Margot is talking about babies again. Or rather, she is talking about the way Geoffrey looked at the baby that bobbed past them earlier in IGA Foods in a red chest harness, drooling onto its mother’s navy windbreaker while Margot and Geoffrey picked through hothouse tomatoes searching for ones without spots.
“What was that all about?” She brings the subject up when they are back home in their kitchen, where she is whisking melted chocolate for soufflé. Geoffrey unpacks the groceries from white plastic bags. He places the lemongrass stalks and parsley bundles in the vegetable crisper, the low sodium soy sauce in the refrigerator’s side door, the whole-grain deli bagels in the wicker breadbasket, the unbleached toilet paper on the counter beside the cutting board where Margot has been mincing garlic and pitting black olives for tapenade.
“What do you mean?” He hands Margot a tasting spoon from the top drawer. Christ, he thinks, we’re into this again.
“The baby. Why did you look at the baby that way?” She whips the chocolate into a furious froth, her shoulder blades poking against the fabric of her blouse like fists.
“Chrissake.” He winds a plastic bag around his fingers and scowls. “What’s with you and babies lately?” He pulls tightly on the plastic; his fingers turn red from the pressure.
“The way you looked at that baby. As though it were—I don’t know. Some sort of monster.” She narrows her eyes at the bubbling mixture on the stove. Her dark hair is a stain against the white wall.
“I hardly looked at the kid.” Geoffrey crumples the plastic bag into a ball and takes a hook shot at the trash can. The ball lands on an empty skim milk carton and a greasy triangle of toast. It annoys him to find parcels of fresh trash waiting for him at the front door when he comes home at night, compelling him to slip his shoes back on and trudge to the back gate, squinting under the glare from the automatic porch light.
She frowns and wraps a tea cloth around the handle of the steaming pot. “For God’s sake, Geoffrey.” She pushes the toilet paper to the side with her elbow and plunks the pot on the cutting board’s surface. “Can you at least get me a hot plate or do I need to do everything around here?”
“Anyway,” he grabs the hot plate from its usual space beside a heavy ceramic pot jammed full of take-out chopsticks in paper sleeves. “It’s not as if you like children, either.” He stands in the arch between the kitchen and hallway, holding the package of toilet paper in his hands.
“I don’t dislike children.” Margot slams a raw egg against the edge of a mixing bowl. “Where did you get the idea I dislike children?”
“No? You make fun of all our friends who have them.”
She frowns as she fishes slivers of eggshell from the bowl. “That’s not true.”
“You’re always saying how your friends are fat and boring. Or how much you hate the baby talk.”
“All that disgusting information about infected nipples and leaking breasts? Stitches?” Margot tips the yolks into the melted chocolate, beating them vigorously so they will not congeal. “It’s poor manners is all.”
Geoffrey sticks his finger in the chocolate mixture and brings it to his tongue.
She slaps his hand. “I’m making this for tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight, again?”
“Sandra and Kyle are coming for drinks and dessert. Remember?” She pushes the empty egg carton into the trash. “Where’s the beater?”
“Right here.” He feels among the fondue pots and electric rice cooker in the top shelf. “Are they bringing the kid?”
She frowns and sprinkles a small amount of salt into the egg whites. “They’re bringing him, yes.”
He clutches the front of his shirt and staggers backward, hitting the counter’s lip. “God no—” he moans dramatically. “Not a child.” He grinds against the counter, his fingers claw at his throat. “What if I look at it the wrong way?”
“Christ, Geoffrey. Grow up.” She pushes him aside to reach for the mixing blades.
“Do you know how much it costs to raise a kid, in today’s dollars?”
“How would I know?” Margot plugs the beater into the outlet.
Geoffrey shouts over the whirring of the blades, “One-hundred-and-sixty-thousand dollars. That’s the price of having a kid.”
“Where did you learn that? Does that include college?”
“The Globe and Mail. No college.”
“That doesn’t seem so high.”
“High enough.”
“It’s under ten thousand a year.”
“For one child. Imagine two or three.”
“I suppose.” Margot turns off the beater—“Done.”
“That’s close to a thousand dollars a month. Imagine how many trips that could buy each year. One cheapo Mexican vacation every eight weeks. Maui for an entire month. A shopping trip to Hong Kong for hand-tailored shirts, for Chrissake! As many shirts as you wanted.”
“France.” She nods her head.
“Cheese raclette. Driving through the French countryside. How could you go wrong?”
She whisks sugar into the soft white peaks and shrugs. “Some people would rather spend their money on children, I suppose.”
“If you don’t want to have a life for the next eighteen years.” He reaches for a bagel. “It’s not just the money. It’s the lack of sleep. Not doing the things you want to, when you want to. Having to eat dinner at exactly the same time every night.” He shudders. “And who says you’ll get decent kids? What about those parents who do everything right—prepare three square meals, limit the television watching, drive road-tested vehicles—and still get shafted?”
“I don’t know—” She folds the whites into the chocolate, the tendons in her forearm tensing from the weight of the bowl. “It might be nice when you’re older, to have family of your own.” The heat of the kitchen tires her, the conversation tires her, lately everything tires her.
