by Kris Ripper
“Pretty sure. We could wait another few minutes.”
“Okay.”
I wanted to take her hand. But I didn’t.
The third insemination was a quickie at home, after which I didn’t stay lying down for the usual fifteen minutes, because I had to pack an overnight bag and get back to the farmhouse.
Tom had handed the jar off to me with a cheeky smile, and Fredi had called over, “Wash your hands before you touch my bar!”
And weirdly, though it wasn’t like we were advertising, a few of the usual suspects clearly knew what was going on. Jaq and Hannah kissed me and whispered, “Good luck.” Alisha gave me a big hug and wished me good luck with my baking project, wink wink. Ed kissed my cheek.
It was a little like they were seeing me off on a great adventure. Not like I was just gonna go home, sperm up, and drive back to Dred’s.
There was absolutely no kissing. But she held me all night long, and when I temped in the morning my temp had shot up, which meant ovulation had occurred.
Timing was spot-on. Everything else was up to the universe. Or fate. Or God. Or biology. I let Dred hold me longer than I should have, but at least in her arms I felt slightly less out of control.
Third Sunday of the month.
Andi and Jimmy’s.
Not being a dope, I brought backup.
Andi took one look at Jaq and said, “Oh my god, Zane, what did you do?”
“Good to see you, too.” Jaq pushed past her. “Jimmy! Feed me dead animals!”
Jimmy’s laughter echoed from the kitchen at the back of the house.
Here I was. With Andi. Waiting.
Damn it. Jaq sucked at backup.
“Hey, big sis. You gonna let me in, or what?”
“Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t do such a stupid, irresponsible thing.”
You’d think we had these overbearing, disapproving parents, but “hands off” was the only way to describe our folks. When I’d needed someone to agree to be Future Kid’s family if I died, I’d gone to Jaq and her dad; when I told my parents I was planning to have a kid, they’d smiled and nodded and wished me good luck.
That was it.
But hey, who needed disapproving parents when they had Andi?
She glared at me. “Tell me you didn’t have sex with Carlos’s boyfriend because you’re so desperate to have a baby that you lost your fucking mind.”
I winced. Ouch. “You have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“Because I’m not fucking insane. God, you’re such a cliché right now. I can’t even believe that you’re that woman, after everything you’ve worked for.”
Even though I’d braced for it, even though I’d known it was coming, I still felt my chest seize up. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t speak.
My backup returned, thank god. Jaq grabbed my arm and tugged me into the house. “Fuck, Andi, quit being a dick. One: they did not have sex. Two: Tom is Carlos’s husband, not his boyfriend. Three: she didn’t lose her mind, she thought it over, talked about it with her midwife, had a lot of conversations with Tom and Carlos, and made a decision. Just because it’s not the one you would have made doesn’t make it wrong.”
Jimmy, loading the table with food, took a second to pour me a glass of wine.
I shook my head miserably. Wow, would wine be good right now. “Uh. No, thanks. I’m—”
“Got it.” He put the glass in front of Andi’s plate and reached for a sparkling water for me instead.
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“Sit, kid. Jaq, go get the potatoes.”
“Aye-aye.” She eyed me for a second, then apparently decided Andi couldn’t do any more damage in the time it’d take her to go to the kitchen and come back.
“I can’t believe you actually did this,” my sister muttered. “I knew you were completely losing perspective, but this doesn’t just affect you, Zane, it affects any kid you might have. Don’t you get that?”
My hand drifted to my belly, where cells might or might not be dividing even now to the soundtrack of Andi’s angry lecture. Tears dripped down my cheeks. I didn’t even feel like I was crying. I was so tired of it all of a sudden. Tired of thinking about the whole thing, tired of talking about it. I didn’t want to fight with my sister. I wanted . . . Hell. I wanted Dred. Even when we disagreed, she was never trying to convince me to change my mind.
Jaq slid into the chair next to mine. “Andi, back off.”
