“Yes, I was like that during my first pregnancy. And a little during my second pregnancy, although it was harder to have sex all the time because I had my first kid around.”
“And this time? How are you feeling this time? I am here, by the way, to fuck you if you want. Even if the room stinks like a nasty factory town.” He reaches a hand out to her and puts it on her ripe pregnant-lady breast. Just like that, no rubbing of the shoulder, no gentle pat. He just lifts his hand and puts it directly on her breast.
“I don’t think so, Joe.” Something stirs in Sonia. Is she thinking of getting laid? Then, another fart flies out of her.
“God. What is wrong with me?” says Joe, his hand still on her breast. “Why has it come to this? Don’t get me wrong, I always thought you were attractive, in that skinny, bendable way. I don’t like that you’re four inches taller than me. But whatever. What should I do? Leave Katrina? I love her. I love my son.”
“Shit. I don’t know, Joe. Have you thought about counseling?”
“Counseling isn’t going to change Katrina’s belief system. Nothing will, unless she adopts a new belief system all on her own. I have no power over her, Sonia. I never have and it was a good thing in the past. A woman with a mind of her own. You know? I didn’t want to marry some doormat.”
“Can you take your hand off my breast?”
He leans over and puts his face close to hers and grips her breast more tightly. “Let me fuck you.”
“No.”
“Just touch my dick.”
“Joe. I can’t.”
He pulls back up to sitting and takes his hand off her breast. Then he removes a stub of a joint and lights it, the match illuminating his handsome features for a moment. “You know, you always thought you were too good for me, didn’t you? A college girl. You never gave my type the time of day, really. We were just a stop on your way upward, weren’t we? High-school dropout rock kids. Your little toys. Fuck. And now, you think you were right to be so superior to us back then. I’m just some small-time pot dealer, right? You were right about us, weren’t you?”
“Listen, I don’t give a shit how you make your money and that’s got nothing to do with why I won’t fuck you. Katrina’s my friend. You’re her husband.”
“She’s not your friend anymore and she would be grateful to you for fucking me. You just don’t want to fuck me.”
“Alright! Whatever. Give me a break. I’m pregnant and I’ve run away from home and my ass is on fire! Don’t torment me anymore.”
“Fine.” His lips seem to be quivering. “I understand. I do.” He takes another drag of his joint and then puts it out on the tip of his tongue. It hisses. The smoke momentarily relieves Sonia of the sulfur smell coming out of her body. She breathes in deeply the smoky, herbaceous smell through her nose.
“I’m sorry, Joe. OK? I’m sorry,” she says at his back, as he slips out the door.
IN THE MORNING, SONIA wakes late. She dreamt of her boys, of being with them in their apartment in Brooklyn. It was a quiet dream, a small, comforting dream. It took her awhile to remember where she was. Suddenly, she feels very pregnant. That’s how it is, overnight, her stomach muscles had loosened and her belly now protrudes outward in a way it didn’t the day before. Perhaps it was the workout her intestines went through, but her belly, in one night, has become very large. There is no mistaking it now. She gets up and her crotch feels heavy, newly so, and as she walks out to the bathroom she feels as if she is starting to waddle. The pregnancy waddle. There is a relief in this. A strange sort of relief that it’s progressing and that it would, someday, be over.
“You’re up! Here’s some tea for you.” Katrina shines her glowy face at Sonia and hands her a warm mug.
“Do you have any coffee?” Sonia feels like a dried-up, large beast, a hippo, next to Katrina.
“Coffee causes miscarriage and low birth-weight babies. Have this tea. It has no caffeine in it.”
No caffeine? Sonia already has a headache. “I’ll pass. But thank you. I’ll get something on my way.”
“I hope you’re going back to your family,” Katrina says, sipping her tea so delicately. Sonia stares at Katrina for a moment. She’s never been more mesmerized by another woman. Never. And even if Katrina has changed, in so many ways she hasn’t. She’s just Katrina, later. As it should be, thinking of Stan, how he doesn’t get that he’s not going to get some break or understand that heroin is pathetic instead of cool. Change is good, even if sometimes it’s alarming and over the top.
They hug goodbye in front of the car, awkwardly, Rufus on Katrina’s hip between them. Joe is nowhere to be found.
“Katrina, thank you so much for having me. It was great to see you — you are so,” Sonia feels vulnerable but open, “you are so beautiful.”
“You’re sweet, Sonia. Now go home and take care of your boys and yourself.”
“Will do.”
15
But she doesn’t go home and take care of her boys. She heads west. The roads get wider and quieter and she gets deep into Pennsylvania. She stops for diner food when she can, which she prefers to the chains. Her comfort level isn’t great so she stops regularly at the cleanest-looking motels she can find. She eschews the ones advertising day rates and manages to find decent chains — for the most part. And suddenly a week has gone by and the only conversations she’s had are with waiters and hotel clerks and the one she has in her head with herself and the endless television shows she watches. And, not so surprisingly, she finds she’s in South Bend, Indiana, her hometown.
She hasn’t counted but figures she has almost six thousand left, so she splurges on a room at the Marriott Hotel downtown, a big glass building built by a famous architect. She remembers what a big deal it was when it was built, how it brought pride to her parents, how their modest lives in South Bend were somewhat elevated by the structure. At that point, Sonia already had her eyes on the big cities of the Northeast and it embarrassed her, how her parents took pride in the Marriott. And yet now, as she checks in, and as it seems to be even nicer — hell, all of South Bend seems nicer — she understands their pride. And that pride in where one lives is important and Sonia’s face flushes with the shame of the arrogance of her youth.
From her room at the Marriot, she calls home. She’s called home a few times on the road, but only hung up. This time, she doesn’t.
“Sonia?”
“How are they?”
“How do you think they are?”
“My guess is they’re fine,” she says weakly.
“They’re not dead, if that’s what you mean.”
Silence.
“Don’t hang up, Sonia. I promise I’m not gonna try to trace the call, find out where you are. I’m not trying to come and get you. I just want to talk to you.”
“I want to hear more about the boys.”
“They’re OK. They’re used to you not being here now. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” Sonia suddenly gets a charley horse in her calf. She rubs it.
“Well, Mike is back in diapers full time.”
“Big fucking deal. He’s barely three.”
“Listen. You asked why I say sort of, I’m telling you. But if you’re not gonna listen, then why ask? He’s regressed. And Tom’s developed a stutter. Just so you know.”
“Who says he wouldn’t have stuttered anyway?” she asks — or screams, actually. She realizes with a shock that she just screamed the question at her husband, and that he is now screaming right back, telling her, “Well, he wasn’t stuttering when you fucking left!”
She hears, Daddy? in the background and Dick says to her, “hold on,” and goes and puts the boys in front of the television — she can hear it being turned on, loud. She can visualize her boys, sitting on the couch, happy to have the TV on. Then he’s back. “They’re all right, they’re going to be alright, but they’d be better off if you were here.”