No Happy Endings

by Nora McInerny

  She listened with tenderness, and soon we were joined by the OB/GYN and we were talking about what I could do.

  I pinky-swore to go back to my therapist, and I pinky-swore I would pick up the prescription they wrote for me. What kind of mother needs a prescription to make her feel okay while she’s performing the miracle of life? ALL KINDS OF MOTHERS! Tall ones, short ones, funny ones, mean ones. All kinds of moms need help during their pregnancy because building a life inside of you is not always fun, and neither are baby shower games where you melt candy bars inside diapers and try to guess what the baby pooped out! Most of pregnancy is your organs being rearranged and your hormones going haywire and your boobs hurting and being annoyed when your partner breathes. Would my baby be okay with me popping some SSRIs while it finished roasting inside of me? Well, it sure as hell wouldn’t be doing well if mommy had a total mental breakdown, would it?

  That night, I tapped two small white pills into the palm of my hand and washed them down with ice water. Matthew played with my hair until I fell asleep, hand over my belly.

  I was not great. I was not fine. But I would be better.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Armless

  I am an intense sleeper. I either cannot fall asleep at all or I fall so deeply asleep that waking up feels like I am being plucked from the deepest realm of consciousness like one of those claw games that nobody ever wins at the bowling alley. When I sleep, I sleep so hard that I wake up sore: stiff neck, locked-up jaw, brain filled with whatever hallucinations my subconscious decided to serve me. I keep paper and pens by my bed to write down any late-night ideas I have in case they are so brilliant they must be remembered, and so I can write down dreams that seem important, for later analysis. The reality of this practice is that I have dozens of Post-it notes that say things like “the hummus story” or “I am missing both my arms.”

  That second one, though, means something to me. After Aaron died, I dreamed I was walking through the world completely armless. The people in my dream life fell into two camps: those who pretended not to notice my armlessness, and those who were irritated by what they felt was my obsession with it. “NORA!” I recall one of them dream shouting at me at the dinner table when I cried that I couldn’t eat the soup on account of having no arms. “Use your FEET!”

  I spent a year drinking soup with my feet. Not literally, but I’m trying to unpack the psychological obviousness of this dream and draw some parallels here, okay?

  The hard part about having a not-super-planned pregnancy while you’re a parent dating another parent whose children each have established lives on opposite sides of a decently sized metro area is . . . everything. Where do you live? Who uproots whom?

  Matthew and I didn’t want to rush anything, but the gestation of a human child tends to follow a pretty standard timeline, which meant the baby would arrive about a year after Matthew and I had met. That’s a pretty okay amount of time to decide to move in together, but it wasn’t just us moving in together. Ralph was three, so his entire world was me and whatever I said it was. Matthew’s kids were older. They had schools and friends and an entire life that revolved around a five-mile radius in a northern suburb. Matthew’s house was too small to fit all of us. My house was the perfect size, but on the wrong side of town. Everything about my life—my family, The Dollhouse, Ralph’s daycare—was on the south side. It may be a matter of a few miles, but the geography of our lives has real meaning. I was used to my grocery store, my side of the freeway, being within walking distance of my family.

  There were a few options:

  Ralph and I move to Matthew’s side of town.

  Matthew and his kids move into The Dollhouse.

  We find a new home, move in together, and compromise.

  My proposal: everything stays the same.

  Why should the arrival of a very small person force us into a huge move? The baby could stay with Ralph and me and would see Matthew and The Bigs regularly. No big moves, just an extra little person joining the little club we were forming.

  This rankled my mother more than a little bit.

  “Well,” she huffed at me one day, “it sounds like you don’t even need him.”

  I nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

  “Exactly!” I said, ignoring her obvious irritation.

  I didn’t need Matthew, and I was proud of that. Moreover, I didn’t want to lose that. I’d grown attached to my own armlessness, and my ability to drink soup with my feet. I had found out how strong I was, and I didn’t want to lose that, either.

