The Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor

few months you’re
really
not going to be in the mood, and after the babies are born, who knows when we’ll have the chance.”
    “So I should feel
obligated
right now? We should do it out of obligation?” She shook her head. “We should probably get started on dinner.”
    “Yes. So.”
    “So. Let’s go to the kitchen.” She stood. “Come on, my silly, horny husband. Let’s go.”
    “Please don’t talk to me like that.”
    “Like what?”
    He forced himself not to yell.
Focus on the real issue
. “Don’t I turn you on at all anymore?”
    “Where is this coming from?”
    “I just love you, okay?” he mumbled. “And you love me, right?”
    “Of course I love you, but I’m pregnant, and with twins. Remember? I’m tired and I have to pee, and we have a lot of things to do before your family gets here.”
    “I know, but—” and a jumble of words stopped short in his mouth.
If she really, truly loved him, and if he weren’t so
—but hewas taking it too personally, as he often did. “We have time for a quickie,” he said. “Come on, I insist,” and reached for her left breast. She turned just as he cupped her there, grabbing her harder than he intended.
    “Ouch!” she snapped. She elbowed him away and covered her chest with her hands.
    “That was meant to feel good,” he said.
    She simply looked at him, dumbfounded.
    “It wasn’t meant to hurt.”
    “Okay, can you drop it now?” She massaged her left breast.
    “I’d rather not,” he said, and why should he? For so many weeks he’d tended to her every need. He’d rubbed her back each night and run to the kitchen to get her saltines whenever she felt nauseous. He’d bought her flowers countless times, cooked for her, kept the freezer stocked with her favorite oatmeal ice cream.
    “Well, you’re going to have to let it go,” she said tersely. She shook her head and turned. “You’re just going to have to,” and she rushed out of the room.
    “A lot of women like to have sex with their husbands,” he called after her. “Even when they’re pregnant.
Especially
when they’re pregnant.” He began to pace the room. He’d read in one of her many pregnancy books that over the nine months women’s sexual organs became enlarged and more sensitive, thereby increasing their sex drive. One woman described pregnant sex as the best she’d ever had; her breasts were fuller now, and in her first few months she thought she looked better than she ever had in this one particular black teddy. She met her husband each day for lunch wearing nothing more than her raincoat and said teddy. Liz’s breasts were already a little larger, a little rounder, but because she foundthem the most comfortable, she wore only gray jog bras or thick, broad beige contraptions with enough wires and seams to support a small car. “You know,” he yelled, “you’ve got more blood flowing down there, and everything is bigger and more sensitive right now. You might actually like it. Maybe you’ll find yourself getting into it. Just try, all right? Just give it one goddamned chance. For me.”
    He heard the toilet flush down the hall. She hadn’t heard a word.
    His face hot, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and felt the gritty pacifier he’d found on the beach. Where had he put that box? He glanced around the room and remembered it was in the middle drawer of his dresser, so close to all those magazines stacked neatly at the bottom of his underwear drawer.
    —
    “What’s this?” Hilary asked Alex.
    “A field.”
    “That I can see.”
    He stepped out of the car, but she stayed inside. A brief image passed before her: Alex pulling a gun out of his pocket and then,
blast
, all gone, no more Hilary, no more baby. But no, Alex had said it himself: the island was in no way that sort of place. People here were trustworthy. In the rearview mirror, she saw him looking at the sky. He seemed interested in something up there, and she grew curious, so she joined him. But