PART 20
January 6th.
We took down the Christmas tree tonight and the place looks empty. The little pine needles that keep finding their way into my bare feet aren't much of a bonus either.
My mom 'phoned New Year's Eve, got all guilty and apologetic because we were in bed at midnight. I mean in bed sleeping. He had a shift next morning, 6 O'clock start, and I was in no mood for sitting watching the hands of the clock inching toward midnight and another year. Ivica 'phoned too. I didn't understand a word he was saying, even when he was speaking English.
It's my birthday in 4 days, anniversary of the first time I took a drink after 6 years sober, anniversary of the start of a totally shitty period of my life. Luka wants us to go out, celebrate, do something but so far I'm adopting a strategy of silent non cooperation. I don't know what it is; maybe all this waiting, all this being huge, the weather so vile that I haven't been outside since the day after Christmas when we went round to the lawyer next door for drinks and canapés. He was kind of nice. The professors were there too and I could see the lawyer guy's silent despair as they spread cat hair over his white linen couches, spat little fragments of chicken liver pate and sushi onto his cherry wood coffee table, scrubbing it off with a grimy pullover sleeve, dropped marinated olives onto his silk Persian rug. He caught my eye and looked guilty but I smiled sympathetically and he smiled back. The professors Backhaus explained that we'd been feeding their cats whilst they were away and I jumped in and said actually Luka did that, pregnant women and cat litter boxes not being an ideal mix. Robin – that's the lawyer's name, Robin – looked at Luka like he was Superman then, awestruck. I think we're going to get along well with Robin.
........................................................................................................
It's a cliché that doctors make the worst patients; well OB nurses make the worst expectant mothers, I can tell you that for free. Truth is I'm bored with it all; I know all this stuff, see, I've seen it all a thousand times and more. I keep my OB appointments, I pee into the little container (normal) read off my BP (a little on the high side, nothing to worry about) listen in horror as they relay to me what my weight is because I can't see from up here, learn that the baby is engaged, then not, then engaged again, look at the other moms in the waiting room.
We've been doing the birthing classes, different positions, candles light, whale song. And, as we all looked like beached whales that was pretty appropriate and I could see that he was trying not to smile and knew he thought the same thing. And I could tell he felt strange being there, listening to the excited chitchat, especially with the ones who were doing this for the first time. We smiled and told them that yes this was our first baby and it's true of course, it's the first we've had together but still.
The worst thing is I can't bear to talk to the other women – or listen to them. One, her name's Kara or Kelly or something, I don't know, she wears a sugar pink jogging suit and matching trainers and socks, her hair full of clips and ribbons, and she calls her husband "Hubby". I want to hit her. Luka seems transfixed by her, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing and I can see that he's trying real hard not to laugh and I want to hit him too. Still, he looks at me a little anxiously when it all turns to what we'd like; so far I haven't said "I don't care as long as it's not cursed with a chronic mental illness" but I've come close if only to shut Kelly the hell up.
I went to see Angela and she listened patiently while I whined, stuck a footstool under my feet and balanced a cup of tea on top of the baby before sitting down with a cup of coffee which smells nearly as strong as the stuff Luka drinks. The cat's still trying to freak me out.
"Why doesn't he like me?"
"Who?"
"Guss." That's the cat's name, Guss. Oh, I don't know.
"Honey, that cat doesn't like anyone. So what's the big deal here?"
"Maybe I'm going wrong with this, maybe this is the addict wanting it all now, not just living in the moment."
"Say what?" I'm starting to feel a little awkward. "You talk to the other moms?"
"No. And that's another thing. I hate all that. It's like being pregnant for a living, like it's the only thing I'm about. I'm just . . . I'm not open to what they have to say." Jesus, did I just say that? Shoot me now. She feels the same and snorts derisively.
"And what is it they have to say?"
"Nothing, just nothing. Disposable diapers or cloth, baby monitors, strollers, cribs, microwave bottle warmers, baby names, intra uterine learning programmes, pre-pre-school." She's laughing now, flapping fat legs and sloshing coffee onto herself.
"Goddammit, that's hot!" She dabs at the muddy stain. "Hell, who in their right mind wants to talk about that? You want to know what I think?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "You're not abnormal girl, you're pregnant, very pregnant, 150% knocked up. No-one likes this. I didn't, my mom didn't, bet your mom didn't. Hell, I bet the Virgin Mary was a little cranky right about the start of December. Backache, headaches, bloating," and here she pauses to look at my ankles, "no sleep, acid, peeing all the damned time. Shit, you don't have to be an alcoholic to hate it. You are living the moment. It's just that the moment really, really sucks."
