The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  “Somewhere not here, I don’t know,” she said to Oscar, who now began to wail.

  “Mama! Why are you mad, Mama?” he managed through sobs.

  Before she closed the door behind her, Anna flung her cell phone at Jason as a final fuck you. Jason stood helplessly in the window, and Anna found satisfaction in the tears of frustration filling his eyes. She wanted to leave him alone and scared and abandoned. It was the only way she knew to hurt him. Now he could feel what it was like to lose something sacred.

  Anna had no destination at first. In the heat of her fury, she simply got in the car and started driving. As if on autopilot, she headed toward Long Island, her two little boys crying in their car seats as Anna herself sobbed in the front. She drove east and the chaotic noise was an odd comfort. Yes, scream and cry, boys! Wail, Anna! You lost a brother or a sister and I lost a son or a daughter—there is plenty to cry about. Cry and keep crying . . .

  Eventually the boys cried themselves to sleep and Anna began to breathe evenly. She arrived at her parents’ Montauk bungalow more than three hours later, spent from emotion.

  With the boys parked in front of the TV, Anna lay down next to them on the couch, where she promptly fell asleep. When she awoke, the sun had nearly set and the boys were restless with hunger and boredom. Henry had crawled on top of her and was patting her head. Oscar was pressed up against her, doing his best to provide solace simply by staying close. Her three-year-old’s empathic instinct got under her skin. No one sensed her moods like Oscar did. He may have been only a toddler, but he was an old soul.

  As Anna awoke her first thought was that Jason would be out of his mind with worry. The couple hadn’t been out of touch for this much time since they’d been together, outside of the occasional business trip. Certainly never with the boys in tow. She knew she should call him but didn’t want to spoil the serenity she felt as she lay cuddling with the boys on the couch. Exorcising her anger at Jason’s expense left her spent.

  Evening descended and with it a resigned melancholy. Anna softened toward her abandoned husband.

  She called Jason from the landline.

  “Hi, it’s me,” she said with no affect.

  “Where are you?” Jason asked. Anna could hear him struggle to regulate his tone.

  “In Montauk.”

  “Are you and the boys okay?”

  “The boys are fine. Hungry. I don’t know what I am. Define ‘okay.’”

  “I don’t know either, Anna. I don’t know what I can do to help you.”

  “Stop, Jason. You can’t help me. Or, at least, I don’t know how.”

  Jason let out a long breath. “What if I take the train out to Montauk and then I can drive you guys back? It scares me to have you driving while you’re so upset.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? Oh, good. Okay . . .” Jason paused, then continued in a more measured tone. “I’ll take the next train or Jitney—whichever’s fastest. We can sleep there and come back to Brooklyn in the morning. You good with that?”

  “Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll take the boys out for something to eat and see you here later tonight.” Anna’s flatness was unnerving, even to herself.

  Maybe this was all she needed, she now thought, to scare and inconvenience Jason since she felt this way all the time. Scared and inconvenienced. Maybe now he would understand and be able to help her figure out how to live her life without jeopardizing all she held dear.

  They agreed on the drive home the next day that Jason would keep his plans in place to visit his client.

  IN THE AFTERMATH Anna agreed that she needed help with the boys, so she made plans to spend the weekend at her parents’ house while Jason was away working with his client. Isabel would be joining them, and Anna looked forward to time with her parents and sister. Even better, there would be plenty of hands to help with the boys. It was hard for Anna to admit she needed help, and she had to work hard not to hate herself for admitting that she couldn’t handle everything on her own.

  She and Jason were carefully attentive with each other in the days following her outburst. Anna made it a point to ask Jason for help when she needed it, and Jason willingly obliged. The couple worked to find a new rhythm to their household demands.

  ANNA HAD BECOME much closer to her parents after becoming a mother herself. She could now appreciate the impulses behind the smothering love she’d felt from them as a child as something other than intentional smothering. She still struggled to find another word for it. She did understand that it came from a good place, if sometimes fearful. But beyond that fear resided hard-won wisdom—wisdom Anna finally let in, like light through a crack in the cellar door.

