It
took every bit of Melinda’s self-control to not slap Jon’s hand off. They were
sore enough from breastfeeding.
“Honey,
I’m tired.” She heard the words escape her lips and hated the aftertaste they
left. She couldn’t help but feel that she sounded like a stereotypical wife. It
wasn’t long ago that Melinda frequented Victoria Secret, coveting the best
lingerie to surprise her husband. Marriage had been fun. She would cook
excellent dinners, set the table nicely for two, and after they would always
make their way into the bedroom. She shuddered to think about what the quality
of her breastmilk must be—what with his macaroni dinners and
greasy takeout.
During pregnancy it wasn’t that Melinda glamorized
motherhood like so many of her friends did before they became mothers. Perhaps
it was because she got to see what it was really like for them that kept those
angelic mother-baby fantasies out of her head. She knew what she was getting
herself into. She knew she would be sleep-deprived and libido-depleted. What
she didn’t know is how much she would resent it—how little she would feel
gratified by her gift to mankind for how it taxed her mind and body. She felt
she lacked the imagination to see how this could all one day be worth it.
“Jon, please.”
He took his hands off and lied next to her silently. His
dick would have to wait. Marriage would have to wait. But how long was the
question. Would it ever get easier? Would they ever get to be alone? Not just
by themselves, but at peace. How could anyone feel at peace having an infant,
or a toddler, or a child, or a teenager to worry about? It was exhausting
having to consolidate three people as a single unit. It was enough when it was
just the two of them. She felt guilty. She decided she could neither live up to
the role of a proud mother, nor continue the role as a devoted wife. Being a career woman felt like a life long ago.
How was she ever to return? She would need a whole maternal leave to recover
from maternal leave. But deep down she knew that what she really wanted was to
leave maternity.
****
As
soon as Melinda looked down to see the blood in the toilet, she knew she was
not to be a mother after all. She pressed her hands against her pelvis and
dropped to the floor. Strangely, no tears came to her eyes. She felt neither
relief nor disappointment.
She kicked off her work heels. She hadn’t been home long
when she felt the strange and terrible cramps. She had hoped it was just that
she needed to shit. After sitting there for a few minutes, she pondered what to
do next. How would she tell her husband? She knew he’d be devastated. They had
already named this one—Nicholas if it was a boy, Rachel if it was a girl. It
was hard to get herself to flush the toilet. It seemed a far too easy way to be
done with it all; a flush and that was it. No more planning. No more dreaming.
No more discussions of parenting techniques.
She feared his arrival.
When he came home he asked her how she was.
“I miscarried.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I still have these horrible cramps. And I
bled, Jon.”
He took a seat on the couch. She watched him expectantly.
“Are you okay?” he asked. It was funny that it was the same thing she wanted to
ask him.
“I’m sure I’ll be all right.”
“We should get you to a doctor.”
“Tomorrow.
There’s no emergency.”
He started to cry—head bent down into his hands, broad
shoulders slumped. She sat down next to him to try to console him, gently
rubbing him on the back. She knew how much he wanted this.
That night he asked if they could after a while…try
again.
She didn’t respond.
During those first few weeks after it happened he kept
asking her if she was okay—when she was peeling a potato, when she was brushing
her hair, when she was lacing up her shoes, when she was on the couch reading,
when they were even having sex. It was as if he was in a constant state of
concern.
She assured him each time that she was fine but he never
seemed to believe her, or was it—she thought— that he didn’t want to believe
her.
She understood the appropriate response was for her to be
equally devastated. The truth was, she was not only fine, but fine with it. The
idea of having a baby, while it elated him, stressed her out. She didn’t know
if she was ready to sacrifice that much of her freedom.
That night at dinner—lasagna and salad—he showed her a
pamphlet to a therapist’s office.
“Jon. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m fine. It’s not
that we really lost a child. It wasn’t even half a child. It was just a little
grey blob. I know this is harder on you than me. If you need to go, I think you
should. But I’m OK. Okay?”
“I don’t know how you can just refer to our unborn child as a grey blob, but if you’re really okay well then why don’t we try again?”
“I don’t know how you can just refer to our unborn child as a grey blob, but if you’re really okay well then why don’t we try again?”
