The first girl in class to get her period was Marissa Goode. She was the tallest, the blondest, and the most voluptuous. The cartoon macaroni and cheese, with creepy blue eyes and a smirk, were misshaped by the giant bumps on her chest. This made the boys want to scratch and sniff her shirt even though she had worn and washed it so many times that it no longer smelled like Kraft mac n’ cheese and more like stale Snuggles laundry detergent. But this didn’t matter. At 8-years-old, no one knew anything about anything, but what everyone did know was that there were two truths: Marissa Goode was the first girl to have her period in the class, and if you didn’t have your period, you were not a woman yet and the boys didn’t like you.
In 7th grade history class, young men and women learn about the 17th century. The textbooks are thick, and girls and boys flip through the pages in search of a picture of a person they didn’t think truly existed to draw a mustache on. One page in the book had a picture of the pear of anguish. The teacher explains that it was a tool used to torture women in Europe.
Mustached.
At 16, young women schedule their first gynecology appointment. A clear, plastic tool, something akin to the pear of anguish, sits on the metal tray adjacent to the Geri chair. The doctor tells girls there is no need for an appointment if you are not sexually active or 21. The ride home is long and shameful.
…
“Are we pregnant?”
The sun sets in the west, projecting sheets of gold through the bay windows, inviting unwanted hesitant glances and the lingering silence. A bench made entirely of African blackwood nuzzled into the outline of the windowsill like a puzzle piece. On top of the bench is a leather tufted cushion with buttons like the one Corduroy lost. The familiar fabric carries whispers of childhood, where a crested leather ottoman was a source of quiet temptation, guarded by a mother whose withering voice warned against careless play which leads to popped buttons and ruined stitches.
“Rosie?” The wall behind him is beautiful—difficult to look away from. Ornamental molding carved into the frames of the wall; its intricate swirls of leaves absorbing the fleeting light. Each arch and score became a refuge, a distraction from the weight of his words, the tension existing in every inescapable crevasse of this apartment. Beneath the surface, spores of fear multiply, blurring the room into a museum of unwanted realities. The protruding buttons of the cushion serve as a barrier against the stretched stitches in the silence between you and him.
In his hand, a white stick with a faded pink cross—the stick that was meant to stay in the trash, buried under multiple crumbled Kneexes used to wipe residues of vomit and tear stains—rests accusingly. A whisper escapes your lips, “I don’t know.” The stitches of your skirt are frayed like the skin on your thumbs that trace it reluctantly. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, his arms wrap around you, offering confusion and fear.
“This is wonderful, sweetheart.” His voice is thick with excitement and a future you never knew he wanted. The mention of children had never been, well, mentioned. Women had children. Girls had school to attend, pints of ice cream to eat, and bags of weed to smoke.
“What?” The word escapes in a sharp, incredulous breath.
“I’ve always wanted to start a family, why not now?” There is a wide smile on his face, offering unwarranted relief. “I mean, I know we’re still young and this is something we need to discuss more, but why not now?” You stare blankly at him, unsure if you are having a nightmare or if your nightmares have finally come to fruition. Either way, it was a nightmare.
“I’m 22 and we’re not even married and I don’t even have a job and I’m still in school—oh God! I’m still in school and everyone is going to see me fat and ugly and even more out of breath than usual. And what if my feet swell so badly I can’t wear my boots? Tucker, I just bought these boots. Look,” you gasp for air, dragging his hand to the shaft, “it’s real calfskin. Hermés.” The skin behind your lip is raw and tender with uneven indentations.
“Well, we could be married.”
Suddenly, the fear switches to anger. “Shut up.”
“Sorry.”
“This isn’t about being married or getting fat,” your voice is sharp and falsely sarcastic—the tone he adores because you never learned how to sound sincere, “I’m not ready to have a baby.” Silence.
“Well, sweets, it’s a little late for that, don’t you think so? Pull and pray can only take us so far for so long.” Tucker’s hands wrap firmly around yours as if it is an attempt to ground you. He lets out a quiet laugh, comforting you through humor. “I guess you have other options, but why use those options if we plan on starting a family one day? You’re already pregnant, let’s just go with this one.” For a second, you wonder if he’s dense. No, just dense right now. The idea of having a child because it’s convenient was not in your 2024 planner—it’s not in any of your future planners either.
“You aren’t listening. I’m not ready to be a mother.” You stare intensely into his eyes, squinting to stand your ground. Your fingers pick at the buttons on the bench, digging the curved edges of the button under your nail. “I’m barely a woman.” There it was; the impending doom that has haunted you all your life, though now it is no longer impending, just doom. In 8th grade, the health teacher made the class watch a video of a British woman giving birth. The cruel fluorescent lights, cold tiles, and unfamiliar faces of healthcare professionals surrounded her. Her hands gripped the bars of the hospital bed as she begged for her mother. At 13, you wondered who you would beg for. At 21, the thought sits behind Tucker, out of his sight, directly in yours.
