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Painting
the Nursery
by Anne Katherine Booth You lay over me stroking my ribs, my breasts. And then when you began kissing me I thought, But we’ve just been kissing. You asked me what I wanted next. "Touch my tummy." So you did. I thought, I don’t know this man. My tummy knows this man.*** There is a person in this house whom I dislike. There is a person who lives in this house who is a mean, punitive, passive-aggressive welt of a human being.I am looking at the paint chips like you asked me to, but I do not care what color this stupid room is painted. I don’t want to give up my office for the baby’s room. I will buy a crib and I will pick a paint color when I’m good and ready. Don’t rush me, I’m slowing down, slowing down.There is great discomfort in my bowels. You left for Vancouver. You promised to install the air conditioner in our room before you went, but you only did the one in the baby’s room and the baby doesn’t even exist. I am sweltering. My rectum is on fire and little bulging veins are popping out. No, gigantic bulging veins."Are you still eating meat and dairy?" asks Lily, when I cry on the phone to her. "You’ve got to cut out meat and dairy.""Hemorrhoids are a manifestation of unexpressed rage," says Gurushiva when I ask for help in prenatal yoga."Relax your sphincter," says Renata, the midwife, when I bump into her at Whole Foods. Relax your sphincter. Everyone. All your stupid sphincters.Fuck anyone who laughs at hemorrhoid jokes. All the commercials. The proctologist, the acupuncturist and the homeopath. Even Dr. Kross and his $5000 fee that Motion Picture Industry health insurance only covers 85% of 50% of.I’ll pick a pediatrician who’s part of the health plan. I won’t mind that he doesn’t speak English or— What am I saying? I’m not ready to be anyone’s mother. I am not a mother. I am Jezebel’s mother. We have made it through 14 years. She only goes to the vet once a year. But this year Dr. Wilson wants to clean her kitty teeth for $125. Put it on the list of things to prioritize and ignore, like painting the nursery.I have a donut pillow. I have two donut pillows, in Egyptian cotton pillowcases. One for my chair at work and one for home. I love my donut pillows. I’m getting a third for my car.*** Last Friday we went to Rite Aid and I scrutinized their offerings in the ass aisle while you stood against the wall reading the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. "If I have to read one more thing about my anorectal‚ tissue, I’m gonna lose it," I said at the check-out line when you joined me. "It’s not even a word!""Look at Deion," you said, shaking your head. "They’ve put the world’s biggest prick on the cover of GQ again. Why does anyone care about that guy?""Anorectal anorectal anorectal!" I said, shoving the preparation H at you. "I swear it’s not even a word." "Honey, shhhh," you said. *** I remember watching you cradling my cousin’s baby at Thanksgiving six years ago. I remember your hands bigger than her tiny head, more tender than I’d ever seen a man, more like a mama lion. You were staring at her in her papoose.I knew I would make babies with you. That was my plan, but now? It’s me alone. And this Thing that’s kicking me. No one understands.I do not want the Baby. I’m scared of it. Don’t ask anything of me, anyone. Don’t talk to me, I will not hear you. *** The Proctology Associates waiting room is all full up, narrow like an anal canal. Men sidle by and I stare at their butts. Patients every ten minutes. I’m 3:50. Three phone lines are ringing. Alice picks one up. "Dr. Fleshner is booking into November on his waiting list. November," she says meaningfully, meaning go away. The canal is full. My visit will cost $215 for six minutes. Fleshner is not a preferred provider. He flies into the exam room, Kramer-like, shouting: "I’m Phillip Fleshner. Great to meet you, when are you due? It’s such a blessing. I’ve got three of ‘em myself. It just keeps gettin’ better. Let’s see what we’ve got here." And I’m flipped on my side with my butt to his face. "A little pressure," he warns and presses a vein back in. What is it like to stare at butt-holes all day? "No more hot baths after this infrared treatment, only ice now. Sit on a ziploc." The slight sweaty grime, his day an endless sequence of rubber gloves. "Wow, " he chirps. "This is an impressive crop of hemorrhoids." *** "What happened?" you asked when I got home. "He put something up my butt with infrared heat and it hurt," I said. "That’s what proctologists do, honey," you said. "They put things up your butt and it hurts." And you patted your lap for me to come sit, but I wouldn’t because I weigh so much now and it hurts.You went to the kitchen and got my donut pillow. "Right here," you said, patting the pillow on your lap. So I sat there and we watched SportsCenter.*** I am in another pink and mauve exam room, wearing a paper dress, with my obstetrician measuring the Belly. Dr. Kross is dreamy. Handsome, commanding, gentle, wise. And overbooked. "Dr. Kross, I saw the proctologist you recommended yesterday and I don’t..." "Those guys can book a hundred patients a day," he murmurs in wonder, envy. "Dr. Kross, I’ve been very depressed." "Hemorrhoids are enough to depress anyone," he says, slowly backing out of the room. "No, I mean very depressed. I’m thinking of going back on the Prozac." "Well, I’ve told you I have plenty of patients who never go off," he says with more slow backing. "My husband doesn’t want me to. He’s scared it’ll hurt the baby." His secretary yells in, "Adrienne Barbeau’s doctor at Pacific Fertility—? Line two!" "I have to take this call. I’m worried about her left ovary," he says, and is gone.*** "I want to go back on the Prozac. And I want you to say it’s OK. I got copies of more studies today," I say to you in your hotel room in Vancouver. "Isn’t there any herbal thing you can try first?" you ask. I was in the acupuncturist’s office the whole month of August for him to poke holes in cartilage of my ears while asking “How is Emotional?” "Why don’t you listen to what I’m saying?" "I am listening." "Why do you only care about the baby?" "Because you’re already here and you’re OK." "What’s wrong with you? Did I, like, disappear for you?" I have tears running down my face. "And I am not OK." *** Not one word out of anyone who disapproves. No one. Not a single person. No one at the pharmacy when I fill this prescription with my eight-month belly, no one in writing class, not one more person better mention St. John’s Wort. "Why not try St. John’s Wort?" Lily asks. "No one knows about its effects. They’ve studied Prozac. St. John’s Wort could be the next Thalidomide," I said. That shut her up.*** Stop dominating me with your silence. Go ahead and be an overt, out-and-out inconsiderate, judgmental asshole, please. Not this simmering, reticent, holier-than-thou asshole I’m living with now. You pinched, mean, meager miser of a man, you are judging me but you don’t dare say it out loud, so you simmer. It seeps out of every pore while you try to be loving and doting. People think you are the greatest husband, you make me sick. I don’t care how you are trying. You are failing me. You are cruel. Shut up and say what I tell you to say. Like this: "Honey, whatever you need to do is OK, I know this is very hard for you What can I do to help?" *** My breasts were the first signal, in February. They swelled up and got tender. I had never been pregnant before, though I’d done the tests in college dorm bathrooms, urgently wanting to be pregnant while knowing I’d have an abortion if the line showed in the test window. "Guess what?" I said to you. The first few months we charted the growth of the baby from pin prick to lima bean to kitten-size being. Every night I’d stand in profile by the bed and although there was nothing to see yet you’d always say, "My, what an impressive belly!" What happened? Now, I am not the wife you want to have. And you went somewhere. You have to come back and talk to me about something, anything besides the paint colors, buying the crib, moving my desk out. Anything but the baby. What about me? This me, depressed, ugly, huge? I need you. Where are you? I need you. Anne Katherine Booth is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Although this piece is fictionalized, her husband has written a rebuttal, which is available on request. 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