Baby Proof Part 3

Instead, I rifle through my purse for my phone so that I can let Jess know that I'm on my way over. I remember that I left it in its charger in the kitchen. I whisper s.h.i.+t , realizing that she might not hear her doorman buzzing her. This could be a problem because Jess is a very sound sleeper. I fleetingly consider heading straight for a midtown hotel, but I'm afraid I'll completely fall apart if I'm alone. So I stay on course.

Fortunately, Jess hears her buzzer, and within minutes of being dropped off, I am curled up on her couch, rehas.h.i.+ng my fight with Ben while she makes us cinnamon toast and a big pot of coffee the extent of her expertise (and mine) in the kitchen. She brings us each a cup, mine black, hers loaded with sugar, and says that it is time for a serious talk.

Then she hesitates before adding, "And the topic of this conversation is 'Why Claudia doesn't want kids'?" She shoots me a sheepish look.

"Aw, c'mon. Not you, too ," I say.

She nods like a stern schoolteacher and says, "I just want to review your reasons."

"You already know my reasons."

"Well, I want to hear them again. Pretend I'm your therapist." She sits up straight, crosses her legs, and holds her mug with pinky and thumb out, Kelly Ripa-style. "And this is our first session."

"So now I need to see a therapist just because I don't want kids?" I feel myself slipping into my defensive mode, an all too familiar emotion lately.

Jess shakes her head. "No. Not because you don't want kids. But because your marriage is in trouble. Now. Let's go. Your reasons, ma'am?"

"Why do I need to have reasons' ? When someone decides to have a baby, people don't go around asking what her reasons are."

"True," Jess says. "But that is a whole nother topic about women's role in society."

In my mind, I hear Ben ranting about people saying a whole nother instead of another whole. "C'mon, people ! Nother is not a word) . "And just like I did when I saw Mohammed Muhammed's name in the cab, I feel myself tearing up, thinking how much I am going to miss him and his quirky observations.

"Don't cry, hon," Jess says, patting my leg.

I blink back my tears, take a deep breath, and then say, "I'm just so sick of everyone a.s.suming that you have to have kids to be happy. I thought Ben was different, but he's just like everyone else. He totally bait and switched me."

"It must feel like that."

I notice that Jess is not exactly agreeing with me, so I say, "You're on his side, aren't you? You think I should just suck it up and have a baby."

"I'm not judging your feelings about not wanting kids. I'm the last one who should be judging anyone's life choices, right?"

I shrug and she continues, "I think your decision on this is a perfectly legitimate choice. It's the right choice for a lot of women I think, in many ways, it's a very brave choice But I do think we should talk it over. I don't want you to have any regrets."

"About not having kids or about losing Ben?"

"Both," she says. "Because right now they seem to be one and the same."

I blow my nose and nod. "Okay."

Jess leans back in the couch and says, "So go ahead there. Leave no stone unturned."

I sip my coffee, think for a second, and instead of rehas.h.i.+ng my usual reasons, I say, "Did I ever tell you about the study of mice missing the Mest gene?"

She shakes her head. "Nah. Doesn't ring a bell."

"Well, there was this study where scientists determined that mice missing this one particular gene the Mest gene have an abnormal response to their newborns. Basically, without this gene, they have no mothering instinct, and so they didn't feed or care for their young the way the other mice did."

"So? Are you saying that you're missing the Mest gene?"

"I'm just saying that some women probably don't have that mothering instinct I don't think I have it."

"Not at all ! Not even a trace of it?" she asks. "Because I've heard a lot of women say that they thought they didn't have it until they had a baby of their own. And then, voila! Nurture city."

"Is that a safe gamble?" I ask. "What if it doesn't kick in?"

"Well. I think there are a lot of effective mothering styles. You don't have to be Betty Crocker or June Cleaver to be a good mother."

"Okay. But what if I'm sorry I had a baby at all? What then?"

Jess frowns, looking deep in thought. "You're really good with kids," she says. "You seem to really like them."

