Babyland

Author:Holly Chamberlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2012-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

48

The Premarital Bed

Within minutes of our getting to the loft, Ross was stretched out in bed, sleeping deeply. But two hours later I was still wide awake and resenting him for the ease with which he could tune out the world and its woes.

I should have gone home, I thought grumpily, readjusting the covers for the millionth time. I would have been able to sleep in my own bed. My old, familiar, discount furniture store bed. Not the insanely expensive designer bed that Ross had picked out for its superior ergonomic qualities.

Why am I here? I wondered. It isn’t as if Ross and I are going to have sex. No, I’m too fat and grotesque for that. I’m too precious for that. I’m too much of a mommy.

I turned on my side, hoping a change of scenery would lead to a change in mental obsession. It didn’t.

I wasn’t sorry I’d called Michaela a bitch. Michaela deserved to be called a lot worse. And after I’d opened up to my friends about Ross’s lack of interest in sex! Oh, Michaela must have loved hearing that, I thought, fuming. What’s she after? Ross’s sperm? His money? His hand in marriage?

I looked over at my sleeping fiancé. My sleeping, oblivious fiancé. And then it came to me, just like that, why I was so angry with Ross. Something about his response to Michaela’s attempted pickup was all wrong.

Was Ross really bothered by Michaela’s flirtation or by the fact that I was in the vicinity of her sexual advance? The mother of his child. The vessel in which his precious seed had been deposited. The receptacle in which the fruit of his loins had taken up residence. If the mother of his child hadn’t been in the same room, would Ross have gone off with Michaela Newman for a little on-the-side action?

Of course he would have. Of course he wouldn’t have. It didn’t make a difference. Because I didn’t figure in the equation at all. Not really. It was all about Ross’s baby, and only as the carrier of his baby did I count.

I took a deep breath and wished I knew some calming yoga techniques. Maybe, I thought, I am being oversensitive, a classic trait of the Hormonal Woman. Maybe to preserve my nerves I should stay away from parties and other large groups until after the baby is born.

I glanced at the bedside digital clock. Two-thirty a.m. I knew I should try to get some sleep. But the truth was I was afraid to close my eyes. The dreams would come that night, I just knew it. Choking, blindness, and violence.

Was there any way to avoid them?

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