“Which strong female in literature are you thinking of pitching?”
I shrug, picking at the shredded lettuce on my taco. “Anne, I’m thinking. Of Green Gables.” I think of when we were first dating and staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking about everything from high school experiences and current events to film, music, and literature. Favorite bands, least favorite movies, and all-time forever-favorite books. “Or Laura,” I say, “from Little House.”
“I like it. That’s the reason for the tacos, huh?” he says with a devilish grin.
I give a deflated look at the barely touched meal on my plate, lettuce now littered about like sad confetti. I suppose Anne or Laura could have been the reason for the tacos. In fact, I wish they were. And with that open window, I say, “Adam, are we . . . all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I feel like we haven’t really been . . . close. This past week. Since”—I choose my words carefully, not wanting to nose-dive into baby talk—“the night we went to Nina and Griffin’s.”
Adam nods slowly, almost meticulously. I wish he’d say something. Anything. His eyes are transfixed on what looks to be my plate.
“I feel like we haven’t really connected,” I blurt. “We seem a little distant.”
Adam looks straight into my eyes. “Halley, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He reaches his hand, palm open, across the table. I slip mine into it and smile weakly.
“We’re going through a little rough patch, that’s all.” His thumb strokes my hand in an almost reassuring way. Almost. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. Again, in an almost reassuring way.
I nod vigorously, feeling the needling sensation of tears prick the backs of my eyes, the depths of my throat. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. There’s nothing to cry about. A “rough patch” is what this is. A disagreement we have to work through. That’s all. I try not to think about how this is a rough patch only because he decided to make it one. Everything was just fine before he changed his freakin’ mind! But in any event, we love each other. As Adam said, we’ll figure it out.
“I’m happy with you,” I say, successfully able to suppress the tears, my voice strong. “I need only you.” He smiles weakly at my comment. “I love you so much, Adam.”
“And I’m happy with you, Hals. Come here.” He lets go of my hand and waves me over.
Seated in his lap, I drape both arms around his neck. He kisses the tip of my nose. “You still hungry?” he asks.
I look over my shoulder at the mess of a dining table. I pluck a chip from the bowl and offer it to him. He shakes his head, and I eat it. “Stuffed,” I answer.
“Me, too. Want dessert?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I didn’t pick anything up. Unless you want to go get some frozen yogurt?”
The corners of Adam’s mouth pull up, and he looks off to the side. “That’s one option . . .” He nods toward the bedroom. “Or we could go to bed early?”
I all but leap from his lap, grabbing his hand and loving the way it engulfs mine. My hands always get lost in his.
“Forget the frozen yogurt,” I say hurriedly, leading the way to our bedroom, Adam laughing as he follows.
With one arm wrapped around me, Adam holds me against his bare chest. He brushes the auburn strands of my hair from my shoulder. They tickle as they fall across my back.
My eyes move to the fine contours of his stomach. I can feel and hear his heart beat strong and steady against my cheek. His chest rises and falls with each breath he takes. His fingers brush through my hair, and I close my eyes.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” I whisper. “With anyone else.”
“We’re perfect together, aren’t we?” Adam says.
I smile to myself at his not-so-subtle hint about our perfection not just as a couple but also as sexual partners. Even when we’d first become intimate, we fit together as if we’d had years of practice. Adam once said when we were first dating that he couldn’t believe how perfect we were together—how we moved together just right; made each other feel better than seemed physically possible; effortlessly fell into place the way every couple aspires to.
I told him I bet he said that to all the girls, to which he replied, “Just the one.” It was the perfect line, not because it was true and simple and romantic but because it was the kind of line a writer looks for when she’s working on that flawless meet cute for the couple that ends up happily ever after. I liked the way it came out of Adam’s mouth, and I like that today, all these years later, and despite the awkward space of the past week, it is still true. We are perfect together.
“Impossibly so,” I say.
Adam pulls me tighter against his body, and I slide on top of him. Our lips touch—electric chills fly up and down my arms and spine—and I taste the salt still on his lips from dinner, the salt of his sweat, the salt of my sweat mixed with his. His tongue dances with mine in as perfect a dance as the one we just did together in the sheets. It’s hungry, unselfish, and careful, all at the same time.
When I emerge from the bathroom, towel drying my hair after a long, steamy shower, Adam’s at his sink, brushing his teeth. His hair’s still wet from his shower, at its darkest and slicked back. A thick strand hangs near his right ear, and he swats it back as he leans to spit into the sink. I can’t help but smile as I stare at my husband. This is enough for me, all I want. Exactly what I want.
Overcome with exhaustion, I follow Adam into our bedroom, deciding to forego blow-drying my hair and opting to deal with the mess in the morning. Snuggling in Adam’s arms is what I want to be doing right now.
Adam turns on both bedside lamps before slipping under the covers. He punches down his pillow exactly three times, then takes a long drink of water from the glass that’s always on his nightstand. He clears his throat and takes another drink before crashing his head onto his pillow, but not without his routine deep groan. It’s the same thing every night. I find it charming. Every couple’s got its nighttime rituals. Adam’s got his fluff-sip-and-groan deal, and I’ve got my application of hand lotion, the tightening of the hospital corners on my side of the bed, and, of course, the pill regimen.
