This Fragile Life. Кейт Хьюит

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      Except now I’m wondering what Martha would feel if I told her I was pregnant. I never told her about those two abortions, because they’ve been trying for a baby for what feels like for ever. They gave up after the fifth round of IVF last month, and even though she doesn’t talk about it I know it bothers her. Martha can get very chilly and tight-lipped when she’s upset. That’s about as emo as she goes.

      As I enter their building and the doorman waves me up—that didn’t happen the first time I visited—I decide not to talk to Martha about this baby. No, not a baby, never a baby. This pregnancy. This…issue. And it makes me a little sad, that I can’t, because, honestly, I think I’d like someone to talk to. And Martha usually has very sensible, no-nonsense kind of advice, not like my other friends, who tend to be a bit easy-going and even flaky like me.

      I’m distracted as I greet them, giving Martha an air kiss because she doesn’t do hugs and making cheek-to-cheek contact with Rob because he’s a lot more in touch with his feelings, at least for a guy.

      Martha is smiling, seeming relaxed as she tosses this fancy salad with home-made dressing. I don’t think she actually likes to cook, but she certainly likes to do things properly.

      “How’s life in the ‘hood?” Rob asks as he hands me a beer without asking, and I take a sip before I think, Maybe I shouldn’’t.

      What is going on with me?

      “Fine,” I say. “You should come slumming downtown some time, Rob. Get a taste of the real New York.”

      Rob pretends to shudder and Martha just smiles and shakes her head. It’s a long-running joke between us, how different our lives are. Martha and Rob have never even been to my apartment, and I think they’d be horrified if they went. It’s one step up from the ghetto in their world, but I don’t mind. I like my life. I do.

      And it has no room for a baby in it.

      I put my barely touched beer bottle down on the counter with a loud-sounding clink.

      “Let’s eat,” Martha says cheerfully. “You haven’t gone vegan or anything, have you, Alex?”

      “Actually, I’m on a fruitarian diet.”

      “Fruit-what?” Rob says, and I roll my eyes.

      “Joke. When have you ever known me to turn down a greasy burger?”

      “I don’t think Martha’s ever made a greasy burger in her life,” Rob says as she brings the salad to the table in their little dining nook. He puts his arm around her and for a second she stills, as if she’s taking strength from that little caress. I see Rob’s face soften and I know he must feel protective of her since the last failed attempt at IVF. Watching them like this gives me a funny little ache, because I’m happy for them and yet somehow sad for myself.

      They’re the ones who should be celebrating an unexpected pregnancy, a miracle. Not me.

      I’m still thinking like that as we eat our salad, and I don’t pay too much attention to the conversation about a film festival Rob is judging, one of his hobbies.

      “What’s up with you, Alex?” Martha asks as we finish the salad. She nods towards my plate, and I realize I’ve put all the bits of blue cheese to one side. I had the most ridiculous thought that blue cheese would be bad for the baby. I don’t know why I’m thinking this way, why part of me is acting like I’m actually going to keep it.

      “Sorry,” I say. “Tired.”

      “Hard week at work?” Martha asks with that teasing smile that lets me know she doesn’t really take my job seriously. She’s never said as much, but part-time barista work at thirty-five is pretty sad in her eyes. I know Martha feels I could have made more of myself; I went to a good college, I’m from an upper-middle-class home in Connecticut, I’m fairly smart. In Martha’s world I’m a failure.

      “Yeah, work, I guess,” I say, trying to smile, because Martha has brought out the main course and it’s fish. It’s a fancy kind of fish, tilapia or something, in a lemon and herb sauce, but the smell of it is crazy intense. It smells like week-old mackerel to me and before I can help myself, before I can say anything more, I’m lurching upright and running to the bathroom off the front hall.

      As I’m puking into the toilet I realize I haven’t even managed to close the door behind me, and Martha and Rob can hear everything.

      I flush the toilet and rinse my mouth out, wash my face. After a few seconds I walk back into the dining room. Rob is looking bemused but Martha has gone very still, very alert. “Stomach bug?” Rob suggests, sympathetically, and I nod. Martha says nothing.

      I don’t eat any of the fish. In fact, my little puking episode pretty much puts a damper on the whole evening, which is to be expected. I do manage a few forkfuls of rice, and I pass on the dessert and coffee.

      “What about some ginger tea?” Martha suggests. “It’s supposed to settle the stomach.”

      “I’m fine,” I say. “Really. It was just a one-time thing.”

      And still Martha says nothing.

      I have this horrible feeling she knows, and I feel worse for trying to hide it from her, although, really, I didn’t exactly have time to tell her. Still I feel a certain cool kind of assessment coming from her, and I don’t remember what we talk about for the rest of the evening. Not much, anyway.

      I’m exhausted by the time I head home on the subway, and then take the 14th Street crosstown bus all the way over to Avenue C. I live on the top floor of an old tenement building, which is as bad as it sounds, although I’ve never minded before. At least I have my own place.

      Yet now as I climb the stairs I’m thinking all kinds of ridiculous thoughts. Like how hard these stairs would be if I were nine months pregnant. And how there is no way I could haul a stroller up six narrow flights.

      It’s past eleven by the time I finally get back to my apartment, and I see it all through this new lens of quasi-motherhood, these critical and despairing eyes I don’t like. It’s one little room, about fifteen feet by ten, with a tiny sink, a two-burner stove, and a mini fridge tucked in one corner. The bathroom holds a shower stall and toilet, no sink, and besides the futon, a table, and a bookcase I have no real furniture. I keep my clothes in a jumble of plastic crates stacked on top of one another.

      I sink onto my futon, and I no longer have the strength not to think about it. Not to realize how ridiculous and impossible and stupid this all is, to contemplate for one second the possibility of actually having this baby. Of being a mother.

      I don’t even want a baby, do I? I’m pretty sure I don’t. Yet this isn’t even about want; it’s about something deeper, something fundamental and biological. This might be my last chance. My last chance for a life I never even wanted before.

      Three days go by and I still don’t call that number.

      Chapter 3

      MARTHA

      Alex is pregnant. It beats like a bass drum through my mind, giving me a headache. Alex is pregnant. I count the symptoms СКАЧАТЬ