  Living with Matthew—marrying Matthew? That was too traditional for the New Nora. I wanted to stay independent, a marvel of modern single-motherhood.

  Weirdly, Matthew didn’t love the idea of being a part-time father to his unborn child, or the idea of maintaining two separate residences.

  And neither did the kids. We’d decided to let them take the lead on how much time we spent together. I didn’t want to be a person who just showed up in their lives one day and dominated their Dad Time, so Matthew and I decided that we’d only hang out if his kids specifically requested it. And they requested it all the time. They were the ones who asked if they could sleep over at The Dollhouse and claimed “their rooms.” They were the ones who asked when we would all live together. They were the reason why I let Matthew be my arms.

  I still don’t need Matthew. Yes, he makes my coffee and folds my underwear and knows the kids’ schedules by heart and remembers literally everything about our lives. My life would devolve into chaos without him, but I still don’t need him. I can do all of this on my own. But I don’t have to. I don’t need him, but I choose him. Happily.

  STORMT­ROOPER­­­­LUCKY­­CHARM

  I’ll be honest, I wanted a girl. No, I insisted on a girl. I sent that fetus some heavy femme vibes, and came up with a flawless list of girl’s names before Matthew told me some shocking news: I had no control over what kind of a baby was forming inside of me. The sex of this baby was determined by whatever sperm had reached the egg. This all came down to Matthew!

  “This better be a girl!” I’d tease, waving a fist in his face, because yes, of course the goal is a happy and healthy baby, but is it so much to ask to have a happy and healthy baby that also opens you up to a whole new section of tiny clothes at Target? Ian wanted another little brother. Ralph wanted whatever Ian said he wanted. But Sophie was desperate for a sister. She spent her own money on a puffy pink dress she found on clearance at Target. It was a bit unseasonable for a baby whose expected arrival date was in mid-November, but she presented it to me as the outfit to bring the baby home in. I checked the tag: size twelve months, and told her we’d consider it. “Hello, sister!” she’d shout at my belly, and then look at her father pointedly. “This better be a girl.” Matthew would give us a nervous smile and cross his fingers.

  We let the kids in on our baby name list, and listened to their suggestions. Sophie had suggested Scarlett and Elizabeth and Cress, all characters from books she was reading. Ralph had suggested STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM, based on his two main interests: Star Wars and sugary cereals. STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM did have a certain ring to it. It worked for any gender. It was unique. And so, until baby was born, that was its name. STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM.

  Nearly four years had transpired between my first and second births, just enough time to wipe my memory completely clean. Ralph had arrived precisely on his due date, so I expected this baby would do the same. But two weeks before my due date, my water broke. That hadn’t happened with Ralph, not in the movie-plot way it was now happening, with a telltale puddle on our kitchen floor. “Matty,” I shouted, “grab the keys! STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM is coming!”

  We kissed the kids good-bye, put our fifteen-year-old in charge of Sophie and Ralph, and headed to the hospital, holding hands. The hospital where I’d be delivering had built a shiny new birth center that looked more like a hotel than a hospital. Matthew dropped me off at the front, and I walked confidently to t
he front desk. “Hi,” I said, smiling, “I’m having a baby.”

  The front desk attendant looked at me skeptically. Was I sure? I took it as a compliment. I was just so calm and collected, she couldn’t believe I was in labor!

  “Yes,” I smiled, “my water broke!”

  Twenty minutes later, we were walking back through the front door of our house without a baby.

  “False alarm!” I told the kids. It wasn’t a lie, it’s just that the specific false alarm was that I had peed on the floor without realizing it.

  STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM came one week later. This time, I waited until I was absolutely sure, until my legs were about to give way beneath me at the Blu Dot furniture outlet, before I told Matthew what I thought might possibly be happening. He fumbled for his car keys, but I told him we weren’t leaving until we’d bought a coffee table and a bookcase.

  Two hours later, we were back in the hospital/hotel and I was done having a baby.

