Birthquake

by B. L. Berry

  “I can’t wear that. That would only fit a twelve-year-old the size of my pinky finger.” It’s true. While a totally adorable shirt, I haven’t worn it for at least five years. I was fifteen pounds lighter, and that was before my pre-pregnancy weight. I’d be lucky to get an arm through it now.

  “Henley, if Winnie the Pooh can wear that slinky little crop top over his big ole belly and not fuck around with pants, so can you!”

  “Last I checked, Winnie the Pooh was a cartoon character. And as much as I’d like to be, I am not.”

  “Eh. Semantics.” She flips her blonde locks over her shoulder and continues scavenging through my clothes.

  “And besides, nobody but Jeff and my gynecologist want to see what’s going on down below. Though I think Pooh Bear was onto something with the pantless trend.”

  Tara smiles and tosses me a maxi dress that was hiding in a moving box in the back of my closet. I completely forgot I had this dress. I love how flowy and forgiving the style is.

  But the best part? It’s not pants.

  We’ve been walking around a mall a few towns away for a few hours now looking for shoes that Tara doesn’t even need. But I have to admit, it’s nice to get out of the house.

  “So you feel like you’re ready?” Tara asks, stuffing her face with a cinnamon sugar pretzel that we picked up from the Auntie Anne’s counter in the food court.

  “Almost. We have enough clothes to get us through the first few months, and I think enough diapers, but the only furniture we have for the nursery is the glider you bought us. We still need to buy the crib and get it assembled.”

  I try not to panic that the nursery isn’t finished yet. I know that newborns are so small they could sleep in a dresser drawer if needed. Not that I would do that. That would be weird. But, if necessity required us to fashion a tiny bed in a small drawer, I could find a way to make it work, much to my mother’s horror.

  “For starters, you will never have enough diapers. Take what you already have and quadruple it. Then that amount should get you through a week, maybe two. I can’t tell you how many trips Cam took to the drugstore in the middle of the night to pick up diapers because we thought we had enough. And don’t worry about the crib thing. You’ve got time, and you’ll get it figured out.”

  I hope she’s right. As long as I don’t go into labor early, we’ve got all the time in the world.

  “Yeah, I guess so. What else do I need to do?”

  Normally these are the kinds of questions you ask your mom, but the one time I asked her for some guidance on things to do before the baby comes, she simply responded, “Get married.” Thanks, Mom. Thanks, a lot.

  “Hmm, have you done the pre-registration crap at the hospital?”

  “Yeah, and it was the longest two hours of my life.”

  “That sounds about right. What about pretty panties? You’ve got a pair of beautiful undies to wear to the hospital?”

  Is she on crack? No woman needs to have pretty, expensive undies going into battle. It’s not like you actually wear underwear during labor and delivery. And from what I’ve gathered, I’ll be given a diaper of my very own to wear after.

  “Um, yeah, that’s one thing I don’t think I’ll need.” I pull a piece of pretzel from her hands and lick the sugar off my fingertips. I discard her suggestion to the top of the proverbial pile of random shit my best friend says.

  “Um, no, you do need it. Do you really think Beyonce strutted into the hospital to deliver those twins sporting stretched out cotton granny panties? No. She, no doubt, was wearing a glorious bejeweled thong since she understood that she’s about to have a gaggle of voyeurs all up in her Notorious V.A.G.” Tara waggles her finger in my direction. “You could learn a thing or two from Queen Bey. Just sayin’ …”

  When Tara comes to terms with the fact that we are not making a pit stop in Victoria’s Secret, and she finally finds a pair of shoes, she musters the courage to ask the one question she has undoubtedly been wanting to ask all freakin’ day. The one I’d been hoping to avoid.

  “Have you and Jeff made any more progress in the drunken drama department?”

  “I really think it was nothing but a little dad-to-be-bender. Things the past two weeks have been back to normal between us. I’m chalking it up to one off night. He gets a freebie. I’m not his mother, but if he wants to go out and get trashed in a blazing glory of panic, who am I to tell him ‘no?’”

