The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel (47 page)

There are whole, long days she doesn’t even get out of her room. Serena stays at her breast, happily bludgeoning one nipple at a time, while the other breast weeps and spurts milk out, in sympathy. But then there are the days—more and more frequently—when she gets up and, after some ninja bouts of concentration, manages to dress not only herself but the baby, too, and they go out into the world. They venture through the little lanes of the condo, Rosie pushing the stroller, staring down at the beatific face of her baby as she walks. She’s now one of those moms, walking along with a baby carriage. She’d had no idea of the heroic effort it took.

They go to the playground, where she sees Tayari and
her friends. But Rosie doesn’t have the energy to make her way across the asphalt to them, only to be seen for what she is: an old hag with a healing episiotomy and huge, leaky breasts and no clue of how to be in polite company anymore.

She calls Tony every day while she walks home. She has made fantastically funny stories out of the labor and delivery and even her postpartum tears, and yes, her discovery that she is now consigned to a life of abject fear and devotion. She tells him how she wanted to throttle a two-year-old who zoomed past Beanie’s stroller and rattled it so violently that it startled the baby into tears.

“Blinding rage,” she says, and he says, “I know. Oh, I know.”

One day she puts potatoes on the stove to make mashed potatoes, and then she goes in and starts nursing the baby and falls asleep and doesn’t wake up until she can smell the pan burning. She’s horrified; she could have killed everybody in the entire building—but when she calls Tony, he thinks it’s the funniest story ever. She wasn’t going to kill anybody, he says. She killed one
pan
. And it’s because she’s not getting any sleep because she’s been held hostage by somebody who weighs seven pounds, three ounces.

“Six ounces,” she says.

“Ah, so the milk is working,” he says. “Three ounces of weight gain.”

“I’m not cut out for this.”

“Awww, Rosie, you’re doing fine.”

The next time she calls him, his voice is worried, and when she makes him tell her what’s going on, he says he didn’t
want to bother her, but that Milo isn’t doing well in school, and Miss Minton called in the school social worker, who thinks that he’s depressed.

“But, don’t you see him, like, every week?” Rosie says.

“Yeah, but he’s sad, they say.”

“What does he say?”

“He says he doesn’t know. He says that everything has changed.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Well, we’re all going to sit down together and talk it through. Now that Dena’s pregnant, she’s really being kind of—”

“Wait. She’s pregnant? You didn’t tell me that!”

“Didn’t I? Yeah, well, she found out just when you left, I guess.”

“Wow. So is this a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Good, bad, who knows? It’s made her more
intensive
in a way, but I also think that she might like some time away from Milo and his problems. Sad to say, but she’s not the most clued-in person when it comes to the actual kid, you know.”

“And now that she’s having her own …”

“Exactly. That may be what he’s feeling. She doesn’t have the patience for his stuff anymore.”

“Oh, poor Milo!”

“We’re all sitting down next week with the mediators. I’m going to suggest I become the custodial parent, and they can have unlimited visitation.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I can’t take this.”

“I can’t either,” she says. “You have to get him.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll let you know. I may need you to write me a letter.”

Andres Schultz and Judith invite Rosie and Jonathan to dinner one night. It’s April, the baby is six weeks old by now, and they know of a very competent, good babysitter—actually their niece, Eliza, who’s in college and is home on spring break. She’s great with kids, Judith says, as though Serena needs someone who is “great with kids.” What she needs is someone who has a lactating breast and a reasonable desire to walk her for hours on end. It also helps if that person knows the words to the Beatles song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and can read minds.

Jonathan thinks it will all be fine. “We have to go out sometime,” he says. “Americans are allowed to leave their infants, if I’m not mistaken.”

“But we don’t know this girl.”

So they meet Eliza in advance. She has a young, fresh face, a ponytail underneath a baseball cap, and a nice smile. She demonstrates that she knows how to hold a baby, how to administer a bottle, and how to walk a baby while supporting the head. She will call 911 at the first sign of any trouble. She will keep in touch with Rosie throughout the evening. She doesn’t
know
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” but she knows her university fight song, which might have the same spirit to it.

Rosie pumps breast milk into a bottle—a daylong project—which makes her feel like somebody’s old, reluctant cow, but it gets the job done.

And then she and Jonathan actually leave the house and go out. Babyless.

They have dinner, wearing grown-up clothes. Judith turns out to be a sparkling dinner companion who doesn’t mind hearing stories about new motherhood, even though
it’s nothing she ever wanted to experience herself. She sympathizes with Rosie’s missing her students, and says that
of course
she’ll help her find some students here, just as soon as she wants to return to work. Rosie can feel herself blanch: wait, she’s expected to take care of this baby
and
work, too?

Naturally the men start their museum talk. Judith leans over and says to Rosie conspiratorially, “Have you ever seen such obsessive guys? They are just so incredibly lucky to have found each other. It’s as though they were connected for many lifetimes.”

This makes both women laugh, because the idea of these two balding, seriously wonky guys trudging together lifetime after lifetime hoarding their teacups is hilarious.

When the laughter dies down Judith says, “And lucky you! You got nearly a whole year off from it, didn’t you?”

Rosie says, looking over at Jonathan fondly, “Well, but I’m glad to be back with him. I did miss him.”

