I Don't Have a Happy Place by Kim Korson

Author:Kim Korson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

Lemons & Limes

• • • • • •

I was supposed to be resting. If I didn’t lift anything over ten pounds, avoided exercise, strenuous activity, sex, and air travel for the next twenty-four hours, they assured me nothing would happen.

“But let’s just say I did something,” I said. “Like by accident. What could happen?”

As I began listing potential calamities, Buzz gently shoved me out the door while giving instructions to my doctor. “Don’t feed the bears,” he said. “Please!”

They all shared a big laugh, including the technician. It’s true, they were right—amniocentesis was hilarious.

Buzz was itching to get home. Not to make sure I was in the proper state of repose, but to open the small kraft paper envelope he held in his hand.

“You get them to write down the sex of the baby and put the results in an envelope. Then you can open it at home and not in the hospital, so it’s not all clinical and stuff. It’s genius!” was how he sold it to me. “Where are the envelopes?”

He was hopped up about this latest harebrained scheme, which meant he’d suggest it to every pregnant lady waddling through town, and he’d be so persuasive that I guarantee they’d all follow suit. Buzz is a snow-to-the-Eskimos type; sometimes his enthusiasm is infectious, like pox.

I spent the days leading up to the amnio researching potentially disastrous outcomes for lengthy needles jabbed into amniotic sac while he busied himself looking for office supplies. But, as spooked as I was about the procedure, I was even more anxious about showing up with the wrong kind of envelope for the occasion. I have absolutely no time for plain white security envelopes or a chewed-up pen from the bank. Plus, I wanted my ob-gyn to think I had good taste in stationery.

With the procedure now behind me, and the husband off to work, it was time to get on with the prescribed twenty-four hours of idleness. I was now free to indulge in my favorite pastime: watching reruns of The Cosby Show. The fetus (aka the Junior Mint) was resting comfortably, blanketed in beans and rice and cheese and those cheap, fat corn-syrup jelly beans from CVS (two packs for a buck), but I was in distress. I’m sure Rudy’s fish, Lamont, was an excellent pet, but his funeral was not the sole reason for my aggravation. Finding an agreeable position was challenging and, according to that damn oversized book you were supposed to read, any way I chose to arrange myself would do irreparable damage to the five-month-old fetus, which now had genitals and was the size of a banana. After much flailing, I settled on my back, which the oversized book frowned upon, so I smoothed the throw blanket and kicked the book onto the floor. That’s when I heard it.

It wasn’t exactly a crash. Nor would I classify it as a boom or a slam or a smash or a thump. I think it was somewhere between a clatter and a clink, but a very menacing clatter and clink.

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