Throwback

by Zeia Jameson

  All of Jeremy’s family members are just as they were before. Loving. Supportive. Inviting, whenever we get the chance to visit. Jenna and I meet for lunch or coffee quite a bit. Sometimes, she comes by the apartment and we just chat. We’ve gotten moderately close. She calls me her sister. Not sister-in-law. Sister. We ran into one of her friends from work while out one afternoon and she introduced me as her sister. I never asked her about it, but I took note of the sentiment. She often tells me that she’s worried about me and about Jeremy working so much. I reassure her every time that we are ok and she always affirms that he won’t always be working so hard. It will pay off in the long run. She has living proof in her husband, Mike, who used to work longs hours, days on end. But now, he’s home a lot and his company just kinds of runs itself. I always thank her for reminding me that she and Mike were once in a similar situation and that she understands. I have never once mentioned to her that I miss Jeremy sometimes, but I guess I don’t have to. She gets it.

  My life is whole and rich with bliss.

  Jeremy and I are married.

  Our life together is full and enjoyable.

  We’re very happy.

  Sara is happy.

  Even Joe’s happy.

  Everybody is just one big ball of happy.

  And all of that makes me very happy.

  What doesn’t make me happy is waiting on test results.

  Because I am pretty sure that I am pregnant.

  ***

  23

  Livy

  Yep. That’s right. Pregnant. The doctor made it official. After three mornings of hanging my head over the toilet, I assumed there could be no other explanation. I was too chicken, or too much in denial, to buy a test and confirm it in the privacy of my own home. I made an appointment with the doctor because I wanted someone with lots of medical experience to look me in the eye and verbally confirm that I was knocked up. I had to have the vision of someone’s lips—preferably someone with a white coat with his or her name monogrammed on the chest, peeking through the stethoscope draped around his or her neck—uttering the words you are pregnant. That way, I can replay it in my head over and over in slow motion in order to come to terms with this information.

  How can I be pregnant? A question I thought I only said in my head to myself.

  “Well, Mrs. Waters, oral contraceptives are not always one hundred percent effective.”

  I looked up at the doctor. Did he just read my mind or did I ask that question out loud?

  “But we were careful. I don’t want children. I can’t...I can’t.”

  “Mrs. Waters, if you don’t want to keep this baby, you have options that you and your husband should discuss...”

  “What? No. That’s not what I...you don’t understand...Never mind...you are right. I need to talk to my husband.”

  That revelation became the most urgent thing in the world. I need to tell Jeremy. He will make this better. He’ll wake me up from this nightmare and laugh and say something like: “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not possible. We are careful. It was just a faulty (100 percent accurate) blood test. The doctor made a mistake. He’s an idiot. That’s all.”

  Leaving the doctor’s office, I call him on the phone, “Jeremy, where are you?”

  “Livy, I’m at a site. What is wrong? You never call me”.

  He’s right. I never call him. I hate talking on the phone. Communication with him when we aren’t together is usually done through texts.

  “I’m uh…in town right now. Can you meet me at home?”

  “Of course. Are you ok? I’m kinda freaking out. I’ll come home right now but please tell me everything’s ok.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just need to see you. I’ll see you at home.”

  “Ok. I love you.”

  “Love you too.” I barely get the last word out before I hang up. I’m going to hyperventilate. I can’t take another step farther. I look around to find a place to sit. There’s a nearby bench on the sidewalk. I use all of my effort to get to the bench and throw myself onto it once I get there.

  How can this happen?

  Not a hundred percent effective.

  I can’t be a mother. I can’t. I can’t!

  My hands are clenched to the bottom of the bench seat and I’m shaking my bent head back and forth, eyes closed, hair fallen forward over my face. To the passersby, I must look like a nut case.

  What the hell am I going to do?

  I can’t do this.

  I CAN’T have a baby!

  I. Can’t!

  Those two words suddenly become my only vocabulary.

  Shaking my head, repeating those two words, I look up and there is, in fact, a woman looking at me like I may be the antichrist.

  “Hun, are you ok?” she asks.

  I straighten up immediately. The last thing I need is for someone to call authorities on me because I look delusional.

  I nod. “Yes. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  I stand and smooth over my clothes.

  Get it together. Get home to Jeremy and everything will be ok.

  I begin to walk home. The words I can’t still pulsating in my head.

  I got home before Jeremy. As soon as the front door closes behind me, I drop my keys and purse and slump to the floor as if my knee caps and hip joints have simultaneously disappeared from my body. A noise releases from the back of my throat that I’m not sure how to describe. It’s half sob, half scream.

  Jeremy and I had been so careful. This makes no sense. I’m not emotionally equipped to bring a child into this world. I have no motherly genes or skills. No instincts. I’ve never once in my life looked at a child and thought, I can’t wait to have a few of those someday. Never. Ever. Hell, even this woman Marissa at work invited me—twice—to come to her home to see her new baby and I told her I couldn’t make it.

  I lied to get out of seeing a baby.

  A baby.

  I can’t have my own kid.

  I can’t.

  I can’t.