So, just before Christmas I tell Luka I don't want to go again and anyway what's the point as I'm due so soon. I've had it with the candles, the whale song, the beanbags, the fooling ourselves that the birthing plans we all write out will mean a damn thing when push comes to, well, to push.
"You sure?"
"Couldn't be surer."
"It's only another few classes"
"In which I will learn nothing I don't already know except that Kara will be listening to Celine Dion throughout her labour and I may have to kill her. You don't want this baby to be born in a State Correctional Facility do you?"
Actually I think he's relieved. A while back I got him to agree that he'll give me 3 shots at giving up before he did anything about it. I didn't doubt that he'd lay the OB out cold if she tried to interfere and that's when he fessed up about Brian. I don't know if he was surprised when I told him I knew, had always known. He was a little surprised when I owned up to kind of liking what he did. He wasn't proud of it – but I was. Bad old me.
...................................................................................................... January 10th
40 weeks. I'm in limbo. I want this pregnancy to be over and I want it not to end; I want my body back and I don't want to give up this person living in here; I want to get outside and breath fresh air and I want to burrow down into my nest right here and never come out; I want to talk to my Mom and I dread her nightly calls.
The weather is better today. It's still as cold as hell but it's not snowing, or sleeting or raining and the wind's dropped. The sky is actually blue. My mom called this morning to say happy birthday and asked what we were doing to celebrate and in the end we got a little PO'd with each other because I wasn't playing the game and then I felt PO'd with myself. Great. Luka didn't get in until five this morning and I didn't wake him when I got up. He's on at ten tonight and still sleeping so for now I sit and listen to the clock ticking and stare out of the window down toward the little trees at the bottom of the garden which looks weird in the sunshine after so long under grey skies. The grass is still hidden under grey snow but it's amazing what a little sunshine will do.
I can hear Luka upstairs now, showering, and I put on some coffee and take the bowl of eggs out of the fridge but they slip and when he comes downstairs I'm still looking down at the mess of shells and yolks and snotty whites and crying and crying and crying. He doesn't even ask me what's wrong and I'm so thankful for that that I cry some more and he just guides me up the stairs to our bed and lies down with me until I fall asleep.
It's one o'clock when he wakes me and tells me to put on extra socks and my warm boots, another pullover, my warmest coat, a hat, my scarf and have I got my gloves? I don't even ask why. As it turns out he parks the car by the lake and we walk a little and the cold clear air is brilliant as it rushes into my lungs. He opens the tailgate of the car and there's a hamper with hot soup and bread and a very small cake with a candle and it's the best picnic I ever had in my life. Dancing to the Rolling Stones on the car stereo in the cold earns us some strange looks from the handful of brave souls by the lake, but what the hell? It's starting to get dark by the time we leave and the lights of the city around the lake are so pretty and I manage not to be annoyed by the Christmas lights even though I think they should be taken down on December 26th.
Before he leaves for work he cooks and I try to eat it but without much success and he tells me he doesn't know why he bothers, slaving over a hot stove and there are starving kids who'd be glad of sole meuniere and lemon cheesecake. At the look on my face he says softly "Joke, Abby, it's a joke." Shit.
"You shouldn't have filled me up with hot soup."
"I know. I blame myself."
"I blame you too."
"Happy birthday."
"Not very." After a moment I add "But, you know – not the worst I've had."
"No?"
"Not by a long way."
"I daren't ask." At that moment the 'phone rings; it's Ivica and he sings happy birthday to me and tells me my present is crated up and on its way and has Luka got his lazy ass in gear and hung my picture yet. I lie and tell him he has but when I hand Luka over to him it seems he asks him too and Luka, not knowing what I've said hums and haws and makes excuses for not doing it and Ivica tells him he's lucky he has a wife who will lie for him.
He runs me a bath, helps me in and out of it, helps me into my nightclothes, tucks me into bed, kisses me just lightly and tells me tomorrow will be better.
"And later, when everything is more settled, in the summer, we'll go out, celebrate the lost birthday, how would that be?"
"It would be good."
"Of course it would."
"I'm – "
"No, you're not sorry, you're not allowed to be sorry on your birthday. Go to sleep."
"Yes, dad."
But I don't; I wait until I hear him leave for work and I go with him in my head to keep him company in the car in the middle of the freezing night and when I know he's walked through the ER doors into the warm I close my eyes and think maybe it wasn't such a bad birthday after all.
