Coda (Songs of Submission #9) (20 page)

“We thought it was kind of important,” Jonathan said.

“Get on with it then.”

“Where were we?”

“Having and holding,” the bishop said.

“Thank you,” Jonathan squeezed my hand and continued. “… to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.” He dropped his voice, as if expressing seriousness, but also to create a web of intimacy around the words. “I own you. Like the sky owns the stars. You are mine.” He slipped the gold key ring on my finger.

“You memorize yours too?” the bishop asked, looking at me over his half-moon glasses.

“Yes.” I picked up the ring. “You ready, Drazen?”

“Yes.”

“I, Monica Faulkner, take thee, Jonathan Drazen, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey till death. Your name is written on my heart.”

I heard the murmurs. Jonathan and I had kept the word obey in my vows because we knew what we meant. He was my master in the bedroom, and I obeyed his commands. We knew the limitations between us, and these were our vows. We neither explained nor excused them.

And thus, both standing on our own two feet, before God and our families, with the news media waiting outside, we were wed.

JONATHAN

S
he was most kinetic in stasis. With her energy contained by my will and her desire to please me, she was a sizzling box of energy, and the longer I kept her there, naked and still, the closer to her skin her arousal came.

She stayed still for me, the streets of Paris below, on the first night of our honeymoon, her nipples hard in the chilled air. I was behind her, which was all she knew. She didn’t know when I’d move or what I was doing. I could hear her heartbeat, and her breath, which she tried to keep even but failed.

She was mine. I owned this body, this heart. I wanted to put my fingers and tongue inside her, my cock, everywhere all at once. Every act of ownership felt incomplete to the totality of my love. I’d married her for the second time only a day before, and I’d marry her a hundred times more, but our bond was in our consummation. I was hers, and she was mine, and we only came close to the expression of the depth of it when I broke her patience, her resolve, her expectations, soothed her heart, and broke her again.

I came around her, fully dressed, to watch her naked body as it shifted, to watch her eyes try to stay focused ahead. She was so good, objectifying herself for me, becoming an owned thing so we could play the games that were an expression of our deeper truth. She owned me. I was an object for her pleasure.

I sat in the chair in front of her and brushed my fingertips across her breasts. She shuddered. My plan was to get her on her knees and take her throat, then it could go one of three ways, with every step leading to a new game plan, depending on her level of obedience. Every plan led up to the both of us quivering together. But as I ran my fingers from her breasts to her belly, something changed.

Something about her.

I kissed her navel, pulling the diamond bar with my lips.

She’d gained weight since starving herself in Sequoia. On our honeymoon, she was a little heavier than when we’d met. I knew what her body looked like and what it felt like. My hands and mouth discerned her shapes in all their perfection. And as she stood by me, groaning as my tongue traced circles around her navel, I perceived a change as subtle as the sea.

“Monica,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to alarm you.”

She stiffened. “Are you okay?”

“
Shh
. I’m fine. As are you.” I looked up at her. She looked straight ahead, as she was supposed to, and I stood so I could look her in the eye.

“What is it?” she asked, meeting my gaze.

“I don’t want you to get excited for nothing.” A senseless desire. No matter what I did, I was going to get her hopes up. I was going to risk causing her disappointment and pain. I couldn’t protect her from that. The greatest gift I could give Monica, a wedding gift for our life together, was hope.

She broke the silence. “Tell me, or I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

She set her mouth in a tight line and put her hands on her hips. Scene over.

I took her by her chin and risked her dashed hopes. “I think you’re pregnant.”

MONICA

H
e was impossible. From the minute he’d run across Paris for a pregnancy test, to him cancelling everything on my behalf, to the doctor’s appointment where I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, he was the most impossible man I had ever met.

“I’m fine!” I said in the square across from the doctor’s office. It had a church, and a statue, and pigeons everywhere. The sky was the color of the sidewalks, and the air was so wet it stuck to me. “I’m not even a little sick. I feel better than ever. I could run a marathon, so back off.”

