Only Children Read Free

was surprised to see his eyes glistened with emotion. “We’ll be fine,” she heard herself say, again amazed that she felt called upon to reassure him.
    “Don’t worry,” he answered, as though she had expressed worry.
    She moved out of his arms. While she shuffled off to the john, he said, “I’ll make the soup.”
    “You’re going to have to learn to cook,” she said.
    “I’ll start tomorrow,” he said.
    Sitting on the toilet, she felt ludicrous and she despaired of everything. Her enormous belly was exaggerated by the position; her head was filled with disgusting images of the baby falling out into the bowl. She had a dread—from her childhood—of constipation, a condition that pregnancy had returned to her. She was afraid to strain, but she wanted to make sure—imagine going to the hospital only to discover she had to make number two. She didn’t want the “fulfilling” experience of natural childbirth now that she had a taste of its emptying pain. She could tell from the look of her thighs and the painfully taut stomach skin that she would never be the same. And lastly, worst of all, she didn’t want this life inside her to emerge. Squalling and needing—expecting her to provide everything from milk to moral guidance.
    When she tried to move her bowels, the beginning of the effort frightened her. She worried that it might provoke a contraction. She started to laugh at herself, but the release of tension in her face loosened a sob instead.
    “Honey?” Eric called out nervously. “Are you okay?”
    She pressed her forehead with her fingers to hold back more; her whole body was engaged in an effort to restrain nature, fighting the overwhelming uncivilized elements with thin weather stripping and tattered insulation. Nothing could stop this hurricane; it would blow through her, the swirling force blasting her open to take what it wanted.
    Suddenly she was peeing. She had no memory of receiving a request from, or of sending an order to, her bladder. Already the mutiny had succeeded: the ship’s course was in the hands of the crew; she had become a bystander—locked below—forced to guess at what was going on.
    Wiping herself was a joke. She caught a glimpse of the ridiculous maneuver in the mirror and winced.
    Eric greeted her the moment she opened the door: “Soup’s ready. Did you have any luck?”
    So now every body function was going to become an item on the news. Why should she tell him if she had crapped or not? She shook her head no.
    Her disgust at having to answer was then misunderstood for upset at the failure. “They give you an enema at the hospital,” Mr. Information said with an encouraging smile. “Remember? They told us—”
    “Thanks for reminding me,” she said, not concealing her sarcasm.
    Eric laughed good-naturedly. He hovered beside her, walking awkwardly, matching her slow steps with halting ones of his own. Nina scowled at him. He scrunched his big face up: expectant, eager, ready to fulfill any request. The sight was charming and broke her irritation. She smiled at him and touched his chin with her hand. Eric caught it in his own and kissed it. “Mmmm. Warm,” he commented. He led her to the kitchen table, where a bowl of chicken broth sat forlornly—no napkin, no plate underneath. She sipped it, tasting nothing. Eric disappeared for a few minutes.
    When Eric reappeared at the doorway, she stared in disbelief; he had the video camera to his face, the carrying case strapped to his back. The flashing light above the lens warned her he was taping, so she didn’t say the various obscenities that occurred to her. Eric wouldn’t edit them, and years later her child would be doomed to watch the spectacle of his mother cursing out Dad only hours before the moment of joyous birth.
    “Well?” Eric prompted, his voice muffled by the camera.
    “It’s a fabulous bowl of soup,” she said in a flat voice.
    He laughed. “That’s great,” he commented. “This is the