At the Fair

I wish I could stay here forever, watching the sun illuminate your face. You look lit up from within. I mentally trace your smile, thinking about the first time I saw it, like you knew a secret no one else did. I wanted to know what it was.

All day, as we’ve meandered at the fair, your voice has risen up to a fever pitch in excitement about the deep-fried-whatever, corn dogs, cotton candy. I took a small bite of the cotton candy just to humor you, even though so many of the smells nauseated me. It was like eating sugary air.

In one arm you are carrying a giant stuffed dog and I am tucked in your other, feeling encircled in warmth and safety. I grasp a giant tissue-paper flower on a stick, twirling it back and forth. Souvenirs of the fair, and most likely, I think, things I will never want to see after today.

You don’t seem to notice how quiet I am today. You just seem happy, and somehow lost in that happiness, oblivious to the world. But now, a soft jiggling of my arm, you checking in on me. 

What’s up? I can feel you asking without words.

Anxiety swims within me, like circling sharks, silent but inevitable in their quest. I know I have to break my silence in order to escape them.

But your golden smile. And the happiness within you, bubbling up. Your laughter is so infectious that passersby often join in, laughing with you and not at you. You are like the sun itself, attracting sunseekers. I can’t break that mood. Not yet.

I smile up at you, basking in your happiness, feeling selfish, and I shake my head slightly. Nothing. All good.

“Isn’t this great?!” and “I LOVE this!” have been your refrains of the day, whether it’s candy or shooting fake ducks in rigged games. 

Even on my best day, I wouldn't sign up for rides that rattle and hum as if they are on the brink of collapse, but I finally acquiesce and climb on to the Scrambler, only because I know I will end up pressed against you even closer than I am now. The ride starts out slowly, everyone anticipating the moment when the pressure becomes too much and two people end up almost crushed together in the forced body contact. We laugh and laugh until we are out of breath. It’s over too soon. 

I think about asking you to go again, but you are off to the next ride, a dubious-looking coaster. I refuse to go on, and my stomach begins to tighten as I watch, then it clenches hard as I listen to the horribly loud click-click-click as it tugs riders up the track. I think of you up there, on the verge of whooshing downhill.  Daring, brave, bold.  I need to be that way.

Screams of terror and delight reach my ears as the coaster releases and rushes. I feel unexpected tears in my eyes and the woman next to me notices and says “Terrifying, isn’t it? You couldn’t pay me to ride that thing!”

It’s over too soon and there you are, running towards me like a kid, wanting to tell me all about it. I laugh with you as you say, “Where to next?”

Somewhere in the midst of the rides, food booths and games we visit next, it dawns on me: You know something is amiss, you just don’t want to break the mood either. Not for your own sake but for mine. You know, we both do, that something is looming, but once we give it name and shape, once we bring it out into the open, we may not be able to get to the other side of it. Better to pretend.

So I double down on the pretense: I laugh harder, smile more broadly, take more bites of food. I play along, and you do too, and we are only a happy couple not just to everyone who sees us but to ourselves, and that is the most important illusion of all.

The sharks are biting at my ankles now and I kick them away. Not yet. Go away. 

Just before twilight the questionable food finally catches up with me and you hold my hair back as I throw up into a trash bin. Mothers steer their staring children away from us and a few adults direct sneers and jabs our way, “Can’t hold her liquor, ‘eh?” The more careless snickers that are flung our way, the more I can feel you stiffen, but you remain silent. You are focused on me.

As the day darkens into night, the lights seem to glare at me, taunt me. The noise of the barkers and the ringing-banging of the cheap games combine into a devilish swirl and the entire fair feels like a twisted funhouse.

“Funhouse,” I say out loud. What a wrong word. What a stupid word. Nothing fun about it. I began to laugh then, short giggles at first, but quickly they devolve into hysterical cackling. 

I can feel your shock. The pretense has exhausted me.

Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet, I think, and then laugh even harder at my unconscious pun. Your hands are there, steady and calm, one holding me, the other smoothing my hair back, trying to bring me back to you. I look up into your face and your smile is gone. There is only worry there, and a greater, darker fear, though you are trying to hide the latter.

I close my eyes and give the sharks a final kick. Go away! I scream at them, knowing they will once I let the thing I don’t want to think about come out of the shadows and surface. 

I look into your eyes and begin crying, holding your gaze. You nod your head as if you’ve known all along and that breaks the dam. The words begin to rise. 

Two sentences wrestle with one another. Which do I say first? I think one and say the other.

We’re so young.

"I'm pregnant,” I say.