January 6th.
We took down the Christmas tree tonight and the place looks empty. The little pine needles that keep finding their way into my bare feet aren't much of a bonus either.
My mom 'phoned New Year's Eve, got all guilty and apologetic because we were in bed at midnight. I mean in bed sleeping. He had a shift next morning, 6 O'clock start, and I was in no mood for sitting watching the hands of the clock inching toward midnight and another year. Ivica 'phoned too. I didn't understand a word he was saying, even when he was speaking English.
It's my birthday in 4 days, anniversary of the first time I took a drink after 6 years sober, anniversary of the start of a totally shitty period of my life. Luka wants us to go out, celebrate, do something but so far I'm adopting a strategy of silent non cooperation. I don't know what it is; maybe all this waiting, all this being huge, the weather so vile that I haven't been outside since the day after Christmas when we went round to the lawyer next door for drinks and canapés. He was kind of nice. The professors were there too and I could see the lawyer guy's silent despair as they spread cat hair over his white linen couches, spat little fragments of chicken liver pate and sushi onto his cherry wood coffee table, scrubbing it off with a grimy pullover sleeve, dropped marinated olives onto his silk Persian rug. He caught my eye and looked guilty but I smiled sympathetically and he smiled back. The professors Backhaus explained that we'd been feeding their cats whilst they were away and I jumped in and said actually Luka did that, pregnant women and cat litter boxes not being an ideal mix. Robin – that's the lawyer's name, Robin – looked at Luka like he was Superman then, awestruck. I think we're going to get along well with Robin.
........................................................................................................
It's a cliché that doctors make the worst patients; well OB nurses make the worst expectant mothers, I can tell you that for free. Truth is I'm bored with it all; I know all this stuff, see, I've seen it all a thousand times and more. I keep my OB appointments, I pee into the little container (normal) read off my BP (a little on the high side, nothing to worry about) listen in horror as they relay to me what my weight is because I can't see from up here, learn that the baby is engaged, then not, then engaged again, look at the other moms in the waiting room.
We've been doing the birthing classes, different positions, candles light, whale song. And, as we all looked like beached whales that was pretty appropriate and I could see that he was trying not to smile and knew he thought the same thing. And I could tell he felt strange being there, listening to the excited chitchat, especially with the ones who were doing this for the first time. We smiled and told them that yes this was our first baby and it's true of course, it's the first we've had together but still.
The worst thing is I can't bear to talk to the other women – or listen to them. One, her name's Kara or Kelly or something, I don't know, she wears a sugar pink jogging suit and matching trainers and socks, her hair full of clips and ribbons, and she calls her husband "Hubby". I want to hit her. Luka seems transfixed by her, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing and I can see that he's trying real hard not to laugh and I want to hit him too. Still, he looks at me a little anxiously when it all turns to what we'd like; so far I haven't said "I don't care as long as it's not cursed with a chronic mental illness" but I've come close if only to shut Kelly the hell up.
I went to see Angela and she listened patiently while I whined, stuck a footstool under my feet and balanced a cup of tea on top of the baby before sitting down with a cup of coffee which smells nearly as strong as the stuff Luka drinks. The cat's still trying to freak me out.
"Why doesn't he like me?"
"Who?"
"Guss." That's the cat's name, Guss. Oh, I don't know.
"Honey, that cat doesn't like anyone. So what's the big deal here?"
"Maybe I'm going wrong with this, maybe this is the addict wanting it all now, not just living in the moment."
"Say what?" I'm starting to feel a little awkward. "You talk to the other moms?"
"No. And that's another thing. I hate all that. It's like being pregnant for a living, like it's the only thing I'm about. I'm just . . . I'm not open to what they have to say." Jesus, did I just say that? Shoot me now. She feels the same and snorts derisively.
"And what is it they have to say?"
"Nothing, just nothing. Disposable diapers or cloth, baby monitors, strollers, cribs, microwave bottle warmers, baby names, intra uterine learning programmes, pre-pre-school." She's laughing now, flapping fat legs and sloshing coffee onto herself.
"Goddammit, that's hot!" She dabs at the muddy stain. "Hell, who in their right mind wants to talk about that? You want to know what I think?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "You're not abnormal girl, you're pregnant, very pregnant, 150% knocked up. No-one likes this. I didn't, my mom didn't, bet your mom didn't. Hell, I bet the Virgin Mary was a little cranky right about the start of December. Backache, headaches, bloating," and here she pauses to look at my ankles, "no sleep, acid, peeing all the damned time. Shit, you don't have to be an alcoholic to hate it. You are living the moment. It's just that the moment really, really sucks."
