The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel

by Dawson, Maddie

  “But we don’t know this girl.”

  So they meet Eliza in advance. She has a young, fresh face, a ponytail underneath a baseball cap, and a nice smile. She demonstrates that she knows how to hold a baby, how to administer a bottle, and how to walk a baby while supporting the head. She will call 911 at the first sign of any trouble. She will keep in touch with Rosie throughout the evening. She doesn’t know “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” but she knows her university fight song, which might have the same spirit to it.

  Rosie pumps breast milk into a bottle—a daylong project—which makes her feel like somebody’s old, reluctant cow, but it gets the job done.

  And then she and Jonathan actually leave the house and go out. Babyless.

  They have dinner, wearing grown-up clothes. Judith turns out to be a sparkling dinner companion who doesn’t mind hearing stories about new motherhood, even though it’s nothing she ever wanted to experience herself. She sympathizes with Rosie’s missing her students, and says that of course she’ll help her find some students here, just as soon as she wants to return to work. Rosie can feel herself blanch: wait, she’s expected to take care of this baby and work, too?

  Naturally the men start their museum talk. Judith leans over and says to Rosie conspiratorially, “Have you ever seen such obsessive guys? They are just so incredibly lucky to have found each other. It’s as though they were connected for many lifetimes.”

  This makes both women laugh, because the idea of these two balding, seriously wonky guys trudging together lifetime after lifetime hoarding their teacups is hilarious.

  When the laughter dies down Judith says, “And lucky you! You got nearly a whole year off from it, didn’t you?”

  Rosie says, looking over at Jonathan fondly, “Well, but I’m glad to be back with him. I did miss him.”

  That’s when the men look up from their talk. Andres has been on his BlackBerry and Jonathan on his iPhone, and their heads are nearly touching. And then Jonathan puts his phone down on the table and says, “That’s it, then. We got it!”

  Andres actually claps his hands.

  “What’s happening?” says Judith, and yawns.

  “We just got a great collection that’s become available—a dealer in Cincinnati is liquidating—and we won the bid,” says Andres. Jonathan looks up at Rosie and smiles.

  “Subject to our inspection,” he says.

  “In Cincinnati?” says Rosie.

  “In Cincinnati.” He turns back to Andres, who is calling up something else on his BlackBerry, and they bend their heads back together.

  “Wait. You’re going to Cincinnati?” Rosie says, but he’s talking and doesn’t answer.

  “Obsessive,” says Judith, tilting her head toward Rosie. She takes a sip of her wine and says, “You two never did get married, did you?”

  When Rosie shakes her head, she says, “Yeah, Andres told me. We didn’t either. I don’t know why really. We just sort of forgot. It almost didn’t make enough difference to go ahead and do it. It’s funny how people say you have to do it, and then you realize you don’t.”

  “Yeah,” says Rosie. She keeps looking at Jonathan. He’s going to Cincinnati, and she wonders if he’ll remember to tell her.

  The men get hauled back into the conversation after that, and after a suitable interval has gone by, Rosie says they really do have to get back to the baby. The truth is her breasts are filled with milk—and that might mean that Beanie has drunk all the milk that was pumped and is screaming in hunger. She can’t believe she stayed out so long. She never meant to do this.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Jonathan keeps saying. It takes forever for him and Andres to wrap up their plans.

  “Eliza would call you if there’s a problem,” says Judith. “You can relax.”

  Rosie tries to smile at her. There’s no point in trying to explain what this is like to someone who hasn’t just given birth, how it feels to be so completely responsible for someone whose whole world depends upon you and your two breasts.

  But when they get home, it turns out that everything really is all right. Beanie has been sleeping for four hours—like a miracle baby, Eliza says.

  “See? What did I tell you? We have a miracle baby,” Jonathan says.

  Rosie smiles weakly, and once he leaves to take Eliza home, she goes in and stands by the bassinet and watches the baby sleep. Her little cheeks are so full and luscious, and her little rosebud lips are so sweetly pooched up. Rosie reaches over and touches those seashell ears, the sweep of fine brown hair, and tears spring into her eyes. It’s all she can do not to scoop the baby up and nuzzle her.