"I do like kids," I say, thinking of my sister's kids and Raymond Jr. How good it felt to tuck his warm little body against mine and inhale his sweet baby smell. "But I have absolutely no desire to have one of my own on a full-time basis. And I firmly believe that if I had one, I'd wind up resenting Ben. Even worse, I think I'd resent our child. It's not fair to anyone."

Jess nods again, adopting that earnest "keep going, we're really making progress" shrink expression.

"I like my life the way it is. I like our lifestyle. Our freedom. I can't imagine the constant state of worry that parents have From worrying about SIDS, to falling down stairs, to drunk driving accidents that worry doesn't go away for eighteen years. In some ways, it never goes away. You worry about your children forever . Everyone says it."

Jess nods.

"And, truthfully, Jess, how many married people with kids seem genuinely happy to you?" I ask, thinking of my sister Maura and how her marriage started to become strained right after her firstborn, Zoe, arrived. And their relations.h.i.+p got progressively worse with her two sons that followed. I am not my sister, and Ben is not Scott. But it does not seem at all unusual for a relations.h.i.+p to change once children arrive on the scene. They are a drain on your time, your money, your energy, your patience. You can't put your relations.h.i.+p first anymore. So for better or worse, the dynamic of two people s.h.i.+fts and takes a new form. A form that sometimes seems to have more to do with surviving than truly enjoying life.

"I know what you mean." Jess looks sheepish and then says, "Trey often refers to his family as the 'noose around his neck.' "

"Charming," I say. "My point exactly."

"I don't think he means his son," Jess says defensively. "Just her ."

Jess goes out of her way not to say Trey's wife's name, Brenda. I think it makes her feel less guilty. She continues, "But I don't think he'd feel that way if he were married to the right person And I don't think you and Ben would end up feeling like that. I think kids bring problems to the surface. Y'all don't have real problems. You would maintain a good marriage with kids."

I know it might ruffle Jess's feathers, but I risk it and tell her that Trey's wife probably thought she would maintain a good marriage with a child back in their early days. Trey probably thought so, too. Jess juts her jaw in protest, but I continue, "And I know for a fact that when Maura and Scott were hooking up strong in Scott's Jacuzzi and all over the rest of his bachelor pad, Maura would never have believed he'd someday cheat on her. That things would get so depressing ."

Jess continues, "Those are the exceptions. Most couples are even happier with children."

"I don't think so. The unhappy ones seem to be more the rule Then you have Daphne's situation," I say.

"Daphne seems to have a solid marriage," Jess says.

"They do," I say. "But right now I think she and Tony seem so obsessed with having a baby that that one issue has completely swallowed them up. They don't talk about anything else. They don't think about anything else. They're becoming boring."

Jess laughs and says, "Weren't they always sort of boring?"

Jess is the only person I let criticize my family. Still, I can't resist defending Daphne. "Boring in a very sweet way," I say, thinking of how excited she gets about things like sc.r.a.pbooking. "I'd actually call her simple, not boring. Refres.h.i.+ngly simple but lately she and Tony are just plain grim. Not that I blame them"

Jess sighs loudly and says, "Well, anyway. The point is there are plenty of happy couples who have kids."

"Maybe," I say. "But I have no confidence that we'd be joining their ranks. And I'm not trying to turn my life into some kind of science experiment."

"Like the Mest mice?" Jess asks.

"Like the Mest mice," I say.

I stay at Jess's place, only returning to my apartment once in four days, when I know Ben is at work, so that I can pick up my cell phone and some more clothes. I keep waiting for him to call me, but he doesn't. Not once. I guess I really don't expect him to, but every time I check my voice mail and hear "no new messages," I feel a fresh wave of devastation. Of course, I don't call him, either, so I hope that he is feeling the same way as he checks his messages in vain. Something tells me he's not, though, and there's something about this hunch that makes my pain feel exponentially worse. The whole "misery loves company" thing never applies more than when you're breaking up. The thought that the other person is doing fine is simply too much to bear.

