“I baked those for you,” she says in a wheezy voice.
I force myself to cross the dingy rug and hug her neck. “You look good,” I lie.
“And look at you,” she says, pulling away, so she can crane her neck and see me. “New glasses. Are they…purple?”
“Yep.” I push them up the bridge of my nose and look down at my mother. She’s got oxygen tubing taped to her face, and her pale skin is papery and slightly gray, but she looks glad to see me. Her version of glad.
“How’s it going?” I ask. Years ago, I realized I do better dropping by here if I act extremely low-key. No theatrics—none of any kind—no matter what my mother says to me or how badly she tries to stir the pot.
Mom waves to her ancient, green, suede couch.
“Sit down,” she rasps.
After years of battling multiple sclerosis, it’s the lung disease that got my mom—her body’s fuck-you for years of smoking menthols on the back porch.
I sit gently on the edge closest to her mechanical recliner. “Only for a few minutes. I’ve got to go by the grocery store. Stock my empty fridge.”
“Well, you’ve got to see your mama first,” she says in chiding tones.
“How are you?” I ask again.
She runs a palm over her gray hair, looking wary and annoyed. “I’m still here, I guess.” She looks at me with her lips pinched into a sort-of smile. “I managed to make cookies for you. My ankle hurts now.”
Of course it does.
“Thanks, but you know you didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense.” She waves dismissively. When she fails to pick up her thread of the conversation, I resort to small talk.
“Mr. Morrison seems to’ve been taking care of things. Looks like he re-painted those porch steps.”
“Took him four whole days.” Mama looks incredulous, as if she can’t believe the nerve of the bastard.
“Maybe he was busy.”
“He was,” she says. “Dallying with his favorite neighbor.” She wrinkles her nose. “That Ms. Carthridge. Wears too much perfume and barely got her husband in the grave. We all know those tits are fake as balloons. That dead husband of hers was a salesman.”
“Sounds like a delight.” What I really mean is you’re a bitch. I stand up and walk into the kitchen, looking for the promised cookies. I find them on the stovetop, on a Halloween-themed plate. A glance around the room reveals a fabric wall calendar with Velcro’d witch hats, brooms, and black cats bearing dates, as well as spider and spider web salt and pepper shakers. My mother has a thing for seasonal decorations—especially those she can find at the Dollar Tree.
“Bring me one, and Diet Coke, too,” she calls.
“Sure.”
I sweep my gaze around the kitchen, which smells like bacon grease—the way it always has—then tip-toe down the short hallway that leads toward the rear of the place. Mom’s room is the first door on the left. I peek inside, and, finding her things in their proper place—nothing on the floor that might trip her; no evidence of any sort of issue—I rush back into the kitchen.
I return to the shabby living room with a platter of five cookies and two big glasses of Diet Coke. I know if I don’t have some myself, Mom will start to nag and, eventually, scoff at my dislike of carbonated things, so I always pour some and have a few sips as we talk about the weather (cold, for fall, Mama insists), Mr. Hubert and Ms. Carthridge (yawn), her oxygen compressor (“acting finicky”), and her hot doctor, a fifty-something-year-old who always smells like mothballs, but has wide shoulders and an ass my mother wants to squeeze. Shudder.
She’s just finished telling me about how Dr. Benson seems to relish calling her by her first name—Delphina—when Mom shakes her head and says, “I guess you heard about that poor ex-husband of yours.”
I almost spit the Diet Coke out. “What?”
Glee crosses her face: joy at catching me off-guard. “I heard that Gabe McKellan has come back,” she says with some dramatic flair. “Staying with his grandmama.” She shakes her head, looking mournful. “They say something awful happened up there in New York.” She waves her hand toward the ceiling, as if New York is up there with her dusty ceiling fan.
“Something awful?” I shouldn’t take the bait, but I can’t seem to help myself.
Mama waves her hand again. “Who knows exactly what,” she says. “But I heard it was tragic!”
“Mm. Well, that’s not good.” I keep my tone neutral, even as my heart pounds. “No one gave you any details?”
“You know, they never do,” she says, shaking her head. “No one ever talks to me.”
I wonder why.
I change the subject, though it pains me, and five minutes later, I’m cycling down the quiet street—with instructions to get mom a pork chop at the grocery store and “find yourself another husband, so you can make a grandbaby before I die.”
Perfect.
3
Marley
For a while, I almost had another husband. Corey was the first doctor I met when I moved to Chicago after med school. He was—and is, I guess—the classic silver fox: confident without the ego, witty but not a show-off, capable but never arrogant. Corey made me feel safe and comfortable at time when I was still shell-shocked from what happened with Gabe. The thirteen years between us meant while I was struggling to get a foothold as a young professional, he was purchasing a second home and giving conferences to groups of anesthesiologists. From the first date on, I craved the safe and sheltered feeling he gave me.
I was wearing his ring when, a year and a half ago, I started talking about babies over Chinese take-out. Instead of saying what he usually did—"I’d love to see you pregnant” or “You women and your baby-talk”—he said, “Listen, Marley…I’ve been fixed.”
Fucking Corey had a vasectomy during his marriage to his first wife. When I lost my shit and demanded to know why he’d never told me, he gave our relationship the final blow: “C’mon, Marley, you weren’t serious! You’re on call every other weekend. Also, Mar, I mean this with utmost affection but…you’re not maternal. You’re a great physician. You don’t want your own rug-rat, not really.”
“I have always said that!”
“And you say you want to move to Africa!”
Africa is, in fact, near the top of my bucket list, fuck you very much.
I moved out the next morning. The next month, I missed my period, which sent me running, in a panic, to my OBGYN. She sent me home with a prescription for Xanax and contact info for her favorite psychotherapist. I spent three months in therapy before I felt like I had moved far enough past Corey to see clearly.
Verdict: I want a baby. Why? Because I do. Because I want to be a mother. I just do. Why do I need a reason? More to the point: why do I need a husband?