Read Online The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee - Free Book Online
Authors: Janice Y. K. Lee
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used to it.
“Listen,” she said, “I don’t have anything until the evening, so why don’t we meet back at the hotel at four, and you can have dinner with the kids and put them to bed.”
Troublesome babysitter dispatched, she breathed easier and moved into her usual rhythm with her children. She had never known how much she would love, really love, being a mother and having kids, how natural it was to her, how everything else paled in its intensity and pleasure of experience. Clarke asked her every once in a while if she minded that her career had come to a slow halt, but she assured him that these were the best years, the best experiences, she had ever had, that she never regretted it. Although she had definitely grown into it. It had not always been so easy.
She remembers her pregnancy with Daisy so well. Her first pregnancy. The one that changed her into a mother. The metallic but not unpleasant taste of Total cereal in skim milk, which she had eaten religiously every day for breakfast to get all the vitamins and minerals they told you were needed, plus the horse pill of a prenatal vitamin. The websites she lingered over, with pictures of your baby at different stages: the size of a grape, the size of a strawberry, the size of a peach. How she bought maternity clothes at three months, too excited to wait anymore, looking at her reflection in the mirror of the dressing room with a foam pillow tucked inside her shirt.
And she was alone. She remembers this. She stopped working because of an early scare, spotting bright red blood, and when that passed, they decided she wouldn’t work after the baby, so she might as well quit. It was summer, and Clarke was at the office a lot. Most of her friends still worked or went to school, and so she spent a lot of time by herself. Andshe had loved it, never felt lonely, with her child growing inside her, her constant companion. She had gone to movies to escape the heat, eating a small popcorn in the air-conditioned dark; read books in bed; ordered mayonnaisey BLTs with salty fries and a Sprite at diners, where elderly women smiled at her burgeoning belly. She remembered seeing an exhausted-looking woman at the supermarket just lingering at the edge of an aisle while children shouted, “Mom! Mom!” The woman had lifted a finger to her lips to Margaret,
shhh
, as she hid from her children for a moment’s peace. Margaret remembers being thrilled by the assumption of their imminent sorority. She joined a health club and swam laps in the pool, afraid to do any other sort of exercise. It was a wonderful, simple time in her life, when she had time to think, and think mostly about herself and Clarke and the baby that was coming. The chlorine smell and echoey, enclosed sounds of an indoor pool could bring her instantly back to those unwieldy, but not unpleasant, last, late months of pregnancy. Those were the final moments of complete peace that she could remember. Then the birth came, like a bomb.
Daisy was born after three hours of pushing, the hardest thing Margaret had ever done. She remembers thinking that it would never end, and the terrible feeling that this was something that had to be done and she was the only person who could do it. There was no way out. Then Daisy came, squawling, as red as a beet and about as attractive, and as the nurse put the naked baby on Margaret’s chest, she fell in love. In a desperate, intense, suffocating way. She couldn’t stop looking at her, afraid Daisy would stop breathing, or get smothered. She didn’t sleep more than ten hours total in the first week of Daisy’s life.
The first few months after giving birth, Margaret felt nauseated, as if she were still pregnant. Her breasts, big and alternately baggy or rock hard, leaky and messy. The soft, shifting flesh of her belly—she was not one of those women who sprang instantly back into prepregnancy fitness—being squished into her jeans and marked with angry red splotches where the
“Listen,” she said, “I don’t have anything until the evening, so why don’t we meet back at the hotel at four, and you can have dinner with the kids and put them to bed.”
Troublesome babysitter dispatched, she breathed easier and moved into her usual rhythm with her children. She had never known how much she would love, really love, being a mother and having kids, how natural it was to her, how everything else paled in its intensity and pleasure of experience. Clarke asked her every once in a while if she minded that her career had come to a slow halt, but she assured him that these were the best years, the best experiences, she had ever had, that she never regretted it. Although she had definitely grown into it. It had not always been so easy.
She remembers her pregnancy with Daisy so well. Her first pregnancy. The one that changed her into a mother. The metallic but not unpleasant taste of Total cereal in skim milk, which she had eaten religiously every day for breakfast to get all the vitamins and minerals they told you were needed, plus the horse pill of a prenatal vitamin. The websites she lingered over, with pictures of your baby at different stages: the size of a grape, the size of a strawberry, the size of a peach. How she bought maternity clothes at three months, too excited to wait anymore, looking at her reflection in the mirror of the dressing room with a foam pillow tucked inside her shirt.
And she was alone. She remembers this. She stopped working because of an early scare, spotting bright red blood, and when that passed, they decided she wouldn’t work after the baby, so she might as well quit. It was summer, and Clarke was at the office a lot. Most of her friends still worked or went to school, and so she spent a lot of time by herself. Andshe had loved it, never felt lonely, with her child growing inside her, her constant companion. She had gone to movies to escape the heat, eating a small popcorn in the air-conditioned dark; read books in bed; ordered mayonnaisey BLTs with salty fries and a Sprite at diners, where elderly women smiled at her burgeoning belly. She remembered seeing an exhausted-looking woman at the supermarket just lingering at the edge of an aisle while children shouted, “Mom! Mom!” The woman had lifted a finger to her lips to Margaret,
shhh
, as she hid from her children for a moment’s peace. Margaret remembers being thrilled by the assumption of their imminent sorority. She joined a health club and swam laps in the pool, afraid to do any other sort of exercise. It was a wonderful, simple time in her life, when she had time to think, and think mostly about herself and Clarke and the baby that was coming. The chlorine smell and echoey, enclosed sounds of an indoor pool could bring her instantly back to those unwieldy, but not unpleasant, last, late months of pregnancy. Those were the final moments of complete peace that she could remember. Then the birth came, like a bomb.
Daisy was born after three hours of pushing, the hardest thing Margaret had ever done. She remembers thinking that it would never end, and the terrible feeling that this was something that had to be done and she was the only person who could do it. There was no way out. Then Daisy came, squawling, as red as a beet and about as attractive, and as the nurse put the naked baby on Margaret’s chest, she fell in love. In a desperate, intense, suffocating way. She couldn’t stop looking at her, afraid Daisy would stop breathing, or get smothered. She didn’t sleep more than ten hours total in the first week of Daisy’s life.
The first few months after giving birth, Margaret felt nauseated, as if she were still pregnant. Her breasts, big and alternately baggy or rock hard, leaky and messy. The soft, shifting flesh of her belly—she was not one of those women who sprang instantly back into prepregnancy fitness—being squished into her jeans and marked with angry red splotches where the
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