Admittedly, I had been a tad harsh and insensitive. Time for some damage control. “No, of course I don’t think you’re crazy, I think you’re hopeful. Since I know you’re going to get pregnant, there is no reason you shouldn’t buy a few maternity items, if it makes you feel good.”
She bit at her thumbnail, still standing there in her jumper, looking like she’d swallowed a watermelon. “I don’t know.”
Would I want someone so indecisive and kooky raising my baby?
* * *
An hour later and we still hadn’t looked at one piece of furniture.
After I had inhaled a turkey sub and she a BLT, Kendra had suggested we get some ice cream. Never one to turn down a scoop of rocky road, I agreed and there we sat, two grown women licking away at our ice cream cones like we had in distant summers past.
“So, we haven’t really talked in a while,” Kendra said before licking an errant drip of her French vanilla before it dribbled down her cone. “How’s everything going?”
I knew what she meant. I knew she was referring to my new marital status, my new living arrangements, my new job and the fact that I had just bought a house, but all those things took a backseat to my most pressing issue.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurted out.
Kendra halted mid-lick. She slowly looked up at me, her eyes boring into my soul.
“What?”
Unable to hold Kendra’s gaze, I looked down at my cone, suddenly feeling foolish; eating such a childish food while talking about such grown-up issues. “I’m pregnant,” I repeated, almost choking on the words.
Kendra didn’t say anything, but her silence told volumes. Suddenly, she got up from her chair, sending me into an instant panic. But she just took a few steps to toss the rest of her ice cream into the garbage.
I wanted to do the same, but my legs shook like jelly under the table so I continued eating the cone, taking no pleasure in it. I forced myself to look at Kendra when she returned to her chair. Taking a deep breath, I willed the butterflies out of my stomach before speaking.
“And I want you to have it.”
As I stared at her, Kendra blinked several times before speaking. “You what?”
I smiled. This should be happy news. “I want you and Paul to adopt my baby.”
I could almost see the neurons firing through the expressions on Kendra’s face as her frown morphed into a grin then to a toothy smile that produced deep dimples in her cheeks. The smile none of us had seen in a long time.
“Are you serious?” she asked, fidgeting her fingers. “You wouldn’t screw me around about this, would you?”
I exhaled, allowing the breath to take my stress with it. “Believe me, although I wish I was joking about the pregnancy, I can assure you that I am not. And I can’t think of anyone better or more deserving of my baby.”
Kendra beamed in a way I imagined she would have if she’d seen the little pink positive sign show up on one of her countless pregnancy tests.
I popped the end of the cone in my mouth, glad that I hadn’t thrown it out, and wiped my sticky hands on the paper napkin.
“But what about Dave? Has he said he doesn’t want the baby? That doesn’t seem like Dave.” As I looked up at Kendra, her smile had dissolved as she started to work out the details.
Of course, I had kept my illicit indiscretion from Kendra. But there was no avoiding it; I had to come clean now. “It’s not Dave’s,” I said, hoping it would be the last time I had to admit that terrible truth.
I turned away to avoid the predictable reaction I had already gotten from my other friends.
“Oh,” was the only word I got, but what Kendra didn’t say out loud dripped of her infamous sanctimonious attitude towards pre, post, and extramarital sex.
“Listen,” I said, still unable to meet her gaze. “I made a mistake. It’s done now and I’m trying to make the best of what is really just a big nightmare.”
I will not cry in the food court, I will not cry in the food court.
Kendra pursed her lips, her expression pensive. When she finally spoke, it was to say the last thing I could have ever expected. “I can’t take your baby, Vicky.”
I was suddenly rendered absolutely speechless. I just stared at my friend, incredulous and then got increasingly angry.
