Baby proof

'Of course,' Maura says.

As Scott scoops up Zoe in his arms, Maura takes my hand, squeezes it and quietly says, 'Take care of yourself.'

'You, too,' I say.

When the door closes behind Zoe and her parents, I say aloud to myself, with as much sarcasm as I can muster, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life. ' It's a cliche I've always disliked- as much for the obvious truth of it as the pressure it creates to have a productive, fantastic day. So naturally, I decide to do the opposite. I throw in the towel and crawl into bed, not even bothering to take a shower first and wash the hospital and Tucker germs off my skin.

thirty

Over the next three days I vacillate between numb disbelief and gut-wrenching misery. Work is slow, as it always is before holidays, so I spend most of my time editing at home-and much of that time in bed. Jess informs me that excessive sleep is a sign of depression-as if that is some kind of revelation. She gives me turbocharged, Richard Simmons-esque pep talks. I shrug her off, telling her that I'll be fine. Even though I'm not at all convinced that I will be.

My lowest point comes in the middle of the night when I wake up after dreaming the final scene in The Graduate. Everything is just like the movie, only I am Dustin Hoffman and Ben does not leave a very pregnant Tucker at the altar. Instead, he and his whole family just look at me like I'm crazy until Ray and Annie each grab one of my arms and cart me out of the church and stick me on that bus, all alone. I wake up, sweaty and teary and so full of fury that I scare myself.

The next morning, I find Jess in her room, doing last-minute packing for her trip to Alabama with Michael. Against my better judgment, I tell her about my nightmare.

She says, 'Well. Fortunately, you will be reclaiming Ben prior to their wedding day.'

I give her a blank look, and she says, 'Like on Monday?'

I shake my head and say, 'There isn't going to be any reclaiming… And I'm not going to go through with seeing Ben on Monday.'

'What?' she says.

'I'm canceling,' I say emphatically.

'Oh, no you're not,' she says even more emphatically.

'There's no point,' I say with a listless shrug.

'There is too a point,' she says. 'Look, Claudia. The fact that they got engaged doesn't really change the analysis here.'

'Yeah, it does,' I say.

'No, it doesn't!' she says. 'If Ben can get a divorce from the love of his life, he can most certainly break off an engagement.'

'How do we know that she's not the love of his life?'

'Because you are,' she says. 'And you only get one of those.'

'Since when do you subscribe to that notion?' I say.

'Since I've finally experienced true love.'

'Well. I got news for you, Jess. Ben loves her,' I say. 'He wouldn't propose if he didn't love her. He wants a baby, but not that badly.'

'Fine. Maybe he does love her in some narrow way. But he loves you more and you know it… He doesn't have full information. He needs full information. Once he knows that you want children, he'll have to break up with her.'

'I don't want children.'

'Yes you do.'

'No I don't,' I say. 'I would have been theoretically willing to have his.'

'Same difference.'

'Not really.'

She zips up her red Tod's bag with authority and says, 'Well. I say we let Ben be the judge of that. Shall we?'

Meanwhile, my own Thanksgiving plans are up in the air until the eleventh hour. Maura almost always hosts a dinner at her house, but for obvious reasons, this year is the exception. Daphne is the logical backup choice because my father, understandably, refuses to go to Dwight and Mom's house, but when we tell my mother the plan, she gets on her soapbox about 'you girls never coming over here.' And then shoots off on another tangent about how we've never really accepted Dwight. I am in no mood for her nonsense so I quickly squelch her spirit and say, 'Listen here, Vera. We're going to Daphne's. You can't even cook.'

'We can have food brought in,' she says.

'Mom. Drop it. The decision is made.'

'Says who?' she says in the voice of a small child.

'Says me,' I say. 'So join us or don't. Entirely up to you.'

I hang up and decide that the only true beauty of hitting rock bottom is that nothing can really faze or rile you. Not even your mother.

A few minutes later she calls me back with a conciliatory, 'Claudia?'

'Yes?' I say.

'I've decided.'

'And?'

'I'll come,' she says meekly.

'Good girl,' I say.

Thanksgiving morning is bleak and gray and drizzly, but also unseasonably warm, a depressing holiday combination. It takes every bit of will I have to get out of bed, shower, and dress. One of my mother's life principles flashes in my head-if you dress up and look pretty, you will feel better. And although I basically agree with this, I discard the advice and settle on an ancient J. Crew rollneck sweater and a pair of Levi's with threadbare knees. I tell myself that at least it beats sweats and sneakers, which I resist only because I can just envision 'wearing sweats and sneakers on Thanksgiving' listed in a Suicide Warning Signs pamphlet.

I can't find a cab so I have to walk to Penn Station and barely make my noon train. I am stuck in a seat facing backward, which always gives me motion sickness. Then, about halfway to Huntington, I realize that I left my fancy rwenty-eight-dollar pumpkin pie from Balthazar on the kitchen counter. I say shit aloud. An old woman across the aisle from me turns and gives me a disapproving stare. I mouth sorry, although I'm thinking, Mind your own business, lady. Then I spend the next twenty minutes worrying that I will turn into the kind of disgruntled person who dislikes old people. Or worse, I will become a bitter old person who hates the young.

When my father picks me up at the train station, I tell him that we need to swing by the grocery store to pick up a pie.

'Screw the pie,' my dad says, which I translate to mean, I heard about Ben's engagement.

'No. Really, Dad,' I say. 'I promised Daphne I'd bring a pumpkin pie.'

Translation: I'm a total loser. All I have left is my word.

My dad shrugs and a few moments later we pull into the Waldbaum's parking lot. I run inside, grab two skimpy pumpkin pies, already reduced to half price, and head for the express 'twelve items or less' lane.