by SM Lumetta
I sit down and she comes with me. We’re sort of sitting on each other’s laps, but not. I don’t know. We’re really close and it’s kind of weird, but not uncomfortable.
“Fox has all but disappeared,” I say. “It was almost cartoonish.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the smoke and vapor trails. Along with the ACME-style sound effects.”
Nora smiles briefly, but her expression shifts quickly confused. “But you guys aren’t—”
Episode Five: The Snot-Sobbing Strikes Back.
“That little shit,” she seethes. Her drink is now too far away, at the other end of the coffee table. She untangles herself from our leg lock and leans across to grab it. Once she gets a gulp in, she continues. “What the fuck?”
It doesn’t take long to tell her everything—the only thing she’s not really caught up on is the big reveal, as in, the moment where Fox ran for the goddamn hills. And maybe the part where I fell in love with him. Dammit.
“How did you let me get through my little sack of nothing news without spilling all this? No, fuck that—how have you avoided telling me about the little disease you’ve contracted?”
“What?”
“You know, the love thing.” She added the conspiratorial whisper as a bonus kick to the head. “I thought that stuff was for fairy tales.”
I’m not quite sure how to take what she’s saying. It’s not like she hasn’t been in relationships. I could have sworn she’s been in love. Right? “You—wait. What’s going on here? Why are you acting like I caught the plague?”
“You kind of did, sweetness,” she tells me. “But I think you misunderstood. There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, true love, or any of that malarkey. For you, not me. Fuck that. Sorry. Anyway, what I’m saying is, you fell in love with the unlovable. No, that’s not right. The, uh, shit. What’s a word for ‘won’t truly love you back because they’re emotionally stunted’?”
That does not help me. At all. I lose my shit for the next few minutes. Eventually Nora grabs some tissues and pretends to chloroform me with them. Luckily, I don’t suffocate but I do stop crying.
“Fucked,” I say as if no time has passed. “The word is fucked, Nor. That’s what.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You can’t fall in love with fucked.”
“Oh, who gives a shit!” I shout, shocking her silent for a moment. I get up and sort through some mail on the kitchen counter aimlessly. I’m not even looking at it really. “I got what I asked for and not an iota more.”
I throw the mail on the floor. Nora tosses a gaze at the pile of envelopes and looks back to me. “No acceptance letter to Hogwarts, eh?”
We lock eyes and I find myself laughing for the first time in two weeks. Not a gut buster, but given the level of lowness I’ve been swimming in, I’ll take it.
“Yeah,” she says, “me neither. Rip-off.”
“Sophie Ann, love, it’s Roz.” Fox’s mother rarely, if ever, calls me directly so aside from the strangeness of the call, it’s not unwelcome. Except for the fact that I want nothing to remind me of Fox right now. I’ve got a growing reminder in my uterus and that is about all I can take. “I was after Fox. Little bastard’s not returning my calls. Only texts.”
“Hiya, Roz. How are you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice upbeat.
“Well, shit,” she says, performing a conversational u-turn. “What’s got you under lumps, hun?”
I don’t know if that phrase is a New Zealand thing or if I completely misunderstood her, but it makes me smile a little. “Oh, um, nothing. I’m fine. I swear.”
“Bullshit says the exact same thing, lovey,” she says, clearly not pulling any punches. Not that Roz ever does. “Does this have anything to do with my son?”
“What makes you say that?”
It could have been an innocent question. It could have sounded calm and legitimately confused. But oh no. That would be too much to ask of my acting skills. Instead, the words come out in an unnatural shriek, the pitch nearing that of a dog whistle. Though obviously not that high because then neither of us would have been able to hear it. I digress. Moving on.
“Nothing really, but you just confirmed it. Hmm, what in the hell has that boy done now? First he avoids his mum. Now you,” she muses. I don’t correct her. “Sometimes he acts just like ’is father. Son of a bitch.”
Roz has continually held a candle for Fox’s dad since he left them in Hawaii and moved back to Sweden. And by candle, I mean the blazing hatred candle.
