Paullina Simons - Bellagrand

“I thought it spoke to a larger state of your independent character.”

“It spoke to me being twenty and in college.”

“And going to hear Emma Goldman sermonize every week? Did you not hear her say babies are slavery?”

“Like I pay attention. She also says God is slavery. And marriage is slavery. And work is slavery. We must choose carefully what to agree with.”

“Oh goodness, but is the bloom off the rose!” Harry half-feigned shock. “Quite frightening. Is this what’s ahead for me, too?”

“No, I’m still fond of you. Do you want me to show you how fond?”

“Kill me if I ever say no.”

He took from her some sweet, not so quiet love, and afterward in the dark, in bed, held her close, caressed her face, her body, and softly whispered to her, as confounded as before. “I simply don’t understand your precipitous change of heart.”

“Yes, it’s like falling off a cliff,” she whispered, tired herself, relaxed, sated, happy, and yet still needing to say what had to be said.

“Are you being facetious again? I can’t tell with you.”

“Me? Never.” She half-listened, gently rubbing the arm that embraced her. “But Harry, in our current circumstance, Mother Jones may be right. You can’t have a baby. Only me. That’s the law of the prophets. I can’t do what I do now and take care of a baby.”

Mary Harris Jones, or Mother Jones, was one of the co-founders of the Industrial Workers of the World and a tireless labor union organizer. She was also detested by most of the prominent women of the day for being vehemently opposed to abortion and women’s rights. She told everyone who would listen that the main reason for juvenile delinquency was mothers working outside the home. This endeared her to no one.

“I suppose I could take care of it,” Harry said, in the tone of someone who might say, I guess I can try making ice cream.

“I don’t want you to take care of it. I want to have a baby because I want to be a mother. I don’t want to be called a mother. I want to be a mother. I want to mother a child. I want that to be the work of my life.”

With an everlasting sigh, he kissed her lips, kissed her between her swollen breasts, kissed her head, closed his eyes, breathed deeply. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?”

He settled in for sleep. Gina was quiet, lying in his arms, barely breathing, listening for the rhythmic rising and falling of his heart.

“Harry,” she whispered at last. “ Amore mio , I think we’re about to cross that bridge.”

Lightly he laughed, squeezing her. “Why don’t we give our coupling a few weeks to seed, sugarplum.”

She raised her head from his chest, looked up at him in the dark. “Crossing that bridge now, mio marito. ”

Finally he understood.

For a long while didn’t speak, his back to her. She stroked him. He didn’t move away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you. This is what I’m doing right now.”

He put on his overshirt and slumped on his side of the bed. “Gina, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll be fine. Isn’t that what you always say about everything? We’ll be fine.”

“You’re not worried?”

“Are you worried?” She ran her fingernails down his back tapping and scraping her fingers over him to rile him. “ Caro , you’re not ready to move out of my mother’s house, you’re not ready to get a job, you’re not ready for a baby. Before me you weren’t ready to be married. You’re thirty-four years old. It’s time. Time to take your one life by its unformed horns. You aren’t going to get another chance to swim in this river again.”

“I thought you were happy with us, with the way things are.”

She didn’t want to pause, but couldn’t help an ever so slight hesitation. “I’m not un happy. But I wouldn’t mind not living with my mother. I wouldn’t mind a little privacy with you, just you and me and our baby. I wouldn’t mind not having to work two jobs, be away from you all these hours during the day.”

“One of us would still have to be away,” he said. “If I was working.”

She nodded in quiet non-judgmental agreement. “ Ti amo . But I would like for that person to now be you.”

“Gina … we agreed.”

“Okay. We agreed.”

“And then you went to hear one feminist after another talk about free love, birth control, women behaving like men, and so on.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And what? I got tired of it.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“You got tired of it so long ago, you haven’t come with me for years. Which is why I’ve had to keep dragging Angela with me to all those meetings. Which is why she met Arturo. Which is why my mother blames me for Angela’s current predicament.”

“What predicament? Love?”

“Something like that.”

“My point is,” he said, “we never talked about having babies. We only talked about not having babies.”

Gina sighed. “When was the last time we talked about not having a baby?”

She saw by his silence he couldn’t remember. And he usually remembered everything.

“In any case,” she continued, “what would you like me to do about it?”

“Nothing, clearly.”

“All right then.”

“Where are we going to live? We’re still at your mother’s house.”

“I can’t make enough, that’s true,” she said. “I’m not a man. But you are. And you can.”

“Did you do this to force me to get some menial job?”

“No, Harry,” said Gina. “I just want a baby. I wish you still had your father’s bank accounts to fall back on. I know things were easier for you when you could just buy what you wanted and send on the bill to your father’s accountant. I won’t object if you decide to get in touch with him.”

“You know that will never happen. Not after what he did, what he said.”

“You can tell them about their grandchild. Esther—”

“Never.”

“Your sister might be happy to hear from you, no?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“Babies smooth over a lot of things.”

“Not this.”

“Mimoo says …”

“I don’t care. Baby, no baby, my father, my sister are gone from my life. Just like they wanted.”

She fell back on the bed. “Why are you pushing them away, caro ? Your family, my brother. Your friend Ben. You used to be so close. Why have you not written to him? You don’t even know if he’s still in Panama.”

“If I don’t know where he is, how can I write to him?”

“I bet your sister knows. You could ask her.”

“Stop it.”

“His mother must know. You could get in touch with her. You got along with his mother so well.”

“Yes, but she gets along too well with my father. I’m not going to reach out to her, Gia. Besides, I don’t think Ben wants to hear from me anyway.”

“You can’t be on the outs with everyone, Harry.”

“Salvo hates me so much he won’t step foot in his own mother’s house. How is this my fault?”

Gina said nothing, biting her lip, forcing herself to say nothing. Why did she have to be a Sicilian? They always blurted out every damn fool thing on their minds.

“Do you know what Mimoo says?”

He fell back on the bed too. His hand went over her belly. He spun toward her, bent over her, kissed her. “No. Tell me what Mimoo says.”

“She says the baby brings his own food.”

“Mmm.” He kissed her bare stomach, caressed her hips, fondled her breasts. “You know who brings her own food? You.”