“God help me,” she said into the room.
The mirror above her dresser drew her eye. In it she saw a girl, paler than the one she would have recognized, swallowed in oversized indigo, circles of dark under each eye, enveloped in fear.
Mia had rolled the cocktail napkin that came with her mocha into a petite and symmetrical snake. With her attention now focused on coiling the snake into a circle the size of a quarter, she heard only intermittent phrases of Frankie’s story.
“And she couldn’t possibly expect me to finish the entire section before we closed, so I told her … I would be happy to accompany her pet mongoose to the circus but only if she bought me cotton candy.”
“Um-hm,” Mia said. The snake’s tail wasn’t cooperating.
“And she agreed! So we’re all headed to Zanzibar together this Saturday, by zephyr and blimp, of course.”
“That sounds great,” Mia said. Her bottom lip was tucked under her teeth in concentration.
“Mia.”
“Mm?”
“Mia,” Frankie said more loudly. “Where are you?”
Mia looked up from her snake. “Where?”
“Yes, where. I think if I ask you how you are, you’ll respond in some culturally acceptable way that tells me nothing. But if you tell me where your head has been traveling while it has busily constructed a woven basket with your refuse, then we might make progress.”
“It’s a snake. Not a basket.”
Frankie raised both eyebrows. Her hair had mellowed into a deep purple since the blue incident. She sipped her macchiato and waited for Mia to give her coordinates.
Mia sighed. Her shoulders slumped and she reflected for the six thousandth time since Dr. Rivas’s call that she wished she could cry. Dr. Finkelstein had once said that Mia’s inability to emote with tears was evidence of the deliberate emotional distance she put between her and those she loved following the disappointment with her mother. Mia closed her eyes and concentrated on what she hoped would be a teary slam dunk: the accident scene in Ice Castles. She started to hum the theme for inspiration.
“Mia, what is it?” Frankie reached over to take her friend’s hands. “I’ve never seen you so loopy.”
Mia opened her eyes and stopped with the humming, defeated once more. “Loopy, you say? That’s an adjective I wouldn’t necessarily employ in this circumstance.”
“What circumstance?”
Mia bit the inside of her cheek and turned her full gaze to Frankie’s face. “Frank, I’m pregnant.”
Frankie coughed up an unfortunate amount of frothed milk, so much so that coffee drinkers at nearby tables began to look concerned, then grossed out.
Mia jumped up to whack her friend on the back. “Are you okay?” she said and handed Frankie a stash of napkins from a dispenser.
Frankie blotted her eyes and blew her nose with an abandon of which Frau Leiderhosen would certainly disapprove. “I’m fine,” she said.
Mia envied her the tears that fell slowly down her cheeks. Maybe I should try choking, she thought.
Frankie stood and pulled Mia to her feet. She wrapped her bony arms around Mia’s body and said into her ear, “Congratulate or commiserate?”
Mia stood, crushed by Frankie’s grip, until she noticed the curious stares of onlookers. First the milk coming out of Frankie’s nose, now their extended display of affection … People were starting to forget about their own interests.
Mia broke the hug and sat down, taking care not to crush her snake coil. She picked it up again for strength. “Certainly not congratulate. Not yet anyway. I feel, um, conflicted.”
Frankie nodded quickly. “Of course you do. Isn’t that natural?”
“Heck if I know.” Mia’s shoulders didn’t rise above the back of her chair. “Everything seems entirely unnatural these days.”
Frankie furrowed her brow in worry. “What did Lars say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? That pig—”
“No, I mean, I haven’t exactly told him yet.”
“What?” Frankie was shrieking. “How long have you known?”
“About a week.”
“Mia, for the love!”
By this time the people at the two nearest tables had completely abandoned any pretense that they were still reading their newspapers.
“Frankie,” Mia said, voice so low only her friend and maybe one of the tables could hear, “can we talk about this as we walk?”
“Of course,” Frankie said, all business. She’d gathered the trash on their table in one armful, disposed of it with a flourish, and had donned her vintage pleather disco coat before Mia had finished tucking the napkin snake into her pocket.
