The devastating shock at the two pink lines on the plastic pregnancy test.
It was a glitch in her system. An off month. She knew her body well enough to avoid birth control, which had, the few months she was on the pill, left her feeling angry and depressed. (Charlie had joked with her, saying if all women responded to the pill the way she did, he understood its effectiveness. It made women so miserable, nobody wanted to have sex with them.) She’d gone to see Dr. Bereck, needing confirmation. Bodies change, Dr. Bereck said. Cycles slow. She was almost thirty-five. Things were beginning to shift.
Five weeks: the baby is the size of a poppy seed.
Five weeks: the September night she told Charlie she was pregnant. They made love afterward, and he lay alongside her, his chest against her back, his hand on the slope of her waist. “You. A baby. My book,” he’d said. “This is everything I’ve ever wanted.” She just lay there, unmoving, trying to imagine it. Pregnancy. A baby. Motherhood.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t imagine any of it. Her imagination was already occupied by other things. The two-month trip to Southeast Asia she and Charlie were planning to take after he finished his second book. The marathon she’d just begun training for. Finally getting out of ghostwriting and publishing another book of her own. Those things she could imagine. But this?
She called her mother the next morning, questioning how she was going to manage, how she’d stay herself, admitting she’d had three whiskeys one night before knowing she was pregnant; that she’d gone on several punishing runs.
“What if I’ve already hurt the baby?”
“Colette,” her mother had said, “when abortions were illegal, women had to throw themselves down the stairs. You’re not going to kill your baby by accident.”
The memory dissolves as Charlie hangs up and comes to kiss her forehead. She closes the book. “You’ve scrambled eggs for me?” she says. “What’s the occasion?”
“Your doctor’s appointment.” He nods at the book. “I’ve consulted the experts, and according to them, we’re out of the woods.”
“Out of the woods?”
He walks to the built-in wine cooler next to the dishwasher and takes out a bottle of champagne, popping the cork in one quick twist. “Yes. The baby is going to start smiling soon. A schedule will develop as she understands the difference between night and day. Oh, and—” He pours a little champagne into a water glass and tugs her to her feet. “We can have sex again. Drink up, woman.”
Her body tenses as Charlie wraps his arms around her lower back, his hips against hers, walking her backward, pressing her against the refrigerator. Sex? The thought repulses her. She’s exhausted and spent; her breasts and back ache. She slept fitfully last night, listening to Charlie rustling around the living room after Poppy woke up at midnight, putting on a series of jazz records to soothe her, reading to her from his novel, the chapter in which the young soldier leaves his mother, goes off to fight the war. Colette knew she should have gotten out of bed and offered to nurse Poppy, which would have instantly put her to sleep, but she was too exhausted to bring herself to do it, to drag herself up from under the weight of the blankets in the air-conditioned room, from her thoughts of Midas. Of Winnie. Of Bodhi Mogaro. Did he have Midas? Was the baby still alive?
Colette gently nudges Charlie away. “You’re aware I have to leave soon, right? I’m meeting Teb.”
Charlie freezes and closes his eyes before touching his forehead to hers. “You’re meeting Teb.”
“You forgot.”
“I forgot.”
“Today’s your day with the baby,” Colette says. “I had her yesterday. And I told you, he had to reschedule last time—”
“No, I know. It slipped my mind. Poppy was up three times last night. I’m exhausted.”
“I’m sorry,” Colette says. “But tonight’s my night, and you’ll get a break from her most of tomorrow.”
He sighs and releases his hold on her. “You have to pump more. I used the milk in the freezer.”
“I did. This morning. It’s in there.”
“And we need to talk about all this.”
“All what?”
“This thing we’re doing, splitting child care fifty-fifty. It’s not working.”
She feels instantly irritated. “I can’t give up any more time,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady, scooping a lump of scrambled eggs from the skillet into her mouth. “I’ve fallen a little behind on Teb’s book.” She hasn’t told him the extent of it: how sure she is that she’ll never meet the deadline, or how off her writing has been. She’s too overwhelmed to admit how hard she’s finding it, trying to manage everything, how she’s aware they’re out of laundry detergent and the showerhead is leaking, the sound of it driving her mad, and how she just made Poppy an appointment with the pediatrician tomorrow, at Dr. Bereck’s suggestion.
“I’m not asking you to take on the child care, Colette. I’m saying we need to hire a nanny.” His expression softens. “I know you’re scared. This Midas thing is awful. But we can’t have it both ways. We can’t both try to hold down full-time work, have a newborn, and not have some help.” He takes her hands. “It’s not like we can’t afford it. We can use some of my parents’ money.”
She pulls her hand away. “I don’t want to hire a nanny, Charlie.” She can’t bear the thought of it, leaving the baby with a stranger. She walks past him toward the bedroom, lifting her damp T-shirt over her head.
“Well, then, what are we supposed to do?” He follows her into the bathroom. “If you won’t agree to hire a sitter, you have to pick up the slack.”
She turns on the shower, lifting the pink plastic baby tub from the floor of the bathtub, averting her gaze from the large clump of hair in the drain she shed during yesterday’s shower. “But that’s not what we agreed to.”
“I understand that. But having a kid is a little more difficult than either of us expected. We need to reevaluate it. My book is due in two months.”
“And mine is due in one.”
“I know, baby.” His jaw is clenched. “But you know what’s riding on mine.”
“I have to get ready.” She closes the door, then showers slowly, scouring her body with a new salt scrub she bought on a whim at the grocery store yesterday, trying to rinse away her frustration, the exhaustion. When she re-emerges from the bedroom in a clean blouse and skirt twenty minutes later, Charlie is in his office with the door closed. She steals into the nursery, the darkened room echoing with the cetacean calls of the Womb Noises CD, the air filled with the scent of her daughter. Colette can’t resist the urge to lean into the crib, to touch Poppy’s cheek and brush aside the threadlike hairs—as orange as pumpkin pie—from her forehead. A face so much like Colette’s mother’s.
Deciding not to disturb Charlie, she quietly leaves the apartment, walking toward the subway, where she stays at the end of the platform, away from the newsstand, wanting a few hours’ reprieve from the latest headlines about Midas. Once on the train, she closes her eyes, thinking how ridiculous this argument with Charlie is. He’s at the height of his career. A huge advance for his debut novel, gushing reviews anointing him one of the most promising new voices in decades, in the midst of finishing his second, highly anticipated book.
And here she is.