March - Like Lions 1 страница

"We don't make mistakes. We just have happy little accidents."
Bob Ross, Painter

Chapter One

We needed to have a big dinner. Bigger than big; we needed to host a feast in order to tell everyone the news. Although most people, like Gerard and Vivian, already knew about Jasmine, they did not know what our final decision was. Even we weren't exactly sure what we had decided in terms of details and specifics. All we knew is that when we imagined our future now, doing just as Vivian had asked, we knew what option we were imagining: the one with a baby. And that, in my mind, required a feast.

My knees still shook when I thought about it and I still had panic attacks of realization where it would hit me out of nowhere. Baby. We were going to have a baby. She was pregnant. I found myself imagining the night when we conceived and no longer fearing those impeding moments. No longer wishing that we had just stayed on our separate beds, and that I had taken a different condom or made sure it was properly on again and again. It had happened and I was finally okay with it. I knew that we could still change our minds. I could back out and we could try to find a different way to resolve the issue. But when my knees were shaking and my chest was tight, a new scenario wasn't repeating itself in my mind. When Jasmine caught my eyes a few times and asked if I was really sure, I always answered yes. I wanted to go the way I was going. In those moments of brief anxiety, I didn't imagine another alternative. Instead, I was imagining her telling me about the pregnancy again, and feeling my face flush. I had acted out of anger and I felt like a jerk. It should have occurred to me that she was just as scared.

When we had fallen asleep together in her bed, we were still in our clothing, and I had dreamed about jazz. We were back in the club, only instead of it being as dark as it was when we were there, there was color all around. The paintings on the doors, of Dizzy and Billie, were fully animated and had begun to sing with the music at one point. Jasmine was there, in her white dress, and she sat at the same table as before. She was the only detail that was the same in the dream, except that I knew she was pregnant this time. The white top that she wore seemed to radiate with light that filled the place. The men at the front, who were playing instruments like saxophone or clarinet, reflected her light back. When they began to play, color came out of their horns. I could see the musical notes wafting across the room and appearing to dance all around us. The smell began then, as well, and Jasmine turned to me in the dream and began to talk.

It was then that I woke up and realized the smell had been toast, and she was asking me if I was hungry in real life.

"I'm fine," I told her. I shook my head and ran my hand through my hair to try and wake myself up. "I had a dream."

"Really?" she asked. She had walked back into the kitchen and I followed.

"I think it was the same type of one you told me about awhile ago. The synesa...?"

"Synaesthesia! Right. I remember that," she said, not hiding her smile. "Isn't it cool?"

I nodded. I told her it had been like an enactment of the jazz club assignment and I began to unfold my dream to her over the toast. It was after we had finished, and our hands met in the centre of the table, that she first asked me if I was sure.

"You don't have to, Frank. I want to. But you don't have to," she said aloud, and bit her lip afterwards. It was as if the weight of the situation had finally resonated. She knew what she was doing and because of that, she could finally see and imagine the hold that this placed on me. I swallowed hard and it took me a few moments, but I nodded. No, I wanted this too. I couldn't articulate how or why to her, but something had a hold over me and I didn't want to let it go.

But when she kept asking, even after we had moved the conversation onto something else, I had to stop and put my hands on her face. We stared at one another for a long time, practically not blinking at all.

I laughed, albeit a small burst, because I needed to break the tension. "The morning after, huh? Always the hardest."

She nodded, quiet for a few long moments before going on. "I'm still fairly set, though. I know what I'm doing. It's scary to realize that, but I know now. I can do what I want. I've always been able to do what I want. But..." She looked down. "You can do what you want, too."

I tilted her head up to me, not waiting a second, and said with the strongest voice I could gather. "Jasmine. I would never lie to you."

I took my hands away from her face, making our entire scene less tense. The silence was still there, though, and I needed to fill it. "Look, I'm sorry about before. About making you feel uncomfortable with this. But we're okay, now, right? We'll get through this."

She nodded. She took my hand, mumbled an apology too, and then began to do dishes. She had always felt better doing something rather than passively wallowing in the things she couldn't change, or doubting what she had already decided. I knew this was as good as I was going to get from her. It would take a while, but we would figure things out. The past seemed so futile and pointless right then, especially when we had this huge future looming before us. I got up and joined her at the sink and we began to work side by side. The anxiety and tension now replaced, we began to make to make our plans for the announcing dinner.

After work for her and Vivian, we would all get together and tell the people around us who we loved the most our plans to keep the baby. She began to smile as I told her that I would cook the dinner. I began to get extravagant with our plans for cooking, and then it spilled over into other domesticity. I talked about how Vivian and Gerard would help us with this and we would all be happy, a perfect little family.