She shook her head, reading my mind. “I would love to have your baby, Vicky, and at first, it really does seem like the perfect solution for both of us, but think about it: it’s too close.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she was quick to continue, “You are a bit of a control freak. How is that going to translate to you watching me and Paul raising your baby? Do you really think you could stand by the sidelines and watch while me and Paul go to the baby’s recitals and graduations? Do you really think you could handle that?”
No, I probably couldn’t. Leave it to Kendra to always be the rational one. Although lately it seemed like she was a constant ball of emotion, she had always been the conservative one, the one who thought everything through. Christ, even her decision to marry Paul had been one not taken lightly after she told him she would have to take twenty-four hours to consider his proposal.
I swallowed. “But I can’t keep this baby.”
She frowned at me. “As much as it kills me to say this because it means I am turning down a baby, there are lots of other couples out there just like me and Paul who would be so blessed to raise your baby.”
“I’m not that strong,” I told her, the same as I had to Jen.
“What are you talking about?” she asked after delivering a motherly tsk.
“How could I give up a baby to never see him again? Could you ever do that, Kendra? Could you ever put a part of you out into the world to never know what happened to him?”
“No, I couldn’t. But Vicky, I’m not the one who left my husband because I don’t want children.”
Okay, although I probably deserved that, it still hurt.
“I know it sounds harsh, but you created a life. You need to make a decision and I think if you terminate your pregnancy, you are being pretty selfish.”
That, I didn’t deserve. I lifted my head and looked into my friend’s eyes, my anger palpable, my voice barely above a hiss. “That is categorically unfair. You don’t know what I’ve gone through. You don’t know the nights I’ve stayed awake trying to figure all this out. None of this is easy, but I’ll tell you what would have been the easy way out. The easy way out would have been to go back to Dave and tell him this was his baby. The easy way would have been to let him raise this baby so I could have my husband back. But you know why I won’t do that?” I waited for her to ask my why, but when she didn’t respond, I continued anyway. “Because I wouldn’t do that do Dave, that’s why. And you have the audacity to call me selfish?”
She stared at me, her lips slightly less pursed than they had been. “You’re right, I’m sorry. That was unfair of me. But really, Vic, you should think again about giving your baby up for adoption.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but again, she was quick to continue, negating whatever it was I was going to say. “I know it would be the hardest thing you would ever do, harder than leaving Dave times a hundred, but I know you, Vicky, and I know if you dig deep, you can do this. You would be giving your baby and a new family the biggest gift...and you know—”
I held up a hand to cut her off, unable to listen to any more of her adoption sales pitch. “Kendra, I’ve really done more thinking on this than I ever could have imagined was even necessary and I do know my options. I guess I was foolish to think that you and Paul could adopt my baby and obviously I didn’t think it through. I guess what I need now more than everyone’s opinion on what I should do, is friends who will support whatever it is I do, even if it’s not the popular choice.”
After several tense, silent moments between us, Kendra’s expression suddenly softened, giving way to a weak smile. “I can do that, Vic. You know how I feel, I’ve gotten it out of my system. Of course, I’ll al
ways be your friend no matter what you do.”
It was the most I could ask for. Although I knew Kendra would never be the leader in my fan parade based on this issue, I knew that she would be there, ready with a hug and a Kleenex should I need her to ever supply. I would never even consider asking her to come to the hospital for my procedure, (not that I think she would go) but I knew she would show up at my door with some flowers or chocolates, genuinely concerned about me.
But although our difficult discussion was over, my emotions were still running high as the realization of what I was going to have to do really hit home. Denial and distraction were going to have to be the new theme for the day to preserve my sanity and keep me from emotional implosion. “So can we get to Sears so I can pick out some furniture?”
Obviously relieved, Kendra smiled. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 22
Hanukah came during the third week of December, the celebration culminating in a huge family dinner at my parents’ house. There was no weaseling out of it, but it was going to be painfully obvious that Dave would not be there. Hopefully, that would be enough to take the focus off what was going to be missing from my plate; I didn’t want anyone to know the real reason for my recent aversion to beef.