He tears a piece of bagel with his teeth. “That’s no reason to have kids. You have kids because you want to have kids. Not so you’ll have someone to look after you when you’re old.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She cranks the oven’s dial. “I just think it might be nice, to be with people who are your own.”
“You can be with perfectly nice people without having to create them.”
“But there’s a connection. Something that can’t be broken.”
“Unless your kid dies from leukemia. Or runs away from home. Or ends up in jail for selling drugs. What then?”
“You go on, of course.” She yanks the oven door open. “Just like before.”
“That’s my point.” Three round sesame seeds quiver on Geoffrey’s bottom lip. “If you can be just as happy after as you were before, then why bother in the first place? Why take the chance knowing things could actually get worse?”
“Look—” She slides the soufflé carefully through the oven door. “What are we going to solve by talking about this, anyway?”
“You brought it up.” He grinds a piece of bagel against his teeth and forces himself to swallow the piece, which has become a nauseating ball of sweet wet dough that plugs the back of his throat.
“I most definitely did not.”
He snorts. “Then why all the baby talk?” He tosses the bagel in the trash.
“I mentioned the baby in the supermarket. That’s it.”
“It’s never ‘just it’ with you.”
She scrubs the chocolate from the pot. “I’m just saying that maybe we’re making a mistake. One we’ll regret later.”
“So it’s not enough? Things as they are now?”
“It’s not that it isn’t enough. Just that there might be more. Everyone I know who’s ever had children, even by accident, says so.”
She places the pot in the lowest cupboard, sets the lid firmly in place. He shoves the tea cloth through the space between the oven door and the door handle. “So you want kids.”
“Watch the soufflé.” She glares at the oven door. “I don’t even know if we’d last, with kids.” She rinses the whisk. “It would be all my responsibility, no matter what. Where would we be then? Me resenting you for not sharing the responsibility. You resenting me for not giving you as much attention. What a fabulously mature combination.” She removes the sink plug. “I’d just like to feel we’re considering all the angles. With you, I can’t even consider the other side of the coin.”
He gives a short laugh. “Shitty diapers. Saggy tits. Lack of adult conversation. Not to mention the possibility of a mongoloid. That’s the other side of the coin.”
“Down’s syndrome. They’re called Down’s syndrome, Geoffrey.”
“So sorry—Down’s syndrome.”
“I’m not even 40 for Chrissake.”
“Close enough.”
“You can have tests. So you know what you’re getting.”
“There’s something to look forward to.”
“So that’s that. No second thoughts?”
He scoffs—“You want to flip for it?” He pulls a dime from his pocket. “Would that make you happy?”
She wraps her arms tightly around her waist. “You can be such an asshole.”
“No, really. You wanted both sides of the coin. Heads, yes baby. Tails, no baby. I’m serious.”
“Don’t be like this.”
“We can’t keep going back and forth on this issue. We need to make a decision once and for all. I’m tired of having this conversation.”
“Shitty diappers. Saggy tits. Lack of adult conversation. Not to mention the possibility of a mongoloid.”
“What if I were pregnant right now? What would you do then?” She rocks herself in a back-and-forward motion against the kitchen counter.
“What would my opinion matter? I’m the one lacking in responsibility, remember? Why do you care what I think?”
She looks toward the oven and shakes her head. The soufflé threatens to spill over the edges of its round dish.
“Why? Are you pregnant?” He cocks his head. “You’re not going to speak to me now? You don’t like what I have to say so you’re giving me the silent treatment?”
“What’s to talk about?” She moves toward the pantry door.
“How about—we already made this decision. How about—it’s getting tiresome.”
“Okay.” She takes the oven mitts from their plastic hook and shrugs. “Fine.”
“Okay. Sure it’s okay. Everything’s just peachy.”
“Okay. That’s what you want to hear so, okay.”
He places an arm on her shoulder. “C’mon, let’s not fight.”
“Leave me alone.” She shrugs him away. “I’ve got to get this out before it’s too late.”
He turns away, hurt.
“I want a choice, Geoffrey. At least the possibility of a choice.” She glares at him. “That’s all.”
“Fine.” His voice is a dull thud. “Fine. Whatever you want.” He tosses the coin in the air. It lands heads side up, making a flat sound against the black-and-white linoleum. Her bare feet look thin and graceful next to his feet in their slouched athletic socks. Geoffrey glowers at her, his hands shoved into his khaki pockets. “Happy now?”
She takes the oven mitts off and squats to pick up the coin, shivering in the damp kitchen and hugging the tops of her knees. The dime is cold and thin in her fist. She stares at him for a long moment, unblinking. The steam from the oven causes her face to perspire. She remembers the soufflé and pulls the mitts back on. She places the soufflé on the stovetop, taking care not to bump the dish. Its steam rises like warm breath. Margot looks at the clock above the oven and sighs. Geoffrey looks at the clock and turns toward the hallway, weary with the expectation of unwanted guests. She stands over her creation, her chin hovering for a long moment above its surface. She presses her hands against the rising curve of her abdomen and leans forward. Its delicate swollen centre is fragile and warm.
“Tails, No Baby” is the winner of Alberta Views’ 2008 fiction contest. Marika Deliyannides lives in Calgary.
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