The End of Men

by Karen Rinaldi

  “Did I scare you the night of Maxx Tripp’s party?” Christopher asked plainly.

  Isabel’s eyes met his directly for the first time that night. “It worried me that I couldn’t read you. I think you were trying to tell me that your heart was a little broken. Is that right?” Isabel couldn’t believe that after years of bouncing off Christopher’s force field of inscrutability, she had finally reached his heart only now to break it.

  “Yes, it is.” His wore a stoic expression.

  The two sat for a long time without talking. Isabel kept shifting her weight from one side of her buttocks to the other to try to relieve the numbness in her legs.

  “Why are you fidgeting?” Christopher finally asked.

  “It’s this chair, it’s killing me.”

  “Do you want to leave? We can try someplace else or just go to my apartment and order something.”

  “I’d actually prefer to go to your apartment, though I’m not up for sex. Does that matter to you tonight?” Isabel’s voice was tired, even to her own ears, her breath short from the pressure against her diaphragm made worse from sitting up. “I’d rather we just had some time to talk.”

  Back in the comfort of Christopher’s apartment, the lovers lay side by side on the bed, facing each other with their heads resting on puffy pillows. Christopher gave Isabel a long cushion to support the weight of her belly.

  “Are you having regrets about these last few months?” Isabel asked him.

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Christopher said as he swept his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t entirely trust myself, though,” he admitted. “I only pursue things I have to wage battle for.” He smiled weakly at this bit of unimpressive self-knowledge. “If you weren’t with Sam and having a child, would my heart be breaking like it is now? I can’t say. I guess I’ll never know.”

  “I’m not sure it matters,” Isabel told him, but then clarified by adding, “Not about whether your heart is broken, but whether it would be or not if I weren’t with Sam. We’ve been on a wobbly course since we met—this is just one more phase along the way. If it’s any solace at all, my heart was broken over you for years.” She realized at that very moment that she’d never admitted so much to him before.

  “How did you recover?” Christopher seemed not a little disappointed that she had.

  “Oh, I went to see a man about a heart . . .” Isabel teased.

  “No, really. What changed?”

  “I was lonely in love, Chris, and that started to wear on me. Being in love takes two. Unrequited love started to feel like an exercise in loneliness.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Someplace else. I don’t really know.”

  “Strange affair, this is,” he huffed, and rolled over onto his back.

  Isabel did the same. The lovers stared at the ceiling quietly for a long time. Chris reached over and touched Isabel’s hair and Isabel held his hand there.

  Isabel could see now that finally connecting with Christopher sexually had cemented her commitment to motherhood and creating a family. She was about to say as much to him, then paused, wondering if it was too cruel. She didn’t think he’d see it that way. Wasn’t that the pull of Christopher over all these years? His impenetrability? Conventional ground rules and emotional responses never applied when it came to him. And yet . . .

  Instead, she told him, “I do still love you, Chris. But it’s a kind of love that has no model. Romantic, but not entirely of the heart. Physical, without transcending that physicality. Does that make sense?”

  “Mostly. But how? Why?”

  Christopher’s curiosity opened the door wider for Isabel to enter with honesty. She paused for a minute to give verbal structure to what she’d been feeling.

  “Without the consummation of our relationship, you would have been the personification of all the futures not chosen,” she explained. “I used to love you in a way that confused me. And now I feel that I can love you without wondering if we should be together, because I don’t think we should, not in the traditional sense. But I hope we are tethered forever in friendship. I know I risked that by sleeping with you.”

  “I can’t promise you friendship, Isabel,” he said. “I’m not sure what that would look like after you and Sam and Junior are one. I seriously doubt there will be room enough for me.”

  “Then my heart will break again,” Isabel told him.

  A WEEK LATER, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Christopher and Isabel spent the afternoon together with plans to watch the blowing up of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons along Seventy-Second Street that night. Sam, much to his consternation, had to spend the entire Thanksgiving holiday working.

