Coda (Songs of Submission #9) (18 page)

“I was traveling,” Monica said. “Did that do it?”

“Probably not.”

“We’re rough in bed, the two of us.” Monica was past sense. Her hand had gone cold, and she was babbling. “I shouldn’t say this, but you’re a doctor, right? I mean, sometimes, it’s just, well, like I said we get rough and—”

“I saw the bruising, and no, that wouldn’t cause this. I’m sorry. The good news is, you’re in perfect shape. You should be able to conceive again without a problem.”

I stood. “Thank you, Doctor.” I held out my hand. Those people had to leave immediately. I got it. I’d heard it. I needed to be alone with my wife.

“Not so fast,” she said. “Let me give you a quick rundown, then I’ll leave you alone. You have tissue in your uterus that your body needs to get rid of. It’s messy and painful, and it could start today or next week. Most patients opt for us to remove it by dilating the cervix and scraping the uterus. That shortens the—”

“No.” Monica pointed her chin up. “I’m not evicting the baby.”

“Mrs. Drazen, I’m sorry, but there is no baby.”

“Don’t you tell me there’s no baby!” She was pure kinetic energy. A blur. Her limbs were still but poised to shake the earth free of its orbit.

I put myself between the two women.

“There is a motherfucking baby!” Monica called from behind me.

I felt the same as she did. I felt all her anger and denial, but I couldn’t allow myself to get lost in it. “Is there anything else, Doctor?” She had to get out before we were escorted out.

Unfazed by Monica’s denials, Blakely took a card out of her pocket. “Call me if the pain is really bad. I’ll prescribe something.”

“Pain?” Monica’s voice shot from behind me. “I can take pain. Just try me.”

I took the card. This was it. So much had changed in the past four hours, I felt numb. I hadn’t even had a chance to process flying to New York, then not flying to New York, then the baby, now the lack of the baby. It had been a day of miserable false starts, ending with the promise of pain for my wife. “Thank you.”

“Have her take it easy, if possible. It’s going to hurt.”

MONICA

T
ake it easy. What kind of bullshit was that? How was I supposed to take it easy? Was I supposed to sip piña coladas by the pool and wait for a miscarriage? Like la-di-da, let’s take a jog and have a good laugh and watch TV and forget that my whole life, everything I thought I wanted, changed in the past two days. I’m supposed to pretend that didn’t happen?

Well, fuck you, Doctor. Fuck you with a big bag of fucking fucks.

Once that fucking fuck of a doctor and her little nurse were gone, I flipped them a double bird, because fuck them and fuck that machine and fuck that room and fuck that hospital and fuck the lie I fucking wrote on myself.

“And fuck you,” I said to Jonathan when he twirled my underwear.

“You should get the D&C,” he said, looping the cotton panties around my ankles. “Let the doctor end this. She suggested it for a reason.”

“No.”

“What if you’re in the studio when you start cramping?”

“Fuck the studio. I hate this hospital. I hate everything about it. It’s a rat shithole. Everything is beige and pale pink. The decorator should be shot. And they could run fucking potpourri through the vents, and it would still smell like bleach and death.”

He slid my underpants back on, and I let him, because I was too mad, too confused by my tangle of emotions to get dressed and get off the table. Jonathan pulled me into a sitting position.

“Don’t fight me,” he said, opening the door.

His voice was as definitive as ever, telling me my behavior before I had a chance to question it. I didn’t know what he meant until he put his arms under me and picked me up, carrying me out the door and down the hall. I put my arms around his neck and rested my head on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to look,” he said, and I knew what he meant.

I closed my eyes and focused on his leather scent, pretending that bleach and medicine didn’t hover around the edges, ignoring the ding of the elevator and the whispering of nurses and doctors in their parallel language. It was so familiar and so foreign, because though the sounds and smells were the same, this time I wasn’t worried about Jonathan, or even myself. I was just angry, and disappointed, and touching the edges of grieving the loss of something I hadn’t even wanted twenty-four hours ago.

“I’m okay,” I said into Jonathan’s ear as he carried me out of the elevator and across the lobby.

“I know.”

“I’m not upset anymore.”