Melinda felt cornered. She knew there would be nothing
that could appease this man but to give him a child. She saw the look of dire
desperation in his dark eyes.
“Okay,” she answered.
“Okay what?”
“Okay,” she said again, this time calmer and more direct.
****
Melinda while in bed “trying” with Jon remembered a few
months back when she was with her girlfriends shopping for maternity clothes.
“I’m not even showing yet,” she tried to argue with them.
They were so excited about the news, they insisted that they straightaway hit
the maternity stores instead. Melinda wanted to go to Victoria Secret.
“What do you need new lingerie for?” Shannon asked.
“You’re already pregnant,” she said in all smiles.
Melinda could see that even with her arguing skills as an
assistant attorney it would fall to deaf ears against the joint excitement of
her friends.
She tried a few things on for them. Each time she came
out of the fitting room it was, “That’s going to look so cute!” and “That’s so
pretty!” and even worse, “That will show off your bump well.”
She dreaded the idea of having to wear clothes like that—giant
and loose. Melinda was the fashionista of the gang, always arousing jealousy
with her stylish, tight, sexy clothing. None of her friends could dress like
that anymore now that they were mothers, or at least that’s what they always
kept telling her.
“When you’re a mother,” Jacqueline would warn her,
“clothes like that will feel like a thing of the past.”
“When you’re a mother,” Stacy would say, “just getting
into a pair of nice jeans feels like a triumph.”
“When you’re a mother…”
Why did being married mean that she had to have kids?
Children to her always felt like something on her agenda that she’d be willing
to find any reason to procrastinate doing. Her friends never talked about
anything but their children. It was becoming harder and harder to spend time
with them—time with children becomes some sacred commodity. And even when she
did get to see them, she still always felt like the odd one out. My kids are
doing this…my kids are doing that….my kids…my kids. She felt like she had no
idea who any of her friends were anymore outside of being a parent. She didn’t
want that to be her—that when she became a parent that would be her whole
identity. It sounded all-consuming.
She’d ask herself at times, Why is this what we’ve all been striving towards? To be removed from
ourselves?
When
they were through he turned to her and softly stroked her hair. “Do you think
we did it? Do you think we made a baby this time?”
How the hell was she supposed to know? It was like asking
someone, “Hey do you think you did it? Do you think you won the lottery?”
Melinda was exhausted from all the sex they’d been
having. For her it became about as romantic as scratching a scratcher—trying
to rub one out as fast as possible hoping to win.
She didn’t have the energy to indulge him, to try and
make some sort of moment out of this.
She rolled over on her side and pretended to sleep.
****
Her friends were shocked when she told them the news that
she miscarried. They put their hands to their chests and looked at her with
giant sorrowful eyes. She received a chorus of apologies and questions.
They were difficult to answer. She could tell her friends
attributed her slowness of responses to it being a touchy subject for her to
talk about. The reason she took so long to answer was because it was challenging
to know how to answer them both passably and truthfully.
“Don’t worry,” they consoled her. “You can always try
again. This isn’t the end.”
Almost a year later she’d be telling them she was
pregnant again. She knew how it would go having been pregnant before. They’d be
ecstatic. This time at least she’d have an excuse to skip the shopping. She
saved the maternity clothes.
****
Jon was glowing as he held her protruding belly. She was
six months pregnant. He kissed her breasts while still holding onto her bulge.
She had just come out of the shower, long hair dripping with water.
“You look so good this way,” he said.
“You think me being pregnant and humungous is sexy?”
“Of course my dear. You are with my child.”
Being this pregnant, sex was strange to her. It was not
only uncomfortable, but she didn’t like how she could no longer look down to see him. She didn’t like the lack of
control she felt. She tried to forget that she was pregnant. She closed her
eyes and did her best to concentrate only on the pleasure…if that’s what it
was.
*****
There was no prouder parent than Jon the day Samantha was
born. Melinda was proud too—proud that she was able to survive pregnancy and
labor. She had no real concept of being a parent yet. When Samantha grabbed her
finger, her thought was how something could be so small yet have so much power
over her life. It wasn’t that she felt she was a stranger, but it wasn’t
instant love either. She was, however, relieved at her being healthy and
pretty.