  Isabel had witnessed the inimitable folly that is the inflation of two-story-sized balloons only once before when she was in her twenties, but she’d been with Beth and they’d had too many margaritas to remember much of it. Christopher, reluctant at first, succumbed to Isabel’s enthusiasm. They planned dinner at his apartment, strategically located above Seventy-Second Street, from where they could witness the festivities while avoiding the crowds and the cold.

  They had fallen asleep after an early dinner. She awoke to Christopher lightly kissing her cheek, trying to awaken her. It was a lazy evening inside, already dark, but they could hear the activity from the street below. “We should get up now, they’ve started blowing up Underdog,” he told her, but made no motion to raise himself from her side.

  At the mention of Underdog, Isabel leapt up from the bed, trying to pull Christopher with her. She realized instantly that it wasn’t the wisest of moves. Her breath sharpened and she gasped from the concentration of pain on her right side. Christopher held her shoulders to prevent her from falling over as she clutched the sides of her belly. The muscles grew taut and she could see what looked like the form of the baby. She had just entered her thirty-fourth week, too early for the baby to come.

  “What’s happening?” Christopher asked, terrified. “Did I hurt you?”

  Isabel tried to breathe deeply. “No, just let me walk around for a minute.” She paced the apartment and waited for what felt like the mother of all cramps to subside. It disappeared completely and she sat down to catch her breath. The sudden onset of pain had left her spacy.

  Christopher came out of the bedroom looking pale. “What can I do to help?”

  “Please bring me the phone,” Isabel said, composed. Poor Christopher looked unnerved. He brought her the phone and sat next to her on the couch, nibbling at his fingers in anxiety. Isabel dialed Beth’s cell phone. As she did so she made a plan for each next small step. If she couldn’t get Beth, she would call Anna next.

  Beth’s voice mail picked up.

  “Hi, Beth, it’s me. How do I know whether I’m having Braxton Hicks or if I’m in preterm labor? I just got a fuck of a contraction. It took my breath away. Call me. I’m at Christopher’s . . .”

  Christopher’s shoulders slumped forward as he continued biting his thumb. He looked undone, another first. Isabel reached over to comfort him. “Don’t worry, I’m going to have this baby one way or another.” They sat silently on the couch in the charcoal dusk of evening, the mood inside strikingly somber compared with the ruckus outside.

  As Isabel stood up she was struck again with another contraction. “Damn, this hurts, and I think it’s just practice.” She made her way to the bathroom before vomiting suddenly and violently. “This doesn’t seem right,” she said aloud to herself as she doubled over from pain and nausea. “Christopher!” she called out, “I think I need to get to the hospital.”

  Christopher grabbed their coats and guided Isabel toward the elevator.

  Standing curbside outside his apartment building, he tried to hail a taxi, but the crowds made it difficult to navigate. He moved to the middle of the street as one barreled down Central Park West, daring it to mow him down. When the car stopped, he yelled, “My wife is in labor, please take us to the hospital.” To which the
driver replied, “Get out of the way, asshole” before speeding away.

  Isabel was considering taking a bus across town when a taxi pulled up to the curb even though its off-duty light was on. The driver leaned out the window and said, “Looks like you could use a ride somewhere. Am I right?”

  “Yes, thank you so much for stopping.” She called out to Christopher and pointed to the car before sliding into the seat.

  “You okay? What hospital?” the driver asked.

  “I’ll be fine. Lenox Hill, please, Seventy-Seventh and Lex.”

  “You don’t look fine. I’ve been through this four times and it looks to me like you’re about to have that baby.”

  Christopher jumped into the car from the traffic side. He had a wild look about him, and for the first time in their unusual friendship, Isabel felt sorry for him. His arm’s-length emotional access in the past had fooled her into thinking she’d be absolved from taking care of his heart. Isabel struggled with what to say to him now, and coming up short, she just wanted him gone.

  “Chris, maybe you should go back home.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m going with you.” He was breathing heavily.

  “Listen to me . . . Just call Beth and ask her to meet me at Lenox Hill. I’d call but I’m a little out of breath.” Isabel held on to the strap and braced herself for another contraction. She prayed she wouldn’t vomit in the car. It would be unfair payback to the driver for such a good deed.

