Free Getting Married by Theresa Alan

It just slipped out. I wasn’t thinking.

    “But why not?”

    “Well, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I feel very strongly about having no desire whatsoever to have a bread box with limbs come popping out of that area of my anatomy.” I hope that my attempt at humor will defuse the tension.

    “Oh, giving birth is agony. Will nearly killed me. His birth was awful. Just awful. I was in labor for twenty-eight hours. I wanted to die.”

    “Well, see, you understand then,” I say.

    “But they have much better drugs today,” she says, as if you could squirt a baby out as easily as you could pop a zit.

    “Even so, they can’t give you nearly enough drugs to make it easy. It’s still agonizing. Anyway, even if giving birth were easy, there are other reasons I don’t want kids. I personally don’t want to try to be a superwoman trying to balance work and kids. I like my job, so I don’t want to give that up.”

    Will’s mother spends the next hour trying to persuade me to agree to have kids. I’ve never wanted kids. I like them, don’t get me wrong, but being a good parent is a huge job, and I’d rather leave it to people who have more patience and less anxiety than I do.

    I get the uncomfortable feeling that if I don’t come around on the kid issue, she is going to do whatever she can to break Will and me apart.

    Which, of course, means war.

    Any doubts I had about marriage have just flown out the window. I’m going to get Will to marry me no matter what it takes! I will become a Bridal Dominatrix like the world has never seen. I will have my way! All will submit to my bidding!

    Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Chapter 7

    E very night after work I go to Will’s place and help him pack to move. He brings a few boxes with him to my place each night. Will is still at work and I’m unpacking a box of books he brought over the night before when Gabrielle calls me on my cell.
    “Hey, babe, how’s the doctor?” I ask.

    “Awesome. We’ve gotten together every night this week.”

    “For conversation or for sex?”

    “A nice mix of the two. Very nice. In fact, I know this is soon, but I think I’m in love with him. I’m crazy about him.”

    “Love! Wow! Congratulations.”

    “Can you and Will meet us for dinner tonight? I want to show him off.”

    “I’m sure we can.”

    I get the details about when and where, and then I hang up the phone. I have to say that instead of feeling happy for Gabrielle, I’m a little worried about her. I hope like hell she’s not jumping the gun. Of course, you’ll notice that I told all my friends Will was the man I wanted to marry after our second date, but because that was completely out of character for me, my friends took my comments seriously. Usually my MO is to discuss everything I think might bother me about the guy a few months down the road. Usually I can just look at a guy and foresee the demise of our relationship. I imagine him getting bored with me and cheating on me and breaking my heart; I imagine him being a lazy slob and not doing his share of housework and me ultimately getting so sick of nagging him all the time that it’s easier just to break up, whatever. For me to feel hopeful, for me to feel like things really have a chance to work out, means something. I’m not one of those cry-wolf, fall in love with every guy who comes my way kind of girls. And the thing of it is, I never pegged Gabrielle for one of those girls, either, but I’ve only known her married and then picking up the pieces of her broken marriage. I’ve never seen her do the whole dating thing before. I just hope she doesn’t get hurt.

    New love is like a pregnancy—you should wait three months before telling anybody about your exciting news. When you are just falling for somebody, you can tell people you are dating, but you want to keep quiet about just how excited you are until you’ve passed the critical three-month mark; things are just too fragile and unsure before that.