"Don't go too crazy now, Frank," she teased me. But we kissed and hugged for awhile, enjoying the fantasy while there was little to dispute it, and then I left, to tell others about the invitation and to prepare for the next day.

Even though I was determined to go forward with this new life we had both chosen, I ended up continuing my replay of the last few hours. There was still something there I could not access or articulate. So I lingered on the feeling of Jasmine in my arms, marvelling at how different she felt. Her skin was softer, especially around her neck where her necklace usually was. Her hair smelled of her new shampoo, like cloves and cinnamon. Every single part of her was beautiful; even the way she breathed when I held my hand on her stomach was somehow fascinating and wonderful to me. I stretched my memory back between us and our entire legacy and I couldn't help noticing the small things about her that made her Jasmine. I began to see certain nuances of her behavior: the way she curled her hair behind her ears when she was nervous, how she rubbed her index and middle finger together if she was angry and if she thought something was really funny, she would bite her lip. Not all of this marveling at her was to do with her pregnancy, however. I thought of the times we had shared together in undergrad, and I felt this wash of emotion come over me. I had known Jasmine as long as I had known Gerard, but she hadn't disappeared for seven years. We had always been together and I had the memories to prove it. There were midnight study sessions in our first year, the black coffee conversations at the cafe, setting up feminist art displays, and skipping class during a snow storm. Winter was our season. As I walked home and noticed the thaw happening around me, I realized that winter was almost over. But we were here to stay: we were planning a feast, and then, after that, a life that we could jumble and create in small moments like the ones I was remembering then.

Gerard came upstairs to help me a few times during the day when I set out on my great task of figuring out vegan cooking and vegan baking enough to feed all five of us. Gerard had been the errand person for most of the day, going out to get this ingredient and that ingredient that I kept forgetting about when it came to baking. White sugar was off-limits because of the bleaching process; so I sent him out to find organic cane sugar instead. Eggs were also a no go, obviously, but there were many options to replace them with. I sent him after ground flax, but when that yielded nothing, and there were no ripe bananas anywhere, we settled on applesauce as the binder. It was all immensely confusing at first, but I was so determined to get this right and I wanted to make this night special. I didn't feel too bad about forgetting small details like this and having to send Gerard out again, because he forgot stuff half the time as well. He came back with mayonnaise at one point, and I had no idea why and it seemed like neither did he. We learned to laugh about it, and after I had gotten most of the main course and appetizers out of the way, I decided we would embark on the shopping trip together. I needed saffron for the scones, in addition to other things, and since I didn't even know what that was, both of us to track it was a good plan. In spite of our list and utter determination, it was the one ingredient that kept eluding us this entire time. We went to two grocery stores, then a bulk place before we found it. It was nice, trudging through the slippery snow with someone else. Anytime it looked like either one of us were going to fall, the other would reach out and catch them. After our last purchase, we meandered our way back home and decided that no feast was complete without a loaf of French bread as well.

Gerard was eager to help with everything, even with the multiple trips, though I kind of shooed him away from the actual cooking part. He sat at the table a lot of the time, eating one of the loaves of French bread with some cheese and we kept up a small dialogue. I kept asking him about him and his projects, because I wanted to say nothing about mine until dinner that night. Vivian had tried to get answers out of me, but though I was firm, she already knew. Why else would we want to have a dinner to talk to everyone if we weren't planning on keeping the kid? I suppose we could celebrate the fact that, hey, with no baby it meant our lives were free for the rest of time! - but that didn't seem likely. Vivian already knew that just because you had a kid didn't mean you gave up your freedom. And she could see that I was just starting to comprehend that.

Of course, especially in the times that I was alone with the cooking, not reading a recipe, and Gerard had gone on an errand, I was overwhelmed. It was inevitable. At that moment, I was enjoying the idea of having a baby, but soon the material reality would set in and I could feel my chest restrict. I was twenty-five years old, I kept telling myself. That wasn't old at all. I was barely a quarter of the way through my life. My dad was older than I was when he had me and my mom probably was too. Not by much, but even she - someone who, for the most part, had dedicated her life to her husband and her duty as a mother - had been older than me when she first had a child. She had given up the rest of her life, while having longer to live that life. Some people my age were still in school, for fuck's sake. I didn't even have a good job, at least, not yet. Jasmine did, but you couldn't raise a kid with one person's income, especially if she would have to take time off. So yes, in spite of my excitement and growing pride, I was having these moments of utter defeat. I would need to sit down on the chair and catch my breath before going back to work.

