by Julia Kent
No thanks.
“None of those useless baby books tell you what to do when your kid won’t listen to you in utero! Screw that ‘1-2-3 Magic’ stuff,” I rage as I find my thigh highs and stare at them. Why do they look like sausage casing?
Oh. Right. Because they are when you’re 1,044 weeks pregnant.
Declan laughs. “I know the baby has ears and can hear, but I think it’s a little early for discipline methods.”
“Forty-one weeks, Declan! No one ever told me I’d be pregnant this long. Who decided this? I mean, seriously. You know God is a man when the only way to give birth is for a woman to shove a turkey through a hole the size of a soda bottle”
He looks down at his own crotch and mutters, “Soda bottle? No. More like Coke can.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looks at himself in the mirror, adjusting his tie. Thick, wavy brown hair, almost black, frames his strong face, a square jaw with a close shave giving him an authoritarian appeal. Declan looks like he was born to be a leader. I wonder how our child will blend his strength with my softness. “I thought the doctor said you’re allowed to go as long as forty-two weeks. With non-stress tests,” he says.
“Another week! You’re saying I could be pregnant for another week! That’s like seven years in pregnancy time,” I moan, bursting into tears. I am wearing a pregnancy bra holding breasts that could double as milk bags in parts of Canada, bikini panties that slice under my belly like a noose, and my husband is standing there smelling like aftershave and sophistication, in his perfectly tailored tuxedo–not rented, because billionaires never rent anything–while I am the size of a small heifer.
Minus the small part.
“Honey,” he says as I sob, looking as helpless as I’ve ever seen Declan, which means his eyebrow twitches. Once. Dec isn’t one to show emotion, especially when the other person is unreasonable.
Hey. Wait a minute. If he’s not expressing how he feels, it means he thinks I’m unreasonable! Oh yeah? Screw him. Screw my husband. Screw my husband in the eye with a rusty bottle brush.
Uh oh.
You know what’s happened, ladies and gentlemen? We’ve reached BEC territory. That’s right. Bitch eating crackers (Google it). Declan could be sitting on the couch, eating crackers, and I’d hate him for it.
Which means he’s right. I am unreasonable. Pregnancy has turned me into an emotional Mobius strip. No matter what I do, I’m wrong, in one long, linear line that is an infinite loop.
Even the baby thinks so, obviously. That’s why it refuses to come out.
Because I suck as a human being. That’s right. It knows.
My sobs become waterworks, tears dribbling down my cheeks and onto my breasts, which are so big, they are now classified as a mountain range in eastern Massachusetts. Mount Shannon.
Declan removes his jacket and tie, sits on the bed next to me, and pulls my head in. I cry against the soft, pressed cotton of his shirt, twisted awkwardly, because I have a turkey resting on my thighs and the turkey is holding knitting needles that it jabs into my cervix at irregular intervals, which makes life kind of hard.
Speaking of kind of hard, my hand brushes against his lap and–is he seriously turned on?
Yesterday, I went to the hospital for a non-stress test. All the results were fine, other than the fact that every doctor there was a completely useless idiot who couldn’t explain why my body is stuck at three centimeters and won’t expand enough to get this turkey out of me.
I think they were too polite to tell me to my face that the baby has figured out I’ll be a horrible mother.
But one little tidbit the nurse added: sex could help bring the baby out. “What put the baby in there helps bring the baby out.” Her long explanation of progesterone in semen and biochemical blah blah blah was nice and all, but what I heard was:
Declan has to mount Mount Shannon if I want to go into labor.
You ever have sex when you’re 1,213 weeks pregnant? Do I really need one more big thing shoved inside me? Pretty sure a fire marshal would declare my body over capacity and in violation of several zoning codes if Dec and I did the deed.
And yet… doctor’s orders and all…
I sigh and reach for his erection with about as much enthusiasm as he musters for having dinner with my mother. “Want to do it?”
“What?”
