Free The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch Page A

him, and it’s only until August.”
    “That’s our whole summer, Shawn! I thought we were, like, trying for a baby!”
    “We can try for a baby with Nicky here, Will. Come on.”
    “You know what? Let’s not try for a baby right now,” I glower, raising my voice a little too loudly. “I don’t think I want to.”
    A wild overreaction to be sure. But also, a wee relief. As soon as I say it, I feel it in my guts, deep on my insides: a weight lifting, a release from the burden that has been pressing me so very far down. Maybe @nurseellen at BabyCenter was right. Maybe I owe her an apology. Maybe some of us just aren’t cut out for offspring, and if that’s what God’s plan is telling us, then maybe we should lean in and listen.
    “What?” Shawn reacts. “Now we’re not having a kid?”
    “You heard me! The kid is off the table! I mean, we can’t even have one anyway, even when we’re actively trying! I’m not pregnant again, and maybe it’s just a goddamn sign!”
    “Where’s this coming from? Because Nicky will be sleeping in our spare room?”
    “No!” I shout even louder. I breathe in, breathe out through my nasal passage, just like Oliver showed me. (“This is called pranayama breathing,” he said. “I know master yogis who can orgasm from it.”) I feel my pulse slow, then say hesitantly, more quietly:
    “It’s coming from…golf…and the Yankees…and…”
    I try to say it, I try to actually be forthright and confront what needs to be confronted, but I can’t. My dad would say it’s because my conscious mind is too scared to set something in motion that I don’t want to set off, but he’d also tell me that it wouldn’t matter: if disaster is impending, it’s a-coming anyway. But I’d say that it’s probably something simpler: that I don’t want to say Grape! because of the simple truth that I’m a coward who never wants to rock the status quo.
    “What the hell, Willa?” Shawn snaps, still a decibel too high. “You don’t want to have a kid because I’m taking up golfing? What does that even mean? We’re supposed to have a kid now. We agreed that we were having a kid now! It’s part of our plan!”
    “Well, now that you put it that way, let’s definitely have a kid! Let’s have twins!” The pranayama breathing is of no use. (Orgasm? Really? From breathing? Not buying what you’re selling, Dalai Lama.)
    The guest bedroom door opens and Nicky wanders out, his hair a bird’s nest from behind, his skinny legs gawky in his boxers.
    “What the fuck, you guys?”
    “Don’t say fuck, Nicky,” I say back.
    He shrugs.
    “These for me?” He spies the spare plate of eggs on the counter. Shawn nods yes, so he scrambles up on the stool, unwraps the plate, and digs in.
    Shawn sees his opportunity to deflect.
    “So your mom called…we should talk, dude.”
    I consider if this is the first time Shawn has ever called anyone “dude,” and if he realizes what an idiot he sounds like. And then I hate that I’ve even thought this. I want to scrub the notion from my mind: that my husband sounds like an idiot, that I’m the type of wife who would ever see him as such a moron.
    “Whatever,” Nicky says.
    “Whatever,” I say.
    “Whatever,” Shawn replies in return, which is not the white flag I was hoping for.
    I grab my purse and turn into the foyer, then out the front door. The door slams behind me, and then the latch clicks, and as I wait for the elevator to come and take me away from this mess, I try to muster the courage to go back in and apologize. I count to twenty in my head.
    If the elevator dings before I reach twenty, I’ll get in and go meet Vanessa. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back.
    I don’t even get to eleven.
    The door opens, and I step forward. The universe gave me a sign. I’m just listening.
    —
    The taxi drops me right at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, from which an enormous banner hangs. DARE YOURSELF TO A BETTER LIFE! It’s red and bold and