Rocking the Pink

by Laura Roppé

  Chapter 18

  Two years after I had Sophie, getting pregnant again was as easy as falling off a log. I told the doctor at my very first appointment of the pregnancy, “Doc, this baby’s as strong as an ox.”

  The sonogram revealed that the little ox inside my womb was a baby girl. A Baby Chloe to join Big Sister Sophie. Sophie and Chloe. Two sisters. Just like Sharon and Laura.

  In a flash, I was four years old. I had gone number two in the bathroom, and there was no toilet paper. As any sane four-year-old would do in this situation, I simply used the nearby hand towel to wipe myself. And then, in another perfectly logical (and, I believed, polite) move, I neatly hung it back up on the towel rack.

  Some time later, six-year-old Sharon marched me into the bathroom and, holding the poo-stained hand towel out toward me in disgust, demanded, “Did you do this?”

  “No!” I lied, feigning indignation.

  But Sharon wasn’t fooled. “I know you did it.”

  What Sharon did next shaped our sisterhood our whole lives: She helped me dispose of the mortifying evidence. Rather than rat me out to our parents, she led me and the “poo towel” (as it has come to be known ever since) into the back yard, where, after glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she hurled it over the back fence and into the neighbor’s yard.

  Genius!

  I never would have thought of that. And that’s why I needed a big sister.

  I have never forgotten how it felt when Sharon chose to be my accomplice in crime, rather than the Gestapo. Even though I didn’t know the terminology at the time, I thought, in essence: She’s got my back.

  And now I was going to have two little poo-towel huckers of my own, God help me.

  Brad and I were ecstatic to have another baby, of course, but the pregnancy itself was just a means to an end. This time around, the giddiness of first-time pregnancy was replaced by the drudgery of “been there, done that.” Morning sickness was no longer the happy emblem of a successful pregnancy; it was just me puking my guts out.

  One day well into the pregnancy, I was sitting on the cold tile floor of the bathroom, retching violently into the toilet. Brad stood in the doorway, and just as I paused briefly between heaves, tears streaming down my red, puffy face, he asked, “Hey, where are my brown shoes?” I looked up at him and gestured that I was just a little bit busy at the moment. So much for ginger-root tea and foot massages.

  Another time, when I was eight months pregnant, I asked Brad to bring a week’s worth of groceries in from my car because my back was hurting.

  “Well, how’d you get the bags into the car in the first place?” Brad asked, implying that same method would work again on this end of the journey.

  It wasn’t a glorious time for the two of us.

  Unlike the baby growing in my belly, Crazy Buster, by then age thirteen, clearly was not as strong as an ox. The fur on his face had turned gray, and he grunted when he walked. It had been many years since he had tried to prove his dominance over puppies and Rottweilers.

  In June 2002, when I was six months pregnant, Buster began vomiting and couldn’t stop. We took him in to the vet, only to learn that he had a massive and terminal tumor in his throat. It was time to put Buster down.

  Mere weeks before, Brad alone had sat at the bedside of his uncle Roger, his father’s brother, holding his hand as the doctors removed his life support. Brad had taken on this responsibility to spare his father from doing so, but that final moment when the life had passed out of Uncle Roger’s body had haunted Brad.

  When we learned of Buster’s prognosis that day, Brad broke down. “I can’t do it again—not this soon,” he whispered, his voice strained.

  I took Brad’s hand in mine. “I’ll stay with Buster, honey. I’ll be there in his final moment of life. You can go outside to the waiting room.”

  Brad looked at me, unsure. He started to speak, but I cut him off. “Go on, Buddy,” I assured him. “I can handle it.” My voice communicated supreme confidence.

  But when the doctor came into the room holding a syringe with a three-inch needle, my knees wobbled and I began to weep. I bolted into the waiting room, where Brad was sitting with his head in his hands. “Brad! I can’t!”

  And so it was Brad, yet again, who remained strong in order to spare a loved one from pain. Thanks to Brad, and not me, Buster had a warm and loving lap to nuzzle when he took his last breath.