“She doesn’t understand—”
“Seriously, Zane’s not a fuckin’ idiot, and you’re biased as hell. Hannah’s a whole lot more familiar with case precedents for LGBT family law than you are, and we talked about the actual risks, as opposed to the psycho sister risks. Zane made a decision based on all the facts.”
“A stupid, indefensible decision.”
Jaq was about to go off, but Jimmy spoke first.
“Hey.” He didn’t raise his voice. Andi once told me that the thing she found most attractive about him was the way he lowered his voice when he was serious. He never got louder. It was probably how they’d managed to stay together so long.
Andi turned on him like she was about ready to strike out at whoever the hell pissed her off.
“That’s our potential niece or nephew you’re talking about.” He spooned potatoes on our plates as if nothing was up. “It’s not a risk we would have taken, but Jaq’s right. It’s not our decision.”
It was so unprecedented to see him contradict her outright that I was actually physically uncomfortable, resisting the urge to shift in my chair.
“I can’t believe you’re taking Zane’s side. We talked about this!”
“We did. But it’s not our decision, Andi. And it seems like it’s already been made, so there’s nothing to fight about.” He glanced up at me.
“I’ll test next Thursday.” I’d never waited fourteen days, and the truth was that I’d almost certainly get my period before then, but it felt like the only power I had was restraining myself from testing on day nine, and ten, and eleven, and collecting those BFNs.
“Good luck, Zanie.” He raised his glass.
Jaq immediately raised hers. “To family.”
“Family,” Jimmy echoed.
It was worse than if they’d said nothing. To family. But what if I never had one? What if it never worked? I forced myself to act normal and raised my bottle of water. “Thanks. To family.”
Andi sighed. “Fine. But I want to go on the record that I think this is a fucking bad idea.” Still, she thunked her wineglass against my bottle. “Family.”
We toasted, and drank, and everyone sat down, shuffling for the dishes they wanted.
“Anyway, if you need to sue him later—or countersue him when he sues you—we’ll find the most coldhearted shark who exists to take your case.”
Jaq snorted. “Man, the Jaffe family show their love in weird-ass ways.”
Jimmy passed her the green beans. “I like that you say that as if you’re not one of us. Oh, speaking of, I meant to call Richard. I’m starting to see vegetables in the garden section. Is it time for planting yet?”
“Yeah, you’ll have to talk to him. He hasn’t mentioned it to me, but I’ve been sort of, uh, distracted.”
“Distracted how?” Andi asked.
I bypassed the green beans and started cutting my steak. Oh good. Now they’d get off my case. “She practically lives at Hannah’s. Her apartment’s like a storage container with a bathroom at this point.”
Jaq elbowed me. “I came to your defense!”
“What? You don’t want them to know you’re cohabitating with your girlfriend?”
“We aren’t!”
Eyebrows raised all around the table.
“Okay, all y’all can shut up. We aren’t. I have a place.”
Jimmy cleared his throat and did his questioning-a-witness voice. “How many nights do you spend there a week, Ms. Cummings?”
Jaq blushed dark red. “Shove it up your
ass, Jimmy.”
“Keep your apartment,” Andi advised. “Very reasonable, Jaq. That’s a decision I can get behind.”
“Aw. Damn. Now I know I’m doing something wrong. Uh, no offense, Andi.”
Andi got offended (again), Jimmy laughed, and I enjoyed my steak.
I’d managed to pretty much keep it together for the rest of dinner, but Jaq knew something was up.
She grabbed my hand as we walked to our cars. “Why don’t you come back to the condo with me? Hannah’s working late. We could raid the fridge and watch crappy movies. Wait, that sounded wrong. You could come over even if Hannah wasn’t working late.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice try. And no, thanks. I think I’ll head home and take a bath. You know, it’s kind of my ‘dinner at Andi’s’ self-care ritual.”
She gave me a long, beseeching look. “Come on. That was harsher than usual. You really want to be alone in your house right now?”
Alone. Forever. Might as well be clear that this is what we’re talking about.
