by CD Reiss
“You have to start eating,” I reprimanded myself. “Someone else is counting on you.”
I surprised myself. What was I doing? I didn’t want a baby. I just wanted to make Jonathan as comfortable and happy as possible for however long he had. That was it. Not raise children into orphanhood.
I breathed heavily and tilted one leg. Inside the thigh, the word Jonathan’s became visible. I was marked, written on, branded with his name. I closed my eyes and asked myself what I wanted to pray for.
Was I relieved? Disappointed? What would change? Would I throw caution to the wind and let my sons and daughters go through puberty with a brave and dead father? What was I agreeing to?
I didn’t know. But I knew things were going to change. If we were having a baby, then fuck it, I’d just deal with it.
A smile stretched across my face as if it were someone else’s face. I felt the muscles tense and expand, felt the swelling in my heart one felt when one smiled with joy. I felt as if deciding to deal with it had cracked open part of me, and that smile spilled out.
I opened my eyes. This was awesome. When did it get awesome? Had I been holding on to the desire for his children without realizing it? Had it crept under the covers with me? Had it been in my diet? The air I breathed? When had this glee snuck into my heart?
I pressed my eyes shut against tears. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want my body to have any confusion. The burst of emotion came from a place I didn’t know existed. Some string of code in my DNA, some hormonal rush that was more biological than logical.
I was overjoyed. Thrilled to bursting. I jumped up and, still naked, ran to the tablet. I couldn’t wait to tell him. The metal and plastic were cold in my hand as I woke the device, then I stopped. I wanted to hold him. I wanted his reaction to myself, to own it the way he owned my orgasms. I wanted to feel his strength and his warmth around me when he found out.
Instead of calling him, I made reservations to go home.
When I put the tablet down, I saw the Sharpie on the desk. I picked it up, went to the bathroom, and stood in front of the mirror. My body looked the same to me. I turned every which way and saw no difference. His name between my legs was barely visible when I stood, just a few unreadable hashes of black. I popped the cap off the marker and pressed the tip to the skin below my navel.
“Upside down and backward,” I said. I looked in the mirror. That just confused things.
Right is left and up is down. I drew a J with my right hand and, convinced I was doing it correctly, continued until I’d written Jonathan’s baby across my abdomen.
Then I laughed so hard I lay on the bed and cried with joy.
chapter 26.
MONICA
I couldn’t contain myself. It was twenty minutes to boarding, and I fidgeted around the terminal, wishing I’d taken the Gulfstream. I picked up the phone. As much as I wanted to call Jonathan… I didn’t. Not yet. I wanted to see his face and hear his breath. I wanted him to hold me so close I could feel that motherfucking heartbeat.
“Mom?”
“Monica, are you all right?”
She was wide awake, and it was four in the morning in Los Angeles. If I’d called at noon, she would have been sleeping. That was Mom. I’d learned to accept it.
To say my mother’s attitude about me had changed after I’d married Jonathan would be a gross understatement. And now she’d be the first person to hear the news from my lips.
“I’m pregnant.” Silence. I didn’t realize how quickly I’d been circumnavigating the terminal until I slowed down. “Mom?”
A woman rolled over my foot with her square bag and gave me a dirty look. Fuck her.
“Monya.”
“Are you all right?”
“Am I all right? Are you asking if I’m all right? My only daughter marries a dying man in the hospital, nurses him back to health, and gets pregnant with his baby, and you ask if I’m all right?” I started to reply, but she cut me off. “How can I not be all right? I’m so happy I cannot even speak. My God, a baby. A baby.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I was glad I’d told her, but I didn’t feel the explosion of joy I’d hoped for. The reveal was kind of a letdown. It needed to be Jonathan, but in front of me.
“Where are you?” she asked. “How far along? Do you have the sickness?”
“I have no idea, but I had kind of a little period a couple of months ago, so the doctor figures two months. And I’m not sick at all. I mean, there was a little flu going around, so—”
“Do you have it? You can’t catch anything.”
Between the worry in her voice and my flight number being called, I lost track of the conversation. “I know, I know. My plane’s boarding. Just don’t say anything to anyone. I haven’t told Jonathan yet.”
“You can’t tell him.”
“What? Why?”
“Anything can happen.” Her voice took on that mysterious, awed tone it got when she talked about the inscrutabilities of God. “You have to wait until you’re twelve weeks. You don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Disa—”
I realized what she meant in the middle of the word. She’d miscarried a few times and had just bled the babies away without ever bothering my father with the gory details. She was who she was. The fact that I was a different person completely, healthy and young with every reason to carry a baby to term, didn’t matter. She would worry about stuff because that was what she did.
“Okay, Mom. I won’t tell.” I painted the lie white and called it a day. “I have to go.”
“Call me when you get back.”
“Will do.”
I walked up to the gate and boarded the plane, a little disconcerted. I’d dreamed of doing things like flying first class from New York to LA, booking at the last minute without a thought to the extra cost. But once I could, I didn’t give it a second thought. Taking money for granted seemed to be an unavoidable symptom of actually having money.
