KITTY
“WHY DID YOU MARRY ME? Why did you say I do?” The new ritual is, every time we fight, I end up puking. And we fight every day. It’s become part of our routine. I don’t bother disguising my tone of voice; we have nothing to hide anymore. We both know what to expect from the other. Anger. Resentment. Frustration. Annoyance. All of the makings of an unhappy marriage. I can tell Jordan is even annoyed at me for running to the toilet after each new fight. Neither of us can win. It’s just how it is. It’s what we’ve become.
He is staring back at me, his eyes blazing into mine. He looks like he wants to choke me. I’ve been wanting to ask him this question since the day we said I do. And now I’ve finally said it. It’s out in the open. It’s the center of every argument we have, why not talk about it? Come to think of it, why didn’t our couples therapist ever ask each of us this question? It seems so simple, so straightforward. So honest.
“Why did you marry me?” He throws the question back in my face like it’s a dirty rag, a hot potato that’s not worth holding onto.
“Jordan, for just this once, can you stop being a child?” I beg. We are standing in the kitchen on an ordinary Thursday night. Because fighting is ordinary for us. Acting childish is normal when we’re alone in this big house.
“Oh, you’re one to talk. Why don’t you run next door and cry to mommy and daddy?” He mocks. “Or maybe you can just puke in the toilet again.” He uses both hands to make air quotation marks when he says the word puke. I want to punch him in the gut, but that’s not how we fight. Not yet anyway.
After our last argument, yesterday, when things calmed down, Jordan spoke to me in a normal tone. He told me he thinks I’m getting too worked up when we argue. I told him we needed to stop arguing so much. He rolled his eyes and shouted something about how I must have high blood pressure and it’s not good for my health. I stomped off and that was that. Like I said, today was just another day in paradise. “Just shut-up.” It’s all I have to say. It’s not great, but I’m tired of this. I don’t think we’d know how to stop fighting even if we both wanted to. It’s what we know; it’s who we’ve become.
“Good one.” Jordan runs his fingers through his hair, giving him something to do outside of the stare down we’re in with each other.
“Seriously. Are you going to answer the question or be a big baby? You might not believe this, but I’m not trying to fight. I honestly want to know. Why did you marry me? And if you can’t answer that, why did you ask me to marry you? Maybe we should start there. It’s a valid question Jordan. It’s the root of all of our problems.”
He squints his eyes at me. “Translation: I’m the root of all of our problems. That’s great Kitty. Great. Maybe I should just ask you how you want me to answer the stupid question. Do you really think there’s an answer that will fix us?” He throws his hands in the air.
“You still didn’t answer.” I state flatly. I’ve given up on telling him to stop calling me Kitty. He won’t listen. Like us, it’s a lost cause.
“Because I don’t have one. I don’t have an answer to that question. I don’t know why I asked you to marry me, I guess I thought we were that couple that met at the duck pond. I thought we made each other laugh. And why did I marry you?” He shakes his head. “I wish I knew the answer to that one. I wish I did. I guess we were on a track to get married, we spent so much time planning, we never stopped to think about us, as a couple. I don’t know what else to say.” He’s still shaking his head. He pretends to smooth an invisible wrinkle on the front of his shirt and looks down. “What’s your reason? Why did you marry me?”
I have to answer because he did. I know I owe him that much. Plus, I think it’s good we’ve finally brought this all out into the open. I don’t know that it will help us in any way, but it feels good to speak openly instead of just throwing insults at each other’s heads. I rub my nose with my finger, fending off a sneeze. It works. “I didn’t want to. I thought about calling it quits on our wedding day. I thought about telling you good-bye. But it all felt too rushed, too sudden. I think our relationship died before we were engaged. I’m not sure when, but I know it did. For some reason we both clung to the memory of our love from the start, from the duck pond. We thought that’s what we had when really whatever we’d had had dissolved and left us behind. Neither of us wanted to see the truth. I don’t know why. But we just didn’t. We ignored reality and pressed on with the image we wanted of ourselves.” There, I said it. It’s how I really feel. I think we might be making progress. Maybe we can have a real conversation now instead of a screaming match, now that we both know how we really feel. Now that we both know we lost whatever we’d had a long time ago. Putting a ring on our finger and moving into a big house wasn’t going to solve what we’d lost.
Jordan’s eyes widen. We’re looking at each other from across the kitchen and for once it’s not with glares of anger. It’s just looking. In a way, I feel like we’re standing naked in front of each other for the first time in a long time. I feel exposed and I think he does too. Honest words can do that sometimes. “You were going to run out on our wedding?” His voice is a soft murmur when he asks the question.
I shrug. “I don’t know.” I didn’t, obviously. But I thought about it. It didn’t feel right, our marriage. But I felt helpless to stop it. I wished we’d taken time to really talk about things before the ceremony. I couldn’t leave you standing there in front of everyone and just not show up.” For the first time in as long as I can remember, I see his eyes go glossy. He is trying to hold back tears. I don’t know if it’s because of the realization that we could have avoided this train wreck of a marriage or if it’s because he’s hurt that I had thoughts of standing him up at the altar.
“I never thought about leaving you. I just thought we could make it work. I thought…” He pauses for a moment and I know he is trying not to show his emotions. He is trying to be tough. “I thought whatever we had when we met at the duck pond, whatever we had during the beginning of our relationship was enough. I thought our love was stronger. I thought we were going through a rough patch, but that things would get better once all of the pressure of the wedding was over.” He places both hands to the sides of his head, his elbows pointing out as he paces. “I thought we loved each other. And I thought love was supposed to conquer everything.” He throws his hands wide out into the air. “Clearly, I was wrong. Either this…” he motions to me and then to himself, “this was never love at all, or we just aren’t strong enough.”