“The doctor said you should take it easy,” he said. Mr. Easygoing in a blue polo, houndstooth scarf, and a wool coat was taking control of the situation. It calmed him to be in charge, which was fine, up to a point.

“That’s totally not fair. You could tell me he said I have to wear a clown suit on Tuesdays, and I wouldn’t even know.”

“A clown suit? Even you couldn’t make that sexy.”

I crossed my arms and turned to face him. Pigeons flew up in the fog. The square was just starting to get crowded with the lunchtime rush, and we were ignored.

“You should have gotten me an English-speaking doctor,” I said.

“I got you the best.”

“Well, I felt left out. I felt like you all were talking about me like I wasn’t there. And of all people, you should understand how shitty that is.”

He stepped forward and cupped my cheeks. “Do you remember that heartbeat?”

The whooshing sound, like an angel walking on a heavenly treadmill, had come through the sonogram loud and clear. I admitted that a tear fell from my eyes. Maybe two. Maybe I’d wept right there.

“So?” I said with a choke.

“What language was that?”

I shook my head. No language obviously. I wanted him to get to his point.

“It was our baby’s,” he said. “It was the language of life. Who cares what the doctor and I said? Who cares about how I want to take care of you? You want to fight about something? Let’s fight about what you’re having for lunch.”

I smiled and turned my face into his hand, kissing the palm that was warm despite the December cold. “I want one of those ham croissants with the sour cheese.”

“And a salad.”

“Fine.”

“And after, you take one of the prenatal vitamins.”

I made a yuck face. The doctor had given me bullet-sized vitamins that smelled terrible. But I’d take them. Jonathan was my inspiration for keeping up a regimen. I’d take them every day on a clock, but I didn’t have to pretend to like it.

“I could lose it again,” I whispered.

“You won’t. I have a feeling this one’s going to stick.”

He gathered me in his arms, and we held each other in a Parisian square, rocking back and forth for blissful minutes.

EPILOGUE

MONICA

I
 woke up alone, and I panicked. I had that heavy feeling from sleeping longer and harder than I was used to. I felt drunk, hazy, and worried. The baby was supposed to be next to me or in the little cradle next to the bed, and Jonathan was supposed to be in the next room, but god damn if I couldn’t smell him in the sheets.

“Jonathan?” I mumbled.

Was I still dreaming? Or was the air actually thicker? I knocked a glass of water from the night table. Cold water splashed on my leg. Not a dream. This was real.

How had I slept? I shouldn’t have. The fact that I hadn’t slept in three days notwithstanding, no decent person should sleep when their baby was as sick as mine was. Light flickered at the corner of the bedroom, under the bathroom door, and voices… no, a single voice. My husband, singing. God, he was terrible.

I opened the door.

The bathroom was washed in candlelight, and he was running the sauna with the door open, so I walked into a hot cloud. Jonathan was in the tub with little Gabrielle, all of three weeks old, face up on his thighs. I crossed my arms.

“You’re not supposed to be around her while she’s sick.”

He ignored me and nuzzled the baby. “Can you say good morning to Mommy?” he cooed.

Gabby snorted then sneezed.

“Jonathan, I’m serious. At least wear a mask. You’re immunosup—”

“I’m sterile enough for an operating room, and she’s not contagious anymore.”

He wielded an ear thermometer. I took it and crouched on the side of the tub. The little screen said 99.1.

“Oh,” I said, “that’s good. Do you think it’s over?”

“I don’t know.” He dotted the baby’s nose. “Are you going to let Mommy sleep, little girl?” She made an
ahhh
sound, and Jonathan turned to me. “She says yes, but she’s reserving the right to change her mind.”

“When did you learn to speak baby?” I ran my finger over his cheek, stripping away the water droplets.

“I live in Los Angeles.”

We’d had a trying few days, with Gabby posting a 104.5 fever. Her pediatrician had come over late in the night, gotten it down to 101, and gone home. We could call him any time, but he said the ER wasn’t necessary just yet. A few hours later, we were woken by the night nurse. The baby was spiking again.