“I know.

“You can put me down.” I opened my eyes. He filled the frame of my vision.

“Nope. You’re my wife, and I’ll carry you where I like.”

Lil waited in the roundabout, parked in the red zone as if it were a marker for Bentleys. She opened the back door, and Jonathan poured me in.

I didn’t say anything the whole way home. I sat on Jonathan’s lap, wrapped in him, my head on his shoulder. Somewhere on the 10 freeway, I felt a twinge, and it started. The doctor had been very explicit about what to expect, and I didn’t know if I’d thought I’d be immune, or I didn’t care, or if I simply underestimated what she’d meant by pain and bleeding.

But by the time Jonathan carried me to the door, I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the stomach.

“Monica?” He swung the door open.

“I think I should go to the bathroom.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

He looked concerned, but he let me down, and I ran to the bathroom off our bedroom. It had a shower, and a bathtub, and a door that locked. It was a super fancy little corner of the world, and it had a view of the ocean, because what else did a girl need when her body was ridding itself of a blight. Right? I peeled off my pants and sat on the toilet, hunched in pain so bad, I felt as if my guts were being pulled and tied into a knot at the end of a balloon.

There was a soft rap on the door.

I couldn’t do this in front of anyone. Not even him. Not even the man whose chest had been open before me. Not even the one whose bleeding heart I carried every night in my dreams. I was doing this alone, whatever this was.

I grunted when the air went out of the balloon and the stretching and knotting started again.

“Monica,” he said through the door, “I’m calling for pain killers.”

“I’m fine!” Why did I say that? I wasn’t fine.

“You were with me in the hospital,” he said. “You have a distorted view of pain.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, barely able to breathe. “You are the love of my life, but get the fuck away from the door.”

“No, I will not leave you.” He used his dominant voice, and I didn’t give a single shit. “Open it.”

“
Go jogging
!” I screamed it not because I wanted to scare him, but because the pain intensified by an order of magnitude. I put my head in my hands, and the blood started.

JONATHAN

T
he door was locked. Not that I gave a shit on a practical level. A bobby pin could fix that. I could knock the door down or unscrew the knob. I was sure the staff kept a chainsaw somewhere in the garage. Or hedge clippers. I could have broken that lock with my spit, to be honest. That was how wound up I was. I put my fist on the door for one last threat, but before I pounded it, I heard her hiccup then sniff. As badly as that made me want to get into that bathroom, I imagined a sudden bang on the door would only startle her. What would be the point of that?

“I’ll tell you what,” I said.

No answer. Just breathing.

“I won’t break this door down. But I’m staying right here.” I sat with my back against the door, my forearms on my knees.

She groaned, and I heard her pregnancy ending in a rush. She made an N sound that stretched out like a rubber band.

“Monica?”

“Women have gone through this for centuries, okay? Generations. Just… if you’re going to sit at the door like an eavesdropper…” She stopped, and I could only imagine why. “I’ll let you know when I’m through.”

The last word ended in a squeak. If I broke down the door, I could hold her hand. Or bring her a painkiller. I could be
doing something
instead of sitting against the door and imagining what she was going through. I felt trapped and incompetent. I wanted to grab my fitness as a husband back.

That was it. I wasn’t leaving her alone.

Bobby pins. I needed just one to open that door. I went to her dresser. The surface was cluttered with a picture of her parents, a crochet runner, a calendar. I opened her nightstand drawer. Old pictures. Sunglasses. Pens. Little notebooks. What the fuck? Where were her bobby pins?

It hit me hard, deflating me. The bobby pins were where they belonged. In the goddamned bathroom.

I stood by the door, ready to break it down, and I heard her on the other side. She was humming the “Star-Spangled Banner” of all things. I put my hands on the door. She groaned the lyrics, and I heard a sickening splash.

I couldn’t take the door down. I couldn’t do that to her, but I couldn’t leave her either.

She was the heart patient, and I was the lonely young woman trying to grasp onto anything I could to make something happen. Would I have gone into Paulie Patalano’s room to pull the plug? Maybe. Maybe I would have. Because if this kept up for weeks and was a matter of life and death, yeah, I’d take that door down with a chainsaw even if it scared the shit out of her. I’d take the door down and shove it up someone’s ass.