I was summoned to come early and help my mother, but I was happy for the diversion.
“Are you sure you didn’t want to invite Dave?” My mother asked, validating my fear that she thought more of my husband than of her own daughter.
I looked up from peeling carrots. “Ma, don’t you think it would be kind of weird if I invited him? I mean we’re separated.”
She rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean he’s stopped eating.”
Ah, eating, the social equalizer. But at least now I had figured out why Mom hadn’t told anyone about my separation; she was waiting for a reunion. She just wouldn’t accept that my marriage was over.
I turned to see Ruby walking in, holding a potato kugel, her two kids in tow. She walked right over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Did I hear right? She didn’t invite Dave, did she?” My sister never missed a beat.
I shook my head. “No, but she’s talking like she wanted to.”
Ruby jumped to my defense. “Ma! Leave Vicky alone.” She turned and handed our mother the casserole dish, “Here, take this kugel. It’s cooked, but you can warm it up. I’m sure it will taste like shit but, hey, at least I made something.”
“Ruby!” mother scolded, her eyes on the kids to see if they noticed their mother swearing. “Don’t say that, I’m sure it will be delicious.”
We all had our doubts; everyone knew Ruby was a mediocre cook at best. Sadly, Mom’s cooking gene had not been passed on to her offspring.
Dad meandered into the kitchen, tousling Michael’s hair and giving Katie a kiss on the cheek before shooing them out of the hot kitchen with the promise of new games on his computer. Once they were gone, he got back to his real reason for entering the kitchen: removing pot lids to have a gander inside. “Now girls, what’s going on in here?” he said into the depths of the chicken soup.
Never one to pass up on involvement in a good controversy, Ruby piped up. “Mom was trying to tell Vicky she should have invited Dave for dinner.”
Dad cringed before he turned and left the room. Smart man.
Mom harrumphed at Dad’s quick departure. “Well anyway, I knew you wouldn’t do the right thing, Vicky, and Dave’s parents are away in Philadelphia, so…”
I dropped the carrot and the peeler. “You didn’t!”
She turned away and opened the cutlery drawer, digging for some unknown utensil. “I ran into him in the grocery store and all he had in his cart were frozen dinners. I couldn’t let him eat those. It will be fine, you and he are friendly. Who knows, maybe it will rekindle something.” She finally turned to me and smiled, her eyes full of hope.
I was speechless. Actually, that’s not true. I did have a suddenly prepared speech at the ready, full of expletives I wanted to screech at my mother. But I didn’t. I pushed it down back into my bile-filled gut, turned and left the room. I left Ruby to contend with my mother.
“Where are you going?” Dad asked from his armchair as I bolted for the door.
“I can’t stay here,” I snapped. Then, as an afterthought, I stopped and wheeled on my father. “Did you know she invited Dave for dinner?”
His widening eyes answered my question. “I had no idea,” he said as he pushed himself out of the chair. “Marion?” he hollered, his brow crunched up as he stormed into the kitchen. I followed him, a few steps behind; curious at what was going to happen next. Dad almost never got mad, but once in a while, Mom did one of those things that made him yell her name in that tone, the same tone that had always made us kids drop everything and scatter. I think the worst was the time she’d invited the Rabbi over for dinner and didn’t tell Dad. It wasn’t that she brought a guest home that was the problem, but that she left dinner up to Dad who had, in his oblivion, baked a ham.
The rabbi never complained about the impromptu kosher/Chinese takeout, but I’m sure he considered the meal a bit, eh hem, unorthodox.
“What have you done?” Dad demanded of his wife, who was standing in the kitchen, a dumbfounded look on her face.
“What are you talking about? I’ve made dinner for my family, what is so wrong with that?”
“Did you invite David?”
Mom’s lip quivered before a tiny ‘yes’ squeaked out of her throat.
“What were you thinking?” the color began to rise in Dad’s face, beginning in his cheeks and spreading outward.
