Get away from me.
Don’t be mad at me, Maddy.
I am.
This is not my fault.
So it’s mine?
Go back on the pill.
I’m going to, she said. Mark started driving again. They pulled into a parking lot.
We’re here.
Oh shit. Oh shit. I’m scared.
It’s okay. Come on. Let’s go.
Maddy sat in the interior waiting room, separated from her husband who had to wait in the outside waiting room. She bounced her leg around nervously. Her stomach felt sour. She looked at a magazine. A thick, cruel looking girl sat across from her.
Is this your first one? the girl asked, cracking her gum loudly.
Excuse me?
You can always tell the ones that haven’t had one. You look scared. Don’t worry. It ain’t nothing. I’ve had eight.
Nurse. Nurse, excuse me? Can I move back to the outside waiting room, Maddy said, standing up, chasing down a nurse coming toward her. The nurse was not much older than Maddy, wore no make-up and had dark hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail. She looked at Maddy with a professionally toned friendliness and pity.
No, I’m sorry. You’re next.
I need to talk to my husband.
You can go into room five now. The doctor will be right with you.
I’m scared, Maddy said and started to cry.
It’s okay. It will be over before you know it, the doctor replied. Maddy had requested a female doctor. The woman was from Eastern Europe and spoke with a harsh accent and had a perpetual scowl across her lined face.
Oh shit.
Don’t cry, the doctor ordered.
It hurts.
It’s almost over.
Oh, it hurts. Oh jesus!
Sshh. Quiet! Tell her to be quiet, the doctor said, glaring at the nurse.
You heard the doctor. Quiet down. Sshhh. That’s it. Ssshh. There you go. You’re all done.
I want to see it.
Stop that. Don’t move. Stay still.
How big is it?
Sit back. Sshhh. Come on.
Stop her crying.
I want to see it.
Sssshhhh.
Maddy was stoned on pain relievers and asked for more juice in the post-op waiting room. The same dark-haired nurse brought her a tiny paper cup filled with cranberry juice.
Here you go.
Thanks.
The nurse smoothed her ponytail and asked, do you still want to know how big it was?
Yeah.
It was this big, she said, holding her thumb and forefinger apart in front of Maddy’s face, about an inch and a half. You were seven weeks pregnant.
Okay. Thanks.
Mark drove her home and she kept her head in his lap the whole way.
What movie did you rent?
The Getaway. How’re you feeling?
Okay.
Do you want me to order a pizza?
Okay.
Are you cold?
No. Hey Mark?
What sweetie?
It was this big.
What?
It was this big. One and a half inches.
Don’t think about it.
The day after the abortion she broke all the plates in the kitchen and emptied the food in the fridge on the floor. Then she took three Codeine pills and went to bed. He heard her wake in the night and vomit.
Mark decided to keep her birth control pills after in a drawer in her desk. He was the one to go to the drug store and buy them. Every morning he made her take one. He woke her and watched her swallow it. He made her stick her tongue out at him, he’d look down the back of her throat. Sometimes he ran his finger around the inside of her mouth. We’re not going through that again, ever, he’d say. She didn’t protest.
After a month of that, she said, stop checking on me, Mark. I don’t want to get pregnant. Really, don’t worry about me, she said. He told her when we’re older and more settled that they’d have a family. He’d say Maddy, if you had a kid you wouldn’t be able to party anymore. Your whole life would be taking care of the kid. You’re too young. And she’d cry and say I know Mark, I know, you’re right, it just breaks my heart.
11
At first, she thought their apartment was great. Sure, it wasn’t very big but it was theirs and they had a couch and a TV and their own bed and her mom bought them plates and flatware and glasses. She got a job waitressing and he worked in a computer store at the mall and had all his computers.
She bought The Joy of Cooking and Cooking for Two and Cooking on a Budget. She went grocery shopping at Krogers and filled her spice rack with cheerful bottles of dried herbs. Oregano, basil, thyme, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg. She bought breakfast cereals and English muffins and Oscar Meyer luncheon meats and packed his lunch in brown bags. At night, if she wasn’t working she made dinner and she ate with him. They had a VCR. She thought they had everything.
She painted the bedroom walls an apricot and the bathroom baby blue. The living room walls were white and the kitchen she wallpapered with a flowered print that reminded her of the kitchen at home. They had a La-Z-Boy chair that he sat in when he came home and put his feet up and smoked pot and watched TV. On Saturdays she vacuumed and Ajaxed the bathroom and did the laundry. She had a white plastic laundry basket and she’d fold everything up, even his underwear. Neat, little stacks, all lined up and clean. She washed the whites separate from the colors and used enough bleach to get it white white, but not too much so nothing ever yellowed and the material wouldn’t get stiff. She ironed. She did everything she could do.
He liked meatloaf and pork chops and mashed potatoes with nutmeg in them. He liked salted butter. He liked turkey sandwiches and roast beef on rye. She wiped the top of the fridge off so dust never collected there. She wiped the dust off the TV screen and his computer screens and keyboards.
He bought her presents at first. He bought her red roses and lingerie and high heeled shoes. He took her out to dinner and afterward he drove her to Howard Park and they made out in the car, like they did way back when.
She loved him. She loved everything about him. She loved his plain brown hair that hung straight and that he kept short even though she asked him to grow it long. She loved his pale face and thin mouth and his liquid, colorless eyes. She loved his thin arms that curved inward between his elbows and knobby shoulders. She loved the tan hairs that grew on his body and his brown, shapeless nipples and his dark, deep bellybutton. His almost wide hips and round ass. His armpits, barely hairy that smelled of him.
She loved his smell like it was the most important, safe thing that she ever smelled. Like the smell of him could keep her from what was bad in her and what was bad in the world. She smelled him next to her at night with her mouth open and she breathed him in through the skin on her body, through every pore in her face and she put her face against his back at night and listened to his lungs open and close.
She loved the way he put the key in the door when he came home. The way he put his bag down and kicked off his shoes right there in the kitchen. The way he moved his stuff around on the desk, all that stuff around his computer, all the things he kept so neat, how he seemed to need to touch it all, make sure it was all there. She loved the way he ate and the way he sat and the sound of his breath while he slept.
Her love for him grew each damn day. Her love for him grew so strong there wasn’t any room for anything else. Her love grew strong and she tired, tired of how it took everything from her — her soft hands, her clear brow, the curve of her hips, the smile on her face.
The more she thought of him the more it hurt her. The more she loved him the more she had to steal from him. Steal looks at him. Steal her hands over his back while he slept. Steal time away from him, steal time with him.