Choices

“I’m just too tired to…” Her eyes landed on his face as she rolled over. She saw the expectation that lingered there in the lines between his furrowed brows. It traveled up into the creases of his forehead, pointedly asking, ‘Well?’

“Either way, I might die,” she said quietly, flipping the pillow to lay on her back. She stared at the spot where the ceiling met the tattered rosebud-patterned wallpaper she once loved. They picked it out for their wedding registry at that little shop on South Houston St. while arguing playfully in the tiny aisle amidst the glues and the brushes about seating arrangements and cake flavors. She thought of the slice of dark chocolate cake with buttercream icing wrapped in aluminum foil somewhere in the back of their freezer and felt her stomach growl. She had not kept anything down in days. 

The wrinkles on his forehead smoothed, but his eyes grew wide with hesitant concern that battled his desperate hope. “Do you think you will? Die?”

She wanted to die right this minute so she could leave this conversation, leave this world, leave this body and never have to make another impossible decision again. What difference did it make if it happened now or Friday? What joy or goodness could be had over the next three days that would be big enough, deep enough to overtake the pain and anguish? To make her want to endure the pain that wracked her body as her fever slowly crept higher. To make her not wish she would be swallowed up by one of the sinkholes that had begun appearing in the neighborhood as the ocean claimed the coastlines. She was so deeply tired. Death would be a release, she told herself. A release from 65-hour work weeks just so they could pay student loans for degrees they never finished, a note for a car she never wanted, and the car insurance she needed so that she could drive to the job that paid a quarter of their rent. A thousand times a day she welcomed the release, gaslighting herself until she believed it for a brief few peaceful moments each afternoon. The children she lived for would appear and shatter the daydream, an incessant pecking at the dark bubble in which she allowed herself the indulgence of becoming encased. 

“I think it doesn’t matter what I think… not anymore. It hasn’t for a long time.” She rolled herself to the edge of the bed and sat up, sliding her feet into her dingy, once-white house slippers. Standing, she turned to look at him with his back leaned against the headboard, knees pulled in tightly to his chest like he was preparing to push off a pool wall and commence the backstroke. He stared at her and his eyes began to well.

“You could leave. You could go to my mother’s house in Toronto. They have places there that could help!” He knew that the wait was months, and by then it would be too late, but he couldn’t stop trying to reason against reality. Tears streamed down his face now, and he rose to his knees on the bed and reached for her hands. He clasped them to his chest and she felt his heart pounding erratically underneath. She let the muscles in her arms and hands go limp, held up only by his frantic grip. 

She sighed. “I have to decide soon. I can’t waste time thinking about impossible solutions. I need to text him by 6:00 tonight. I have to go pick up the boys.” She wrestled her hands from his and walked out of the room, leaving him crying silently in the middle of the bed. She knew that he would remarry quickly. No one in their neighborhood could provide for three children on a single income without help, and his parents and sister had fled to Portugal. He couldn’t get a visa because of a terrorism charge from over a decade ago in Atlanta. It was for the best. His mother was nuts and his sister aspired to be her clone. 

4:58 PM.

The day was gray and overcast with a cold bite, and she was grateful for it. No one at the school would try to engage her in conversation about how gorgeous it was outside and how they should all get out and enjoy it. A sharp pain anchored itself in her rib cage as she climbed into their secondhand 2024 Chrysler minivan. They had both seen better days. Her first son had been born right there in the passenger seat six years ago. They arrived at the closest hospital with an operating maternity ward, nearly fifty miles away, after a harrowing mishap with a patch of black ice. Wrapped in her favorite college hoodie, she handed the screaming infant off to the emergency room attendant that rushed to greet them. When the doctor later examined her with the same care reserved for kicking the tires on a used car, he looked at her husband and loudly proclaimed, “A natural. See? Women are meant for this, I tell ya. You don’t even need me!” He offered congratulations to the air, shook her husband’s hand, and left the room.

As she pulled up to the school pickup line, she spotted the two small figures huddled together in the chilly air at the front. They looked up from the device they were sharing and spotted her just as she stopped in front of them. 

“The boys have had a challenging week,” came the shrill voice from the opening van door. “Please speak to them about the importance of paying attention in class and not talking to one another during lesson time.”

“I’ll do that, Mrs. Moore.” There was nothing she cared about less. They were only in the same class because the public school was down to one kindergarten due to lack of funding, and they were kindergartners, for fuck’s sake. 

5:17 PM.

The boys clamored into the van as their older brother appeared at the passenger window.

“Can I sit in front?”

“No, you know you are not old enough yet and it’s not safe. In the back.” He made a show of being mad as was their game, playfully poking out his bottom lip, but climbed in the back seat. She hit play on the screen behind her head, and A Bug’s Life picked up where it left off that morning at dropoff. Apart from the talking ants and grasshoppers and an occasional giggle or gasp, they rode home in silence. 

5:22 PM.

