The Late, Lamented Molly Marx (14 page)

“What’s wrong?” I repeated. “Doctor, why don’t
you tell me?
”

“Excuse me?” His facial expression withered into resentment and distrust.

“Who is she?” I snarled. “Or should I say, who is she this time?”

“You really know how to turns things foul, don’t you? I have no idea what you’re talking about, except you’ve spoiled a perfectly pleasant evening.”

“I’ve spoiled things?” I snorted. Barry can handle me when I’m cranky, petulant, sad, or worried. What he can’t take is when I show some grit. Like at that moment. So I kept going. From somewhere, I was feeling an energy surge so powerful you’d think I was getting it through an IV drip. “You have a rap sheet four years long,” I said, my voice rising. “How many other women have there been, Barry?” I pronounced his name as if it were a fatal virus carried by fruit bats. “All you doctors think you’re God!”

“Go ahead, Molly, slam the whole profession,” he said with equal contempt. “For this whole pregnancy I’ve put up with your mood swings, your anxieties, your goddamn beet addiction. I’ve come to almost every doctor appointment—”

“Was this all a terrible hardship? Did it take you away from your ‘special friends’?” Despite the knife in my hand, I made that asinine gesture that suggests quotation marks, while he was sticking with the best-defense-is-a-good-offense strategy. At least he was being offensive.

“Do you think you’ve been easy to live with?” he said. “Or that you look so cute? And how about your complete lack of interest in sex?” His voice kept getting louder and his face closer. With the third question, spittle landed on my cheek.

That’s when I put down the cake knife, hauled off, and threw the plate. I loved that plate, a wedding gift from my aunt Vicki.

“Shit, you’re dangerous!” he said as he ducked. “Get a grip!”

“I don’t want to get a grip, you jackass,” I said. “I want a normal marriage. I want respect. I want—”

“If you act like this, I guess it’s just your plight to have no respect.”

“So now I have a
plight?
” I said, parking my hands on my massive belly. I suddenly understood what evolutionary biologists don’t: why a female praying mantis tears off the male’s head when he approaches her from behind, flapping his wings and strutting in hopes of having doggie-style sex. Obviously, she has just heard Mr. Mantis call his girlfriend. “Barry, last I noticed, we are having a baby. If you—when you—cheated on me before, which I’m fairly sure you have, I was willing to write it off as your version of immaturity. But the rules have changed. If you cheat on me now, I swear to God, you will wake up one morning”—I eyed the knife—“and your penis will be gone.” Sweat was dripping off my face. “Do not,” I shouted, breathing hard, “underestimate me.”

“Holy crap,” he shouted back. “You make me
want
to cheat on you. And I can think of a few of your friends who’d be more than willing.”

Barry turned his back, which was just as well. At the moment the sight of his contorted, purple face, handsome as it might be in repose, repulsed me. “I’ve got to get out of here before I do something I regret.”

“You don’t regret what you’ve already done?” I bellowed as he left the room. “You don’t regret anything?” But he didn’t answer. Then, like an exclamation point, our front door slammed.

I stood in the kitchen, surrounded by shattered glass, a fitting tribute to our marriage. As I waddled to the closet to find a broom and dust pan, I caught my reflection in the cabinet glass; it took a second to register that this mess was me. My shoes trampled the yellowish ooze that once was a tart. I carefully swept up the larger pieces of broken glass, dumped them in the trash, and filled a pail with soapy water to wash lemon debris off every surface, including my face. What a waste of a luscious tart. What a waste, period.

It took me a full ten minutes until I began to cry, but when I did, the tears came like grenades. I began heaving so intensely I abandoned my cleaning, stumbled into the bedroom, hoisted my heavy body onto the bed, and pulled the comforter up to my neck. I grabbed a pillow and sobbed until I slipped into a dreamless sleep of uncertainty, anguish, and unadulterated exhaustion.

Around three in the morning I woke, my head throbbing. I instinctively felt for Barry in total darkness, but his side of the bed was empty. As I came to, the full force of our battle repeated itself like a badly written, atonal soundtrack for a movie called
Oh, Shit
. I walked into the bathroom and tried to remember what kind of pain meds my obstetrician allowed me to take. Not aspirin, she’d warned. Only Tylenol. My face was swollen and my hair was like burnt grass. I ran warm water in the tub and dumped in the first bath product I found, an unfortunate potion that smelled more like turbo-strength disinfectant than the spruce for which it was named.