“You’re speedy,” Mia said, eyebrows raised.
Frankie shrugged. “Don’t tell Leiderhosen. My speediness does not extend to the mildly interesting but completely outdated Dewey decimal system.”
They pushed out into the late February air. The sky spat pathetic, hard snowflakes. It, along with the rest of the city, was tired of going through the motions of winter. Chicago charmed its visitors all the way through New Year’s, luring shoppers to Michigan Avenue to sip cocoa at Ghirardelli, indulge themselves at Chanel, ride flush-cheeked around Water Tower Place in a horse-drawn carriage. After the holidays, though, the gray of the city unmasked and naked without the persistent mirth, Chicagoans exhaled one long groan at the dismal weather until its reluctant demise in spring.
“When are you going to tell him?” Frankie asked, eyes squinting upward.
Mia shrugged within her coat. “He’s been horribly stressed this week, something about a botched deadline for Bryan. It hasn’t felt like the right time yet.”
Frankie was quiet. The sidewalks of Logan Square were unusually free of pedestrians, the neighborhood enjoying a brief moment of quiet before the late afternoon rush of humanity back to their homes. They stepped back from a curb to wait for the light to turn. Frankie linked her arm through Mia’s.
“How are you doing with all this?”
Mia kept her eyes trained on the light but could feel Frankie watching her profile. She shivered suddenly when a breeze rattled the brittle branches of the oak tree above them. “I don’t think I can answer that yet,” she said. “I suppose most of me is waiting to wake up from it. And hoping I can do that before having to spill it to Lars.”
The light turned and Frankie pulled Mia gently from her reverie. “I’m no authority on love or pregnancy or anything grown-up like that. But,” Frankie paused to gather her courage, “it would seem to me that you shouldn’t be alone anymore. You’ve done this all by yourself for a week and your body was in on the secret long before that. Lars is half of the reason you’re even in this situation. He should know what’s going on. So he can help.”
Mia sighed deeply, feeling familiar weariness seep through her again as it did in waves throughout her days. “I’ll tell him. Tonight,” she added. Her feeling had been that she should wait for the time when she was feeling less horrendous and he was in better spirits. For her part, at least, Mia didn’t think she should assume the fog would be lifting anytime soon.
They’d arrived at the corner of Armitage and Damen, the place of their parting.
Mia could hear Frankie’s sniffles as they hugged. Her friend’s frail carriage heaved slightly within her parka. “I’m so sorry. And warmest congratulations,” she said into Mia’s ear. “Whatever the case may be.”
Mia held onto her friend, digging her toes into her boots, into the ground below her, feeling herself heavy and firmly planted on the earth, lest she give into her longing to fade away.
She sat on the couch and waited. The rooms of her apartment were the cleanest they’d been since the day she moved in. No dirt remained to be purged, no soap scum to be scrubbed. Mia took a
long and shaky breath. Her eyes drifted to the candle burning on the coffee table. Though she lit the candle only to calm her, not to inspire some romantic notion of the conversation she was waiting to have, its scent of pomegranate battled quietly with the lemon and vinegar odor left from Mia’s natural cleaning solution. The sandalwood pillar she’d tried first had sent her hurtling toward the bathroom, so after clearing the stench with windows propped wide open to the cold air outside, she’d tried the pomegranate with better results. Mia watched the flame until she became concerned about her retinas and forced herself to look away.
Lars had called to say he’d be home late. It was nearly nine o’clock when Mia sank onto the couch and she’d been tempted to postpone her news for yet another day. Only the hope that her shoulders would be lighter going to bed that evening kept her rooted to the place she’d staked out, watching the front door.