She could wait and see, and maybe she would get lucky and they would save her in time. Or, she could take matters into her own hands, and maybe she would save herself in time. Maybe they would be able to get her to Canada. Delusional. She didn’t have the funds for a winter coat, let alone a trip to Canada. She laughed darkly. Saving her life was infinitely more expensive than a year's worth of groceries, but depending on who you asked, that life had no value aside from what she could produce. It didn’t make sense. She had stopped trying to understand the narrative being spun. There was no humanity or logic here. Not anymore. 

She felt a long stab in the right side of her abdomen that brought the ginger ale she drank an hour earlier to the back of her mouth. Their apartment building came into view, and as she had learned while in labor, she focused on her breathing until the pain subsided. The setting sun had painted the horizon with brilliant shades of pink and orange but along with the vomit she held back, it only made her bitter. She used to love this time of day, but now it was just another thing being stolen from her. She pulled into the parking lot, grateful for the vacant spot by the door. She swallowed. 

5:41 PM.

The boys always beat her to the top of the stairs, and as they flung the door open, she heard the perky voice of a woman discussing the merits of the latest tax plan. “To put it in terms everyone understands, George, if you make less than eighty thousand dollars a year—which according to Ark Research is 65% of the American population—this plan is going to help you afford an extra vacation next year. A whole week if you have two kids or more!” 

She reached the top of the stairs, gasping, unable to catch her breath. 

“Boys! How was the day?” 

He had always been so attentive to them, even if mostly focused on the fun parts of the job. Even if it left her to be the rules and homework parent while he painstakingly crafted his D&D worlds or ran marathon COD sessions between shifts at the plant. It hadn’t begun that way; they felt more like a team in the beginning when their challenges were smaller, less… challenging. She thought he was different; thought they were different. Her mother used to say that he would follow her off a cliff. The cliff was here now, but she was going over alone. She gathered her composure and walked through the doorway.

“Mrs. Moore yelled at us four times for talking, but it was really important because there was a roach.” 

“A roach! Did it creepy crawl its way to you and TICKLE YOU?” He drew out the last syllable of every word in a high pitch. He held his hands like claws in front of his face and took three giant steps toward where the boys stood. They squealed and ran from the room, their arms flailing wildly. He laughed with satisfaction. 

5:44 PM.

She sat on the couch. 

“You hungry at all, honey?” He moved to the stovetop and stirred something in a pot that sounded like macaroni and cheese. 

“I wish. The pain is really bothering me right now.” 

He looked up from the pot and grew pale. He preferred to forget, even if just for a moment at a time. She was afforded no such luxury; it was always front and center, broadcast on a projector screen in her mind. 

“Have you decided?” He whispered, both needing but afraid of the answer. 

“Not yet.”

He was relieved again to be given precious minutes more to pretend and resumed stirring the pot. The sound made her nauseous all over again. She lay back on the couch to let it pass, thinking of the choice that would make itself for her if she didn’t soon. A commercial played on the radio for a non-invasive treatment that promised to reduce the appearance of wrinkles each session, starting at $7,899 during November only. Maybe she should wait outside the place where they did those treatments and rob somebody. She could sneak up on them like a clumsy thief in a cartoon, shove them into the wall so they hit their head, and then scream at them how her life was worth more than their vanity while they bled from their temple. She would go to prison and probably have to work in a call center for fifty cents a day, but at least she might be able to see the boys grow up. 

5:49 PM.

She pulled out her device and looked at the last message. 

I can help you, but it’s expensive and I can’t guarantee your survival at this point. I need to know by 6:00 tomorrow night or you’ll lose the spot. 

She stared at the blinking cursor and waited for her fingers to type the words that would save her life or end it. She could hear her own mother’s warnings echoing across time, bouncing off the insides of her brain like a balloon half filled with water. Suddenly her stomach lurched and everything she had tried to hold back sprang from the back of her throat and onto the bare-threaded carpet. 

“Shit! Honey! Shit! Are you ok?” He rushed over with towels, gagging as the smell hit him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know where it came from, it just hit me out of nowhere. I'm sorry.” She felt a little better now. Like vomiting had jolted her out of her haze and cleared her mind momentarily. 

5:54 PM.

He cleaned up her mess and walked to the kitchen holding the inside of his elbow to his nose to block the smell. 

“I will make you some mint tea,” he mumbled. 

She would like that, she thought.

5:56 PM.

She lay back again and began typing. She had made up her mind. 

“Do you want honey? Honey?” He laughed quietly at his pun. She didn’t respond.

“Honey? Plain tea then? I know you usually like honey but maybe you should skip it for now…”

He peered across the counter into the living room where she lay on their worn beige loveseat, her feet dangling over the armrest. She was still wearing her white slippers. 

“Honey?” He whispered as he walked around the counter and into the living room. The perky woman from NPR was now discussing the upcoming election and the polls that showed the most conservative candidate in the lead by 18%. 

He knelt by her head. Her eyes were closed, the phone in her hand resting on her swollen belly. He laid his head on her chest. A single tear fell and refused to roll away.