I soaked until every bubble popped and the water grew cold. Shivering, I turned on the shower and quickly washed my hair, then wrapped myself in a none-too-clean towel and got out the blow-dryer. My arm felt too weary to lift it. I aborted the mission and began walking back to the bedroom to find a pair of granny underpants and my faded flower-sprigged flannel nightgown, wondering if Lucy still owned its voluminous red twin.

Dribbles of water followed me as I padded across the room. I made nothing of it. But when I bent down to open a drawer, a persistent trickle leaked on the taupe carpeting. Stupidly trying to deny the source of this pink fluid, I stumbled to the bed, laid the towel on the comforter, and crawled on top of it, hoping what was now a small gush would end.

I closed my eyes and dozed. When I woke, the clock on the nightstand read 4:48 and the towel was soaked. I remained inert. At 5:10, I felt a dull pulse inside both thighs, as if I were getting my period. Nothing operatic. But a half hour later, the pain returned with twice the force.

If I lay very still, would the pain and pressure stop? Whose idea of a bad joke was this?
Not now
, I thought.
Not fucking now
.

A more reasonable part of me laughed aloud and began to hear my mom’s voice.
Get yourself together, Molly, my darling
, she trilled.
This is a wonderful day. You are going to be a mother. Find Barry and start timing the contractions. Yes, that’s what they are, silly goose. Don’t you remember what they taught you?

I called Barry’s cell phone. It wasn’t turned on. I left a message. “Call me.” To make sure he didn’t interpret the words as a preamble to
an apology, I repeated the demand. “Call me immediately, you douche bag.”

I considered the suitcase I was supposed to have packed. Typically, I’d not gotten around to it. With surprising calm, I threw some random clothes into a large tote. Later on, I wondered what had made me think that in the hospital I’d need lacy camisoles and matching thongs. White silk, yet.

I kept looking at the clock. Each minute ticked by slowly. Maybe nothing was really happening. I was overdramatizing, as Barry often accused me of doing. Now I was sorry I’d called him.

But then another pain came, burning like a torch. Twenty minutes had passed. I found Dr. Kim’s number and left a message with her answering service. Five minutes later my doctor returned the call.

“I think my water broke,” I said.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital, Molly,” she answered, upbeat.

I wanted to be strong. Again, I dialed Barry’s number. His cell phone was still off. “I’m going to the hospital,” I said, trying not to sound electric with emotion. “Nice if you could join me,” I added—a phrase impossible to say without sarcasm.

What, I thought, would Lucy do if she were having a baby? Squat on the floor, punch someone’s lights out if they suggested medication, drop a ten-pound infant, and run a half marathon? I had a sudden need to talk to my titanium sister. She answered on the fourth ring. “Molly, do you have any idea what time it is here?” she croaked. In Chicago it would be 5:35 A.M., and she is not one of those people who rise and shine.

“Sorry,” I said. “But I think I’m having the baby.”

“This is not entirely unexpected.” There was a long pause. “And?”

“And I’m all alone,” I snorted as I wiped my tears on my sleeve. “Don’t ask. What should I do?”

“Man, what did I smoke last night? Please tell me I’m dreaming.”

“Honest to God, Luce, I’m having contractions. The doctor wants me to go to the hospital.” I started to whimper. “Barry is MIA. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“Listen to me, and don’t be a twit,” she said, now firmly in control. “Get in a taxi. Go to Mt. Sinai. That is, unless you want your doorman to deliver that baby.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’re right.” My sister, the good teacher, had spoken. “Okay.”

“God damn it, I wish I could be there,” she barked. “Where’s that scumbag husband of yours? No, don’t answer. I don’t want to know. Call Brie. Have her meet you.”

“Call Brie,” I repeated mechanically.

“Have her call me!” Lucy shouted as I clicked off.

I took a deep breath. “Good morning,” I said to Brie. I sounded almost sane until a contraction tightened around my stomach like a steel band. “Could you meet me at the hospital?” I whispered.

“What’s going on?” she answered, wide awake, no doubt having already devoured the
Wall Street Journal
and her usual orange before she set out for a six o’clock training session.

“Nothing, probably,” I said. I hoped it was nothing. But “nothing” was hurting at regular intervals, poking deep, as if someone were trying to locate each of my internal organs and rip them out one by one with a garden hoe. “Barry has an emergency,” I lied, “and I just need you to hold my hand, okay? I’m thinking it’s a false alarm.”

