Holy Water by James P. Othmer Page B
Authors: James P. Othmer
Tags: General Fiction, madmaxau
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back at the mother and child, he sees that the little boy has stopped crying and is contentedly gnawing on the cap of a six-ounce Redwood Honeysuckle Spice stick, the best-selling version of the brand he worked on until eight hours ago.
~ * ~
As soon as they closed on the house, having a child went from something they might want to do to something they would try to do to— for Rachel—an obsession.
On the train back and forth to Manhattan (while they still commuted together), Rachel no longer read literary fiction; she began to read books on fertility. She no longer drank coffee or diet soda; she drank herbal teas and tinctures and potions from the health-food store that had names like Fertile Harvest, Women ’ s Blend, Leaves of Splendor, and, to Henry ’ s amazement, the disclaimer-free, citrus-flavored powdered supplement Conceive Now!
While their lovemaking in their Manhattan apartment had sometimes involved items such as vanilla-scented candles, massage oil, or one of Rachel ’ s Mazzy Star albums, those accessories had been replaced for their suburban sessions by menstrual calendars, alarm clocks, and digital thermometers.
Several times he had to leave work early, or not go in at all, because like it or not, it was time. This was around the same time that he began to notice that she was missing from the bed late at night. Sometimes he ’ d find her outside in her nightgown, staring at the glow patches of clustered houses in the suburban sky. Sometimes he ’ d find her smoking in the empty upstairs bedroom.
After three months without success, Rachel began to question the heartiness of his sperm, the character of her eggs. They went to doctors, who essentially told them that they were fine. That they should calm down. Henry suggested that she might want to talk to another doctor, to, you know, help calm down. But Rachel responded by telling him he was crazy and didn ’ t speak with him for a week.
After six months Rachel blamed their inability to conceive on her job, the stress of her commute, so she quit and found less demanding, lower-paying work as a freelance, work-at-home (mostly) Internet security consultant. In the meantime, she bought more books, took up yoga, and had Henry ingesting up to twenty different vitamin and mineral supplements a day. Beyond C, E, and A, he didn ’ t know what most of them were. He knew only that his urine looked radioactive and at nine every morning his bowels would erupt with Old Faithful—like regularity.
After nine months of trying to conceive, Rachel slipped into a mild depression. Even though she was only twenty-five, she began to play the role of a hopeless, barren, childless spinster out of the pages of a Victorian novel. She watched a lot of daytime TV and read a lot of Victorian novels, several about childless spinsters. She began, without prompting, to tell her friends and family and random strangers about their tragic predicament. She envied her neighbors ’ fertile wombs, coveted their chemical-free cedar swing sets, and resented their $700-stroller-pushing nannies and baby-formula-stained minivan floor mats.
Then, after almost a year of this, when prime conception opportunities presented themselves, she began to ignore them. When Henry reminded her, mostly because he realized it was his last best chance to have any kind of sex with her, she ignored him too.
Eventually the thermometer went back into the medicine cabinet, the tinctures were shelved, and the vitamins sat untaken long past their expiration date.
“ Can I help you? ”
Henry looks blankly at the butcher, then at the unimpressive display of meats behind the counter. No grass-fed organic New Zealand lamb racks or sides of free-range bison hanging from chains in the back room. Just your basic chucks and chops, T-bones and pork loins.
“ Yes, ” he says. “ I ’ m looking for a special kind of meat to barbecue for me and five, urn,
~ * ~
As soon as they closed on the house, having a child went from something they might want to do to something they would try to do to— for Rachel—an obsession.
On the train back and forth to Manhattan (while they still commuted together), Rachel no longer read literary fiction; she began to read books on fertility. She no longer drank coffee or diet soda; she drank herbal teas and tinctures and potions from the health-food store that had names like Fertile Harvest, Women ’ s Blend, Leaves of Splendor, and, to Henry ’ s amazement, the disclaimer-free, citrus-flavored powdered supplement Conceive Now!
While their lovemaking in their Manhattan apartment had sometimes involved items such as vanilla-scented candles, massage oil, or one of Rachel ’ s Mazzy Star albums, those accessories had been replaced for their suburban sessions by menstrual calendars, alarm clocks, and digital thermometers.
Several times he had to leave work early, or not go in at all, because like it or not, it was time. This was around the same time that he began to notice that she was missing from the bed late at night. Sometimes he ’ d find her outside in her nightgown, staring at the glow patches of clustered houses in the suburban sky. Sometimes he ’ d find her smoking in the empty upstairs bedroom.
After three months without success, Rachel began to question the heartiness of his sperm, the character of her eggs. They went to doctors, who essentially told them that they were fine. That they should calm down. Henry suggested that she might want to talk to another doctor, to, you know, help calm down. But Rachel responded by telling him he was crazy and didn ’ t speak with him for a week.
After six months Rachel blamed their inability to conceive on her job, the stress of her commute, so she quit and found less demanding, lower-paying work as a freelance, work-at-home (mostly) Internet security consultant. In the meantime, she bought more books, took up yoga, and had Henry ingesting up to twenty different vitamin and mineral supplements a day. Beyond C, E, and A, he didn ’ t know what most of them were. He knew only that his urine looked radioactive and at nine every morning his bowels would erupt with Old Faithful—like regularity.
After nine months of trying to conceive, Rachel slipped into a mild depression. Even though she was only twenty-five, she began to play the role of a hopeless, barren, childless spinster out of the pages of a Victorian novel. She watched a lot of daytime TV and read a lot of Victorian novels, several about childless spinsters. She began, without prompting, to tell her friends and family and random strangers about their tragic predicament. She envied her neighbors ’ fertile wombs, coveted their chemical-free cedar swing sets, and resented their $700-stroller-pushing nannies and baby-formula-stained minivan floor mats.
Then, after almost a year of this, when prime conception opportunities presented themselves, she began to ignore them. When Henry reminded her, mostly because he realized it was his last best chance to have any kind of sex with her, she ignored him too.
Eventually the thermometer went back into the medicine cabinet, the tinctures were shelved, and the vitamins sat untaken long past their expiration date.
“ Can I help you? ”
Henry looks blankly at the butcher, then at the unimpressive display of meats behind the counter. No grass-fed organic New Zealand lamb racks or sides of free-range bison hanging from chains in the back room. Just your basic chucks and chops, T-bones and pork loins.
“ Yes, ” he says. “ I ’ m looking for a special kind of meat to barbecue for me and five, urn,
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