Daughters, chapter 2
When she opened the door to the restroom, Mary Beth was prepared for immediate confrontation, but Chris was nowhere to be seen. Then she heard unmistakable noises from one of the stalls.
"Chris?" Mary Beth walked up to the door and knocked softly. "Are you okay?"
Chris muttered something unintelligible and Mary Beth debated briefly whether she should leave her alone while she was throwing up but opted against it. Tough luck.
It took a while for the retching and heavy breathing to stop. Finally, Mary Beth heard Chris spit a couple of times and then the flush of the toilet.
The stall door swung open and out came Christine, white as a sheet. "What are you still doing here?" she asked weakly and walked past Mary Beth to the sinks.
Mary Beth watched as Chris produced a small bottle of mouthwash from her purse and nipped at it before opening the tap and rinsing her mouth with water. "Chris, what's going on?"
Chris spat and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "This is non-alcoholic. Don't worry."
"I'm not interested in the mouthwash."
"It must've been the sandwich. I thought the mustard smelled off."
"Don't give me that!" Anger bubbled up inside Mary Beth. "You don't have food poisoning, Christine! I had the same lunch as you. And you took barely three bites of that sandwich. You've been acting all moody and weird for weeks, you look awful – I'm sorry, but it's true – and when I try to talk to you, you lie to my face. That's no way to be a partner!"
A hurt look flashed across Chris's features. She opened her mouth as if to speak but closed it before any words came out.
Mary Beth tried again. "Chris, if something is wrong, I want to help you. But you have to talk to me."
Chris turned her hands over in the sink and let water run over her wrists before shutting off the tap. Then she tore some paper towels from the dispenser. "Nothing is wrong."
"Could've fooled me." Mary Beth crossed her arms in front of her chest and moved in on her partner.
"That's not what I meant. You're right, okay? I'm not feeling well," Chris said in a conciliatory tone. "But it's probably not what you think."
She gave Mary Beth a strange half-smile, but Mary Beth was not having it.
"Oh? Do you want to know what I think!? From where I'm standing it looks like you're drinking. Forget the mouthwash, I mean for real." There was no point in pussyfooting around the issue. "And I gotta tell you, if that's what it is, we'll have to have a very serious conversation about what this means for you and me going forward. Not to mention how irresponsible-"
"Mary Beth. I promise you: I'm not drinking!" Chris interrupted her. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she looked at Mary Beth urgently.
"Then what is it? I'm not letting you leave before you tell me." Mary Beth took a couple of steps in the direction of the door to underscore her point.
Chris pursed her lips and raised her hands in a gesture of defeat. Then she looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. When she turned towards Mary Beth again, she seemed resolved.
"Alright. There is something I haven't told you. Okay? And maybe I should have. Considering that you know a lot more about all of this than I do." Her hands described vague circular shapes in the air.
"All of what, Chris? I don't know what you're trying to say here. But you're starting to scare me. Spit it out already."
What other explanations were there? If Chris wasn't drinking, was she sick?
"Do me a favor and sit down first. I don't want to have to scrape you off the floor," Chris said awkwardly and gestured towards the bench next to the door.
Mary Beth sat down, still at a loss. Her partner's expression was unreadable as she threw away the used paper towels and came to sit next to her.
Chris cleared her throat and began to rummage around in her purse. She fished out something that looked like a postcard and handed it to Mary Beth with the picture side facing down.
"Promise me you won't scream."
Mary Beth accepted the piece of paper and turned it over. She recognized the image immediately.
"Christine!" She looked at her partner and back at the picture and then back at Chris, who just nodded.
"Surprise," she said, her voice cracking.
Mary Beth clasped her free hand over her mouth. She looked at the picture again. There were so many questions swirling around in her head. How could she have missed this? She took her hand back down.
"I don't know what to say. Oh my God. Congratulations!"
"Thank you," Chris said, and Mary Beth saw that she was fighting tears.
"Aww, come here." She drew her partner into a hug and felt wetness from her own eyes spill over onto her cheeks as they embraced. Chris's shoulders began to shake, and Mary Beth hugged her harder. When they let go of each other, both women were wiping tears from their eyes.
"So – tell me everything. I can't believe it. How far along are you?"
"Almost eleven weeks," Chris said and pointed at the ultrasound picture. "That was on Monday."
