Slow to Grow
Page 31
Chapter 18
Lloyd quickly settled into married life. It was fun playing grownup. Waking up next to his wife, kissing her goodbye as he left for work, returning home to a finely cooked dinner. It was fun to pretend.
Until one day about six weeks after their honeymoon when Becky sat Lloyd down and broke the news. She was pregnant.
He figured she was too old to actually get knocked up so he was screwing away with reckless and condomless abandon. Who knew she would actually get pregnant, and from what it looked like, on the honeymoon no less. How white-trashy cliche. He was just getting used to being married and now he had to contemplate fatherhood?
AAre you sure it=s mine@, he asked her, and she flipped him off. But he was excited. More adult playtime. He felt like an actor. His life was a sitcom. Wacky, immature guy marries older, serious girl and mucho hilarity ensues. On the next episode of Lloyd=s Life, homemaker Becky makes a surprising and shocking announcement!
Oh, but it was real all right. He had never really considered being a father. Just like he hadn=t really considered marriage until it was staring him in the face. He was an overgrown child. He couldn=t be in charge of a kid. He was a kid.
But as long as it wasn=t there he could pretend it wasn=t real. That was his modus operandi. Deny, Deny, Deny. Let the reality hit him square in the face once it occurs, like the that horrible day of infamy when he left for college. He wasn=t going to think about until the last minute.
But he wanted a boy badly. He wasn=t even going to pretend he didn=t. He figured with her age, they had one shot at it, and he wanted a boy.
A few months in they went to the doctor and he did the fateful ultrasound. Becky didn=t like surprises, so there was no way she would wait until birth for them to find out the sex of the baby, which was just fine with Lloyd.
ASee that thing there?@, the doctor said. ADo you know what that is?@
ALooks like a microscopic penis@, said Lloyd, Anow I know that=s my boy!@ He was ecstatic and ready to embrace the future, though truth be told, he would have been happy if it was a girl, too.
They had already decided on a name even though the birth was more than six months off. Merrill=s father was named Jack, and Becky=s grandfather was named Clayton. Jack Clayton Kulligan. That was a cool name.
He was anxious to be a father and psyched himself up for it, but there were some ancillary issues creeping to the forefront, that only a neurotic like Lloyd would focus on.
He was already ruminating about was how there was going to be lots of crying and sleep issues. And then he thought about the baby.
He always heard how people don=t sleep for the first six months and that freaked him out. He needed exactly 6 hours of sleep or he was miserable. and that wasn=t going to happen. A boy, though. Becky was happy for him, she knew he wanted that, and she got more beautiful the more pregnant she got.
He found himself trying to grasp the reality of the situation. One day you don=t have a baby, the next you do. Just like that. The combined enormity and banality blew his mind.
They enrolled in pregnancy and child rearing classes, which they attended once a month.. They went shopping for baby things, like a crib and beddings, against the formidable Jewish wishes of his superstitious grandmother.
Jews are ridiculously superstitious about that sort of thing, and you aren=t supposed to buy stuff beforehand, because it could Ajinx@ things. Once again, another thing that made no sense to Lloyd, like religion, karma, astrology, and the Republican Party.
It was fun to look forward to the future. They would sit on the lakefront at Diversey Harbor, gazing at the beautiful Chicago skyline, and daydream about parenthood. They would watch the happy parents come by with their babies and picture themselves a few months down the line doing the same thing. Someone would stop and congratulate Becky on the pregnancy and tell her AEnjoy it now, the early months are hell!@
She would laugh, while Lloyd would break out in his usual AS sweat. Yes, that=s a redundancy. Like ATM machine. He had sweat in his ass. You happy now?
Unbeknownst to Becky, when she fell asleep at night, Lloyd would hold his hand over her belly, thinking he possessed special powers and would send signals to the baby to be healthy. Oh, religion and karma is stupid, but believing you are a deity isn=t? He never said he wasn=t a hypocrite.
Early on, there was a scare when she started to bleed heavily, but the doctor said it was just the fetus settling onto the uterus. Scared both of them, but it was nothing.
In July his sister Ellen got married, and Lloyd delivered a toast at her wedding. She was marrying a nice Russian named Ilya, and Lloyd made the audience laugh with his toast, (the first of 13), by wondering what his baby would call them. Auntie Ellen and Uncle Ilya being quite the mouthful.
His 30th Birthday was rapidly approaching, which coincidentally was also the due date. They were both hoping for it to happen that way, as it would be quite the birthday present.
Sure enough, Becky woke him up at 2 in the morning of his birthday with a big smile. She was in labor. They called their doctor who told them to wait until the contractions were every 15 minutes before coming in. His favorite movie, LA Confidential was on, which they watched until 4 am, and then Sixteen Candles, another favorite. They were clinging to each other with excitement, and glee, though in moment of panic Lloyd contemplated an escape route. But he stuck around.
At 7 am the contractions were 15 minutes apart, so they headed off to the hospital, but not before calling their parents. And then when Becky wasn=t looking, he called his mommy again to say how nervous he was. She told him it would be fine and to be a man for once. The sternness calmed him down as always.
His 30th Birthday. His wife was giving birth. It felt like his life was culminating with this moment. He was standing at the apex of his existence, with all roads beforehand leading to this moment.
It was mind-boggling.