Free All the Good Parts by Loretta Nyhan

deep down, in my bones, that I’m meant—”
    “Don’t give me that internal-voice bullshit,” Carly interrupted. “It’s not your intuition, that voice whispering in your ear. It’s past regret trying to glom on to your future, plain and simple. It’s a furry little weasel who messes with your head and makes you do irrational things in the desperate hope that you can make up for whatever you lost.” She squeezed my fingers. “This baby is not going to happen, Lee, and that’s okay. You’ve got to give yourself that message so you can let other things happen.”
    “What if this is what I want? Shouldn’t I try?”
    Her eyes softened. “Oh, babe. With who? An amputee? A homeless guy?”
    “I thought you liked Garrett.”
    “I do like him, but he’s one of those people who comes into your life to play a role and then departs when he’s finished the job. He’s not father material.”
    “Doesn’t that make him perfect?”
    “You’re not seeing the point.”
    “What I see is pretty clear. You don’t think I’m mother material.”
    She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. If how you treat my children is any indication, you’d be a wonderful mother. But that’s beside the point. Don’t you get that? Dr. Bridge recklessly planted that baby seed. You’re watering it and weeding out other goals because you don’t see yourself as capable of achieving them, but you are! Apply to grad school, take a trip, find a man—you can do whatever you want. You have never allowed yourself to pursue that kind of freedom, Lee, and you can’t blow that chance by getting knocked up. A baby is just one more person to lead you around life by the nose. You’re almost forty. Aren’t you done with that shit?”

    The silence Carly left in her wake felt heavy but agitated, and I didn’t go back to sleep right away. I propped my pillow against the headboard and leaned back while trying to mentally re-create our conversation. Arguments with Carly always required some postgame analysis and armchair psychologizing. Was she really saying what she meant? Was I being honest with myself? Underneath our words lay the fossils of past battles, hardened and immovable and revealing of our core selves. Carly was bold and smart and convinced she was right. I was introverted and emotional and usually willing to accept her rightness. Was it time we finally evolved into something different?
    I did have to admit she wasn’t out of line to question me. Was I being honest about why I wanted a baby? I was lonely. The thought of growing old alone made me twitchy and nauseous. Activity kept boredom from edging into the unfilled cracks in my life, but only temporarily. Those reasons weren’t shameful, but they did strike of narcissism. The decision to bring a child into the world had to mean more to me than that.
    I want a baby. Just thinking it put me on the defensive. Was there anything so fraught with conflicted emotion as wanting something just for yourself? Was I so used to camouflaging my impulses that I couldn’t recognize their merit?
    Why had I said yes to Dr. Bridge? What was it I’d felt in her office?
    Sure.
    I’d felt sure.
    Maybe my internal voice wasn’t the zombielike past reaching out to grab hold of my brain, but my future self, doing her best to shove me down the right path. She didn’t speak in a whisper, but shouted like a passenger on a plane spiraling downward. She said what people usually did when they thought they might not make it—she talked about what was important. She talked about love.
    And that’s why I’d said yes to Dr. Bridge. I had to remember—the end goal of this whole thing was love.
    I propped the notebook on my lap and studied the four names on our list:
     
    Garrett the tutor
    Jerry Pietrowski
    Paul (asshole)
    Darryl
     
    Ridiculous, I thought. Unrealistic. Pathetic. Desperate. And, in Jerry’s case, unethical.
    But those words, even if they were true, tumbled