Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

“We actually went camping overnight when we were in Palo Alto,” Nicky interrupts.

And I say: “Really? Oh.” I fall quiet but then resume the story because this is about helping Nicky, not about how wide the divide has grown between my husband and me. “Anyway… just before they got to the campsite, your dad swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel. Ran the car right off the road and flattened the front against a tree. And Uncle Shawn was freaking out, checking himself for broken bones and debating calling 911, and all of that. But your dad…the first thing your dad did was hop out of the car to check on the squirrel.”

I pause. I hope this all doesn’t sound dumb. I’m relaying it, and it sounds sort of dumb, even though Shawn marveled about it for weeks later. That Kyle was the type of guy who swerved for a squirrel. Shawn wanted to be that type of guy too, and when Nicky was born, he embraced it: swerving for the figurative squirrel whenever Nicky found himself about to be run over. Which, given this kid, was often.

Nicky is quiet for a moment, then whispers, “I didn’t know that about him.” He swallows the air, considering it. “I guess, like, I’m trying to figure it all out. Like, with God, and what it’s supposed to mean…” He pauses. “I guess that’s what the whole ‘Jewish’ thing was.”

He runs his hands through his hair, and I realize he’s no longer donning the yarmulke.

“These are pretty big questions,” I say. “I guess I’m still sorting this out for myself, too.”

“It’s easier to think like your dad thinks,” Nicky says. “Like, everything happens for a reason, and there must be some great meaning behind my dad dying. Like, maybe I’ll grow up and be president because of it. But…I mean…I’m not gonna be president. That’s bullshit. I’d rather he’d have gone into work five minutes later that day or missed the train than be, like, president.”

He stares down at his lap, but I can still see the tears on his cheeks.

“I dunno. I’m just twelve.” He shrugs, an apology.

“I think you’re pretty smart.”

“Not really,” he says.

I sigh.

“It’s a hard thing to accept: that you can’t change what’s happened. People spend their lives filled with regret over not doing things differently. Over not having those metaphorical extra five minutes.”

“Do you regret a lot of things?”

I laugh and look at the floor. “Don’t use me as an example. I’m totally fucked up.”

“You said ‘fuck.’” He grins.

“I guess you’re growing up,” I say. “I thought I could.”

He nods his head like he’s gotten a sliver of what he came for and slides off the bed, nearly out of the room. I’m about to reopen my laptop when he hesitates in the doorframe and chews his thumbnail.

“You know, Aunt Willa. You’re a pretty good substitute mom.”

“I’m not, really.” I frown.

“You are. You’re just too busy doubting everything to know it.”

I lay in bed and revisit the math, and whether or not my period was late. I should have gotten a morning-after pill when the condom broke, should have gone to the doctor to ensure that, even with our low odds — one testicle, one faulty uterus — I couldn’t be pregnant. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about it. It’s that I wasn’t certain what I wanted to do. Some things in life can’t be undone; on that, both my father and I can agree. I wasn’t sure if I believed in fate, but after months and months of negative EPT tests, I wasn’t willing to prove that I didn’t either. Not like this. Even if I didn’t know what I wanted, with Theo, with Shawn, with a baby.

I’d lost track of my periods once Shawn and I stopped trying — when was that? Eight weeks ago? A lifetime ago? The day he told me he needed his space, the day he drafted our rules. I hadn’t been particularly regular before the pill, so now…I don’t know. Why don’t you ever know? Cilla Zuckerberg probably knows everything! Probably has an Excel spreadsheet on her period! Maybe I should have gotten it yesterday. Or the day before. But it could be tomorrow, too.

I slip out early the next morning to the drugstore, after Nicky gives me the courage, unknowingly, but the courage all the same, to accept that maybe this time it would be different — the test, the results, my certainty, my conviction. I still didn’t know what I wanted it to be — motherhood or…not. Everyone thinks that we grow up, we get married, we have babies. But what if we don’t? What if we don’t want to? How do we swallow the discomfort that comes with that acceptance? Because even if we ourselves accept it — parenthood is not for me — there are still so many questions from everyone around you: Why not? Is it medical? Is it physical? Is it psychological? Were her own parents monsters? Is she cold-hearted? Why wouldn’t anyone want to be a parent, want to give life to something else?These are complicated questions, and I can’t even bring myself to ask Theo — or anyone — the easy questions. How on earth am I supposed to know whether or not I want the pregnancy test to say Y.E.S.? But Ollie had urged me toward responsibility, toward conviction, and he wasn’t wrong. So I got two tests at Duane Reade; in case I wimped out of the first one and tossed it, I’d have the second for backup. That felt like responsibility, even if it wasn’t much.

Now, I sit on the toilet with my sweatpants around my ankles, and I contemplate fate, on how the universe works in ways that no one, not my dad, not Vanessa, not Punjab Sharma, my father’s arch-rival and recipient of the Nobel Prize, can predict. There are some things that feel inevitable — the collision of egg and sperm, the randomness of it happening at all, the further unlikelihood that the couplet implants inside of me and forms a life. At here, now, with the utter nakedness of my fear and my listlessness, it’s hard to doubt my dad, to question whether or not inevitability is, well, inevitable. The condom broke. He has one ball. My reproductive system has proven unreliable.

I stare at my toes and run them through Raina’s plush bathmat and buy myself time. No matter what the results , I think, I’ll get a pedicure later . After Ollie’s arraignment. Treat myself to something nice.

And then, before I lose my nerve, before my guts give out on me entirely, I hover the stick between my legs and pee.

When I’m done, I set the test on the vanity counter, slide down the wall onto the floor, and then, just as I had for seven months, back when I was still one half of Shilla, back before everything changed, I wait.

Whatever happens next is no longer mine to control, no longer mine to own. So I close my eyes and I wait.

NEW YORK POST COVER STORY:

HEADLINE: DOWN DOG!

Oliver Chandler, the son of the New York Times bestselling author Richard Chandler, found himself in court today over charges that he ran a pyramid scheme for his boss, Yogi Master Dari, to raise money for their celebrated yoga retreat in India. You would think this would be enough drama for one family, but the courtroom antics were so over-the-top that we hope Hollywood producers were listening in. Someone revive L.A. Law stat and rip this story from the headlines!

The younger Chandler was joined in court by his wide-reaching family, which included his counsel, his sister Raina Chandler-Farley, his mother (with an apparent lady friend, which set off gossip whispers throughout the Upper East Side…Page Six will have more tomorrow!), and his famous father, who was pushed in a wheelchair by a leggy nursemaid who sources are reporting is his mistress. Repeated requests to Chandler’s agent as to the state of his marriage went unreturned.