Chapter 8
Cat
August
“Look at you!” Vanessa says, sitting next to me on the couch.
“Yeah, look at me, round and unattractive.”
“You are not,” she admonishes with a smile. “Trust me, you look like a swimsuit model compared to me in my seventh month.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, but thank you.”
I look down at Sasha playing on the floor.
I missed her. I was bored to death in this house until Vanessa called and asked what I was doing.
She wanted me to go see her, but I was tired from my daily walk.
My doctor told me to cut back on the long walks because my hands and feet have been swelling a lot.
Besides, Nick forbade me from going out the rest of the day.
The only thing he wants me to do is sit back and relax. Boring.
“How have you been feeling?” Vanessa asks, handing Sasha a toy that looks like a tablet.
“Fine, I just can’t do a lot of things I used to do. I’m as slow as a turtle. I can’t even sleep, I’m moving around every minute to get comfortable.”
“You should get a body pillow. It worked great for me when I was pregnant with Sasha.”
“It doesn’t work so great for me. Nick is my body pillow.”
“Aren’t you a lucky girl,” she says teasingly.
I smile, looking down at my hands. “I’m not going to deny it, yes.”
“Very lucky indeed, by the smile on your face.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t complain, but I can’t have him up all the time in a sitting position lying on him.”
“Why not? You’re the one carrying the baby around twenty-four hours a day for nine months. Hormones all out of whack. Your brother better be as considerate when we get pregnant again.”
“Wait a minute, are you two back together?”
“Yes! And we’re thinking about having another baby.”
“I’m happy for you.” I truly am, Even though I haven’t spoken to him since that day at the hospital. The day they came here he didn’t say anything to me besides basically suggest that I wasn’t safe. “I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but are you sure you’re ready after what happened with Sasha?”
“We’ve talked about this a lot; this time I’m ready and prepared if I have postpartum depression again.
Last time I just didn’t understand, and I didn’t think it could happen to me.
I thought I would have Sasha and fall instantly in love with her when I saw her for the first time.
It didn’t happen like that, and I thought something was wrong but I didn’t want to admit it.
What kind of woman doesn’t feel connected to her own baby?
I was afraid of what people were going to say if I said that out loud.
I was afraid I was going to hurt her if I couldn’t feel anything for her. ”
I reach across the couch and take her hand. I couldn’t imagine feeling like that about my baby. I don’t know what I would do. “It must have been hard for you.”
“It was hard. I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone who would understand.
I didn’t get help earlier, because I was ashamed and I didn’t want to be labeled as a bad mother—it made things worse.
” She takes a breath and pauses. “Through it all, your brother was there, even when I was a major bitch to him for no apparent reason at all other than he was able to give Sasha what I couldn’t.
I was like, why can he do these things for her and feel these things I can’t?
I was angry, scared, and upset. I was falling apart.
He took care of Sasha when I couldn’t; he became her mother and father. ”
I have to agree that he did step up during that time. Sounds like Jay. “That’s the Jay I know, and then there’s the other side.”
“The one that’s acting like a jackass,” Vanessa says in a whisper, so Sasha doesn’t hear. I nod my head and she nods back.
“Your brother loves you, Cat.”
“I didn’t hear any of that love the last time I heard from him. I heard a lot of things, but love wasn’t one. The message he left on my phone had no love.”
“I think he’s hurt as much as you are about how he handled the situation.”
I think for a minute, looking at Sasha playing on the floor. Then I look back at Vanessa.
“The first time I got my period, Jay had to explain it to me.” She purses her lips at me, not knowing why I’m telling her this. I put my hand on my stomach and sit back. “Before you say anything, listen to the story.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I knew what a period was, but I didn’t know it would happen to me so soon. I went to the bathroom and freaked out. Full-on drama queen hysterics. At the top of my lungs screaming, ‘I’m dying I’m dying, call an ambulance!’”
She covers her mouth laughing. “How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
“And no one ever told you?”
“My mother missed that topic of conversation, of things to know about your body.”
