They’d still been talking it over when Annette had gotten pregnant. Eli realized what had happened before she did. In their years together, he’d gotten used to caring for her every month when her period started. No matter where they were, he’d dig her heating pad out from her backpack or under their bed, find an adapter that would let him plug it in, and spend that first night rubbing her back, bringing her Advil and hot tea. When a month came and went without any requests for back rubs or heating pads or painkillers, he’d figured it out, and when he’d found the positive test in the trash his suspicions, and his fears, had been confirmed. She was pregnant, and she hadn’t planned on telling him.
Eli had put aside his anger and tried to convince her that it was a sign. He’d told her that a baby didn’t have to change anything. They could keep traveling, only they’d be a trio, not a pair. Maybe, he told her, they could rent an RV and tour the country’s national parks! Or they could visit Sweden, like she’d always wanted to do, and try to find her relatives there. They could live on a houseboat, or in a yurt, or sail around the world. He’d begged and he’d pleaded and he’d threatened and he’d even cried, and finally, Annette had agreed.
“Fine,” she had said with a shrug—the same shrug with which she’d eventually assented to Eli’s proposal. Pregnancy made some women glow, but it turned Annette exhausted and slow-moving, her skin pallid and pimply, her beautiful long hair hanging greasy and limp.
After the briefest of ceremonies at City Hall, so that the baby would be legitimate and, more important, so that Annette could get on Eli’s insurance policy, Eli had brought his wife to New York City and the apartment his parents were paying for. He’d enrolled in dental school in New York City. “Dental school?” Annette had asked, her eyebrows all but disappearing into her bangs. As she started worrying the end of her braid, Eli told her not to worry, that dentistry was akin to learning a trade, that dentists could work anywhere in the world—“because everyone’s got teeth, right?”—Annette had nodded, looking disheartened and unconvinced. That night, she’d woken him up just after three o’clock in the morning, gripping his shoulder and shaking him out of a sound sleep.
“You’re going to move me to Long Island,” she’d said, and started to cry.
Eli swore that he wouldn’t. He promised his wife that nothing would change, that her fears would never come true （while of course he was thinking, secretly, guiltily, that once the baby came Annette would welcome the idea of a fenced yard, safe streets, and that, once the baby came, she’d start to see things his way）。 Eli worked hard at school. At home, he struggled to convince Annette that the future, while not exactly what she had envisioned, would be fine, even better than fine. He would provide, and they would find a way to be happy.
Annette planned on looking for work, but first she’d suffered from nonstop nausea, and then she’d started spotting, and her doctor put her on bed rest. Eli’s parents were happy to pay his tuition and to help the young couple with rent and utilities and money for groceries. Eli went to classes and study groups while Annette shut the door to their bedroom and lay there, day after day, growing quieter and quieter as her belly got bigger and bigger. Eli would rub her feet and brush her hair and bring her the foods she could eat: plain toasted white bread, cups of clear broth and herbal tea. Annette would sip or nibble, sadly, answering his questions with one-word answers, braiding and unbraiding her hair, barely meeting his eyes. By that time, people were starting to talk about postpartum depression, but Eli had never heard of during-partum depression. He also suspected that Annette wasn’t really sad but, rather, angry. She felt like he’d tricked her, like he’d trapped her. Deep down, Eli was not sure that she was wrong.
“A beautiful girl!” the doctor said, handing Eli the wrapped bundle, after the endless hours of Annette’s labor and the eventual C-section that had gotten Ruby out of Annette and into the world. Eli had looked into Ruby’s calm blue eyes, had taken in her finely etched brows and her fuzzy halo of brown hair and had been enraptured, instantly in love.
“Look, honey,” he’d said, but Annette had barely glanced at the baby. “You hold her,” she said to Eli, in a voice that was barely audible. “I need to sleep.” Eli had ascribed her indifference to exhaustion. “I’ve got her,” Eli said, cradling the baby close as Annette’s eyes slipped shut. “Don’t worry, baby,” he whispered into Ruby’s ear, aware that his life’s priorities had been reordered, instantly and eternally. From now on, this tiny, precious scrap of a girl would come first.