Stephen Dixon - Gould

Anyway, it was about a month after he dribbled into her, and while she was undressing he noticed her belly — she was standing sideways — had a quarter-moon-like swelling to it like the first two times she was pregnant a month or so. She showed early, though she always denied she did, and with one of their kids — Josephine — he said “But look at your belly, it’s a bit bigger and has that particular pregnant swell, I should begin calling it if it turns out I’m right again, like the last time with Fanny and when I pointed it out then you said, though we’d been trying to conceive and probably did the first time we tried, ‘It’s not that, it must be something else. Maybe I need to lose a few pounds or, God help us’—I remember that expression especially, for any use of the word God like that is unusual for you—‘it’s just gas. If it is,’ you said, ‘we’ll find out soon enough,’ and then you laughed, hand over your mouth, that kind of laugh, something you also rarely do, since you didn’t mean it as a joke. You meant . .” But off the point again. This night when she was undressing and he was watching, preparing to make love to her — that’s what was on his mind and he thought hers too by the way she smiled at him but not saying anything when she was unbuttoning her shirt and saw him watching and also the slow way she was undressing and because she knew he usually got aroused when he watched her undress unless they’d made love in the last few hours — he saw a little swelling . but he said that. Recognized it from the previous two times, but that too. But didn’t mention it, feeling that if she was pregnant and didn’t know . but he’s gone over that too: later she found out the better, etcetera. Also, the longer she was pregnant maybe more attached she’d get to the baby, so less chance she’d want to abort. And this was one of those times he thought she’d stay the same or get healthier rather than sicker and where the medicines she was taking wouldn’t affect the baby much and that if they had to abort because of what they later found out in the various tests she’d take, then at least they’d tried to have another baby, though he didn’t know why he constantly switched his opinion on all this: maybe because he had no basis for either, where one way of thinking about it was as good as the other, meaning the chance of something good or bad happening to her or the baby was about as good as nothing happening. A few nights later she said her period’s late this month, probably due to the new drug she’s taking and he said “But you started it a couple of months ago,” and she said “It’s possible it’s only now beginning to have an effect on my period as it’s already had on other things: hair falling out, little more tiredness during the day, discoloring of my stools, the occasional feeling I need to vomit,” and he let it go at that. Her stomach did seem a little rounder than it had a few nights before but he was probably only imagining it. He still hoped she was pregnant but now kind of doubted she was and that it was the new medicine changing things for her as she said. Several mornings later she pointed to her stomach when she was getting up and he was doing exercises in their room and said “I’m not getting fat, so don’t worry, as I know how anxious you can get about that. Fat women — oh my dear; even unpleasantly plump ones — quite the turnoff, right? While I’d think that in some ways, all that meat, more to put your arms around and maybe another layer to get into and so much juicier to the squeeze, might turn a fellow on. But it’s the constipation now, which I was also told to expect from this new drug,” and he said “Have you started your period?” and then thought Damn, shouldn’t have mentioned it, for all the obvious reasons, but she said “No, though I thought I felt it coming on two days ago. It’s maybe a day or two away, but not even spots yet. Look, when you’re at the drugstore next time or Giant — their generic brand is as good, I hear in fact, soon as you can, if you don’t mind, could you buy me something to relieve it?” and she said it came in a tall container and gave the name. “But generic or otherwise, the powder with no sugar in it,” and he asked how to spell psyllium and when she spelled it he said “I better get this one on a piece of paper.” He looked at her exposed belly whenever he could the next week and felt it when they were making love or lying in the dark and going to sleep and it seemed to be getting a little larger and harder, and because the Tampax box wasn’t opened on the floor by the toilet bowl and she wasn’t spreading a towel under her when they made love it meant she hadn’t started her period. “I bet she knows,” he thought, “and maybe even wants the baby but hasn’t decided on that yet, so is holding off telling me.” Then she was going to the doctor’s to learn how to catheterize herself, something she had to begin doing to empty her bladder a couple of times a day to prevent the accidents she’s been having. He drove her there, went downstairs for coffee and a sandwich after he left her in the examining room, and when he came back she was sitting in the waiting room. “Something terrible’s happened,” and he said “What, the catheterizing?” and she said “We didn’t even get to finish it, so I’ll have to come back for that another day. But the nurse teaching me was poking and sticking this self-catheter tube there when suddenly blood came—” and he said “Blood, Jesus, you’re all right now though, aren’t you? I mean, what do we have to do, the hospital?” and she said “No, we can go home, I’m fine, it’s over. I thought it was my period starting, which I was thankful for, of course, and