"Oh!" No wonder Chris hadn't been acting like herself all this time.
"David and I wanted to wait until I'm out of the woods. You know, three months. But I'm glad you know now."
"Chris, I'm so sorry I gave you such a hard time." Mary Beth thought back to every snippy reply and exasperated look she had given her partner when all along Chris had probably felt pretty miserable.
"Hey, I don't blame you. I know what it must look like," Chris said.
"If I'd known- I just didn't expect this at all. How did you- I mean, I thought you and David-"
After David had proposed for the second time, Chris had finally said yes, but only to the getting married part. One night on a stakeout, she had talked Mary Beth through a long list of reasons why she thought that she should not have children: Her career aspirations, her commitment issues, her difficult relationship with her own mother, her alcoholism, and finally her age. Chris felt that it would hurt David more if they tried and it didn't work than if they didn't try at all.
Now Mary Beth was dying to find out what had led Chris to change her mind.
Chris shrugged. "We slipped up last summer. Nothing happened, but we had to wait for two weeks, and somehow it got me thinking again. I don't know. It didn't feel so bad. The idea, I mean. Maybe being pregnant. Having a kid together. So … we decided not to prevent anything. And here we are." She put both of her palms flat on her abdomen.
Mary Beth laughed, still processing. "That's good news, Chris. Very surprising. But such good news."
Chris's fingers were playing with a loose thread on her bulky wool sweater.
"Please don't say anything to the others, okay?" She took a deep breath and continued very quietly. "If something happens, I don't want to have to explain anything."
"Of course. I understand. Really, I do." Mary Beth took her partner's hand and squeezed it.
Chris squeezed back and exhaled audibly. "Thank you. Obviously, I can't hide it forever."
She lifted the hem of her sweater, exposing the waistband of her jeans. The top button was undone, and a hair tie was looped around it and through the buttonhole, creating a little more room. Still, it looked like a snug fit.
"Getting too tight, huh?" Mary Beth said.
"Yeah. Half of them I can't wear at all anymore." Chris let the sweater drop again. "I just want to wait a little while longer."
"Don't worry, I've got you." Mary Beth squeezed her hand again. "But you're okay?"
Chris nodded. "The doctor says everything looks good with the baby, and I'm healthy. Older than he would like, but there's always something, right? We heard the heartbeat," she smiled and pointed at the paper in Mary Beth's hand.
"Oh, that's wonderful."
Mary Beth considered the image. The technology had not been very widespread when she was expecting the boys, but she remembered her first ultrasound for Alice, lying in the dark, staring at a screen and at the reassuring beat of her tiny heart. The thought alone was enough to make her tear up again.
She cleared her throat. "And how are you feeling? Are you nauseous a lot?" She gestured towards the stalls.
Chris gave her a wry smile. "Let's just say whoever invented the term 'morning sickness' forgot about the rest of the day. I'm tired from the moment I get out of bed, and I have to pee all the damn time. Not to mention these." Chris indicated her breasts. "And listen, uh- I know that I'm not so easy to work with right now. I'm sorry about that. I just can't help it sometimes – I don't know, stuff is really getting to me."
"Goes with the territory," Mary Beth smiled. She was relieved that her suspicions hadn't been confirmed and would gladly put up with Chris's moods for nine whole months if it meant that her partner would have a healthy baby in the end.
"And you're going to feel a lot better in the second trimester," she added. "For now, if you can, eat a couple of crackers in bed before you get up. Settles your stomach."
"That's what David has been telling me. He bought all these books. And seven different brands of crackers."
Mary Beth could see David schlepping home dozens of books and immersing himself in the subject. He had been great with Alice when they had had Chris and him over for dinner after her CCRB hearing, and she was overjoyed that he would get the chance to be a father. He would be wonderful at it.
"What did he say when you told him?"
"It was great. His whole face lit up. As a matter of fact, he hasn't stopped grinning since. And he is very … invested. He insists on taking a photo of me every week. You know, for- for a baby album or something. Can you believe it?" Chris's cheeks grew flushed as she told Mary Beth about this intimate detail.
"That's so sweet. Sounds like he is taking good care of you."
"The best. You know David. He's wonderful. A little suffocating maybe. If it were up to him, I wouldn't even be allowed to unload the dishwasher. But he means well."
"I remember what Harve was like before we had Harvey Junior. So protective. He would've loved to handcuff me to the sofa for nine months."
