by Roxane Gay
Michael sat down next to me on the floor.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Michael finally said after an awkward silence, caressing my arm.
I pulled my arm away. “Yes, you did, or you should have.”
“Would you really consider not going through with this pregnancy?”
I shrugged. Michael pressed one of his hands to my stomach and I traced his knuckles with my fingertips. I was so tired I curled up and rested my head in his lap. I fell asleep quickly. In the morning, I found myself in the hotel bed, Michael sitting up, staring at me.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“You have to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Making decisions for us as if you’re the only one in this relationship.”
I sat up. My head hurt. I was still tired. “I don’t do that.”
“Yes, actually, you do. I want us to have this child but this is a decision we need to make together, period. You should have told me about the miscarriage. You should have let me help you and you didn’t and I have a real goddamned problem with that.”
I was not used to Michael taking a stand. He’s not a pushover, but he knew what he was getting into before we married and picks his battles. I was so surprised to see him unwilling to tolerate my bullshit, I blurted out, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Say that again?”
“You are right. I am sorry,” I said, exaggerating each word.
He nodded. “Well, good.”
“Anything else?”
“I planned on having a long argument so I’m going to need a minute.”
I squeezed his thigh. “Very funny, babe.” I closed my eyes again and was racked by a fresh wave of nausea. I stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, stubbing my foot against a corner, wincing, and then puking into the toilet. Michael was right behind me, knelt, held my hair away from my face. I stared into the toilet. “This is your fault.”
He massaged my shoulders gently. “Yes, it is.”
“To be clear, I am going to make your life miserable. I am telling you this in advance so you can better appreciate my apology.”
Michael handed me a cup of water. “Yes, I know,” he said. “I am happy to be miserable if it’s with you.”
I vomited again.
The first trimester was interminable. I was always tense, afraid to do anything for fear I would kill my baby, sick all the time, unable to eat. At work I was distracted. I lost eleven pounds. I am naturally thin so I looked like someone was starving me. We couldn’t find an obstetrician we liked so we spent many late afternoons leaving work early only to sit in the waiting rooms of various doctor’s offices across Miami looking for a doctor who wasn’t weird, rude, creepy, or indifferent. After one obstetrician basically hit on me in front of Michael, making a horrible comment about how a pregnant lady can’t get pregnant, we worried there were no competent obstetricians in all of Miami.
Whenever I felt a twinge or cramp I panicked, made Michael take me to the emergency room. They got to know us by name at the University of Miami hospital. I was so sick even Michael started to wonder if going through with the pregnancy was a good idea. In my tenth week, I spent an entire day cramping. I saw blood and left work, drove myself to the hospital. The emergency room was crowded. It was the first really hot day of the year. There is some correlation between sweltering heat and medical catastrophes in Miami. I was surrounded by a bewildering range of people displaying visible, bloody injuries. I waited, mildly panicked. Michael was in a meeting, his assistant told me, and not to be disturbed. I politely told her to please go ahead and disturb him but for some reason he didn’t get the message or she didn’t deliver it. An hour passed, the pain intensifying. I became wildly panicked, tried not to hyperventilate. The pain was familiar. I was losing the baby, alone, in a hot, smelly waiting room surrounded by crazy people.
Michael finally called, sounding cheery, which did not help. “What’s up?” he asked. “I’m on my way home.”
“I’m sitting in the waiting room at the hospital. How about that for what’s up?”
He instantly became serious, asked where I was, but I was not at my best. I hung up. He kept calling back but I didn’t answer because I was tired and sweaty and unreasonable. If I spoke to him I’d say something regrettable. I turned my phone off when the vibrating became annoying.
I was still in the waiting room when Michael ran into the ER, tense, sweaty, his shirt wrinkled and damp, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He found me hunched over, my face in my hands, and sat next to me, resting his hand on my back.
“I found you. You’re still waiting? You had me so scared. You hung up on me. Seriously, Miri. You are unbelievable. There’s a time and place for hanging up on me when you’re mad. Being in the ER, not so much.” He talked so fast I could barely make out each word.
I didn’t answer, just leaned against him, held his leg tightly, irritated but glad to have someone to share my misery with, glad to be with him. Michael wrapped his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be angry later but so we are clear, there will be a lot of anger.” He tapped his foot impatiently, staring at his watch every few minutes.
After fifteen minutes or so he went to the receptionist, pointed back at me, said something I couldn’t make out, poked the counter with his finger, pointed back at me again, and soon we were ushered somewhere closer to medical attention. The emergency room physician said the cramping was likely due to the baby’s position in the womb, that there wasn’t much they could do beyond prescribing bed rest. She decided to keep me overnight for observation. In my room, Michael held my hand, tracing around where the IV needle pierced my skin. I was exhausted and scared and in a foul mood. I couldn’t even hold a conversation. I just lay on my side, shivering even though the nurse brought me several blankets.
I’m not sure what it was but something about his face and the calmness in his features made me irrationally angry. I could not stand the sight of him. My stomach cramped again and I pulled my knees closer to my chest, hissed softly.
