The Bedroom

Keren Dudescu-Bresner

Julia pulls the blanket further up her legs. Her book falls over. She picks it up and realizes she hasn’t read past the first paragraph. Her right hand grazes, then fingers and probes at the acne sprouting along her jaw line that’s worsened over the last month. Her hormones have been in a rage ever since that sunny and warm day.

She isn’t sure whether it’s her estrogen, her progesterone or other hormones that are too high or too low, all she knows is that they aren’t where they should be. Instead of dancing a well-choreographed waltz or tango, Julia envisions her hormones as partiers at a rave on ecstasy, throwing their bodies across a darkened dance floor in utter disorder. Closing her eyes, she pictures them moving violently, they lose their human form and transform into little specks of fluorescent pink, yellow, orange and green flickering against a black background and deafening music.

Julia and her husband, Michael, lean against three rows of goose down pillows, as they do every night, about two feet apart, facing forward. Julia’s arms rest on the sides of her body, her book supported by her thighs. Michael watches the thirty-seven inch plasma screen that hangs on the wall ten feet before them.

In the bedroom, the only light comes from the soft white bulb sitting atop the glass lamp on Julia’s night table and the blue rays reflecting off the television. The only sounds are that of the odd metallic boom reverberating from the radiator and of the cooking show that Michael is watching. The chef’s enthusiastic voice and the audience’s eager applause infiltrate the bedroom. They muffle Michael’s breathing. Julia’s ears have long ago registered the televised voices as a vibrant hum, invisibly padding up the empty spaces between them. But, when her ears catch the swishing of skin against cotton her eyes lift off the page. Michael’s right leg swiftly approaches her left, and when it reaches her, his foot grazes her leg, between calf and shin.

A slight smile forms on Julia’s face, as she struggles to keep still and read. Michael’s right touches her left, his fingers dancing down and up, from shoulder to wrist and then back from wrist to shoulder. Fast, slow, fast, slow. Julia throws her head back for a second and then turns her face toward Michael.

“That’s nice,” she whispers.

Michael smiles back and shifts his body onto his side. His head rests in his hand, his fingers walk up to Julia’s shoulder, where in a quick sweep they slip off the blush lace strap. Michael lowers his head to Julia’s shoulder. From underneath her eyelashes Julia watches him close his eyes and inhale her scent. He has repeatedly told her that it hypnotizes him. Julia knows that it’s the vanilla accents of her body-lotion. To Julia the odour is soft and soothing, as a caress. Julia allows Michael to linger near her shoulder, the part of her body she knows he adores, for just one moment. Her body tenses up and her right arm quickly crosses over her breasts, reaching to replace the strap.

Michael returns to his original position, his back against the pillows, “Why?”

Julia doesn’t look at Michael, “I can’t.”

“It’s been so long.”

Julia is aware of how long it has been. Abnormally long for them, but it doesn’t make a difference. Michael attempts to remove the book from Julia’s lap. She pulls it toward her, hugging it to her chest.

“We agreed not to wait anymore.”

“I just can’t go through it again.”

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” Julia asks, her eyes narrowing toward him.

“I just know.”

“No you don’t,” Julia looks away from Michael toward the television, as if she’s just noticed it for the first time. A commercial for Disneyland is on. In front of Cinderella’s castle, a little girl in a princess dress and a little boy wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears twirl, while shooting stars fly above them. Julia and Michael were talking about possible names right before it happened.

Tenderly, Michael cups her chin in the palm of his hand and delicately turns her face to his, “I do, my darling.” Julia believes him, but Michael cannot really know what it’s like to carry death inside. He’s not the one who went to the bathroom and filled toilet bowl after toilet bowl with blood. And the pain, sharp and piercing, he hasn’t the slightest idea.

“I called Sam for the stronger painkillers,” Michael tells her. Julia stares blankly ahead. She’s thinking that even though they drugged her, she knew. The procedure, she felt it.

She tried to stay strong, to refrain from crying, especially in front of the doctor and the nurses. But as soon as the procedure ended she let go, and the weeping was uncontrollable. The tears just fell out of her.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized in between sobs to the nurse who helped her off the gurney, “this was my first one. I really wanted it.”

She had wanted the baby more than anything. For eleven weeks she allowed herself to make plans, envision what her life would be like, what she was going to be like.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t feel the physical part,” she hears Michael say, “but everything else I went through with you. I was there. I lost too. I cried too. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” she answers. Finally, she looks at him.

He covers her hand with his and leans over to kiss her. Julia allows his lips to touch hers but hers remain still, not kissing him back.

“This isn’t good,” he says

Julia has seen how patient Michael has been. She hopes he can hang in there a little longer. Michael pulls the sheets off and swings his legs off the bed. Julia watches him bolt out of bed to their bathroom. He slams the door behind him. Her eyes widen and her head jerks slightly back at the abrupt sound. She hears him turning on the tap.

Sitting in bed, she attempts to read again but the running water is distracting. Julia thinks of how by now she would have been six months along; by now she would have started turning the empty bedroom next to theirs into a nursery; and if it had been up to Michael, they would have found out the sex by now. Michael, he had wanted it just as badly as she had. And how he had wept when the ultrasound machine delivered no movement of minute arms and legs, no sound of a heartbeat. She had held his head against her chest. She had kept her hand sturdy against the back of his head. She welcomed his tears wetting her shirt. Julia didn’t cry then. She didn’t even cry that day. It only came after.

Julia imagines Michael in the bathroom, holding onto each side of the sink. She knows that just like her, when he is upset Michael’s breaths are short. She wants to tell him to watch the water. That it will help him turn his shallow breaths into slow deep inhales and exhales. It will help him focus.

Julia remembers that it was in that very bathroom the test had read positive. They had celebrated by making love in this very bed. The potential of life glowing on the horizon, lasting only a short three months, now gone, no longer within their reach. Julia hears Michael turn the faucet off and open the door to the bedroom.

She watches him walk silently out of the bathroom and climb back into bed. Michael pushes the power button on the remote before turning onto his side, his back to Julia, ready for sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Julia whispers.

He doesn’t move.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and she tugs at him to turn over.

Michael moves onto his back. Julia leans over him, away from the glow of the night lamp. Gently she brushes her lips to Michael’s. And then she allows herself the pleasure of immersing into a longer, deeper kiss. She feels Michael’s lips responding, moving in harmony with hers. When she pulls away, her mouth still tastes of peppermint toothpaste. Michael’s lips are slightly turned up. She offers him a half-smile back before turning off the light and dozing off to sleep.