He Gets That from Me

by Jacqueline Friedland

  “Maybe you should leave it outside with a note that says, ‘Up for grabs’?” I suggest.

  Tess rolls her eyes at me and walks toward the kitchen with the flowers. As she opens cabinets, searching for another makeshift vase, I wipe my sleeve across the back of my neck, drying away more sweat. My hormones are all over the place, and I’ve been perspiring like it’s my job since the day after giving birth to the twins. Tess, on the other hand, looks like a Barbie doll in her tight white tank top and capri jeans. As she stretches to reach something from a top shelf, her torso elongates, accentuating an elegant curve in her back. I wonder if I will ever get back the body that I had before I embarked on this journey. Even though I was never as slender as Tess, her taut physique reminds me how much my own form has changed over the past nine months. Would Nick even want me if he saw me now, with my cartoonishly large breasts, my mushy belly, and all the post-delivery blood still flowing out of my body in crime-scene quantities?

  I thought this delivery would be easier because birthing a child was something I had already done once before—thought my body would know what to do. But delivering little five-and-a-half-pound Wyatt wasn’t quite the same as popping out two surprisingly large babies in one sitting. Teddy arrived weighing more than eight pounds, a real achievement for a baby who’s a twin. When Kai finally saw fit, thirty-five minutes later, to make his first appearance, at least he had the good grace to be smaller than his big-ass brother.

  I feel renewed anger at Nick, thinking about how his behavior left me without the support system I expected to have in place after giving birth. Months ago, I declined Chip and Donovan’s offer to pay for two weeks of post-partum household help because I thought Nick and I would manage on our own.

  As if she can hear my thoughts, Tess turns to me with a can of ground coffee in her hand. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay a few more days?” She pulls a plastic container out from a drawer and starts pouring the coffee from the can into the Tupperware.

  I hesitate. I could definitely use a few more quiet days languishing in sitz baths and calendula ointment and experimenting with other home remedies meant to speed the healing of my nether regions. But it’s time for me to start forging my own path forward with Wyatt. Tess shouldn’t have to give up even more of her vacation days just because I’ve landed in yet another tight spot.

  “I can,” she says. “I can push the flight.” She pulls a scissor from a drawer and starts cutting the stems of the flowers.

  “It’s fine.” I lean back against the sofa and look up at the popcorn ceiling. “I’ll miss you, but I’m okay. There’s no reason for you to pay a change fee for the flight. Go home and use the rest of your vacation days for an actual vacation.”

  Her pale lips turn up at that, like the idea of her taking a real vacation from her job is a joke. She picks up the completed flower arrangement and opens the freezer to grab a bag of peas before carrying everything over to where I’m sitting.

  “Here.” She tosses the frozen veggies at me.

  I waste no time placing them between my T-shirt and sports bra. The frosty bag helps immediately with the burning sensation emanating from my chest, but the dull ache from the engorgement persists. Tess puts the flowers on the small brown coffee table in front of me before lowering herself onto the sofa.

  “Front and center, huh?” I shift my gaze away from the flowers and whatever it is they’re supposed to represent.

  “Could you stop pushing everyone away? Just for once, let someone stick around in your life?” I never gave Tess an exact play-by-play on why Nick and I fell apart, so I should probably cut her some slack for stepping into his corner now. “You could at least speak to him, hear what he has to say. Maybe there are more reasons to be with him than reasons to be apart from him. Being alone isn’t synonymous with being brave or being strong. Maybe it’s just evidence of bad judgment.”

  I open my mouth before I even know what I’m going to say. She doesn’t give me the chance to come up with anything clever before she stands and walks over to the play area I’ve set up for Wyatt. He’s sitting next to a large plastic clock, pushing at all the buttons, but the toy remains silent.

  “Here, buddy.” Tess takes the clock and slides the power button into the “on” position. She shakes it a couple of times and looks at me. “Batteries must be dead. Where are extras?” She’s already scanning the room like I would ever be the type of person to keep a well-stocked supply of batteries at the ready.

