Just make it smaller. Trim the too-long curly hair and remove the dusting of fur from his soft, wide chest. Inflate the gut into a half moon and shrink the penis to a peanut. There was baby Ben. Screaming, laughing, chattering baby Ben, toddling off in crazy pursuits of invisible bumblebees and, later, daddy’s marijuana.
The problem was her. She couldn’t project this tiny ball of nauseating cells into anything that resembled offspring, and even if she could, the logistics were overwhelming. How would she support a baby? Who would watch it while Ben was gone four months out of the year? Where would it sleep in her one-bedroom apartment? What did babies even eat? She could barely remember to keep any food in her kitchen for herself, let alone for a whole other person who would be completely dependent on her.
The day after she took the test, she caught herself daydreaming, imagining she was rocking a baby on the front porch, watching it sleep in her arms while the world drifted by, and the vision was strangely intoxicating. But the more she thought about keeping it, the scarier the idea was. Babies weren’t simple. Kissing their cheeks and rocking them to sleep didn’t exactly cut it. All the stroller moms at the zoo were terrifying proof of that. They carried insane amounts of stuff with them, and even though they had years of experience at motherhood they still exuded this air of harassed, vigilant exhaustion. She’d wandered into the baby aisle at the grocery store the other day and panicked at the sheer number of products for sale. What did she know about any of this? Give her a baby alligator any day—but a baby human?
Last weekend, before making her final decision, she’d even called her mother. The cancer was bad now; it had spread through her abdomen and intestines, and the last round of chemo hadn’t even made a dent.
“Do you want me to come see you?” she’d asked from her usual conversation spot on the toilet lid.
“What for? You haven’t visited me once since I moved to Florida. I don’t see any point in starting now.” Her mother’s voice was as matter-of-fact as it had been ten years ago and less emotional than when she’d packed suitcase after suitcase for their endless road trips. She didn’t sound as though she was dying. Meg hesitated before asking the next question, then figured, Why not? There was nothing to lose and no one to fight with about it later; it was almost like talking to a memory.
“Do you wish you’d had more children? Ones who would visit? Ones more like you, who would get married and have children of their own?”
“I wouldn’t recommend my life, if that’s what you’re asking, especially not now.” Her mother laughed once, then coughed weakly for several minutes. Meg breathed silently, as conscious of the air moving easily up and down her own throat as the painful gasps on the other end of the line. When her mother finally got her breath back, she was quiet for a minute before speaking again. “You’ve lived a lot smarter than I did, by focusing on your career and not settling for—well, it doesn’t matter now. I made what I could of it. That’s one thing I want you to remember, Megan, the one thing I hope I’ve taught you. You have to fight for what you want. No one will ever hand it to you.”
“I know.” Her stomach was still flat. She traced a figure eight over it.
“Although it might have been nice, I suppose, to have some grandchildren, someone who would’ve liked to inherit the whippet dynasty. After all the years you were my assistant, I’d hoped you would have grown to love them as I did.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for—for not being the daughter her mother wanted, for not visiting her on her deathbed, for not having grandchildren? It was so horribly clear, when she hung up and let herself cry, that she didn’t have what it took to be a mother. She couldn’t even talk to her own mother
The problem was her. She couldn’t project this tiny ball of nauseating cells into anything that resembled offspring, and even if she could, the logistics were overwhelming. How would she support a baby? Who would watch it while Ben was gone four months out of the year? Where would it sleep in her one-bedroom apartment? What did babies even eat? She could barely remember to keep any food in her kitchen for herself, let alone for a whole other person who would be completely dependent on her.
The day after she took the test, she caught herself daydreaming, imagining she was rocking a baby on the front porch, watching it sleep in her arms while the world drifted by, and the vision was strangely intoxicating. But the more she thought about keeping it, the scarier the idea was. Babies weren’t simple. Kissing their cheeks and rocking them to sleep didn’t exactly cut it. All the stroller moms at the zoo were terrifying proof of that. They carried insane amounts of stuff with them, and even though they had years of experience at motherhood they still exuded this air of harassed, vigilant exhaustion. She’d wandered into the baby aisle at the grocery store the other day and panicked at the sheer number of products for sale. What did she know about any of this? Give her a baby alligator any day—but a baby human?
Last weekend, before making her final decision, she’d even called her mother. The cancer was bad now; it had spread through her abdomen and intestines, and the last round of chemo hadn’t even made a dent.
“Do you want me to come see you?” she’d asked from her usual conversation spot on the toilet lid.
“What for? You haven’t visited me once since I moved to Florida. I don’t see any point in starting now.” Her mother’s voice was as matter-of-fact as it had been ten years ago and less emotional than when she’d packed suitcase after suitcase for their endless road trips. She didn’t sound as though she was dying. Meg hesitated before asking the next question, then figured, Why not? There was nothing to lose and no one to fight with about it later; it was almost like talking to a memory.
“Do you wish you’d had more children? Ones who would visit? Ones more like you, who would get married and have children of their own?”
“I wouldn’t recommend my life, if that’s what you’re asking, especially not now.” Her mother laughed once, then coughed weakly for several minutes. Meg breathed silently, as conscious of the air moving easily up and down her own throat as the painful gasps on the other end of the line. When her mother finally got her breath back, she was quiet for a minute before speaking again. “You’ve lived a lot smarter than I did, by focusing on your career and not settling for—well, it doesn’t matter now. I made what I could of it. That’s one thing I want you to remember, Megan, the one thing I hope I’ve taught you. You have to fight for what you want. No one will ever hand it to you.”
“I know.” Her stomach was still flat. She traced a figure eight over it.
“Although it might have been nice, I suppose, to have some grandchildren, someone who would’ve liked to inherit the whippet dynasty. After all the years you were my assistant, I’d hoped you would have grown to love them as I did.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for—for not being the daughter her mother wanted, for not visiting her on her deathbed, for not having grandchildren? It was so horribly clear, when she hung up and let herself cry, that she didn’t have what it took to be a mother. She couldn’t even talk to her own mother
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