A few more times, I considered running and I wondered what would happen if Jasmine aborted. It was a reality and another option that I did keep in mind. I knew it was possible and I did think about it a lot. In spite of my happiness, I knew the repercussions of having a kid were hard. I wanted to be as much a realist as I could be. But each time I thought about it, it felt dull and numb. Sure, I wasn't a ball of anxiety when the kid was no longer in the picture, but then what? Having this minor scare, even if it were to go away in the next week or so and everything was back to normal (whatever normal really was for all of us), I had learned a lot from this whole event. Once I let myself think about the reality of having kids, I began to like it. I began to want to see them in my future, but I also wondered why, of all times, that this had to happen now. Maybe in five or ten years, I would not have been this scared. I considered waiting those years; just because she and I got rid of the kid now didn't mean that I would never have kids again... But it did mean that I may not have them with Jasmine, or that she may not be into the idea in that many years. I began to realize the other half of the truth behind this entire event, the thing I could not articulate before. It wasn't just that I wanted to have kids and wanted them now, but I wanted those kids to be with her. She was the only person I could see myself doing this with, aside from Gerard.

I cooked. I cooked and I baked, and tried keep my mind on other things. But even this domestic duty brought the reality of children back into my mind; the reality of making things for other people and then have nothing to hold after the fact. I was getting used to doing tasks, no matter how creative, and having nothing to remember them by but myself. Being around people and having relationships with them often left no mark or residue except this small space in a mind; there was nothing tangible, like art, from human relationships. I had grown to like that with the four people I was making dinner for in the past few months, and that gave me hope that I could handle the immaterial reality of parenting in addition to the material burden. I didn't know, and I knew Jasmine was just as clueless. But we had met one another at the same point: we wanted to see if we could. We were here now and we wanted to try, and that I knew was the hardest part. She and I had been so evasive and elusive towards one another, constantly saying something, but then missing the other's point. We were finally on the same page now; we were even having the same dreams. I felt better and continued to roll out dough.

For dessert, I was making black currant stones with saffron. It sounded completely strange, especially being vegan, but as soon as all the ingredients were together and I had laid it out in front of me, it looked fantastic. I popped them in the oven after it was preheated and as waited for them to cook, went onto my next task. For dinner, I wanted to make a stir-fry similar to the one that Jasmine had made me the night we had had dinner together, but I had no idea what I needed for a Pad Thai. I bluffed my way through that one, adding soy sauce with some chili pepper and limes with a bit of sugar overtop lots of veggies, simmered before with garlic and onions. There was a presoaked mix of wild and brown rice that I added some of the saffron to that I got for the scones, and it made the entire house smell incredible. Gerard came upstairs once the scent had reached the art room and it was just in time. He began to help set the table and cut up the rest of the French bread and put it out in the center of the table. He had cheese and butter out for himself, but other than those two side elements, everything else in front of us was vegan. And it really hadn't been that difficult.

Vivian came home the second after the table had been set and made oohing and ahhing noises as she walked into the kitchen. I had just taken the scones out of the oven and was wearing oven mitts with an apron and she nearly did a double-take.

"This must be a very special occasion, indeed," she quipped and gave me a coy smile. She set her briefcase down and then walked over to smell the scones. She scrunched up her face, trying to pinpoint the distinct scent that radiated through the kitchen, and when I told her it was saffron, she was even more impressed.

"All of this is vegan, too?" she questioned, and I nodded. She considered this and then asked, "Is she staying vegan while pregnant?"

Well, I thought, taken aback. Vivian had definitely put it together. I didn't quite know how to respond. "I uh, think so. You would have to ask her, but it seems likely."

She nodded, and wrinkled her nose a bit. Disapproving? I wasn't sure at all and it seemed out of character for Vivian. "Did you notice how much weight she lost when first went vegan?"

Again, I didn't know how to respond and stammered through a response. "I guess, yeah, but that was stress with her job. You know how she is when she's stressed. Then she was sick with pregnancy signs. I uh..."

Thankfully, Gerard stepped in. "I've lost weight too, Viv. I guess you could blame that on all the croissants I ate in Paris."

Vivian turned towards Gerard and though she rolled her eyes, he seemed to make his point clear. She shrugged her shoulder and dropped the issue. "This looks great, guys. I can't wait to dig in."