  “Hmm, let me think. Oh, right—they’re at the bodega on the corner.”

  Her lips twist in annoyance at me, but then she turns to Wyatt and smiles. “Let’s go to the store and get batteries?”

  “No shoes,” he responds earnestly. Wyatt hates wearing any footwear—prefers to be barefoot at all times.

  “No shoes, no batteries,” she responds in the same earnest tone, like she’s really sorry to say it.

  “No shoes,” he repeats, his little lips slick with his saliva.

  “Then no batteries.” She shrugs.

  Wyatt looks from Tess back to the oversize clock, his eyes roaming over the colorful buttons, but he holds his ground. “No shoes,” he says again.

  “Okay,” she says, casually, but with finality, and she walks back toward the couch to sit down.

  If it were me, I’d probably have just carried him to the store barefoot—saving myself the hassle of negotiating, but definitely not helping the kid learn anything useful. Except maybe that his mom’s a sucker.

  “Tell me more about BoomStander,” Tess says, as though we weren’t just in the middle of an argument.

  BoomStander is the internet-based celebrity gossip publication where I’ve been working as an administrative assistant. It’ll only be another two weeks until my truncated maternity leave ends and I return to my desk. Wyatt will finally start at their in-house daycare at the same time.

  I’m still so grateful to have found a position anywhere at all, considering that I was already five months pregnant when I began my California job hunt. I was so large that I probably looked like I was well past my due date. As it happens, I’ve been enjoying the position more than I expected. When I explained to Sandra, my now-boss, that I wouldn’t need a full maternity leave because I wasn’t keeping the babies I was delivering, she got super excited about the fact that I was carrying babies for a gay couple and practically insisted that I take the job. She lost all interest in my educational background, or lack thereof, and only wanted to know about the intended parents and the details of their parenting plan. Would they both be called “Dad”? Did they have a network of similarly structured families so the babies would grow up with a community? Did I know which of the guys was planning to be the primary caretaker? At some point, she confessed her regret over the fact that she herself hadn’t turned out to be gay, declaring the LGBQT lifestyle seemed kinder and gentler than the hetero existence in which she had landed. You’ve got to love Los Angeles. If only I could send Nick out here for a few months, plug him into a more enlightened way of thinking.

  I fill Tess in on my job, describing the laid-back office culture, the Ping-Pong tables in three of the conference rooms, and the extra-large medicine balls many of the employees use at their desks instead of swivel chairs.

  “Probably sounds pretty crazy to a white-shoe attorney from New York,” I say with a small shrug.

  “Speaking of shoes . . .” she says quietly as she uses her chin to point in Wyatt’s direction. He’s sitting on the floor by the front door, attempting to put on his socks and sneakers. Like everything else in life, it appears that Tess is also a better parent than I am. That’s my big sis, though, always right about everything. Maybe she’s right about Nick, too.

  But when I think about calling Nick, I cringe. I can’t stop remembering the last fight we had before I left. It was a Tuesday night, and I had been on the phone with Chip, trying to explain what it felt like when the babies were kicking inside me. I told him that it was sort of lik
e being on an inflatable raft in a river and floating over a log. There was pressure, lots of it, but only in a muted way, like if someone was poking you in the arm, but from the other side of a pillow. I kept coming up with stranger examples, and at some point our conversation devolved into nothing but stupid jokes and hysterical laughter. I heard movement on the other side of the room and looked up from the couch to see Nick leaning against the wall, his lip curled up in apparent disgust as he glowered at me.

  I ended the call with Chip to see what bug had crawled up Nick’s ass this time. Ever since my pregnancy had begun to show, he’d been impossible.

  “I don’t understand why you fawn over those guys so much. You know they’re not into you that way, right? Where is your dignity?”

  “Excuse me? What the actual fuck is your problem?” I demanded as I stood from the sofa. I almost never cursed anymore, not since having Wyatt, but I couldn’t stand the way he was judging me, especially when I wasn’t even certain exactly what he was judging.

