The moment we got back from Beth’s OB with the news of the twins, I started running, and I haven’t stopped. I don’t know why I’m running: excitement, fear, uncertainty. I’m running five, seven, sometimes ten miles a day, six days a week. I’m at one hundred and eighty-four pounds, down from my wedding peak of two-fifteen. My wife passed me on the scales this morning at one eighty-five. She has packed on nearly sixty-five pounds during the pregnancy.
I sip my coffee. “Would you stop crying already?”
Sasha is still sleeping. Beth sits at the kitchen table. She’s wearing my robe because her robe doesn’t fit her anymore. Her hair is wound tightly on top of her head beneath a white cotton towel. She’s been crying for about twenty minutes straight.
This is pretty much our standard third-trimester breakfast. This morning in bed, I came at Beth with my 6:00 a.m. erection, assumed the spoons position, and squeezed her milk-sodden circus boobs. She rejected my advances, and then I went into my commensurate emotional shell and ignored her as she tried to explain how her lack of a sex drive had nothing to do with her feelings for me. I went downstairs, put on some coffee, and masturbated to Internet porn, which afforded Beth just enough time to shower, look at herself in the mirror after getting out of the shower, and crank up the self-loathing.
While I’m on the subject of porn, I simply couldn’t imagine being a teenager in the Internet age. Instant gratification with the click of a mouse: holy hell, I would’ve been blind and dead by age sixteen. Barring a cooler older brother or an oblivious father with a hidden stash, porn in the eighties was acquired through a mix of subterfuge and raw tenacity. Even then, it usually amounted to only bad soft-core videos and ten-year-old hand-me-down magazines.
“Fuck you, Hank!”
“Is this still about your weight?”
“I’m heavier than you!”
“It’s just a number.”
“Husbands are supposed to be supportive.”
“I’d like to think I’m doing a pretty good job at that.”
“You’re not supportive. You’re fucking one eighty-four!”
I shake my head in disbelief. I run my hands through my hair. “That’s what’s bothering you? The fact I’m not a goateed, pinheaded lard ass like most of your friends’ husbands? Go ahead, call up your gal pals. Ask them if their husbands make a pass at them every morning and night, even when they weigh a hundred and eighty-five pounds.”
“Having the libido of a sixteen-year-old boy doesn’t make you a good husband.”
“But it doesn’t me make a bad one either.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Maybe not in so many words. What do you want me to do, Beth? Do you want me to apologize for being attracted to you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to apologize for not being my friend.”
“Oh Christ.”
“Wanting me is the easy part for you.”
“I got a thing for my wife,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Guilty as charged.”
“It’s liking me that you struggle with.”
“Well, I’m sure struggling with liking you right now.”
“Stop being so fucking glib.”
I touch her shoulder. “Look, that came out wrong. I’m sorry.”
Beth looks at my hand, then down at the table. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”
I remove my hand from her shoulder. “Not a clue.”
“Then why apologize?”
“Because I rarely know what I’m apologizing for.”
“Fuck you, asshole!”
I stand up from the table, turning my back on her hostility. The kitchen opens up to the family room. I walk to the side table along the far wall of the family room, grab the dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I walk back to the kitchen, open the book, and slam it down in front of my wife.
“Show me,” I say.
“What?”
“Just show me, Beth.”
“I don’t know what you want me to—”
“Maybe I missed a section. Maybe somewhere between gastrointestinal ills, rubella, toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus, fifth disease, group B strep, Lyme disease, measles, UTI, hepatitis, mumps, and chicken pox, I missed the part about abusive wife syndrome.”
Beth is crying again. “Y-you just recited those diseases off the top of your head?”
“Of course I did.” I grab my coat off the coat tree in the hallway leading to the garage door. The coat is an olive double-breasted London Fog trench that used to belong to my father. It’s a little dated, but I’ll wear it forever.
“How did you know all of them?”
“Because I read the goddamn book,” I say, buttoning my coat. “Chapter fifteen lists all the shit that can go wrong with your body during pregnancy.”
“But why did you read it?” Beth says.
I open the door to the garage, turn to my wife. “I read it because you’re my friend, because I like you.”