Jess insists that I'm being paranoid that of course Ben's just as sad as I ambit I have two good reasons for believing I'm in a worse state than he is. I share the first reason with Jess one night over Chinese delivery, reminding her that Ben is blessed with the ability to wall himself off from pain and settle into a comfortable numbness. You always hear that it's not healthy to repress emotions like this, but whenever I watch Ben skate on the surface of sadness, coping like a champ, I can't help feeling envious. I have never been able to shut down that part of my brain. I think of last year when Ben's cousin and best friend, Mark, was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer. Ben remained stoic, almost defiant, throughout the whole ordeal, even when that phone call came in the middle of the night with the news that Mark was gone.

As Ben climbed back into bed after that brief conversation with Mark's mom, I asked if he wanted to talk. Ben shook his head before turning off the light and whispering, "Not really. There's not a lot to say."

I wanted to tell him that there was a lot to say. We could talk about Mark's way too short but still full life. We could talk about Ben's boyhood memories of the cousin who always felt more like a brother. We could talk about their days at Brown, each of them pa.s.sing up their first-choice college so they could go to school together. We could talk about the end, how painful it was watching Mark slip away. We could talk about what would come next, the eulogy I knew Ben had been writing in his head for weeks.

But Ben said nothing. I remember sensing in the dark that he was wide awake, so I stayed up, too, in case he changed his mind and wanted to talk, or at the very least cry. But he didn't cry. Not that night or the next day. Not even at the funeral when his beautiful eulogy brought everyone else to tears.

It took six long months for Ben to break down. We were standing in the cereal aisle in Fairway when he picked up a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats, a look of sheer devastation on his face. I didn't have to ask what he was thinking about. He made it home and into our bedroom before I heard that strange, scary sound of a grown man stifling sobs. When he emerged, a long while later, his eyes were red and puffy. I had never seen him like that. He hugged me hard and his voice cracked as he said, "I miss him so f.u.c.king much."

"Not that I'm comparing our breakup to Mark's death," I say after I tell her the story.

Jess nods and says, "I know. But if you guys really do breakup, it sort of will be like a death."

"Yeah. Especially because Ben and I don't do that 'stay in touch with exes' shtick," I say. "If this is over, it's over . I don't want to be Ben's friend."

Jess sighs and then says, "Well. Maybe it's not over."

"I really think it is, though," I say. "Just think. It took Ben six months to really face the fact that Mark was gone. By the time he lets himself miss me, it'll be way too late."

Jess looks worried, which makes me think about the second reason Ben is suffering less than I am. This one I don't share with Jess. I have never said it aloud or even written it in my journal. It is something I have always been aware of on some level, but have not allowed myself to dwell on. Until now, there wasn't any point in addressing it.

The reason is this: I am pretty sure that I love Ben more than he loves me. I know he loves me a lot. I know he loves me more than he loved Nicole or anyone else. But I still think I love him more . It's one of those things you never know for certain because there's no way to enter all the relations.h.i.+p data in a computer and have it spit out a definitive answer. You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relations.h.i.+p. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom almost never an even proposition. Someone always loves more.

In our relations.h.i.+p, that person is me. With some couples, it can switch back and forth. But in the beginning, middle, and end of ours, I think I've consistently loved him more. Ben would tell me I'm being ridiculous but if somehow he were forced to answer honestly, I think he'd acknowledge the truth of my claim. I think he'd also agree that it has nothing to do with our merits as people. I think we're roughly equally smart, successful, funny, and attractive, which seems to comprise the Big Four in the cra.s.s business of mate comparison. I am Ben's approximate equal and have always felt secure, confident, and worthy. But still. I happen to love Ben slightly more, which has the effect of making you fear losing someone more than if it were the other way around.

Which brings me to another point. I think I have always had the misguided sense that worry and fear serve as an insurance policy of sorts. On a subconscious level, I subscribe to the notion that if you worry about something, it is somehow less likely to happen. Well, I am here to say that it doesn't work like that. The very thing you fear the most can still happen anyway. And when it does, you feel that much more cheated for having feared it in the first place.

five.

Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catch all the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.

But my personal favorite defense has always been anger, with its trusty offshoots of self-righteous indignation, bitterness, and resentment.

