voice over the phone, telling Cleo what it was like when she was pregnant, asking her how tired she was, promising that it would get better. But she couldn’t tell him that, because even she knew it sounded ridiculous, that talking to his mom hurt her feelings, and so she kept it to herself.
There was one night, though, when Max was on the phone with his mom, again, and Cleo was lying on the couch, trying to watch TV, which was hard since Max was talking kind of loud. She turned up the volume, but all she could concentrate on was Max’s voice.
“Yeah, she’s been having trouble with that for a while now,” he said. “It’s making her feel sicker, I think.” Then Max turned to her, lowered the phone from his mouth, and said, “My mom says to drink hot water with lemon. She said it really helps constipation.”
Cleo opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Then, when Max got off the phone, she finally found her words. “Could you please not talk to your mom about my constipation?”
CLEO MADE MAX PROMISE THAT he wouldn’t tell any of his friends. “Please. Please don’t say anything. I don’t want to be the pregnant girl at college.”
“Okay,” Max said. “But people are going to find out eventually.”
“I know, but let’s just wait, okay? No one needs to know right now.”
“People are going to think something’s wrong when we just hole up in the apartment.”
“Well, you can go out. Just because I can’t drink doesn’t mean you have to stay home.”
“Really?” Max asked.
“Definitely. You can just tell everyone I’m studying or sick or out with other people.”
And she had meant it. Or at least she had meant it until Max came home drunk one night with a bag of McDonald’s and crept into their bedroom to say hello.
“Hey, baby,” he said, and put his face next to hers. He smelled like rubbing alcohol.
“Hey,” she said. She’d been asleep. She rolled away from him and heard him rustling in the bag of food. She looked back to see him unwrapping a Filet-O-Fish.
“Have you ever had one of these?” he asked her. “They’re pretty good. I don’t always feel like them, but tonight I wanted an appetizer to my Big Mac.” Cleo now smelled tartar sauce in addition to the rubbing alcohol.
“Ugh, Max,” Cleo said. She sat up and put her hand over her nose.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. He was slurring just a little bit. “Do you want a bite?” He held the sandwich out to her.
“No! Just get out,” she said.
Max looked hurt. “Do you want some french fries?”
“No, Max. Really, please just leave me alone.”
“Fine,” Max said. “I was just trying to be nice.” He stood up and walked to the door, leaving a few french fries in his trail. He slammed the bedroom door shut behind him and turned on the TV in the other room.
Cleo found him there the next morning, fast asleep, mouth open, with the McDonald’s bag resting next to him. They didn’t talk for almost the whole day, just huffed around each other. Then, just when it was starting to get dark, Max apologized.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I know.”
“But I did.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re the one that yelled at me to get out.”
“Yeah, but that was because you woke me up with a Filet-O-Fish on my pillow. Can you blame me?”
“I just wanted to say hi.” Max smiled the tiniest bit.
“Max.”
“I know, I’m really sorry. I am.”
“I’m sorry too, for yelling,” Cleo said. She went over and sat next to him on the couch.
“What a fucking mess,” Max said. Cleo wasn’t sure if he was talking about the apartment or their life.
“I know,” she said.
MAX KEPT ASSURING HER THAT she wasn’t showing, but she didn’t believe him. “Look at this,” she’d say, pulling her shirt tight across her stomach. “This is not what I normally look like.”
“Well, I know that,” Max said. “I just mean that no one else can tell.”
“But I can tell,” she said.
Max insisted she didn’t look any different, like he thought that was the nice thing to say, but it wasn’t. And so, she finally said, “If I’m normally this fat, then kill me.”
AT THE FIRST DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT, she’d been poked and prodded and had blood drawn and everything else. She kept waiting for him to say, “It’s a mistake, you aren’t pregnant,” but he didn’t.
“Your due date is July fifteenth,” he told them.
It was already