For a second I almost gave in, just to get that look off her face. Except being alone had always been the counterbalance I needed, the perfect antidote to how exhausting it could be to spend so much time with people. So why wasn’t I craving it now, when everything else felt so damn dire?
I didn’t want to be with Jaq. I wanted to be with Dred. But I couldn’t be that selfish asshole who only came around when I needed something from her, especially if the thing I needed was cuddling and I couldn’t offer any kind of commitment along with it. I cared about her way too much for that.
“I’ll be fine,” I told Jaq, probably not all that convincingly.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She shook her head. “Are you sure?”
I shoved her. “Get going. I have a date with a candlelit bath.”
“That could be nice . . .”
I walked away before she could keep trying to help me.
For a few minutes after I got home, I thought I’d misjudged my imminent breakdown. Maybe I was just fine, no freak-out to be had. I gave myself over to the soothing ritual of running a bath, dropping in the right amount of bubbles, lighting candles. I tugged my towel down off the shower door and heaped it in the chair beside the tub.
Wait. Was I allowed to take a bath? I hesitated, scanning through my brain for any mental notes stored under pregnancy and baths. I probably wasn’t pregnant, but if I was, I didn’t want to boil the tiny clump of cells.
I ran some cold water in and swirled it around. Just in case.
All the preoccupation had been good. I wasn’t even that close to crying now, which was both a relief and left me feeling vaguely bereft. Maybe I should have gone to Jaq’s after all. Except probably if I’d done that, I’d be a weepy mess by now.
Slippers, bathrobe, sparkling water. I slid into the water like it was welcoming me home.
Except I liked a steaming-hot bath. And this wasn’t. It wasn’t tepid, or anything. Still warm. But not scalding.
And I probably wasn’t pregnant. The chances were low. Very low. Even with three insems.
Which made me just a woman with an empty womb, sitting in a bath that wasn’t nearly hot enough.
Sorrow hit with breathtaking force, and I pressed wet hands to my mouth like I was trying to hold it in. I couldn’t. In seconds I was sobbing, rough, broken sounds, bouncing back to me from the walls.
It was never going to work. And yes, of course I could still have a family, I told everyone that, and I was serious about it. I looked forward to adopting. I had an agency picked out. But it wasn’t the same thing as getting pregnant, and damn it, I wanted that. Desperately.
I felt entitled to it, and I tried so hard to fight that part of my brain, the part that told me this was something I deserved. Infertility was mostly random. I wasn’t more deserving of a healthy pregnancy than anyone else, and I knew from years on the message boards that my need for it was the same as every other TTC woman’s need for it. All-encompassing and endless, like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.
I wanted to bargain with God, except I didn’t strictly believe in God, and I certainly didn’t believe some deity was sitting on a throne somewhere waiting to see what I’d offer up in return for a successful pregnancy. I wanted to say, What more can I do? How can I prove I’m worthy? Why won’t you let me have this?
But my life was full of blessings already. I had a family. Jaq, Andi, Jimmy. Jaq’s dad, my parents. Carlos and Tom. My friends. Club Fred’s. The boys at QYP. All spaces where my family lived, where I could go to feel at home.
My mind drove effortlessly toward the next logical location, the most obvious and intuitive of them: the farmhouse. The kitchen, warm with cooking, filled with voices. Emerson, Obie, James. Dred. The garden, the stairs, her bedroom, all golden light and her arms around me.
But I’d screwed up whatever chance I’d had of being part of that.
I leaned my head down on the rim of the tub in my empty condo and cried myself hoarse in a cold bath. Then I dragged myself to bed. Alone.
It’d taken me thirteen cycles, but I’d finally figured out how to make the two-week wait survivable.
A big damn distraction.
I’d taken over two of the drop-in center’s tables for wake prep, and most of that space was covered in pictures. I hadn’t intended to make a scrapbook, but when I started asking people if they had photographs of the people we’d lost, I got a lot more than I’d expected. A lot were snapshots, and a lot were printed from home computers. Most were from the last five years, but some went way further back than that.
