Fast-forward in time and here I am, living a life I never imagined. I lie here in bed and I feel the sheets move to the rise and fall of my husband’s breathing. I listen to the clicking his mouth makes when his tongue gets stuck to the roof of his mouth and I wonder how long it will take him to come to the surface of sleep just shallow enough for his brain to remind itself to create more saliva. Click. Click. Click. That is the sound of our marriage. Like the ticking of a clock. His mouth makes the noise of our marriage.
Cammy
Sometimes I wish my mother was dead. I wouldn’t want her to die painfully or anything. Just, like, in her sleep. Only because … it’s just that … I mean, if she was dead no one would blame me for wanting to find my real mother. If Samantha was dead I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. My real mom would say things like I knew they’d be good parents and I know I can’t replace her but I’d like to be whatever kind of mother you’ll let me be. Bob would be fine with just the boys, and with Samantha gone I wouldn’t feel like I’m betraying them, like I sometimes do now. Bob and the boys would come over to my real mom’s house and we’d make them dinner and fill her in on all our stories.
Monica’s brother has ADD and she stole his Ritalin. The whole freaking bottle. She gave me half the pills. This stuff is amazing. I’m trying to pace myself. I’m trying not to take it too many times a day because I don’t want to run out. Anyway, this stuff helps me focus on not thinking about her. My birth mother, I mean. Also all the school shit. This tiny pill makes me concentrate on other shit. I even get my homework done, miracle of all miracles. I’ll do anything to keep from going insane wondering where that goddamn letter from the adoption place is. My biggest fear is them calling the house. I’m pretty sure I didn’t write our home number on the form but I’m not positive. I get so focused on the Ritalin and then at night I zone out with Benadryl and it’s all good. Three Benadryl knock me senseless.
I just think if Samantha left us, like divorced Bob and left us and started her own life, I could relax a little. I know I’m going to hell for saying this but whatever. I’m a bastard child so I’d be going to hell anyway. Plus, this is my diary and no one’s ever gonna read it but me. I’ll end up burning it when I move into my own place. I do wish she was dead sometimes.
Samantha
My mother died when I was in high school. Sixteen years old. She never saw me graduate. She never knew I was an honor student in college. She never met or knew Bob. She never met my children. I wish I could turn back the clock. I wish my mother had paid attention to her cholesterol and stayed away from all that fried food. I wish she’d listened when the doctor told her she had high blood pressure and should cut back on all the smoking. I got hold of her medical records from her last couple of doctor visits and there it was in writing, Patient has been informed of the risks involved with her smoking and her high cholesterol. Patient urged to begin an exercise regimen and urged to have regular physicals.
Nowhere in the file is a record of her following up with any of the doctor’s suggestions. The same recommendations were made on subsequent visits.
If I could wind the clock back, I would pick the day I first noticed her holding on to the banister. That day I could hear her raspy breathing. I could hear her sigh.
“I must’ve stood too quickly,” she said when she caught me staring.
I wish I could go back in time to explain to her that she was killing herself. I was too young to know all that at the time. It was unimaginable to me that she would disappear from my life.
“Mom, we’re going to the doctor,” I would say. “Get in the car.”
And then I would get her a health-club membership and we’d work out together.
“You’re so young,” I would say. “You shouldn’t be having so much trouble going up and down stairs. I’ve made an appointment, so there’s no getting out of it. The car’s out front. The air conditioning’s on. Let’s go.”
I don’t know if my father ever did this. He withdrew so quickly when she died and then years later I didn’t want him to feel bad about it so I never asked. I’m sure the thought, the regret, occurred to him. I wonder if it haunted him. As for me, I think about her every day. It’s a skipped heartbeat when I get to the family-history section on medical forms. To have to say yes, heart attacks do run in my family—my mother had one.
Then to have to answer the inevitable how’s she doing with oh, she’s passed.
It killed Dad when Mom died. I wonder if it would kill me in the same way if Bob died. I would feel sad, certainly, but would I die without him? Absolutely not.
Cammy was six and a half when I sat Bob down and asked him about trying for more. I’d been thinking about it for a while but we were never in one place together for long enough to have that talk.
“Oh, Jesus, not again,” he said when I asked if he ever thought about having more kids. Cammy was asleep, the dishes were done and Bob was still awake. The trifecta.
“This time it’ll be different,” I said. “We’ve got Cammy. If nothing happens it won’t be the end of the world or anything.” I truly believed that. More kids would be better for us. Bring us closer together. Yes, I truly thought that.
It only took one round of in vitro and voilà we were shopping for a double stroller for the two boys. Jamie and Andrew. I got blankets and towels monogrammed and Bob hunkered down at work and I hardly ever thought about the distance between us.
I rubbed anti-stretch mark cream on my huge belly. I bought maternity blouses with busy patterns that would help camouflage my monstrous popped-out belly button. I waddled to the baby stores, buying the tiny clothes, the bassinets, the cribs. In the sixth month I started to have the sick feeling it was all a big mistake. I wanted my mother to tell me everyone felt that way and it was only natural to be scared. I wanted her to warn me to keep track of the space between Bob and me, to make sure it didn’t widen too far.
He started going gray in my eighth month. We were young but suddenly Bob seemed weary and creaky in his movements. And he started hating work. One night I made macaroni and cheese and Cammy was uncharacteristically quiet, so as I was pouring the unnaturally orange cheese powder onto the slimy pasta, I asked him how his day was. Usually he’d say “fine” and that would be it, like a television series in the fifties.
“Yeah, how was your day, Daddy?” Cammy asked.
I smiled at her and looked at Bob, but he didn’t seem to think it was that cute. Lately she’d been echoing everything I said, so I’d started watching my swearing.
“It stunk,” he said.
“It stunk,” Cammy said.
“Don’t say that,” Bob said. He was on his first scotch, but if I didn’t know better I’d say it was number two.
“So it wasn’t a good day workwise?”
“That’s why they call it work. If it was fun it’d be called something else.”
“Remember when you used to love it?” I said.
“Yeah. So?”
“What changed?” I asked.
“The industry changed, that’s what,” he said, loosening