The first problem was that, left to her own devices, Jill still ate mostly saltines. She wasn’t an overly picky eater. She ate well when we could afford to go out. She ate whatever I cooked for her. Occasionally, she supplemented the crackers with M&Ms and very occasionally the M&Ms with an apple or some orange juice. But mostly she just ate crackers and water. Great were she ever to be imprisoned in a nineteenth-century novel. Lousy for having a baby. The first problem we had to solve then, before the broken heart even, was getting Jill to eat.
The second, of course, was the broken heart. But as you know, mending those is tricky.
The third problem was financial. To the uninitiated, graduate fellowships seem like a great deal. They pay your tuition. They pay you a stipend to cover living expenses. In return, you teach first-year composition thereby earning your keep while also gaining valuable career experience and building your résumé. Unfortunately, the stipend is not really enough to live on. We were all getting by one way or another. Katie ran up crazy credit card debt (not, unlike school loans, with a low, fixed interest rate that would wait for payment until after she got a job). My parents gave me their old furniture. And paid my car insurance. My grandmother took me shopping when I needed new clothes. Jason had the good sense to fall in love with a man with a real job. And Jill ate saltines. Saltines worked for one maybe but wouldn’t for two, especially when one of them also needed diapers, bottles, clothes, toys, car seats, blankets, a highchair, and regular medical attention.
The fourth problem was childcare. Graduate school is a full-time job. It is only about twelve to fifteen hours a week in the classroom, learning or teaching or both. But it’s about a gazillion hours of grading. And about two gazillion hours of reading. So that’s three gazillion hours plus twelve plus you still have to eat, sleep briefly, and do a little bit of something social to keep from going mad. You can try to grade faster. You can try to read faster, skim more, skip a few books altogether. But there’s not a lot of time there for taking care of an infant.
We floated solutions sensible and ridiculous. We thought she could drop out of school and get a real job (solving problem 3 only). We thought she could become a professional food taster (solving problems 1 and 3). We proposed a reality TV show where teams of pregnant women go on scavenger hunts to restaurants across the country on a quest for meals which do not make them throw up (the footage of this would be dynamite, the feuds inevitable and profound, the public service rendered invaluable). But I kept coming back to the same thing. I tried but could find no way around it. When I was sure, I called her right away. Never mind it was three o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. Why should she?
“We’ll move in together,” I said simply when she picked up the phone and grunted something close enough to hello.
Silence. Then, “Who is this?”
“Come on, Jilly. It’s me. Wake up. We’ll move in together. All three of us. We’ll arrange our schedules so someone’s always home with the baby.” (Problem 4.) “We’ll share expenses.” (Problem 3.) “I’ll cook.” (Force-feeding Jill and Fetus. Problem 1 and maybe even 2 depending on how good the food is.) “I’ve thought about it. It’s the best solution.”
Silence. “Who is this?”
“JILL. Seriously. How is this not a good plan?”
“How does cooking help?”
“You have to feed this baby something besides crackers.”
“I eat more than crackers.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“Any chance we could have this conversation tomorrow?” asked Jill, but I could tell she’d sat up, cleared her eyes and head a little. Finally she said, “Do you think you’d be a good father?”
I smiled. “I’d be a great father.”