  Just as I had predicted, when Chloe arrived, she was a baby version of Hulk Hogan: She was almost nine pounds at birth, and immediately bursting at the seams with innate self-confidence. And, in addition to being hardy, she turned out to be the easiest baby on Earth. She did whatever we wanted her to, when we desired. When we ate dinner, we placed Chloe in her high chair and she sat calmly for as long as we liked, eating whatever we put in front of her (anything from mashed carrots to carnitas).

  I said to Brad, “She’s a dream baby.”

  But Brad wasn’t fooled. “Nah,” he said. “That one’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We’re gonna have to keep an eye on her.”

  I thought he was a fool.

  But then, as Chloe’s second birthday came and went, it started to dawn on me that maybe Brad was onto something there.

  “You not saying right!” Chloe shouted at me when I flubbed Gaston’s line from Beauty and the Beast. She knew every single line and inflection, and she had begun forcefully directing the rest of us to deliver Disney-worthy performances on a daily basis.

  “You’re bossy,” I retorted, fed up with her single-minded pursuit of glory.

  “I not bossy, Mommy,” Chloe said. “I sassy.”

  That one made me laugh. Yes, she was definitely sassy.

  But as I laughed, I also marveled: I was having a conversation with my two-year-old self.

  Not too long after that, after Chloe had committed some toddler infraction, Brad admonished, “Say you’re sorry, Chloe.”

  Chloe’s little lips pursed with defiance, and after a moment to consider, she calmly stated, under her breath, “Lorry.”

  Brad was incredulous. “You said lorry, Chloe. I heard you.” We exchanged looks of disbelief. “Now, say you’re sorry.”

  Chloe again considered her options. And, God help me, this is the absolute truth: That child—that toddler—looked Brad in the eye and said, in an even tone, “Sarr-uh.”

  The full breadth of Chloe’s wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing essence, just as Brad had predicted in her infancy, was revealed at that moment, and we now exchanged terrified glances: Chloe was Crazy Buster reincarnated. Only this time, we couldn’t get a full refund from an Irish baby trainer.

  Chapter 19

  Countdown to chemo: three days.

  I pulled up a website displaying a mind-boggling array of wigs on my computer screen. I knew the girls would come looking over my shoulder within minutes, as they always did, and I wanted to take the sting out of my imminent baldness. Sure enough, two little chins were quickly resting on my shoulders.

  “Whatcha doin’, Mommy?” Chloe asked.

  “Just looking at wigs.”

  “How come?” Sophie wanted to know. “Are you gonna wear a wig because of the cancer?”

  “I was thinking about it. Do you two want to help me pick one?”

  They were excited. That sounded fun, not scary!

  “Well, pull up a chair,” I laughed.

  For the next several hours, the girls and I had a great time poring over pictures of every type of wig imaginable. Blue wigs, red wigs, long wigs, short wigs . . . it was like wig shopping with Dr. Seuss.

  “Oh, Mommy, you should get that one,” Chloe cooed. When she pointed, it was to a long, platinum blond wig. Barbie hair. Chloe wanted her mommy to have Barbie hair.

  I giggled. “Oh, Coco. I don’t think so.”

  “But you’d be so pretty, Mommy.”

  Just the thought of myself walking around like that made me belly-laugh. “Thank you, Cokie. I’ll think about it.”

&nb
sp; “What about that one?” Sophie pointed. No surprise there: It looked just like my old hair—long, brown, and thick. That’s my pragmatic Sophie.

  Okay, I thought. She needs a return to normalcy.

  The next day, Brad went with me to a wig store that catered exclusively to cancer patients. With lots of silliness and only a few tears, he watched me model every type of wig, from a Joan Jett–style number to a red-haired, flapper-esque bob. Finally, though, I settled on something in the style Sophie had suggested: long, brown, and thick.

  Let the hair falling-out begin.

  Countdown to chemo: two days. I lay on the operating table in my hospital gown, waiting for the installation of a port—a catheter permanently implanted for easy infusion of the chemo drugs—into my vascular system. Brad had not been allowed to come into the operating room, and I yearned like a new kindergartner for him to hold my hand. I stared at the harsh lights above me and thought, still in disbelief, I have cancer?

