Where We’ll Leave This for Now

Abstract

Your husband stares at your breasts as you change into the pink pajama set your mother gave you for Christmas. You quickly pull the nightshirt over your head and turn away from him, walking into the bathroom and closing the door. You cup your breasts through the cotton. They're tender from swelling, and you feel embarrassed about them, like an ex-porn star with leftover silicone implants. They aren't your husband's for enjoying. They aren't yours, either. They belong to-well. You aren't sure.When you get in bed, your husband keeps staring at you, even more intently than he did three years ago when you chopped your hair into a pixie. He's been staring at you all evening, since you came out of the bathroom holding a pregnancy test with two pink lines. You hoped the second pink line, much paler than the first, could be stared into oblivion, the way stars can be made to disappear. Maybe your husband is staring at you with this hope, you think.The next morning you call your doctor before you brush your teeth. Your husband goes to his job; you go to yours, and afterward, to the graduate class you're taking at night. You fall asleep at the seminar table and wake up with drool on your cheek. You've never fallen asleep in class before; you've never been lazy, not once.You've built a good life. You can construct four walls around the reasons to have a child: your job pays fifty thousand a year; your husband's pays sixty-five thousand. You're married. You're twenty-seven, would be twenty-eight by the time the-ah, the what? W hat term should you pick? You try to remember the words Republicans use and the words Democrats use. Embryo? Zygote? Fetus? Virus? Life? Thing? Baby? There's a scien- tific term somewhere on the internet, but you decide on kernel. A kernel on the verge, kind of like you in your one-bedroom apartment. Your sixmonth-long marriage. Your half-completed master's degree. The fact that you don't feel ready. Those are the other walls you could build for another house, another future, but they feel more like fences that any skeptic could tear down.W hen he gets home from work, your husband finds you microwaving popcorn in the kitchen. He tells you he got some advice from his coworker, Patrick: that the two of you should make one spreadsheet of pros and cons and another sheet to explore how having a child would impact your budget. W hat exceptional advice, you say. You think of Patrick, who has a two-year-old of his own, Tommy. Tommy wears his mother's hand-sewn bowties to preschool. You've seen the photos posted on social media. His mother, Olivia, wears a string of pearls and five-inch heels to every holiday party. She quit her job to stay home. You imagine Olivia tut-tutting at the news of your kernel, leaning one hand on her granite countertop, brushing the other hand through her long blond hair as chicken cordon bleu cooks in the oven.You remind your husband of the time Patrick told everyone at the company picnic that the chili you'd labeled vegan actually had a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce in it. You tell your husband he doesn't get to decide who knows about your pregnancy. Not Patrick, not Olivia, not your husband's entire company. His boss. Maybe he'll get a raise for the good news. Wouldn't that be nice? You're screaming at him now. Your husband tells you you're being completely crazy, that Patrick promised not to tell anyone, not even Olivia. Crazy? You, crazy? You rip open the bag of popcorn and throw it at him and tell him to get the hell out.But your husband won't leave the apartment, and instead is squatting on the couch behind the blare of the television, so you pack a bag and drive to your friend Virginia's. She had three abortions, all of them at nineteen. Now she's thirty-two and lives alone in a studio on the twenty-second floor of a high rise. You have never known her to have a steady boyfriend, just the two cats you pet when you walk in the door. You burst into tears and tell her everything, about the pregnancy and about Olivia knowing about the pregnancy. …