  “Please, sir, pull over if you can. I’m about to be sick.” Isabel got the door open in time to spew on the street.

  The driver handed Christopher a handkerchief. “Here, give this to your wife.”

  “She’s not my wife!” Christopher shouted. As soon as the words came tumbling out of him, he grabbed Isabel’s hand and looked at her to apologize. She just smiled and pressed his hand to her face.

  “I think this might be the end of our affair,” she told him before gagging into the handkerchief again.

  They pulled up to the hospital just as Isabel was getting hit with another contraction, the strongest yet. The worse the pain got, the more focused Isabel felt. Her only desire was to be alone; the pain so basic it seemed to stem from some atavistic urge to hide behind a bush and give birth where other animals wouldn’t find her.

  Christopher regained his poise. He paid the driver and said, “Hey, thanks, buddy. Sorry about the outburst.”

  “No problem, man. Take care of your woman there, whoever she is.”

  They reached the maternity ward safely, though Isabel couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there. Before she knew it, she was hooked up to an IV and a baby monitor.

  “Are you the father?” an intern asked Christopher.

  “No, I’m a friend.”

  “Is the father available?” the intern persisted.

  “I don’t know.” Christopher sounded uncomfortable again.

  Isabel had wondered when, if ever, Christopher and Sam would collide. She had hoped that if they had to, it wouldn’t be in a way that would threaten Sam, jeopardize her friendship with Chris, or compromise herself. It was a lot to ask for.

  She’d been careful about her time with Christopher, never once being careless or nonchalant about their behavior in public, fully aware how any hint of it would break Sam’s heart. It felt to Isabel that their affair, though it never felt quite right to call it that, existed in a vacuum. That could remain true as long as Sam didn’t know and as long as she and Christopher never took it further than she intended. She was confident of the latter. She prayed now she would be able to keep it a private connection.

  She pulled out her cell phone to call Sam.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, you can’t use a cell phone in the hospital ward,” a nurse told her.

  “I have to call my husband.”

  “Sorry.” She nodded her head toward Christopher. “He can call from downstairs.”

  Isabel weighed the options. She could have Christopher call Anna to ask her to call Sam, but that would involve Anna in a deception she wouldn’t welcome. Involving anyone else seemed unfair. Beth was an exception, partly because her unequivocal disapproval exempted her from being a coconspirator. Disapproval had never crossed the line toward judgment between them—it was one of the things that kept their friendship intact over the many years of sticky predicaments. But Beth would have called by now if she’d gotten Isabel’s earlier message. As brutal as it was for her husband to receive such a call from her lover, at this point she was out of options. Isabel handed the phone to Christopher.

  “Please, take this and go downstairs and call Sam. Tell him what’s going on.”

  Christopher looked at her with a you can’t be serious expression.

  Isabel told him, “Just do it, Chris!”

  She tried to imagine what the conversation between her husband and lover would be like. Could she trust Christopher to be kind and reliably vague? That she couldn’t answer that question with certainty reminded her of Christopher’s pull and push over her.

  While Christopher was calling her husband, Isabel’s doctor gave her medication to stop the contractions. The drug made her legs shake uncontrollably and her breathing shallow. Isabel remained stoically calm. When Christopher returned to Isabel’s room, he said, “Sam is getting on the next flight out. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

  Moments later, Beth burst into the room, pushing past Christopher and the nurses. “Sorry, sweetheart! I was at Mount Sinai visiting Paul and didn’t have the cell on, they don’t let you use them inside the hospital . . .”

  “I know. Chris just had to call Sam from outside.”

  Beth took in a sharp breath, and Isabel shook her head at her own audacity.

  Beth muttered, “Jesus, Is . . . ,” then, louder, “You go into preterm labor the same night Paul is readmitted to the hospital. What is with this day?”

