Pregnant Without a Cause

Chapter Eight, Episode 25

This is where the s**t hits the fan, or more like, three fans.

Callie walked into the kitchen, drawn to the stove where the pot of minestrone simmered. The film crew had gone,taking reality with them, and life flowed back into the house. She could see by Edouard's annoyed expression, and her mom's hardness around the eyes, that something was cooking besides soup.

"How's the baby?" Her mother asked, drying her hands on a dishtowel. "You ready for dinner?"

Callie knew this shorthand. Not waiting for an answer to the first question before asking the second. It meant stress. Tension. "He's asleep."

Michelle twisted the dishtowel into a loose rope. "I want you to know something." "Well," replied Callie. "I've got something to say, too."

Edouard dove in before either Callie or her Mom could get started. "She told me the truth. I know it's not your baby. I never believed it anyway."

Callie wondered if Edouard would ever understand that he was such a human stumbling block, at least in her life's path. Actually, his announcement confirmed what she had been thinking. "That's just the first crack in the dam. People are gonna find out. Which leads to what I want to say. If I am going to be called the mother, I am going to be the mother. I want to adopt Booms. Maybe not literally, but I will be responsible. I will feed him and wash him, and change his diapers—all his diapers. And take mom classes at school. Because the mother is the one who takes care of the child, not the one who had him."

Edouard put his hand on Callie's shoulder like some kind of cartoon dad. "I'm afraid it's impossible for you to be the mother. Because I am the father."

"You are not the father!" Michelle and Callie said it together. "Of course I am!" He stomped his foot.

Why, Callie wondered, was this big knucklehead making trouble? "Y'know what? This whole who's-the-father thing is utterly gross to me. I don't want to know what really happened. What matters now is that I have taken the name of mother, so I want to be a real mother."

"No!" Edouard nearly shouted. "Who's the father matters completely!"

"Only if it is you," Callie taunted him. "And it is not. Biologically Mom may be the mother, but I agreed to take the role, and I took it."

***

Michelle bit her tongue. She could believe Callie wanted to be seen as the mother, to feel more like the mother. But her child had no clue what it meant to be a mother. The poor thing was so confused, and Michelle took the blame for that. That was being a mother. She said, "Why did I ever agree to this fantastic... plot—whatever it is."

Callie flung her arms down and hissed. "It was your idea, remember?"

"No, it was not my idea." Though at the moment, Michelle couldn't quite recall how it had come about. "And it's a bad one. It's got to stop."

"It can't stop," said Callie.

Michelle wanted to flick the dishtowel at her. "Oh, yes it can. I'm going to tell Jock. And get kicked off the show."

"What are you going to tell him?" Poor Edouard seemed to have asthma. Things were simply moving too fast for him.

"That I had a baby and I was so fat that no one knew." Michelle felt in no danger of tears—now was the time to be tough. "That's what's playin' at the Roxy."

Callie gave her the now familiar you've-got-PPD look. "What does that mean?" 

"Never mind. Musical comedy from long ago about a woman who couldn't lie to herself anymore."

"But don't I have a say in this?" Edouard clasped his hands together as if praying. 

"No," Michelle growled. "Not a word."

"I've got to be the father. There couldn't be anyone else."

Was he saying no one else would have her? That would almost make her proud that someone had. That would almost make her proud of her moral failing. "There couldn't be?"

"That's right." He gave her his most soulful look. "Because I know you. You wouldn't have."

Michelle staggered a little. It was, in an odd way, maybe the kindest thing anyone had ever said to her.

"No! Stop it!" Callie screeched and covered her ears. "Enough! You've got to quit dealing with the soap opera, and get into the reality of where we are. I lied for you, and now you want to back out on me? No ma'am! No!"

Michelle sat down on the dinette chair closest to her.

"You're going to tell them you are the mother, and I'm not the father?" Edouard sat down next to her. "No matter what you tell anybody, I'm cooked. People are going to assume that I was, one," he held up a finger, and grabbed it with his other hand, "the father, and I tried to hide it by saying my girlfriend's daughter was really the mother. Or two—" Another finger came out, "cheated on by my girlfriend, who then played me for an all-time sucker. Like I said, I know you didn't, but damn it, that's hard to take. That's why I have to be the father. As far as I'm concerned we don't need to discuss it again!"

Michelle couldn't believe how much worse it all sounded when it came out of someone else's mouth. They were right. The lies had gone too far to stop. Yet she knew the lies couldn't hold back the truth forever. Her entire experience as a human being on this planet confirmed that lying and cheating would be punished in the end; that wanting something too much could only lead to tragedy, or at least extreme embarrassment.

Besides, Callie and Edouard were the victims of the lie. She was the perpetrator and she had to make it up to them both. Not to mention Baby Boomer, a toy balloon in this hurricane. She looked at Callie. "So what do you want exactly?"

Callie knelt before her. "I want to keep being the mother, only more so." 

"But you are! You've helped with the—"

"—no, not just big sister stuff. Really taking care. That means more responsibility for me, and less for you to worry about."

Michelle stroked a strand of Callie's silky hair away from her eyes. "Okay. But listen. You can do more with Booms. But being a parent mainly means worrying, and I'm still going to be the worrier in chief."

Edouard stood over them shaking his head. "If you're the mother, Michelle, then I am the father. Even if it costs me being on the show. But I really think you should not rock the boat now."

Michelle felt a little like Dorothy saying goodbye to the scarecrow and the cowardly lion. "Then we'll stick with the status quo until... I don't know. But neither of you needs to worry about who the father is."

Edouard stayed for dinner, of course. It was only soup, but it was very good. They were all dieting now, so soup and water would be the whole meal.

"Here's to Boomer." Edouard raised his water glass. "Whoever he is. The cause of it all."

"No." Michelle corrected. "The result of it all."

"The poor little bugger." Callie laughed, and Michelle found herself joining in, almost helpless to resist. Who was what in this world, after all? Who really decided?

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