you made the announcement during the shower, to take the attention off of me.”
“Not going to happen,” Lila says calmly. “Speaking of occupations, you haven’t been going into work much lately.”
I concentrate on spreading the icing evenly. “Grayson’s been away at a conference, so I’m working from home. He’s back now, though. I invited him to the shower. Hey”—I point the knife at her—“why don’t you invite Weber?”
“I did.”
“Really?”
Lila gives a strange smile. “Actually, I sent the invitation with the return address as the Christian Home for the Elderly so he would think Gram was inviting him. He loves Gram.”
I nod in approval. The stakes are being raised all around me. My malaise has been slowly lifting over the past few days. I climb out of bed every morning with a little more energy and a little less fear. Even though I don’t know what exactly to do, I am now ready to take action. This change is due at least partly to the fact that my body is humming with greater motion beneath me. The baby kicks and squirms and tumbles through the days and nights. I have sudden cramps and backaches and hot flashes. I can feel this baby warming up to take the final leap and join the world. The least I can do is try to keep up.
AS USUAL, I arrive early at the hospital. Lila and I planned to meet by the vending machine outside the emergency area. From there it is only a quick elevator ride and a short walk to the room where the birthing classes are held. This is our third class. During the first class we watched an utterly horrific movie showing a birth in far too much detail. The second class was a lecture on the importance of nutrition and vitamins while pregnant. The third class is supposed to concern breathing.
Of course, it was the first class, and more specifically the film, that has stayed with me. I remember the pregnant woman writhing on the bed, huge and swollen and screaming for help from the seemingly anesthetized doctors and nurses around her. Then the camera moves in for a close-up on the woman’s vagina, which also looks angry, red and gaping, stretched well beyond reasonable limits by this baby whose head is clearly far too big to make its way out of the available exit. It looks, frankly, like a tragedy waiting to happen, death to both mother and child. But then, miraculously, the baby’s head pushes through the hole, and his body wriggles free after him. The doctor holds the limp red thing and suctions out its mouth and nose, at which time the baby starts screaming for help from the numb doctors and nurses and the exhausted, deflated woman collapsed on the bed with her legs spread-eagle.
I lean against the vending machine, look down at my swollen stomach, and shudder. I cannot believe how soon this baby is coming. I don’t even own a crib yet. I don’t have any of the necessary items. This is due partly to the fact that I have only gotten one check from Gram over the last three months and I can’t afford to buy furniture. Grayson has offered money, but somehow in my gut it doesn’t seem right to take it from him. I’m sure I will change my mind and get off that high horse soon. But money is only part of it. I haven’t gone into the baby stores because I didn’t really believe until recently that this choice to stay pregnant and not have another abortion was anything other than that. It was a moral choice, a character-building choice. Wasn’t that enough? Do I actually have to deal with having a baby as well?
I step back and look at what the vending machine has to offer. It is filled with foods that are terrible for both mother and child: Doritos, Lay’s potato chips, Snickers, Oreos, Skittles, Whoppers, Milk Duds. It seems peculiar that they plant candy and soda machines all over a hospital, a place that is supposed to promote and fight for good health. I fish coins out of my purse and select the Oreos. I press the buttons and watch the package fall off its shelf to the basin at the bottom. It takes me a while to bend down and then come back up again with the cookies in hand, and it is only then that I notice someone watching me in the reflection of