  She startles when Jonathan comes to the doorway. “Hey,” he whispers. “Come in here, I have a surprise for you.”

  “Sssh. Come look at her. Tiptoe.”

  But he’s already moved away from the door. After a moment, she goes into their bedroom, takes off her cardigan and her dress, and slips on her nightgown and sits down on the bed. He’s in the bathroom, looking at his teeth in the mirror.

  “Whew, I’m so tired, but wine keeps me awake now, I’ve noticed,” she says. She takes her earrings off and looks over at him. “So what’s this surprise you have for me? The fact that you’re about to leave me and go on a business trip? Because I kind of figured that out with the context clues tonight.”

  He comes over to the bed and stretches out next to her and grins suggestively. “Nooo. I believe that six weeks are officially up, and things are back to normal … down there,” he says, waggling his eyebrows and pointing toward her crotch. “I thought we’d …”

  “Well, this is sort of out of the blue,” she says. She stands up and puts her earrings on the dresser.

  “Yep, I’ve been holding myself back,” he says. “But tonight’s the night. Come over here and let me reintroduce you to your old friend Mr. Happy.”

  “Jonathan, honestly? I’m kind of tired, and the baby is going to wake up in a minute and need to nurse, and also—as long as we’re talking about surprises, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the Cincinnati trip.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I just found out about the trip tonight. You were there with me when I heard we’d gotten the bid.”

  “But I didn’t even know it was a possibility. Why are you still acquiring cups when you have so many? You said yourself that the museum isn’t doing all that well—”

  “People aren’t going to keep coming to see the same old, same old,” he says. “And look. Do you really want to get into a business discussion right now? Come on, I want you. Let’s get naked and frisky.”

  “But I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone,” she says. “You’re taking off!”

  “It’s only for two days,” he says. “You’ve never cared about me going away before.”

  “But we have a baby now,” she says. “Can’t you see how frightening it might be for me?”

  “You’re frightened of the baby?” He stares at her. “You, Rosie Kelley, are scared to be with the baby without me here? Me, who is pretty much useless since I know nothing about babies. I don’t even hold her the right way. You’re not scared, and you know it.”

  “Things could happen. And I’m all by myself here without my friends or anybody I can call on if something happens—”

  “Call Judith. Call the doctor. What’s going to happen?”

  “Who knows what could happen? She could cry all night, she could stop breathing, I could fall down—”

  “Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. It’s fine. Come here and let’s get into this bed together.”

  “No,” she says, and starts to cry in earnest. “Jonathan, I can’t do this. I’m so sad all the time, and I miss my friends and I feel bad when I have to try to make friends with other people, and you’re the only person I have to depend on, and I’m trying so hard to get used to it here, but it’s so weird, and I’m lonely. I’m just lonely.”

  “You’re lonely?” he says. “Well, now that’s ironic, isn’t it? Here I am, right here,
wanting to hold you, and this could be a good sexy, reuniting time, but instead you’ve picked this time to have a fight.”

  “But why is everything on your terms? Why are you picking the time for sex and then just telling me that’s what we’re going to do?”

  “Why? Why am I picking this time for sex? Maybe because it’s nighttime, and we had a nice evening out, and I was feeling good and relaxed, and feeling good about us and the fact that we could get away together for an evening—”

  “See? Why is it all about getting away? This is where we’re supposed to be, getting used to everything.” She flings out her arms, in a gesture meant to take in the whole apartment.

  “Playing house, you mean?”

  “Maybe. Except for real. And now you can’t even hide how excited you are about this trip to Cincinnati, too. You know, I don’t know why you wanted me to come here in the first place.”

  He sighs and rubs his head and then looks away from her. “Okay, forget it,” he says. “Forget I said anything about sex. I don’t want it anymore. But I would just like to remind you that when I came to see you in Connecticut, you were the one who wanted sex all the time, you were the one who went batshit crazy when I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. What happened to that woman, huh?”

