“I know I don’t want any,” I say, and then open my birth control packet at the bathroom sink.
Ben furrows his brow and says, “How about you stop taking those things? Can’t we just see what happens? See if it’s meant to be?”
I tell him that this plan of his sounds akin to the Christian Scientist approach to modern medicine.
He gives me a blank stare.
“I have a better idea,” I say. “Let’s hold hands and jump out the window and see if we’re meant to die.”
Then I take my pill.
The most egregious of Ben’s remarks comes one Sunday when we are having brunch in Rye with Ben’s mother, Lucinda, his two sisters, Rebecca and Megan, and their husbands and children. As we finish eating and move into the family room of the home Ben grew up in, I am thinking what I always think when we get together with his family: could our families and specifically our mothers be more different? My family is volatile; Ben’s family is placid. My mother is unmaternal and quirky; Ben’s mother is nurturing and vanilla. I watch Lucinda now, sipping her tea from a china cup, and think to myself that she is a complete throwback to the fifties, the kind of mother who had homemade cookies waiting when the kids came home from school. She lived for her children so much so that Ben once pointed to that as a possible cause for his parents’ divorce. It was a classic case of empty nesters realizing that they had nothing holding them together but the kids.
So, as it often happens, Ben’s father found a new life with a much younger woman while Lucinda continues to live for her children and now grandchildren (Ben’s sisters each have two daughters). Ben is her clear favorite, though, perhaps because he’s the only boy. As such, she is desperate for us to change our minds about having a baby, but way too polite to come right out and criticize our choices. Instead, she is full of seemingly breezy comments on the matter. Like the time when we bought our car, and she slid into the backseat, remarking, “Plenty of room for a car seat back here!”
I always have the feeling that she is directing her comments at me and that she blames me for our decision. Ben used to say I was paranoid, but now, of course, I’m actually right, Rebecca and Megan are both stay-at-home mothers and don’t help matters for me. They show genuine interest in my publishing world, and frequently select my novels for their book clubs, but I know they wish that I would put my career on hold and give their baby brother a baby of his own.
So although Ben’s family is perfectly pleasant and utterly easy to get along with, I dread spending time with them because they inevitably make me feel defensive. Of course, I feel even more defensive now that Ben and I are no longer a united front. And I have a gnawing feeling that they will sniff the situation out and seek to divide and conquer.
Sure enough, as the adults talk and watch Ben’s nieces play with their Barbies, Rebecca says something about how nice a boy cousin would be to break things up a little. I make a quick preemptive strike by looking at Megan and saying, “Well, Meg, you’d better get busy!”
Megan’s husband, Rob, shakes his head and says, “Heck, no! We’re done!” and Megan chimes in with, “Two children is enough. Two is perfect . Besides I wouldn’t know what to do with a boy!”
Lucinda smooths her skirt and shoots Ben and me a demure, hopeful look. “So I guess it’s up to you two to have a boy,” she chirps innocently. “Besides, that’s the only way to carry on the family name!”
I can feel myself tense up as I marvel at how she can care so much about a name that belongs to her ex-husband. But I just say, “I wouldn’t know what to do with a boy, either Or a girl for that matter!” Then I laugh as if I’ve just made a very clever joke.
Everyone joins in with a polite chuckle.
Except Ben, who squeezes my knee and says, “You’d figure it out, Claudia. We would figure it out.”
The joy in the room is palpable. His family practically applauds, they are made so giddy by this comment from their only brother and son.
Lucinda leans forward and says, “Do you have something to cell us?”
Ben smiles and says, “Not yet.”
I restrain myself until we’re in the car alone, driving home. “Not yet ?” I shout. Then I tell him that I’ve never felt so betrayed.
Ben tells me not to be so dramatic, that it was just a turn of phrase.
“A turn of phrase?” I say indignantly.
“Yeah,” he says. “Jeez, Claudia. Chill out, would you?”