Eating Right Keeps You Swingin’!
It’s funny to think about little cartoon apples and carrots swapping spouses, having wild nights with the local cucumber or bunch of grapes. In that case, would a salad classify as some kind of key party?
Claire snorts. If only Pete knew that healthy eating would lead tothat, he’d never eat fresh produce again. If any couples in their suburb seem to be engaging in theswingingtrend, Pete insists on not inviting them to the neighborhood barbecues anymore.
Claire nearly jumps out of her skin when Dr.Martin strolls in, stopping only to put out his cigarette and wash his hands.
“Well now, Mrs.Davis,” he says, sitting heavily and flipping through Claire’s chart with his damp hands, “bit early for your checkup, isn’t it?”
Claire clears her throat. It’s now or never.
“Yes. But there’s something I wanted to ask you about,” she says. Her heart is starting to pound, and not because of the startle. The room smells like antiseptic and cigarette smoke and Dr.Martin’s cologne. Her fingers are so tight around the strap of her handbag that she’s sure she’s going to rip the darn thing off in a minute.
“Oh?” he says, over the noise of his rolling chair. He approaches with a tongue depressor. “Sayahh.”
Claire does as she’s told. The doctor examines her mouth, makes a small noise of satisfaction, and scribbles something on her chart.
“Yes. It’s about…” Claire swallows hard past the dry wooden taste, watching his messy scrawl across the paper. “You know that Pete and I have been trying for a baby for some time.”
“Ah, yes.” Dr.Martin slides across the room on his chair again, grabbing the blood pressure cuff. “No success on that front yet?”
“No. No, and…” Claire takes a breath. She’s edging around the truth, now, and it eats away at her stomach. “I thought—wethought, as it’s been so long, I might be getting a bit too old to be carrying children. Don’t you think?”
“Twenty-eight? A bit far along, but not unheard of,” Dr.Martin says. He fastens the cuff, pumping it up quickly.
Claire can taste her heartbeat. It races at the tips of her tingling fingers. This is the moment of truth. Her voice feels thin and uneven, but she forces the words out. “I’m turning twenty-nine this year. I read in the Ladies’ Home Journal that fertility goes down after thirty. There can be birth complications. Issueswith the mother’s health. I thought, just to be safe…that perhaps it’s time we stopped trying?”
“Stopped trying?” Dr.Martin repeats distractedly, squinting down at the dial.
Claire bites hard at her lip as the pressure on her arm increases. The words tangle on her tongue, tumbling out fast and nervous. “I hoped you could talk to Pete about it. Tell him that childbirth gets more dangerous the older the mother is? He’d listen to you.”
Dr.Martin’s moustache twitches. He leans back in his chair as he unfastens the cuff, his thick brows knitting into a frown. “I wouldn’t take medical advice from some silly women’s magazine, Mrs.Davis. It might be more difficult after thirty, but it’s no reason to stop trying, is it? If you’re struggling to conceive, I’d rather send you to a specialist who can sort out what’s going on.”
“No!” Claire interrupts. She shouts it, in fact, so abruptly that Dr.Martin startles and almost drops the cuff. Claire clears her throat, straightening her posture into something more demure. “Sorry, I just don’t think that’s necessary. Please.”
If some specialist figures out what’s wrong with her, what’s keeping her from conceiving, this period of luck will come to an end. That’s the last thing Claire wants.
Claire Davis has a good life. She has a nice house, and a husband who provides. She spends her days keeping their things clean and making sure dinner is on the table when Pete gets home. She should have absolutely no complaints, least of all that her husband wants children. She should be thrilled at the state of her life. Blissfully happy.
She shouldnotbe terrified by the very prospect of a potential pregnancy.
“You’ve got plenty of time to start a family,” Dr.Martin says. There’s a hint of reproach in his voice that makes Claire squirm.She can only hope that he puts it up to the cold stethoscope being pressed to her chest. “But perhaps you do need a bit of help. I’ll talk to Peter about a specialist referral when he comes in for his physical.”
“Oh, I don’t want to wait that long,” Claire says. She clenches her fingernails into the palm of her hand until the dull pain stops her breakfast from threatening to reappear. She’s been trying to curb the habit, but it’s just about the only thing that soothes the chaos in her mind. The light scabs there only just healed after Pete forgot their anniversary last week, and now she’s threatening to re-open them. “I think I’d rather talk to him about it myself, if it’s all the same to you.”
She’ll do nothing of the sort, of course. Pete doesn’t even know that she’s here today, let alone what she’s asking for. He’s wanted a family since they were going steady in high school. They’ve been trying since the day of their wedding, but with each passing year Claire’s feeling on the subject of children has shifted from mild discomfort to outright dread. Every month she gets her usual cycle is a relief, even though Pete’s disappointment always follows swiftly.
If Pete knew she had asked this? If he knew she wasn’t only failing him as a wife, but was actively looking to stop trying?
Dr.Martin takes the stethoscope out of his ears, making another note on her chart. “You do that, then. As for your habits, are you eating well?”
“Good and healthy,” Claire says.
“Getting a bit of exercise?” Dr.Martin says, making anxon his sheet. “And adequate sleep?”
“I think so.”
Dr.Martin scribbles some more. Claire wishes she could see what he’s writing, but his penmanship is indecipherable from this distance. Instead, her attention is drawn to his necktie. It’s a pale blue, and there’s a stain just below the knot. It’s brightyellow, like maybe he spilled mustard on it during his lunch, and the more Claire stares at it, the more it seems to resemble the state of Massachusetts. It even has a few little splotches underneath that could be the islands off Cape Cod.
