Page 61 of Woman on the Verge

“I told my mom you were funny,” he says.

I put my hands over my ears.

“La la la, I don’t want to know what you told your mom about me.”

“Okay, fine. We can talk about something lame instead. What are your favorite movies?”

When we are done with dinner, we have sex again—Katrina is a freaking animal—and then we sleep. Or he does. I am wide awake again, staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell I’m doing. I’ll leave in the morning, go visit with Merry and Dad again, then head back home to reality. This time—this time!—will be my final goodbye with Elijah. It has to be. I can’t keep this going. Or can I? No. I can’t. I will tell him I’m serious this time. I will tell him not to text me. I willdelete him from my phone. I will return to my regular life and sustain myself with the memories. Maybe I’ll buy a vibrator and pair that with those memories. Yes, that will be enough. It will have to be. He’ll be disappointed. And he’s such a sweet guy. And so handsome. And funny. And kind. But no. This is it. The last time.

Chapter 11

Rose

September 16, 1984

Dear Diary,

Ha. Dear Diary. Look at me, acting like an eleven-year-old schoolgirl. I didn’t even keep a diary when Iwasan eleven-year-old schoolgirl. It never occurred to me to keep a diary until just now, at age twenty-eight. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but I think motherhood is the necessity of invention. My thoughts have to go somewhere.

Nicole is sleeping. Her daily nap is the only time I have to myself. A year ago, she would sleep two or three hours at a stretch. Now it’s just forty-five minutes or so. By the time she turns four, she may not nap at all. What then? She’s already started refusing naps some days. When she does sleep, like today, I can’t fully relax or engage in anything because I’m never sure when she’ll wake up. If my attention is a flock of seagulls, half the flock is busy waiting for her to cry. I keep telling them, “Silly birds, come back to me. Letus focus on something together that has nothing to do with her,” but they don’t listen.

I told Rob that we need to hire a babysitter soon, someone who can look after her a couple of hours a day. He said, “I know, sweetheart. We will. Money is just tight until the practice is up and running.” His beloved dental practice, his lifelong dream, coming to fruition. Has he forgotten that I have dreams too?

Maybe this diary is to help me get reacquainted with my dreams. I will write in it when I need a break from working on my dissertation. Well, that’s what I’m calling it. I’m fooling myself, playing pretend just like Baby and her dolls. I am not in a doctoral program and likely never will be. I was supposed to be. That wasmydream—to get my PhD in history, to be a professor at a university—an Ivy, my secret aspiration. I had always assumed my life would be one of acquiring, discussing, and sharing knowledge with brilliant peers and eager students. Alas, I have tripped and fallen into this conventional life, and I spend all my time with a toddler.

If I’d kept a diary when I’d met Rob, I would have written things like:

He loves my brain.

He supports my studies.

He is truly progressive.

He is my ideal man.

Sigh.

The pregnancy wasn’t expected. My inclination was to end it, to realize my power in this post–Roe v. Wadeera. Rob seemed truly sad when I mentioned my intention. He can be so sentimental. “Maybe it’s meant to be,” he’d said. “We’d be great parents,” he’dsaid.Parents.I remember when he said that word and I felt decades older, instantly.

He made it sound so romantic, though. I started having second thoughts, started wondering if maybe I should keep the baby. Rob loved me, unambiguously. I loved him, more than I had any other man before him. I’d never really thought about motherhood, except that I’d assumed (like most women) it would happen at some point, but after I settled into a career, after I lived a little more.

“I always thought you liked surprises.” He’d said that too.

While I was still debating what to do, he proposed, placing a diamond upon that all-important finger. I’d never smiled so big in my life. It was the strangest thing. I kept covering my mouth, out of embarrassment or shame. I knew, logically, that this glee was a product of social conditioning. Society has taught all of us women to want the ring, to crave the title ofwife, to passively wait until some man declares us worthy. I knew, logically, that this was all nonsense. And still I said yes. And I wore a white dress on our wedding day, to boot!

I don’t always know who I am anymore.

At least I didn’t take Rob’s last name. Seemingly, I am still capable of some selfhood. Thank god. None of my friends understood. Mother certainly didn’t. “I like my name,” I said. “I don’t understand why we have to give up things to get married.” Men don’t take their wives’ names because that would be emasculating. It would represent his identity being folded into his wife’s, a partial obliteration of his self, a loss of power.For women, this loss is not problematic. It is normal. Obliteration of self is just “how things are.”

Rob was fine with me keeping my name. “It’s yours,” he said. “Who am I to take it from you?” If he’d shown any doubt, I would have called the whole thing off. I would have ended the pregnancy. But he said the exact right thing.

Nicole has his last name, which seemed completely appropriate at the time we were filling out the birth certificate. It was the day after she made her grand entrance, and I was awash in oxytocin, in love not only with her but also with my vision of Rob and me sharing the responsibility for this beautiful human we’d created. I pictured a truly equitable arrangement.

I was so naive.

In her bookOf Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich pointed out thatmotheringis a verb, implying an ongoing relationship with unending care for children. Not surprisingly,fatheringis not a verb in our social lexicon.

Fact: Men are among the 3 to 5 percent of male mammals who contribute anything at all to their children postinsemination.

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