“Didn’t any of your friends get their periods?”
“No, I think I was the first one to join that club into womanhood. Anyway, Jay came rushing upstairs. I told him I was bleeding to death. He kept turning me around and patting me down. He was like, ‘where, where I don’t see anything.’ I told him what happened when I went to the bathroom.
Then I saw the knowledge dawn on him. Too bad it didn’t dawn on me.
Chris came upstairs to complete my embarrassment.
Jay was so uncomfortable. He said, ‘Cat, I think you are a woman now.’ I said I’m bleeding to death, and you’re telling me I’m a woman now?
When what I need is immediate medical attention.
’ Covering his face, he said, ‘Cat, I think you got your period.’ Chris looked at me and was like, TMI.
He turned to Jay and said, ‘I’m outta here, you can handle this.
’ I was mortified. Here I was, having my first period, and my brother had to be the one to tell me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.”
“Poor thing. Where was your mother?”
“At some garden party or something. He threw me two rolls of paper towels and shoved me into the bathroom and said, I kid you not, ‘use those to dam it up or whatever. You’re going to have to figure something out, this is the best I can do for you.’ There I was with two rolls of paper towels stuffed between my legs…
I looked like the poster child for a hemorrhoids ad.
” I smile at the memory. “He was really great though. He was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom. He sat me down on the floor and said, ‘I guess I should say something? Congratulations, you’re cursed.’ He gave me an awkward hug, like I was contaminated, and I burst into tears. ”
“Oh man, he actually said that?”
“Yeah, he did. He gave me a talk about girls and boys and how I had to be extra careful around boys. Then he gave me a bucket of ice cream. He said for some reason it always made girls feel better around this time of the month, and it was supposed to help with cramps or something, he didn’t know.”
“Wow!”
“Yes, wow. Something else to add to one of my most embarrassing moments. I know firsthand how kind he can be. The things he said to me after he found out about Nick and I hurt. I would have never thought he could associate me with the words he used. It wasn’t like I said I’m going to get together with Nick, sister be damned.
I didn’t plan it; I didn’t plan any of it.
It was inevitable, and it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.
“Everyone gets to make their mistakes and move on,” I say, thinking about my mother and her indiscretions.
“People want to be forgiven, but when it’s time to return the favor, they suddenly forget the mistakes they’ve made in their lives…
their flaws, and their imperfections.” Then I remember what Nick said to me on the floor in this same room. “We’re all perfectly imperfect.”
Vanessa nods her head and pats my hand.
“Perfection is not real, it’s an illusion of the way you want people to see you because you don’t want them to see the real you.
You have to live your life and do what makes you happy, everyone else does.
I can’t live my life for everyone else. Most people, including me, are afraid that if people saw who they really were they wouldn’t be liked or loved.
“We’re taught to believe having flaws is wrong from when we’re little.
Look at the most beautiful things in the world and around you.
If they have too many flaws, like your diamonds, they are deemed worthless or less than they are truly worth.
All because they can’t change what they are to fit into a perfect mold of what other people think perfect should be.
That’s not always the truth, though. What might be flawed and worthless to some might be irreplaceably, invaluably, perfect to me. ”
“So true. That’s one of the reasons it took me as long as it did to get help for my postpartum depression. So true.”
Sasha breaks the seriousness of our conversation when she looks at me and says,
“Aunty Cat.”
“Yes?”
“You’re fat, you eat too much.”
My mouth drops open. “What!”
“Sasha! That’s not nice, she’s not fat. Aunty Cat’s pregnant, she’s going to have a baby and give you a playmate.”
I laugh, scooping her up and hug her to me.
“I’m the baby, no baby,” she says in a sullen voice.
“Ahh, sweetheart, you will always be my baby. No one’s going to take your place. I promise.” She hugs me, and I put her between us on the couch.
“Vanessa, you’re going to have trouble on your hands when baby number two comes.”
“I can see. We’re going to start prepping her before we conceive ASAP.”