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Show Motherlunge a novel 229 "Any problems controlling your temper?" he asked smoothly. His Adam's apple moved up and down inside his tanned neck like something you should reach in and rip out. I knew what he suspected. He suspected I couldn't get pregnant because, hormonally speaking, I was too much a man, not woman enough. The story of my life, I thought-to be excessive and insufficient at the same time. I hated that doctor and I was ashamed. I declined his offer of further testing. Thus I didn't become pregnant for my birthday that year, or for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Spring arrived with its usual grotesque displays-fat tulips, Frisbee games-and unlike the rest of the natural world, I did not manage to bring forth new life. "I'd like to run some tests," the endocrinologist once again affirmed. "Let's go to New York for the weekend," Eli asked at breakfast. "You should," said Cassandra, eagerly, over toast. I shrugged. I had been so tired lately. I was twenty-six, almost twenty-seven, each minute older than I had ever been before, and feeling it. The problem was, I wasn't sleeping well. In the early mornings, I would listen to Eli smack his lips in his sleep; Eli was what his dentist called a tongue thruster. All that summer I would lie awake next to him (Eli, not the dentist), sweating, imagining the wrong hormones streaming through my system, listening to his mouth. From time to time I'd give him an elbow jab to get him to turn over, facing away from me. And when the anemic light of early morning outlined the curtains, I would finally sit up, locatethe floor with my feet, and head for the kitchen to start coffee. |