  Tara looks at me cautiously. “Really?”

  “Really,” I promise, trying to reassure her that her best friend isn’t falling apart at the seams over some silly guy antics. “In fact, ever since the shower, he’s been a whole new level of awesome. He’s been reading and singing to the baby, doing a lot of the prep work. Actually, he’s been the one doing all of the nesting. It’s sweet. And, oh my God, Tara, you will never believe what Jeff asked to try after the baby shower the other night!”

  “Anal?” she deadpans in complete seriousness.

  Her comment catches me off guard, and I shake my head to rattle the word from my brain. “Ew! Gross! Not anal. You’re so weird.” My best friend’s ability to completely derail a conversation is a gift. Seriously. Where did I find this girl?

  “What? Don’t mock it ‘till you try it.” She shrugs. “But before you decide you want to try it, let me know. I’ll give you some pointers.”

  I cut her a side glance and silently promise myself that there are places where no man should ever go.

  “So what’s up? What’d Jeff do?”

  I press my lips together and try not to fall into a fit of laughter at the mere thought of Jeff’s pecs dancing under the funnels of my breast pump.

  “He … um, he had some fun with some of the baby shower gifts.”

  The wrinkles on her forehead are pronounced as she looks at me in confusion. “Fun like he wanted to be swaddled, call you mommy, and begged to be spanked?”

  “Seriously, T?”

  She simply beams at me in response. Some days I don’t even know why I bother trying to have a normal conversation with this girl.

  “Here, watch this.” I pull up the video on my phone and hand it to her.

  Her eyes go wide in disbelief.

  “Shut your face! You’re joking, right?” she comments after a few seconds of watching.

  “Keep watching, it gets better!”

  And before we know it, mall patrons are giving us funny looks because Tara is doubled over in booming laughter.

  LITTLE WHITE LIES

  Tara: OMG, Hen. Are you guys okay?

  I stare at the words glowing at me from my phone, processing the implications. I can practically hear Tara’s concern leaping off the screen of my phone.

  And still, I’m clueless.

  Me: Um, Yeah.

  Why wouldn’t we be okay?

  My fingers make swift work on my tiny phone keyboard.

  Me: What are you talking about?

  Sure, we were a little … off, but things have gotten better, his drunken night a distant memory. But that’s the ebb and flow of relationships. You have good streaks and less than ideal streaks. And when someone screws up, as long as you’re not off the charts on the SHITCON scale, you forgive and move on. Hopefully, the good moments outweigh the bad, and you learn to fall in love with each other all over again each day. I watch my phone with bated breath.

  Tara: Henley, you don’t have to hide it from me. Things will be okay.

  Me: ?

  Tara: Cam just told me about Jeff.

  Umm … what?

  Me: What are you talking about? What about Jeff?

  I call Tara for details, and she picks up before it even has a chance to ring.

  “Henley, talk to me, sweetie. Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me Jeff lost his job?”

  “What are you talking about, Tara? He didn’t lose his job. Jeff’s at work right now,” I interrupt, but she keeps on talking over me.

  “I can’t imagine what you two are going through. I w
as upset that you felt you couldn’t talk to me about it all. I know you guys are going to be okay, but I cannot even imagine what you’re going through right now with Jeff losing his job so close to your due date.”

  “Tara … I don’t …”

  But she won’t let me get a word in edgewise.

  “I know school is about to start again, but it’s not like a teacher’s salary is anything to shake a stick at.”

  I blanch, trying not to take offense to her comment, even though it’s disturbingly true. “Tara—”

  “Have you thought about talking to his parents? I know you said they were loaded. Maybe they could help you out right now?”

  “TARA!” I shout into the phone, desperate for her attention. She shuts up. After all, there’s a first time for everything.

