Chapter 17
Jack loved her pregnant body. He always beckoned her to him when she stepped out of the shower.
He wanted her even more as she grew. She often orgasmed quickly, trapped between two pressures: him, inside her, and the heavy weight of her belly.
She was nearly six months’ pregnant and almost as many months into their marriage when he said, “Pack your bags and clear your social calendar. We’re going on a babymoon! ”
She wasn’t entirely surprised. On their first date, Jack had said that he liked to make moments, but as she knew him better over the year that they had been together, Emily came to understand that this trait was a need.
He was sunniest whenever he had a plan. Soon after the plan had been (as always) beautifully executed, he could be touchy—prone to irritability, though he denied his bad mood.
She felt better once he began humming around the apartment again.
It meant that he had a new idea. “Really?” she said. “I can’t wait! Where?”
“It’s a surprise. Bring enough warm clothes: that’s your only clue.”
Snow hissed against the apartment’s enormous windows with their view of the Brooklyn Bridge, which had become blurry strands of light.
When he had said “babymoon,” she had imagined someplace tropical, not a destination where she’d need warm clothes, but she knew not to reveal this.
He would be hurt. He might accuse her of ingratitude—which she understood.
How would she feel, if she had planned something for him and he suggested it wasn’t good enough?
She was grateful. How had she deserved this life, this husband?
When she told her friends about Jack’s surprises, they were impressed.
“I can’t even get Yasar on a train to visit me,” said Elizabeth, still dating her college boyfriend, who had a serial devotion to becoming talented at a skill until he mastered and abandoned it.
He became a champion archer, a day trader, and an amateur pilot, completed a double major in geology and computer science, and was still in Cambridge doing his doctorate in biology.
“He says I’m the one thing he wants forever but honestly I think he doesn’t break up with me because he forgets I exist. You’re so lucky. ”
Emily had learned the importance of making sure that Jack knew that she felt lucky.
He was sensitive, yes, easily wounded…because he felt things deeply, including his love for her.
After all, we can’t peer into each other’s minds, so if he needed to witness her appreciation of him, what was wrong with that?
It was better than not caring. Better than turning away.
Better than measuring, as Gen had measured, how much Emily had been worth only to decide that it wasn’t enough.
Emily liked how much her opinion mattered to Jack.
She said, “I love the cold.” She didn’t, but the lie was harmless.
“You’re the best. Do I need my passport? ”
“Not this time.” He placed a hand on her belly and smiled when the baby kicked.
She didn’t want to express any reluctance, not when he was so pleased with his plan, but if he had asked before booking a babymoon, she would have said that she’d rather stay home. She pushed away the wish that he had planned the trip with her. That wish was petty—wasn’t it?
“Meet me at the airport on Friday at six p.m.,” he said. “I’ll be coming straight from work. We’ll land kind of late, but that’s okay. We’ll get a fresh start the next morning and the dawn will be beautiful on the snow—” He covered his mouth, but his eyes were merry.
“Snow?”
“We are going to have the best time ever.”
They agreed to meet at the first-class check-in counter at JFK.
Emily arrived early. She saw him before he saw her; his height and red hair were distinctive in a crowd.
As he strode toward her, his expression and rapid pace suggested a barely controlled anger.
He met her gaze and tried on a smile, but it was pinched with effort.
He embraced her, sighing against the crown of her head.
“Am I glad to see you. What a shitty car ride.”
“Was there traffic?”
“The driver told me not to talk on my cell. Can you believe that? He said I was too loud.”
“Maybe he’s sensitive to noise. Or wanted to concentrate on the road.”
“My car, my rules.”
“Except it was his car.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“I just don’t think this is something to get mad about.”
“That phone call was with the CFO. I had to take it.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told the driver to mind his fucking business.”
“Oh.”
“Took my sweet time on that call. The driver was really rude about it. Silent—but, you know, rude . I could feel how much he hated me. For a totally normal thing. For doing my job, just like he is supposed to do his .”
“His job is to drive you, not obey you.”