I shake out one multivitamin followed by extra doses of vitamins C and E, and then move to puncture the blister pack for one of my birth control pills.
“Have you thought about stopping taking those?” Adam says.
I close my hand over my routine pills and glance at Adam. I say nothing. I know to what he’s referring, but I answer, “I take extra vitamin C and E for my skin and immune system. Maybe they’re nothing more than placebos, I don’t know.”
I’m about to take a drink of water when Adam says, “Your birth control, I meant.”
Perhaps this is what I deserve, since I’ve done a bang-up job of talking through our dilemma tonight.
I turn and look at him head-on. “I’ve been taking these since I was nineteen, Adam. No, I haven’t thought about stopping them.” I hold up my fist of pills. “Why would I?”
He props his head up on an arm and shrugs. “I thought you’d . . . consider.”
“Consider getting off the pill?”
“Yeah.”
“I never said I’d consider getting off the pill.”
“You said you’d consider getting pregnant.”
“No.” Indignant, I hold up one finger. “No, I never said that.”
I did not say I would consider getting pregnant. Or going off the pill. Or anything that involved changing my mind about our mutual decision on a childless life.
“Halley, have you given this any more thought since we first talked about having a baby?”
“First off, please don’t say, ‘talked about having a baby.’”
He tosses up his hands in response.
“Second, it’s all I can think about.” Adam’s face lights up as I say this, but before he can speak, I add, “Ever since you dropped that bomb
on me, all I can think about is what we’re supposed to do about this massive disagreement. We both suddenly—apparently—want different things out of life. And those two things, Adam, do not go hand in hand. They’re like water and oil. So have I given it any more thought? How can I not? You’re asking me to consider having something I don’t want, and I’m waiting for you to consider not having something you apparently do.”
I was talking in circles. Thinking in circles. This was going nowhere.
I clap my hand without the pills to my clammy forehead.
“Halley, I don’t mean to upset you.” He sits upright in bed, his arms helplessly by his sides. “I just want to talk.”
“Good. Yes, I want to talk, too.”
“What if you just got off the pill and we can see what happens?”
Is he mad? He’s truly lost his mind! With that idiotic suggestion, I wash down my handful of pills.
“Halley,” he grumbles.
“‘We can see what happens’? See what happens? You know what will happen.”
“It took Nina and Griffin a very long time.”
“So you’re saying you’re okay with potentially trying for ten years to ‘see what happens’?”
“It wouldn’t take us that long,” he says, with no medical evidence to back his claim. In his defense I don’t, as far as I’m aware, have an oddly shaped uterus like Nina’s, which makes it nearly impossible for her to conceive. But still! The nerve.
“You’re a doctor now?” I snap.
“It most likely wouldn’t take us that long.”
“Oh joy! Waiting on pins and needles every month to see if my period comes. That’s just how I want to spend every twenty-eight days. And not for the same reason you’re waiting!” I take another drink of water, then slam the dresser drawer closed with a swing of my hip. “No, Adam. I’m not going to live like that.”
“Okay, here’s an idea,” he says, suddenly eager, eyes bright. “Our Thanksgiving trip to Maui.”
“Yes?” I’m curious where he’s going with this. Nearly every big holiday Adam and I take advantage of the time off from work and set out on a romantic vacation. In three months we’re headed to an all-inclusive Hawaiian beach resort. The mere thought of it as we argue about babies makes me want to grab my boarding pass and bikini and jet off right now. Come to think of it, maybe that is just what Adam and I need . . .
“Let’s go,” he says, “and have a completely indulgent vacation. I’m talking every massage and kayak adventure, all the yoga on the beach and obnoxious cocktails we can imagine. The works. We don’t do our usual all out, we go all out.” Music to my ears. “And it’ll be our babymoon.” Needles in my ears.
“Our what?” I say, beside myself.
“Well, our prebabymoon, if you will. It’s where—”
“I know what they are. What I don’t get is why we”—I motion between us—“would be having one.”
“Halley. Come on.”
I’m sick to my stomach. “A prebabymoon? One last hurrah before we turn our lives upside down? Can’t you see this is part of why I don’t want a baby? I don’t want to have to ‘live it up’ before we make a life change.”
“Halley.”
“No.”
Cheeks turning red, Adam throws up his hands again and says, “Fine. Forget about it.”
“Forget about the babymoon . . . or the trip itself?” My mouth slowly begins to fall in disbelief.
He doesn’t respond, so I repeat, this time louder and angrier, “The Thanksgiving trip itself, Adam?”
He runs his hands through his wet hair and ignores my question. “Okay.” His voice is steady. “Just hear me out, Hals. Are you afraid of what having a child could do to your career? That you’d have to take maternity leave?”
“Yes, for one.”
