Broken Resolutions

Chapter Five

Rita immediately changes the subject. “How have you been feeling, Emily?” 

“Okay. At this point, I’m just ready to get this over with. I’m tired of being pregnant.”

“It must be hard, carrying around all of that extra weight,” Amber adds.

Emily looks at her in surprise.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Not that you’re fat or anything, just big. I mean, with the baby and all. That must be hard,” she tries to explain. “Carrying the extra weight of the baby. That must be hard.”

Emily isn’t sure whether to be insulted or not. Amber squirms in her seat. Finally, Emily laughs out loud. “It’s hard getting around. Getting around, breathing, going to the bathroom…”

“That’s really more than we all need to know,” Andrew says.

“But aren’t you fascinated by the entire process?” Billy asks. 

“The process of getting fat?” Andrew says with a laugh.

Billy does not acknowledge the comment. He doesn’t even look in Andrew’s direction. His focus is on Emily. “This little human growing inside you. I mean, we all start out as this tiny speck, and in nine short months…”

“Not short if you’re the one carrying the baby,” Hannah interjects.

Billy was undeterred. “In nine months you have this baby. I mean, one second this baby will be inside you, and the next it will be gasping for air. Welcome to the world, little one.”

An awkward silence hangs over the dining room. No one speaks. Eyes meet, and for a moment several of the guests wonder if some sort of punch line might follow, whether he is serious.

None did. He is.

After a few more seconds, Emily answers. “Yeah. Sometimes I think of it that way, that this is a miracle I’m lucky enough to be a part of. I feel blessed.” She looks uncomfortable and quickly turns her attention back to the lasagna.

Hannah looks down at her plate. She remembers those feelings. Those long nights with Craig lying in bed beside her, kissing her swollen belly, placing his hand upon it to feel the baby kick. The memories threaten to flood from her eyes. She swallows hard and reaches for the pepper.

Billy speaks again. “It’s the only time sex is totally pure. Think about it—at every other time you’ve got that survival of the species thing going on. I mean, when it comes down to it, we have sex because we’ve been genetically programmed to, to continue populating. The only time we aren’t genetically programmed to have sex is when a woman is already pregnant. Then, there is no instinctive reason to procreate. Then, it is just for pure sex—sex for sex’s sake. Just a man and a woman having sex for the pleasure of it. No hidden agenda. No primal urging.”

Emily’s eyes meet Billy’s. Neither looks away. Something passes between them that she cannot identify and does not understand.

Craig breaks the moment, directing his question at Billy. “You said it was snowing pretty hard when you came in?” His thoughts are still on Shelia and the carpet guy.

Billy nods.

“Hey! Maybe we’ll all get snowed in together! Remember the blizzard of ’78?” Andrew said. “That was something! Snow as high as the front of our house!”

“I’ll never forget that one. My sophomore year of high school,” Craig says. “Missed two weeks of school. We had to make up for a week of that during that summer.”

Andrew laughs. “Me too, but wasn’t it a great two weeks out of school? A buddy of mine had a snowmobile and the first thing we did, once we dug out of the garage, was make a beer run to the local grocery store. We were only fifteen, but we found some guys outside the store who bought for us. We bought a six-pack and drank it before we got back home. Both of us were out of our minds on a mere three beers each, and neither of our parents even noticed! I don’t know how many trips we made to the store during those two weeks, but every time we managed to score some beer. I don’t know how we got away with that.”