Expecting Adam by Martha Beck

Author:Martha Beck [Beck, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-95401-5
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

20

John was one tired hombre. He’d been living on opposite sides of the globe for almost five months, trying to get so much done that it would seem he was actually living full-time in both places. In pictures of him that were taken that year, he looks older than he does today. His circadian rhythm, the rise and fall of temperature and other functions that was supposed to tell his body when to eat, sleep, work, and move, was thoroughly and miserably out of sync.

Since his latest return home, John kept reaching over to touch me, as if to reassure himself that I wasn’t about to disappear. He had never quite been able to shake the sense of wistfulness, the natsukashii impression of lost sweetness, that had come over him as we had gone to repeat my blood tests a month before. This was not like John. His upbringing, so rich in the twin ethics of hard work and positive thinking, hadn’t prepared him to wrap his mind around such delicate and unwelcome emotions. Years later, I would tell Katie that John and I got married so that he could teach me how to be happy and I could teach him how to be sad. She understood this immediately, as children always understand accurate assessments of their parents’ emotional lives. John and I were both struggling, in our separate ways, to contain the strange rising tide of feelings. We would talk about it later; neither one of us mentioned it to the other when it was actually happening. This strikes me now as a terrible waste.

Of course, John had very little time for emotions of any kind. There was work to be done. A lot of work. An infinite amount of work. There is enough work at Harvard to bury a lifetime’s worth of feelings, which is exactly what I think many of the university’s residents are doing there. John got right back on the treadmill, if not eagerly, at least with a sense of familiarity. He was so used to the intense, constant pressure that the very discomfort of his Harvard lifestyle felt perversely comfortable.

Part of the reason John had so much to do was that he was compensating for my fragility and lack of energy. He urged me to do as little as possible and set out to accomplish everything necessary to care for all three of his dependents. Apart from his academic chores, he also shopped and cleaned and scheduled backup support for me during his future trips to Asia. Sibyl and Deirdre had already volunteered their services, and when they wouldn’t be available, Katie and I would be flying to visit various family members who could care for us while John was out of the country. I protested all of this, feeling ashamed to require day care as much as Katie, but my concern for my unborn baby’s health ultimately carried the vote, and I consented to John’s elaborate plans.

Of course, John and I never told anyone connected to Harvard how close we were to cracking up.

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