But it only
felt
like life and death. It wasn’t.

I put my forehead to the door just as she sang “
…and the home of the brave
.”

“Brava,” I said.

“Go away,” she replied so softly I could barely hear her.

“Is ‘America the Beautiful’ next?”

“Not until the seventh inning.”

“I’ll wait out here all day.”

“I wanted this baby, Jonathan. Once I found out, I did. But before that… do you think not wanting it… it’s so stupid.”

“You didn’t miscarry because you didn’t want it. You didn’t scare it away.”

“We’ll try again. Right?”

She needed that hope. Hope was her power, her way of coping. She’d do reckless things to keep it alive. She’d murder and betray. She’d be brave and strong, all in the name of hope. If I could take her hope and let it feed me, I might have a nourished life, no matter its length.

“Yes, Monica. We can try again. Right away. Once you’re better.”

Another groan, and she started the “Star-Spangled Banner” again.

I put my hands on the door as if that was at all soothing to the woman on the other side. The song passed, and silence followed, interrupted by a few sniffs, a few breaths, a few hummed bars of something I couldn’t identify. I sat at the door and listened. I didn’t know how else to care for her but to make that door into my love, touching the wood as if it was skin, comforting her through it, making her safe with space and matter between us. I didn’t know how much time passed before she spoke.

“Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t flush. I just… I can’t.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

A long pause followed.

MONICA

T
his was ridiculous. Everything about it. Me on the toilet for over an hour, cramping as though it was my job. The crime-scene-worthy mess. My compassionate and gorgeous husband standing outside, asking me if I’d like him to flush the baby.

I should just do it. Then I could run into the shower, do a quick clean up of the floor and outside of the bowl, and exit looking fresh. I knew this would continue for a few days, but not like this. Not to the point of non-functionality. I felt finished. I felt as if the worst was over. I felt empty.

“Monica?”

I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t a baby. It was tissue that had formed because my body had fooled itself into thinking there was a baby, but it was a terminated mission. My uterus just hadn’t gotten the memo. So I should just flush instead of being a cliché of a woman who’d just had a miscarriage.

“I’m unlocking the door,” I said. “Just wait until I call you to come in okay?”

“All right.”

“And I’m warning you, ahead of time, it’s not pretty.”

“Consider me warned.”

The bathroom was huge, and it had a separate bath and shower. Blood dripped on the edges of the toilet from when I’d cramped so badly I’d moved away from the seat. Otherwise, the room was as pristine as Jonathan’s staff could make it.

I unlocked the door and turned on the shower. It was hot in half a second. I didn’t know how he did that, but money got rid of even the smallest inconveniences of thermodynamics. I stripped, stepped in, and clicked the door shut.

The water flowed over my face, scalding hot. I wanted it hotter. Second-degree burn hot. I wanted to sterilize myself from the baby that wasn’t a baby. I wanted to forget the feeling of something real and human dropping from me to its death.

When the water flowed over me fully, a stream of red-stain went down the drain. It was too much. I didn’t think I could stand it. I was broken and useless. What had felt real, wasn’t. And now I was expected to—

The door clicked open, and Jonathan stood in the shower entrance, fully dressed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to call you.”

He stepped into the shower, water slapping onto his shirt, sticking it to his skin. Darkening and flattening his hair. He put his arms around me and pressed me to him. His lips brushed my shoulder, and his hands pressed against me as if he wanted as much of himself touching as much of me as possible.

“I love you,” he said.

“I—” I choked up the rest of the sentence, because I felt lost and empty, and he was still there. He was my sky. Through blood and breath, sin and sorrow, I was his sea, and wherever the horizon was and the world ended, we were there, together.

What had I done to deserve this? Repeatedly and often, I’d failed to deserve him. I’d resisted him, tried to deny him a family, then I’d failed to carry his child. I wasn’t worth him getting his clothes wet, but I needed him. I needed him so badly. To fail for him and to try again, because having been pregnant for those hours, I couldn’t see any future past giving him children.