I sigh again. “You know. Sex? Remember sex? That thing we used to do when I was horny in the second trimester?”
His eyes go unfocused. Wistful, even. “I remember.”
“So?” I demand, slumping forward, Mount Shannon resting on the turkey like my breasts are trying to hatch it.
“I am at your service. Reporting for stud duty,” he says, his words muted as his lips trace the long line of my collarbone.
I wiggle away, and by “wiggle” I mean I groan, stand up, and climb on the bed. I get on hands and knees.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting into position. Can you help me take off my panties?” This is about as romantic as a root canal.
I can feel him just standing there, silent. His breath is light, in and out as he takes his time. Why isn’t he moving? Saying something?
Maybe I’m too far away. I lift one knee, then the other, and back up. As I start moving, I chirp, “Beep beep beep.”
“Why are you saying that?”
“When something this big moves backwards, you need a warning sound. OSHA regulations say so.”
“That’s enough,” he growls, the tone furious. Cool, fast fingers touch the center of my back as he undoes my bra and suddenly, Mount Shannon becomes two stalactites hanging from my ribs, nipples practically touching the bedspread.
Notice how “lact” is in that word? Sta-lact-ites. Not a coincidence.
Gentle hands that belie his rough words reach for my hips and I shimmy as he pulls off my panties. Inside, I’m half numb, sure I’ve angered him, but going through the motions anyhow. Now naked, I wait for him to come up behind me, to do what needs to be done so this baby will come out and we can go back to being Declan and Shannon, go back to being our normal selves.
Only with a baby. That’s how this works, right? It’ll be our regular life plus a baby. How hard can that be?
The shuffle of cloth from a few feet away tells me Declan is getting undressed, the air filled with his cologne, coming in waves that are stronger, then weaker, as he moves about.
“Shannon,” he says in a smoky voice. “Stand up.”
“But I– ”
“Stand. Up. Now.”
I back up, resisting the urge to beep, my cheeks flaming and the cool chill of air touching swollen skin. Every part of me is full and big, as if my identity hinges on it. I am no longer Shannon.
I am just full.
Moving from all fours on a bed to a standing position on the carpet of our bedroom is an undertaking when you’re this pregnant, but I do it, giving Declan an uncertain glance, avoiding his eyes. One of my arms goes over my breasts and the other between my legs, absurdly covering myself in front of my husband. You know, the guy I just offered myself up to?
“Drop your arms.” He’s beyond commanding, voice tight, eyes bright and narrow, watching every inch of me. And trust me, there are a lot of inches.
I obey him. He’s stripped to the waist, his pressed shirt hanging neatly on the back of a chair, pants button undone but zipper still intact, shoes off.
As I move my arm down to my side, my forearm brushes against my nipples, big and rosy, achingly sensitive like so many other parts of me. I’m full and brimming, swollen and pulsing, irritable and overwhelmed, but as Declan just watches me with a leisurely appraisal, evaluating me in a way that I don’t understand, I find my irritability disappearing, replaced by a strange, alien quality I can’t name.
“You are sublime.”
His words hang in the air, the baby moving inside me as if reacting, one elbow or knee making an appearance to the right of my navel. I absent
mindedly touch the lump, rubbing slowly, looking down out of habit.
“Just like that. Oh, God, Shannon, the beauty of it.” His voice fills with a thick emotion that makes my eyes tear up before I even look at him. “The way your hand touches the baby with such love. How your hair sweeps down over your breasts when it’s loose, tickling the top of your belly. Being privileged to watch these months, seeing your breasts curve as they grow, your body just giving and giving and giving without reservation. You’re beyond beautiful. I don’t have a word for you, Shannon. Any syllables I could string together would be inadequate, even if I tried every day for a thousand years.”
I’m breathing. I know I am, because my chest rises and falls, but my feet feel like tree roots, my hair like clouds, my hands like rivers flowing on and on.
