“I SMELL bad?”
“Keep your voice down, Dick. The kids are sleeping. What do you want me to say? You want me to lie to you? I’ll lie to you from now on and not tell you that you stink when you do. OK? From now on. But I’m pregnant, so just cut me a break. My sense of smell is hyperacute and everything makes me want to vomit. And you know sometimes when you’ve had a bad day at the office you get a little funky smelling.”
“I had a bad day at the office.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” Dick crumples into the couch. The day won. The day clearly defeated him. His eyes are watering, probably from staring at a computer all day, but Sonia is worried he might cry. He rubs them, then puts one of his hands down his pants and audibly scratches his balls.
Sonia, despite her not being able to get too close to Dick, because he stinks like an acidic pile of roach feces, loves her husband just then. His strong bones. His wide shoulders. The fact that the man has a real job. That he is adult enough, responsible enough to have a real job. All of the ones before him sucked with money, pissed money away like it was nothing. And then there was Dick. Quiet, not boring her with his work stuff. So emotionally strong, so dependable. Sometimes he talked to her about work, and it interested her some, it did, but he didn’t always talk about work. He wasn’t a bore, like some other husbands she knew. His research firm was the best of its kind and Dick’s strange, photographic memory made him brilliant at his job. He knew everything he ever looked at. Just stored it all in the vast computer that was his brain. Stinking, or not stinking, she loves this man. And she’s sad he’s down. She feels for him. She doesn’t want him to have bad days.
“Well, if you want to talk about it, I’m here. Ice Cream?”
“No, thanks.” He looks at her, his eyes filled with something bad — despair? fear? anger? Dependable, yes, brilliant yes, but inscrutable. And he knows it. And nothing is given away. “You didn’t call the doctor or anything, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re going through with the pregnancy, right?”
“I was just talking about it with Clara.”
“And?”
“You know, I thought you wanted me to keep this baby and now I’m trying to figure out your expression and I’m getting the feeling that you don’t want me to keep this baby.”
“I thought this was about what you want, Sonia.”
“Fuck you, Dick. I care what you think. I know it’s up to me, but I need to know where you stand.”
“You know what I think? You really want to know what I think? That, if you decide to keep this baby, I won’t be sure why. That’s what I’m thinking right now, that’s what I was thinking all day, while I dealt with stupid assholes all day long who frankly, I would never like to talk to again. But I have to. Because we have a family to support, and a growing one at that. And I’m wondering, do we think the world needs our third baby? Do we? Because the world does not need our third baby. Do we think Tom and Mike need less attention than they get? Because I think they get a lot of attention, and I’m not sure anything is wrong with that. And if we know the world doesn’t need our third baby and our sons don’t need another sibling, then that means we’re having this baby because we want another baby! Do we? Is that true? I’m just confused about it. Because I thought we always only wanted two kids.”
“Yeah, and then we had an accident. Your fault just as much as mine.”
“I know that. You know I know that.”
“You want me to get an abortion.”
“I just want us to think about it all the way through. I want you to think about what another year of pregnancy means, another year of breastfeeding, another year of a toddler, three more years of diapers. Is that what you want? What about painting? What about that easel in the backyard?”
“You fucking prick.”
“What?”
“My mother is Catholic, and—”
“You don’t give a shit what your mother thinks. You never have.”
“That’s not entirely true.” But it was mostly true. “Listen, I’ll get some babysitting. I will paint. And why do you give a shit if I paint or not? I’ve never heard you say anything about my painting. And what confuses me more, is I really thought you wanted this. Wanted one more. Then you’re going to get that operation, right?”
“Yeah, I’m getting fixed. Don’t worry about that. I’m sorry, I just had a bad day. I just had a day where I fantasized I get to quit my job and we can move to Maine and, I don’t know, open a bed and breakfast.”
“That is a pile of horseshit. You? You can’t even fix a chain on a toilet. You suck around the house. Why do you care if I paint, really?”
“Because I want you to be happy?”
“Wrong. You’re lying.”
And now Dick sighs and lifts his arms over his head stretching his long, monkey-like limbs up toward the high ceiling, and the stale scent that comes from his armpits makes Sonia burp, then gag. “Because I liked you when you painted. I thought you were sexy when you painted. It was something I liked about you.”
“Ahhh. And wiping Mike’s butt after he’s pooped in his diapers is not sexy? Picking a hard green booger out of Tom’s nose before preschool, that’s not sexy? Cleaning the wax out of their ears after I give them a bath? That doesn’t make you hot for me? Playing train, making train noises for my boys, that’s not sexy? How about when I pretend I’m batgirl? Come on, that’s kind of sexy …”
“Maybe if you got that outfit. Black leather. No, wait, that’s Catwoman,” he says. “I just want to have this baby for the right reasons. That’s all. You always wanted it all, you know. I love that about you.”
“I still want it all. But I’m not going to have a baby if you don’t want another one. Or if you’re afraid about the money. And the whole painting thing — here’s the deal. If I paint or not, that’s my fucking business. Not yours. I don’t hold you responsible for my choices.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure. And there’s no right reason to have a baby. What would be the right reason to have a kid? The world is overpopulated, children are little torture machines, and the planet is dying. So? You fucked me, I accidentally got pregnant. There’s only throwing caution to the wind. I can have it all. Tell me, Dick, do you want another kid? Do you want me to have an abortion?”
“I don’t want you to have to have an abortion. Especially if you don’t want one. I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Well, so am I.”
“I love our kids. I’d love our new kid.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t do anything out of guilt or obligation, Sonia.”
“You know me better than that. Now I have to go throw up again. And then, I’m going to bed. Oh, and I think Clara tried to stick her tongue down my throat tonight.”
WHY, WHY DOES SONIA decide to keep this baby? Why doesn’t she just get an abortion? Catholic guilt? The pleasure she gets from her children is real, but so is the pain, so is the boredom. Sesame Street? Wiping butts? Sure, it’s a part of life, but is it satisfaction? Is it all she wants? Isn’t it fucking boring? Taking care of small children — and nothing else? She has no gift for playground gossip. She gave that occupation up a long time ago. Where’s her community? What does she want? She knows she doesn’t want to make home decoration her future. She knows she’ll never teach elementary school. Or teach anything, for that matter. Can’t she be Karen Finley, shoving yams up her ass (Karen’s got kids now!) and then smearing it on the canvas? Can’t she find a role model that works?
What about that blossoming she felt, that new freedom, the no-babies feeling? The break she felt was her due? And what about painting? Can’t she paint and take care of babies? Can’t she paint while she’s pregnant? Why this choice and not another? Sonia is convinced there’s no right or wrong choice, just a choice to be made, and hers for the making. And why not one more? Three isn’t five. It isn’t eight. It’s three. And then they’ll fix their parts like the stray animals they are.