That’s when the men look up from their talk. Andres has been on his BlackBerry and Jonathan on his iPhone, and their heads are nearly touching. And then Jonathan puts his phone down on the table and says, “That’s it, then. We got it!”

Andres actually claps his hands.

“What’s happening?” says Judith, and yawns.

“We just got a great collection that’s become available—a dealer in Cincinnati is liquidating—and we won the bid,” says Andres. Jonathan looks up at Rosie and smiles.

“Subject to our inspection,” he says.

“In Cincinnati?” says Rosie.

“In Cincinnati.” He turns back to Andres, who is calling up something else on his BlackBerry, and they bend their heads back together.

“Wait. You’re going to Cincinnati?” Rosie says, but he’s talking and doesn’t answer.

“Obsessive,” says Judith, tilting her head toward Rosie. She takes a sip of her wine and says, “You two never did get married, did you?”

When Rosie shakes her head, she says, “Yeah, Andres told me. We didn’t either. I don’t know why really. We just sort of forgot. It almost didn’t make enough difference to go ahead and do it. It’s funny how people say you have to do it, and then you realize you don’t.”

“Yeah,” says Rosie. She keeps looking at Jonathan. He’s going to Cincinnati, and she wonders if he’ll remember to tell her.

The men get hauled back into the conversation after that, and after a suitable interval has gone by, Rosie says they really do have to get back to the baby. The truth is her breasts are filled with milk—and that might mean that Beanie has drunk all the milk that was pumped and is screaming in hunger. She can’t believe she stayed out so long. She never meant to do this.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Jonathan keeps saying. It takes forever for him and Andres to wrap up their plans.

“Eliza would call you if there’s a problem,” says Judith. “You can relax.”

Rosie tries to smile at her. There’s no point in trying to explain what this is like to someone who hasn’t just given birth, how it feels to be so completely responsible for someone whose whole world depends upon you and your two breasts.

But when they get home, it turns out that everything really is all right. Beanie has been sleeping for four hours—like a miracle baby, Eliza says.

“See? What did I tell you? We have a miracle baby,” Jonathan says.

Rosie smiles weakly, and once he leaves to take Eliza home, she goes in and stands by the bassinet and watches the baby sleep. Her little cheeks are so full and luscious, and her little rosebud lips are so sweetly pooched up. Rosie reaches over and touches those seashell ears, the sweep of fine brown hair, and tears spring into her eyes. It’s all she can do not to scoop the baby up and nuzzle her.

She startles when Jonathan comes to the doorway. “Hey,” he whispers. “Come in here, I have a surprise for you.”

“Sssh. Come look at her. Tiptoe.”

But he’s already moved away from the door. After a moment, she goes into their bedroom, takes off her cardigan and her dress, and slips on her nightgown and sits down on the bed. He’s in the bathroom, looking at his teeth in the mirror.

“Whew, I’m so tired, but wine keeps me awake now, I’ve noticed,” she says. She takes her earrings off and looks over at him. “So what’s this surprise you have for me? The fact that you’re about to leave me and go on a business trip? Because I kind of figured that out with the context clues tonight.”

He comes over to the bed and stretches out next to her and grins suggestively. “Nooo. I believe that six weeks are officially up, and things are back to normal … down there,” he says, waggling his eyebrows and pointing toward her crotch. “I thought we’d …”

“Well, this is sort of out of the blue,” she says. She stands up and puts her earrings on the dresser.

“Yep, I’ve been holding myself back,” he says. “But tonight’s the night. Come over here and let me reintroduce you to your old friend Mr. Happy.”

“Jonathan, honestly? I’m kind of tired, and the baby is going to wake up in a minute and need to nurse, and also—as long as we’re talking about surprises, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the Cincinnati trip.”

“I didn’t tell you because I just found out about the trip tonight. You were there with me when I heard we’d gotten the bid.”

“But I didn’t even know it was a possibility. Why are you still acquiring cups when you have so many? You said yourself that the museum isn’t doing all that well—”

“People aren’t going to keep coming to see the same old, same old,” he says. “And look. Do you really want to get into a business discussion right now? Come on, I want you. Let’s get naked and frisky.”

“But I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone,” she says. “You’re taking off!”

“It’s only for two days,” he says. “You’ve never cared about me going away before.”

“But we have a baby now,” she says. “Can’t you see how frightening it might be for me?”

“You’re frightened of the baby?” He stares at her. “You, Rosie Kelley, are scared to be with the baby without me here? Me, who is pretty much useless since I know nothing about babies. I don’t even hold her the right way. You’re not scared, and you know it.”

“Things could happen. And I’m all by myself here without my friends or anybody I can call on if something happens—”

“Call Judith. Call the doctor. What’s going to happen?”

“Who knows what could happen? She could cry all night, she could stop breathing, I could fall down—”

“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. It’s fine. Come here and let’s get into this bed together.”

“No,” she says, and starts to cry in earnest. “Jonathan, I can’t do this. I’m so sad all the time, and I miss my friends and I feel bad when I have to try to make friends with other people, and you’re the only person I have to depend on, and I’m trying so hard to get used to it here, but it’s so weird, and I’m lonely. I’m just lonely.”

“You’re lonely?” he says. “Well, now that’s ironic, isn’t it? Here I am, right here, wanting to hold you, and this
could
be a good sexy, reuniting time, but instead you’ve picked this time to have a fight.”