The Mothers(59)

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THE MORNING OF HER APPOINTMENT, Aubrey sat in the waiting room, watching an overhead television play a video on heart disease. Cartoon red blood cells slid down a chute, ramming into each other like bumper cars. The leading cause of death among women, the video reminded her, as it looped for the third time. Was this cartoon supposed to make you feel better about the fact that your heart might be slowly killing you? She sighed, reaching for a magazine instead. She hated going to the doctor. When she’d first moved to Oceanside, her sister sent her to an endless stream of them. A doctor who gave her a physical where she’d tried not to cry when she unbuttoned her jeans and slipped into the thin paper gown. She felt sick, imagining Paul spreading inside of her like a virus. But there was nothing wrong with her, the doctor had said, and she refused to speak to her sister the whole ride home, ashamed that Mo had thought there might be. Then she’d been sent to a psychiatrist who prescribed her an antidepressant that she never even opened, the orange vial gathering dust in her drawer. A therapist who asked banal questions about school—never Paul—but she’d still felt sick the whole hour, because she knew those questions were lurking. After, she’d climbed into Kasey’s car, resting her head against the window until they made it back home. At night, she’d heard Mo and Kasey arguing in their room, the walls too thin to mask their angry whispers.

“All I’m saying is that she gets so stressed about that doctor—now what?” Kasey had said. “We gonna send her to another doctor for that too?”

A moth fluttered into the waiting room, its brown wings as thin as a scab. She chewed her thumbnail—a nasty habit, her mother had always said—as the moth spiraled through the room, past the receptionist’s desk, the window facing the street, two women sitting under the television, until it drifted onto a stack of magazines. She watched it land, its wings folded like an arrowhead. Her sister had called her earlier and asked for updates when she finished. She’d been trying for months to convince Aubrey to schedule this appointment. Didn’t she want answers? Wouldn’t a diagnosis—even a bad one—be better than wondering why she hadn’t been able to get pregnant? Maybe, but Aubrey hated the idea of waiting for a doctor to tell her what was wrong with her body. She’d made the appointment anyway, which told her one thing: she was beginning to feel desperate.

In Dr. Toby’s office, Aubrey lay on her back, staring up into Denzel Washington’s eyes. Her doctor had tacked posters of handsome movie stars on the ceiling. “It helps my patients relax,” he’d said during her first visit, offering her a wry smile. She clenched her fists as soon as the doctor’s cold tools entered her. She still tensed up when anything was inside her, even Luke’s finger. On their wedding night, she’d hurt so bad, she felt tears gather at the corner of her eyes. But she hadn’t said anything and Luke kept pushing into her, slowly and insistently. How could he not tell that he was hurting her? Or worse, how could he not care? If he loved her, how could he enjoy something that caused her pain? But she soldiered through because this was what you were supposed to do. A girl’s first time was supposed to hurt. Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman’s life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne.

She hadn’t expected that her second time would hurt too, or her third, or even now, years later, that she would still dread the moment when Luke first entered her. He enjoyed it—she could tell from the way he closed his eyes or bit his lip—but she always clenched her fists until she grew used to him moving inside of her. It might be psychological, she’d read online. She felt disgusted at the idea of Paul still lingering in the back of her mind, as if when Luke touched her, Paul watched from the foot of the bed. Or maybe her troubles had nothing to do with Paul at all. Maybe she just wasn’t turned on enough. The website said that women should verbalize their desires, but what were you supposed to say? Were you supposed to sound breathy and baby-like, the way sexy women spoke in the movies? Or crass and vulgar. Did men actually like that in bed? Once, Luke had told her that he wished she would initiate sex more.

“I feel like you don’t really want me,” he said.

She was stunned. Of course she wanted him, he was the only one she’d ever wanted. But she didn’t know how to make him feel that way. She pulled out the teddies and nightgowns she’d been given at her bridal shower, examining them a moment before burying them back in her drawer. She bought whipped cream and chocolate syrup once, but could never figure out how to make the smooth transition from the bed to the refrigerator, so she brought them to Kasey’s birthday party to eat with the cake and ice cream. Maybe nothing was wrong with her body. Maybe she was just bad at sex or her husband was bored. Maybe if she was sexier, more enticing, she would be pregnant already.

Dr. Toby told her not to worry.

“Everything looks fine,” he said. “You’re both young and healthy. Just relax. Have some wine.”

Have some wine, as if that was all it would take. Dr. Toby had spent years in medical school just to arrive at that recommendation? She drove to Mrs. Sheppard’s office, furious at the doctor for wasting her time, but Mrs. Sheppard told her to cheer up. After all, the doctor could have given her a bad report. He could’ve told her she was hopelessly barren, that there was no chance she would ever give birth. Instead, he’d told her that she was healthy. Her mother-in-law reached across the table and squeezed her hand.