These weren’t just the people who’d died because of Joey Rodriguez. These were all of our people, down the years. A few of them were of the NAMES Project Quilt panels instead of faces. A lot of them were pictures of couples or groups of people with their arms around each other.
And I had no earthly idea what to do with them, so I’d called in reinforcements.
Alisha and Dred stood at the head of the combined table and took it all in.
“Is that Donald?” Alisha touched an old picture of two young men with their shirts off, squinting into the lens.
“You mean because he’s Asian?” Dred squinted at it. “I think I only met Donald once, I can’t tell.”
Alisha laughed. “No, like I actually think it looks like him. Not only because the guy’s Asian.”
“Yeah. Who do you think the other guy is? And Z, how’d you get a picture from Donald?”
“Carlos did. Or Fredi. Fredi actually handed me a shoebox full of pictures. I marked all the backs with an orange dot so I can return them to her.” I had a whole spreadsheet of the codes I’d used to keep track of any picture that needed to be returned.
“This is really intense,” Alisha said after another pause. “It’s not exactly what you wanted, though, Zane.”
“No. But I think it might be better. I mean, these are . . . our people.” I touched one of the NAMES pictures and held it out to Dred. “How do you make a quilt with a signature in it?”
“A hell of a lot of painstaking work. Damn.”
“So.” Alisha shook her head. “I don’t know, you guys. What do we do with all this? How do we honor our dead without making it all into a creepy shrine?”
“Exactly.” The door opened and a dark figure slipped into the room. I was immediately on guard until they looked around.
Merin.
“Hey,” I called. “You are exactly the person I wanted to see. Get your butt over here.”
He looked like hell. And he was definitely supposed to be in school right now. I almost offered to text Jaq, but decided I’d leave that to Josh and Keith.
“How am I ‘exactly the person you wanted to see’? That makes no sense.”
I waved my arm over the pictures. “We’re trying to work out what to do with all these pictures for the wake.”
“What’s the point of the pictures?”
<
br /> “Remembrance, I guess.”
Dred picked up another one. “No. Not remembrance. The point is that we are them and they are us.”
“I’m not these fucking people.” Merin took a half step back.
“You really are.”
“The fuck? You don’t know me.”
Dred looked at Merin, up and down. “Please. I was you, all pissed off and alienated and thinking no one could understand me. Except I didn’t shit on people who tried to help me as much as you do, so I guess I was you, but smarter.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
She smiled. “Truth hurts, little boy.”
Merin’s mouth snapped shut.
“Anyway.” Dred waved a hand. “That’s your point, Z. We’re all one big happy fucking family, even if we’ve never met, even if we despise each other. Even if we kill each other. Right? Even if we kill each other, we’re still part of this godforsaken community.”
I rolled my eyes. “Alisha, remind me not to have Dred make any speeches, okay?”
“I kind of liked it. You’re lucky Ed’s not here, or he’d be asking you to let him record that.”
Dred shrugged. “I don’t care much one way or the other. I’ve been dismissed and insulted and told I’m not queer enough, or not white enough, or I got a kid now so obviously I was straight all along. Fuck all that. I make people uncomfortable because I don’t fit in some neat little box with a predetermined label? Good. I can’t escape these fuckers any more than they can escape me.”
“Great.” I pretended to write something down. “Our motto is ‘We’re all stuck with each other, so deal with it.’”
Merin took another step back. “I don’t want to be stuck with any of you.”
Alisha grinned. “Oh, we’re not all bad. I’m super nice!” She widened the grin until it took on a crazy edge.
“You’re fucking nuts.”
I laughed. “Okay, be nice to Merin. Merin, have you met Alisha and Dred?”
“I don’t want to meet anyone. Where the hell are Keith and Josh?”
“Office.”
He spun and stalked across the room, shaking his head the whole way. I thought he was muttering something that sounded like “crazy bitches,” but that might have been wishful thinking.