  “All you do is call those two guys in New York. It’s like you don’t even have a life of your own anymore,” he said, spittle flying out of his mouth. “You’re just this vessel. A uterus for hire.”

  “Don’t you ever think of what it’s like for them?” I walked toward him, lugging all my anger with me. “I have their children with me, day in and day out, and they have absolutely no control over what I do to their babies. Can’t you try to imagine how scary that is for them? I could be doing shots of tequila all day long and giving their babies fetal alcohol syndrome, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me. They have no power over whether I eat raw eggs, unpasteurized cheese, sushi. I could decide to drive down to Mexico for vacation and just never come back. I’m trying to be kind, to help give them peace of mind. Not everyone has it so easy where they can just stick their dick in their girlfriend and magically end up with a kid nine months later.” I noticed I was pointing at him, and I lowered my hand.

  “It’s embarrassing,” he shouted back, “the way you’re playing up to them all the time. If you’re so worried about them, maybe you should just move to New York, where you can be with them all the time. They can feed you organic produce and folic acid tablets all day long. You can watch them make sweet love to each other and ask yourself over and over again when it’s going to be your turn to get in there.”

  I gasped at his cruelty.

  “Maybe I will move to New York!” I shouted back, suddenly certain that I wanted to get myself and my child as far away from this man as possible. I stormed off to the bedroom, yanked a duffel bag off the top shelf of the closet, and started stuffing my clothing into it.

  In the end, I decided I wasn’t ready to go back to the East Coast. But I had to get away from Nick, who seemed in that moment to be filled with nothing but anger and the ugliest kinds of negativity. So instead of New York, Wyatt and I went west. Part of me hoped Nick would stop us, that he’d make some grand gesture and convince us to stay. Instead, he offered to carry our luggage to the car, warning me, in an oddly timed moment of gallantry, that I shouldn’t be lifting anything heavy. He didn’t even argue about Wyatt coming with me, which only made me angrier. As we drove out of the building’s lot, I spotted him in the rearview mirror, still standing next to the empty parking spot, arms crossed in front of his chest, watching us leave him behind.

  I’ve been out here in LA for four months now, and I’ve started to build a new life. I have a solid job, and I’ve made a few friends in the building. Wyatt and I use the weekends to go on adventures around town, down the road to the pet store or a few blocks over to visit the tar pits. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss Nick.

  “It looks like I’m going to be popping into the bodega,” Tess says as she stands again. “Want me to pick up anything else?”

  “Maybe more peas?” I say as I move the bag from my left breast to my right.

  “You sure you don’t want to try pumping just to relieve some of the pressure?” she asks, eyeing my bulging breasts.

  Chip and Donovan decided they would formula-feed the babies in order to spare me the hassle of overnighting breast milk across the country on a regular basis. In order to let the milk dry up as quickly as possible, I’ve resolved to suffer through whatever pain is necessary.

  “Nah, I don’t want to give these boobs reason to produce any more milk than they already are.” The thought of leaking onto my dress shirts after I return to work doesn’t really appeal to me.

  After Tess leaves again with Wyatt, I decide to straighten up a little. I sweep up the clutter on the coffee table: two half-full juice glasses, Wyatt’s dinosaur coloring book and crayons, and the stack of mail Tess brought in yesterday, which I still haven’t bothered to sort. I drop the dishes in the sink and then lean against the counter while I flip through the pile of envelopes and catalogues. Tucked between a phone bill and a Toys “R” Us catalog, I find a postcard. There is a picture collage on the front, and the word “Colorado” is scrawled across the middle. I flip the card over and see that Donovan has sent a note.

  He and Chip rented this obscenely large retrofitted RV in order to road trip the entire way home to New York. They had too many concerns about bringing newborns on a commercial airliner to fly back.

  Donovan’s handwriting is neat but small, and without my contacts in, I have to squint in order to read.

  Dear Maggie,

  Who knew they even sold postcards anymore?

