The Genteel Barrenness
Their mother asked sheepishly if they wanted to be involved in Carrie’s shower present or if perhaps they were not into that sort of thing, since, it was implied, the barren were known to be so ill-disposed towards gift giving. They hadn’t planned to discuss any of this fertility “journey”, as one doctor had called it, with their mother, not at all. It wasn’t really that sort of family, but it had been pried out of them and now their mother tiptoed around every pregnancy in the family, every baby among family friends, as if they might take it as a personal affront.
On the contrary, they frickin loved picking out gifts, all the better if they actually liked the person in question, and it was one of the few successes by other people they didn’t take personally, so long as they didn’t have to go to any stupid shower. Now, their noncommittal pose, their griefly barrenness, made it possible to beg off without scrutiny.
The conversation took place over the phone as they were slumped into the sofa, their lower half wadded inside an extra supra maxi pad as it had been for a week and a half along with a thick packet of toilet paper in their butthole to keep from bleeding through their pants and onto the couch while they talked on the phone and read listlessly for an hour before they went to the bathroom again, to re-pack the wound, as it were. They were concerned about feeling feverish and unbalanced, they were scheduled for an appointment at the gyn shortly. They had really thought there wouldn’t be any more Transylvanian ultrasounds and yet, here they were, again, squirming on a wand and feeling disgusted about it.
“I see here that you were considering fertility treatment. I want you to know you have a lot of follicles and they look great, so that should be no problem for you.” They stayed quiet rather than explaining the whole history because they were afraid they might be curt about it. They were kind of surprised too, since that had been a problem before, during their, well, journey. “There seems to be a lot of endometrial lining, more than I would expect in someone your age. I’m going to prescribe a pill you will take each day and it should bring things back to normal within the next few weeks, but you should call the office if it doesn’t.”
The weather was sticky and hot and they were trying to remember how it had been before they had been on Gibraltar, but they couldn’t be sure. It was impossible to wear full-on pants, although they were cinched into jeans, and the humidity made them feel vaguely nauseated. They went home and limped around the freezer a little bit to get ice out of the tray, the dry freeze of it an insult to their fingertips, the tap water becoming nectar in the cold of it.
Their partner was at his desk in front of his laptop, back from work a little early. “You know how they said they had an important film we had to watch about what things would be like in the coming years, how it would change our minds about having kids?” he asked. They didn’t have to ask who “they” were or what the film was because it was all top of mind all the time, no matter what time of day.
“Yeah. Why were you looking them up?”
“Well, I was trying to find if anybody was talking online about what happened to us, if something similar happened to them. I just think it must be possible to have, you know, evidence, if we decided to go to a lawyer someday.”
“Like, to sue?”
“Well, maybe. What happened didn’t make any sense.”
“They gave our money back, and they didn’t hurt us or anything, it was just…weird.”
“Well it was a long time away, without us even giving the ok to leave or anything. I don’t like it and I don’t feel right about it.”
He seemed abstracted for a minute and then clicked on something. “What I wanted to say is I think I found the film.”
“The big secret film we had to go to an island to see? That we escaped from?”
“Yeah, it’s on YouTube.”
“Did you see it yet?”
“Yeah. I could see it again though, if you want to see it.”
“Ok.”