went to the bathroom—” and he said “It was a kid — you lost a baby,” and she said “I’m sure that was it. A very tiny fetus, infinitely tiny, almost nothing, a nothing blob, it was so tiny . I never had anything come out of me like that where I saw it . but how’d you know?” and he said “What about the bleeding? How bad was it? You call the nurse?” and she said “It went on a little while, but they helped me, even gave me a new pair of underpants — paper, but it feels funny, I don’t like it, I want to get home and into a real pair — and a bag for the old ones,” and she held it up, “. but how’d you know it was that? It could have been anything,” and he said “I just assumed by your expression when I came in; so worried, pained, almost afraid to tell me — that more than anything gave it away. Not ‘afraid’ so much, but you know. But you sure that was it, what came out?” and she said “I didn’t know it right at the time. I was so dumb. I’d had an abortion before — long ago, but the third or fourth month, and I was put out, so I never saw it and never wanted to. Here I thought it was a little menstrual blood at first. But also, because of the stomach cramps and my constipation, it was me all filled up with gas and crap and maybe the crap was finally coming out of me down there, but of course I wasn’t thinking. All this before I looked, because I heard it plopping into the water, so for sure thought it was crap,” and he said “That stupid fucking nurse. So what did she do, poke you up your hole without looking or even the wrong hole intentionally because she wanted you to lose the baby?” and she said “Of course not. She didn’t know; I didn’t; nobody did. She was putting it in the right place, showing me; maybe she wasn’t the greatest expert at it, because it hurt when she did it, but in the urethra, when the blood came,” and he said “And she didn’t see what hole it was coming out of?” and she said “It was just a trickle, and it was all so fast her getting me into the bathroom that she didn’t have time to look,” and he said “It was a goddamn botched-up job, a stupid screwup which nurse was it? Did you tell the doctor? Did you even see him after?” and she said “Shh, please, and it wasn’t her fault. And the doctor saw me and said, from everything I told him, that it must have been a very early fetus and there was no major hemorrhaging and everything came out and I was in no danger. It was just that this thing, this fetus, didn’t have it in it to live — that’s my opinion; the doctor couldn’t say for sure what made it abort—” and he said “He doesn’t want to take responsibility the insurance and so on,” and she said “That’s not it. But he agreed it could have been related to my illness and the way I am, so weak at times, and all the drugs I’ve been taking, and that he never specifically warned me with this new one because I’d told him I had no intention of getting pregnant again and that if I had changed my mind about it he knew I would have informed him,” and he said “Warned you about what?” and she said “You’re really upset about this,” and he said “I am, what do you think; look what they did to you. But warned you about what?” and she said “Of getting — what I said; that women shouldn’t be that it shouldn’t, this new drug, be taken by women contemplating getting pregnant or by men with my disease who are married to women who are planning to get pregnant, though the drug company has no extensive studies on that yet, the drug’s so new; but in the little data they do have, there wasn’t a single miscarry. They were just being extra careful by making that warning,” and he said “Extra careful? If they were extra careful, or the doctor and nurse were—” and she said “He did the right thing based on the information about the drug and what I’d told him. But that — all those things working against me — coupled with the fact that the fetus wasn’t healthy itself, which can happen in women much younger than I and stronger and in perfect shape and not taking any drugs or anything—” and he said “What did it look like?” and she said “Can’t we continue this in the car, or even later? I’ve had it with it for now,” and he said “Just, while you can still remember it, tell me what it looked like, please,” and she said “I told you: nothing; a glob, dark, red, bloody. I flushed it down fast, almost before I knew what I was doing, it was so sickening-looking. But I almost think . but this has to be impossible. I’m sure they don’t even start growing those things yet. But from some quick look, as it was turning around in the bowl, that I saw limbs — something, two of them sticking out on either side,” and he said “Oh sheez, that’s awful. Fuck it, I knew you were pregnant; I saw it in your belly. The way it was shaped, which I knew from the two other times,” and she said “Why didn’t you say anything?” and he said “I had my doubts, didn’t want to alarm you, raise my hopes — you know — and I thought you knew yourself and all those signs much better than I. But I’m really sorry now. I could have stopped you from going in for that catheter. I would have asked you to have the baby if it had stayed,” and she said “How could I have? I can’t even pee right or stand up straight anymore,” and he said “We could have done it; it would have worked out; women have had them under worse conditions: paralyzed; in iron lungs. Three’s what I always wanted; three’s the best. Maybe we can still have another. You can go off this drug; for a while you don’t have to take anything. I’d take care of you from day one to the end. We’d get someone to help, you’d stay in bed—” and she said “No, this one was an accident; we just have to be more careful from now on.”