“You’re growing my child. You’re carrying our baby. Don’t you know that every part of you is exquisite? You’re so ripe. Lush. Sweet with promise, sacrificing your body to make another one. One that is part me. How can you call yourself anything but goddess? So just stop. Stop with the negative self-talk. Stop with the nonsense that you’ll be a bad mother. You’re already a good mother. You’ve spent the last nine and a half months giving everything to this baby.”
He crosses the distance between us, his hands going to mine, pressing against our baby as he drops to his knees and kisses my navel, lips against the taut skin. “Thank you,” he whispers, the vibration strong enough to make the baby kick again, as if trying to climb into Declan’s arms. “Thank you both. Because you’re also giving everything to me.” His broad back is all I see when I look down, shoulders tight with emotion, his head bent down, hair resting like feathers against my skin.
Fat, pregnant tears drop from my lower lids onto Declan’s hands. I can’t speak. And even if I could, I, too, have inadequate words.
So I let my soul tell him how I feel in a very different way as I pull him up to me in a kiss. He moves so slowly, mouth strong and commanding, as if he’s using his tongue to push away all of my fears and open me up to all of the pleasure, all of the optimism, a truth I can only see when I’m touched by him.
What had been duty sex becomes a thousand times more, my body blazing hot for him and needing him in me, now, so I can feel the truth even more. My breasts rub against his naked chest, nipples crying out as if the simple friction will make me orgasm, and damn if I’m not in danger of coming before he’s in me, the memory behind my closed eyes of the way he just looked at me almost enough to send me over the edge.
He eases himself out of his pants without breaking our kiss, pulling me in for an embrace so enchanting, so urgent, and so very crowded.
“This may be our last time alone, ever,” he says in a husky, fevered sigh, green eyes muted, like moss on a rolling hill suddenly darkened by storm clouds. “Let me enjoy you.”
And with that, he does.
* * *
“Do we really have to go to this charity ball?” I ask yet again, curled up against him, one knee pulled up over his abs. He’s my very own pregnancy pillow, better than any device we can buy. As we breathe together, the baby kicks me hard, the back pain sharp and breathtaking. Fading quickly, the pain’s replaced by a sadness, a tension that settles hard and fast in my bones, too tired to be tense.
“Even I felt that.” Declan puts his hand over my navel as a foot or an elbow visibly comes to the surface, stretching my skin like a membrane between worlds, and recedes. “You be nice to your mother, little boy.”
“I can’t wait to meet him,” I say for the umpteenth time.
“Same here.”
“No, Dec, I really can’t wait to meet him,” I groan as I try to get comfortable, then give up. “I am ready to give up and ask for an induction.”
“It’s not giving up, honey. And the midwife made it clear you won’t have much choice if this little boy doesn’t decide to come out in the next few days.”
My back cramps up in response, taking my words away. “Can you do that hip thing?” I ask.
“I, uh, just did that hip thing.” He cups my breast and thrusts his pelvis up a little, joking. “You want sex again?”
“No,” I say, too gravid to laugh. “I mean the hip squeeze. The one they taught us in childbirth class.”
“That’s to help when you’re in labor. Are you?”
“I wish. It’s just that my back is killing me.”
“Could it be labor?”
“No way.” He presses both hands against my hips. My back instantly relaxes.
“Then do you think you could manage to come and put in an appearance at the ball? I wouldn’t care, normally, but you did so much work to help and I want to acknowledge you. I’m just the guy giving a speech. Plus, I think it would be good for you.”
“Good for me?”
“You’ve been such a homebody.”
“You just don’t want me cleaning the refrigerator again.”
“I’m less worried about that and more concerned I’ll come home to find you licking the HVAC system to sterility.”
I look at his crotch, then at my belly. “Happy to lick something else to sterility.”
“You scare the shit out of me sometimes, honey.” Climbing out of bed, he stands, winks at me, and goes into the bathroom.