  We were passing through Denver and we decided to spend a few extra hours here as tourists—I’ve always had a hankering to see this city. We just wanted you to know that you are on our minds as we bring our babies home. We are still simply baffled, bewildered, and beguiled by the kindness you’ve done us (and don’t start up again about how you only did it for the money—Chip and I know better). The babies are doing fantastically well, and you will forever be our biggest hero.

  Much love,

  Donovan

  I’m heartened to have heard from them, even if it’s an arm’s length postcard. I flip the card back to the other side and study the pictures. I’ve never been to Denver, but one of the pictures on the front looks just like the red rocks in Sedona. It makes me unexpectedly homesick for Phoenix, and for Nick.

  Chapter 12

  DONOVAN

  JULY 2018

  It’s a sweltering Sunday afternoon, and we’re loitering outside a suburban shopping mall, along with several other sweaty parents, awaiting the return of the camp bus. Britt Lindeman, an uber-fancy mom we know from the boys’ school, is standing on my other side, talking Chip’s ear off about the letters she received from her son, Hudson, and how much he loved his brief stay at overnight camp. Next summer she plans to send him for the full seven weeks rather than the fourteen-day mini-program we did this year, and she wants to know if we expect to do the same for Kai and Teddy. She’s clapping her hands in excitement at Chip as she imagines the possibility of our kids being together again.

  Britt Lindeman falls into the category of women who love us simply because we are gay. After spending so many of my teenage years struggling with the idea of coming out and then putting up with incessant jibes from alpha males in my Italian neighborhood, I definitely prefer an attitude of people like Britt, who can’t get enough of us. I’ve come a long way in coping with reactions from the straight community anyway, because once you have children with another man, it’s like you’re coming out over and over again, every time you and your partner take the kids out in public. That was one thing I didn’t fully realize before we had the boys. Whenever people see you co-dadding, it’s like announcing from a bullhorn that you’re gay. When you arrive for back-to-school night or take your kids out for burgers, it’s as if you’re wearing a sign that says, “Yup, two dads over here, because we’re gay, yes, totally gay. Gay as glitter, and unicorns, and Europop. Gay, gay, gay.” We’re lucky that in New York, our gayness only seems to add to our cache (Britt and her Chanel handbag are proving my point at t
his very moment, as they collectively sidle closer to Chip).

  When it comes to straight people judging us and our family, there are basically four different groups, and Britt, as fan-girl, fits into the category that is my second favorite. My top choice is those people for whom our sexual orientation carries no extra implications, but merely registers with them as a part of who we are. Unfortunately, those people tend to be few and far between. In third place are the folks who you know aren’t comfortable with your orientation, but they’re also sorry they feel that way. Those people pretend, aggressively, that which way you lean is of no consequence at all to them, when in fact it’s all they can think about in your presence. And then, of course, there are your anti-gay Neanderthals—the ones who can’t resist telling you how you’re wronging society, wronging God, wronging your parents, causing climate change or weapons of mass destruction, or who knows what else, simply by existing as you are. When those people see you with children . . . that’s when things can get ugly. Chip and I have learned to avoid rest stops in rural areas at all costs—not because we can’t take the heat but because now that Teddy and Kai are older, they understand what’s going on, and why should they have to deal with bigotry?

  A big white charter bus with a green leprechaun on its side finally pulls up at the stoplight across from the shopping center, and several of the parents start cheering in excitement. Britt’s high-pitched words fade to muted clouds of dust as I steel myself to see the boys. I’ve not looked into Kai’s face in person since receiving final confirmation that he and I are not genetically related. I remind myself, again, that I’ve known for years about the absence of a genetic connection between Teddy and me, and it hasn’t impacted our relationship in the slightest. I have to approach Kai in the same way.

  After the bus pulls to a stop, the doors open and campers begin tumbling out. The kids all look disheveled and satisfied, with rolled sleeping bags tucked precariously under their arms, grubby sneakers on their feet, trophies peeking out from backpacks. As though it’s been choreographed, each boy pauses on the top step and scans the crowd for a parent before hopping happily off the bus.