“Roz, it’s nothing,” I say and this time even I don’t believe me.
“Don’t make me come over there, darl’,” she threatens sweetly. I sometimes forget how much I love this lady. “I know he’s been spendin’ a lot of time with you as of late, which I think is great. It’s about time you two hooked up.”
“He told you that?” The pitch is back. Equally high, double embarrassing. Seriously, when did I return to preteen hysteria?
Roz chuckles. “No, but you just did.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, I don’t want to discuss the particulars, love, but that is the general idea, isn’t it?’
After I resolidify and pick myself up after melting to the floor in absolute shame and embarrassment, I attempt to collect myself enough to speak as an actual adult and not a teenager at a boy band arena tour.
“That’s not the long and short of it, Roz,” I say and immediately wish I had a script to read from. This is why I’m behind the scenes. I wait a good two minutes, maybe more, before Roz stops laughing.
“I’m sorry, love,” she says, wheezing. “Now you know where Fox gets his dirty mind. I love telling him that, too. He gets the dry heaves until I think he might really chuck something up. Bloody beautiful revenge, that.”
I sigh. “Okay, look. Here’s the thing: I’m trying to have a baby,” I say, forgetting momentarily that I am, in fact, pregnant. I just had my first sonogram.
“Hold up. You and my son are trying to procreate? Legitimately? What on God’s green earth is happening? Why don’t I know about this?”
I look to the ceiling, hoping said God will give me a boost on this one. “Long story short, I’m going into premature menopause. Or at least perimenopause. I ran out of wait time.”
“Okay,” she says, listening, but waiting for the punch line. Dear God, how I wish there was a punch line that was actually funny. Other than all the stupid Freudian slips, of course.
“So another long story short, I asked Fox to do the honors. Last long story shortest, I’m pregnant.”
A squealing sound such as I have never heard comes over the line and, sweet Christ, I wish I were temporarily deaf. Wait, I might be. Only in one ear, though. In any case, there is clearly a shitload of happy dancing happening at Roz’s house right now. And yet, it makes me feel worse.
“So you’re having my grandbaby?” I can practically hear her knitting booties and an entire infant wardrobe.
“Technically, yes,” I say, before I can think better of it.
“And what, pray tell, do you mean by technically?”
Seriously? I mean the word is pretty easy to define.
“Sophie?”
“Oh shit. Roz, I really don’t want to get into this with you right now.”
“Too late, doll. We’re in it. What did he do?” she asks.
I straighten my spine, rapidly pulling taut into a tall straight line. I can’t speak because, well, she just called him out. I honestly expected her to start in on me, telling me to fix this or that she won’t give up her only grandchild, yada yada.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she encourages, but I hear the anger behind it. “I know he cocked it up somehow. It’s not tattling when you’re an adult.”
It’s still totally tattling. Totally. Hahahaha. “I—”
“Listen, maybe I’m not the person you’d normally spill all this to, and I get it. But my son is an unfortunate carrier of his father’s DNA, and despite
all my best efforts, that influence is still largely transparent. I’m here to do my best to minimize that particular impact. Got me?”
I smile. “Yeah, I do, but—”
“Sophie.”
The way she says my name is twofold—it’s gentle and caring, but also parental.
And it breaks me. Not like in the prison way or in taming a wild horse, but like cracking an egg. I don’t know why I felt the need to describe it like that, but there you go.
“It wasn’t supposed to be anything but… reproduction,” I say after struggling for words. “But it became more. At one point, I knew I was in too deep, but it was too late. Then I found out I was pregnant and—”
“That little shit bailed.”
I stare openmouthed at the phone for a breath or two. “Yeah. Basically.”
“I will kick the ever-loving shit out of him. I swear to God, that boy is a piece of work,” she grinds out. Her frustration-fueled rant would absolutely be entertaining were it not at the expense of a very emotional situation on my part. Which is hilariously ironic. Or not. I don’t know. I’d have to check the definition again.
