Page 9 of Unexpecting

″Really?” Libby asked gleefully.

″Don’t sound so happy. It wasn’t my finest moment. But it made me realize that I’m just wasting my life. There’s no one out there for me—no one that I would want to have a baby with. And then I thought, what am I waiting for? I’m just getting older, and it’s going to get harder to meet decent men because they’re all either emotionally warped or divorced or both…”

″And you think you can manage to have a baby by yourself?”

″Thanks to the advancements in science, there are options these days. It makes sense, you know.”

″What does? I think you lost me when you said you had sex with J.B. What was that like?” Libby asked, practically drooling for details.

″It was lovely, but don’t get me off topic when I’m on a roll. I got thinking about everything last night, and then it just came to me—I’ll go and get artificially inseminated and then…” I trailed off when I realized Libby was looking at me with something akin to horror. “What? It makes sense!”

″Why on earth,” she whispered, “would you want to have a baby now?”

″You have a baby,” I pointed out. “You have two of them, actually, and you seem pretty happy.”

″Yes, but you’re not me.” Libby yanked out a few blades of grass that dared to invade her flowers with enough vengeance to send nuggets of dirt flying over her shoulder toward me.

″What’s that supposed to mean?”

″It means,” Libby said heavily, sitting back on her heels, “that you’re a single woman.”

″So?” So much for thinking it might be a good idea to talk to my sister!

″I mean, Casey, you have so much freedom in your life. You can do whatever you want! You can move to England for a year if you want to, you can sleep-in all day and not worry about feeding everyone and doing the laundry, and you can go out any night and hook up with whomever you want! You’ve got it all—you’re still young and pretty and you’re not tied down to anyone.”

If I didn’t know better, it might have sounded like Libby was somewhat jealous of my life.

″It’s not all it’s cut out to be,” I told her awkwardly. “It’s hard, dating and meeting guys, and…” Again, I trailed off.

Now Libby’s eyes looked like icy blue slits, and her whole expression resembled the one I’d seen our mother make on occasion. Not that I would ever tell Libby that if I hoped to have her speak to me again. “Are you complaining about being independent? About not having to answer to anyone, not being responsible for anything but feeding your cat? Have you seriously thought about how much work is involved in raising a child? And how much it would change your life? Sure, you love them and all, but it’s hard work. Seriously hard. And frustrating—so frustrating that you’ll find yourself crying in a closet or screaming your head off into a pillow when no one will go to sleep. Not to mention keeping a marriage going with two kids. And you think you can manage on your own?”

″I think I can. I see you—”

″You don’t see anything!” Libby burst out. “You don’t see me getting up five times in the night and still have to be bright-eyed at 7:00 a.m. to get ready for work. You don’t know how expensive kids’ clothes are; you don’t know what it’s like to buy new shoes every other month! You’ve never had to discipline your own child, and you don’t know how it breaks your heart when you make them cry because they’ve done something bad! You have no idea what it’s like to be totally and absolutely responsible for not only the well-being of a child, but their entire life—if they get hurt, get sick, or anything horrible that may happen to them! You just swarm in andspoil them and think you know what it’s like to raise kids. Well, you don’t, not until you have to go through twenty hours of labour and then, that’s just the beginning! You think it’s another hobby, something you want now, but wait six months from now, and you’re all fat and miserable, or two years from now when you’ve got a toddler screaming at the top of her lungs in Toys R Us.”

Libby went back to pulling out weeds. I didn’t say anything until I saw her pull out a pink flower by accident.

″So you’re not happy with being a mother?” I asked cautiously.

″Of course, I am,” Libby barked. “How can you say such a thing?”

″Well, from the sound of it…”

″I love my kids,” my sister said firmly. “I love my life, but I need you to know that it’s not a bed of roses all the time. It’s hard and it’s frustrating, and sometimes it just saps the energy out of you.”

″But it’s worth it?”

″Of course it is,” Libby sighed.

″Well, then, why are you trying to scare me off?” I cried. “You know it’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve been ready for years, spending all this time trying to get the right guy, and you know what? I’m sick of it! Sick of dates and having to be all cute and likable and listen to guys drone on and on about what super studs they are in the bedroom and the boardroom, when all I want to do is find someone who likes the same things as I do and will take me to a stupid movie or dinner at a place I like. And then get me pregnant.”

″Just like that, you think? It’s no wonder they all run screaming when you mention the word.”

″They don’t go screaming,” I argued. “Well, maybe some, but others are long gone before I even think of them as a father.”

″I have to tell you, Casey,” Libby continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “after having a baby, your body never goes back to the way it was.”

″You are just trying to scare me.”

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