Page 67 of Unexpecting

While I was standing here cursing J.B. and his dickheadedness, I’d been mindlessly folding his laundry. I was holding a pair of red striped boxers in my hand, and I stood there with them for a long moment. These were the pair he was wearing that night, the night this whole mess began.

″Are things ever going to go back to normal?” I asked my cat. Of course, he didn’t answer. I picked up the clothes I’d folded and put them back in the basket to take upstairs.

″Where’s J.B.?” I asked Coop, who was still at the stove. I swear, it seems some days Cooper never leaves the kitchen. This time, there was no egg smell or other breakfast-like aromas wafting around. It was another smell entirely. My stomach tossed restlessly. Whatever he was making didn’t smell all that good for me.

″Why?” Cooper asked. “What are you going to do to him?”

″I folded his laundry,” I said defensively. “And now I’m tempted to go and dump it into the compost heap in the backyard.”

Cooper laughed. “That’s more like it. You start being nice to him, and I’ll think there’s something going on. Something more than there already is…” he trailed off with a pained expression.

″I’m not mad,” I began, then slapped a hand against my nose. As Cooper stirred, the room was filled with an odour of…

″What’s that? It smells like—” I peered at the stove.

″Brownies with raspberry shiraz jam…” he trailed off, with a confused frown at my hand still holding my nose. “You like chocolate.”

″Why is this happening to me?” I cried. Cooper started to laugh. “Stop laughing! How would you feel if the smell of the one thing you love more than anything is making you feel like you’re going to puke? Fuck a duck!” I howled. I backed away from the stove.

Cooper was still chuckling. “Get out of here before you get sick then. J.B.’s not here. He’s still out with Ben.”

Ben. Ben and the books. I forgot all about the baby books Ben brought over for me. “Have you seen a pile of baby books around lately? Maura sent some over last week,” I asked from the doorway, still with my hand over my nose.

Coop shook his head absentmindedly. “Haven’t seen them. I think you might have enough of your own, though, don’t you?”

″Probably.” I’d been trying to breathe through my mouth and hold my nose, but it was not working. The rich chocolaty smell was getting through. “Goddamit!” Normally I’d be practically drooling by now. “It’s not fair to take chocolate away from me! I won’t have anything left! I gotta get out of here,” I cried and raced out of the kitchen with the basket banging against my hip and Cooper’s laughter ringing in my ears.

″It won’t be forever,” he called after me.

By the time I reached J.B.’s room upstairs, I really was ready to throw all of his clothes outside, hopefully to be trod on by an army of ants and pooped on by a dozen birds with diarrhea. How dare he get me pregnant? I’m carrying his child, unable to drink wine or even stand the smell of chocolate, and where is he through all of this? Riding his bike. What does he know about morning sickness? I wished a plague of morning sickness on him. I hoped he’d vomit every day for the next nine years and that the smell of garlic and beer and all lovely things he likes to smell, like women’s perfume and the exhaust from his motorcycle, would make him want to throw up every time he was around them and…

My rant ended as soon as I stepped into his room.

There, sitting on the floor beside his bed in a neat pile, were the missing baby books. There, sitting on the floor, like they were waiting to be read, were copies ofThe Baby Whisperer,Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy,The MOMMY of all Pregnancy Books, and more. And there, lying face down on his pillow wasWhat to Expect When You’re Expecting.

I placed the basket of clothes gently on the bed and reached over and picked up the book. It looked like J.B. was reading this—was he really reading this? A book about what to expect when you’re expecting? Really?

I flipped the book over. The Fifth Month. Oh, my God—did this mean…

I burst into tears at the thought.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“It is said that a woman becomes a mother when she conceives a child, but a man becomes a father when he holds the child in his arms.”

A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood

Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)

The discovery of thebaby books in J.B.’s room sent me into a tailspin for the rest of the day. J.B. was reading baby books—did that mean he wanted to be involved? Or was he looking into all the scary stuff that’s going on in my body and all the truly frightening aspects of life after the baby to justify running scared? I was so confused. I didn’t even want to hope. I didn’t know what to hope for!

But finding those books in J.B.’s room brought everything to a head and forced me to do something drastic. Something I do my best not to do more than once every few months.

I cleaned my apartment.

And I mean cleaned. I did the floors, the windows, the closets, and the cupboards. I disinfected Sebastian’s litter box and scrubbed the shower walls, all the while singing along at the top of my voice. I may be tone-deaf, but it stops me from thinking about anything, and at least I have a super-clean apartment.

About seven-thirty, I finally called it quits, because the only thing I had left to do was organize my clothes and I didn’t have the energy forthat. But as soon as I turned off my stereo, I heard footsteps on the stairs. It was J.B.

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