M A R C H 2 , 2 0 0 8 Rose, Life 3 She is beautiful. I am awed by her perfection. The heady scent of her skin. "Addie," I sigh. "Adelaide," I try again, a faint whisper in the sterile air. "Adelaide Luz." I raise her little head to my nose and inhale, long and needy, ignor ing the sharp pain in my abdomen. I smile as I admire the soft fuzz of her hair.
How I resisted having this little being in my arms! Before the preg nancy and the birth, I would rage about the pressure to have a child-- to Luke, to Mom, to Jill, to whoever would listen. The stranger next to me on the subway, the unsuspecting man on the sidewalk. I was just. So. Angry. But now? The snow falls in wet clumps against the windowpanes of the hos pital room, everything around me shades of gray in dim light. I inch to the left, shift into a better position. The temperature drops and the snow turns papery, thick and dry like paste.
She sleeps. My eyes are hers. "How could I not have wanted you?" I whisper into her tiny, curling ear, a pearly shell. "How could there be a life where you and I never met? If there is such a life, I wouldn''t want to live it." Her eyelids twitch, pale, veined, transparent, her nose and mouth and forehead scrunching. "Did you hear what I said, sweet girl? You should only listen to the second part, about how your mother wouldn''t want a life without you. That''s all you need to know." One A U G U S T 1 5 , 2 0 0 6 Rose, Life 1 Luke is standing on my side of the bed.
He never goes to my side of the bed. In his hand is a bottle of prenatal vitamins. He holds it up. He shakes it, a plastic rattle. The sound is heavy and dull because it is full. This is the problem. "You promised," he says, even and slow. Uhoh.
I am in trouble. "Sometimes I forget to take them," I admit. He shakes the bottle again, a maraca in a minor key. "Sometimes?" The light through the curtains forms a halo around Luke''s upper body, the hand held high with the offending object outlined by the sun and glowing. I am in the doorway of our room, on my way to pull clothes from the drawers and the closet. Mundane things. Underwear. Socks.
A top and a pair of jeans. Like any other morning. I would have folded the clothing across one arm and carried it to the bathroom so I could shower and change. Instead I stop, cross my arms over my chest, the heart inside it mangled with hurt and anger. "Did you count them, Luke?" My question is a cold snap in the humid August air. "So what if I did, Rose? What if I did count them? Can you blame me?" I turn my back on him, go to open the long drawer that contains underwear, bras, slips, camisoles, riffle through my things, disrupting the order of my clothing, everything growing more and more out of control. My heart starts pounding. "You promised me," Luke says.
I grab a pair of my granniest underwear. I want to scream. "Like promises mean anything in this marriage." "That''s not fair." "It''s perfectly fair." "Rose--" "So I didn''t take the pills! I don''t want a baby. I never wanted a baby and I don''t want one now and I won''t want one ever and you knew that before we got engaged! I told you a thousand times! I''ve told you a million times since!" "You said you''d take the vitamins." "I said it to stop you from tormenting me.
" Tears sting my eyes even as the blood inside me pulses with fury. "I said it so we could have a little peace in this apartment." "So you lied." I turn. The underwear falls from my hand as I march my way to the other side of the bed to confront my husband. "You swore you didn''t want a baby." "I changed my mind." "Right.
Sure. No big deal." I am tumbling down a hill, we are tum bling, and I don''t know how to stop us from crashing. "You ''changed your mind,'' but I''m the liar." "You said you''d try." "I said I''d take the vitamins. That''s all I said." "You didn''t take them.
" "I took some." "How many?" "I don''t know. Unlike you, I didn''t count." Luke lowers the bottle, grips it between both hands, palm pressing down on the top, twisting, removing. He peers into the opening. "This bottle is full, Rose." He looks up at me again, head shaking left, right, his disapproval pouring over me. Who is this man before me, this man I love, this man I married? I can barely see a resemblance between this person and the one who used to look at me like I was the only woman in the universe, like I was the meaning of his entire existence.
