“You would die of boredom here,” Dick says. “You’d have nothing in common with the other mothers out here.”
“I’m not so sure I have anything in common with the mothers in Brooklyn. Or with anybody anywhere.”
“Sonia, don’t say things like that.”
“Why not? Because you don’t want to know that I’m feeling alienated and afraid?”
“I do want to know how you are feeling, but making blanket statements like ‘I have nothing in common with anybody’ isn’t very helpful. Nor is it realistic. What can I do with that kind of information?”
“Listen. Just listen to me. I don’t need any answers or advice.”
“You don’t want to move to the Poconos. Neither do I, for that matter.”
“I’m mostly resigned to staying in our apartment for now. I think it’s the best thing for now. But eventually, and maybe sooner rather than later, we’ll need to make some change. And I think a big change would be a good one.”
“Well let’s deal with that when the time comes. Can’t we just be in the Poconos and enjoy visiting the country? Can’t we not pretend that we’re moving everywhere we visit? I mean, are these weekend trips a bad idea or something?”
“No, I enjoy these trips. They just get me thinking about the possibilities in life. And that’s good. And sometimes, in Brooklyn, I feel like I have no possibilities.”
“Well, that’s all in your mind. Possibilities are everywhere. Don’t blame the place you live. If you need to make a change, you will. And things are changing all on their own, too. This baby will change our lives, undoubtedly.” Dick sighs, inscrutably. The boys are running around, stopping to look at things as mundane as clumps of dirt and sticks. It’s all foreign and exciting to them. The narrowness of city life is so evident to Sonia right now. And yet, she knows it goes both ways. She knows because she’s from Indiana.
“You know, Dick, not so long ago you said to me that you can’t quit your job now and make some big life change because we have another child coming. So understand that I feel stuck, too. That having another kid is making us both feel stuck.”
“OK. I’ll grant you that. But I don’t want to leave New York. Or Brooklyn. And neither do you, right? You’re just fantasizing about it, aren’t you? I don’t know, Sonia, but I find it weird that everywhere we go, you talk about moving there. And all those books about the Midwest and shit. It bothers me. I’m happy where we are.”
“I don’t know if I’m happy where we are. I guess I feel trapped. In Brooklyn. Maybe I should go away for the weekend. Alone.”
“Great idea.”
“Or for a week.”
“That would be a little harder to swing, but we could try and make it work.”
“Oh yeah?” And Sonia thinks, this is what this is all about. I don’t want to move my whole family to the Poconos. I don’t want to move my whole family to New Jersey. I want to go away. I want to flee. And I can’t admit it. I’m afraid I’ll actually do it. And so, I pretend I want to move to Bayfield, Wisconsin. Sonia looks at Dick. His kind, droopy face surrounded by thinning brown hair. His stern expression that hides the fact that he’s a pervert and a freak, like everyone else. He’s like Clara that way, really. Looks one way, is another. And Sonia thinks, I love him but I feel, if I have to look at this face every day for the rest of my life, that I may jump off a building. And then she looks out to where her children play by the water, sticks in hands. And she thinks, Tom and Mike, if someone else served them breakfast, lunch and dinner, they’d be fine. I could jump off that building. I could go. They’d continue on without me. And then the panic comes and her head begins to shake. She runs to the boys and they look toward her, their mother, and they notice the fear in her face and they stop what they are playing. They stand frozen, as she comes to them and falls to her knees, her arms outstretched.
11
It’s deep November and Sonia goes maternity clothes shopping with Clara. They both hire babysitters for the event. They take the train into the city together and have lunch at the South Street Seaport before heading over to Mimi Maternity in the World Trade Center Mall. There’s a slight distance between the two women and Sonia remembers that Clara thinks pregnant women are disgusting. When Clara was pregnant, she referred to her belly as the “costume”. As soon as she gave birth, she joked about it. “Finally got rid of the costume,” she’d say, laughing.
Sonia is feeling doughy and uninspired. Shopping isn’t her thing. It’s just a chore, something that has to be done. There is no pleasure in it. Her blond hair is dry and the dye isn’t holding well. Her somewhat trashy look is exaggerated by her weight and slovenly hair. Whereas once Sonia was chic trashy, now she seems ready to move into a trailer, back to the Midwest, from whence she came. At lunch, Sonia devours a greasy cheeseburger. Ketchup smears on her chin, her finger wet and drippy.
“You know, you could use your napkin,” Clara says, unable to hide her disgust as she takes a bite of her salad.
“God, I’m so starved all the time,” Sonia says. “It’s great not to feel sick anymore. But I’m insatiable.”
“I can see that.”
“All I want to do is eat and fuck, eat and fuck. Did that happen to you when you were pregnant?” Clara shakes her head at Sonia, who continues, “But I don’t want Dick to fuck me. It’s strange. This happened with my last two pregnancies, too. I was desperate for sex, but I wouldn’t let Dick touch me after a while.”
Clara puts a small forkful of green leaves into her mouth. “So who do you want to fuck?”
“I don’t know. The bathtub spout? My vibrator?”
“You mean you want to masturbate.”
“I don’t know what I want. Every time I’m pregnant, I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff. You know? Or that I want to be on the edge of a cliff. Maybe I should call my shrink.”
“Well, to be honest with you, Sonia, I have totally blacked out my pregnancies. It’s like I never was pregnant, really. It’s like it happened to someone else. They say we biologically forget the pain of childbirth so that we’ll do it again. You know, the propagation of the species. But I’ve also managed, thankfully, to forget my pregnancies. I know that I was pregnant — twice, in fact — but that’s all I can tell you.”
“I’m having panic attacks.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, big bad ones.”
“What’s that like?”
“It’s sort of like an acid flashback.”
“You’ll have to explain that one to me.”
“Well, everything around me becomes unreal and I just want to flee. A fear and flight response occurs in the body. It’s supposed to happen, for instance, if a bear approaches you. It’s a normal response if the body is under attack. It becomes a disorder if you get one, say, while you are grocery shopping. Which is happening to me.”
“Wow, that sucks, Sonia. Maybe you should see your shrink.” Sonia knows that Clara thinks seeing a therapist is pathetic. They’ve discussed this before. Personally, Sonia thinks — suspects and thinks and almost hopes, because Clara has been getting on her nerves lately, and wouldn’t it be a trip — that it’s because Clara is gay and doesn’t want to deal with the fact of her gayness, as it would royally fuck up the whole lifestyle she’s got going. “Maybe I will see him. But I know what you think of shrinks, Clara. Funny you should mention it.”
“Well, I mean, yeah. I think if you have problems, you’re better off joining the Marines or something. But you can’t do that pregnant. I don’t know. I mean I would never see a shrink, but you’re not me.”