“What can I do to help?”
“Get out, just go. You’re driving me crazy with the hovering.”
“I’m not leaving you, Miri, not going to happen.”
I growled. “Michael, I swear to God, if you do not leave this room immediately, we will have a problem.”
He shook his head, gave me his well-practiced look of exasperation, one I normally mimic, which irritates him no end. When he stood, his knees cracked and I thought good.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am quite sure. Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow or whenever. If I make it through the night. Did you know that in the eighteen hundreds, forty percent of women died during childbirth? I am probably going to die.”
He stood, awkwardly, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his hands shoved in his pockets, unsure if I was testing him. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”
I turned to look at him. “Why are you still here?’
Michael took his hands out of his pockets, leaned over the railing, and kissed my forehead. “I’m going, I’m going.” He paused in the doorway. “Should I come back in an hour?”
“Good night, Michael.”
As he shuffled out of the room, I pulled the pillow off my face and sat up, said, “I cannot believe he actually left,” and, “Asshole.” I stared at the television on mute, sulking, grinding myself into a complicated and bitter mood that had been slowly festering all day. I played with my phone, checked for text messages from Michael, and when there were none, threw the phone across the room. It made a racket as it hit the wall and then fell to the floor, the case cracking into several pieces. It wasn’t long before I was lonely and feeling sorry for myself. I kept looking at the door, hoping Michael would come back. I chastised myself for sending him away. I felt sorrier for myself. I got angry again. During that first trimester, I spent almost every
moment experiencing the entire spectrum of human emotion. It was the kind of thing that could put a woman off children forever.
A couple of hours later, a nurse breezed in, a redhead named Laura who smelled like mints and cigarette smoke. She refilled one of my IV bags and chattered pleasantly as she did whatever nurses do when they’re looking at your chart and messing with the IV machine and keeping you from having a moment’s peace. I missed smoking. I wanted to grab her arm, pull her to me, and suck the nicotine out of her body.
“Why is your gorgeous husband standing guard outside your room, looking pitiful, instead of in here with you?” she asked.
I frowned. “My stupid husband went home.”
“Unless I’m thinking of the wrong guy, he is standing right outside your door.” She smiled down at me, patting the railing.
Just like that Laura and her delicious cigarette scent were gone. My mouth watered. I wondered if I had imagined her—an oasis of forbidden vice. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood carefully, gripping the IV pole for balance. The floor was cold. I took small steps as I made my way to the door. My legs were rubbery. The wheels of the IV pole squeaked lightly. I cringed. When I reached the doorway, I was sweating. I held on to the doorjamb and looked into the hallway. There to the left was Michael, standing, leaning against the wall. He was, indeed, looking pitiful.
I cleared my throat and he stood straight.
He pointed at me. “What the hell are you doing out of bed?”
“You said you were going home.”
“No. You said I was going home. You’re not the boss of me.”
I looked up at my husband, eyes wide. “Oh, I’m not?”
“Not today.”
I bit my lower lip. Michael is very sexy when he gets mouthy. He says the same thing about me. “Stop standing in the hallway. It’s weird. Come back in the room. I’m bored.”
He shook his head, crossed his arms across his chest. “Not until you do something for me. Raise your right hand.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a lawyer. This is not a stretch. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. ‘I, Mireille Duval Jameson, apologize for being mean to my loving, devoted husband.’”
At the nurses’ station to the right of us, three nurses leaned forward, eavesdropping. I’m pretty sure they were smirking.
“I’m not saying that.”
“Do you want me to stop standing in the hallway being weird?”
I shrugged.
“Do it,” Michael said.
“Fine, whatever. I, Mireille Duval, apologize for being mean to my loving, devoted husband.”
“Very good. I’ll let the abbreviation of your last name go for now. Say, ‘I will stop being an asshole.’”
I wrinkled my nose. “You first.”
He raised his hand higher. “I will stop being an asshole.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Fine. I will stop being an asshole.”
He stepped closer. “You missed me. Admit it.”
There was a sudden twisting just below my navel, one that was all too familiar. My knees buckled. I gripped his arm, said his name as I gasped.
“Enough messing around,” he said, steadying me. He was calm. “I’m a terrible husband. You’re not supposed to be out of bed.” He lifted me, nodded toward the IV pole. “You hold that.” Michael carried me back to my hospital bed.
Before he set me down, I said, “Wait, baby. Yes, I missed you. Kiss me.”
My husband looked at me. “I love you.”
The way he said it reminded me of who we are together. I clasped the back of his neck and he lowered his lips to mine and wanted to hold his breath inside me forever.
When we pulled apart, I was flushed all over. “Now you can put me down.”
Michael laid me down like a precious thing. I slid to one side of the bed, reached back, patted the empty space next to me. “Come hold me and also tell your child to stop giving me such a hard time.”
My husband wrapped himself around me. I held his arm across my stomach. He covered the gentle rise of my stomach with his hand. He said, “Stop giving your mother a hard time, little baby.” I slid my fingers between his and finally said what I had been thinking since I learned I was pregnant again. “I’m terrified, Michael. I am absolutely terrified.”