  And then, yet again, the tears flowed. I turned my face away from the operating-room nurse standing next to me, trying to hide my embarrassing sniffling.

  “It’s okay to cry, honey,” she said, as she dabbed my cheek with a tissue. “This is the perfect place to cry.”

  Chapter 20

  I imagine my family in the shape of an isosceles triangle—the three points composed of the kids, Brad, and me. When we’re running on all cylinders, thick lines connect all three points. But when the girls were little, as Brad and I juggled demanding work schedules and sleep deprivation, I could feel the line between the parental points becoming perforated—our family triangle was becoming a V.

  When either Brad or I had any free time, we spent it as a family foursome, or as individuals (golf for Brad, exercise or sleep for me). We rarely went out as a couple, other than for work-related events. We still enjoyed each other’s company, but we were exhausted, and getting a baby sitter was a hurdle. Sometimes, in the middle of an argument, I’d hold up my index and middle fingers in the shape of a V, silently reminding him of our family’s fate if he failed to tread carefully. That didn’t go over very well.

  And though I probably looked like I had it all together on the outside, I was scattered and anxious much of the time. My part-time gig wasn’t nearly as ideal as I’d hoped. The firm had grown more and more impatient with me, wondering when I’d snap out of it and come back to work on a full-time basis. Clients or partners always called me on my days off, usually as I was strolling through the park or zoo with the girls. I would wave my hands frantically at the girls to be quiet, lest the person on the other end of the line discover—gasp!— that I was with my kids and not sitting at my desk. On workdays, I had started going in to the office—managing clients, documents, and court filings from home had turned out to be impossible.

  Every month, my billable hours increased slightly, inching closer and closer to full-time, and I started to feel less and less in control of my life. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was unavoidable. I had no choice, I thought.

  By this time, I’d reached the conclusion that trying to resolve conflicts in the legal system was like trying to breathe underwater: not effective unless you’re a shark. The guilt of leaving my kids to do something I didn’t even enjoy, plus the stresses innate in practicing law, were eating me alive. Occasionally, I’d say to Brad, “I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.” He thought I was exaggerating. But I wasn’t.

  In addition to my garden-variety stress dreams—dreams involving snakes, or sitting for a math test without having studied, or being pushed onstage in front of a large audience without knowing which character I was playing—I’d started having a disturbing recurring dream, too: I was in a public place, and I had to go to the bathroom. Right away. I frantically entered a dirty public stall. I quickly closed and locked the stall door, pulled my pants down to my ankles, and sat down on the toilet to do my business. Then I looked up, and only then realized that one of the stall walls, which should have been metal, was actually made of clear glass. Surprise! I was sitting on a toilet, doing my thing, in a department store window. I was the Macy’s window display.

  And feeling stressed out wasn’t even the whole picture; I had begun to feel a general sense of malaise, an undefined disappointment, in my life, too. When I was younger, I had always felt like I had a super-secret ingredient for an exclusive Laura recipe that I alone was concocting. But now it seemed my secret ingredient had morphed into Velveeta. If I was being honest with myself, I had not become everything I had hoped.

  As soon as these thoughts flitted across my mind, I felt guilty for thinking them, and I pushed them away. You have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children, I would say to myself. You make a great living. You work part-time. It’s a good life. It was self-indulgent to feel anything other than gratitude. I had everything in the world.

  I tried to convince myself that, contrary to my girlhood fantasies, living a simple life—wife, mother, part-time attorney—was my true destiny. Not becoming the next Judy Garland. Not winning the stupid Academy Award. It was time to grow up, to face reality. Dreams are for kids. I should appreciate my simple, happy life. My left brain had my right brain in a headlock, and it squeezed and wrangled until Righty was silenced yet again.

  I was missing a big piece of my puzzle, though—a piece that didn’t negate my love for my family but simply enriched me as a person. I felt underutilized. I had created the life I thought I should want, rather than the life I actually wanted. But back then, I couldn’t articulate any of that. I just felt overwhelmed and unfulfilled in a vague, undefined way.