It takes me another half an hour to talk Roz off the ledge and not say anything to Fox about this, but the best I can do is get a tentative “I’ll consider it.” By that point, I don’t care what she does. I’m exhausted just having had this conversation. Then I realize I have a secret weapon. And her name is “Mom.”
After I hang up with Roz and suck down some water (I am so thirsty after that), I call up the mamaleh. As soon as she picks up, I say, “Mom, sick ’em.” Of course it takes a little more than that, but it doesn’t take much for her to understand what needs to be done. That’s right. Mom’s like the consiglieri of our very non-Italian, let alone Sicilian, family.
As far as I can tell, Roz hasn’t even mentioned anything to Fox.
Over the next week, I focus on my upcoming work trip to London. I don’t usually need to travel, but this particular project is huge for my production company, so they want to have a couple of us on hand in person to smooth out the transitional aspect of this phase.
I can’t help myself and send Fox a text or two asking what’s up or some other inane offering. Nothing garners a response, even though I get the read receipt, so I know he’s seen it.
Mom sends amazing pictures from her trip to Tahiti with Ruben. I hope she remembered to get the unlimited plan for her phone. Otherwise she just spent her entire bill texting me ten photos. She looks so happy. Ruben looks, well, drunk. He probably is, but hey, the man is on a vacation. He never takes a vacation, so this is progress.
I may or may not break down in tears when I see how happy they are. I then want to kick myself in the pants for crying again. Yelling at the tiny cluster of cells in my uterus is probably not beneficial for either me or said blastocyst—or whatever the phase is right now, but in the moment it makes me feel like I have a target for my frustration.
Meanwhile, Mom sends pictures of tiny grass skirts and other Polynesian baby items that make me smile and worry. This pregnancy is only a few weeks in. I hope I don’t jinx it. Nah, that’s stupid to think that. Right? It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Totally.
I consider telling her and Ruben that I was just kidding, that I’m not actually pregnant yet, but I did send her a picture of the stick. I know, kind of gross, but Margaret loved it. She’s threatening to frame it as “first grandbaby picture.” I told her if she frames a picture of my piss on a stick, I will bar her from future grandkid ceremony rights. That shut her right up.
Since I rarely travel for work, it should be exciting to get a paid trip to London. Alas, I have a lot of trouble enjoying any part of it. The hotel is actually pretty swank and has an amazing bar that I can’t enjoy. I try to people watch instead and munch on some appetizers. I last about twenty minutes before I give up and go to my room to rent hella-spendy movies that I don’t pay attention to.
The time difference is messing with me, so when I do sleep, it’s in strange fits at off times. When I have to meet up with my team and the local production people a couple of days after arriving, I am damn near running on empty. Thankfully, I manage. At least for the first few days.
As we sit in the editing suite on day four of the project going over feedback from the producers, I feel a sharp stab in my abdomen. I gasp, unable to control my reaction, and immediately cover the location of the pain with my hand.
Shelley turns and studies me.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
Nigel and Alain are arguing over the location of a splice in a key scene and it’s quite obvious that they didn’t notice anything.
I inhale and exhale deeply before answering. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Tha—” I begin, but before I can finish, the stabbing returns, but worse. I’ve had bad cramps before, but this is ridiculous. “Oh, fuckity shit knobs!”
This finally gets the guys’ attention, as well as the lead editor on the project, George. “What in the bloody hell is going on?”
Shelley throws George a look over her shoulder and waves dismissively at him before turning back to me. “Honey,” she says, her native Alabamian accent making me smile, if ever so briefly, “you just went four kinds of pale and you’re beading crystals on your forehead.”
That’s her favorite phrase for sweating—she says it’s nicer. I find it strange, but she’s incredibly genuine, so I’ll take it from her.
“I… I can’t.” My words are stuck. I’m embarrassed and the unintended center of attention. Nobody likes strangers seeing them get sick or in a vulnerable position, but it slowly dawns on me that I may not have a choice. Something’s wrong. So that’s exactly what I say.
“Whatcha mean, hun?” Shelley asks.
