Love and Other Natural Disasters (14 page)

The catheter was already inserted
in my spine and the epidural administered, but the pain was still acute. It was
extremely irritating to go against all the Bradley Method natural-childbirth
brainwashing and still be in pain. I'd sold out, and I wasn't even reaping the
benefits. I let out a moan that was half-exasperation.

"What am I supposed to tell
you?" Charlie asked. "Work through the pain, be the pain, go into the
light, pant like a dog, what?"

I laughed in spite of myself.
"There are exercises, but you don't know any of them."

"Teach me."

"I'm not going to teach you.
That's what a coach is for." I felt a sudden flare of anger. "Fucking
Jon!"

"That's right. That's how you
got into this mess in the first place," Charlie joked. I shot him an
irritated look. "Hey, it's not my fault. And I'm here with you, even
though I know something no one likes to talk about. The unmentionable." I
couldn't help looking at him with some interest. "Oh, sure, we all know
the miracle of life is a messy thing. I've watched
ER.
But you and I
both know that at some point in this process, you're going to shit yourself.
I'm going to have to bear witness to my sister shitting herself. You think
that's going to be fun for me?"

"You know, Charlie, I just
hadn't really thought about that."

As a contraction overtook me, I bit
my lip and tried to remember how to relax. Twelve weeks of that course, and I
couldn't summon up one trick just then. Nothing I told myself in my head, no
breathing technique, could change the fact that I was having the baby of a big
fat liar. A big fat cheating liar. A big fucking fat cheating liar. A big
fucking fat cheating asshole liar. A big fucking...

I rode that hypnotic, rhythmic wave
until the epidural did the rest. When the nurse checked on me next, she said
cheerfully, "It shouldn't be too long until you're holding that baby in
your arms."

"That sounds nice," I
said. Nothing had ever sounded nicer, in fact. I suddenly ached to hold my
little girl. Oh, let it be a girl.

Charlie crossed the room and sat by
my bed, taking my hand. We were smiling into each other's faces. "I'm
going to be an uncle again."

"You're good at it," I
said.

"I'm trying."

"I know."

Suddenly I heard Jon's aggrieved
voice. "How could you do this?" I looked up to see him at the foot of
my bed. His eyes were red and his hair stood up in tufts. "How could you
not even call me?" What struck me was that his tone was more plaintive
than angry. I'd never seen such sorrow in him.

"I'm having a baby," I
said dumbly.

"Our baby. She's ours, Eve.
Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He was on the verge of tears.

"Look, man," Charlie
said, standing up protectively. "She's been through it. I mean, she's
going through it. Don't make things worse for her."

"Worse for her?" Jon
said, his voice rising. "I'm the only one trying to make things better!
She doesn't talk to me, she won't forgive me. What the fuck am I supposed to
do? What am I supposed to do?" He dissolved into tears, then full-blown
sobs. As he turned away, ashamed, I started to cry, too.

Charlie was standing awkwardly
between us. He looked at me. "Do you want him to leave? Should I leave?
What?"

"I don't know," I said.
"I can't feel anything. The epidural..." I was sobbing now. I wanted
to tell Jon to come sit beside me. I could imagine his face against my hand,
the feel of his wet, stubbly cheek.

I don't know how long we stayed
that way, but it startled the nurse when she came in to check on me. "I
need to get the doctor," she said, looking back and forth between all of
us. "You're about to deliver the baby."

Then the doctor and the nurse were
there, and Jon was beside me, and Charlie, too. I was surrounded. I was numb
below my stomach. I didn't know what was happening with my mind or with my
body, either, courtesy of the epidural. The doctor was telling me when to push
and I was trying, but I felt so distant. With Jacob, despite the epidural, I'd
still felt the urgency of the uterine contractions. They weren't just pain,
they were propulsion. It was a pain that told you what to do.

Charlie later told me that Jon was
coaching me almost under his breath, but I didn't hear him. A half hour after I
started pushing, the baby was lying on my stomach, hot pink and mucosal. It was
a girl. My little girl. Jon whooped with joy, and I started crying
hysterically. I could tell from the reactions of the nurse and the doctor |
that it wasn't the way mothers usually cried. There was something primal in it,
like she was saving my life.

Charlie was in the rocking chair
closest to the bed, and Jon had stationed himself in an armchair nearby. We
hadn't spoken directly since before the delivery had begun in earnest.

Charlie asked, "Is it okay if
I take a walk? That was kind of intense."

"Sure, I'll be okay," I
said. I was still holding my girl.

I didn't want to let go of her.
When I looked at her, I smiled, I cooed, I knew what to do. I was her mother.
When I looked at Jon, I felt lost, confused, bereft.

Charlie left us alone, and Jon
moved into the vacated rocking chair. "Can I hold her?" he said.

I nodded, but it was another minute
before I could actually relinquish her. Once out of my arms, I felt her absence
like a phantom limb.

Standing up, with our baby in his
arms, Jon was the one to find himself. "Baby, baby, baby," he sang
softly, looking into her face, slowly circumambulating. It hurt to watch.

After a few minutes had elapsed, he
turned to me. "Have you thought about names?" he asked tentatively.

"A little," I said.

"Me too." I waited for
him to tell me what they were, but he was immersed in her again.

"I'm sorry," I said. I
was surprised to say it, more surprised to feel it. "For not calling
you."

He acted like he hadn't heard me,
but I knew he had. Finally he said, "That was a lousy thing to do,
Eve."

"I didn't do it to be
lousy."

"Why did you do it,
then?"

"I'm not going to be able to
make you understand."

"Join the club. It seems like
I can't make you understand anything, either." He was still jiggling her a
little bit, but his attention was on me.

"That's the problem, isn't it?
We don't understand each other at all. We don't know each other, Jon."

