Ten Years Married (Part 1 of 2)

2000

Hoping I’m beautiful. Standing there in the white dress, with the blossoms in my hair. The sun twinkling off the pond, and the wind blowing. My hair all tangled up in my veil.

But do you think I’m beautiful? I want to ask. I want reassurance. Despite my best efforts leading up to the moment, still there’s some fatty bits, clinging stubbornly; some fullness to cheeks in a face still too round. Do you want to run away? I can’t stop feeling as if I should ask you that.

But then you: smiling that broad, brash smile. The look in your eyes when you take my hands. I know. I do know, don’t I? I’m not imagining this?

I soar. This sunny afternoon. I fly amongst the clouds.

“I do.” I really do. I so do.

Such a tenderness in your voice: “I do too.”

 

2001

Trying not to think about work. Since it’s all so ugly there these days. I don’t know what I should tell you, I don’t want to worry you, I don’t want to upset you.

(okay, full disclosure: I’m scared about how you might react. are you going to tell me to suck it up and stop being such a delicate little blossom?)

I sit on the cushion there in the window seat and I beckon you over. I pat the seat beside me.

“What’s up?”

I say, “Look at the rain. It’s like the day we met. Do you remember?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No! No. It just reminds me.”

“I remember how hot the sex was. You remember that, right?”

Husband and wife. Respectably married. I still blush furiously.

“Oh, perhaps you need a reminder. This way, my lady, I’ll refresh your memory.”

 

2002

It’s hard. These days. You work all the hours you can find. I try to find work. You never say it, but I think you do blame me, walking away from my job like I did. Everybody hates their work, right? That’s life. But those people, they were so awful. It was like being in school again. But I really don’t know if you understand.

I hate the way my heart’s pounding when I say this: “Sweetheart, we’re going to have a baby.”

 

2003

There is no baby. There’s just a memory of mixed hope and fear. And a memory of blood.

I don’t dare to ask if you’re happy or sad; but you hold me and tell me it’ll be all right. Perhaps it was just a false alarm, nothing more sad or sinister. So early. Hard to be sure.

I lie awake in the dark, remembering that little blue plus sign.

 

2004

There’s a baby this time. It kicks and somersaults in my swollen belly. It feels bruising, but wonderful-all-the-same. And you don’t circle job ads in the papers for me anymore – who’s going to hire a chick who’s so manifestly, gigantically pregnant anyway? I’m huge. I know it. I’m enormous. But it’s a glorious kind of enormity. I feel like a goddess. I feel light-headed and ridiculous – like I’m the font of all life, like the universe flows out of me, and I’m the sun, lighting up this crazy old world.

“It’s time,” I say to you, “I think it’s time.”

“Come on,” and we hurry out to the borrowed car. You drive me to the hospital.

I think over and over again: I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this. A lesson in pain rips through me every minute, and each time I really think it’s going to rip me apart.

But then she’s here, in my arms, and she’s magical and needy and something that belongs to me like nothing in the world ever has before. I didn’t know anything could be like this.

“I love her so much,” I cling to you, I cry noisily, messily, “I love her so much.”

 

2005

She’s a miracle.

She’s still a miracle. But she’s a noisy miracle. She’s so loud. And so finickity. And so loud all of the time, at all hours. I feel tired – exhausted with both love and lack of sleep. I look out at the world, in all its greasy night colours, with the smog and the smell of diesel, and I’m scared for her, for what I’ve gotten her into.

Our Lucy. Is she going to be okay out there?

And you: you stoically work all the hours on the clock. You come home late and tickle her chin, and crawl into bed, sometimes wordlessly. To support us. To give us a chance in the world.

 

2006

Day care. Sure. But I’ve done some figures, I could put her into day care, but even with the subsidy, it’s going to cost almost as much as I’d make if I got a job. And that’s assuming I could get a job.

“There’s jobs out there,” you say.

“Yeah, I know. But minimum wage vs day care fees.” I hold my hands up to indicate a scale.

“What about your mum, then?”

I shake my head. You know about Mum. Why do you even ask that?

I stand in front of a mirror, smoothing down my skirt, trying to see myself there: the old me, the girl who’s twenty-two and full of hope. Where is she these days? I can see my enormity there in my reflection, but it’s no longer glorious; it weighs me down these days, and I can see it in your eyes, noticing and noticing and noticing, and that frown you wear when you see me eat just about anything.

“Tired,” you say, “work. I’m sorry.”

But I wonder, would you be tired if I was younger and thinner and prettier?

 

2007

In the night I roll over; I slide my arm over your belly. You feel so taut and lean, all predator-warrior, protector. I really don’t know how you do it.

“Are you awake?” I whisper, idiotically.

“No,” you say, but there’s a smile in your voice.

“Sorry.”

“I’m just sleep-talking, but you keep talking, I’ll think it was a dream in the morning.”

Lucy is two. She’s wild and demanding and unco-operative. She takes in everything, and seems to learn something new every second, she just seems to leap ahead in her quest to become a fully-fledged little girl. I say to you, “let’s have another one.”

I’m not prepared. The way you suddenly roll over, wide-alert, stiff, cold, sharp. “What? Are you mad? We can hardly afford the one we’ve got!”

 

2008

I tell myself: thirty is just a number.

Thirty isn’t old these days. It’s barely past young. It’s one day different from when I was twenty-nine and three-hundred and sixty-four days. It still makes me want to cry.

I go out. I buy a new dress. Red, with a frill at the knee.

You don’t notice.

But I notice. You’re circling job ads again.

“I have to look after Lucy.”

“Enrol her in kindy. It’s time. It’s past time.”

“She’s so shy.”

“Whose fault is that?”

I know. Yes, I know. “Next year. She’ll be ready for school.”

“Next year, we’ll be out on the street.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Oh, you’d know, would you? Because you take care of us financially?”

“I take care of our daughter.”

“That’s just an excuse and you know it.”

 

2009

 

I hate the supermarket. I stack the shelves and stand at the deli in front of all the overpriced meats, do my best to smile, remind myself to be grateful for what I have. I do that for you. For us. For Lucy. But deep inside I still hear that voice – is this my life? – is this my life? – is this my life? – is this my life? – and I don’t know how to answer it. If this is all there is, if this is as good as it gets…?

But I do it.  Day after day.

For us. For Lucy. For you.

But then one day you come home. You’re a little bit drunk. You throw your coat on the couch and say, “That’s it. That’s enough. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Can’t do this. Can’t do living like this. Can’t do you.”

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work