I got the window and leaned my head into it as soon as I sat. I watched New York get as small as a Lego set, with pieces scattered around the outer boroughs and stacked beautifully on the erection-shaped island in the middle. The evening air was crystal clear, even on a weekday. I’d been shocked at how little pollution there was, and as we flew away, chasing the setting sun, I prepared myself for the soup-thick air of my home.
Should we bring up a baby there? Los Angeles, with all of its silicone reality and blind eyes to real problems? The poverty we swept under the rug, the crumbling school system, the undercurrent of violence and ferocity that coexisted with my little hipster world and was completely foreign to Jonathan’s. Should we go somewhere cleaner? More real? More wholesome? More sincere?
I didn’t even know what I wanted from having children. I didn’t know what questions to ask. I needed Jonathan to even continue thinking about it. Past his excitement, the happiness I knew my news would inspire, he’d have ideas. I wanted to hear them, all of them. I wanted to hear his dreams for the future, and I wanted him to talk far ahead. Ten years. Twenty. Thirty, even. Because I was having his baby, and goddamnit, by hook or crook, he was going to live.
chapter 27.
JONATHAN
Petra stood in front of my plane in her uniform, carrying a bundle of navy blankets. Both my pilots were complete professionals, but Petra made most professionals look like part-timers. Jacques stood next to her, also in uniform, but tired, as if he were the one who had been nursing a newborn.
“You flying?” I said to him after Lil let me out of the car and handed me my bag. “You look too tired to drive. Can Lil give you a lift?”
“He’ll take you up on that,” Petra said with a smile as she handed me the bundle she carried.
“Claude,” I said as I held him. He still had the squishy pink look of a newborn. He looked angelic in the mid-morning light. “Nice-looking kid, Jacques. Lucky thing your wife has strong genes.”
Petra pressed her lips together as if she was trying not
to smile. “If he roots, come and get me.”
“Roots?” I asked.
Claude waved his hands around, not knowing what they were for or if they were even his. I gave him my finger, and he clutched it.
“Tries to latch on to your breast.”
“Ah. I’m sure I have a bad joke somewhere, but it flew out of my head.”
“That happens.” Jacques picked up my bag. “I’ll help you up. Lange’s gonna copilot. He’s running through the terminal as we speak.”
“I owe you for this.” Worse than owing him, having that baby in my arms made me feel like a petulant, spoiled ass who couldn’t wait a day to see his wife.
Jacques shrugged. “You’re usually pretty easy. And you know, it’s nice to see you getting around again.”
I would have questioned him on how obvious it was to everyone that I wasn’t myself, but it didn’t matter. The baby wiped it all away. I picked a piece of crud from his eye, and when I pulled my arm back, Petra put the diaper bag around my shoulder.
“He needs to be changed fifteen minutes after a feeding. I nursed him in the car, so you’d better get to it,” she said. “You know how to change a diaper?”
“I did it for my nephew once.”
“Great. If he cries, you swaddle him tight. I’ll show you how. He doesn’t use a pacifier, but you might let him suck on your finger for a minute when he’s wrapped. And you hold him and bounce him. Not much rocking, just bouncing. The noise of the plane will probably put him to sleep, but if not, he’ll scream. That’s on you, sir. I can’t come out of the cockpit for fussy. Only hungry.”
“Were you saying something? I was distracted.” I smiled at her to let her know I was kidding.
“We have half an hour or so of flight prep. If you play your cards right, he’ll sleep through it.”
Jacques started up the stairs and indicated I should follow.
This would be the longest flight of my life, and I was ready for it.
chapter 28.
MONICA
I slept a little, all wrapped up in my first-class-approved blanket. I woke close to landing at the same time of day as I left, chasing the sky from blue to yellow. The city below was grey, blanketed in thick brown smog, and we were descending right into it.
I hadn’t been dreaming, but when I woke, my mind was in mid-question. What would it be like to be pregnant? Would I be sick? Active? What could I eat? Could I fly? Could I fuck? I didn’t even have a doctor. I’d just run to the clinic for my last Depo shot. No way I could do that for this pregnancy. Jonathan wouldn’t allow it, and I didn’t want to. I wanted the best, even if I didn’t know what that meant yet.
I hustled through baggage and to a taxi stand. If I knew Jonathan, he’d be in bed still, but I wouldn’t make it home before his run. I sat in the back of the cab, tapping my fingers and wondering how much of a surprise I wanted to deliver. I’d snuck back without using any of his staff, so he had no way of knowing I was home. It could be too much of a surprise. Not quite thirty people jumping out from behind the couch and yelling “Happy Birthday!” but not a stress-free event either.
Stop worrying. Just stop it.
I turned on my phone. I could call him. But what if he came home from his run, and I was just there in a total non-shocking kind of way? Then I could tell him. I ran alternate scenarios through my head. In bed, naked. In the kitchen, making eggs. I could write him a note and leave it on the banister. I could call first and tell him to wait somewhere in the house. I considered everything as the cab slid onto the 105 freeway toward home.
chapter 29.
JONATHAN
I’d gotten the baby to sleep without much trouble. He’d sucked on my finger while I sang him a few off-key verses of “Collared.” Thankfully Petra couldn’t hear me give her son evil ideas, and he couldn’t understand a word of it. They only spoke French to him anyway.