We stand in silence for a while before speaking again. I feel my stomach churn. This is the most dialogue we’ve exchanged since we said our vows. It’s the most honest either of us has been, too.
“I’m sorry.” I speak first, submitting to the pressure of the awkward silence. “I’m sorry. I thought about leaving, but I didn’t do it. I’m sorry we fight all of the time.” And now I feel the tears welling up in my own eyes. It’s strange that our shouts have transformed into sobs, although I’m not sure this is how our discussion, or whatever you call this, will end.
“I think it’s a little late. Don’t you?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t know. Is it ever too late to try?”
He shrugs and looks down at his feet. “What are we trying for? To be the couple we were when we first met? I don’t think that’s possible. That ship has sailed. Just saying…” His voice trails and I know he is right.
“I don’t think we can be that couple either. You’re right, that ship has sailed. We aren’t that couple anymore.” I think we’ve both accepted that, or at least realized it. It would be impossible not to. “But we can still be a happy couple, I think. Don’t you?” I’m asking myself as much as I am asking him. I want him to say yes, although I don’t really know why. Maybe because it’s easier to stay in a relationship that we know, rather than give up and start something new. Something new means something totally unknown. Something new means something terrifying. It means change. In my heart, I know I should want that. I should run toward that. But in my head, I just want to fix what we have. Can’t we do that?
“Maybe.” He gives a single word reply and it’s lacking anything remotely close to hope.
“Okay. Maybe we can try.” I try to infuse optimism into my voice, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t done a good job. We both seem to land on the word maybe and sit there. What does it mean? What does maybe look like? How are we going to try? What are we going to do to make ourselves fall back in love? Were we ever really in love or was it just a crush that we both held onto for way too long? How can we make a go at this if we don’t know what specific actions we’re going to take? Can we really force love? Is it worth it to try? Should love be this much work?
“Well, maybe we can start right now.” I toss it out there, and this time I really am hopeful. “Jordan, I’m pregnant.” I take a step back and press my hands behind me on the kitchen counter. I watch Jordan’s mouth open and close like a fish. It seems like he’s trying to say something but neither of us can hear the words.
“Jordan, I’m-“
“I heard you.” He nods and then brushes an imaginary hair from his forehead. “Is this why you said we should try with us, because of the baby?” He’s trying to fit it all together in his mind. He’s trying to digest the conversation we just had and grasp the fact that he’s going to be a dad…and I’m the mom. I don’t know if he’s panicked, upset or happy. He’s not giving me any clues. I just know that it’s a lot for him to take in right now. And then I watch as his whole face lights up and the worry lines on his forehead suddenly are at ease. “It’s a fake out. Like last time.” He spats.
So he wants it to not be true. That’s what his face is telling me. I shake my head. “Sorry. Not a fake out. It’s the real deal. I’ve been to the doctor and everything. I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure this time.” My words are not sympathetic to his possible angst. I didn’t do this. We did this.
It seems impossible that I’m pregnant, unless I cheated on him, which I did not. But it’s only nearly impossible and that narrow margin that allowed for a chance at pregnancy somehow took its little opening and ran. We’ve had sex exactly three times since we’ve been married. Three times in over six months. I’d gone off birth control a month after we were married. I didn’t think I had a need for it with the way things had gone. What were the chances that I would actually get pregnant? I guess they were pretty high, because I am pregnant. I have a little boy or girl growing inside of me right now. A little child that is going to call me mom and Jordan, dad. A child that is going to depend on us for his or her survival, for love and belonging and for guidance. How in the world are we going to provide guidance to a child when we can’t even figure out our own relationship? We can’t even get along, so how is that going to work? Maybe we should amend our maybe we’ll try answer to a yes, we’ll both try; we’ll both promise each other that we’ll fall in love- with each other. Can we do that?
Seriously, we did the deed three times. And two of the three were from nothing more than obligation. Once just after our wedding. Another time after a fight, about month ago when I actually felt bad for the way we treated each other. The third time was after Jordan’s parents stayed with us for a week and I got smashing drunk by myself. Jordan came home and well, it just happened. Anyway, tons of couples do it all of the time and never get pregnant. Why us? Is this the Universe’s way of punishing us for marrying the wrong person? When the doctor confirmed my positive test, I immediately thought it must be karma. If the Universe has a voice, I imagined her taunting me by saying, If you want to ignore me, you’ll see what will happen. Watch this!
“Okay. So I’m going to be a dad and you’re going to be a mom.” He’s talking to himself more than he is to me. “Okay.” I think he is going to start pacing again, only he walks straight out of the room. I hear him pick up his cell phone. He ran to call his parents. Of course. Instead of hugging me or at least kissing my forehead, instead of spending a moment of togetherness with our news, he runs to someone else. Of course he does. All of my feelings of anger, frustration and annoyance rise to the surface again. We should be celebrating this news together or at least digesting the news together. We should tell our parents together. This isn’t how it should be. We can’t be parents when we can’t even figure us out. I feel my muscles tighten beneath my skin. My stomach flips and quivers low in my gut. My hands begin to shake and I run to the bathroom, getting sick, again. I hear the sound of Jordan’s laughter in the background of my hurling into the toilet. He’s not happy for us, he’s only happy for how this makes him look. He’s happy for what he gets to say to his parents and for what they’re saying to him. Oh, we’re so proud of you. We’re over the moon with excitement for you. Way to go son! It seems odd that parents tell their grown children they’re proud of them for placing sperm into someone. I’ve never thought about it until now, as I hang my head over the toilet alone, again. I press my left hand to my stomach. “At least I’ll have you.” I whisper. It breaks my heart that I’ll have to share him or her.