So, just before Christmas I tell Luka I don't want to go again and anyway what's the point as I'm due so soon. I've had it with the candles, the whale song, the beanbags, the fooling ourselves that the birthing plans we all write out will mean a damn thing when push comes to, well, to push.
"You sure?"
"Couldn't be surer."
"It's only another few classes"
"In which I will learn nothing I don't already know except that Kara will be listening to Celine Dion throughout her labour and I may have to kill her. You don't want this baby to be born in a State Correctional Facility do you?"
Actually I think he's relieved. A while back I got him to agree that he'll give me 3 shots at giving up before he did anything about it. I didn't doubt that he'd lay the OB out cold if she tried to interfere and that's when he fessed up about Brian. I don't know if he was surprised when I told him I knew, had always known. He was a little surprised when I owned up to kind of liking what he did. He wasn't proud of it – but I was. Bad old me.
...................................................................................................... January 10th
40 weeks. I'm in limbo. I want this pregnancy to be over and I want it not to end; I want my body back and I don't want to give up this person living in here; I want to get outside and breath fresh air and I want to burrow down into my nest right here and never come out; I want to talk to my Mom and I dread her nightly calls.
The weather is better today. It's still as cold as hell but it's not snowing, or sleeting or raining and the wind's dropped. The sky is actually blue. My mom called this morning to say happy birthday and asked what we were doing to celebrate and in the end we got a little PO'd with each other because I wasn't playing the game and then I felt PO'd with myself. Great. Luka didn't get in until five this morning and I didn't wake him when I got up. He's on at ten tonight and still sleeping so for now I sit and listen to the clock ticking and stare out of the window down toward the little trees at the bottom of the garden which looks weird in the sunshine after so long under grey skies. The grass is still hidden under grey snow but it's amazing what a little sunshine will do.
I can hear Luka upstairs now, showering, and I put on some coffee and take the bowl of eggs out of the fridge but they slip and when he comes downstairs I'm still looking down at the mess of shells and yolks and snotty whites and crying and crying and crying. He doesn't even ask me what's wrong and I'm so thankful for that that I cry some more and he just guides me up the stairs to our bed and lies down with me until I fall asleep.
It's one o'clock when he wakes me and tells me to put on extra socks and my warm boots, another pullover, my warmest coat, a hat, my scarf and have I got my gloves? I don't even ask why. As it turns out he parks the car by the lake and we walk a little and the cold clear air is brilliant as it rushes into my lungs. He opens the tailgate of the car and there's a hamper with hot soup and bread and a very small cake with a candle and it's the best picnic I ever had in my life. Dancing to the Rolling Stones on the car stereo in the cold earns us some strange looks from the handful of brave souls by the lake, but what the hell? It's starting to get dark by the time we leave and the lights of the city around the lake are so pretty and I manage not to be annoyed by the Christmas lights even though I think they should be taken down on December 26th.
Before he leaves for work he cooks and I try to eat it but without much success and he tells me he doesn't know why he bothers, slaving over a hot stove and there are starving kids who'd be glad of sole meuniere and lemon cheesecake. At the look on my face he says softly "Joke, Abby, it's a joke." Shit.
"You shouldn't have filled me up with hot soup."
"I know. I blame myself."
"I blame you too."
"Happy birthday."
"Not very." After a moment I add "But, you know – not the worst I've had."
"No?"
"Not by a long way."
"I daren't ask." At that moment the 'phone rings; it's Ivica and he sings happy birthday to me and tells me my present is crated up and on its way and has Luka got his lazy ass in gear and hung my picture yet. I lie and tell him he has but when I hand Luka over to him it seems he asks him too and Luka, not knowing what I've said hums and haws and makes excuses for not doing it and Ivica tells him he's lucky he has a wife who will lie for him.
He runs me a bath, helps me in and out of it, helps me into my nightclothes, tucks me into bed, kisses me just lightly and tells me tomorrow will be better.
"And later, when everything is more settled, in the summer, we'll go out, celebrate the lost birthday, how would that be?"
"It would be good."
"Of course it would."
"I'm – "
"No, you're not sorry, you're not allowed to be sorry on your birthday. Go to sleep."
"Yes, dad."
But I don't; I wait until I hear him leave for work and I go with him in my head to keep him company in the car in the middle of the freezing night and when I know he's walked through the ER doors into the warm I close my eyes and think maybe it wasn't such a bad birthday after all.