While we waited for the others to arrive, we all had coffee and Vivian updated us with Gerard's financial standings. I could see Vivian's gaze creep over to me at some points during her dialogue, but she never directed anything specifically at me. I wondered if she was leaving the financial lecture for dinner. As much as I loved her, she was hard to tolerate sometimes. She was so practical that it oozed out of her being, and all I wanted to do was focus on celebration. I wasn't afraid of the future. For the first time in a while, I liked the path that I had laid out in front of me. I was like a child who was finally no longer afraid of the dark and could turn that nightlight off. Why did Vivian have to regale me with stories about monsters that still hid there?

Cassandra came home next and she seemed unsure of what to make of the dinner. I realized then that no one had told her, even about the first initial news of the pregnancy. I began to feel more in control of the situation, and a lot happier that at least someone would be surprised. I wasn't sure if Cassandra would exactly be thrilled, but she would sure be shocked. When she saw me, her icy blue eyes gave me a death glare and my upper hand in the conversation went away. I had totally forgotten that I had by-passed my way through her, at exactly the moment when she needed me the most. She had brought Noelle over, the girl she had been sleeping with, and she wanted me to meet her. And I had let her down. I knew that Cassandra would never admit this out loud; it would mean conceding defeat and being wrong that she could trust me to care. But her glare was enough to make me feel the weight of teenage burden on my chest.

Cassandra was polite to everyone, but eventually excused herself to go and play piano until dinner. Jasmine wouldn't show up for another fifteen minutes and we were left with the looming notes of Wagner in the background. She was finally mastering Tristan and Isolde, and no longer trusted my authority on the jazz that I had recommended.

When I heard Jasmine's knock I ran to the door. I took her coat and gave her a hug. Tristan and Isolde was approaching the climax, just as he was about to die, when Cassandra stopped. A loud laugh from Vivian pealed its way through the house, mixing with the smell of saffron and garlic with onions. Jasmine kissed me quickly and told me it smelled wonderful and that she was really hungry.

And then, the feast could begin.

After serving up all the food and getting ourselves sequestered at the table, the real talking began. Jasmine sat at the head of the table, which made her feel awkward, but it was the only way it would work without people giving up their usual seats. She was next to Cassandra and myself, and then I was next to Gerard who was across from Vivian. The table was big enough to fit us, but it was getting close. A few times Jasmine and I brushed hands as we went to reach for other items, and I had that same lightning bolt feeling echo through me.

Cassandra was the first person to break the mood."Okay, what's going on here? There are too many dopey stares going around this table and absolutely no alcohol present, so what's up? I deserve to know, especially since I appear to be the only one out of the loop."

Vivian ended up acting as the voice box when Jasmine and I took too long to answer. Jasmine appeared relieved; I didn't think she was used to saying it all out loud yet. She knew it and felt it and understood it, but it was a different experience to be vocal with something. "Jasmine is pregnant, and from what I can tell, these two are going to raise the kid."

She nodded. We both nodded. I looked at Cassandra whose eyes had grown wide. "Really? Really? For fuck's sake."

I couldn't help it, but I laughed. Her anger was so sudden and acute that it didn't seem real. Vivian said, "Cass," very sternly to chide the response. It was the first time I had ever heard Vivian use that tone of voice. Was this what she sounded like when she reproached someone? It made me laugh more. Nervous emotion spilled forth, and Gerard had to pat me on the back to get me to calm down and focus.

"What? I'm being honest. I was expressing legitimate emotion there," she said, putting her hands up in the air. "I'm just shocked. That's all. Now I'm actually more concerned. I just hope that you don't expect me to baby sit, because I'm not doing it."

"Cassandra, even I haven't thought that far ahead," Jasmine said, her voice quiet. "I'm still getting used to the idea."

"How are you feeling about it?" Vivian said, leaning forward with concern. "Are you doing okay?"

Jasmine considered this, and nodded. "Frank and I, we talked... " She blushed a bit and looked down at her food. "We're going to be okay."

I reached under the table and put my hand on her leg, and she put her hand down to touch mine. We held hands like this, with Gerard's palm still on my back. I felt so strong in that moment.

"Good," Vivian declared. "Now where are you going to live?"

"Not here," Cassandra answered, and I laughed again. Her stare zoned right in on me. "You laugh, Frank. But I'm serious. No children near me. Ever."

Vivian was about to give another stern warning of "Cass", but Jasmine jumped in. She turned a bit to face the teenager, and spoke calmly. "I used to think like that. A lot of the time. It seemed that the more I knew about the world, the less I wanted to live in it, let alone bring people into it. Even adoption seemed draining because of the way most adopted children are viewed in the world. It all seems like so much pain. Children are pain because a lot of the time being alive is pain and sometimes there is nothing to protect kids. I used to think extinction would be better. Animals and the world would do fine without us."

