done the tour of the hospital yet?” I ask Tacy.
“Oh no! Didn’t I tell you? We’ve switched to a midwife now. She goes to our church. Rawlins researched the home-birth route and we’re going to go that way.”
Rawlins sets the barrel on the glittery pink countertop and washes his hands at the stainless steel sink that’s been here since before Grandma Erzsèbet bought the house in ’62. “We installed a big whirlpool bath in the master suite. We’re planning on a water birth,” he says.
What do you say to that?
“Is it safe?”
“Perfectly!” Tacy jumps in. “Right, baby?” She hands Rawlins a paper towel she pulled from her purse.
Rawlins dries his hands, comes up behind my sister and circles his arms around her waist. “Now you know I wouldn’t dream of it if it wasn’t.”
Nauseating.
I retrieve a box of tea for Tacy. “But isn’t the whole theory behind that evolutionary in nature? We came out of the water billions of years ago and all that?”
Of course it isn’t, but why not have a little fun?
“I’ve never heard that,” he says with a decided shake of his head. “No, Lillian, it’s because it makes the transition from watery womb to this world a little less traumatic.”
“Must be a big tub then.”
Tacy rolls her eyes. Good girl. “It’s huge. Almost like a small pool. I don’t know how Philly’s going to clean it!” Then she blows a weak, guilty laugh that apologizes for being rich and thin—not counting the pregnant belly—and having a full-time housekeeper, while tubby me lives here in dead Grandma Erzsèbet’s little row house, working eighty hours a week, trying to get a business going, trying to ease my loneliness and the hanging-on grief and mystery of Teddy with a string of unsatisfactory dates, wishing somehow the blessings I have would be enough.
I’d sure settle for some closure, as they call it these days.
Not that I’d trade places with Tacy for a nanosecond.
I mean, I long to find Teddy himself, or even another Teddy, get married, and have babies so badly sometimes I imagine kicking inside my abdomen. But married and pregnant matter little if Rawlins “ Sleeping with the Enemy ” McGovern is part of the deal.
Honesty, Rawlins scares me. Ever since Tacy became pregnant, he’s made her keep a journal of every bite she puts into her mouth, and for several years he’s kept track of the mileage on her Range Rover and okayed her visits from the family. “He’s just protective, Lillie,” Tacy has always insisted.
“So are parole officers,” I remember saying. Boy, she sure took offense at that! She clammed up about her marriage after that as well. Not that she offered up juicy morsels to begin with. I guess it really is none of my business, but she’s my sister, and aren’t we supposed to share those things we wouldn’t ever tell another soul?
But she is here with me now and I’m thankful.
Rawlins tells me “a situation” came up in the church and he needs to go help Pastor Cole for a couple of hours, which surprises me. He never lets Tacy out of his sight when we’re around, but I guess he figures if he’s doing God’s work, He’ll protect her from the slimy likes of us.
So we putter around the kitchen, Tacy spurning my Lipton and drinking raspberry tea because it’s supposed to lessen the severity of the birth pangs. Pangs. She said pangs. We have until four o’clock together when the horde will descend.
“Cool earrings, Lillie.”
I touch them to remind myself of what I chose this morning. Oh yes, miniature masks, the New Orleans kind. “Thanks.” Pleasance calls them my Pia Zadora jewelry.
Together we prepare csirke paprikas for forty. Tacy chops up the onions, carrots, and potatoes because, “Rawlins won’t let me touch raw meat since I’ve been expecting.” So I skin and cut up the chickens, all eight of them. Where is good old Peach Hagerty when I need him? He’d do this in a quarter of the time. But I can’t
“Oh no! Didn’t I tell you? We’ve switched to a midwife now. She goes to our church. Rawlins researched the home-birth route and we’re going to go that way.”
Rawlins sets the barrel on the glittery pink countertop and washes his hands at the stainless steel sink that’s been here since before Grandma Erzsèbet bought the house in ’62. “We installed a big whirlpool bath in the master suite. We’re planning on a water birth,” he says.
What do you say to that?
“Is it safe?”
“Perfectly!” Tacy jumps in. “Right, baby?” She hands Rawlins a paper towel she pulled from her purse.
Rawlins dries his hands, comes up behind my sister and circles his arms around her waist. “Now you know I wouldn’t dream of it if it wasn’t.”
Nauseating.
I retrieve a box of tea for Tacy. “But isn’t the whole theory behind that evolutionary in nature? We came out of the water billions of years ago and all that?”
Of course it isn’t, but why not have a little fun?
“I’ve never heard that,” he says with a decided shake of his head. “No, Lillian, it’s because it makes the transition from watery womb to this world a little less traumatic.”
“Must be a big tub then.”
Tacy rolls her eyes. Good girl. “It’s huge. Almost like a small pool. I don’t know how Philly’s going to clean it!” Then she blows a weak, guilty laugh that apologizes for being rich and thin—not counting the pregnant belly—and having a full-time housekeeper, while tubby me lives here in dead Grandma Erzsèbet’s little row house, working eighty hours a week, trying to get a business going, trying to ease my loneliness and the hanging-on grief and mystery of Teddy with a string of unsatisfactory dates, wishing somehow the blessings I have would be enough.
I’d sure settle for some closure, as they call it these days.
Not that I’d trade places with Tacy for a nanosecond.
I mean, I long to find Teddy himself, or even another Teddy, get married, and have babies so badly sometimes I imagine kicking inside my abdomen. But married and pregnant matter little if Rawlins “ Sleeping with the Enemy ” McGovern is part of the deal.
Honesty, Rawlins scares me. Ever since Tacy became pregnant, he’s made her keep a journal of every bite she puts into her mouth, and for several years he’s kept track of the mileage on her Range Rover and okayed her visits from the family. “He’s just protective, Lillie,” Tacy has always insisted.
“So are parole officers,” I remember saying. Boy, she sure took offense at that! She clammed up about her marriage after that as well. Not that she offered up juicy morsels to begin with. I guess it really is none of my business, but she’s my sister, and aren’t we supposed to share those things we wouldn’t ever tell another soul?
But she is here with me now and I’m thankful.
Rawlins tells me “a situation” came up in the church and he needs to go help Pastor Cole for a couple of hours, which surprises me. He never lets Tacy out of his sight when we’re around, but I guess he figures if he’s doing God’s work, He’ll protect her from the slimy likes of us.
So we putter around the kitchen, Tacy spurning my Lipton and drinking raspberry tea because it’s supposed to lessen the severity of the birth pangs. Pangs. She said pangs. We have until four o’clock together when the horde will descend.
“Cool earrings, Lillie.”
I touch them to remind myself of what I chose this morning. Oh yes, miniature masks, the New Orleans kind. “Thanks.” Pleasance calls them my Pia Zadora jewelry.
Together we prepare csirke paprikas for forty. Tacy chops up the onions, carrots, and potatoes because, “Rawlins won’t let me touch raw meat since I’ve been expecting.” So I skin and cut up the chickens, all eight of them. Where is good old Peach Hagerty when I need him? He’d do this in a quarter of the time. But I can’t
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