You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [77]
Now I sat at the small table in my apartment. There was the hum of the room. The sound of the blade cutting through the chicken. The sound of wine in my throat. Returning the glass to the table. I tried to be perfectly still. I held my breath and imagined myself alone in Paris. In a room in a city holding my breath.
* * *
A few days after Christmas she sent me a message.
I was alone in a café reading Hopscotch.
I’m pregnant.
MARIE
We went to Megève for Christmas. The whole family thing. My sister was there. The four of us. My parents had rented a chalet for the break. It was cozy with a wide stone fireplace and everyone was happy. I loved being with my dad who’d promised to stay the entire time. Sometimes we skied together, just the two of us. He was very sweet. He drank less than usual. He asked about school and I remember wishing I could tell him everything about my secret life. We’d sit on the lift together, warm in the sun, all wrapped up in our parkas, and talk and talk. He made me laugh. He told me stories about China, where he’d been spending most of his time. He’d been gone so often I’d forgotten how much I adored him and I kept wanting to tell him the truth. Somehow I don’t think he would have been angry. He would never have made a scene, or gone to the school or anything like that.
It doesn’t matter. In the end I never told him.
* * *
I was late.
I stayed home that day and while everyone else was skiing I went to the little pharmacy on the square by the church and bought a pregnancy test.
I took it home and sat in the bathroom and when I saw it was positive I went numb. After a while I sent him a message. I can’t imagine what it did to him. All I wrote was, I’m pregnant. That’s it. I mean after all the messages I’d been sending—I miss you, I miss you. And then this. But it was what I could manage. Maybe I wanted to punish him, I don’t know. I didn’t say a thing to anyone. I kept it to myself until one night I didn’t think I’d survive. I got out of bed and snuck out of the house. It was late. Cold. The streets were covered with fresh snow and there was that round silence that comes in the winter at night in the mountains. I walked and walked and then I called him. He sounded so far away. But he was nice to me.
You couldn’t have asked for more. He said he’d be there. We’d get through it together. We’d do whatever I wanted. I needed to think about it. To really think about it. I told him I didn’t want to think about it. I told him I wanted him to tell me what to do and he said he couldn’t do that. He said it wasn’t his choice, that it was my body, and all that. I was standing in the snow crying, feeling the way I’d felt on the bridge the night I’d called Ariel a bitch. He said, Try to sleep, Marie. I’m here for you. I’m right here, he said, in the saddest voice I’d ever heard.
The next night I called back and told him I didn’t know what to do and then he said that he didn’t think it was a good idea to have the baby. Something like that. He kept saying, But Marie I don’t want to push you to do anything you don’t want to do. He said over and over again, I’ll be there no matter what. I mean, he was perfect. His words were perfect. But it was also as if he was reading a script. Part of me just wanted him to say, Get a fucking abortion goddamn it. You know, to prove that he cared at all. I mean about anything. But all he said was, I’m here, Marie. I’ll be there the whole time. No matter what happens. Which is what you want someone to say to you. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling, that same feeling that I’d had from the beginning, that he was only a ghost, vacant, repeating lines.
For the rest of the time we were in Megève I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. And I could do it during the day. I skied hard and stayed as close to my dad as I could. Sometimes on the lift, when it was just