Love and Other Natural Disasters (13 page)

I laughed, even harder because he
clearly wasn't kidding. "I bet we can arrange that. You can do the
hand-holding brushing my sweaty hair back from my forehead saying comforting
things' part. Oh, and cutting the umbilical cord. Definitely that." I
waited for the laugh that didn't come. "That thing about the umbilical
cord was a joke."

"I knew that."

A few days later, he was here.
Indefinitely.

He'd arrived just in time, because
for the next week, my exhaustion verged on paralysis. I was calling in sick
every other day. My obstetrician assured me that the baby was fine, but it was
hard to believe. How could my baby be immune to this? I tried to think happy
thoughts so that her last days inside me would be pleasant ones. I didn't think
I was fooling her, but I hoped.

I'd envisioned Charlie's role as
one of moral support, but he slipped into a far more domestic one without
complaint. He'd always been the "fun uncle"; now he was helping Jacob
get ready for school or for bed, keeping him entertained, whatever I asked. He
pitched in on grocery shopping and cooking; he even ran interference with Jon,
working out the scheduling for Jacob's visits, handling the pickups and
drop-offs. Every time I tried to express my inexpressible gratitude, my eyes
misted up and he tried to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

One evening, when Tamara stopped by
with DVDs, Charlie was wearing Jon's apron with the tuxedo print on it and
preparing a casserole. He escorted her to the bedroom, where I was sitting
upright against the headboard. "Do you need anything?" he asked. "Dinner
will be ready in about an hour."

"I'm great, Charlie," I
said, smiling at him. "Thanks."

"Are you cool?" he said
to Tamara.

"I am," she said, sitting
down on the bed. "I'm very cool." As he started to leave the room,
she said, "There's a word for you, you know."

"Yeah?" He looked a
little wary, like her statement was usually the preface for an insult.

"Avuncular," she
pronounced.

"Huh. What's that mean?"

"It means 'uncle-like.'"

"That's the whole
definition?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Weird. So that's a
compliment?"

"In this case," she said.

He hung in the doorway an extra
second. "But what about those
pervy
uncles, you
know the ones, like, 'Hey, don't leave the kids alone with Uncle Harvey, he's
just a little too avuncular'?"

We all laughed, and he left the
room, shutting the door behind him. Tamara looked at me. "You weren't
kidding."

"I told you, he's really taken
to this whole thing. Yesterday I caught him humming while he was making Jacob's
lunch. I think it was Metallica or Slayer or something like that, but still."

"I'm glad he's here for
you."

"Me too."

She lifted a tote bag onto the bed.
"So I brought the first season of
Weeds."

"That sounds perfect."
We'd been careful with each other since the heated talk about Jon. Pop culture
was generally a safe topic, and Tamara had mentioned the other day that
Mary-Louise Parker had gotten dumped for another woman while she was pregnant
and then went on to win an Emmy the following year. I'd decided to worship at
the altar of Mary-Louise Parker, at least while I was on semi-bed rest.

There was a knock on the door.
"Come in," I said.

"Sorry to interrupt you guys,
but I meant to give you this earlier." Charlie laid an envelope on the
bed.

I glanced down and recognized the
handwriting. It wasn't an accident that Charlie was giving this to me now. He
wanted me to read it with Tamara here. It occurred to me that he was giving his
all to being a housekeeper and playmate because he knew he could handle that;
he wasn't sure how to talk to me about pain, especially when his own life was
largely structured around its avoidance. "Now's a good time," I said,
giving him a smile.

I picked up the letter as Charlie
withdrew. I was nervous to read it with Tamara, and nervous to read it alone.

"What's
been happening with Jon?" she asked, somewhat gingerly. Either she'd read
Jon's handwriting, or my face.

"I haven't had a talk with Jon
since—you know. And he doesn't do the call screening thing anymore, which is a
relief." Well, it was mostly a relief. "It's strange to get an actual
letter anymore, isn't it? Sort of anachronistic."