It felt good to push my fear into the air around us.
“Shhh,” he said. “The three of us are going to be just fine.”
It was the first time either of us had acknowledged there were three of us. We were a little family even if we had no idea what we were doing. Somehow, that made me feel better. In the before, it was so damn easy to believe in happily ever after.
I made myself forget everything I could no longer bear to remember—love, my husband’s sleeping body, his smile, my child’s fingers, how our baby laughed, how much it calmed me to poke his chubby cheeks while he nursed, feel his sweet, warm breath on my skin. I made myself forget the baby album Michael and I made just for the two of us—pictures of Michael and me in bed, my swollen belly a coaster for his beer cans, countless pictures where I am raising my middle finger to my husband, a few dirty pictures, the ultrasounds we labeled with the word Blob and the week of pregnancy, a staged photo where we dressed up like cave people, another one where Michael took a picture of me literally barefoot and chained to the kitchen stove. I made myself forget how when he took that picture he joked, “This is the only time we’ll ever see you near a stove.” I forgot my mother and hiding in her skirt as a little girl and the grip of her hand as we walked together and my father lying in bed next to me, reading while I was sick, and my friends, the parties we had, the dancing, the wine, falling asleep in our backyard and waking up beneath a canopy of palm fronds, cooking with Michael, him standing behind me, his hands covering mine, his nose buried in my neck, as we chopped onions and carrots and red peppers and leeks.
I made myself forget for as long as I could and then, alone in my cage, as the heat of the day rose and filled the room, it suddenly all came back to me, who I was and who I loved and who I needed. The memory of my life, the weight of it, threatened to break my body more than any man could. I needed to be no one so I might survive. I needed to hear the voice of someone who loved me but could not ask for such a thing. I waited.
The sky darkened when the Commander appeared. I became two women—the one who remembered everything and the one who remembered nothing. This required a delicate balance.
As a child, my mother would take us to the park in our neighborhood on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sometimes Saturdays. We walked together through the well-manicured subdivision, all holding hands, my mother, my brother, my sister, and me. Sometimes she made comments about the lawns, the ones that were a bit unkempt. Occasionally a neighbor driving by would honk their horn and wave and my mother would smile brightly, wave her hand energetically, and then she’d look down at us and say, “Americans are so rude with their horns.” My mother loved America but did not care much at all for Americans.
At the park, she sat on a bench and read while the three of us played. There was a balance beam and for years it was nearly impossible for me to traverse. No matter how hard I tried, my body was unwilling to walk that straight line without falling to one side or the other. The ground beneath the balance beam was covered in soft wood chips, and on the walk home I often found myself brushing the clinging wood from my clothes. One day, when I was nine, we arrived at the park and I was determined to walk the line. I took off my shoes, having decided the shoes were the problem. I wiggled my toes and they brushed against the soil and wood chips. I did side stretches like Mrs. Polanski made us do in gym class and then I stepped up carefully, holding on to my sister’s head until I could steady myself. From the corner of my eye, I could see my mother had set her book down. I turned to her and smiled. She nodded and stared at me intently. She stared at me so hard, I was certain her will alone would get me to the other side.
I clo
sed my eyes and stretched my arms out to my sides. I imagined I was flying and slowly, I began to move forward. I did not lift my feet at first, just slid forward along the smooth painted wood. I had not yet fallen. I felt emboldened. I took a real step, faltered a bit, tensed my arms. Then I took another step and another step and another until I was at the end of that balance beam. When I reached the end, I jumped up and threw my fists in the air. I landed on the beam perfectly and the thrill of it filled my chest with a feeling I hardly knew how to understand. My mother was never one for affection but she stood and came to the end of the beam where I still stood, flush with the simple, careless joy of my small accomplishment. She wrapped her arms around me and lifted me in the air. She whispered into my hair.
The Commander stood in the doorway and motioned for me to follow. He did not grab me or touch me at all. I took small, careful steps.
“You may call your family,” he said. He handed me a new cell phone and left me in his room, affording me a small amount of privacy. I dialed the eight numbers and waited as the phone rang. My father answered but I did not want to hear his voice, or a single word he had to say. I asked for my husband and waited and when Michael came on, I wanted to break down but I could not.
“I wanted to hear your voice.”
“Baby, we’re working on getting you back. I swear.”
I wrapped an arm around my waist. The whole of my body was so tender. “Don’t,” I said. “Just stop. Tell me about our son.”
“He’s right here,” Michael said. “He misses you. He’s been very quiet, knows something is wrong but he is okay. Your mother and I think he said his first word, toast, only it sounded like yost but still, he pointed to bread when he said it. I’m pretty sure he is the smartest baby ever.”
I smiled, then stopped myself. It was too easy to fall into his voice, to pretend I was anywhere but abandoned to animals. “We did good with him, Michael. He’s the best thing we will ever have done. Don’t let him forget who I was, no matter what happens.”
Michael’s voice pitched higher. “What are you talking about, Miri? What’s going on? I am doing everything I can. You have no idea.”