  “Jeff’s at work right now,” I repeat my words from moments ago. I mean, he is at work, right? Certainly I’d be the first to know if he lost his job. We’re going to have a baby together. We’re getting married. This isn’t the kind of news you keep from your significant other.

  Tara’s uncomfortably quiet for a beat and then she whispers, “Oh, sweetie …”

  “Wait. You’re serious.” It’s not a question, and all of my insides feel weak.

  “Henley. I’m so sorry. I really thought you knew …”

  And then it happens.

  That moment of free fall into darkness. Where you’re not in control of anything, and everything is just barely out of your grasp. And you keep tumbling, tumbling down into the vast nothing, unsure if anything or anyone will be there to break your fall, but you send a silent prayer up, begging for the landing to be pain-free and for it all to end quickly.

  “Say something,” Tara implores.

  “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  He’s been going to work every day the last few weeks and coming home right on schedule. Nothing in his routine has changed. I pause and look at a framed photo of us on a bookshelf across the room. A couple so happy and so in love. The kind of couple that doesn’t keep secrets from one another. The kind that doesn’t lie about something so important. A few silent moments pass before I’m able to speak again. “How did you find out? When did this happen?”

  “Well, Jeff wasn’t the only one lying from what I’ve gathered.”

  Now she’s really not making any sense. But I remain quiet, waiting for an explanation.

  “The night Jeff got wasted was the same day he was let go. What started off as a drink of commiseration with some of his teammates, turned into a panic attack in which half the bar was consumed. Supposedly, Jeff was terrified to call you for fear of launching you into a hormonal tailspin, so he called Cam for a ride. Cam picked him up and tried to drive him around until he sobered up a bit, but it was no use. Then, the pair of them sat at a bench at Swope Park for a few hours. Cam thought he was having the whole pre-dad jitters thing and attempted to have a heart to heart, but Jeff broke down, told him that he was let go from his job and that he felt like nothing less of a failure. Then Jeff asked for his help connecting to some industry headhunters and swore Cam to secrecy.”

  A million words and emotions pulsate through my body and mind. But a soft “Oh” is all that I’m able to respond with.

  “Don’t worry. I’m plenty mad at Cam over all this. But I’m mostly worried about you.”

  We sit in silence for what feels like hours. It feels like silence and I are becoming fast friends.

  “Are you okay?” Tara asks quietly.

  No. “I’m okay,” I lie, certain she can feel just how betrayed I am.

  “Let me rephrase that, are you guys going to be okay?”

  Tara understands my threshold for lying is nonexistent. Ever since Leo tried to convince me that the tall woman with the blonde hair and big boobs was his cousin when she was, in fact, a chick he had been sleeping with behind my back, I’ve been a little sensitive to half-truths, partial truths, and lies of omission.

  “Henley?”

  I take a deep breath through my nose and exhale slowly through my mouth. I have no clue if there’s even a we to speak of right now. If there’s no we, how can I possibly be remotely okay? There’s only one logical answer.

  “I’m going to kill him. And then bring him back from the dead so I can murder him again.”

  Whoa.

  The tone of my voice frightens me a little, and I’m starting to realize just how much more pissed off I am than I first thought. This isn’t just a little white lie. This is a big fat fucking omission of epic proportions. And big fat fucking lies are worthy of big fat fucking consequences. A consequence like death and dismemberment.

  “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? The man lost his job and is probably sitting at the lowest of lows. He’s probably trying to figure out a plan of attack before he tells you. Don’t let your crazy pregnant woman hormones do the talking—or homicide—for you.”

  That was weeks ago. The window for compassion and understanding was slammed shut the moment he decided to not be forthright with what happened. This is the kind of thing we should be tackling together. So much for being a team. Where you walk, I walk, my ass! Apparently, I’m only allowed to walk whenever and wherever he allows me to walk. And I am not that little submissive woman my mom thinks I should be.

  I call bullshit!