  If I was at the park with the girls, I was thinking of the legal brief due to be filed in court the next day. If I was at work, I was homesick, wondering what the nanny was doing with my girls. On my way home from work, I would fly through the grocery store without a second to spare. And when I got home, just in time to relieve the nanny, the home marathon would start: make dinner, clean up after dinner, bathe the girls, read to the girls, put the girls to bed. Say hello to Brad. Maybe work for an hour or watch TV. Maybe have sex, maybe not. Go to sleep.

  The only thing I could articulate to Brad about how I was feeling was that I didn’t want to be an attorney anymore. He had stopped practicing law years earlier and was now working in the commercial real estate industry, and I wanted to change careers, too. But I couldn’t see beyond my idea of wanting to leave the law to the much more important idea: What did I want to do instead? Conversations (and arguments) between Brad and me typically focused on the pluses and minuses of my legal career. He thought the flexibility and paycheck of working as a part-time lawyer couldn’t be beat. He thought I was being a pansy-ass complainer and that I should suck it up. He didn’t understand why I was so dissatisfied with the arrangement, and I couldn’t explain it to him.

  “You can’t quit working,” Brad reasoned. “We need your income. If not law, you’re gonna have to figure out something else. And I don’t know how else you could make that kind of money working part-time.”

  “Well, at what point could we afford for me to just quit? How much would you have to be making?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Brad retorted. “I don’t want to be solely responsible for our family income. If I made three million a year, I’d still want you to work, at least part-time.”

  I was speechless. And trapped.

  After hearing me complain for months on end, Brad finally threw up his hands and said, “Stop complaining about it, then, and go find something else to do. I’m sick of hearing about it.”

  But I didn’t. I hadn’t come up with an action plan beyond complaining about what I was doing.

  Brad started golfing with his friends every weekend. I was offended. He should be spending time with the girls and me, dammit! But Brad is not, and has never been, a man who can be cowed into doing what anyone else wants. Rather than cut back on his golf outings, he suggested that I, too, arrange to have more fun.

  “Maybe you s
hould get together with friends more often,” he suggested, deflecting my complaints. “It might give you the opportunity to . . . relax?”

  This was a revolutionary idea, considering that outings with my friends had fallen completely off my world map since the girls had come along. Brad and I had just moved into a new neighborhood, and there were lots of ladies down the street I was hoping to befriend.

  I had an idea: I’ll start a bunco league. And so it was that the legendary Bunco Girls were born.

  Have you ever played bunco? If not, here’s what you do: Once a month, you and eleven other women drink wine, gab, gossip, and guffaw. After a little while, you drink a little more wine, gab a bit more, and then you . . . Wait, what do you do next? Oh, yes, you roll three dice. And count how many times the right number, whatever that happens to be, is rolled. If you happen to roll the lucky number on all three dice, stand up and shout, “Bunco!” (Heads up: Within seconds, someone is going to bean you on the head with rearview mirror–style fuzzy dice).

  When the dice rolling has ended, eat a brownie or perhaps a piece of mud pie as you find out whether you have exhibited sufficient prowess to win a bunco prize, which might be a scented candle or a casserole dish. (Or perhaps a penis-shaped lollipop—it just depends on the crowd.)

  Since I formed the group, the Bunco Girls consisted of two factions: “Laura’s old friends” and “Laura’s new neighbors.” Most Bunco Girls had young children and, like me, were frothing at the mouth to have some girl-style fun.

  With each monthly bunco session, rolling dice became less and less central to our purpose. What we were actually doing was creating a safe haven, an indispensable support system, for each other, a place to admit when we were saturated with temper tantrums and whining (by both our husbands and our kids). We commiserated about diaper duty, nighttime feedings, discipline, and childcare. We exchanged recipe ideas, book recommendations, and all manner of phone numbers for plumbers, baby sitters, hairdressers, and massage therapists, and we laughed. As time went by, we supported each other during pregnancies, divorces, injuries, and illnesses. Sometimes we cried and the dice remained untouched on the table.