“Glad to know someone can.” We laugh. It feels good. So much of my time this last week involves being inward-centered, my world narrowing with every hour that passes. Declan’s just brought me into my body and out of my mind in a way that balances so much. The midwives said that what put the baby in there will bring the baby out, and while I asked for sex in a fit of desperation, Declan’s willing help turned quickly into so much more.
Just as it always does with him.
As the shower water starts running, I stand, ponderous and ripe, and find my dress.
Time waits for no man.
But we wait for this baby.
Chapter 22
Still one week past due date because time elongates when you are forty-one weeks gravid. Einstein should have studied pregnancy as a force in physics, because forty-one weeks bends everything.
* * *
Shannon
* * *
“An hour. Tops,” Declan promises me as we pull up to the same restaurant where we had our first date. I’ve been in such a fog, I didn’t listen when he told me where the charity ball is being held. The event, a fundraiser for a local art museum that is working on creating autism-friendly programs for children, is underwritten by some family trust on his mother’s side.
As the valet opens the door and helps me out, surprised by my size and clearly adjusting his arm-strength level to help me, Declan appears behind him, finishing the job, his arm around my waist with a possessive protectiveness that thrills me.
“We haven’t been here in ages,” I murmur as we enter the foyer of the restaurant, looking up to the high, domed ceiling where a large, circular window lets a few stars peek in. Dark mahogany is everywhere, making me realize how much this place is like my father-in-law’s office, the taste stately and old-fashioned, curated and rich. Nostalgia floods me with memories, eyes darting to the hallway where Declan kissed me for the first time.
“It’s fitting, isn’t it? Coming here on a night like this?” He rubs my belly, smiling with a relaxed, eager joy I don’t often see in him.
“It is. Now let’s get the hell out of here. You have fifty-nine minutes left.” I say it in a joking voice, but I kinda sorta really mean it.
He takes me down a short hallway and around a corner to find an elevator that looks like it was built by Sam Adams himself.
“What is that?”
“An antique.”
“No kidding.” I eye the stairs over in the main lobby, a long, curling set going left and right up an incline that looks harder to climb than Mount Everest. “This is my only choice, isn’t it?”
“The event is on the second floor.”
“Definitely my only choice.”
A pneumatic
wheeze, accompanied by a clanking sound as the door opens, makes me lose even more confidence. The elevator door has a folding metal lattice-work door in front of it. A uniformed man opens it, gesturing for Dec and I to step in. We do.
“There isn’t really room for more than two people, is there?” I joke, hoping the attendant isn’t joining us.
“Three,” Dec says, patting the baby. I look around. At most, six adults could squeeze in here, shoulder to shoulder.
At most.
“Press the second-floor button, sir,” the attendant explains. “It’s electronic.”
“I thought these old elevators were manually operated,” Dec says, looking expectantly at the guy. “You’ve kept the ironwork.”
“It’s steampunk on the outside, high tech on the inside,” the man says as Dec laughs, the doors closing.
We creak our way up to the second floor, my back aching, the bowling ball between my legs pressing down harder. I’m so tired.
“Just an hour,” Dec murmurs in my ear. “I’m sure the time will fly.”
“Time has slowed,” I groan as the doors open, another attendant unlocking the iron lattice door on the second floor.
We walk into the large event space, a carpeted ballroom with twenty-foot vaulted ceilings, elaborate coffers offering elegance, and an almost royal atmosphere that reminds me of Windsor Castle, where Declan and I toured last year. Rich reds and sumptuous blues fill the room, old chandeliers and crystals spreading warm incandescent light.
A tall, affable man with kind eyes, wearing a tux like Declan’s, walks past, then hesitates just enough for me to realize I’m right.
“Dr. Derjian?” Declan and I say in unison, my own word clipped at the end as I inhale slowly through my nose, this aching back getting worse.
Glass in hand, with an olive and the remains of something clear in it, he pauses, mouth spreading in a huge smile as he recognizes us. “I knew Declan was going to be here, but I didn’t know you would. Oh...” His voice goes super deep as he sees my belly. “You’re about to have that baby.”