Page 153 of Rock Bottom Girl
All the lights in Libby’s house were on, and there were two kids with their faces smushed up against the big window overlooking the front yard. They waved excitedly at us. The driveway was empty, but the front door was cracked open.
Libby sighed. “Can’t. It’s my night to babysit the littles.”
“We could bring dinner back,” Jake offered.
She opened the back door and dragged her backpack out. “Thanks, but I got it covered. Hot dogs and mac and cheese. Yay.”
Jake pointed at her. “The dinner of champions.”
She waved, and I waited until she got inside and secured the front door before putting my car in reverse.
“She’s a great kid,” he observed.
“Yeah. I wish she could get a little more attention,” I sighed, backing down the driveway. “I think she spends too much time either alone or being responsible for a bunch of kids.”
“What you’re doing for her is a good thing,” he said, putting his hand on my leg. “I remember what it was like to be an unsupervised teenager. My uncles were the best thing that could have happened to me then.”
“Do you want to have kids?” I asked. I don’t know what made me blurt it out.
He choked on his own spit and hacked and coughed from the passenger seat.
I shoved my water bottle at him. “You okay?”
He guzzled it down and took his time recovering.
“Was that too personal?” I asked.
“Not when we’re dating. You just…took me by surprise,” he admitted.
“You’ve never thought about it?”
Jake scraped a hand over his jaw. “Not really. I don’tnotlike kids. But I also never pictured myself to be building a dollhouse at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning only to drag my ass out of bed two hours later when someone wants to see if freakin’ Santa Claus came. No, kid! There is no Santa! It was all me, and I want some credit!”
I laughed and envied the maleness of his answer. A thirty-eight-year-old man could afford to have never considered starting a family up to this point. A thirty-eight-year-old woman had to have the conversation much, much earlier.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Eh. I like my nieces and nephew. But I’ve never felt that overwhelming urge to create a mini me. I’d like to save the next generation from the genetic torture that was high school and rock bottom self-confidence. Besides, my eggs have got to be scrambled by now. Too much Mountain Dew and sushi over the years. Not enough sleep.”
I’d always been ambivalent about the idea of babies. I admired women who threw themselves into pregnancy and parenting. But I’d had no real biological urge to make my own human being.
“That’s cool,” Jake said.
His acceptance released the tension that reflexively lodged in my shoulders. “You know what most people say when I tell them that?”
“What?”
“‘You’ll regret it,’ or ‘Being a mom is the most important thing I’ve done in my lifetime,’ or ‘Don’t worry. You’ll change your mind.’”
He winced. “You know what people say about me not wanting to make a million babies?”
“What?”
“Not a damn thing.”
I sighed. “It must be nice to have a penis.”
“Guilt-free biological choices,” Jake teased. “But seriously. Not everyone needs to have a baby. What’s right for someone else doesn’t make it right for you. You know that, right? You don’t have to feel guilty for not doing what everyone else is doing.”