  “She had a baby.”

  “Yeah, she had a baby. And maybe she had something else, too.” He gets up off the bed, walking with a heaviness she hasn’t noticed in him before. He goes over to the desk in the corner, the bill-paying desk, which is covered with papers and letters and things for the museum. It takes him a moment of rifling through the papers, and then he picks up an envelope and brings it over to her. “A love letter for you from the cell phone company,” he says.

  Time starts to unspool so slowly.

  “Open it,” he says.

  “I don’t want to read it,” she says. Something has gone cold in the pit of her stomach.

  For a moment he just stands there and looks at her. And then he says, “You don’t love me, do you? We can pretend some more, but it’s really over, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean, it’s over? We’re just starting with a new baby, it’s always like this, it’s a tough transition. I do love you, it’s just—”

  “No,” he says. “It’s not. I could have waited that out. But you’re so unhappy, you’re so distracted. You love him. You don’t love me anymore.”

  “I do love you,” she says dully, mechanically.

  “But look at this,” he says. He holds out the bill. “You talk to him every day. You called him from the hospital, even though I was there with you every single minute. How did you even manage to do that?”

  She glances down at the line of numbers, Tony’s cell phone number repeated over and over again, calls received, calls sent out, all dutifully recorded in their official capacity. She takes a deep breath; everything in the room has gone a little bit hazy, and she knows she needs to be sharp.

  “Look,” she says, making her voice sound reasonable, “he went through the pregnancy with me. We got to be friends. I miss talking to him. Why shouldn’t I? He was the one who went with me to the doctor’s visits and who listened to me complain—you weren’t there, remember?”

  “That’s bullshit,” he says. “Life doesn’t work that way. If it were just a friendship, you’d call him when I was around, wouldn’t you? I know you. I see the signs. I tried to ignore it when I was there at Christmas, but I saw how you looked at each other.”

  She feels herself spiraling down. She doesn’t have the stamina for this right now; she can’t do it, it’s too soon, she’s too breakable, life is fragile, she needs time to think.

  The baby starts to cry then, little piercing cries of hunger. Rosie gets up and goes in and picks her up from the bassinet. Beanie roots around, looking frantically for the breast, and Rosie sits down in the rocking glider and pulls open her nightgown, and Beanie clamps on as if for dear life, snuffling and sucking as hard as she can. Rosie winces at the sting of her breasts releasing the milk, and then she settles back in the glider in the dark, feeling both the pain and the relief.

  She can hear Jonathan go into the bathroom and close the door. After a while, the door opens, and for a moment, she thinks maybe he’ll come to see her and the baby. Maybe this talk went further than he meant it to, and he knows now he can’t live without her and Beanie. He’ll come in and say he wants her to stay with him.

  But he doesn’t come in. She hears him snap off the light in the bedroom and close the door against her, and for one tiny moment, she closes her eyes, consumed with guilt. Maybe she should take the baby and go into the bedroom and sit down on the bed with him and tell him how sorry she is for hurting him. She’s not supposed to leave people; they’ve always gotten to leave her instead. Maybe she could promise to forget about Tony and to care more about the museum, to work harder at making friends here, to simply make herself adjust. She can be what he wants. She will just try harder and harder.

  Then, rocking in the dark, she thinks of Tony—Tony, who wants the biggest Christmas tree, the funniest stories, the deepest kisses, the wackiest Scrabble words for Soapie, the most complicated tomato sauce, each and every ultrasound picture, the peanut butter diamonds. Tony, in Jonathan’s place, would try to make things work. He would throw himself at love. He would say this is what the heart does, it can’t help it. He’d be the one bringing apologies and promises and back rubs and love, he would come up with a theory, he would sit by her side all night long and watch the baby gulping milk. He would have come into the baby’s room when he came home tonight, too. He would have stood beside Rosie, and nuzzled her neck, reached over and unbuttoned her dress, waltzed her to the bedroom, where he would have gently eased her down onto the bed, kissing every expanse of her.

