Tammy understood very well the desire to step out of your life, to resist the current dragging you forward. Or down.
It was safe to say that motherhood was not what she had expected. Not that she had spent a great deal of time thinking about it, even when she was pregnant. Being pregnant felt like a dream. It had all seemed so unbelievable, so absurd: her pumpkin belly, her enormous breasts, the baby moving around in there. She could actually see it moving, pressing against her flesh from the inside, creating humps and ripples across her stomach. Even watching this — the movements of the baby inside her body — even when the contractions started, the whole idea had seemed far-fetched. Like science fiction. A practical joke.
She had spent the first six months of her pregnancy brainwashing herself into believing it was not really happening at all. Her periods had stopped, and everything started tasting like aluminum foil. She started eating only peanut butter on toast and bananas. She drank only cold milk or ginger ale. When her bras stopped fitting, she went to Beamish and bought stretchy ones. Likewise, her jeans. She mentioned none of this to anyone. She did not even allow the words to form inside her own head.
Until one morning, her mother stopped her in the kitchen, her hands heavy on both of Tammy’s shoulders, and she started to cry. Tammy told her to stop blubbering and get off. But the jig was up.
Predictably, the news spread through Preston Mills like proverbial wildfire. It was spread with joy and sanctimony. As though the words were printed on ticker tape — Tammy Johnson is pregnant! — and floats paraded through the town, showering the news over everybody. It serves her right, Tammy supposed was the general feeling. Though Preston Mills seemed to relish the idea of an impregnated Tammy, they did not favour being faced with her real fleshy self. At first, she almost enjoyed the discomfort she caused people on the street, but the novelty soon wore off.
Three boys who had slept with her had pre-emptively denied being the father of the baby. Several boys who had not slept with her had also stepped into the spotlight and made passionate denials. Her boyfriend of the moment, Gary Petty, evaporated in a puff of Player’s Light Navy Cut smoke. Tammy quit her job at the gas station and camped out on the couch. Her mother made casseroles. Trudy, the centre of the universe, acted like the whole situation was a personal insult, a plot designed to make her life more difficult.
And when the baby was born in a flash of terrible blinding pain — brilliant in the seemingly endless tedium of the crushing pain of labour — when they finally handed the baby to Tammy, she felt cold panic spread through her chest. What went through her mind was this: It isn’t mine. This isn’t my baby. She stared at the baby and the baby stared back, and she thought:
This is not mine.
Later, when the baby cried, warm milk would soak the front of Tammy’s shirt, turning cold and sticky within seconds. Cursing, she would storm upstairs to change her shirt while Trudy or Claire warmed a bottle, scooped up the baby, and fed her.
Even though Tammy would stay for almost three more years, she was already never there. They were already getting along just fine without her.