Reunion: A Novel Read Free

dinner. I kissed him on the cheek. This is my version of events.
    “Can we talk about this?” He held the pamphlet toward me again. I looked at the baby, toasty and comfy in its folds of blue cloth. Then I looked down, beneath the baby, and saw the word I’d somehow missed before. Adoption.
    “Where did you get that?” I said.
    “From Dan.” Dan is Peter’s doctor and also his best friend.
    “You talked to Dan about this?”
    “He’s my doctor.”
    “Before you talked to me?”
    I moved toward the basket of vegetables and grabbed an onion.
    “I wanted to know what the possibility was—” He made an awkward circling motion in front of his belly. “Of undoing—” He was talking about his vasectomy, the one he’d had eight years earlier so I could go off birth control and because we knew we didn’t want children. He gestured in front of his belly again. He looked ridiculous. I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I wouldn’t say the word and neither would he.
    “And?” I said. I sliced the onion in half. My hand was shaky. My eyes were starting to water.
    “Because of the complications, two percent. Not good.”
    I nodded and made another slice into the onion. Peter’s vas deferens had become infected after the surgery. Dan explained to us when it happened that a reversal probably wouldn’t be possible, but we hadn’t been troubled. We both agreed that talking about a vasovasostomy while you’re still recovering from a vasectomy is a little like planning a prenup and a wedding at the same time. What’s the point?
    “He said two percent and then he—what? He just handed you that brochure? Voilà?” I gestured toward the pamphlet with my knife. I couldn’t look at Peter.
    “No.” He was beside me again. His hand was on my waist again. “I asked for it.”
    I rubbed at my eyes with my knuckles. He didn’t move away.
    “When we got married—” I said. But then I stopped short, realizing I was terribly close to quoting a line from Two for the Road :
    Mark: We agreed before we were married we weren’t going to have any children.
    Joanna: And before we were married we didn’t.
    Only, in this scenario, I was Albert Finney and Peter was Audrey Hepburn. I wanted us to be better than that. I wanted me to be better than that, and so I did this monumentally dim-witted thing. I lied and said, “Okay.”
    “Okay?”
    I turned to face him.
    “We can talk about it,” I said.
    Understand: Because of Peter, we pay the bills. Because of Peter, we live quite well.
    “We can start talking about it,” I said. “Sure.”
    And we did start talking about it. We included Elliot and Nell in the conversation. Rita did research. Once a week, she’d email the names of agencies, with lists of pros and cons. E llio t called every few nights, which wasn’t like him. “I think this will be good for you,” he said. “Man, I think this will be really good. This is exactly what you two need.” Everyone seemed so happy, and I liked the feeling that gave me. But every time Peter brought home another stack of paperwork, I felt sick.
    It took twelve months of talking and researching and signing various pieces of paper—until the interviews were just about to begin—for me to tell him. There wasn’t a maternal instinct in me. That’s what I said. He disagreed. At first in this really loving way, like, “You’re amazing, you’re so caring,” et cetera, et cetera. Then, after a few weeks, in this more aggressive way, like, “You don’t know what you want. You have no idea. It’s turds. It’s manure. Everything you say. Turds and manure.”
    Nell called. She was understanding, but I could tell she was disappointed. She’d been fond of the conversations during which she’d list baby names and I’d rule them out one by one. She said Peter would get over it.
    Elliot called too. He was less understanding. It broke his heart. That’s what he said. Those exact words: “It breaks my heart.” He said his