"Really, you should see David. He's so happy. This is everything he has ever wanted. He makes all these plans. And I mean plans. The kid is only as big as a prune, and he is talking about college."
"Oh, Chris, let him. He's excited. Heck, I'm getting excited, and it's not even my baby." Indeed, Mary Beth could feel her shock and surprise waning, making room for pure elation.
But Chris sighed and looked at her lap. "I don't know. David is so sure that everything is going to be okay. But I just can't relax about it. The doctor says I'm fine, and the baby is the right size, and there is a heartbeat, and everything looks like it should. But I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean – I'm going to be 43 years old, Mary Beth. Every little thing that hurts, hell – every single time I go to the bathroom, I think: 'Maybe this is it. It's going to go wrong now.' I really want to be happy. But the truth is, I'm scared out of my mind half the time." She blew out a shaky breath.
Mary Beth took another look at the ultrasound picture. She remembered what it felt like to allow yourself to build a connection to the tiny life inside, to love this promise of a person, knowing full well that you were running the risk of having your heart broken into a thousand pieces because there were never any guarantees.
"I know 'don't worry' is so easy to say, Chris. But when I was pregnant, I tried to trust the process. I think you don't really have a choice. Everything that goes on in there," she paused and gestured at Chris's abdomen, "you can't do a single thing about any of it. You just have to let it take its course."
Chris slid one of her hands under her sweater. "I know. But it's hard to accept. Not being in control."
"Have you told Samuels? That you're pregnant? At least he can keep you off stuff that you shouldn't be on."
"Yeah. The first and only time I ever did the responsible thing." She snorted. "He almost choked on his Danish. I guess I should have said something to you too. But it was still so early, and I was afraid I would jinx it somehow."
A couple of observations from the past few weeks suddenly made a lot more sense. The Lieutenant had been uncharacteristically soft on Chris, his second whip, even when she came in late, left early, or shot her mouth off in the squad room.
"It's your baby, your decision. Really, it's fine," Mary Beth assured her.
With Alice, she, too, had held off on telling her colleagues, including Christine. It had felt right to keep the existence of their miracle baby between Harvey and herself for as long as possible.
"Okay." Chris sounded relieved. "Like I said, I'm happy you know. It's hard enough with the guys, but at least I don't share a bathroom with them."
"What about AA? Your meetings? Are they helpful?"
Chris cleared her throat. "I was really scared of telling Jo. What I'm doing here is not exactly recommended, I guess. So much change in such a short time, you know? But she was really good about it. Supportive. And there are others who have done it. I mean who had a baby after …"
She didn't finish the sentence, but Mary Beth knew what she was getting at.
"That's good. Hey, isn't there this saying in AA? God grant me the- what was it? Something about not controlling everything."
"Almost." Chris smiled and began to recite: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
"That's the one. Maybe you'll feel better if you focus on what you can do? You know, eat right, get enough sleep, don't overdo it at work. The rest is magic. Or fate. Or God. Or whatever you want to call it. Remember with Alice? It was barely a year after the cancer, and they told me all about how everything was 'high-risk'. But I don't know. I wanted to believe that she would stick around. And she did. What I'm saying is that I think it's more than okay for you to have faith in yourself here, in your body, and in your beautiful baby. If there's anybody who deserves to have this, it's you."
Mary Beth handed the ultrasound picture back to Chris, who swallowed thickly and looked at the image intently as she spoke. "Yeah, faith. I'm still working on that. David probably has enough for all three of us."
"Then lean on him more. Tell him how you feel. Let him be there for you. You're not going to want to let him off too easy, anyway. Once the big day comes, you'll know what I mean." Mary Beth raised an eyebrow at her partner, only half joking.
Chris shot her a knowing grin. "David wants to sign us up for Lamaze classes."
"Well, you're an expert already from when you were the backup for Alice, so what can go wrong?"
"True. I think I still have that stopwatch somewhere." Chris paused before continuing almost shyly. "I was thinking that maybe- you'd want to be the backup this time?"
Mary Beth felt a huge smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'd be more than happy to. When should I clear my calendar?"
"Around October 29th. I think classes start in August."
"Ooh, maybe you'll have a Halloween baby."
Chris furrowed her brow and let her voice drop. "Let's hope not."
A/N: I just can't help myself, I want to see Chris happy. :')