She uncrossed her legs, suddenly aware that she was bouncing her foot up and down to the rhythm of the Joni Mitchell tune playing on the stereo. Be honest, be patient, be myself. She repeated the words Dr. Finkelstein had given her for difficult emotional situations. Dr. F. was currently in New Hampshire showing her Yorkshire terrier, Sparkles, and couldn’t answer her calls until early the following week. After the thousands of dollars she’d spent, Mia felt she might be allowed an emergency call during a lull at the dog show, but Dr. Finkelstein was a big advocate of having “me” time. One woman’s spa was another’s Sparkles.
At quarter to ten Lars’s key jangled in the lock. Mia stood, then sat. No need to make this any more awkward than it was sure to be.
“Hey, babe,” Lars said. He dropped his bag on the front table and sighed. “What a freaking long day. Maybe I should be a bank teller. Don’t they always get off at five?”
Mia watched him toss his wet coat on the floor. He discarded his snow-laced boots near the entry mat and padded to the kitchen. “What’dya eat for dinner?” he asked from inside the fridge.
“Not much. Toast and half a banana. I wasn’t very hungry.”
“Ouch,” he said over the racket of cupboard doors he opened and closed. “That doesn’t sound very appetizing. Are you still feeling sick?”
Mia closed her eyes. “Yes. In fact, um, Lars, we need to talk about something.”
“Mmm?” Lars peeked into the living room. He was licking a glob of natural peanut butter off a spoon. Mia switched her gaze to the pomegranate candle.
“Go ahead and finish your dinner. Just come in when you’re done.” She picked up a magazine and tried to look casual and unalarmed. If dogs could do it, maybe boyfriends could also smell fear.
Mia had flipped through the same issue of Fair Trade Fashion two and a half times when Lars set down a plate loaded with food. Mia’s eyes didn’t linger, but she did glimpse two pitas stuffed with greens, globs of tofu, a dollop of hummus, and an orange. He pulled back the tab on a can of guava juice.
“So we need to talk?” Lars gathered the great majority of one pita into his mouth. He looked at Mia as he chewed.
Mia swallowed. She looked into his eyes and not at the stray clump of sprouts dangling out of his mouth. Short and sweet, she thought. “I’m pregnant.”
He stopped chewing. A dollop of hummus perched on the end of his nose.
Mia felt herself trying not to smile.
Lars watched her and his face relaxed. “Oh, geez, Mia. I thought you were serious. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you smile. That was almost even mean.” He shook his head and took another bite of his dinner.
Mia watched in silence. After a moment Lars looked up. “Oh, no way. You’re serious. Are you serious? You’re really, uh—”
“I think I’m about two and a half months. It didn’t click for a while.”
“But that’s still okay, right?” Lars’s eyes were bulging. He shoved his plate to the center of the coffee table, next to Mia’s discarded Fair Trade. “That’s plenty early enough still, right?”
“For what?”
Lars let out a pinched laugh. “For what? To take care of it. To, you know, get an abortion.”
Mia flinched.
Lars put both hands up and pushed back on the couch. “Okay, all right.” His voice was conciliatory, measured. “Just give me a minute. This is rather, eh, shocking.”
Mia sighed. “Tell me about it.”
Lars tapped the fingers of his right hand on his knee. The other hand was clenched in a fist. “This is why you’ve been feeling so horrible, then?”
Mia nodded. She pulled a throw off the back of the couch and draped it around her shoulders. Exhaustion was pulling her toward bed. She let her head drop to the cushion behind her.
“Who else knows?”
Mia shook her head and spoke quietly. “Just my doctor. And Frankie.”
Lars ran a hand through his hair. “You told Frankie before you told me?” His eyes sparked with irritation.
“She practically asked. She knew something was wrong.” Mia tried not to make that statement any more inflammatory than it was, but Lars was looking for shards of glass on which to cut his hands.
“She noticed but I didn’t. Sorry. Sorry I’m not intuitive when it comes to subtle changes during the first stages of pregnancy.”
“Lars.”
“No, that’s cool.” He stood and swiped his plate from the coffee table with such force that Mia was amazed he didn’t leave a heap of tofu on the rug. She listened to him open and shut the fridge, open and shut the pantry, then silence. After labored minutes with no words between them, she rose with the blanket and walked to the kitchen. Lars was leaning against the counter, hands behind him. He looked up at her when she entered.