  My chest is heaving and I cannot really tell if I am actually breathing.

  My cheeks and chin and even chest are drenched from tears.

  I don’t know how to love a child.

  I don’t know how to raise a child.

  How do you put a bow in a girl’s hair?

  How to you teach a boy how to throw a ball?

  How do you teach either how to tie their shoe?

  What do you do when they cry?

  When they’re sick?

  What if they break?

  What if they hate you?

  My mind is spinning. It’s making me lightheaded. I’m taking in the appreciation that I’m already on the floor.

  The door opens. “Livy? Oh god! Livy! What is wrong, baby? Baby? Livy?”

  He kneels down next to me and wraps me in his arms, hugging me. He brushes my hair back from my face. My eyes are closed. I can’t look at him.

  I can’t.

  “I can’t! I can’t!” I manage to verbalize.

  “You can’t what, babe? Oh, Livy, you are breaking my heart. Sweetie, please tell me. What is going on?”

  I try to slow my breathing. I try to stop crying. I can’t manage to do either. I try to say something but it comes out sounding like blubbering gibberish.

  Jeremy puts both of his hands on each side of my face. “Livy, open your eyes. Please look at me. Please.”

  The urgency in his voice is gone. He is whispering to me trying to get me to calm down. I use all the brain power that is repeating I can’t and push it aside long enough to open my eyes. But then, I see his crystal blues directly in front of me. They are full of hurt and worry and even though I manage to keep my eyes locked on his, my mouth goes back on autopilot, “I can’t. I can’t.” I shake my head slowly back and forth in between his hands.

  “Baby. You can’t what? Just. Look at me.” He leans in a little closer, still whispering, “Just tell me. Like a Band-Aid. One quick tug. Blurt it out.�
�

  Zeroing in on his advice, without pause behind his last word I say, “I’m pregnant!”

  My body is almost forcing me to snap and squeeze my eyes back shut and resume the crying and the breathing and the I can’t chant.

  But before my eyelids force themselves down, I see Jeremy’s eyes go wide. Very wide. Wider than any human’s eyes have ever gone. His crystal blues become enormous orbs of...

  Excitement.

  He smiles an insanely abnormal wide smile. The features of his face look like they’ve been stretched out by one of those weird phone apps that lets you distort a picture.

  Through these oversized facial expressions, he somehow manages to say, “Livy? Did you...did you just say you were...pregnant?”

  One solitary nod of affirmation is all I can provide.

  “Oh my god! Oh my god! Livy!” He swoops me up into his arms and carries me to the couch where he sits downs and sits me on top of him, my legs hanging over his. He hugs me and presses my head into his chest sideways, kissing my head. “This is so amazing!”

  He’s so happy.

  So happy.

  But all I can imagine is that one day this kid is going to look at me and think “what kind of mother are you?” That phrase immediately comes to mind because that is the same phrase I thought about Nancy thousands of times.

  I begin to cry again. Hard. My sobs are forceful enough that they are shaking both of our bodies.

  “Livy, babe, why are you crying? Shhh. Please don’t be upset. Whatever you are thinking, it’s going to be ok.”

  I shake my head into his chest. I speak but my words are muffled, “No! I can’t do this. I can’t be a mother. I have no idea how to do that!”