  “Oh, God, Beth, I am so sorry.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if his family weren’t bent on trying to play matchmaker with his boyfriend and sister as he lays dying under their clueless watch. And speaking of clueless”—Beth nodded toward Christopher, who had just left the room—“if I wasn’t so crazed right now, I’d ask you a hundred questions about what you were doing with Christopher that put you into labor.” Beth gave Isabel a stern look, one a mother might give a child who’s stolen another’s toy. “Is Sam on the way? Are you guys okay?”

  “We’re fine. This has nothing to do with Sam, though there’s probably no one in the world who would believe that besides you—on a day you’re feeling generous—and maybe Anna.” Isabel shuddered uncontrollably as a side effect of the drugs, but her voice remained remarkably steady and she kept her focus on Beth and the situation at hand. “Sam doesn’t know and never needs to know. If he suspects anything, he won’t ask. He’s too smart to want to suffer . . .” Isabel had a major contraction just at that moment and leaned over the bed to vomit into a pan.

  “I’d throw up too if I were you. That’s an awful lot of bullshit to swallow,” Beth said.

  As Isabel pulled her head up from the pan she felt fine again. It amazed her that in between contractions and vomiting, she felt that she could get up and walk away.

  “Yeah, well, I guess you’re right . . . Anyway, go to Paul. Sam will be here later tonight. Chris can stay with me until then. Anna is at her in-laws’, and while I’m sure she’d love an excuse to leave, I don’t want to put her into a panic. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  Beth kissed Isabel on the lips and squeezed her still-trembling leg. “If anyone can handle this mess, it’s you. Good luck. I’ll check up on you later. Love you.”

  Isabel fell asleep for what felt like a few minutes, not realizing that one of the many tubes hooked up contained something to help her relax. When she woke up, the buzz of the hospital seemed to have subsided and it took her several minutes to figure out that she was now in a private room. She didn’t recall asking for one—Christopher must have arranged it—but she was
grateful for the quiet. Christopher was curled up on a chair next to the bed, looking tense even in sleep. She turned away from him, toward the door, and fell into a dazed half slumber.

  A FEW HOURS before dawn, Isabel felt Sam quietly enter the room. Weak with fatigue, she cried out in relief when she saw him. Christopher sensed his entrance as well and awoke with a start. He stood up abruptly from his chair. The two men stood face-to-face for a brief moment before Christopher moved out of the way so Sam could stand next to Isabel. He kissed his wife on the lips and put his hand on her stomach. “You guys okay?”

  “Looks like it.” Isabel smiled groggily at her husband. “I’m glad you’re here. Sorry for the scare.”

  Sam turned to Christopher and swallowed hard as if to squelch any suspicions he might have had about the fact that he was there with Isabel. He graciously managed a half smile as he held out his hand and said, “Thank you for taking care of Isabel.”

  Christopher nodded as he shook Sam’s hand. He turned and quietly slipped out the door.

  Intervention stopped the contractions soon enough and Isabel hadn’t yet begun to dilate, so after hydrating her and monitoring her overnight, the doctor sent her home with the command that she stay on bed rest for the next two weeks. He told her he wanted to keep the baby from being born before thirty-six weeks, at which time the baby’s lungs would be fully and safely functional.

  She and Sam made it to Anna’s for Thanksgiving dinner, where Isabel never left the couch except to eat and use the bathroom.

  Once home, Isabel considered how bed rest would affect her work. Unable to make sales calls or attend meetings, she feared what the Turtle might do to sabotage her. If the baby came in two weeks, she would be out of the office four weeks earlier than originally planned.

  “Oh, the Turtle is going to love this,” Isabel said to herself. Ruth had been giving her updates about her boss’s maneuvers. He didn’t bother speaking much to Isabel anymore, which Isabel knew was his passive-aggressive attempt to make her feel dispensable. According to Ruth, he’d been cozying up to her strongest clients. Isabel fought her instinct to call him at home on Thanksgiving weekend to let him know she wouldn’t be back to work, but she didn’t want to sound defensive. She’d wait until Monday and considered even showing up at the office to speak with him in person.