  The day after Anna had lost the baby—when she was too enraged to speak with Jason and thought better than to share the news with pregnant Isabel—she’d called her mother. When Marie picked up the phone, Anna couldn’t speak and instead choked out heaving sobs.

  “Who is this? Anna? Isabel?” Anna could hear the worry in her mother’s voice.

  “It’s me. Anna. Ma . . . the baby . . . is dead!”

  “What baby, Anna? Who?! Please . . . tell me what happened,” Marie begged. (She would admit later that her heart nearly stopped, thinking Anna was talking about Henry at first and then Isabel’s baby. In true motherly fashion, she had run down the hierarchy of terrors.)

  “I was pregnant but now I’m not. I miscarried last night. I lost our baby . . . I don’t know what to do . . .” Anna released all of her pain to her mother, now calm on the other end of the line.

  “Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I know. I know what that feels like and it’s a terrible, terrible thing . . .”

  “How would you know? You never . . .” Anna quickly admonished, but then asked, “Did you?”

  “Yes, Anna, I did. Between you and Isabel, I lost a baby at the beginning of my second trimester. I mourned that baby until I had Isabel, and that child will always hold a place in my heart.” Marie’s voice grew soft and quiet for a moment before saying, “It happens, Anna. It’s not something you can blame yourself for.”

  “Do you know what caused it?” Anna was hoping a reason might make it less painful, though she also knew that sorrow doesn’t fit any equation.

  “I don’t know. My doctor scolded me for moving a couch while I had been vacuuming the day I miscarried. I don’t buy it. Maybe it’s just God’s will.”

  “Oh, please, Ma. I can’t go there.”

  “Okay, fine. But why it happened isn’t important, Anna. What is important is that you allow yourself to heal. You and Jason can get pregnant again and you will, if that’s what you want.” Marie paused. “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna admitted.

  “If I had that baby after you, Anna, then Isabel would not be here. The children you get to keep are blessings and how they come to you will always be a mystery. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll try. I’m sorry you lost a baby, but I don’t know what I’d do without Is. I’ll hold on to that.” Anna’s voice, now steady, regained its strength.

  NOW AS ANNA and her mother prepared dinner on Saturday afternoon, they reminisced about those days of long preparation for Christmas dinners. In spite of the work it took, her mother remembered them fondly. “Cooking for family and friends is a great act of love,” she’d told her daughter once long ago. Anna couldn’t understand then how days and days of cooking a meal that would be consumed in minutes could possibly be worth it. Now, with a family of her own, she finally understood how right her mother was.

  Watching the body language between her parents on this particular afternoon reminded Anna of how finely tuned Marie and Nick were to each other.

  “Nick, what time do you want to eat?” Marie hollered into the family room from the kitchen, as if they didn’t eat at the same time every Saturday. The habitual question was really Marie’s way of saying, Nick, you’re the boss, which, of course, he wasn’t really.

  “Any time you want,” Nick
replied, as he always did. It was Nick’s way of acknowledging the respect implicit in her asking but also that he trusted her to make the decision.

  Nick kissed Marie on the cheek as he passed her in the kitchen on his way to the garage to pick a bottle of wine for dinner. Marie smiled, then swatted him away, and Anna marveled at the moment of flirtation between these two people who had lived together for nearly fifty years.

  Marie could anticipate Nick’s every need before he even recognized them for what they were. It had more to do with empathy on her mother’s part, Anna realized now, than a power struggle between them. When it came down to the major decisions, Marie usually had the final say. It wasn’t about power at all, but rather a dance that had been perfected after years of living under one roof, raising a family, navigating the heartbreaks and joys in a way to keep it all going another day and then another week and then another year.

  Anna thought back to her childhood interpretation of her parents’ marriage and became acutely aware of how the dynamics interpreted by each family member were twisted into individual logic or, in some cases, illogic. Who’s to say what is truth between two people? Today, Marie still deferred to Nick, at least in the most obvious ways, but Anna was no longer sure who was in charge. More important, she wasn’t sure it mattered at all.

