Joy Moore Seven Years Ago
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
Seven Years Ago
It took a year. In that year, I was jabbed and probed and screened.
We got second and third and fourth opinions about how to adjust my pharmaceutical cocktail in order to accommodate a pregnancy.
I tapered off one med. Tested out another.
Cut a third in half. It was a guessing game of odds—how far could we go before it was too much for me?
For a hypothetical baby? We played it safe, but each day I worried a fraction more.
I’d been doing so well, and I dreaded a reiteration of those dark days of high school when balance felt unattainable, when we didn’t realize my mental health and narcolepsy were competing for attention.
Intrinsically connected and yet separate.
But we knew what the problem was this time, and I had support.
Xander promised to take over everything.
He was so confident, so certain we could get through it, I let him pull me onto the conveyor belt. Forward, forward we went.
It happened in the middle of fall. The first thing I noticed was the scent of bacon. It came at me like a huff of foul breath as I stepped out of the shower. I shouted to Xander that I didn’t want any bacon, thank you, and could he open a window, please?
“I’m not making bacon,” he shouted back.
“Did you get takeout?”
A moment later, he was in the bathroom. “It’s upstairs, I think.
But I can barely smell it.” He examined me with wide eyes and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
We watched each other in the mirror as he traced a finger down my clavicle, parting my robe ever so slightly to expose a considerably more ample décolletage.
My heart pounded.
Xander’s lips spread into a grin.
A test confirmed it twenty minutes later. The line was faint but undeniable. My heart hammered my rib cage for days.
At eight weeks, I told Benny. I’d been ignoring his calls, partly due to exhaustion and partly due to superstition.
I knew I couldn’t hide it from him if he asked, and he would ask.
He would want to know why I was nodding off in the middle of conversations.
Why the pep was gone from my voice. I texted and asked him to come over when I knew Xander would be out for a few hours.
“So you did it, then,” he said the moment I opened the door. I didn’t have to utter a word.
I tried to smile. “I’m that obvious?”
He sat on the sofa beside me and took my hand. “How are you feeling?”
“So tired. But they say the first trimester is the worst.”
“Which ends when?”
“In five weeks.” It felt like a million. A billion. Only to get through a third of the pregnancy.
He bit his lip. “You don’t look happy.”
“It’s the exhaustion.”
“And Xander?”
“He’s happy.”
Benny nodded. I tried to change the subject, but my brain was broken. I told him I needed to sleep.
“Okay.” He gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. “Congratulations,” he whispered.
As the weeks passed, it grew a little easier. I was able to picture an actual live baby taking up residence in my life. She had full, pinchable cheeks, dimpled knees, and a gurgly laugh. And she was mine. I wanted her.
I let Benny visit more often. At thirteen weeks, he said, “It’s like you’re you but you’re not you, but you’re you. It’s like you’re you squared.”
“Deep.”
“Do you feel like you’re being multiplied by yourself?”
“I imagine that’s the technical definition of pregnancy.”
“Let’s say you’re in a room surrounded by babies. No, wait, let’s say you wake up and find yourself in a baby’s body. You can’t feed yourself, can’t wipe yourself, can’t talk. How do you survive?”
I offered a wry smile. “I’ll let you know in sixty years.”
He laughed. “I miss you.”
“I’m exponentially more me right now. What is there to miss?”
“You know what I mean.”
I knew what he meant. I missed him too. We were never alone together anymore.
Xander was always around. He transformed his work schedule in order to support my delicate pregnancy.
Video conference calls replaced in-person meetings, and if anything needed to be hand-delivered he employed a gofer.
All so he could be at my beck and call. He cooked my meals from scratch, checked my vitals multiple times a day, monitored my naps.
The timing of my medicine and vitamin deliveries was no less precise than the ticking of an atomic clock.
The doctor was happy with my progress. My stomach grew. Everything seemed to be fine.
Which was why, at week nineteen, it was so shocking when I started bleeding.
I WANT TO take this moment to share my deepest condolences with those of you who have ever lost a pregnancy. There are no adequate words. My heart goes out to you.
I HAD LET myself hope. I’d started thinking of myself as a mother.
I was me squared. And then, all of a sudden, I was the opposite.
Me divided by myself. The end was as traumatic medically as it was emotionally.
My body went through the wringer. I hemorrhaged so badly I needed a transfusion, and even then it took ages for my blood counts to return to normal.
I thought I knew exhaustion, but this brought it to a whole other level.
This exhaustion laughed in the face of all previous exhaustions.
There was nothing left of me to give, and so I let Xander build walls around me.
I let him protect me. Days passed, food was eaten, baths were taken, and I don’t remember any of it.
I know my friends and family tried to breach the fortress, and I know it hurt when they were turned away, but I was in my tower under a powerful spell, and nothing short of magic could break me free.
Even Benny.
I hadn’t been answering Benny’s calls or texts, and so one day he showed up unannounced.
Xander answered the door and told him I was indisposed.
That was the actual word he used, as if Benny were a door-to-door salesman and I couldn’t be bothered to chat about solar panels at this time.
Benny said he would wait until I wasn’t indisposed.
I was under a blanket on my bed with the curtains drawn.
Not sleeping. Not indisposed. But my door was shut, and these things could have been true, and Xander had already laid out the expectation for this visit.
I was now to play the role of the woman who could no longer handle spontaneous social calls in any capacity, and leaving my room would make Xander a liar.
Fifteen minutes would be enough, I thought, looking at the clock.
Then I could pretend I’d just woken, and act surprised to find my best friend sitting on my living room sofa.
But instead of letting Benny wait, Xander insisted he leave.
“It’s been two months, man,” Benny said. “Let me see her.”
“She doesn’t want to see anyone.”
“I know you think you’re helping her, but you’re not. She needs to be with her people.”
“I am her people.”
“And I’m not?”
“I’m trying to be patient,” Xander said, “but you have no idea, no idea, what she’s been through these past few months.”
“I know I have no idea.” Benny sounded distraught. I pictured him raking a hand through his curls. “You’re shutting me out, man. Let me be there for her.” He paused. “For both of you.”
A wave of emotion rolled through my body, replacing some of the numbness. He was right. We were shutting him out, and it wasn’t healthy by anyone’s standards. The realization was enough to make me throw the blanket off and scoot to the edge of the bed.
“She needs time,” Xander said.
“Let her decide that. It’s like you’re holding her hostage. I can’t remember the last time you let me be alone with her.”
“Benny, I’m trying to be patient. Why don’t you come back some other—”
“Five minutes.” He was getting louder. My chest fluttered with alarm. Xander said something I couldn’t hear, and I was halfway to the bedroom door when Benny shouted, “This is your fault. Yours. You made her do this. She never even wanted a baby.”
I froze.
I’m not sure what happened next. Xander pushed Benny out of the apartment and didn’t return for a while. I stood at the window, waiting. Eventually, Benny passed by. He looked up at me, and I looked down at him, and we didn’t speak again for three years.