I remember the first time I realized that people turn to anger in sad times. I was in kindergarten, and Jimmy Moore's dad had just died of a heart attack while lugging their Christmas tree in from the garage. A few weeks later, my mother and I ran into Jimmy and his mother in the grocery store. I peered at Jimmy from behind our cart with morbid curiosity while my mother asked Mrs. Moore how she was doing. Mrs. Moore shook her head and clenched her fist. "I'm so furious at G.o.d right now," she said.

Jimmy and I exchanged a glance and then cast our eyes down. I think we were both startled. And I know I was a little scared. I hadn't heard of anyone having a bone to pick with G.o.d. It seemed like a dangerous thing to be doing. I also remember thinking there must be something very wrong with Jimmy's mom for feeling anything other than pure, unadulterated grief upon her husband's death. Anger didn't seem like it should have been part of the equation.

But about six years later, when I was eleven, I learned how closely the two emotions are aligned. That was the year that my mother had an "alleged" affair (she still denies it) with my elementary school princ.i.p.al, Mr. Higgins. I steadfastly maintain that short of being orphaned or severely disfigured, it is about the worst thing that can happen to a fifth-grader, particularly when you're the very last person in the school to hear about it. I never had any illusions that either of my parents was perfect, as I frequently compared them to the ideal parents in books. I wished that my father were a little more like Atticus Finch, and that my mother would occasionally behave like Ramona Quimby's nurturing, understanding mother in my favorite Beverly Cleary books. But overall, I was happy with my parental lot. I appreciated the way my father always took us to do fun things on the weekends, rather than doing yard work or watching football like the other dads in my neighborhood. And I was proud of how beautiful and funny my mother was and how much my friends admired her fas.h.i.+on sense.

And for the most part, I didn't think too much about my parents one way or the other. Most kids don't. If things are going well in life, parents are more of a backdrop and safety net than central characters who, say, take center stage during recess. Which is actually what happened on the playground one day when Chet Womble, a boy I hated for his nose-picking and name-calling, decided to break the big news of my mother's affair via chalk graffiti. He drew two large stick figures, complete with some vivid male-female anatomy, and the words CLAUDIA'S MOM DOES MR. HIGGINS. (The video cover for Debbie Does Dallas had just been pa.s.sed around the cafeteria the week before, so even without Chet's clever graphic, there was no confusion about the word does.) I remember staring at my mother's loopy, lopsided b.o.o.bs, then desperately trying to rub out my name with my heel, all the while thinking that no matter what, I would never get over it. I had become a pathetic victim in a Judy Blume novel (although, at that moment, I would rather have been "Blubber" than my mother's daughter).

It didn't help that Chet was suspended for a week or that very few people saw the drawing before it was hosed off by a janitor. All that mattered was that upon one glimpse I knew in my gut that it was true: my mom was , indeed, doing Mr. Higgins. The pieces came together for me in a rush of shamefaced horror: my mother's sudden and uncharacteristic flurry of volunteering at our school; the care she took applying lipstick during carpool, followed by her excuses to come in the building with me; the fact that Mr. Higgins knew my name and seemed to go out of his way to smile and greet me in the halls.

The night of Chet's stunt, I went home and somehow made my way through my homework and a particularly horrible chipped beef dinner. I debated on when exactly I should confront my mother, and saw some merit in doing so with the five of us seated together around the table. She deserved as much. But for my dad's sake, I waited until dinner was over and he retired to the family room to watch his beloved Mets. My sisters stood to clear the table and load the dishwasher when I came out with it. "Mom," I said, "why are you cheating on Dad with Mr. Higgins?"

Maura dropped a plate and Daphne burst into tears while our usually brazen mother shushed me, looking frantic as she glanced toward our family room. I kept talking, saying that it certainly wasn't a secret, thanks to Chet Womble's vivid portraiture. Of course my mother denied everything, but she did not do so convincingly or strenuously enough to change my mind. Instead she sent me to my room. I obeyed not because I felt that I had to, but because the sight of her made me sick.

