most convenient guy just because my ovaries started calling the shots. That probably makes me seem obnoxious and wishy-washy.”
“It sounds like he probably just wasn’t the right guy,” Noah says, “if you still had all that room for doubt.”
“That was pretty much my thinking in the end. But you know how it is when there’s nothing actually wrong with someone but they still aren’t quite right. It makes everything really confusing.”
“Yeah,” Noah says. “Those break-ups are the worst. When you don’t have a good reason for why you’re ending it.”
I nod my passionate agreement. “So yeah. That’s why I’m doing this the crazy way.”
“Makes sense to me.” Noah kisses my forehead, shifts his body. Something about the drag of his sweat-damp skin against mine ushers reality in, tightens me up as rational thought drives away the lazy tenderness.
“I think I have to ask you not to spend the night tonight.” I say this to his ear since I can’t seem to look him in the eye. “Just because this whole evening was sort of…complicated. I think I need to just be by myself, sit around in my pajamas, and you know, come down from it.”
“Sure.”
“But I promise I’m not upset you came over.”
He kisses my temple again. “It’s okay if you are. Don’t worry about my feelings. I’m tough.”
I nod, wishing it were that simple. Wishing it was anywhere near as simple as I’d envisioned.
Noah rolls away and gets up. I follow suit, and we get dressed, both wearing polite smiles, a vaguely uncomfortable energy strung heavily between us. My stomach growls as he’s tying his shoes. I glance at the coffee table at the three identical half-drunk glasses of wine. I glance at the bare tree branches outside in the streetlight. I feel guilty sending Noah out into the dark and cold after everything that’s gone on, but I know if he stays and spends the night, I’ll wake up tomorrow not knowing what he is to me anymore.
I have a thought, jog to my tiny office space, and scribble him a check, a desperate little attempt to reassert the rules of this fucked-up arrangement.
I get back as he’s shrugging his coat on. “Here,” I say.
Noah winces, opens his mouth, closes it, stares down at the check with a blank expression. I worry I’ve insulted him, but I need something about this night to go according to the plan. He folds the paper neatly and slips it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
“Sure. Enjoy the movie,” I add.
“Yeah.” That one dispirited syllable tells me Noah’s not going to see Mean Streets tonight, maybe not ever again, now that it’s tangled up in the memory of the psychotic threesome he deigned to have with a sperm-hungry harpy and her other willing donor.
“See you later, Abby.”
I open the door and close it behind him, listen to him clomp down the steps. A car starts up outside, idles for a minute. I’m aching to go to the window and watch him drive away, but I don’t want him to look up and catch me. I hear an engine rev and ice crunch, listen to Noah pull out, heading back to Jamaica Plain and away from all the confusion I surely brought into his life—maybe regret, if the memory of this night greets him tomorrow with a hard slap as he wakes.
I rub my face, feeling about a hundred years old. I click on the TV so I’ll have more than just my cyclical internal monologue for company. I flip channels until I find a bad prime-time drama, consolidate the three glasses of wine into one, dig some leftovers out of the fridge and toss them in the microwave, embrace my spinsterhood. Flopping back down on the couch, I remind myself that this is about a baby, and that babies conceived during their selfish mothers’ impromptu threesomes aren’t any less deserving of love than ones from boring old happy marriages.
An ad for fabric softener comes on a while later, and I wad my napkin up and toss it at the perfect mother on the screen, swaddling her toddler
“It sounds like he probably just wasn’t the right guy,” Noah says, “if you still had all that room for doubt.”
“That was pretty much my thinking in the end. But you know how it is when there’s nothing actually wrong with someone but they still aren’t quite right. It makes everything really confusing.”
“Yeah,” Noah says. “Those break-ups are the worst. When you don’t have a good reason for why you’re ending it.”
I nod my passionate agreement. “So yeah. That’s why I’m doing this the crazy way.”
“Makes sense to me.” Noah kisses my forehead, shifts his body. Something about the drag of his sweat-damp skin against mine ushers reality in, tightens me up as rational thought drives away the lazy tenderness.
“I think I have to ask you not to spend the night tonight.” I say this to his ear since I can’t seem to look him in the eye. “Just because this whole evening was sort of…complicated. I think I need to just be by myself, sit around in my pajamas, and you know, come down from it.”
“Sure.”
“But I promise I’m not upset you came over.”
He kisses my temple again. “It’s okay if you are. Don’t worry about my feelings. I’m tough.”
I nod, wishing it were that simple. Wishing it was anywhere near as simple as I’d envisioned.
Noah rolls away and gets up. I follow suit, and we get dressed, both wearing polite smiles, a vaguely uncomfortable energy strung heavily between us. My stomach growls as he’s tying his shoes. I glance at the coffee table at the three identical half-drunk glasses of wine. I glance at the bare tree branches outside in the streetlight. I feel guilty sending Noah out into the dark and cold after everything that’s gone on, but I know if he stays and spends the night, I’ll wake up tomorrow not knowing what he is to me anymore.
I have a thought, jog to my tiny office space, and scribble him a check, a desperate little attempt to reassert the rules of this fucked-up arrangement.
I get back as he’s shrugging his coat on. “Here,” I say.
Noah winces, opens his mouth, closes it, stares down at the check with a blank expression. I worry I’ve insulted him, but I need something about this night to go according to the plan. He folds the paper neatly and slips it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
“Sure. Enjoy the movie,” I add.
“Yeah.” That one dispirited syllable tells me Noah’s not going to see Mean Streets tonight, maybe not ever again, now that it’s tangled up in the memory of the psychotic threesome he deigned to have with a sperm-hungry harpy and her other willing donor.
“See you later, Abby.”
I open the door and close it behind him, listen to him clomp down the steps. A car starts up outside, idles for a minute. I’m aching to go to the window and watch him drive away, but I don’t want him to look up and catch me. I hear an engine rev and ice crunch, listen to Noah pull out, heading back to Jamaica Plain and away from all the confusion I surely brought into his life—maybe regret, if the memory of this night greets him tomorrow with a hard slap as he wakes.
I rub my face, feeling about a hundred years old. I click on the TV so I’ll have more than just my cyclical internal monologue for company. I flip channels until I find a bad prime-time drama, consolidate the three glasses of wine into one, dig some leftovers out of the fridge and toss them in the microwave, embrace my spinsterhood. Flopping back down on the couch, I remind myself that this is about a baby, and that babies conceived during their selfish mothers’ impromptu threesomes aren’t any less deserving of love than ones from boring old happy marriages.
An ad for fabric softener comes on a while later, and I wad my napkin up and toss it at the perfect mother on the screen, swaddling her toddler
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