"It seems old-fashioned.
Romantic." She looked like maybe she'd said something wrong.

"How should we do this? Should
I read it out loud? Or should you?"

"Why don't you read it to
yourself, and then let me know if you want me to read it?" she suggested.

I looked at her gratefully.
"That's a good idea."

Dear Eve,

I feel like we misunderstood each
other the last time we spoke. I'm not trying to go back over the same ground,
but I wanted you to know—in case there's any confusion—that I was really happy
when you were pregnant with Jacob, and despite the current circumstances, I'm
really happy that we're about to have two. When I said I was threatened, that
just meant I had worries, not that I wanted to have it any other way.

Here's the thing, though. When you
were pregnant with Jacob, I just felt more distant. I touched your belly and I
felt excited, but it felt like the whole thing was more yours than mine. I
mean, naturally, biologically, you just had so much more of a relationship with
him.

But when I was there in the
delivery room, it was like I saw him transform from an idea into an actual
person, and this dam just burst. There was all this love I hadn't even fully
recognized just exploding as I held him. Now that I know what it's all about,
now that I've seen it happen, it's like I can already love the hell out of our
little girl. She's not just an idea. It's like this love I have for her, it's
real, but it's love as an act of imagination and as an act of faith, and that's
all we have to go on right now. I love you, Eve, and I love our little girl,
and I don't want to be away from either of you. Please, talk soon, Jon

P.S. In the interest of full
disclosure, this was my therapist's idea.

I laid the letter against my stomach
and closed my eyes.

After a minute, Tamara asked,
"Do you want me to read it?"

I looked at her. I could see that
she wanted what was best for me, but if she read the letter, she wouldn't
understand what I was feeling. She didn't know what Jon had written to Clayton.
She wouldn't understand why I thought it might be just a beautiful
manipulation. That stuff about the delivery room—he was no fool. I hadn't told
him I was thinking of keeping him out, but he knew what was at stake. He
probably did believe what he'd put in the letter, but only because he needed
to. If he didn't love me, he wasn't going to admit that even to himself.

It was how he'd convinced himself
that we were Bill and Gina. Necessity was the mother of self-delusion. As much
as I wanted to believe the letter, I couldn't allow myself to. "No,"
I said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I took the easy way out. I'll be
the first to admit it. I should have sat Jonathon down in advance and told him
that I'd be more comfortable with Charlie in the birthing room this time
around. Maybe I could have added an apology, but it would smack of "I'm
sorry you feel that way," and no one likes those. The problem is, there's
no good way to tell a man that he's unlikely to attend the birth of his child.
If only it was thirty years ago when it was assumed that the man was
insignificant to the proceedings and should be in the waiting room with a box
of cigars at the ready.

This wasn't a decision born of
anger. I just truly couldn't imagine having Jon there, feeding me ice chips, fluffing
my pillows, whispering in my ear that he loved me, that I could do it, that
"We're having a baby, can you believe it? We're having a baby."
Having him there, but as a stranger, would be heartbreak. My baby would enter
the world with heartbreak palpable in the room, surrounded by what had been
lost. I wanted to spare her that.

I've heard that it's easier to get
forgiveness than permission, and I hoped that would be true. But if Jon never
forgave me... well, the feeling might be mutual. Strange as it sounds, though,
even as I made my decision to exclude Jon from the delivery, what I wanted most
was for us to find forgiveness.

Tamara didn't approve of the
choice, that was obvious. She assumed it had something to do with what was in
the letter, and I let her believe that. But she also believed that Jon had a
right to be at the birth, no matter what he'd done, or what any letter had
said. I suspected that what bothered her most was not telling Clayton. Clayton
knew only that once I went into labor, he and Tamara would be watching Jacob
(mostly Tamara, since she had just started winter break and had her days free
while he was filming an infomercial for a revolutionary new workout system that
combined Pilates and Tae Bo), but he thought that was because Jon would be with
me.

