Reflection by: Bao Luu, Conte Crayon, 2018
Eggs
I gargled mouthwash, rinsed my face with cold water. Met my eyes in the mirror, just for a moment. Cracked the door open slightly, listening. Kevin saw me the moment I opened the door, probably sat on the couch waiting for me. I tell him it was the eggs, but he doesn’t believe me. I make my way into the cramped kitchenette, pick up the frying pan, scrape the remnants into the eight-gallon trash can that is somehow nearly full again. If it wasn’t our only frying pan, I would wash it later.
“They probably weren’t done all the way,” I say. “You know I have problems with the smell of eggs.”
Eggs. Why did it have to be eggs? They’ve always made me uneasy, the thought of a baby chicken growing inside of them. I pick each one up, jostle it a bit, just until I can hear the familiar sloshing of its liquid insides for reassurance.
The average human female is born with about two million eggs. More chances than it takes to get knocked up. Only .1% get pregnant on the pill, they claim. All the numbers weren’t supposed to matter for me. Slim to none, that’s what I remembered, as the doctor rattled on about hormones and apologized, as though it were bad news. If only she had been right.
I never wanted a child. Even when I was younger, the thought of a baby terrified me. I used to have nightmares that I would get married and my husband would kiss me and my tummy would grow big and pop like a balloon. In Sex Ed, I sat through countless slideshows of STD images with only mild disturbance, but I ran to the bathroom when we read that infants urinate while inside of their mothers. The thought of it still threatens to make me sick.
My mind goes back to the present as I’m splashed with dish soap. The tiny sink is hardly big enough for the pan, and the plethora of blue bubbles refuses to stay inside it. I scrub the pan until my fingers turn bright red, as though I could just scrub this all away. Kevin notices my fervor, and he places his hands on my shoulders as he comes to stand behind me. He knows something is wrong, but he won’t ask me. When I stand there rigidly, instead of turning into his arms, we admit to ourselves what’s left unsaid: he knows my secret and I know he does, but he is too considerate to ask and I am too selfish to confess.
If it were his body, if it were only his life, Kevin would have this baby without care for the consequences. He would work himself until his fingers bled, take on any extra jobs that would have him. His dreams of college and camping for a month in Colorado would be forgotten. He would never try real rock climbing or go kayaking in the Grand Canyon. Every spare moment would be spent trying to turn these 1,647 square feet into a family home. He’d trade in his dreams and strain every muscle in his body, only to barely make enough to afford diapers.
But it’s our life, and my body. He’s left the decision up to me, though surely he knows what I’ll decide. I never wanted this. This wasn’t something I asked for, something I planned. Even if it was, I can’t afford to take care of a child. Between classes and work, I don’t have the time for a child, either. I grew up with food stamps and fried spam for breakfast and daycare centers nestled in the ghetto. My dad was a loving stranger and my mother left to chase the dreams that childcare didn’t allow. Even when I had both parents, my mother sewed my socks and cried every time I went up in size. Could I do that to a kid– to my kid? Even though it wasn’t all bad, in my heart, I can’t find it in myself to wish that childhood on someone else. But it’s our life.
Growing up, my friends Natalya and Donte were adopted. Donte had white sneakers and his mom made him sandwiches on any kind of bread he wanted– and they even had cheese. His dad played basketball with him and took him to the arcade and bought him a Nintendo for his birthday. They were always asking him what his favorite things were and going on “discovery trips” if he said he didn’t know. Donte said there were hundreds of ice cream flavors and that, if you asked, you could have a cake made with any kind of frosting you wanted.
Natalya never called her new parents mom or dad. She said that they were nice, but that was all she told us about them. Her new mother made her peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches, with a red apple, one low-fat cheese stick, and a water every day for school. She always gave me her apple, because she didn’t like them, especially the red ones. They called her Nancy instead of Natalya and said she didn’t mind, but I could see her face screw up every time they said it. We could only hang out at Donte’s house, because her new parents didn’t want me at their house and she wasn’t allowed to come to mine. When Donte’s mom served homemade enchiladas, she cried and said she wished she lived with them instead. Donte’s mom hugged her for a long time and sent her home with a large tray of them, but I suspect she was never allowed to eat them. In high school, she broke down crying in the bathroom, because the tampons her new mom bought her were painfully big. For a year, I gave her half of every box I bought. When her parents found out, they grounded her for a month. Donte’s mom started buying them for her in secret, and told her to hide the wrappers inside the empty toilet paper rolls.
I think about the pregnancy test hidden inside the empty toilet paper roll inside of our tiny bathroom. “Impossible,” I whispered, staring at the little blue plus for hours and wishing like candles on a 49th birthday cake that I could turn back time.