“I need to go to hospital,” I say. Panic sucks the blood from my face when I realize what might be happening.
My mind immediately goes to Fox. Before anyone else. I want to call him and tell him and have him with me, even if just over the phone. That realization alone hurts more than the pain in my abdomen and the possibility that I’m losing this baby.
But I can’t call him. I’m unsure where we stand thanks to his shitty behavior and distance lately. He doesn’t seem to want to know anything about this pregnancy anymore. The thought makes me so sick to my stomach, so I push the idea out of my head for now.
A weight settles on my chest and somehow I’m shuttled into an ambulance. I leave behind a bloodied seat and my dignity.
When I get a hold of my mother many hours later, she cries with me. Heaving horrified sobs. She confesses she’s had two miscarriages in her life. I cry harder, feeling her pain magnified through my own. Ruben threatens from the background to put her on a plane within the hour, but I make her promise not to get on a plane. I can’t even imagine the cost of a last minute transatlantic flight from California. Not to mention, as soon as I’m physically able, I’ll be on a flight of my own heading home.
In the morning, I call Nora, but she doesn’t answer. I try to call Mom again, but I keep getting her voicemail. Ruben’s phone doesn’t even ring. It feels like they’re trying to make me call Fox, but I can’t. I call Cam but I’m so exhausted I have to cut it short. It’s all too much and a kind nurse slips me something so I can fall asleep. The rain outside sort of echoes my feelings, my thoughts. Particularly the thunder. Sleep hits me fast, but my dreams are strange and disturbing. I dream that I wake up and Nora is sitting next to my bed. I smile and then start crying.
“This dream is bullshit,” I say.
Nora starts laughing, but she has tears in her eyes.
“You’re not dreaming,” she says.
I cry harder. She pinches my arm, I jump and yell.
“Ow! How does it hurt that bad? Oh my God, are you really here?” My pitch skyrockets and my eyes fill with tears.
Nora nods and tips her head toward the door. I turn to see Mom standing in the doorway with flowers and a carafe of coffee. I don’t how she talked the cafeteria into giving her a
whole carafe, but I love her even more now than I ever did. So much that I immediately break down into full-blown snot sobbing. Mom sets everything down, and pushes into the tiny, shitty hospital bed, and pulls me into her arms. I’m pretty sure I’ll never stop crying now. Nora pulls the side chair as close to the bed as she can get, leaning in to get in on the hugging and holding action. It’s uncomfortable and I’m overheating, but I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
The next morning, I notice I feel a little lighter. Mom and Nora refused to leave me, though they did take shifts sleeping in the miraculously unoccupied bed in my “shared” room. So far, I managed to avoid answering my mom about why I didn’t want to call Fox and tell him about the miscarriage. But I had a feeling I would not be so lucky today. It was a miracle Nora hadn’t folded and given her every sordid detail.
“Coffee and biscuits, babe,” Mom chirps as she reenters the room. Then she stage-whispers, “Biscuits are what they call cookies.”
I shake my head and try to smile. My entire abdomen feels hollow. The accuracy of the thought is not lost on me, though I’m hyperfocused on how damn hungry I am. “Yes, Mom, I know.” I chuckle and reach for the proffered cup of caffeine goodness. “Did you not want real food?”
“This is England, Sweet Pea. They’re not exactly known for their food.”
Nora laughs from her makeshift bed in the chair. “Or at least for any good food.”
“Well,” Mom continues, “you’re being released today, so I figured we’d have a nice brunch once we leave. Or maybe room service at the hotel? I’m okay with that. You should probably still take it easy.”
I smile as I crunch on a biscuit. “I’m okay,” I say.
“So why don’t you call Fox?” she asks, innocently. “I’m sure he’d want to know.”
The cookie in my mouth loses all its flavor. “No, he wouldn’t,” I mumble, more to myself, but Radar Mom catches it.
“Oh no,” she growls like a mama bear. “Do I have to kick his ass? Tear him a new one? Rip his balls off?”