Granted, my career isn’t all that impressive, and most days I’m not exactly pleased, much less enthusiastic, to be writing about “Miniskirts: Are They Really Inappropriate after Thirty?” But working at Copper is a position in the writing field, something I’ve always had my heart set on. I’d be daft to do anything to jeopardize my career, and having a baby would do just that. Look at what happened to Charlotte when she became pregnant with Alice. She let go of her dream of becoming a lawyer. Eleven years later she still regrets her decision, though she loves her daughter to death and would have her all over again. (Though perhaps a bit later.)
“Okay. I’ve got that covered.” Adam’s eyes light up, hopeful. “I can work from home, be a stay-at-home dad.”
“Round-the-clock dad? Getting up several times in the middle of the night for feedings? Constant doctor appointments?” I run on, ticking items off with my fingers.
“We’ll bottle-feed, and I’ll get up. I’ll do the appointments.”
“Finding a day care if you can’t manage working from home? Nina’s already on a waiting list,” I say, incredulous. “And a long one, at that.”
“We’d get a nanny.”
“And win the lotto?”
“We’d manage,” he insists.
“I don’t want to manage. I want to live, Adam.”
“Halley.”
I continue ticking items off one by one with my fingers. “Potty training, PTA meetings, recitals, teen angst, college tuition—”
“First words, first steps, first I love yous,” Adam counters in an aggravatingly cheerful tone.
“Moving to the burbs when the kid gets older, so we can move to a neighborhood in a ‘good school district.’” I use irritating air quotes.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“First, I’m not a burbs girl.” I begin pacing. “Second, the thought of having to plan our living arrangements—our mortgage—around a child’s elementary education is . . . well, it was hard enough to find a place we both love that’s close to both our offices and not a gajillion dollars!”
“Halley.”
“No, that’s not even the half of it. I don’t want to shop for ever-growing feet, and I don’t want to go to soccer games every single weekend or plan our vacations around a child’s school schedule. I don’t want to fret over babysitters so we can have a simple night out at the movies or dinner. Dinner without high chairs. Movies that aren’t animated, or the early matinees where breastfeeding moms and crying babies are welcome. And breastfeeding!” I stop my pacing.
“I already said we’d bottle-feed,” he cuts in, yet again suggesting something that is neither here nor there. There will be no bottle-feeding because there will be no baby.
“No, Adam.” I shake my head, my arms crossed over my stomach. “No toys all over the rug and sippy cups in the dishwasher—”
He meets me head-on and says, “Yes to packed Christmas stockings, Bring Your Child to Work Day—”
“No to helping with multiplication tables. I can barely do them myself anymore.”
“See, an opportunity to learn!” He’s grinning.
“Oh god.” I clap a hand to my head.
“Yes to handmade art, macaroni necklaces, finger paintings we put on the refrigerator—”
“No to the birds-and-the-bees talk, dealing with other kids’ parents at school and birthday parties, and the entire responsibility and role of parenting!” I exhale loudly, waiting for Adam to add to his list of reasons why we should become parents.
But he doesn’t respond. Rather, he sits there, the sheet bunched around his waist, shoulders slumped slightly forward. He’s wearing an expression that says both that I haven’t changed his mind and Are you finished yet?
I’m not, so I say, “I don’t want to be pregnant.” This should cap the opened bottle.
“It’s only nine months,” he counters. “Time will fly by.”
“Omigod.” I toss up my hands, incredulous, nostrils flaring. “Easy for you to say!”
“We’d be great parents.”
“You don’t know that.” I charge to my side of the bed and begin tugging at the corners of the sheet.
�
�Are you worried about motherhood because of your mother?”
I let go of the sheet and stand tall. I close my eyes and press my fingers to my aching temples.
Adam knows as well as I do that my mother did a piss-poor job of wearing the mommy pants. I was an accident—that’s right, accident, not “earlier-than-expected blessing”—and so was Charlotte. If it weren’t for our loving and dedicated father, god knows what street corner I’d be working in Hollywood or what back alley Charlotte would be lying in. When I was growing up, my mother, Monica, was notoriously flighty, forgetting to serve Charlotte and me breakfast half the time and choosing parties with friends over helping with homework. To call Monica a part-time mother would be giving her far too much credit.
I was in fifth grade when she and Dad called it quits, and she went from flighty to practically nonexistent. That might have been a blessing, but she became that embarrassing older woman thinking she’s half her age and forgetting about the ex-husband and two young daughters she left behind in her serial dating, multiple moves, and constant career changes. Instability was her middle name. She dated up and down the roster of pathetic divorcés, even a fair share of married men. Despite it all, my father never uttered a foul word about her or her hazardous behavior. He simply learned to juggle the roles of father and mother, and I think he loved us even more fiercely because of it.
During my college years, my mother decided she wanted to try to become friends with Charlotte and me. Said she might not have excelled at being our mother, but could we give friendship a shot? Needless to say, her penchant for living life on the edge and forgetting that once a mother, always a mother, regardless of any friendship you may try to cultivate with your daughters years later, have brought us to today, when my mother and I are not on the best of terms. After thirty-four years we’ve reached lukewarm waters. We don’t overly engage, we try to keep it civil at family birthday parties and events, and on very rare occasion we will have an easy two-minute phone call (usually out of the necessity to coordinate said family events).
Everything the Heart Wants: A Novel Page 6
