Part 11 (1/2)
I doubt I'll inherit anything, he says There are six children Just drop it, Mare
I can't accept the fact that Warren's faie's old saw about how inheritedambition, but I sit in silence
The plane flies on, carrying us in its hull Warren stares off into the distance the rich enter when talk of un to stare at so the subject So at the Labor Day clambake in the Rhode Island beach house-itself four ti fro his father and asks the old nant Only on the drive home will Warren even say aloud that the talk took place But any details about it stay sealed in that head of his
He'll help us, Warren says
The car passes a long stretch of beach roses in blooo into it It's private
I'ht before the freeway, he puts the car in park and stares at et off my back
(Don't think he spoke to me this way often He didn't, which is why-unfairly-it sticks) At that instant, I stop drinking cold turkey I don't re hard In fact, it's the last easy quit I'd have I give up liquor and cigarettes to purifybefore ets to it
In some ways, I believe conception will be hard for me One of God's little prototypes One of God's little prototypes, Hunter Thompson once said of some ne'er-do-well pal-never even considered forknocked up as if it weren't standard order for every creature fro teg into the chute The first slightly overheated , it so happens that Hurricane Gloria has ripped down the phone lines on our block and shut down the library Warren takes the bus home early like a man summoned to battle, and aat ed on, the half-empty bottle of nonalcoholic wine
You're not excited, I say
He considers the burgundy fizz in the glass Tastes like grape syrup
Not about the wine, you bonehead, I say About the bun in the oven
Baby Otis? Warren says It's great
Pouring him more nonalcoholic wine, I say, You're upset You're not excited
He stares across the candlelit table
No, he says I ed the telltale pregnancy ther it with a ribbon like a daisy He touches it with a finger as if it , How reliable is this? I ?
Despite his slight remove, I think what a perfect dad he'll entleness He once quoted to me Henry James's three rules: Be kind, be kind, be kind I've observed hi the whiffle ball underhand They climb into his lap for stories
But few a over the unborn as an inseht I read one baby book after another, and e sales for cast-off cribs and baby clothes And so begins what I see as his slow fade frorew up in houses schooled to letting people vaporize into their own internal deserts with alacrity, we each let the other get snant when I said no to wine, and many toasts are drunk to my health and the baby's My mother-in-law promises to ante up all the baby clothes and linens, and Mr Whitbread says he'll coverhome, Warren's silence fills the car
What is it? I say
Nothing, he says It's nothing
You're looking at reen eyes that some metal doors seemed to have slid shut
Buckle your seat belt, he says You need to start wearing a seat belt
The car continues down the snowy and narrowing road
I eat: french fries with gravy Liver with greasy heaps of onions Dried strawberries s ja on the scale, I hear ain fifty pounds if I don't slon, but I couldn't care less How proud I feel shoving that giant globe of a belly through the subway turnstile
But the more heft I have, the more elusive Warren see into a void I stare into, studying hi my head into his office the weekends he works
Maybe he's having an affair, Mother says That's how souys react to fatherhood
Mother! I say Warren's not like that
Has he started drinking , His daddy could sure put it away
Not everybody's a sot, I say More than two drinks and Warren gets pukey
One night he leaves a e not to hold dinner, he won't be hoe, and he findson the back steps
Where were you? I say, reaching for the stair railing to pull myself up, belly first
He unfolds from the hatchback, arms laden with books School, he says
What school? I say For what? (Had we really not discussed this? Surely we did, but I don't recall it that way) I told you I was starting school for ht next fall, after the baby came, I say
You shouldn't be out here without a coat, he says
Don't you think it's bad ti to my belly
Can you at least not take suhs Maybe this year But I want to get it over with
During the week, he leaves at eight in the ets in after ten Weekends, he always seeazine he cofounded
Lying next to him, my body swells as if hooked to a bicycle puan slowly to shi+ft aze away from his back I start to stare inward to the pearlescent hts I tellWarren back to me
(And maybe-in his version of events-he'd report that I'd studied baby books with a Tal anyot, the lower my IQ, I swear It's not politic to say so, but hey Maybe Warren was telling hi me back to him) One day, as I meticulously fold and refold minuscule T-shi+rts and onesies in the trance of the deeply unprepared, the phone rings And a wo to hear for so long, I' birth that she has to repeat it several times
I said that we'd like to publish your book of poe become a farm animal at this point With the phone to my ear, I slide the top off a box of chocolatesthem in search of caramel