"That's not true. How can you
weigh a bunch of e-mails heavier than ten years of us being there for each
other?"

"Not now, okay?"

We were both quiet. Then he said,
"I was thinking of Olivia."

"Olivia," I repeated.

"I could picture this little
girl, with light brown hair in curls, and we'd call her Liv."

"Olivia
Gimbel
,"
I said experimentally. "Liv
Gimbel
."

"You want her to have my last
name?" he asked.

"Of course." It hadn't
occurred to me that it would be otherwise.

There were tears in his eyes.
"So what do you think? Do you like it?"

"I do."

"In English, the origin is
'elf army.'" He was smiling.

I laughed. "I don't see how I
can refuse now."

"But what did you have in
mind? You said you'd thought a little bit, too."

"I didn't get too far,
really." I held out my arms. "Let me try something." He brought
the baby to me. "Olivia," I said, gazing into her eyes. They were so
blue that it was hard to believe they wouldn't stay that way. In six months,
we'd know the permanent color. Who knew where we'd all be in six months?
"Olivia." She blinked up at me with what I would have sworn was
recognition.

Jon was standing by the bedside,
smiling down at both of us. "What do you think?"

"I think she's Olivia."

What a tableau we made—mother,
father, baby—for just an instant. "Let me come home, Eve," Jon said.

Olivia let out a little cry. "
Shhh
," I said. "It'll be all right. Everything's
going to be all right."

Just days after Liv was born, we
spent The Holiday together as a family. We ate our traditional five-course meal
consisting entirely of desserts; Jacob tore open presents with his usual
sugar-fueled zeal; Jon and I smiled at each other in a pantomime of parental
connection. I was grateful for Charlie's presence and his willingness to play
the court jester, to say, "Hey, don't look at the mess that is your
marriage, look over here, I'm pouring high fructose corn syrup directly on my
Pop-Tart!" He loved me enough to try to be the pink elephant. I cried when
I hugged him good-bye just after New Year's.

Right from the start, Olivia was so
different than Jacob had been. It takes a while for babies to smile, but with
Jacob, it was like I could tell that he wanted to from so early. There was a
lightness to him while Olivia seemed so solemn. She didn't cry as often, but I
wasn't sure that was a good thing. Maybe she'd absorbed my distress while in
the womb, like radiation. It was a terrifying thought, and one I didn't share
with Jon, as hard as it was to bear it alone.

The fact was, Jon and I didn't
share much at all. He was spending a lot of time at the house, but the children
were the focus of almost all our attention. If I wasn't holding Olivia, Jon
was; if Jon wasn't tuned into Jacob, I was. For the next few months, we went
through the motions of family, minus the intimacy of marriage. Once the kids
were asleep, Jon and I talked about them or about practical matters; we did
household tasks (he would clean up the kitchen, I would fold yet another load
of laundry) and kept the TV on so awkward silences wouldn't hurt too much.
Eventually he'd say he should get going, that it was a long drive across the
bridge. The saddest part was that we both knew we were a pale imitation of
ourselves, but neither of us said it. I don't know about Jon, but I was hoping
that if I kept acting the part, eventually I'd feel the right accompanying
emotions. It's the reason movies have soundtracks, I suppose, in the hope that
emotion can be induced.

Jon continued to half-ass his way
through therapy, occasionally tossing a faux insight my way, like a scrap to a
dog, and I held my tongue. I tried to convince myself that Jon's affair was a
thing of the past and that he wasn't stupid enough to repeat it. I wanted to
believe that the
why
of it didn't matter, only what he
would
or
wouldn't
do. The visual of Jon sobbing against the wall in the birthing room was one
I recalled frequently to remind myself just how much he loved this family, but
by February, I was pretty desensitized to it. And sick of the pretending.

I was still reading Jon's e-mails.
Every time I did it, I felt low and slimy and just a little demented. But I'd discovered
the Drafts folder, and I'm sure no jury would convict me.

The Drafts folder contained the
e-mails Jon had written (or half-written) and never sent. It was like having a
direct line to his id. I know, I know. It's wrong to peek into someone else's
subconscious. In my defense, I never did it before. I guess I foolishly assumed
I knew what was in there.

Some of the drafts were actually
addressed to me. Like this one:

Eve,

You haven't said anything about the
letter I sent you. Maybe it never arrived? Or it arrived and you chose not to
read it? Or it arrived, you read it, and you're thinking it over? There are a
lot of scenarios going through my brain right now, and maybe

That was it. He never did finish
it, or send anything like it. But at least it confirmed that he was worried and
that he cared, and while I should have been able to take both of those as
givens, nothing seemed so clear-cut in a post-Laney world.

I wasn't learning anything new from
the e-mails, but that wasn't the point anymore. In fact, I wanted to be bored.
If I could be greeted every day with a bulletin saying "No change," I
probably could have forsaken the e-mails altogether. They were reassuring
because of their very dullness. The only problem was, I didn't know when it was
all going to change. After all, I'd never seen Laney coming. I felt like I had
to stay vigilant, even if it was turning me into a person I didn't much
respect. Then one day, in the Drafts folder, there she was again.

Laney,

I know it's been a while. I hope
things have been going well for you.

A lot's happened for me. I have a
little girl now. We named her Olivia. She's so pretty. And tiny. So tiny that
it amazes me, every day.

Eve and I are trying to work things
out. I'm staying with my mother right now, and I don't know when that will
change. Slow and steady wins the race, is that how the saying goes? I'm hoping
that it's true.

My immediate thoughts: Why her? Why
now? Maybe it would never be over, this pull toward Laney. Of all the people in
the world he could tell about his new baby and working on his marriage, he
wanted to tell her. As we hid behind the drone of the television night after
night, instead of thinking of things he could say to me, he must have been
thinking of her.