“I’m going to see what Katie and Michael are doing,” Ruby said to no one in particular before she ducked out of the kitchen.
“I just thought…”
Before Mom could finish the doorbell rang. As one, we all swung toward the front hall.
“I’ll get it,” I offered, figuring if it was Dave, it should be me to welcome him in, regardless of the fact that he was just about the last person I wanted at my family’s Hanukah dinner. Well, next to my mother, anyway.
I pressed my face against the door, lining my right eye up to the peephole. And there he was: standing on my parent’s front porch, a bouquet of flowers in his left hand.
Before I could bring myself to open the door, I filled my lungs with air.
Then I grabbed the doorknob, opening the door quickly, like it was a sticky bandage I was ripping off.
“Hey, Vicky. It’s great to see you,” Dave said, the smile on his face convincing; he really was happy to see me. He leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. He smelled good, the way he always did, a faint smell of aftershave and a bit of his own special pheromone concoction, guaranteed to attract single moms within a several mile radius of the dental office.
A look of concern washed over his face. “Pardon me if this sounds stupid, but I have to ask.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Why did you want me here tonight? Isn’t this a bit weird for you, too?”
I looked at him as the truth of the situation blossomed in my already churning stomach. “She told you that this was my idea? I just found out you were coming like four minutes ago.”
Dave’s eyes widened. “You mean she…?”
I nodded, rolling my eyes.
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I never would have come if I knew…God, this is horrible.”
But it wasn’t so horrible. It was nice to see him. Although, it hurt a little that he looked so good. “It’s okay. You know what? It could be worse. She could have invited a stranger to set me up with. At least this way I know the person she wants me to go home with.” I chuckled awkwardly, not even finding my own joke funny.
Dave looked down at the flowers in his hand. “I brought these for your mother.”
“You shouldn’t have, since she totally manipulated both of us, but I’ll let you give them to her anyway.” I led Dave up the few stairs into my parents’ living room.
Dad’s temper seemed
to have dissolved by the time he strode over to Dave, a huge smile on his face, his hand out.
Dave took Dad’s hand and pumped it, sporting a smile of his own; it used to be of great comfort to me that the two most important men in my life had always gotten along. Now it was just awkward. If everyone hated each other, maybe I could make a clean break.
“How’re you doing, Dave?” Dad asked.
Dave nodded in response. “Great,” he glanced at me, his smile dissolving. “Well, um…” At least he had the decency to know he was supposed to be as miserable as I.
It was suddenly a bit tense. “Let’s get a drink, shall we?” I offered, herding Dave into the kitchen so he could give my mother the flowers.
Always PC and not wanting to make waves, Dave didn’t mention anything about the false pretenses under which he had been invited to dinner. I assured him quietly that my father had taken care of the chance of it ever happening again anyway, so it was good to just let the subject die and maybe try to have an okay time.
So only a short time later, after a few more presses of the doorbell, my extended family sat at the dinner table for what was going to be a relatively stress-free Hanukkah dinner.
Or what should have been.
I had a mouth full of latke (something about the combination of potato, onion and grease was suddenly almost orgasmic; I couldn’t get enough of the artery-hardening pancakes into my seemingly bottomless gut) when my sister’s voice rose over the din.
“Well, it looks like next year there will be one more seat at the table! Guess who’s expecting?”
Latke shrapnel peppered my mother’s cherished antique tablecloth. I forced myself to swallow what remained in my mouth and not choke.
How could she know?
Was it that I had eaten at least twelve latkes and nothing else? Was it the way I turned green and had to leave the room when my father removed the roast from the oven and began to carve into the still-bloody flesh? Did I have that undeniable pregnancy glow?
I looked up to face all the sets of eyes that would surely be trained on me but then realized very quickly that this wasn’t about me at all. Ruby was the one who was glowing, her smile spread wide.
Life, Sideways Page 13