Cassandra considered this. I could tell that her views on children weren't as extreme as Jasmine's used to be. She mostly did not like kids because of the noise, the mess, and the fact that they couldn't have a decent conversation with her. I think Cassandra despaired at the fact of ever having been an infant, one that would put anything in its mouth and randomly shit itself. It was too unrefined for her tastes. Some days I was convinced that Cassandra was born the way she was then, wearing her muted collar shirts, speaking in an elevated diction, and playing Wagner on the piano.

"What changed your opinion, then? That is not exactly an easy decision to make all of a sudden."

"A lot," was all Jasmine said. I squeezed her hand under the table. I looked up from my food and noticed that she was staring, not at me or Cassandra, but at Gerard. He nodded to her from across the table.

"I'm glad you've decided to keep it," Gerard stated. "We will help when we can."

Jasmine nodded and murmured a "Thank you."

Cassandra spoke up again, losing a bit of her harsh edge. "I suppose it's a good thing. I mean, I think a lot of reproduction is so fucking pointless - do you get it?" She smirked at her pun, thinking that she was bringing a lighter atmosphere to the room, but also losing the ability to tell a joke by revealing it right away. When her mother nudged her, she went on. "But I suppose I dislike it because most of the people who do breed, really shouldn't. Most of the people who don't breed are the ones that should be doing it because they're smart enough to raise kids and need to pass their good genes along. So, I guess this will be a good thing for humanity, in the end. You two are good. I like it. Yes, I'm okay with this now."

I laughed and shook my head. "Most of my concern did lay with you, Cassandra."

"I'm still not baby-sitting," she stated again. And this time, everyone laughed.

"Saying 'breed' makes it sound like cattle," Vivian commented and everyone at the table painfully nodded.

"Well, most people are kind of..."

"Don't finish that," I warned with a smile. Jasmine nodded to me in another gesture of thanks, and Cassandra stood down.

"In all seriousness, though," Vivian chimed back. "Where are you guys living? Are you thinking of getting a place together?"

Jasmine and I exchanged weary looked. "We haven't really thought that far ahead," I confessed.

She nodded, and then added: "I just moved and I really like my apartment."

"Okay, well, what about doctors and birthing specialists? Prenatal care?" Vivian asked, thinking this would be an easier question to answer. It wasn't. Jasmine had found out she was pregnant at the clinic a week ago, and hadn't been to a doctor since.

We both shook our heads again, stared down at our plates. In spite of the light-hearted way that we all conversed around Cassandra, there were a lot of very serious topics that still needed to be dealt with and everyone, not just Vivian, was still full of questions. Jasmine and I were very much in the stage of finally being happy with what had happened to us, and accepting our future. We were always irrevocably linked before, now there was an actual manifestation of that bond. It wasn't wholly visible or viable yet, but it was there, looming over us like the sun, and we were still trying not to look directly at it, lest it blind us. We were celebrating the idea of it more than anything tonight. What tonight was shaping up to be was everyone at the table sorting out their preconceived notions of parenting, pregnancy, and what life would be like now.

"Do you have names picked out?" Cassandra asked. "Then again, if you don't know where you're going to have the kid, I doubt you know what to call it."

Jasmine cringed at the use of the word 'it.' She didn't say anything about it, but I could tell the un-gendering of the child bothered her. We had had discussions about pronoun use before and how powerful something like that was even though people never seemed to think about it, especially for children. It was one of those discussions that seemed to leak into the night when we were in undergrad, and I struggled to remember what she had said back then.

"Why is there always this coercive gendering that is done when a baby is born? How does something go from an it to a he or a she, a boy or a girl. That makes no sense. You're literally creating the gender out of language, when there is something that pre-exists before it. I'm sure of it. It acts as if there is nothing, but I know there is something."

We had been eating take-out from the student cafeteria and she was busy writing an essay for one of her Women's Studies classes. She had been working out her ideas as we talked, and though a lot of what she was talking about then went over my head, I was suddenly beginning to see her point now as we had people talk about the child growing inside of her. That kid had a gender, though we had no idea what it was then. It being used to refer to the baby that was growing, moving and multiplying right now made it seem like an object. But it was almost impossible to get around, until that actual day it was born and we would know and the sudden and spontaneous gendering that Jasmine talked about would begin.

"What's so wrong with they?" she had asked me in her second year, as we discussed. She was finished her take-out now and was prying open her fortune cookie. "I mean, it's a lot better than it. Why can't we just always revert to they or them when we are not sure. At least they lets the person still be a person, let's the baby keep their dignity as long as they can. Maybe it doesn't have to get into our thinking and make us turn people into objects."

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14