hoped he hadn’t missed them.

  When his mother answered, he cut the engine off again and relaxed against the headrest.

  “Unusual to hear from you in the middle of the workday,” she said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Everything’s good. How’re you and Pop?”

  “Fine, I suppose. Although he’s driving me insane with his over-packing. I keep telling him to leave room for the things we bring back. I swear, he’s like a little old lady.”

  Brendan laughed. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “Oh, I tell him all the time. So, how’re my sweet girls? Especially Tracy. How’s things there?”

  Only his mother would include Tracy among her “sweet girls.” And lately, Tracy had been sweet. Almost unsettlingly so.

  “Good.”

  “Sounds like you’re not so sure.”

  “Nah, we’re cool. She’s just … things are different or something.”

  There was a brief silence. “What d’you mean?” his mother asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Well, is she happy?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “Yeah. I mean … things are cool, Ma. Don’t worry. Me and Tracy are good.”

  “And … the baby?”

  “So far so good.”

  “Okay. Because I remember the time you all had with Layla.” His mother exhaled. “It was hard to take a breath the whole nine months.”

  “How come you and Pop never had any more?”

  “Babies? Oh, you were plenty, believe me.”

  “No, for real. Did you want to?”

  “We wanted to, yes. But it just wasn’t meant to be. I lost … two.”

  Brendan sat up. “You did?”

  “Yes. They were early on though,” his mother added hastily, as though that mitigated things somehow. But he could tell from her voice that it did not.

  “I didn’t know that,” Brendan said, quietly.

  “Yes, well … it’s not something you talk about with you boy-child. Now, if I’d had a girl, maybe she and I would have had cause to have that conversation.”

  Brendan thought of something. “Did you have that conversation with Tracy?”

  His mother seemed to consider before answering.

  “I did,” she said, finally.

  “Was she …?” He didn’t know what he wanted to ask.

  “There was nothing I could tell Tracy about difficult pregnancies that she didn’t already know, Brendan.”

  “Guess what I did today.”

  Tracy had come practically dancing into the kitchen, where Brendan and Layla were sitting at the table, eating the only meal he knew how to make that his daughter would eat—mac-n-cheese and chicken tenders. Then she paused in surprise and glanced at the kitchen clock.

  “You’re home early.”

  “Yeah. Thought I’d come see my girls in the daylight for a change.”

  “Well good. Because I can show you this.” Tracy whipped out a folder, which she opened on the table in front of Brendan, shoving aside his untouched mac-n-cheese.

  “What is it?”

  “A mock-up of the new nursery. After Dr. Greer, I went to this crazy-expensive nursery design store that I heard Robyn mention once, and …”

  “We’re getting a new nursery?”

  “Yes.”

  Brendan scratched the bridge of his nose.

  “What?”

  “We haven’t even started telling people,” he said. “And yet we’re building a nursery?”

  “Not building. Decorating. That home office upstairs could be …”

  Brendan stood. “Lemme get Layla finished up here and then we can …”

  “Momma,” Layla whined. “I want momma.”

  Tracy let her pocketbook fall off her shoulder and reached for Layla, picking her up with practiced ease, propping her on her hip, nuzzling her cheek, and inhaling her.

  “My delicious girl,” she cooed, peppering kissing on Layla’s cheek. “Doesn’t she smell delicious?”

  Brendan took in the brightness of his wife’s eyes, and the lightness of her mood. Changeable, volatile, unpredictable … none of those adjectives seemed to apply to Tracy anymore. She was all light.

  “Yeah,” he said with a grin. “She smells delicious.”

  “Okay, I’m going upstairs to take care of her,” Tracy said, still nuzzling Layla as they left the room. “But later I’m showing you this design, and I don’t care if your eyes glaze over with boredom. I mean it.”

  And she did mean it.

  Much later, when Brendan hoped she’d forgotten all about her threat to walk him through her nursery plans, Tracy brought the folder with her to bed, opening it to begin her presentation. Brendan took it from between her fingers and slid it over the edge of the bed.

  “Brendan!”

  She lurched, but before she could grab it, he pinned her beneath him.

  “Brendan.” This time she said his name, it was much quieter. Her legs relaxed, so he could settle between them, and she looked up at him, her expression softening.

  “There’s my girl,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Where’ve you been lately?”

  “Here,” Tracy said. “I’ve been here.”

  “Not really. Where are you?”

  “Brendan, what’re you …?”

  “I just want my wife back,” Brendan said, kissing her, nuzzling her neck, and nudging his nose against hers.

  Tracy was poised to respond, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to feel her. Because in this one way, Tracy was unchanged. If he wanted her, she responded always, as though it had been her idea to begin with.