Over the next few weeks, I found myself remembering Jimmy's mother in the grocery store as I vacillated between anger and grief. I'd be sobbing one minute and then scribbling furious cursive in my journal the next, calling my mother names I had only heard uttered from boys like Chet. s.l.u.t. Wh.o.r.e. b.i.t.c.h . Real healthy stuff for a fifth-grader.

Throughout that ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something other than the ache in my heart.

I think my mother and Mr. Higgins stopped seeing each other a short time later. But other affairs followed until she met Dwight, a tanned plastic surgeon who wore a pinky signet ring and ascots on special occasions and always conjured a rich, tacky character on The Love Boat . My mother was so smitten with Dwight and the lavish lifestyle he promised that she left us for real, giving up custody to my father when I was thirteen. Of course, that is a whole nother story (Ha! Screw you, Ben!), a far more serious in our family lore. But somehow nothing that followed was as hurtful as that day on the playground, gazing down at my mother's white chalk b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

That brings me, of course, to the elephant in the room. The thing that Jess and Ben and my sisters all are thinking, but won't come out and say altogether: the fact that I don't want children because I have such issues with my own mother.

My first instinct is to deny these charges as I have always thought it a tiresome cop-out to blame your current predicament on your bad childhood. Everyone has a messed-up family to one extent or another but we all have an obligation to rise above it. Live in the present and stop sniveling about the past. I mean, who believes, for example, that an excuse for a child abuser is that, he, too, got cigarettes put out on his arm as a kid?

Still, I guess I can't deny that there is a life-shaping stigma in having a mother who cheats on her family and then finally leaves them altogether. A stigma that gets buried in your psyche forever. And those feelings must be playing at least a small role in all of this, just as I think my sister Daphne's obsession with having children has a lot to do with wanting to erase the pain my mother caused. On one level, Daphne's approach makes more sense. Yet the thought of a redo is not only unappealing, but terrifying. I don't want that kind of power over anyone. I don't want to be something that someone has to overcome. After all, I think everyone would agree that it's far worse to be a f.u.c.ked-up mother than it is to have one.

So in the following days and weeks, I find myself spinning my hurt into anger. Anger about the whole situation. Anger toward Ben for turning his back on me. Anger that propels me along quite nicely, all the way to a fancy divorce lawyer on Fifth Avenue.

six.

I can't decide whether the next few weeks pa.s.s too quickly or impossibly slowly. In some ways, it feels like Ben and I are breaking up overnight, way too easily. I keep thinking that only shallow celebrities end their marriages as easily as we are. Or young, stupid kids who get hitched on a whim and change their minds as soon as the hot-and-heavy period ends, thinking nothing of the sacredness of their vows and believing that do-overs in life are simply a given.

In other ways, though, the days leading up to our divorce seem to take a lifetime. I wake up every morning with the sick realization that my life is unraveling. That I will never really be happy again. Despite my best efforts to stay busy and distracted, I feel like I'm being punched in the stomach a dozen times a day. I find myself praying that Ben will change his mind.

In the meantime, I decide to move in with Jess. Living with her is a bit of a comfort, but it also feels like a setback. It's almost like moving back in with your parents once you've left home. I'm reverting to an earlier point in my life, and that never feels like a good thing. I recognize that it's a temporary measure that eventually I will get my own place but I still feel like somewhat of a loser. I also feel guilty for invading Jess, although she insists that she's thrilled to have me back. I offer to pay her which is an awkward arrangement considering that she owns her apartment. She tells me not to be ridiculous and that she's never home anyway. "Besides, what are friends for, Claudia if they can't pick up the pieces a man has left behind?" she says.

Still, I make a point to pay for our groceries and food deliveries. I also try to do more of my late-night reading at the office so that Jess still has some time in her apartment alone. I have always worked a lot of hours, but I've never been this inspired, this on top of things. I catch up on all of my reading and scratch through to-dos that have been languis.h.i.+ng for months. Even my desk is neat for the first time in years, which my longtime a.s.sistant, Rosemary, marvels over.

"What's the special occasion?" she asks me.

"I'm getting a divorce," I tell her.

"I'm sorry," she says, which will be the extent of her commentary. Rosemary is as discreet as she is neat.