Now it was his turn to look flustered. “I… um… the, uh, pregnancy nutrition classes, I think. I was going to ask you if you’d consider signing up for one of those.”
I knew that wasn’t it. And I even had a faint inkling that it might have been something completely different. But I didn’t say anything. Maybe he’d just had a brief, fleeting thought of asking me… something… because he’d been talking about his sister and he felt vulnerable. Or maybe he felt sorry for me. Or maybe I was completely wrong. After the whole Steve debacle, and now with Bruce, I wasn’t feeling very trusting of my instincts.
“What time do they meet?” I asked.
“I’ll check,” he said, and I followed him down the stairs.
THIRTEEN
After much deliberation and about ten rough drafts, I composed, and mai led, Bruce a letter.
Bruce,
There is no way to sugar-coat this, so I’ll just tell you straight out that I am pregnant. It happened the last time we were together, and I’ve decided to keep the baby. I am due on June 15.
This is my decision, and I made it carefully. I wanted to let you know because I want it to be your choice to what extent you are involved in this child’s life.
I am not telling you what to do, or asking for anything. I have made my choices, and you will have to make yours. If you want to spend time with the baby, I will try my best to make that work out. If you don’t, I understand.
I’m sorry that this happened. I know it isn’t what you need in your life right now. But I decided that this was something you deserved to know about, so you can make the choices you think are right. The only thing I ask is that you please not write about this. I don’t care if you talk about me, but there’s someone else at stake now.
Take care,
Cannie
I wrote my telephone number, in case he’d forgotten, and mailed it off.
There was so much more that I wanted to write, like that I still pined for him. That I still had daydreams of him coming back to me, of us living together: me and Bruce, and the baby. That I was scared a lot of the time, and furious at him some of the time I wasn’t scared, or so racked with love and longing and yearning that I was afraid to let myself even think his name, for fear of what I’d do, and that as much as I filled my days with things to do, with plans and lists, with painting the second bedroom a shade of yellow called Lemonade Stand and assembling the dresser I bought from Ikea, too often, I’d still find myself thinking about how much I wanted him back.
But I wrote none of those things.
I remembered when I was a senior in high school and how hard it was to wait for colleges to send out their letters and say whether they were taking you or leaving you. Trust me, waiting for the father of your unborn child to get back to you as to whether or not he’s willing to be involved with you, or the baby, is a lot worse. For three days I checked my phone at home obsessively. For a week I drove home at lunchtime to check my mailbox, cursing myself for not having sent the letter via registered mail, so I’d at least know that he’d received it.
There was nothing. Day after day of nothing. I couldn’t believe that he would be this cold. That he would turn his back on me – on us – so completely. But it was, it seemed, the truth of the matter. And so I gave up… or tried to make myself give up.
“It’s like this,” I addressed my belly. It was Sunday morning, two days before Christmas. I’d gone on a bike ride (I was cleared to ride until my sixth month, barring complications), put together a mobile made of brightly painted dog bones that I’d made, myself, from a book called Simple Crafts for Kids, and was rewarding myself with a long hot soak.
“I think that babies should have two parents. I believe that. Ideally, I’d have a father for you. But I don’t. See, your, um, biological father is a really good guy, but he wasn’t the right guy for me, and he’s kind of having a rough time right now, and also he’s seeing somebody else” This was probably more than my unborn child needed to know, but whatever. “So I’m sorry. But this is the way it is. And I’m going to try to raise you as best I can, and we’ll make the best of it, and hopefully you won’t wind up resenting me horribly and getting tattoos and piercings and stuff to externalize your pain, or whatever kids will be doing in about fifteen years, because I’m sorry, and I’m going to make this work.”
I limped through the holidays. I made fudge and cookies for my friends instead of buying them stuff, and I tucked cash (less than I’d meted out the year before) into cards for my siblings. I drove home for my mother’s annual holiday open house, where dozens of her friends, plus all of the members of the Switch Hitters and much of the roster of A League of Their Own fussed over me, offering good wishes, advice, the names of doctors and day-care centers, and a slightly used copy of Heather Has Two Mommies (the latter from a misguided shortstop named Dot, whom Tanya immediately took aside to inform that I wasn’t a lesbian, just a dumped breeder). I stayed in the kitchen as much as I could, grating potatoes, frying latkes, listening to Lucy regale me with the story of how she and one of her girlfriends had convinced a guy they’d met at a bar to take them back to his place, then opened all the Christmas presents under his tree after he’d passed out.
“That wasn’t very nice,” I scolded.
“He wasn’t very nice,” said Lucy. “What was he doing, taking the two of us home while his wife was out of town?”
I agreed that she had a point.
“They’re all dogs,” Lucy continued loftily. “Of course, I don’t have to tell you that.” She gulped the clear liquid from her glass. Her eyes were sparkling. “I’ve got to get my holiday swerve on,” she announced.
“Take your swerve outside,” I urged her, and added another dollop of raw potato goo to the frying pan. I thought that Lucy was probably secretly delighted that it was me, not her, who’d wound up in this predicament. From Lucy, an unplanned pregnancy would have been almost expected. From me, it was shocking.
My mother poked her head into the kitchen. “Cannie? You’re staying over, right?”
I nodded. Ever since Thanksgiving, I’d fallen into the pattern of spending at least one night every weekend at my mother’s house. She cooked dinner, I ignored Tanya, and the next morning my mother and I would swim, slowly, side by side, before I’d stock up on groceries and whatever new-baby necessities her friends had donated, and head back to town.
My mother came to the stove and poked my latkes with a spatula. “I think the oil’s too hot,” she offered. I shooed her away, but she only retreated as far as the sink.
“Still nothing from Bruce?” she asked. I nodded once. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s not like him”
“Whatever,” I said shortly. In truth, I thought my mother was right. This wasn’t like the Bruce that I had known, and I was just as hurt and bewildered as anyone. “Evidently I’ve managed to bring out the worst in him.”
My mother gave me a kind smile. Then she reached past me and turned the heat down. “Don’t burn them,” she said, and returned to the party, leaving me with a pan of half- cooked potato pancakes and all of my questions. Doesn’t he care? I wondered. Doesn’t he care at all?
All through the winter, I tried to keep busy. I made the rounds of my friends’ parties, sipping spiced cider instead of eggnog or champagne. I went out to dinner with Andy, and went