“Got it,” Brie said. “See you at Sinai.”

I mustered the where withal to limp out the door and hail a taxi. Which wasn’t hard. The sight of a whale-woman flailing her arms on a street corner at dawn tends to get a driver’s attention. And evidently I wasn’t the first frightened, frantic pregnant patient the hospital crew had seen stagger in solo. Within minutes, I was certified by insurance, wearing a gown, and declared to be six centimeters dilated. By the time Brie arrived I was surrounded by nurse-angels and hooked up to every kind of beeping
Star Wars
machine. Between contractions, I mentally redecorated the birthing room: sky blue paint and orchids. I refused to let myself think about Barry.

I thought it would make me feel better to have Brie at my side, but every time I felt a contraction, her jaw clenched as if she were having a wisdom tooth extracted without anesthetic. She’d yammer away, shouting, “Oh! Does it hurt? Does it hurt a lot? Christ, that was a big one. Whew, it’s over now. We can relax.” Which meant she could relax. But she didn’t. Brie was hopeless; I could see that by the time I gave birth, she’d need a visit to a sanitarium.

One hour passed. Two. And then I lost count. The pain kept coming,
as if the Weather Channel were replaying hurricane footage. I didn’t think about Barry. What would he have done, anyway? Make me feel it was my fault that the baby was showing up three weeks early upsetting his surgery schedule?

I tried to let myself feel proud.
Molly Marx, superwimp, a woman who wouldn’t be able to dispose of a mousetrap, is having a baby
. Part of me seemed to hover on the ceiling, watching myself groan and grunt and look hideous but mighty all at once. I was a stick of dynamite ready to blow.

When the contractions were down to five minutes apart, I turned to Brie and said, “You don’t have to stay.”

“I won’t leave you,” she answered, mopping my forehead with a cool, damp towel.

An epidural was the next order of business. “It’s going to get bloody.”

“I can handle it.”

“Any word from Barry?”

“I didn’t try to call him again,” she said, and I’ll never know if that was true. “What happened between you two?”

I waved away the thought of him. “Not important,” I said, which was true, because I suddenly thought my uterus was going to fall on the floor, to be followed by an elephant calf wandering out to nurse at my breast.

“Okay, liftoff,” said the deliriously gleeful nurse. I wanted to slap her. With amazing speed, I was greeted by Dr. Kim, who emerged from the haze wearing a smile and a shmatte over her silky black hair. She is one of the few women I know who looks good in aquarium-green drawstring pants and Crocs.

“Are you ready to have a baby, Molly girl?” she said.

“Hell, no,” I yelled.

“I beg to differ,” she said. “You! Are! Ready! When I tell you to push, push.”

What did she mean, push? A wallop of drugs had kicked in, and I wouldn’t have been able to feel an apartment building fall on my head.

“Okay, now, push,” she said.

“We have to push,” Brie said, in case I hadn’t heard. Brie was standing now, wearing a gown over her gym clothes. The glimpse of
face behind her mask looked deathly pale. All I could hear were a sorority of women yelling “Push” and “Good girl” and “Wow” and “Great” and finally “Here it comes—here it comes—here it comes.” Were we all having a group orgasm?

I felt a creature slither out of me. Then there were cheers, as if the Giants had hammered the Patriots in the Super Bowl. I felt carbonated with joy. Had my feet not been in stirrups, I might have jitterbugged.

I had made and delivered a
baby
. Me, me, me. I could split an atom, box with a bear, dog-paddle to Hawaii.

I closed my eyes and talked to God.
Let this child be healthy. Let him have all the appropriate body parts. Let him be wise and strong and good. Let him not have Barry’s nose
. For minutes on end, I believe, I held my breath in suspense.

When I opened my eyes, my little boy was clean and resting on my chest. William Alexander was screaming. He had the most exquisite, pinched face, bigger than a grapefruit, and a few random hairs flattened into a comb-over. “We’re a team now, kiddo,” I whispered into his miniature ear. “I’m your mommy and I love you. I will always, always, always love and protect you.”

I examined my child carefully. He had wrinkly pink skin, ten fingers, and ten toes. He didn’t, however, have a penis. My first thought was that the baby was deformed. Then I realized that I, Molly Divine Marx, had produced a female child. A very small me.