Two days before the due date, the
contractions started. It was textbook perfect: a contraction about every ten
minutes, lasting thirty seconds. With Jacob, early labor had gone on for hours,
with me lying on the bed and Jon at my side holding a stopwatch so he'd know
precisely when we should drive to the hospital. We'd been determined to do
everything right, to earn our A's in labor and delivery.

Things usually move a whole lot
faster the second time around, so just as soon as I established that I was
indeed having contractions and not gas pains, I toddled down to the kitchen,
where Charlie and Jacob were baking cookies. They were sitting at the table,
and Jacob—flour dust in his hair, so he looked like the world's oldest boy or
the world's youngest old man—was carefully imprinting dough with a shot glass.
He looked up at me and grinned. "It's the head!" he said, indicating
his handiwork.

"Snowmen," Charlie added.
"And women. They don't have gonads, so, really, it's all in the
frosting."

"Uncle Charlie and I might
have to finish those up, sweetie," I said to Jacob.

"Why?" he asked,
squinting at me.

"Remember the plan we talked
about? That when the baby's just about here, you're going to stay with Aunt
Tamara?"

Jacob nodded, his expression neutral.
It was Charlie who was suddenly wild-eyed with understanding. He jumped to his
feet.

"So we need to drop Jacob off
and get to the hospital," he said rapidly. "Do we have time to drop
him off? Do you need an ambulance? You can go to the hospital while I drop him
off. But then you'd be alone. I mean, not alone, you'd have the paramedics, and
they'll know a hell of a lot more than I do. Sorry," he said, looking at
Jacob. "I mean heck. Is it okay to say 'heck' around him?"

Charlie's panic inspired calm in me.
I laughed. "We have plenty of time before we need to go to the hospital.
But we should get Jake over to Tamara's, just in case." I glanced at
Jacob, who still appeared impassive. "Aren't you excited? You're going to
have a little brother or sister soon."

He pursed his lips in the facial
equivalent of a shrug.

"Well,
maybe you'll be more excited when you can see her. Or him. It could be
either." But in my heart, I still thought it was a girl. Maybe it wasn't
intuition, only hope, that told me that. "You need to get ready to
go."

I recognized his look of escalating
defiance and expected him to refuse, but then he turned to Charlie. Charlie
gave the slightest of nods, and Jacob got up and left the room. I was rendered
momentarily speechless by the sight of my brother, the Preschool Whisperer.

"How do you feel? Are you
okay?" Charlie asked anxiously. "I didn't want to ask with the kid
here, just in case."

"I feel fine. At this point,
it's kind of like cramps."

"Don't those hurt?"

"It's more like a twinge. A reminder
that something's going to happen soon." I added quickly, "But not too
soon."

He nodded earnestly, like he was
committing my every word to memory. "How far apart are the
contractions?"

"About ten minutes
apart."

"And we're waiting for
contractions that are five minutes apart and last about a minute each,
right?" He'd done his homework.

"Right. After an hour of that,
we go to the hospital. No ambulances needed." It was funny, how easily I
slipped into big-sister mode, and how soothing it was. It created the illusion
that I knew what I was doing, and I needed that. I'd be strong for Charlie. For
the moment, it was just good to have a focal point. The real fear was yet to
come, when I wouldn't know where to look.

"Are you sure you don't want
me to call Jon?" Charlie asked. We were settled in the birthing room, and
he was trying not to pace. I'd asked him not to pace.

"If I change my mind," I
said grimly, "you'll be the first to know."

Jon and I had picked out this
birthing room together after touring area hospitals. With Jacob, I'd gone from
the hospital room to the delivery room and back again, while the birthing room
would allow us to stay in one place throughout. This one had seemed homey, like
a child's nursery: the pale-blue-and-yellow color scheme, the duck-patterned
curtains for the window, the rocking chair beside my bed for Jon, the infant
warmer just waiting for her arrival. "It's like nothing can go wrong in a
room like this," Jon had said, squeezing my hand.