INTERLUDE
The Interview
It's a while before Miriam speaks again. Paul waits quietly, hesitant, pensive, as if any motion from him might shatter everything, might snap the fraying thread holding the sword that dangles above her head.
"I got pregnant," she finally says.
Paul blinks. "By who?"
"By whom, actually. You're a college student, learn your grammar. By Ben."
"Ben?" He looks puzzled.
"Yes. Ben? The one I had sex with? The one who shot himself? I'm sorry, did I tell that story to someone else just now? I admit, I fade in and out."
"No, sorry, I just thought, he's dead, how could he–"
Miriam snorts. At this point, she is three-quarters drunk. "We're not talking zombie sex; he didn't come lurching out of the grave dirt to fill my living body with his undead baby batter. We had sex one time, and that one time resulted in a pregnancy. That's the circle of life, Paul."
"Right. Got it. Sorry."
"Don't apologize, it's fine. I came back that night, escorted by the police, and my Mom already knew what was up, and the weeks after that – and after Ben shot himself – were spent cloistered away in my room with the Bible. I'm surprised she didn't duct tape it to my hands. She found all my comic books, which I kept under a loose floorboard with some CDs. She took it all away. If she could've stapled my vagina shut in the name of the Lord, I'm sure she would've."
"At what point did you know?"
She squints, thinks about it. "The morning sickness started… not quite two months after we did the dirty deed? Something like that. I woke up one morning and lost dinner from the night before, then ate some toast and lost that, too. I knew what it was because I'd been terrified of it. My mother's a big fan of consequence, always playing up how one's sins will be repaid by result, like poisonous fruit grown from a bad seed. Oh, you eat too much? That's gluttony, so here's some bowel cancer. What's that? You can't stop banging all those desperate housewives? Oops, looks like syphilis is rotting your cock off. Good luck!"
"That's an oddly karmic outlook."
"Don't tell her that. She'd put a knife to her own throat." Miriam mimes the slitting of her throat, her finger playing the role of knife. "Kkkkt! Kill the heretic."
"So how'd she react to the pregnancy?"
"I hid it for as long as I could. I just said I was getting fat, and that was a lie I couldn't back up, because I was barely eating enough for one, much less two. My belly swelled but the rest didn't, and so I ended up looking like one of those African kids on TV with flies crawling all over their bloated bellies."
"So she found out."
"She found out."
"And… what? She threw you out? She doesn't seem like the nicest mother."
Miriam takes a deep breath. "No. It was… totally the opposite. She changed, man. It's not that she became this sweet, adoring mother, but she really changed. She became more protective. She stopped with calling me names and blaming me for everything. She'd come into my room, check on me, see if I needed anything. Christ, she even made me foods I really liked. It was strange. I guess she figured you can't put the snakes back in the can. All that time she'd been treating me that way to stop me from making a mistake, and there I went ahead and made one anyway. Plus, maybe she really wanted a grandchild. Deep down, sometimes I wonder: maybe that's how she had me. Maybe that's why she was the way she was. Not that I'll ever know, of course."
"But…" Paul says. "You never had the child."
"Oh, I had him. He's been hiding behind your chair this whole time."
Paul actually looks.
"You're very gullible, Paul," she says. "No, I didn't have the baby."
"So, what happened? How did you lose the–" Beep beep beep. Paul's watch beeps. He lifts his wrist, and Miriam sees it's one of those old-school calculator watches.
"I didn't think anybody had those anymore," she says.
"I think I meant for it to be ironic," Paul explains. "Turns out, though, it's actually kind of useful. Who needs a Palm Pilot when you have an awesome calculator watch? Plus, it was, like, five bucks."
"Thrifty and practical, with a bad-ass calculator watch. Good for you. So what's with the alarm? Got a hot date?"
"Yeah," he says, lost in thought, but then he shakes his head. "Uh, though, it's totally not a hot date. I have to go to my mom's house, have dinner, explain to her for the thousandth time why I chose to go to college closer to Dad's house, even though it's only closer by, like, ten miles."
"Sounds like fun," Miriam says.
"Not really. We'll pick this up tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," she lies. "Same time, same channel."
Paul clicks off his recorder and pockets it. He gives a wave, then an awkward handshake, and then he leaves Miriam alone.
She waits. Not long. Thirty seconds, maybe.
Then she follows out after him.