Lost Along the Way(84)
“Some women can be bitches,” Jane said.
In between bites of her slice, Cara added: “It’s not an acceptable topic to just bring up in public like that. People don’t think sometimes. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it, but seriously, use your brain, you know?”
“No, no. Don’t give her too much credit. She’s a bitch, believe me. I know her type and sniffed her out the second I saw her,” Jane said.
“That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with. Comments like that don’t hurt all that much anymore, but they nearly killed me when I was doing in vitro. I can’t tell you how many times I canceled lunches or avoided going to parties because someone was going to be there who was either pregnant or had just had a new baby and it was too hard for me to be around them. I used to have some really close friends from town who I don’t even speak to anymore because of my own stupid issues. No one ever warned me that this type of stress could cause serious divides in your relationships. Maybe if someone had prepared me for it, I would’ve handled it better. Instead I let it rip apart every relationship that was important to me—even ours, Cara, and you were never anything but supportive and respectful of my privacy. It just overtook my entire life. I felt like I couldn’t escape it.”
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Cara said.
“What do you mean?” Meg asked.
“Do you know how many people just assumed that I didn’t have children because I was having physical problems? Two different women offered to give me the name of their fertility specialists, unsolicited. I used to just take the info and tuck it away because it was either let them think that I was having problems with my body or admit that what I was really having problems with was my marriage. I felt like I couldn’t win either way. What was I supposed to say? ‘Actually, I’ve decided against having kids because my husband and I hate each other. It would be a toxic environment in which to raise a goldfish, never mind a child’? How do you think that’d have gone over at Reed’s club?”
“But that drives me crazy!” Jane said, refilling her glass for the third time from the bottle in the silver bucket. “We shouldn’t have to feel pressured to answer these questions, or defend the choices we make as grown-ass women. Why is it that we can be our own bosses, run our own households, even run for f*cking president, but we have to answer questions about our decisions to have families? Why is that something that needs to be explained? If I don’t feel like having kids at this time in my life because I’m not ready to get fat and push a watermelon out of my vag, then that’s my decision and I don’t have to justify it to anyone. Certainly not over my lunch in the Hamptons.”
“Amen,” Cara said.
“Is that really why you don’t want kids?” Meg asked.
“No,” Jane answered. “I think the issue of my husband being incarcerated is a much bigger problem at the moment, don’t you? I mean, logistically that would just be a nightmare. I don’t think the warden would be interested in scheduling conjugal visits to coincide with my ovulation dates, you know?” she joked, causing Meg to finally crack a smile.
“I could see how that could be a problem,” Cara said.
“No matter what, women are still defined by these labels: wife, mother, grandmother,” Meg said. “And if you don’t fit the label people make you feel like you’re a dragon lady or like . . .”
“Like there’s something wrong with you,” they said in unison. Children—a strange and surprising intersection to meet at, one that none of them had really ever wanted to talk about . . . until now.
“It’s the same bullshit we do to each other in our twenties with getting married, and look how we handled that! Maybe we all let some kind of weird pressure influence the decisions we made there, too. This is the thirties version—fertility. What do we have to look forward to in our forties? Who hits menopause last? That’s exciting. I look forward to that one,” Jane said.
“It makes me angry and it’s so hugely unfair. There’s nothing wrong with any of us,” Cara said.
“Seriously? You’re going to say that with a straight face?” Jane asked.
“Okay, fine. That’s not entirely true, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that there is something very wrong with all of us, but you know what I mean.”
“Cara, if I were you, the next time that someone asked me why I don’t have kids, I’d say that I currently sleep in a separate bedroom from my husband, who doesn’t like the way I buy groceries, so I figure that adding a kid to the mix would probably not go over well. And Meg, you should just say you tried, and it hasn’t worked yet, but you realized that baking muffins like a lunatic has helped soothe your soul so now you’re okay with it. See how fast they run away.”
Cara burst out laughing. “This is amazing. I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt this good. It’s just so nice to finally talk about it with people who get it, with people who don’t think I’m a freak.”
“Oh, make no mistake, I think you’re a freak. But I also get it, so I guess that’s okay,” Jane added.
“You’re right. It feels good to just put it out there. I’ve been afraid to admit a lot of this because of what people would think of me,” Cara agreed.