“I want to say, ‘so you never want to have children?’ but I know that’s not what you need right now.” Tucker sucks his lips in, pressing them together. His pants are freshly pressed, stiffened by starch, with gentle notes of cherry blossom and citrus. “What do you mean you’re barely a woman?”
The sky is full of bright stars like the diamond earrings Tucker bought you last week after work. He rushed to a bar on Main Street where he found you and a tray of two dozen empty oyster shells. Oysters have babies by releasing their eggs to mix with dropped sperm from males. Oysters do not nurture; they do not become parents. “Sorry for being late, sweetheart. I’m glad you started without me.” He pulled out a velvet box from his breast pocket and said it was a “just ‘cause” gift. “Just ‘cause I love you and was thinking of you today.” Tucker would make a great dad. But that wasn’t what worried you.
While other 6-year-old girls shopped at Claire’s and ate heart shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, your mother bought you pantyhose from J. Crew and Mary Janes from Burberry. She had the chef prepare various French dishes. Escargot carefully lined your glass lunch box as the other children stared and whispered. Marissa Goode and Katie Wilson read sweet messages from their mothers while you unfolded stiff stationary from your father’s office.
Rosemary, finish your lunch and be good. Use the proper fork.
Three forks pressed for a decision to be made. Mother always tested you. She wanted you to be the best.
“Women get married, have babies, cook dinners for their husbands. I push our engagement off for a year, freak out about being pregnant, and order takeout. I have never been a girl, but I am most certainly not a woman. I’m the in-between—the bigger clump of cells existing in this liminal space.” Your hands move with your words, attempting to measure your existence. “It’s not that I can’t do the whole grow-and-push; it’s what comes after. The real growing.”
Tucker watches you with a cocktail of concern and understanding etched across his face. He relaxes his brows and offers a sympathetic smile. “Hey,” he rubs your arm, “you’re not in this alone. I’ll be right here, next to you.” Tears of truth well in your eyes as you wonder if being a mother will prove that you are no better than your own mother.
“Being a mother means being my mother; it means carrying on her lessons because they are all I know.”
“You’re not your mother.” His voice is still and stern.
“But how do you know that?” Your words are filled with a plea as if you’re looking for an answer that, deep down, you know doesn’t exist.
He takes a breath, “Because, You. Are. Not. Your. Mother.” He enunciates each word, giving them a weight too heavy to carry. “This baby,” he cups your cheek with one hand and rests the other on your stomach, “he or she will be so loved by you—that, I am certain of.” You’re unsure if it’s the thought of humanizing the clump of cells in your stomach or if the clump’s side effects are making you sick.
“But what if I can’t love our child? You make it look so easy, but if you asked me why I love you, I’d say because I do.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” He’s genuine in his confusion.
“It’s something a child would say because they haven’t learned enough words or can’t think that deeply yet.”
“I don’t think so. I think if you love me just because you do, then that’s enough. We don’t need answers to everything. Sometimes, things are the way they are because they just are. That doesn’t mean you love me less than I love you.” Tucker Whitlocke, the poet, the current something-between-fiancé-and-boyfriend, the soon-to-be dad.
…
The next week, Tucker holds your hand as you lay flat on a Geri chair. Residue of cold gel leaves a lubricated film on your stomach. Your focus splits between the metal tray beside you and Tucker’s relentlessly bouncing legs. His loose curls are now frizzy with stress. From your angle, you can see the plastic pear of anguish hiding under a blue sheet on the tray. You wonder if the doctor will use it to physically find the MIA baby. Several movies have taught you that contractions are when your vagina dilates. Or something like that. Would that mean the plastic penis is going to give you contractions? How wide can it manually get? Will the baby fall out? You squeeze Tucker’s hand, offering him reassurance. The baby is in there, you can feel it—you want to feel it. Feeling it means becoming a woman. Feeling it means finally having the opportunity to love like Tucker, to prove you are not your mother, to let the sun rise slowly and set softly, to be lost in the profound tenderness of your own.
The cup is small and, up to this point, you’ve never actually seen where urine comes from for girls. All you know is peeing in this cup means finding your baby—if there is one. You put the cup over the general area, sending a prayer that forgetting to roll your sleeves isn’t a big mistake, and another prayer that a little Rosie or Tucker is due in about 7 months. There were two truths, both of which you knew deep down in the place where people just know things—the gut, perhaps—that were not in the prayers.
…
The drive home is long and quiet. Your neck is stiff as though your body refuses to look to Tucker, afraid that disappointment exists in his gaze. He places his right hand on your thigh, dispelling your worries, as the other manages the wheel. In this silence, the air is heavy with bittersweet notes. You and Tucker grappled with the idea of parenthood fanning the flames of fear and hope, only to be extinguished when the fire became warm. Fucking oysters.