  BY THE AUTUMN afternoon of Maggie’s roundtable taping, Anna was feeling strong again. It had been almost two months since the miscarriage and she was beginning to recognize the better parts of herself again. With just two more weeks of work to go before taking time for herself, Anna was optimistic that she might be able to contribute something worthy to a discussion on motherhood.

  Humbled by the previous few months, when the balance of her life had tipped into one dominated by anxiety and depression, Anna had finally forgiven Jason for what he had no control over. Her sense of vulnerability was all her own.

  The couple had time to tuck away for an afternoon while the boys were at a gymnastics class with their nanny, Jenny. They luxuriated in bed for hours, making love for the first time since Anna’s miscarriage.

  “So you no longer hate me?” Jason asked earnestly.

  “Oh, Jason, you know I never hated you.” She kissed his shoulder and neck and nuzzled there.

  “You were angry, though. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you that angry.”

  “I was frustrated and heartbroken and, yes, angry too. I know we can try for another baby—and we will—but before we do that, I need to understand what I really want: from work, with you, for my life. I wish it were easier, but it just isn’t. I thought I knew how I wanted things to be, but I guess I don’t. I think I’m angry with the not knowing . . .” She said the last part very quietly.

  “How can I help?”

  “Just having you and the boys in my life is all the help I need. That, and you could make more money . . .” She laughed when she said this, but she was dead serious.

  “I am trying, Anna.”

  “Will you promise to try harder, Jason? Promise me that?”

  “Yes, I will try harder. I know how hard it is for you, and I’ll do everything I can to shoulder the burden with you.”

  “I know I was the one who said ‘try,’” Anna pushed, “but can you say you ‘will’? You will share that burden with me? Even if you don’t make any money, can you at least share the responsibility?”

  “I will, Anna. I will.” Jason kissed her lips to seal his promise to her.

  Just then they heard the front door open and the boys run into the house, Oscar yelling for their parents. “Mama, Papa, where are you? I did a big flip today!”

  “Coming, my darlings!” Anna yelled back as she leaped out of bed, threw on one of Jason’s large shirts, and ran to greet the other two loves of her life.

  AFTER THE TAPING, Anna and Isabel went to lunch together. Anna hadn’t seen much of her sister over the past summer. She’d felt remiss about not making more of her sister’s pregnancy, but she also felt uncomfortable in close proximity to her sister’s pregnancy in the aftermath of her failed one. Now she wondered if her protective nature for her sister had given her an outsized sense of how her experiences affected Isabel. The fact of the matter was it seemed that Isabel had barely noticed the absence of her sister over the summer, as mired as she was in the experience of being pregnant for the first time.

  “So what was all that about in there?” Anna asked of her younger sister once they’d said their good-byes to the other women outside the studio.

  “All that what in there?” Isabel asked, innocent as can be.

  “All that supposedly theoretical crap about libido and pregnancy? Are you really that turned on by being pregnant?” Anna linked arms with Isabel as they walked, not really wanting an answer from her. When one wasn’t offered, Anna let it go. “Italian or Japanese?” she asked instead.

  “Italian. I need some bread dipped in olive oil,” Isabel answered quickly, as if she’d been waiting for the question all morning.

  “Is that your only craving?” Anna asked as she led her little sis into a nearby trattoria.

  “That and sex.”

  Anna shot a sideways glance at Isabel, who was smiling wickedly. “Seriously, Is, what is up with you?”

  “I’ve been seeing a lot of Christopher. You know how I get around him.”

  Anna had played witness to the past decade of flirtation and unconsummated romance between Isabel and Christopher. She knew nothing had ever happened between them, but for a moment Isabel’s wistful smile gave her pause. She shook her head to clear her doubts—Isabel might go there, but Christopher, for all his mischievousness, most certainly would not. His squeamishness around life’s messiness precluded it. To a certain extent, she didn’t care much either way. Isabel positively glowed with health: whatever she was doing seemed to be working for her. In their younger lives together, Anna would have pressed Isabel for more information, but she had learned to back off and give Isabel space. Important things had a way of bubbling to the surface when they needed to.