His mouth flattened. He took a deep, steadying breath, then shrugged.
“Well, you weren’t there.” She was relieved that he wanted to forget the incident.
It was true: she hadn’t been there. She couldn’t know how the driver had actually behaved.
Better to let this drop. She said, “Should we check in?”
He brightened. “Ready to hear what I have in store for us?”
“Absolutely.”
“We’re going to the best ski resort in Jackson Hole!”
Emily’s chest became breathless—very still, save for a flicker of anxiety. “You’re going skiing?”
“ We are going skiing. Isn’t it great?”
“You mean you’re going to ski while I relax in the lodge?”
“Are you okay? Did you not get enough sleep? We are going skiing. You and me. Together.”
“But I’m not good at skiing.” She had learned only last winter, with him patiently teaching her how to snowplow and make wide turns.
It had been fun. When she tumbled, he helped her up and praised her effort, brushing off snow.
After a few trips to Vermont, she had gotten the hang of skiing, more or less, and could do any green slope and some blue ones.
“I don’t mind doing bunny slopes with you,” he said. “We can work our way up to more exciting trails at the end of the trip.”
She was bewildered at how he seemed to have forgotten the obvious. “But I’m pregnant.”
“That’s why we should do this now, before the baby comes and we’re too busy.”
“I’m six months’ pregnant. It’s not safe.”
“I wouldn’t do anything that would put you at risk.
You’ll be fine. The internet says that the safest time for a pregnant woman to travel is in her second trimester.
” Jack was frustrated, his positive words thinly covering a growing impatience with her incomprehensible hesitation, her childish—yes, let’s go ahead and say it—childish reluctance to be happy.
Most people would love a vacation like this!
Her reluctance, now that he thought about it, resembled a power play, as if Emily were trying to manipulate him by making him feel as though he had done something wrong.
Emily wasn’t sure what bothered her more: that Jack felt this way or that she could read his thoughts. Sometimes it seemed to her that she even anticipated his thoughts. That she considered his thoughts before she had formed her own.
Maybe there had been a miscommunication. “Jack, I could fall.”
“You’ve gotten pretty good at skiing. Anyway, you just began to show.
You won’t be skiing fast. Even if you fall, which you won’t, snow is soft and your body is built to keep the baby safe.
” He patted her belly. Unthinking, she pushed his hand away.
“Seriously, Em? Are we going to have a problem? I worked my ass off booking this trip for you .” His voice raised.
People began to stare. “I am trying to be supportive, to encourage you, and you treat me like dirt.”
“I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to tell you that I don’t feel safe skiing.”
“Give me some credit. I checked. The doctor says it’s fine.”
“You called my doctor? My obstetrician?”
“Yes. Well, yes, I called her, but she said that she couldn’t talk to me because of doctor-patient privilege. Which is ridiculous. I’m your husband, not some stranger. So I called my doctor, and he said it was okay.”
“Your doctor, who is not an obstetrician.”
“He’s a GP. General practitioner . General means he knows everything about medicine, generally .”
“What did you say to him? The exact words.”
“I said, ‘I want to surprise my wife with a trip to Jackson Hole and she’s six months’ pregnant.
Is it safe to go?’?” He released his carry-on handle to fold his arms across his chest, regarding her with the defiance of someone who has presented irrefutable evidence and is offended that evidence was necessary.
“You didn’t ask whether I could ski .”
“For fuck’s sake!” he shouted. The woman behind the check-in counter glanced up from her computer in alarm. “It’s Jackson Hole! Everyone knows that you ski at Jackson Hole! It’s obvious .”
The baby turned in Emily’s cramped belly.
Her pulse was fast. Jack was so upset. But he loved her.
He told her so, every day. No one had loved her like that, not even her parents.
All couples fought. Marriage wasn’t easy.
Everyone said so, and she carried his baby inside her.
They were going to become a family, a real one, the kind she didn’t have growing up.
She was grateful to him for giving her a family.
He would give her anything—he always told her this.
If she apologized, their fight would vanish.
Yet she didn’t want to apologize.