  “It’s a . . . boy?” Matthew said timidly, offering up the slimy little worm creature I’d just birthed. The warm, wriggling little creature snuggled up on my chest. I was disappointed, okay? I was! I had one request, and I didn’t get it. But it’s hard to stay disappointed when a little tiny runt of a human opens his eyes for the first time and instantly recognizes you as the center of his world. It’s impossible to stay disappointed when his oldest siblings burst into the hospital room and weep at the sight of him, marveling over his teensy tiny fingernails and his furry shoulders.

  STORMTROOPERLUCKYCHARM got a real name, eventually. But it doesn’t actually matter what it is, because everyone calls him Baby. There’s a real chance he’s going to grow up to be a full-grown adult male who answers to Baby, and I’m fine with that.

  We’d naturally been worried about how the kids would or would not bond with Baby. There are fifteen years between Baby and his oldest brother, eight years between him and Sophie, nearly five between him and Ralph. And it hasn’t mattered. Not a bit. Not a smidge. If anything, those age gaps play to his advantage. For Ralph, he is an easily manipulated playmate who will give up any toy if asked in a nice voice. For Sophie, he is basically a doll. And for Ian, he’s . . . honestly? He’s like his best friend. Baby’s feet barely touched the ground the first year of his life. He needed only to glance at any object before Ian would offer it to him, or scoop him up in his arms to take the little prince to wherever he pointed.

  For Baby’s second Christmas, our family headed up to Duluth, Minnesota, for the Bentleyville Christmas Lights display. It’s a few blocks’ worth of giant, interactive Christmas lights that would make Clark Griswold jealous. It was well below freezing, but in Minnesota we believe that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Baby joined us for a below-zero stroll through the lights, pushed in his all-terrain stroller by his oldest brother.

  We checked into the hotel ready to shake the chill from our bones, and discovered something truly astounding. Our room featured a giant tub. A giant tub in the middle of the living room. To an adult, this feature seems comical. To a child, it seems like the epitome of luxury and sophistication. Because we are Midwesterners, we of course packed our bathing suits on the off chance the hotel would have a pool. We hadn’t anticipated that we’d have a tiny pool in the middle of our room. Who could imagine this kind of decadence?

  Ian had turned on the TV, where, like it usually is on basic cable, the classic holiday film The Devils Wears Prada had just begun. “Leave it!” I shouted, and the saga of Andrea Sachs and Miranda Priestly unfolded while Baby attempted to stand on his own. I don’t want to say that I missed our baby’s first steps because I was busy watching a movie I’d seen about ninety-seven times before, but yeah, that is what happened. I missed his first shaky steps, but I looked over just in time to see him falter, and fall. It happened in slow motion, with his tender little head heading straight for the sharp edge of the open door. In equal slow motion, Ian dove across the room (okay, maybe a few feet), and caught Baby’s noggin and body just in time. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Baby got back on his feet. Matthew filled the giant hot tub, and we all put on our swimsuits.

  “You know what?” Ian said. “I don’t know a lot of kids who can say that they spent their Christmas break in a bathtub with their entire family, watching The Devil Wears Prada, but I can’t imagine anything better than this.”

  Me neither, dude. Me neither.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Should I Marry a Boy with a Brain Tumor?

  I recently got a Facebook message from a twenty-two-year-old who was planning to marry her boyfriend, who she’d been dating for ages. I mean, she’s twenty-two, so by ages I mean . . . since high school, probably. Her boyfriend has a brain tumor. Not a cancerous one, but one that can’t be fully removed, one that could grow back at any time. And suddenly, the parents who were so excited to have a new son don’t want their daughter hitching her wagon to a star that might burn out too soon. They assumed that the diagnosis meant that any wedding plans were off. Their twenty-two-year-old daughter certainly didn’t intend to marry a man with brain cancer, did she? Well, uh, she did actually. Her parents weren’t acting the part of movie villains, forbidding her to marry her beloved, but they didn’t understand why she still planned to say “I do.” It seemed crazy to them, which made it seem crazy to her.

