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I went into labor on Mother’s Day, just after Mark took our mothers and me to dinner. I’m at least 95 percent positive I ate my way into the contractions. The whole time I was stuffing my face, Mark was clowning with me like he always did, calling me a beached whale and a few other things that had me cackling and feeling good. I swear, all that teasing is the reason why Marcell came out looking just like his daddy; they’ve got the same head and eyes, the same thick, hard, leathery hands. Marcell is Mark’s boy, indeed. And Mark was so excited to be his father. He was Johnny-on-the-spot when it came time to beat it over to Presbyterian Hospital in Washington, DC, just blocks from Catholic University; it was he who helped me into the wheelchair and rushed me through the halls into the emergency room. My God, he was so excited and nervous, he was bumping me all into the walls. “Calm down, dammit, you’re going to make me have the baby right here in this chair!” I yelled after he pushed me right into a wall, too clumsy with excitement to steer the damn thing.
He was equally antsy in the labor and delivery room, as was my entire entourage of family and friends who came to witness my son’s birth. Mark alternately celebrated with his boys in the hospital parking lot and in the room with me, where he did everything from read the newspaper to catnap. And when I took to the hallway to walk through the labor pains, he and my parents led the pack. Every time I had a contraction, I would stop and the group would stop, too, and stare at me, and then when the pain subsided and I could see something other than stars, I’d walk again and they would, too. We were causing such a ruckus that at some point, one of the nurses came out and let us have it. “You know there are other people giving birth here,” she said, huffing. “You can’t have the whole second floor!”
She didn’t have any more problems out of us when it came time to push, though. Mark was front and center, with the camera to his eye, aimed at the miracle revealing himself on the delivery table. When Marcell finally made his big debut, Mark lay on top of me and cried tears so joyous, so infectious, everyone else in the room fell out in tears, too. “You gave me a son,” he said, in complete euphoria as our baby, wrapped in a bundle of blue just like in my dream, nuzzled against my chest.
It was beautiful, and it stayed that way for a while, too; Mark was an attentive dad in the beginning, picking up and dropping off the baby while I took my classes and went to work, making sure I had what I needed to juggle the demands of both school and my job while parenting a newborn. We were doing exactly what I’d envisioned for us: we were a family, and I was holding us down while helping Mark see that life could be good if we worked together.
But the novelty wore off and life got real again. With his work schedule, my classes, a new baby, and the physical and financial difficulty of juggling it all, tensions ran high in my apartment, which we were now sharing. Finally, his temper started getting the best of him and the closer we became, the more complex things got, the more violent he became. It started with him barking at me when I asked simple questions, and quickly escalated to confrontation when I’d question his whereabouts or why he would show up late picking me up from work. The curses would fly and there would be a grab or two, especially if I called him out on his bullshit. I found myself screaming at him more and more, as his excuses for not being around became more implausible and his accountability less dependable. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, things escalated.
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I hardly ever questioned his whereabouts. He was a grown man, and I trusted him, so, like a dummy, I believed Mark when he said he was out with the baby or doing odd jobs or looking for work. But on this one particular evening, he had my car and I was late for work on the cruise ship, where I was the supervisor, responsible for making sure everything and everyone ran smoothly. What kind of example would I set as a supervisor by showing up late? I was pacing back and forth, mad as hell, punching Mark’s pager number into the house phone and standing over the receiver, cursing as I waited for him to call me back. Marcell, who was about a year old and just learning how to walk, was trying to keep up with my pacing. He was only a baby, but he could sense my distress.
Finally, I heard Mark’s key rattling in the front door a good half hour after I was supposed to have punched in at my job. I was undone. “Where the hell you been with my car?” I yelled as he pushed the door open. “You know I had to be at work. You’re so damn disrespectful!”