  Now, she reached between them and slid her underwear down, lifting her hips just enough to get them over her thighs, and then shimmying to get them down the rest of the way. Without waiting, without hesitating, she grabbed the waistband of Brendan’s boxers and tugged those downward as well, but just enough so that his erection was free of them.

  Angling her hips upward, she maneuvered until he was inside her. All this she did in a matter of seconds, and without breaking eye-contact. Brendan gasped at the sudden warmth and wetness of being enveloped by her and arched toward her when her fingers dug into his buttocks.

  Tracy said nothing, but moved with smooth, slow fluidity, alternately grasping his back, his shoulders and his ass. She bit into her lower lip and pressed her head back against the pillow, so Brendan leaned in and sucked hard on the skin at the base of her neck. Propped on his elbows, he almost didn’t have to move at all, because Tracy was directing the action, her hips undulating and circling, her hands pulling him toward her and then pushing him away.

  Brendan’s mind was clouded, all his senses attuned only to the woman beneath him. As her motion became more frantic, he rested more of his weight on her, and with both hands grabbed her thighs, pushing them farther apar
t, and rutting deeper into her until it felt like there was no ‘her’, no ‘him’ but just them.

  His climax was loud, and Tracy’s followed moments after. Usually, she led, and he followed. But this time, he let it happen, reminding himself that what mattered most was that they both got there in the end.

  “Are you happy about the baby?”

  Tracy’s voice came to him in the dark, just as his eyes were about to close. The room was dim, but not dark because neither of them had been able to muster the energy to go turn off the light in the en suite. A sliver of illumination crisscrossed the bed and cast just enough of a glow that they could see each other.

  The slightest trace of dewy perspiration was still visible, and her hair stuck, damp to her temples and on her shoulders. Tracy’s hair was so long, and so voluminous that he wondered whether she was warm, and Brendan had the urge to reach out and clear it away from her forehead, and off her skin.

  “Are you?” she asked again. “Happy about it?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” Tracy turned onto her side, so she was facing him.

  She didn’t say anything further where normally, she might have. She didn’t give him a list of reasons she was asking the question; nor did she plead her case.

  “Of course, I’m happy about the baby,” Brendan said, but he didn’t turn to look at her.

  “Because apart from when I first told you, you haven’t said much.”

  “It’s what we’ve been trying for, right? So, yeah. I’m happy. Of course I’m happy.”

  “Okay.” There was still some reservation in her tone.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just that …”

  He looked at her now, waiting for her to go on.

  “When I got pregnant with Layla, it wasn’t planned, or expected, and so …This time, I thought would be different, I guess.”

  “Different how?” He turned now and looked at her.

  Tracy had an arm extended and was resting her cheek on it. The other arm, she draped across his middle. She bit the corner of her lower lip and chewed on it for a few seconds, as if contemplating how to answer the question. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and Brendan’s eye fell to the passion mark he’d left on her neck.

  “I thought we’d celebrate it together more, that’s all. And no, I’m not … this isn’t a criticism. I just …”

  In her eyes he saw disappointment, and Brendan’s heart clenched. He knew what this baby meant to her. How longed-for it had been.

  “You remember what it was like when you were pregnant with Layla?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “No, I mean the complications and the …”

  Tracy nodded. “I remember. It wasn’t the easiest pregnancy, but … we were happy, right? Once I passed my first trimester and it was pretty much a done deal?”

  Brendan sat up. “Tracy. Even in the second trimester—the bleeding, the cramps, the high blood pressure, the tests. And then when you were at six months and you started having trouble breathing and there was the bruising that came out of nowhere, and …”

  Tracy sat up with him, legs folded. She looked almost bemused, as if he was talking about something she had no recollection of.

  Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, but …”

  “You had preeclampsia,” Brendan said, his voice rising. “We had to take your blood pressure at home three times a day. The doctor said we had to be on top of it, because it could go very badly, very quickly. Don’t you remember all that?”

  “Of course. I was there, Brendan. And yes, things got a little tricky near the end …”

  “Tricky?”

  She shrugged. “I mean, yeah, a little. But …”

  “A little?” he echoed. “You could have fucking died. Women die from that shit.”

  A look crossed Tracy’s face that he could not read, and her eyes welled with tears. She moved a fraction closer and rested a hand lightly on his leg.

  “You were scared,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  “You weren’t?” he asked.

  “No.” Her gaze was steady.

  “No?” He looked at her, incredulously.

  “No,” she said again. “Because you were with me.”

  Brendan shook his head. “I couldn’t protect you from all that, Trace. If you were going to d … If things went bad, that wasn’t something I could’ve protected you from. As much as I would have wanted to. I would have been …”

  “You would have been … what?” she asked quietly.

