Ramona Ausubel - A Guide to Being Born - Stories

“See? It’s not so bad to be my husband,” she said. He put his lips against hers and held as long as she would let him, then sat on the closed toilet while she turned her lips, a wide expectant O, red. For the rest of the night, the tube was not a bullet but a hook, a hook with a long, shimmering line to Annie’s mouth.

BEN’S ONLY REAL COMPLAINT was that the drawers were difficult to open. They limited his movements, too, but that ended up being a plus since his posture was suddenly perfect. But the opening and closing of the drawers was an issue. In the second month of the drawers, while Annie was out, Ben went to the hardware store and bought ten (in case some got lost) matching brass knobs, the smallest ones they carried. He threw in a chocolate bar and a bag of cotton candy with a picture of a clown on it, even though he knew that it was gross to buy cotton candy in a bag at the hardware store.

In the car on the way home, he took Aaron out and placed him on the passenger seat. “These knobs are going to be great,” he explained. “We’ll be able to use the drawers better now, open them and close them. They’re attractive, too. These are nice-looking knobs.” Aaron did not respond, but Ben was sure that he was behind the project one hundred percent.

Ben got his tools from the garage and made himself a cup of coffee and drank it while he ate the cotton candy. He laid the brass knobs out in a circle on the kitchen table in front of him. The truth was, he was nervous. He didn’t know if the process was going to hurt. After his snack, he took some deep breaths and got out his drill. He took his shirt off. It was an awkward position, looking down at his chest with a power drill facing into him. He couldn’t get a good angle on it, so he went to the mirror by the front door, where his wife always took final stock of her outfit and hair, one last check before she entered the world. He tried to line the bit up centered in one of the middle drawers, second row from the top. He went for it. It did not hurt in any measurable way, except he was aware that he was making a hole from the outside of his body to the inside. He winced as he worked, saying ouch out of habit and ritual, out of respect for his body, although he felt almost nothing. He screwed the knob on. It looked nice and shiny against the white bone.

Just as he was beginning the second one, Annie came blasting in the front door with no evidence of the groceries she had gone to get. She went straight for the bathroom, where she threw up. Ben tried to go in and help her but she cursed at him, and he waited quietly outside the slammed door.

“There is nothing you can do to help me!” she yelled. He tried the door and tentatively pushed it open when the handle twisted.

“Are you OK?” he asked with his eyebrows tight together. She was on the floor with her head on the closed toilet lid.

“Do I the fuck look like I’m OK?” she panted. And then right away: “I’m sorry. But also, fuck you.”

“Can I get you something? I thought we were done with the morning sickness.” His voice was eggshell thin. She looked up at him for the first time. Her face fell flat. She looked desperate.

“I must have eaten something. What did you do to your chest? What is that thing ?” He was happy for the change of subject and proud to show off his work.

“It’s a knob! It’s going to make it much easier to get them open and closed.”

She thought about it and then shook her head decisively. “No. It won’t work. It’s going to look like you have a disease. Everyone will be able to see the balls.”

He smiled. “You don’t want everyone seeing my balls?” When she did not laugh, he considered her point. He kicked his left foot with his right foot. “Shit!” he yelled. “Why does it matter? Can’t I have things sticking out? What are you so worried about?” He knew he was going to lose this one. She knew it too, so her response was measured.

“There’s nothing we can do about the drawers. The drawers seem to be there for good. But we can control how obvious they are, and I’m sorry, Ben, but you can’t have little balls sticking out. You’re going to look like a robot with all sorts of buttons and toggles. No. Just, no.” He looked like he had lost something important. She got off her knees slowly and moved closer to him, leaned against the sink. She put her hand on his face. “We’ll figure something out. To make opening and closing easier.”

Ben took the travel toothbrush out of his chest and prepared it for her, wetted and pasted. While she brushed, he sat on the edge of the sink and held his hands silently on the hidden baby. “You are still the only miracle here,” he whispered, though it was his wife he wanted to say it to.

BEN EMPTIED OUT the contents of his chest.

“Look what you’ve got in there.” Annie smiled. “Look at all those babies. Diversity, I like that,” she said, laughing.

Ben was embarrassed. “I bought them. I haven’t named them all yet,” he said.

“I’m sure you have time. What if we make little half-moon-shaped holes at the top of each drawer. Enough to put a fingertip in?” Annie asked.

Ben smiled. “I like that you called them half-moons.”

“I’ll need a lot of light. Go and gather lamps.”

Ben sat on the dining room table, shirtless under the light of every lamp in the house placed around them on chairs, on the floor and the oval table. Everything in the room was made important by all that light: the dining table inherited from a grandmother though not well liked; the chairs, cheap and unmatching; the bulletin board with the collection of fetal images, those beans of babies in various stages of growth. The rest of the house was heavy, dark.

“How can this not hurt?” she asked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I promise it won’t. What if I read a story to you while you work?”

“No, I want you to watch me, to make sure I do it right.”

Ben watched while Annie made the first cuts. He talked to her to keep her calm. “The baby has all of her toes already,” he said, “teensy little nails even. She has her fingers and hands.” His voice was deep compared with the high tink of the chipping bone. The pieces landed around Annie’s feet like gathering snow.

Ben’s neck became sore from watching his wife work. “The baby would like to know if she can have a pony,” he said.

“Don’t make me laugh,” she said, smiling.

“The baby would like to know if she can stay over at her best friend’s house and if she can have twenty dollars and if she can have a little brother or sister.”

“Yes, on all counts,” Annie said, and stood to kiss her husband, his chest wide open.

After she had made rough notches, she sanded them down. Even though Ben had no feeling in his chest, the vibration of the sandpaper went all the way though him, making his organs itch. They took breaks for this reason. Annie sat up on the table next to him, both of them kicking their feet like children on a tall bench. He pressed his hands on the baby. “What do you think about this strange family you’ll belong to?” he asked her. She did not kick back.

“Have you ever tried to take one of the drawers out?” Annie asked carefully.

Ben shook his head no. “I do wonder what’s in there. Same as you, I’d guess, and we don’t propose to take you apart.”

“No, we don’t. Let’s leave them in.”

“I would rather. If it’s all right with you.”

When they were finished, Annie had made six holes in her husband’s chest. He tested them out, one at a time, until all his drawers were open and his chest looked puffed out. “You look like a peacock,” Annie said. “A proud peacock.” Annie put Ben’s collection back into his body. The piles of babies, the mustard, the tiny toothbrush, all of it. The two of them stayed in the dining room under all the lights and talked about baby names. She suggested mostly old-fashioned names like Annabelle and he suggested mostly names beginning with C, like Clarice.