  How dare he blindside me like this? How could he? And Tara, of anyone, should not be calling me out and defending him right now. Whose team is she on?

  I grind my teeth, inhale slowly and count to three. “Don’t you think that if Cameron lost his job a few weeks ago, and kept it hidden from you with the facade of going to and from work each and every day, you’d lose your shit just a little bit?”

  Tara’s silent, but I can still hear her breathing on the other end of the phone. She’s putting herself in my shoes, trying to process it all.

  “So no, I don’t think I’m overreacting, and this is not the hormones talking. I’m the size of a beluga whale, I’m back in the classroom again next week, anytime I’m standing for more than five minutes I lose my breath, and now I learn that my fiancé — the man who has vowed to take care of this child and me until the ends of the earth — has been lying to me about going to work each and every day? If he’s not at work, what—or who—the hell is he doing?” My voice is shrill and fast and foreign even to my own ears. I gasp for more air, trying to calm myself.

  “Okay. Point taken. You’re hurt.”

  “Damn right, I’m hurt! I’m hurt by the one man who’s supposed to not hurt me! I just … I can’t even!” I throw my right arm in the air at nothing in particular. I can’t believe this is happening right now.

  “Don’t you mean how much can’t, can a white girl can’t, if a white girl literally couldn’t even?”

  Grrr! “It’s not the time for jokes, T,” I clip harshly.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make you laugh. Do you want me to come over? We could eat our feelings and figure this out together?”

  “No. I just want to be alone right now. And not just because I’m only a few weeks away from never being physically alone again.” I throw my head against the back of the couch and look at the ceiling. I’d give anything to feel numb right now. But I’m hot, sweaty, and feel like an asshole for not growing some balls and actually pressing him to talk to me. All of this could have been avoided. It should have been avoided. But our collective inability to actually confront the situation head on has left us in a hot, confused mess.

  “Henley, you’re two of the most stubborn people I know. And you’re stubbornly in love with each other. You’ll get through this.”

  I’m not sure about that last part. But I certainly hope she’s right. “I’ll talk to you later,” I whisper before turning off my phone, desperate to make my problems disappear.

  SPARKLY TASSELS

  The carpet in between my fingers is soft and plush.

  Slowly, I brush my palms back and forth against the ivory fibers on t
he floor.

  Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  The touch and cadence are calming.

  Being here, in this room, is calming.

  Even though this room is void of a crib and the rest of the necessities we need to buy before this kid comes, it’s still the most calming place in the whole house.

  It won’t be calm for long. In the not so distant future, it will be filled with piles of toys and stacks of books and a baby crying to be fed or have its diaper changed.

  But right now, it’s strangely hopeful and depressing.

  And calming.

  I look around the empty nursery, and my heart silently breaks into infinite tiny pieces. This child deserves to come barreling into this world and into a family that has their shit together. A mom and dad with an iron clad bond who can—and will— get through anything life throws at them, because they’re able to tackle it head on together.

  I have no idea how long I sit on the floor.

  Minutes, maybe? Hours?

  When I finally look up to the doorway. Jeff is there, arms folded, leaning casually against the frame. There’s a thin veil of sadness and concern upon his face. He’s trying to mask it with a polite smile that doesn’t suit him. I’m used to Jeff beaming so brightly that he lights up the whole damn universe. Or, at the very least, my universe. As much as I don’t want to believe Tara, I can’t help but wonder if what she said was really true.

  But it just doesn’t make any sense.

  “What are you doing in here on the floor?” His voice is so soothing it’s almost alarming. I wouldn’t think anything of it had it not been for Tara.

  I take a breath and steady myself. “How was work today, Jeff?” I ask, ignoring his initial question.

  He swallows hard, and I can see his Adam’s apple hesitate in his throat as shifts his eyes to the window. “Good,” he quips. “Same old, same old.”

  I look at him, eyes pleading, for him to say something, anything, to make me believe him. And God, do I want to believe him.