Ever After. William Wharton

I spread out in the sun. I have to admit I keep looking up at that mountain, not believing I’ve really done it. I can’t think of any one thing, except having Wills, that was so hard or so worth doing.

      A few days later, we go to a monastery, which for centuries allowed only men inside. We’re hauled up a cliff in a wicker basket. I’m scared to death. They house us in neat, clean, small rooms that used to be cells for the monks. We eat at a big long table with the monks and a few other tourists. The food is simple but good. There’s no electricity so we go to bed early. Bert starts making his moves. Then I remember.

      ‘Bert, I left my diaphragm down in the car, and it’s the wrong time.’

      He doesn’t stop but keeps fondling, stroking, nuzzling me.

      ‘I’ll tell you, Honey, much as I love you, I’m not going down in that basket in the dark to get it.’

      I turn into him.

      ‘I’m not either.’

      We make love, simply, almost reverently, in a way somehow like the food and the whole place, simple and rewarding. Afterward, as I lie stretched out on my back, I look up at the ceiling and try to read what’s written out in gold and red in a ring around the wall. I can’t figure out much but there’s one word in that crazy complicated printing that looks to me like Dayiel.

      Three weeks after we’re back, I know I’m pregnant. I check with a kit and sure enough it’s so. This is the very last thing I want. I know abortion is out for me. It has nothing to do with religion or anything. I just don’t like the idea of anybody violating my body and then having nothing for it; it’s like a negative number somehow, something you can see, but less than zero: nothing. I tell Bert.

      It makes him crazy. He picks me up and swings me in the air. I think he’s going to drop me.

      ‘It was in that monastery, wasn’t it? Tell me.’

      ‘As far as I can figure, it wasn’t on Mount Olympus.’

      ‘I knew it. I could feel it. I felt a third person with us in the cell that night and the next morning. It was as if you had an angel on your shoulder or some kind of aura all around you. I just knew it.’

      ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell me. Now what do we do? I’ll never finish the two years’ teaching experience I need to get a job in an international school. I’m back where I started, depending on a man. Goddamn it, Bert, I worked so hard to free myself.’

      ‘Think about it, Kate. We’re going to have a baby, somebody new who’s the two of us put together. Doesn’t that make you excited? God, I’m almost dizzy thinking about it. Come on, let’s go down to the Rathaus and find out what we should do to get married. Imagine, I’m going to be a father and you’re going to be my wife.’

      ‘No, I’m not. I did that once. The only ones who profit from marriages are lawyers. Either you love me and will stick around to help or you won’t. Priests or mayors or Burgermeisters or anybody waving sticks over our heads or throwing smoke in our faces doesn’t change anything. I just hope if you want to split, you’ll be straight enough to help me until the baby’s in school and I can go back to work.’

      ‘Damn, Kate. You sound so cold-hearted. I really want to marry you. I want us to be Mr and Mrs Woodman. I’m so proud of you and I want everybody to know. Don’t you understand?’

      ‘That’s just male egotism talking. You have to remember: I’ve been through all this. I suffered from it. I’d like to think it would be different for us – I know I love you and am more than half-sure that you love me – but nothing lasts. Life is change and if you don’t like change you don’t like life. I like life.’

      But I can feel myself getting excited. I love children; that’s why I enjoy teaching kindergarten and first grade. I’m like Mom that way. I can feel myself melting. I swore I’d never be trapped like this again, but here it is. I smile and snuggle into Bert’s arms.

      ‘Bert, I’m glad you’re the father and feel the way you do. I’ve just had so many bad experiences with men. You’re the first man I’ve ever trusted. I’ll be happy to be the mother of our child. In fact, if it’s a girl I want to call her Dayiel.’

      Bert holds me close, but has already started sucking in his little beer-belly so it won’t push against me. We stand there in the hall, rocking back and forth, almost as if we’re dancing. Bert even starts to hum. He stops.

      ‘Did you say Dayiel? How do you spell it? Where did you find such a name?’

      I tell him about reading it on the ceiling where the baby was conceived. He laughs, rears back. There are tears in his eyes again.

      ‘What if it’s a boy?’

      When Wills comes home at the end of summer, I’m beginning to show a little bit and have tender nipples. We wait till after supper on the first night. I’ve made some chocolate milk and then bring out cookies, German Liebkuchen. These Wills really likes. We’re in the kitchen. Bert brings it up.

      ‘How’d you like a little brother or sister, Wilzer?’

      Wills looks at him carefully.

      ‘Where do you mean, here, or with Daddy and Sally in California?’

      That stops Bert. Neither of us had thought of that. It’s easy to forget how Wills lives in two different worlds with two different sets of people, and he’s just come from the other world.

      ‘I mean here with us, Wilzer, with your mom and me.’

      ‘But you aren’t my dad. He might get mad if Mom and you have a baby.’

      ‘They don’t live together any more, Wilzer. They’re divorced. I live with your mom now.’

      ‘But you aren’t married the way Dad and Sally are. How can you have a baby together?’

      ‘Well, we are married in a way. We consider ourselves married. That’s why I’m living here with you.’

      ‘Do I get to go to the wedding?’

      I lean forward and hold Wills tight to me. It’s the first time I realize how alone he must feel. It’s hard on kids when parents break up. They don’t show much at first but afterwards nothing surprises them any more.

      That night I call Mom and Dad in Paris. Mom’s even more excited than Bert. I can tell Dad is, too. They both have always loved children and, so far, Wills is their only grandchild. I have a hard time getting them off the phone; we don’t really have the money to afford long-distance calls to Paris.

      Bert is all over me while I’m pregnant, not only to make love, but also to put his face, his ear, even his nose against my stomach as it gets bigger. I feel movement early, just before the fourth month. When Bert feels it, he becomes excited, jumping up and down like one of those Indian dancers you see.

      ‘Bert, you’ll wake Frau Zeidelman. Stop acting like an idiot and come back here.’

      He lowers himself onto the bed and puts both his hands and his face against me.

      ‘There it is again. It’s live. It’s pushing right against me. Just feel that.’

      ‘I feel it, Bert. Now relax.’

      After that night, he climbs in bed with me every evening after I’ve read to Wills, and talks to the baby. He not only talks, he sings – crazy songs. I can’t imagine how he knows so many. And some have the dirtiest lyrics I’ve ever heard. He says he learned them as a kid in Oregon. He sings so I begin giggling and then the baby jumps around. It’s ridiculous, but I love it.

      Then Wills hears us, of course, and wants to join in. He’ll have his head on one side of my belly and Bert his head on the other. At first, Bert doesn’t sing his dirty songs but then I say it’s OK, and Wills laughs so hard he almost falls off the bed. They’re just the kind of songs little boys like most.

      Now Bert really