Chapter 8
8
You remember that we weren’t planning it. You never thought you’d be a mother. You remember that you never thought you wouldn’t necessarily and thinking that perhaps there are two kinds of women and maybe you were the second kind.
You remember, too, an inkling your whole life that pregnancy wouldn’t be possible. Your mother died from cervical cancer. She’d always said you were a miracle in more ways than one. You never got to ask her: Which?
Sometimes, I wonder about your fervor for art. Was it a response to that, her loss, both? I’m not saying that every woman should want to be a mother, believe me. I do not know what I’m saying anymore.
You remember you knew, in the beginning, because you’d reach for inspiration—you were working with feathers—and come up with nothing. It wasn’t as if the well was empty, you say. It was as if the well was altogether gone.
You remember it probably wasn’t the best time. When is? You still smoked; you were painting nudes and using lots of chemicals with the feathers. My poetry collection had just come out, the novel soon, good reviews et cetera—I played it down, it didn’t feel earned, you worked so much harder than me. I was still working for my father. David had moved, was an architect. Furthermore, my publisher couldn’t offer me an advance.
Once I asked you, it was in the middle of an argument: How would we survive? You said that you thought that we had different understandings of survival.
You were not wrong.
You remember finding out about the pregnancy on a rainy afternoon and saying out loud, to yourself, standing up, I’m having a baby I’m having a baby I’m having a baby, to make it seem real. You remember thinking it was the most natural thing in the world and also the most far-fetched and maybe that wasn’t normal. You remember you’d just mastered stretching your own canvases and you’d have to quit.
The rest can be filled in later. Or not. Soon, you’re asleep. Or maybe you’ve just turned off your lights.
We lost the baby early. We got in the tub together.