“I wasn’t the most understanding in there.” He nodded toward the living room. “Apparently I don’t deal well with surprises.”
“At least not the reproductive kind,” Mia said. She let the door frame support her weight. “Lars,” and her voice broke, “I want to go through with it.”
He watched her as she spoke.
“I can’t believe I’m saying it and I certainly can’t believe I’m feeling it,” she said. “I’ve tried to convince myself that an abortion would be the best choice. Especially in the middle of the night when I wake up and can’t get back to sleep.” Tears, so long sought, finally, blessedly, ran down her cheeks. She blathered on. “But I know I need to do this. I mean, I’m not seventeen or something. I’m twenty-nine. I had full knowledge that sex could lead to unwanted pregnancy. But I still took that chance.”
“So you’re taking your punishment like a man? Or worse, a martyr?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” She blew her nose but the tears kept spilling over. “I’m pregnant with our baby. I love you, Lars. You love me. This is what’s supposed to happen, just maybe not in the timing we’d wanted.”
Lars nodded slowly. He watched the second hand on the clock above the fridge.
Mia shuddered at the euphoria she felt as the tears let loose. She couldn’t wait to tell Dr. Finkelstein! “I just can’t tell you what a relief it is to talk about this with you.” She moved to him and put her arms around his waist. The blanket fell from her shoulders and puddled around their feet. “Thank you for not condemning me. Thank you for allowing me to feel this way.”
“Of course,” Lars said. He traced circles with his hand across her back.
Mia yawned into his shirt. “I’m so tired lately. I can barely think straight.”
“I can only imagine.” Lars said. He stopped with the circles and just held her tightly.
“Let’s just take it one day at a time, all right?” Mia let her eyes drift closed. Lars was supporting her whole weight.
“That sounds right,” he said. He kissed her on top of the head and walked her to the bedroom.
She fell asleep to the sound o
f John Coltrane drifting in gentle cadences from the living-room speakers. Lars had kissed her with such tenderness when he tucked her in. We can do this, Mia thought, just before dropping into a hard-earned, dark sleep.
When she woke the next morning, he was gone.
5
Cravings
“Right, I understand that, Mrs. Freeman.” Mia twirled the phone cord around her fingers and resisted the urge to use profanity with a client. “But if you’ll try to understand my position here. I cannot force the school district to recognize selling drugs as an after-school activity.”
Carl approached her desk, further emphasizing the cosmic rule that things can always get worse.
“… medicinal uses, right … I’m sure Jacob has done his research. But we are a government agency, Mrs. Freeman, and—”
Mia let the phone fall back to its cradle. She looked up and smiled her best hope-will-conquer-all grin. “How can I help you, Carl?”
He cleared his throat. “That sounded like a rough convo. Do you want to talk about it? As friends, you know. We could leave the whole I’m-your-boss thing at the door.” Mia thought she saw his nose vibrate when he laughed. It was not unlike the whinny of a horse.
“It’s a kind offer, Carl, but I think I’ll pass.”
“Rough day? Maybe I can help. Since my promotion to office team leader, I have really felt an upsurge in my ability to get through to the powers that be.” He used a meaty index finger to push his glasses up his nose. Carl watched her for a reaction, shifting from one foot to another, each time causing his overloaded shoulder bag to creak with its weight.
“Thanks, Carl, but I think I’m okay. Just part of the job.” The job, Mia thought, that was supposed to be her part in saving the world. She’d majored in social work during college with the firm belief that lasting change would occur only from inside a system that was already broken. She’d swooned at stories of poverty, neglect, and miseducation emanating from the city centers and had cheerily signed on for a life of being overworked and underpaid if it meant she could make a difference. Seven years in and, while she’d have liked to say she’d patched some significant holes, the dam was still on the verge of breaking and her Silly Putty wasn’t nearly enough to stop it.
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