  He squeezes me tighter and holds me for a long time. He doesn’t say anything in response. He gives me the occasional “shh” and slightly rocks me back and forth. I wonder what he’s thinking. If he even recalls the whole “I don’t want to have kids speech” I gave him, or the “my mother was a really shitty person and I have no business having a kid of my own” talk we had.

  ~~~

  I wake up in his arms

  At first, I think he’s sleeping too but he’s really only just got his head tilted back and his eyes closed. I lift my head and try to remember why we’re sitting on the couch in this position.

  And why my face hurts.

  And why my stomach is doing flips.

  Oh yeah.

  Fuck.

  Before I can ramp back up to panic mode, Jeremy hugs me and says, “Hey.”

  He takes his hand and turns my chin up toward his face. I lock on to his eyes. Crystal blues. This time when I look at him, I’m immediately at peace. The acid in my throat subsides and my head stops spinning.

  At peace, but still terrified. I force a smile and return, “Hey.”

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you, too,” I breathe out.

  “Are you ok?”

  The I can’t is lurking in the back of my thoughts. I have to be honest with him and act like a big girl. Even though I don’t know how being honest about how I feel is going to help. I still need to say it.

  “I can’t do this, Jeremy. We were so careful. Why is this happening? I did everything right. I don’t want children. I can’t. I can’t do it.”

  And with the truth now out there lingering in the air between us, I begin to cry again.

  Jeremy hugs me.

  “Livy, baby, listen. It’s going to be ok. We can do this. You can do this. Remember? Who gives a fuck about your past? I believe in us. We can do this.”

  “But I don’t know how to be a mother...”

  “And I don’t know how to be a father, Livy.”

  A point I’ve never considered and one he’s also never brought up. Jeremy doesn’t have enough of a memory of his father to know what to do. He doesn’t have someone to look up to either to get advice and ask questions like “how did you do this when I was a baby?” in regards to a son asking a father. In all my stupid, selfish self-wallowing, I never even thought about Jeremy’s point of view about having an absent parent (absent, not by choice).

  Of course the reason I probably never thought about it is because I never dwelled on Jeremy’s ability to be a father.

  Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I never thought about that...”

  “It’s ok. It’s just that I have a different perspective. A positive one. I don’t want to rub in it but...” I look up at him again.

  “But?” I repeat.

  “Well, you didn’t want to date me and look how that turned out.” He leans down to me slightly and kisses the side of my face. “And, you didn’t want to get married but look where we are now. Not too shabby so far.”

  “Not too shabby so far,” I say, turning up a tiny smile.

  “Now you know I can’t promise everything will be perfect, but let me tell you what I do know.” He gives me another small peck on the side of my face.

  “I know that you are an amazing women that loves me very much.”

  “That is true,” I interject.

  “I know that we have a great, solid relationship.”

  “True.”

  “I know that we have a remarkable group of people that are going to support us and will be ecstatic to know we’re pregnant.”

  We’re pregnant.

  I don’t respond.

  “And I know that you are my very beautiful wife, who is carrying my baby and that makes me so happy. It makes me want to be the best father in the world.”

  My heart bursts and the remnants flow down and warm my entire body.

  The look in his eyes.

  The love that he has for a child that he’s only known about for a few hours.

  That love overshadows any negative thoughts I have.

  I CAN do this.

  I can do this.

  Jeremy wants this baby so badly and his face isn’t holding any bit of that back. He wants a baby. A child.

  He just never mentioned it because that’s how much he loves me. He wants me to be happy even if he doesn’t get everything he wants.

  Which is exactly why I can do this.

  I can have a baby. A child.

  I can be a mother.

  And at this moment, I vow to do the exact opposite of what Nancy did.

  I vow to be the best mother my mind, body and heart will give me the capability to be.

  ***

  24

  Jeremy

  The announcement

  “Good morning, my love.” I roll toward Livy and kiss her on the cheek. I put my hand on her belly. “My other love.”

  Livy reaches her arm back and plays with my hair.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “I’m going to make breakfast. You want eggs?” I ask. It’s been almost two months since Livy told me about our baby. Our baby. I cannot believe I am going to be a father. I am going to have a child. I am going to have the opportunity to share things with our child that I craved I could have shared with my father when I was a boy.

  Livy’s appetite went from nonexistent to ravaging in the course of thirty days. I’ve tried to do my best to accommodate her nourishment needs as best I could.

  “And bacon?” she asks.

  “Of course, and bacon.” I kiss her on the cheek and head to the kitchen.

  I hope that the day she found out she was pregnant was her only emotional meltdown regarding her doubts of being a good mother. I know she has all of the elements necessary to be up for the task. I have reassured her every day that I have faith in her. I know our future with a child (or children) will be wonderful. I know it.

  I’ve wanted to tell my mother. For two months, I’ve talked to her and it took everything inside me not to blurt out that Livy is pregnant. But Livy asked that we not tell anyone until we were in the safe zone.

  Today is that day. We are going to Mom’s tonight for dinner. Jenna and Maggie will be ther
e too. And we are going to make the announcement. I know my mom is going to be over the moon ecstatic. More so than me when I found out, if that is possible.

  “Mmmm, smells good,” Livy murmurs, padding into the kitchen. She’s wearing a pair of my old flannel pajama pants and a tank top.

  She is so beautiful.

  I put down the spatula and walk over to her. I hug and kiss her. “You are my most beautiful baby-momma.” I smile. She lightly swats at my chest. “So there ARE multiple.” She winks, “I had my suspicions.”

  “Well you’re my favorite by far,” I joke.

  She snickers before sitting at the breakfast bar. “Feed me, baby-daddy, before this mama-bear gets cranky.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I load up her plate with cheesy eggs and crispy bacon and pass it to her. “You ready for tonight?” I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.

  While she takes her first large bite of eggs she looks up at me. She hesitates before she nods with her mouth full of food. After a second of chewing she says, “I’m as ready as I think I’ll ever be. Your mother is going to smother me with hugs. I might not survive her excitement.”

  I don’t disagree with her. “I’ll be your body guard. I’ll make sure she keeps the smothering to a minimum. “

  “These eggs are sooo good! What did you do different?”

  “I added Easy Cheese.” Livy’s been craving canned spray cheese for a week.

  “Ha!” She laughs loud, mouth wide open, her chewed food almost falling. She puts the backside of her hand up to her mouth to prevent such from happening. “Figures. It’s fantastic!”

  I grab the can of cheese from the counter and shake. “Want more?” I ask, holding the can upside down over her plate.

  She slowly shakes her head no.

  Then, she lifts her non-fork holding hand in the air and pinches her thumb and index finger close together. “Maybe a little.”

  I chuckle and oblige. She is so adorable.

  So beautiful.

  So amazing.

  She is going to have my baby.

  I love this woman so much.

  I’ll buy a whole fucking pallet of Easy Cheese for her if she wants it.