Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(53)

Something about her.

I kissed her navel, pulling the diamond bar with my lips.

She’d gained weight since starving herself in Sequoia. On our honeymoon, she was a little heavier than when we’d met. I knew what her body looked like and what it felt like. My hands and mouth discerned her shapes in all their perfection. And as she stood by me, groaning as my tongue traced circles around her navel, I perceived a change as subtle as the sea.

“Monica,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to alarm you.”

She stiffened. “Are you okay?”

“Shh. I’m fine. As are you.” I looked up at her. She looked straight ahead, as she was supposed to, and I stood so I could look her in the eye.

“What is it?” she asked, meeting my gaze.

“I don’t want you to get excited for nothing.” A senseless desire. No matter what I did, I was going to get her hopes up. I was going to risk causing her disappointment and pain. I couldn’t protect her from that. The greatest gift I could give Monica, a wedding gift for our life together, was hope.

She broke the silence. “Tell me, or I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

She set her mouth in a tight line and put her hands on her hips. Scene over.

I took her by her chin and risked her dashed hopes. “I think you’re pregnant.”

chapter 39.

MONICA

He was impossible. From the minute he’d run across Paris for a pregnancy test, to him cancelling everything on my behalf, to the doctor’s appointment where I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, he was the most impossible man I had ever met.

“I’m fine!” I said in the square across from the doctor’s office. It had a church, and a statue, and pigeons everywhere. The sky was the color of the sidewalks, and the air was so wet it stuck to me. “I’m not even a little sick. I feel better than ever. I could run a marathon, so back off.”

“The doctor said you should take it easy,” he said. Mr. Easygoing in a blue polo, houndstooth scarf, and a wool coat was taking control of the situation. It calmed him to be in charge, which was fine, up to a point.

“That’s totally not fair. You could tell me he said I have to wear a clown suit on Tuesdays, and I wouldn’t even know.”

“A clown suit? Even you couldn’t make that sexy.”

I crossed my arms and turned to face him. Pigeons flew up in the fog. The square was just starting to get crowded with the lunchtime rush, and we were ignored.

“You should have gotten me an English-speaking doctor,” I said.

“I got you the best.”

“Well, I felt left out. I felt like you all were talking about me like I wasn’t there. And of all people, you should understand how shitty that is.”

He stepped forward and cupped my cheeks. “Do you remember that heartbeat?”

The whooshing sound, like an angel walking on a heavenly treadmill, had come through the sonogram loud and clear. I admitted that a tear fell from my eyes. Maybe two. Maybe I’d wept right there.

“So?” I said with a choke.

“What language was that?”

I shook my head. No language obviously. I wanted him to get to his point.

“It was our baby’s,” he said. “It was the language of life. Who cares what the doctor and I said? Who cares about how I want to take care of you? You want to fight about something? Let’s fight about what you’re having for lunch.”

I smiled and turned my face into his hand, kissing the palm that was warm despite the December cold. “I want one of those ham croissants with the sour cheese.”

“And a salad.”

“Fine.”

“And after, you take one of the prenatal vitamins.”

I made a yuck face. The doctor had given me bullet-sized vitamins that smelled terrible. But I’d take them. Jonathan was my inspiration for keeping up a regimen. I’d take them every day on a clock, but I didn’t have to pretend to like it.

“I could lose it again,” I whispered.

“You won’t. I have a feeling this one’s going to stick.”

He gathered me in his arms, and we held each other in a Parisian square, rocking back and forth for blissful minutes.

chapter 40.

EPILOGUE

MONICA

I woke up alone, and I panicked. I had that heavy feeling from sleeping longer and harder than I was used to. I felt drunk, hazy, and worried. The baby was supposed to be next to me or in the little cradle next to the bed, and Jonathan was supposed to be in the next room, but god damn if I couldn’t smell him in the sheets.

“Jonathan?” I mumbled.

Was I still dreaming? Or was the air actually thicker? I knocked a glass of water from the night table. Cold water splashed on my leg. Not a dream. This was real.

How had I slept? I shouldn’t have. The fact that I hadn’t slept in three days notwithstanding, no decent person should sleep when their baby was as sick as mine was. Light flickered at the corner of the bedroom, under the bathroom door, and voices… no, a single voice. My husband, singing. God, he was terrible.

I opened the door.

The bathroom was washed in candlelight, and he was running the sauna with the door open, so I walked into a hot cloud. Jonathan was in the tub with little Gabrielle, all of three weeks old, face up on his thighs. I crossed my arms.