The plane started down the runway. I put my feet on the seat across from me and slipped out my phone. I wanted everything to be perfect when I landed. I needed to know where she was, who she’d be with, and how close she would be to the hotel.
“Quentin?” I said when he answered.
He was somewhere loud, a club or restaurant, and I couldn’t yell with a sleeping baby in my arms. I just hung up and texted him.
—Is Monica with you?—
—I have no idea where she’s off to—
—You were supposed to watch her—
—Sorry, man. Didn’t work out that way. Haven’t seen her since last night. The sessions broke down. Starting up again on Tuesday—
Damnit. I couldn’t hold Quentin responsible, and that was the problem. He owed me nothing, and now Monica was MIA. How did I know she wasn’t being attacked by that singer? Or dead in a ditch? Or getting roofied in some dirtshit club?
I should have hired someone to watch her. I should have sent drones or bugged her purse. I had been so busy proving what a nice, reasonable guy I was that I walked right into this. Fuck that. Never again. I was neither nice nor reasonable when it came to Monica. The next time she went anywhere without me, I was planting a locator chip under her scalp.
I called my wife. She wasn’t dead.
“Jonathan? Where are you?”
Would I blow the surprise? I had to think fast. “I’m on a plane. I’ll be back in a few days. Where are you?”
“No! Oh, Jonathan! I’m home. In the house.”
“No!” I immediately looked at the baby. He was sleeping like a doll. “Don’t move!” I hung up. “Petra!”
Calling to her from the seat wouldn’t work, and it would wake the baby. I reached for the intercom. Couldn’t get it. Shifted. The plane sped up. It was going to take off in seconds. I couldn’t reach, nor could I put the baby down. I hit the intercom button with my foot.
“Mister Drazen?” Petra asked. “We’re taking off—”
“No. Stop. No take off. I’m going home.”
“Oh, merde!”
I’d never heard her swear before. It was cute, and I braced myself for what was about to happen. The plane slowed down. I leaned my head back, and Claude rolled his eyes open then screamed. After the plane stopped, the cockpit door clicked open.
Petra peeked out. She was back to her normal level of professionalism. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, I just… don’t need to go anymore.” I found myself yelling over the baby. I stood and rocked him.
“You need help with Claude?”
“No, I got it. I owe you for stopping the plane.”
“My pleasure. I’d rather go home.”
“Me too.”
chapter 30.
MONICA
I ran to the door when I saw the Bentley across the drive. He got out with a bag, leaving Lil half out of the car when he said something to her with a wave. She got back in and drove off.
He turned to the door, jacket under his arm and bag over his shoulder. His hair was a little disheveled, and his cheeks were scrubby with two days of beard. His shirt was open to the second button, and his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing his taut forearms and strong wrists. And his hands. Those hands. Like the marble statue of David, he was an altar to the aesthetics of perfect proportions.
“Hi,” I said as he strode to me.
“What’s this about?” He looked stern, but under it, he was pleased to see me.
“You were supposed to be home.”
“I was. But let’s cut the supposed to’s. If you came home to get laid, you shouldn’t be wearing clothes. So let’s fix that.”
He reached for me, just touching the red scarf around my neck, but I backed up.
“I want to try something different.”
“Really?” He stepped forward again. One more step, and we’d be in the house.
“I want you to do what I tell you,” I said.
He stepped forward again. I backed up, and we were inside.
“Like how?” He slammed the door shut.
“Li
ke I’m in charge.”
He dropped his bag and jacket with a thud. “I told you I don’t bottom.” His arm shot out and grabbed me by the waist.
I pushed him away. “Today, I’m the boss.”
“You want to start a limits list? We won’t get laid for a month.”
“You have to just trust me.” I pushed him backward, and he fell into a chair.
“Monica”—his voice got serious—“really. This is not going to work.”
I put my hands on the arms of the chair and leaned forward until my nose was an inch from his. “You smell like baby powder.”
“And you smell like you want to piss me off.”
“Trust me.” I placed his hands on the arms of the chair, laying them flat. “I won’t tie you up or hurt you. That’s mine. But I want you to stay still. That’s all.” I pulled my scarf off.
“Better watch it with that thing,” he said. “I know how to use it.”
I got behind him and tied it around his eyes.
“Monica?”
“Jonathan?”
“I’m not turned on.”
“You will be.”
I peeled my clothes off quickly. I’d showered but taken no effort to scrub off the Sharpie. I was still marked with his name and the location of his baby. I took a deep breath. He tapped his finger, mouth set in a tight line. Not turned on. Almost frightening in his stress. He really didn’t like taking orders. But he would love this. I turned my naked back to him, facing the Mondrian over the fireplace, and crossed my arms over my abdomen. I didn’t know how long I would last. I felt like a bottle of soda someone had shaken but left sealed.
“Take the blindfold off,” I said. I heard a rustle behind me.
“You have a great ass.”
I turned, fully nude, and after half a second, I moved my arms to my sides. His eyes worked their way from my face, to my tits, hardening them without even touching them, and down my body until he stopped where I’d written Jonathan’s baby.