  “Powerless.”

  They stared at each other for what seemed like a long while, and Brendan blinked, feeling his throat begin to tighten.

  “You don’t know,” he said, “what you make me feel like sometimes …”

  Tracy listened, but did not speak.

  “Sometimes you look at me the way you do … and it’s like you think I can do anything. Like I make the sun rise in the morning, like I hang the fucking moon. But when you were sick …”

  “I wasn’t sick, Brendan. I was pregnant.” Tracy grabbed his hand, keeping her eyes fixed on his as she squeezed it.

  “You were sick because you were pregnant.”

  The expression he’d seen in Tracy’s eyes before flashed across her features once again.

  “Is that why you were avoiding coming home?” she said. Realization. Clarity. That was what her expression meant. “When I was trying, that’s why you kept missing our dates. You were scared. To get me pregnant.”

  “I didn’t make up reasons not to come home, but …”

  “But you were maybe a little relieved when it didn’t happen.”

  He couldn’t deny it.

  Tracy looked down, shaking her head. “So … this was all because …”

  “Trace, I wanted … I want this baby. But what’s even more important to me than that …”

  She lifted her head again and her eyes were tear-filled, but she was smiling.

  “… is for me to be safe,” she finished for him.

  He nodded. “If anything ever happened to you …”

  Leaning forward, Tracy pressed her lips to his, speaking against them as they kissed. Brendan heard, as well as felt her words: I love you, I love you, I love you.

  “What magic goes on in there, that makes you never want to miss a Thursday?”

  Tracy pretended not to notice that he was trying to sound casual. It was funny how now that she knew, Tracy saw it. Where she couldn’t even have conceived of its existence before, Brendan’s vulnerability was visible to her now.

  “No magic,” Tracy said turning over onto her stomach. “Just a lot of talking. You’re always welcome to come if you want.”

  “Not sure therapy is my thing.”

  “Well, the invitation is an open one,” she said shrugging.

  “How you gon’ talk about me if I’m there?” Brendan grinned.

  “I feel like I’m not going to be talking about you as much anymore,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She rested her chin on his naked chest, turning her head to the side to inhale his musky scent.

  “So, if you’re not talkin’ ‘bout me, what’s left?”

  Tracy spluttered into laughter. “Excuse me? You’ve got one hell of an ego on you, I’ll give you that. I have plenty to talk about besides you, Brendan Cole.”

  “Like what?”

  “Going to Dr. Greer isn’t just about you and me. It’s about me and me.”

  “Like what?” he asked again.

  Tracy shrugged. “Stuff. Just … stuff. You could come y’know? To talk … to listen. Whatever you wanted to do.”

  “So, if it’s not about me, what do you talk about?”

  Tracy tried not to feel disappointed that he had rebuffed her invitation twice in the last two minutes.

  It was just that from her perspective, everything that had ever come out of her going to see Dr. Greer had been positive.
And it was hard not to want to share some of that with Brendan, or at least give him a window into it.

  “If you really have to know, most recently we’re talking about my mother. Sometimes I talk about Layla. And about him.”

  She reached down and touched her abdomen. Lately, she’d become convinced that the new baby would be a boy.

  “Lots of material there,” Brendan said dryly. “Your mother I mean.”

  He didn’t acknowledge what she’d said about the baby, or its possible gender. There was very little about the pregnancy that he liked to engage on, but at least now Tracy understood a little bit about why. It didn’t hurt any less. But at least she understood.

  “Yup. Plenty.”

  Her mother.

  Though it would have been good to talk to her, instead of just about her, Tracy had come to accept that that would likely never happen. Their relationship was irreparably broken and had been part of the hard-wiring that allowed Tracy to think that over-pleasing was normal. When you had a parent who was chronically dissatisfied with you, what other recourse did you have other than to try even harder, and give even more?

  With Dr. Greer’s help she saw how that pattern had come to define her relationship with Brendan as well.

  But it isn’t something you should think of as your fault, Dr. Greer said. It takes two to tango. If, in a relationship, one person engages in extreme self-sacrificing behavior, there has to be someone on the other side of the equation who accepts and receives those unreasonable sacrifices. And then acts perplexed when their partner is frustrated that the sacrifices are not reciprocated.

  I was overly-focused on Layla as well, Tracy said, unable to resist the urge to defend her husband. It isn’t just Brendan.

  Dr. Greer smiled. Your daughter is a toddler. It’s difficult to be too self-sacrificing for a small child.

  “We should probably get some sleep.” Brendan said.

  And Tracy sensed that he had shut down, not out of tiredness, but out of a desire to just not talk about her visits to Dr. Greer anymore.