  The sisters sat at a table near the window. Afternoon light streamed through the plate glass, warming them. They each ordered a glass of wine and relaxed into their seats.

  “So you’re really serious about taking some time away from work to be with Jason and the boys?” Isabel asked.

  Anna nodded. “I’m so excited. I can’t imagine life without running around exhausted. Or life period, for that matter.” Anna was more optimistic than Isabel had seen her in a long time.

  “Sounds great. I’m so happy for you. I bet the boys are ecstatic.”

  “Henry is clueless, but Oscar is on top of it. This morning he said, ‘Mama, pretty soon you will not go to work so you can stay home and play with me all day?’ I told him, ‘Yes, I can play with you and Henry and Papa too.’ I don’t think he liked that very much.” Anna laughed at the thought of her sweet, manipulative Oscar.

  Isabel became contemplative. “I’m almost ready,” Isabel said, laying her hands across her belly.

  Anna thought about the past August, when she had lost the baby. She would tell Isabel about it sometime in the future when the admission that things can go terribly wrong wouldn’t darken Isabel’s optimism. Anna knew in her heart at that very moment how lucky she was to have two healthy little boys and for the first time didn’t feel anguish over the miscarriage. She couldn’t wait to share the secrets of motherhood with her little sister.

  “Do what you can for yourself for the next two months, Is, because after that, what you do for yourself won’t look anything like it does now,” Anna cautioned.

  “I know. I am,” Isabel said, still lost in her own reverie before focusing again on Anna. “Do you have any trepidation at all about being at home all day?”

  “No. I know it’s unrealistic, but I feel like it’s a vacation even though I have to use the time constructively to figure out how I want to live my life. I admit, I’ve never been so confused as I am now. You know, Mom was right when she said that m
en have it made these days. God that pissed me off, but maybe because she’s right.”

  “She is right, but it sure got you riled . . .” Isabel teased.

  “It was that obvious she hit a nerve, huh?” Anna said. She smiled, but a shadow played across her expression. “So what is it with women today? Even if we are the breadwinners, go out and work all day, there’s no one at the end of the day to give us our slippers and a martini, have supper ready and put the kids to bed.” As she got fired up she began to speak faster. “I mean, where is the equity? All these years fighting for the right to be given equal opportunity, and what did we get? More than our share of responsibility. I’m angry and I don’t even know who the hell I’m mad at! God, it’s exhausting.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe you like it that way? You’re needed and respected at work, you’re needed and loved at home. You have a happy home and workplace and a healthy income to boot. Do you think that doesn’t come at some cost? I mean, face it, Anna. You aren’t some passive observer. You’ve created the life that you wanted.”

  “I know. That’s what is so maddening. And it isn’t enough to say ‘careful what you ask for,’ because getting the life you want is still the prize. Sometimes I just think I can’t handle what I want. How fucked-up is that?”

  Isabel casually dipped piece after piece of crusty bread in the olive oil. “Maybe you’re angry with yourself for being human.”

  “When did you become a philosopher?”

  “You’ll figure it out. That’s what this time is for, and you know you couldn’t have a more understanding person than Beth to help you come to a solution with work.”

  “She was the one who suggested I take the time in the first place. She’s been an angel.”

  “‘Angel’ is not the word I’d use to describe Beth under any circumstances,” Isabel said, and they both laughed. “But she always knows what she’s doing, that’s for sure.”

  The sisters caught up on family drama. Anna filled Isabel in on the latest from Bobby. Most recently he’d failed to make payments to dear old Uncle Sam and the IRS had garnished his income. They laughed at the absurdity of a man who makes over a million a year but doesn’t pay his taxes, not because he is evading them, but because it simply doesn’t occur to him to file.