  He’s a man who wants family so much that he’s spent the last ten months experiencing parenthood through the windshield, and he loves her so much that he agreed to two weeks, and bowed out gracefully when it turned out to be only one.

  Soapie said: Pick one of those men, either one, just pick. And: Get you some joie de vivre. And: Don’t sit around and let your whole life dribble away. Find what makes you happy, what gives you passion.

  And most devastating of all: I know it was bad to lie to you. But I wanted to protect you, I guess.

  She looks out the window at the turquoise swimming pool, shining below like a fake jewel in the artificial lights. A siren Dopplers itself down the street, and a door slams somewhere in the building. A woman laughs.

  Life went by so fast, Soapie said. The whole damn eighty-eight years—you’d think it would be endless, but it flew by, she said. Rosie, it goes so fast.

  Over the next few days she knows she and Jonathan will make all the necessary arrangements; they’ll pack up her stuff and have the tough conversations. It’ll be very civilized—he doesn’t like messy scenes. It’s a separation, they’ll say to other people; she’s going back home to take care of some things at her grandmother’s house.

  But to Jonathan, she has to be honest. She’ll be her own caseworker again, leading herself gently through to where she’s supposed to be. And it will be hard and messy and honest and ultimately glorious.

  “Yes, I fell in love with Tony,” she will say bravely. “I should have told you before. I thought it would just go away. But you deserve to know the truth.”

  All these years of trying to adjust the shape of herself into a square peg when what she needed was a round hole she could slip through.

  He may seem upset at first, but he’ll also be relieved in a way, at what wasn’t asked of him, at what he escaped. He’s happy here. After all, there are new teacups to be looked at in Cincinnati, there are new ways of attracting visitors to the museum, and there will always be more discoveries and fascinating facts for him.

  He won’t even miss the baby, not really. She thinks she should feel sad about this, and maybe later it will hit her harder—that there’s yet another little girl whose father
won’t be present. But for right now, she hears Tony’s voice in her head. He’d say love can swoop down anytime. And if Jonathan can’t love the flesh-and-blood, messy, squalling and fragile little life in front of him, maybe he’ll turn into the more “official” father, the kind of father who wants to read her school papers and discuss the best summer camps and arrangements, the guy who can’t hear about the prom dates but who will care deeply about the SATs. Whatever level of involvement he’ll choose, that will be fine.

  She reaches down and strokes Beanie’s cheek, and is surprised when a tear falls right on the baby’s curled-up little fist. She didn’t even know she was crying. Smiling and crying at the same time. So this is how it’s going to be.

  The airport is crowded for a weekday afternoon, she thinks. She straps the baby into the front pack, the funny one that ties all around and around, like the baby is an accessory you can just attach to yourself. It’s good because your hands are free for the diaper bag and the purse. And even better, you can tip your face down and feel that velvety head next to your skin, like ripe peaches in the sunshine.

  A week has gone by. Jonathan drives her and Beanie to the airport and unloads their stuff at the curbside. It reminds her of the night he left her at Soapie’s. She feels that same sense of being freed from something, the same sense of the glorious unknown. And when he says to her, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” it feels all too familiar. Déjà vu all over again, she tells him.

  This time, though, she reaches over and kisses him. He takes her hand and puts it next to his cheek.

  “Call me when you get in,” he says, and she promises that she will. He looks at her for a long moment, but she doesn’t cry even when he looks as though he might. They’re all cried out. Now it’s time to simply take the first steps away.

  She’s all the way into the terminal, her red boots clicking as she hurries along the automatic moving walkway, before she realizes he didn’t even lean down to look at the baby. Not even one last look.

  Tony is in her ear on the phone while she waits for the flight to be called. When she told him she was coming back, he said he and Milo would meet the plane when she gets in, and if she wants, and if the baby thinks it’s a good idea, they’ll go get some dinner. “You’ll be hungry,” he said. “I hear they don’t feed people on planes anymore.”