“My mother was a Catholic, you know. I still can’t shake a lot of that Christian shit. I’m haunted by it. But I know, also, that if I choose to have this baby, I have to be happy with my choice. That it’s up to me. It’s not God’s will. It’s up to me. Women ruined their lives to bring me this choice and I have no one to blame. I have no way of playing the victim, you know.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sonia. It’s a tough decision either way. We’re not talking about what color to paint the bathroom here. We’re talking about another kid. Or not.” Clara polishes off her glass of wine and asks, “Would you like some more wine?”
“Just a tiny splash,” says Sonia. “I better figure it out soon, though. Cut back on the wine if I decide to keep it.” She grins now at Clara, positively grins at her, with nothing short of mischief in her eyes.
“Well, as you know, I studied health admin and you really need to drink a lot to cause any damage. I mean, being pregnant is hard, and a little booze helps you feel better. It’s good for you!”
“I should move to France where it’s OK to drink a bit when pregnant. But you see, that’s the thing. I feel like if I decide to keep the baby, then all these possibilities go away. Moving to Europe, to be closer to my mother, too, since she moved back to Spain. We talked about Europe, how good it would be for the kids. And we talked about my painting. I feel like it’s unfair to my kids if I don’t make time for what I want. My mother never made enough time for herself and later, blaming us for her misery and failure, and boredom, her lack of life, I remember just thinking, I didn’t ask to be born! I didn’t make any demands on her! But of course, now having children, I realize there are demands made. Sort of. But I don’t want my children to be my scapegoats. I don’t want that.”
“Tell me,” says Clara, dishing out the red snapper, the chutney, the perfectly cooked rice, the tender stalks of asparagus, “you say Dick might not respect you if you decide to abort. But have you expressed that fear to him? Do you think he really wants you to keep it?”
“This looks amazing, Clara. I haven’t been feeling that great. But this looks so great.” Sonia feels a queasiness upon her but is determined to hide it. Is it the wine? Sonia’s stomach is probably a mess. She’s pregnant. She’s in that first trimester when the smell of food makes you want to vomit. She tentatively picks at the fish. She is going to force herself to eat it and she already knows what the result of that will be. “I think he wants me to keep the baby. I think he’s hoping this one will be a girl. I think he wants a daughter.” At this thought, Sonia relaxes, smiles at Clara, who again seems to be giving her one of those slack-faced looks, drunkenly so, and she shoves an enormous piece of fish in her mouth.
5
Later that night, after the kids fall asleep without a bath — but who cares, they get one almost every night — after she shuts off the lights in the kitchen and bags the garbage which stinks to high hell — maybe that’s what did it, the garbage — Sonia throws up red snapper and chutney in her bedroom bathroom. She only drank one glass of wine, it couldn’t be that. No, it’s because she’s fucking pregnant. Her body tries again, but nothing comes out, and now it’s the dry heaves. Again. And again. Fuck. And it was so nice of Clara to cook for her. So nice to see Clara, and this time, no problems with the kids. The kids were great, albeit stoned in front of some crazy Disney movie. And Clara, so sympathetic, really. She drank the rest of the bottle of wine and then opened the next and Sonia was a little surprised, but not really. Because Clara’s weird wild streak hiding under her pageboy haircut and navy blue Izod always reared itself. In some way or another. And Sonia likes to think of her as the friend with whom she could go see a band, the friend with whom she could go to a bar. Of course, Bill is never around so Clara can’t leave at night, unless she hires Nadine to work late. And what’s wrong with Sonia anyway, wanting to go out to bars at night? A married woman? Why would she want to do that?
Because she does. Because she just fucking does. She misses bars. She loved bartending. It was something, besides painting, that she was good at.
Sonia rinses her mouth, but is afraid to use toothpaste, the thought of minty bubbles making her want to dry heave some more. She rinses and rinses and tries to get the fish taste out of her mouth. She can’t. Why didn’t she say no? Why didn’t she say, I’m pregnant and I can’t eat this fish? I’ll just have some mac and cheese with the kids. She wants to please Clara, that’s why. As Clara wants to please her. Ice cream is the answer. Sickly, exhausted, Sonia heads downstairs and quietly — she doesn’t want to wake the boys — removes a pint of ice cream from the freezer. Cookie dough ice cream. Afraid even to turn on the lights, she goes into the living room with the pint of ice cream and there in the dark, stuffs her mouth. First slowly, then quickly. And then she sits there, the wet cardboard pint melting in her arm, her eyes off into the dark.
Did Clara try to kiss her? When the movie was over and they gave the kids Oreo cookies and then she got her stuff: the diaper bag, the Spider-Man action figure that Tom brought over to show Sam, and the stroller out on the sidewalk (the sun was really going down), did Clara, who doesn’t do the air-kissy thing and never sits too close — did Clara try to kiss her? The strange lunge, the face next to hers, those big brown eyes, Sonia felt a little woozy from the wine, but it’s possible that Clara was full-on drunk. What was that? Was it a pass?
And then, the door opens. In comes Dick. Quietly, as he knows the kids are asleep. He’s home so late. It’s nine thirty. He looks ruined and Sonia feels very sorry for him. This job, sometimes, seems as if it’s sucking his very soul out. It seems like he goes to an office where they stick a vacuum cleaner on his chest and turn it on, without any nozzle, no, just the round metal pole, one of those kind of vacuum cleaners, where the body of it is attached to a long tubular thing, and they put it in right where his heart and soul is and suck out his very life essence. Wordlessly, he sits next to her. He smells like the stale stink of dry, office sweat. The sweat of fear and horror. A different smell than the ripe, wet stink he gets after playing basketball. Not nearly as pleasant. Not pleasant at all actually, whereas sometimes, after basketball on Sundays, they’d put the kids in front of the TV and go upstairs and fuck, quickly and quietly, because Sonia likes that kind of sweat, the liquidy, tangy sweat of his body out in the sun, running around. Yes, that sweat she loves, but this one, this office-hell, are-they-gonna-fire-me, do-I-suck, God-I-hate-my-job sweat, no, this sort of body odor burns her nostrils, especially now that she’s pregnant. She moves down the couch a little away from him. He puts his head in his hands.
“Why are you moving away from me? Why would you do that to me? Is it because I’m late? I called to tell you I’d be late. Please don’t hate me tonight. I just can’t take it.”
“No, sweetie, I don’t hate you. I’m not mad at you, honestly.” She reaches out to him, stretching her arm out, because she doesn’t want to get too near to him. He really, really stinks. It must have been an awful day and night at that office. “It’s just that you smell bad, honey. And you know how it is when I’m pregnant.”
“I smell bad? I SMELL bad?”
“Do you want some ice cream? I threw up the dinner Clara made me. And then I couldn’t even brush my teeth because the toothpaste was going to make me vomit. So I couldn’t get the fish taste out of my mouth and I’d been dry heaving and I thought ice cream might do the trick. Get rid of the fish flavor, the vomit flavor. Not be minty and bubbly.”