  I get a lot of messages asking me for advice. I have a clearly defined niche when it comes to relationship advice: people come to me when they need to know what to do when they find themselves at the intersection of Love and Disaster. The messages have a common theme: I am in love with a person. And this person now has something physically wrong with them. I still love them, but it’s scary. What do I do?

  “You married a man with a brain tumor,” this girl wrote to me. “Do you regret it? Would you do it again? Am I CRAZY for still wanting to marry him? Help me.”

  The short answer is:

  I did. Not for a moment. A million times, yes. You’re not crazy. And, I can try.

  The long answer is as follows. It sounds specific to brain cancer, but you can apply it liberally to any disaster you’re facing.

  I don’t for a moment regret marrying Aaron. I wouldn’t trade the four years we had together for any other healthy, still-alive man I could have married. I wouldn’t trade them for anything except an impossible imaginary future where Aaron didn’t get brain cancer and we got to grow old and squishy together and lived to be in our eighties and then died in our sleep, holding hands like a pair of otters.

  I married Aaron just after his brain surgery to remove a tumor that turned out to be really, really bad brain cancer. We chose our wedding rings a few days before the ceremony. We let our moms choose the flowers and the colors of all the decor. But getting married—the actual legally binding part of it—wasn’t really a choice.

  I knew when I met Aaron that I had found the thing that they write books and songs about. I knew before his tumor was discovered that we would be married, and I knew the moment the doctor told us he had brain cancer that there was no way in hell I would be anywhere but by his side for whatever came next.

  “Are you sure?” people very, very close to us asked. “This will get hard.”

  I was sure. I was sure on our first date, and I was sure the day we found his brain tumor. I was sure on the day we were married and the day that he died. I am sure now. The choices they were imagining I had were not choices at all. Yes, it was hard to watch the man I married get sick and sicker and die. It would have been hard even without those rings on our fingers.

  Some people did see it as a choice between staying and going, as if my slinking away would have spared either of us any suffering. As if.

  Others saw it as a choice between staying his girlfriend and getting married. In some ways, I get that. From the outside, watching someone marry a person with a terminal disease is probably like watching someone choose to step foot on the Titanic knowing its fate. But when it’s your beloved, and your lives, it doesn’
t feel like you’re choosing at all. It seems like you’re taking the next natural step. Marriage is just a legally binding agreement that says you’ll do life together. It also means, in the United States, that you have a right to help your beloved make life-and-death decisions. It means you have a right to be in the hospital room, to advocate for them. As a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a close friend that his family is really fond of . . . you just don’t get the same considerations.

  I can’t tell you who to marry, or when to do it or not do it. And even though you’re twenty-two and possibly still on their health insurance . . . NEITHER CAN YOUR PARENTS. Or your friends. Or your hair stylist (although of all the choices listed above, they are probably the best option you have for solid advice).

  This is your life.

  Yes, that is something you could read on a fake hand-painted sign you found at T.J. Maxx but dammit, sometimes those signs are on point, and that’s why they’re a decor staple in the Midwest.

  This is your life, and the only certain thing about your life is that it will one day be over.

  That’s unfortunately true for all of us, even those without brain tumors, because science isn’t a science and even if you never smoke a single cigarette, you can still get lung cancer. Even if you do yoga every day and never eat red meat, you can still have a heart attack. You can be a wonderful person and still get hit by a car. You’re for sure gonna die and there’s nothing you can do about that. Is that a scary thought that can keep us from living the lives we have? Sometimes. I personally don’t want to be eaten by a bear or be bit by a rare spider and so I do not go camping. I am currently married to a man named Matthew, and you know what? He is going to die, too! And I have no idea when! I should probably text him right now and just make sure it hasn’t happened yet! Is that scary? Yes. But the thing that is scarier than dying is living a life someone else picks for you.