A Week as Andrea Benstock

“I want to have another baby,” she said. She was on her feet now, pacing. “At least I think I do. How is a person supposed to know what she thinks unconsciously? Mark? I don’t know what to do.”

But it was easy enough to decide, because when you didn’t know what to do you did nothing, and it was very easy to do nothing. Lerner had put her on the pill and so she remained on the pill and they both knew that eventually she would stop taking the pill and they would have another child.

Then finally she did stop taking the pill, and they talked about it, and they went to bed and he was unable to manage an erection. She tried everything she could to help him and nothing worked, and this had never happened before.

“It’s supposed to happen to everybody,” they told each other. “Too much to drink,” they told each other. “A lot of pressure at the office,” they told each other.

But the incident kept repeating itself and the explanations kept sounding hollower until both of them were careful not to voice them at all. There were nights when they tried and failed, and nights when they assiduously avoided trying, and one night, finally, when he achieved an erection but lost it seconds after entering her. He threw himself off of her and rushed out of the room.

For a few moments she lay still, waiting for tears to come. But no tears came. She got up and put on a robe and went into the living room. He was sitting in his chair with a drink in his hand and a bottle on the table beside him. He had not put any clothes on.

The sight of the drink in his hand was enormously upsetting to her. This was not like him. His drinking was purely social — the ritual cocktail before dinner, drinks with friends to augment the pleasure of their company. She would sometimes take drinks at night when he was asleep and she was not. She had always done a certain amount of that kind of drinking. But he had never done it and it frightened her.

He looked up at her. For an instant his expression was somehow defiant, but then his eyes went dull. He lowered them to his glass and drained it. He coughed harshly, caught his breath, and reached for the bottle to fill his glass.

“Well, fuck it,” she said. “Don’t hog all of it yourself.” And she took the bottle from him, raised it to her lips, put her head back and poured a few ounces of whiskey down her throat.

He said, “Jesus.”

“I want to say something.”

“Anything you want.”

“I want to say something. We are driving ourselves crazy and we are driving each other crazy and it is ridiculous. We’re making nervous wrecks out of ourselves and our sex life is going down the drain and it’s crazy, and maybe I’m getting short-tempered with the kid and God knows what effect that’ll have on her and it’s crazy, it’s a hundred percent crazy.”

He looked at her but said nothing.

“I’m going back on the pill tomorrow.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“You know what’s happening? We’re getting so we can’t even talk about it.” She seized the bottle again and drank straight from it again. His eyes widened but he didn’t comment. “I don’t want to have a baby. I had four fucking miscarriages in a row to prove I don’t want to have another baby. And you don’t want to have a baby, and that’s why we’re having this trouble now, and we won’t even face up to it, we won’t even say it out loud, as though there’s something goddam immoral about not wanting to have another baby. For God’s sake, we’re lucky, we’ve got a wonderful child, and why do we have to kill ourselves and ruin everything trying to have another one? What makes us think we’re letting the world down if we don’t have any more?”

“Not so loud.”

“It’s my own house, for God’s sake. I’ll shout if I want.”

“Robin’ll hear you.”

“She sleeps through everything.” But she did lower her voice. “It’s as if we can’t say it because it would mean something else. As if not wanting another baby means we don’t love each other any more. As if we have to keep having kids in order to prove that our marriage is all right. Who are we proving it to, for God’s sake?”

“We love each other.”

“Of course we do. And we love Robin. Not wanting a second one doesn’t mean we’re not happy with the first.”

“Don’t even say—”

“No! That’s the whole point, you have to be able to say things, to say any kind of thing. It doesn’t mean we don’t love her. It means we love her so much that we don’t need another kid, that’s what it means!”

“You’re right,” he said.

“I am, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are you going to drink any more? Then let’s go to bed, darling. I just want to be held. Okay? I just want you to hold me.”

The next day she went back on the pill. They made love that night and it was good again. Attempting to conceive a child may or may not have caused his problems, but abandoning the attempt certainly solved them. They clung to each other afterward and told each other that this proved they were right not to have another baby. And they could always change their minds sometime in the future. If they ever decided that they definitely wanted a second child, they could always do something about it when the time came. It was not as though she were getting her tubes tied, or he a vasectomy.