Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [53]
“This won’t change anything—a little more work for a much bigger bonus,” Henry assured me, after we’d made love for only the third time since conceiving Katie. He ran his fingers over my basketball-sized stomach. I nodded, awash in postsex chemicals that can convince even the most rueful of spouses that her relationship isn’t plunging into doomed waters.
Two weeks later, when I was thirty-three weeks along, Henry shipped off for what would evolve into an unending business trip: They stacked on top of one another like playing cards, and his little time at home would be cluttered with sleeping, laundry, and repacking. Ainsley, whose due date was eight weeks ahead of mine, gave birth while Henry was in Hong Kong, so I filled my days pitching in at her house, watching her carefully and hoping that what appeared to be innate mothering skills would somehow transfer to me via osmosis. Or something. Ainsley’s competence was surely compounded by the fact that her husband was home; he’d happily cashed in his paternity leave to dote on both mother and son.
“Paternity leave?” Henry scoffed when I mentioned it after he returned. He still smelled of stale airplane air. “Seriously? That’s just about the lamest thing I’ve ever heard of. No one would do that at my firm.”
I shrugged and wondered why I’d bothered to bring it up in the first place. It’s not like I really believed that Henry could—or would—be able to set aside three weeks to stay with us. Maybe I should have just asked for three days. Probably. Yes. I should have asked for that, at least. Three days to help me adjust to my fear and my nerves and the excruciating shadows that stayed with me, hinting in the background that I’d screw this mothering thing up. But instead, I said nothing. It seemed easier that way, I suppose.
As my due date slowly, slowly crept up, my ankles ballooned, and my heartburn flared, and Henry’s pace grew no less leisurely. He bought me gift certificates for massages and remembered to tote home flowers on occasion and even withstood an all-afternoon trip to Pea in the Pod, but still, these were the plugs to fill in the wider gap, and it was hard not to admit, though I pushed my smile up as far as it could go and rubbed my belly with gusto, that this gap had a larger crevasse that snaked its way through us.
When my water broke in the kitchen as I prepared homemade lasagna (Gourmet!), Henry was in a car to the airport. I was one week early and had assured him that no, no chance would I deliver while he was on his one-day trip to Chicago. I’d read about it, after all; first-time moms are likely to go late.
Contractions followed like tidal waves, so I frantically phoned him, desperate to reach him before he literally jetted off, and then I called a cab, which arrived twelve minutes and three contraction cycles later and reeked like fading curry and Old Spice. And this is how I ended up admitting myself into the labor and delivery ward at Westchester Medical Center.
Henry burst through the door ten minutes later, frantic and sweaty, and when I saw him, apologetic and also full of hope, I forgot the gap and the crevasses and the changes that had nudged their way into our marriage that we’d been unable to adapt to. If I’d ever recognized them at all. Instead, I concentrated on my breathing, and Henry counted with me, and later, held up my legs and screamed with me. And after eleven hours of excruciating labor, Katie made her way into our world.
Chapter Fifteen
Gene and I are splitting buttered bagels in celebration of both of our promotions—he’s now my official assistant—on Monday morning when reception buzzes my line, informing me of a delivery that’s been deposited at the front desk.
“I’ll grab it,” Gene says, licking his fingers and