*****
When Melinda invited all her friends over to see her new
baby it conjured more enthusiasm than for any new purse she ever bought. She
was actually delighted to see how much they oohed and aahed over her. She was
finally one of them again now that she had her own.
She spoke every detail about her baby: what times she
liked to feed at, how well she sleeps at night, the cute little noises she
makes, her sudden burps, the way she looks at her knowingly…
Anyone would have taken her as a doting mother. She kept
all her anguish and resentment to herself. She didn’t want them to think her
selfish, or even worse, abnormal. She loved her daughter; she just hated all
that it took from her. Instead she lied to them that it wasn’t all that
difficult.
*****
When her maternity leave was over, after six months she
went back to work. Everyone in the office looked at her like she was a
different person. After weeks of not being given any top priority cases, she
knew she wasn’t imagining this. People no longer saw her as a threat. She was
falling behind; a marginalized mama.
She wished all her baby fat would melt off. Perhaps if
she looked like her skinny, fit self again, people would take her more
seriously. If she could look pre-prego then she could act pre-prego.
It wasn’t long before her friends asked her why she was
still even working when her husband could take care of her. Jon would
frequently ask her the same question.
Was it really so much that she wanted a life outside of
motherhood? She worked her ass off to pass the bar exam. She wasn’t ready for
that all to be done and over with.
*****
Melinda came home in a bad mood from having to do grunty
paperwork all day. She wanted to do nothing but take a bath. But no, there was
baby and a thousand other things she needed to do before she could sleep.
At the end of the night when Samantha was finally asleep
and they were in bed, Jon wanted to have another discussion.
“Babe you come home so stressed and tired.”
“Well work is a lot more exhausting when you get no
sleep.”
“You don’t have to keep doing this to yourself.”
“I do.”
“You don’t. Our finances would be fine. I’ve made all the
calculations.”
“You have?”
“Well…I just wanted to see.”
“Jon when we were talking about having kids you said I
could still work.”
“I know but…I never get any time with you anymore.”
“What are you talking about? You’re seeing me just as
much. You’re still working. It’s not like I usually get home later than you.”
“I know…but when you are so tired all the time…there never seems to be time for…you know…”
“I know…but when you are so tired all the time…there never seems to be time for…you know…”
“Jesus shit.”
“Why are you even mad? You know it’s true. Plus the house
is never clean.”
“The fuck Jon. I’m not some superwoman. I’m a real person
okay.” The tears broke loose. It was all too much. How did her life get to be
like this?
“I’m not asking you to be. I get that you can’t do it all. You do enough as it is.
That’s why you should quit.”
“How about this? You quit.”
“Quit dentistry?”
“Yes. It’s not like I
don’t have a career too.”
“Honey, you’re being unreasonable.”
“I didn’t even want kids!” she blurted.
“What?”
“No. I never really did. I pushed Sam out of my vag for you. Isn’t that enough? Why must I give up everything?”
“No. I never really did. I pushed Sam out of my vag for you. Isn’t that enough? Why must I give up everything?”
“You never wanted kids?”
“I always told you someday. Someday. Someday was not when
we had her. I wasn’t ready. How can you not understand that?”
“Is that why you weren’t upset about your miscarriage?”
“Is that why you weren’t upset about your miscarriage?”
“I guess.”
*****
“Wait
you had Jon quit his job?”
Her
friends were astounded. Work was astounded. She didn’t care, she was happy now.
Was being progressive a sin? She was able to concentrate so much better now
knowing that her daughter was safe at home with her dad rather than with a
strange babysitter. He didn’t keep the house all that clean but with the sacrifice
he had made it wasn’t worth harassing him over.
At night John would be
the one to get up to attend to Sammy. Melinda would arrive to work in stylish
business attire with perfectly paired accessories. People were taking her
seriously now and she was even promoted to head attorney. She had lost the baby
weight. She could fit into all her old clothes again and the maternity ones
were in the garbage. Her sex life was back on track and during her lunch breaks
she’d quite often hit Victoria Secret.
Her
love for her daughter grew tenfold. Now she was a delight to return home to and
watch blossom into a bright and beautiful young girl.
*****
After
Samantha turned five, Jon turned to her one night before bed and said, “I want
a divorce.”
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