I loved being that for Luke. I loved being his everything. He has always been my every thing, this man with the soft, thoughtful gaze, with the friendliest, most open of smiles, this man I was certain I would love for the rest of my days on this earth. The words But I love you, Luke are trapped moths banging around inside me, unable to find their way out. Instead of disarming the bomb between us, in one swift motion I explode, swiping the bottle from Luke''s hand, my arm like a club, knocking it hard and high, the huge, oval pills becoming an arc of ugly green Skittles flung across the wood floor, scattering across the white sheets on the bed. This action freezes both of us. Luke''s lips are slightly parted, the sharp, clean edges of his front teeth visible. His eyes follow the trail of pills that have come to repre sent the success or failure of this marriage, tiny buoys I was meant to ingest to keep our marriage afloat.
I''ve spilled them, so now we are sinking. The only sound in the room is our breathing. Luke''s eyes are wide. Betrayed . He thinks I am the one to betray him, that the proof lies in that stupid bottle of vitamins. Why doesn''t he see that he is the one who betrayed me? That by changing his mind about children he''s only shown me that I am not worthy enough on my own? Luke returns to life, walks to the corner of the room where the rolling bottle came to a stop. He bends down and picks it up. He plucks one vitamin from the floor, then another, pinching them be tween his fingers before dropping them back inside.
The pills clatter to the bottom of the bottle. I stand there, watching as Luke bends and straightens, bends and straightens until every last prenatal vitamin is back in its rightful home, even those that went skittering under the bed. Luke has to lift the edge of the comforter to see them, has to lie down on the floor to retrieve them, arm straining. When he''s finished, he looks at me, eyes full of accusation. "Why did I have to marry the one woman in the world who doesn''t want a baby?" I inhale sharply. There. There it is. The thing that Luke''s been thinking forever, finally out in the open.
Not the part about me not wanting a baby--that he''s known since the very beginning. It''s the clear ring of regret in his voice that makes me wince, the way he singles me out as unique and only in the worst of ways. We stare at each other. I wait for an apology that doesn''t come. My heart is pounding, my mind is racing from Luke''s question, piling my own on top of his. Why can''t I be just like every other woman who wants a baby? Why am I not? Why was I made this way? Will this be the summary of my life at its end? Rose Napolitano: Never a mother. Rose Napolitano: She didn''t want a baby. Luke looks down at his feet.
He picks up the bottle cap, closes it with a hard snap of the lid. I reach for it--I reach for him. Two M A R C H 14 , 1998 Rose, Lives 1- 9 I don''t like having my picture taken. "Can you look up from your lap?" My eyes, my head, my chin all refuse this request. I''m the kind of person who runs from a camera, who hides behind whoever is next to me. Who puts up my hand to a lens if one shows up in my face. All the more reason I should not be here right now, having a portrait done in my cap and gown. What was I thinking? "Um, Rose?" I hear footsteps.
A pair of navyblue sneakers, worn at the toe, laces ragged, appear on the floor in front of me. I take a big breath, let it out, and look up. The photographer is youngish, maybe my age, maybe a year or two older. His eyes blink, he bites his lip, his brow gathers. "Sorry," I say, hands fidgeting in my lap, fingers clasping and un clasping. "I must be your worst subject ever." I look away, off to the side, into the dim space beyond this bright, portrait setup where I sit, a gray background scrolled behind me. A row of boxes, the kind you buy if you are moving apartments, is stacked against the wall.
A blue jacket is draped over the top, and a hockey stick lies on the floor along the baseboard. "This was a dumb idea," I go on. "I just thought . I mean, I wanted . but then ." "You wanted?" the photographer asks. I don''t answer, I guess because I don''t really want to talk to this stranger about the inner workings of my heart. Besides, I''m still tak ing in the junk piled everywhere.
This must be the photographer''s house. He called it his "studio," but it looks like he lives here. Or maybe just moved in. "You wanted what?" he presses. There''s something about the sound of his voice--gentle, patient-- that makes me want to cry. This whole situation makes me want to cry. "I shouldn''t be here, I''m not good at this." Now I do start to cry.
"This is so embarrassing, I don''t like getting my picture taken. I''m sorry, I''m really, really sorry." I cry harder, even as my inner fem.