“Thank you,” she says, breathlessly. “Thank you so much.”
I bring her closer, hug her tighter. I can feel the happiness radiating off her in waves. It’s a palpable thing. It has its own energy, its own temperature.
When she lets go, she takes my hand and guides me to the table.
“So, this is the man who’s making me a grandmother.” Her mother greets me as if I’m some kind of conquering hero.
I join them, and it’s like I’m me, but I’m also not me. I don’t know how I fit into this scenario. My part is over, like a character in a play who was killed off in the first act.
My role in the story of her life has ended.
Twenty-Five
Nicole
There’s a new member of my life.
I’ve gotten to know her quite well during the last five weeks. Her name is Grace, short for “saving grace.” I hug her, resting my cheek against the porcelain bowl.
We’re so tight these days that I just shared my dinner with her. Though, to be fair, dinner is a rather generous term to describe the meal I had tonight.
An apple and peanut butter.
By my rough estimate, there is about ten percent of it still left inside me. I wait for my Rosemary’s Baby to heave it out of me. I picture her or him down in my belly, having a conniption fit, tossing furniture, bureaus, whatever he or she can get her baby claws on.
When I saw my doctor earlier this week, she assured me this level of morning sickness is normal.
I told her we might have different definitions of the word “normal.”
She said it was perfectly reasonable to barely keep a thing down, and that my body was producing all the nutrients my Rosemary’s Baby needs, even if crackers and bread are the only food items my body will accept. She laughed when I used the name of the spawn-of-Satan baby from a famous horror flick for my unborn child. Obviously, my baby is truly an angel, but sometimes the behavior in my belly is devilish.
I asked my doctor how long morning sickness lasts.
“Till about the twelfth week,” Dr. Robinson told me with the cheery smile on her face that never seems to disappear. I surmised she’s never been a host for a parasite baby, but then she went on to inform me she had morning sickness for all four of her pregnancies.
“Four? You had three other ones after the first?”
She patted my hand. “Just wait till you get to labor, honey.”
She sent me on my merry way, and here I am, with three more weeks left of morning, noon, and night sickness. It’s the worst at night.
But even as Rosemary’s Baby mercifully holds on to the remaining ten percent of my dinner, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because the baby is healthy and that’s all that matters.
I pull myself up from my new worship zone and pat Grace on the seat. “You did well tonight. We will meet again soon.”
In fact, we spend breakfast together the next morning before I leave for work.
When I step into the hallway, my neighbor calls out to me as he walks to the elevator.
“Hey, Nicole! Your plunger is awesome,” he says as if he’s never experienced anything better than that household device.
“Glad to hear,” I say as I lock my door.
“Any chance you could loan me an iron sometime?”
I shoot him a look. “Frederick, I can’t loan you an iron. But do you need me to take you shopping for an iron?”
His eyes light up. “You would do that?”
I laugh. This poor guy. He’s so helpless. I bet his mother did everything for him. Time for his neighbor to fix that. “I would. Let’s go iron shopping soon.”
When I reach the office, my stomach flips, and I bring my hand to my mouth.
Dear God, let me make it to the bathroom.
But then, the sensation fades away, and maybe it’s actually nerves, because there’s Ryder’s office at the end of the hall. I’m not nervous to see him, per se. After all, I’ve seen him most days in the five weeks since learning I’m pregnant. We’ve pulled off the slide back into just-friends as seamlessly as we migrated into friends-with-benefits. We’ve grabbed lunch a few times, we’ve made a few dirty jokes, and I’ve done my darnedest to glide into this new phase without a hiccup.
The fact that he’s done with his dating guide and I’m done with—well, with needing his sperm—has eased the re-entry. We don’t have to spend time together like we did, so keeping our hands off one another has been doable.
But mostly, this new phase has been manageable because my morning sickness had the audacity to appear in week five and send my sex drive to Pluto.
Sometimes, though, the nerves show up when I see him. Perhaps because he’s still handsome, and he’s still kind, and we still made this Rosemary’s Baby together.