It wasn’t the nurse’s fault, but we dismissed her anyway. The worry and responsibility were ours, and though we had the resources to hire out the exhaustion, we decided to own it. These were our moments of aggravation and pain; we wouldn’t pay someone else to stand in for being together as a family. So we stayed up all night and cared for Gabby in shifts that didn’t happen, because neither of us rested. I did the night nursing, or Jonathan gave her a bottle, grumbling about wearing gloves and a mask. We were still working out a routine that my body would accept, but those moments with her were so precious, I didn’t care what time of day they were.

Gabby wiggled, still not knowing what her arms were for, grabbing at air with her tiny fingers. She had a full head of black hair, and though her eyes had the blue cast of a newborn’s, they’d turn a shade of brown.

I submerged a big yellow sponge in the warm water and squeezed it over my daughter. Water fell over her chest and round belly, shining as if she’d been lacquered.

“I want redheaded babies,” I said.

“We can try again, but unless both parents have red hair, it skips a generation.”

“Why?”

“Dominance. It’s in your genes.”

“You’re a jerk.”

Gabby opened her mouth and turned her head, squeaking. She was just learning to cry. She could scream, squeak, sneeze, and smile, but we hadn’t gotten to full-blown crying without a full-blown fever.

“Uh oh,” Jonathan said. “She’s calling Mommy.”

I peeled off my shirt and underpants. My body was still misshapen from the pregnancy, but my husband eyeballed me as if I were the only woman in the world. Slowly, my figure was returning as if his kind attention was teasing it out.

I picked up the baby under her arms. She loved the water and jerked her tiny legs angrily when I took her out.

“Patience, little girl,” I said.

Jonathan held his arms out for me. He was still magnificent, wearing nothing more than a scar and an erection that would go unattended until the baby was down. I got into the tub, sitting between my husband’s legs. He wrapped his arms around me, and I positioned baby Gabrielle at my breast.

Jonathan rubbed my back, kissing my neck as I nursed. I was in some heavenly place where I was cared for physically and emotionally, turning this warm tub into a slice of well-being.

“Mister Gevers called,” Jonathan said.

“Oh, did you thank him for the bunny and flowers?”

“Yes. He wants us to come out there. He wants to meet the little girl.”

“I’m not travelling with a newborn.”

“It’s not that hard. I did it for ten minutes once.”

“He and his wife can come here again. I’m not going anywhere yet.” I leaned into him, and he wrapped his arms around us. “Not until I’m good and ready.”

“Yes, mistress.” He kissed my shoulder.

Little Gabby nursed her little heart out. I was so in love with her, more in love than I’d ever thought possible. I leaned my head against my husband’s chest, letting the soft warmth of the water envelope me, and somewhere in my half-sleep, I became a part of it, growing into a universe where I was loved and where I loved. Where I was needed and where I was allowed to need. In our tight realm of three, I dreamed myself expanding into this tiny, infinite universe, perfect in its balance and stability.

I opened my eyes when Jonathan tucked my hair behind my ear and kissed my neck. So perfect was the silence, and our baby, sated and sleeping in my arms, mouth cocked open, the edges pointed in a smile.

Flesh of my flesh, love of my love, broken and tied back together with the strings of my heart, these are mine. And whatever life may bring, whatever tests and tortures, I am complete, and competent, and ready to go to battle in their defense.

But for now, there is only peace.

THE END

There’s an Easter egg at the end of this. So bear with me.

On the Drazens… I know you wanted to find out about Deirdre, Declan, Eileen, Margie, Fiona. Even Brad. And yes, I know you wanted to know all about Theresa and Antonio. But I simply couldn’t weave a lot of stuff in without either spoiling a future book or painting myself into a corner. So I kept the camera tight on Jonathan and Monica. That was the only story I wanted to tell, anyway.

On the miscarriage… I am sure many doctors and nurses are reading this and I’m sure they all have what to say about how Monica’s miscarriage was handled. I’m also sure that many women who have had a variety of miscarriage experiences are reading this. Monica’s experience is mine. Please do not nullify, belittle, or discount my experience by saying it wouldn’t happen that way. Thank you.