Face Of The Monster

16 - Chains

I feel sick to my stomach. There is a delicate decision to be made here, delicate as the life of a newborn baby. Which, in fact, is what it might come down to.

Enrique's hands are under my shirt, heavy with sleep. The pain of him touching me has become a dull, pulsing throb that dips and swells like a wave. It becomes suddenly unbearable at times and then subsides once again. His warm breath blooms on the back of my neck like tongues of fire tormenting my skin.

I gently sidle out from underneath him, my entire body relaxing as soon as I am alone again, cool night air touching me on all sides. It feels like I have been trapped in a glass box for the past hours and have finally found the key and let myself out.

A brief breeze of guilt blows through me as I look back at my husband's sweet, sleeping face. It's awful that I'm so glad to be rid of him, awful that I find his touch so toxic. It isn't his fault at all, but I can't seem to stop making him bear the consequences.

At least he got what he wanted tonight. I shudder, recalling the long minutes of his kisses, of biting his shoulder, not out of pleasure, but to keep from screaming. I couldn't manage to forget myself, not even for a minute. The best I could do was keep myself quiet and let him have me.

He knew something was wrong, of course, but by the time it was over, he was too exhausted to press me for it. I suspect we'll be having that conversation tomorrow.

There are bigger things on the horizon, though. In comparison to Ricky's, my problems are specks of dust.

He's home, even though the third cycle of his chemo should have started yesterday. This morning, we had an awful conversation with his oncologist. This isn't working, she told us. Not at all. I looked at Enrique and realized she was right: it was killing him, so slowly I hadn't even noticed. She said she usually recommended that people saw their treatment through to the end, especially when they were smack-dab in the middle of it, but for Enrique, continuing on this path could mean cutting down his life expectancy even more. We had both agreed, no more chemo.

Now, the only option left is the surgery. I shudder at the thought of it. I watch Ricky's head loll onto my empty pillow, imagining his bald scalp split in two, his diseased brain exposed. I feel even sicker now and escape into the bathroom.

It's a tough juggling act, my life is. Loving him, avoiding him, worrying over him, spurning him. He looks so hurt, so confused when I remove his hand from my thigh at dinner or get up from the couch whenever he sits down beside me. "What's the matter, Emmy?" he asks again and again. "Is it something I did?"

I lock the door behind me and sit down on the closed toilet seat. My insides are roiling, taunting me. Make another choice, Emma, it goads, See if you can kill something else. I bought a pregnancy test this afternoon, embarrassed at the way the cashier looked me over when she saw the little box mixed in with my groceries. She saw my wedding ring and smiled. "Good luck," she said. I wanted to deck her.

This evening before dinner, I took the test. Since then, my hands have not stopped shaking.

I keep telling myself that I'm going to schedule an appointment. I'm going to drive to the clinic and let them take it out of me, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it.

But there's a paranoid part of me that thinks he'll find out. That knows he'll find out. An undiscussed hefty medical expense doesn't necessarily go unnoticed in our house. He'll think it was his. He'll think I ruined the one thing he wants so badly, his one dying wish.

I'm not afraid he'll be angry. He doesn't have the energy for it anymore. Rather, I'm terrified that he'll cry.

My other option is to tell him everything and hope he believes me. Even then, I can't be sure what he'd say. He'd understand, of course, but he would be upset. I don't think he believes in abortion, and I at least know he doesn't want it anywhere near his life.

But he can't tell me what to do. In the end, it's all up to me.

I suppose I should ask Phoebe. She'll have something intelligent to say or will at least make me feel a little better about whatever choice I end up making.

I fold my hands over my stomach, feeling tears coming. Before I can stop myself, great heaving sobs are leaping out of my throat, so loud they can't be stifled. My eyes burn with fast expiring tears, my stomach aching with pressure. My head feels stuffy and dry, and my body feels heavier with every second. I sink to my knees, tucking my head between them like I'm trying to protect myself during a storm drill.

The bathroom door opens and closes with a squeak and a clap. I feel the warmth of him next to me, the hesitation of his hand resting on my back. He strokes my shoulder blade with a touch so light it might have been nothing at all. "Emmy?" he whispers. "Sweetheart, it's three AM. You need to get some sleep, alright?"

He starts to put his arms around my waist, but I squeak in protest.

A long sigh leaks out of him. "Emma, I don't know what to do with you. I love you to death, but you're just . . ." he traces a little heart on my back with his fingernail. "Hard to figure out. I'm trying, Babycakes. I'm trying my best."

He must think I'm going insane. It's not fair to him, not at all. If anyone's supposed to go crazy, it's the one of us with the brain tumor. "I'm sorry," I whimper. My voice shudders and shakes like a sail in a wind.

"Emmy, you have to tell me what's wrong," he says.

"Nothing's wrong."

"You say as you sob in fetal position on the bathroom floor," Enrique says with a bitter chuckle. "There's something wrong, Emma. You won't eat, you aren't sleeping. You won't touch me."

I contract further into myself, trying not to shudder at the feeling of his fingers in my hair. "I touched you tonight," I say.

"No you didn't," he says. "We didn't make love. You just laid there and took it."

He's right, of course, but I'm not going to tell him that. I cry silently for a minute, waiting for him to leave.

"I think I know what's wrong," Ricky sighs. "I think you do, too."

Having no idea what he thinks he knows, I glance over at him from my mess on the floor. "What is it, then?"

A grin slowly spreads over his face. "There are only two other times I can remember you acting this psychotic, Emmy," he says.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're pregnant, aren't you?"

A shock goes through my system, whitening my vision. "What?" I say. "Ricky, what are you . . . no. We only had sex a few hours ago, you wouldn't be able to tell."

"Not from tonight," he says. "I think you've been pregnant for a little while now and you just weren't telling me." He grins, his face lighting up with a youthful glee that I haven't seen on him in quite awhile. He takes my chin between his fingers, looking into my frightened eyes. "Am I wrong?"

My stomach clenches, the little imp inside of me poking at my abdomen. "You don't understand," I find myself sobbing. "You don't understand, don't understand, don't understand, just leave me alone, Enrique. I just want to be by myself."

But he doesn't leave. "Darling, I know you're upset, okay? But we have to talk about this. That's my baby, too."

I open my mouth to spit back that it isn't, but the words won't come out. They stick in my throat like bugs to flypaper. Instead, I say, "It isn't even a baby. It's nothing, right now, less than nothing."

He lets go of my hair. His face goes cold. "It's something to me," he says and leaves me to cry myself back to sleep on the bathroom floor.