Weezy rolls to a stop beneath the crepe myrtle just outside of my apartment. She drives just like my mother, with her body hunched over the steering wheel, her elbows bent like wings.
Weezy insisted I accompany her to a prenatal checkup. She said I needed to get out of the house, to do something other than work or visit Laudie.
I’ve learned that as long as I’m too busy to think, I don’t feel absolutely terrible about taking my grandmother to the ballet. My shirts now hang in color-coordinated sections. The mantel cherubs shine after a Q-tip-crazed scrubbing session. All questionable condiments lurking in the recesses of my fridge now lie discarded in the bottom of my trash can. So when Weezy phoned to tell me she was picking me up, whether I liked it or not, I told her I’d be ready in five.
Slow and steady, Weezy eases on the gas. She juts out her chin, peering over the dashboard, methodically searching for moving objects, left to right, like reading a book. I twist around to say hi to Francie. She gives me a cheeky smile and returns to eating Cheerios, one by one. Just as we turn the corner, my eye catches a strangely familiar silhouette. Trip?
If he were in town, he surely would have called. At least as a friend. I hope we’re still friends. What are we? Maybe we should have had our conversation sooner. As I stare into the side-view mirror, he slips from the frame. I unbuckle to swivel completely—my knees on the seat, hands on the headrest—and catch sight of his profile as he disappears behind a house on the corner. Definitely Trip.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” The radio plays another Michael Jackson song. I change the station.
“Aw. Why’d you do that?”
I’ve enjoyed MJ’s songs but never considered myself a fan. Weezy, on the other hand, had a poster of him in her bedroom. “I’m sorry. I’ve hit my limit.” Yesterday was August 29, Michael Jackson’s birthday. A production assistant played Thriller on his phone during commercial breaks. Jasmine wanted to close out the last news broadcast of the day by waving a sequined glove. I said no, absolutely not. Didn’t she see the documentary?
Weezy checks her blind spot and pulls off down a side road. We roll past one anonymous development after another. Finally her Volvo bumbles into a gravel parking lot. She taps on her window, indicating a small brick building squatting beneath some pines. “It’s right there. Doesn’t it look much more user-friendly than a hospital?”
I didn’t have any expectations as to what a birthing center is supposed to look like, so I guess it does seem, at the least, less intimidating than a hospital. Just one story and modest in size, it was probably someone’s ranch home in a former incarnation. Baby-blue shutters frame the windows. The front door is pink. Lavender vincas, probably tended by one of the midwives, grow along the walkway.
With Francie on my hip, I pull open the office door for Weezy. A receptionist doing Sudoku glances up. “Hey, Louisa. Have a seat. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
The waiting room feels homey, but almost too homey, as though I’m in someone’s living room. Amateur paintings of mermaids and fairies hang above the mismatched Goodwill furniture. Tendrils of potted philodendron twine around the window toward the exit sign. Weezy sinks onto the sofa, tossing a pillow at me to make room for her growing body.
I catch it. The hand-embroidered pillow simply reads, “VAGINA.” Ha! Would I dare to have that pillow on my couch, with that one fun and funny word? Why is “vagina” such a loaded word, anyway? Maybe because it’s powerful. Maybe I need this word more in my life, but how? Vagina. Vagina!
A woman in dreadlocks appears to escort us to an exam room. Paisley curtains soften the casement windows. A matching duvet covers a daybed. Weezy shimmies onto the table and lifts her shirt up to her bra line. She still has a couple of months to go but is already more visibly pregnant than she ever was with Francie. The stretch marks from the first pregnancy have faded to faint streaks the silvery color of dolphins. A new patch of strawberry lines radiates like a sun star around her belly button. “He’s been moving a lot lately. Get Francie to feel him.”
I press Francie’s hand against Weezy’s stomach. Gadunk. We feel the thump. Francie looks up at me, and we exchange smiles. “Wow, Weez. That’s crazy.”
“You never felt Francie kick?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I never did.” Two years ago, when Francie was in the womb, the very idea of children made me feel trapped. I imagined myself with Trip, in the Upstate, spending my days picking Legos off the floor and talking to mommies about poopy diapers and daytime TV. Women who had kids, I thought, had surrendered their youth and their freedom. When they said goodbye to the pill or to pulling out, did they willingly say goodbye to wild nights, spontaneity, and all the possibilities that come with a life unencumbered?
Weezy’s son will be born literally attached to her. Sure, Ashley will cut the umbilical cord, but then her baby will drink from her breast. Weezy will carry him, bathe him, clothe him, soothe him. She’ll go back to work part time, eventually, but for many years her life will be defined by a tight orbit around her children.
I have chosen to live unfettered, at least for now. I do what I want, when I want, and I’m so grateful for my freedom I attempt a moonwalk across the floor of the examination room. In the words of Michael Jackson, “Hee hee!”