Chapter Twenty-Two #2
But Roger was unimpressed. “And forget are you too old to have a baby. You are. Way too old. How about are you too old to flaunt having a boyfriend? You’re not a teenager.
Are you too old to be putting your children through this kind of stress when you’re supposed to be supporting them and their children now? ”
Another problem with Roger: Sometimes he was right.
I attributed this less to the psychology PhD and more to the stopped-clock phenomenon.
In fairness, though, he had always been good with the kids and the grandkids.
He’d been good with his students and colleagues.
He had even been good with his research subjects (mostly mice, but still). He just hadn’t been good with his wife.
Actually, even that wasn’t entirely true.
For years, he’d been a good husband. And then for years he hadn’t been.
The cancer support group at the hospital had warned us it would be like this.
We only went a few times. Maybe if we’d gone more, we would have learned not just that it could happen but also how to stop it.
But we didn’t want to talk about it. Or listen to anyone else talk about it.
We didn’t want to be at that hospital any more than we had to.
Which is what they’d told us. So many patients, so many caregivers want to get as far away as possible—from the cancer, we’d thought, but it turned out also from each other.
You’ll be so tired, they told us, both of you.
You’ll be so sick of being sick and of the faces that saw you through.
You’ll have used up all your fight. You’ll have none left to weather what comes next.
We didn’t want to cry anymore. We didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
So sarcasm was easier, gentle then less-gentle criticism, distance.
Once though, years ago, in an unguarded moment at Oliver and Pierre’s bris, I asked Roger why he never remarried, and, in an unguarded moment, he confessed I was a hard act to follow.
So I was used both to the reproof and to keeping it in perspective. Nor was he telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“If you have any notion of alternatives,” I said, “anything else I could be doing, I’m all ears. If all you have to offer is criticism, I’ve heard it already.”
“From who?”
“Whom.”
“Spare me your grammar, woman.”
“From you,” I said.
“Apparently it didn’t take.” Roger grinned. “But you know what I think did?”
“What?” I asked, in spite of myself.
“This baby.”
“It’s not—” I began.
“I can see it on your hips.” He nodded toward my middle and wiggled his eyebrows. It was gross.
“Don’t look at my … hips.” He was right though.
I wasn’t showing exactly. Nothing like that.
My pants still fit. You wouldn’t even say I’d put on a little weight, not unless you’d once been married to me for three decades and knew what you were looking for.
It was more like my edges had rounded a little, my hollows turned to swells like a tide come in.
“You know I like a little extra padding,” Roger assured me, as if what he thought of my body made my list of top one thousand concerns. “Ask me, you’ve gotten way too skinny the last few years. But I know what Pepper pods look like when they’re roasting, and you’ve still got a pod in the pot.”
“You’re mixing metaphors,” I informed him.
“As I said, spare me your grammar.”
“Metaphors aren’t grammar. Do you have a point?”
“In fact, I have two.” When I didn’t ask, he enumerated anyway.
“One, I said no to the gossip rags, or whatever the hell they’re called these days.
No to the reporters and the podcasters and the TV people, no to the photographers and the paparazzi and the video cameras, no to everyone whose phone call I accidentally answered and email I accidentally opened.
No to the guy who came up to me in the grocery store and the gal who came up to me in the pharmacy and the ex-student who’s now with TMZ, whatever that may be. ”
“Holding out for more money?” I said lightly, but my head was spinning.
“Apparently these yahoos think I don’t care about you, won’t protect you, feel no loyalty toward you, lack any scruples whatsoever, and have an axe to grind so they’re offering me … an axe grinder?”
“Whetstone,” I supplied, along with my smuggest smile.
“Of course they’re wrong.” He shrugged like this was both obvious and no big deal, and I disagreed on both counts.
“But these people aren’t going away. This situation’s not going away.
The pregnancy seems to be not going away.
So far, your only plan is to wait for everyone and everything to go away, and I hate to tell you but I think you need a second one. ”
My chin tipped up as if Roger might disappear while I was looking at the ceiling. “And your other point?”
“Me neither, I’m not going away. I want to help. When you figure out what you need, you just let me know and I’ll do it. I’m not going anywhere.”
By this stage in our relationship, that much was clear.
“Listen, I gotta hit the showers.” Roger was going back up to his apartment to take a bath, drink a mug of hot cocoa, and be in bed by 8:30, and we both knew it.
I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “Thank you, Roger.”
“Sure thing, kid.” He winked then wiggled his eyebrows at my middle again and corrected himself. “Kids.”
For which I was grateful. Going to bed feeling warm toward Roger would have been deeply unsettling. And I had enough unsettling in my life these days already.