“So how is that woman doing?”
My mother stubbornly refuses to remember Monica’s name. She only refers to her as “that woman.” Needless to say, she’s not entirely on board with using Monica as a surrogate. I believe her words were: Abby, have you completely lost every bit of your common sense? Or something along those lines.
“She’s doing great!” I say into the phone with enthusiasm I hope doesn’t sound forced. “The pregnancy is going really well. And everything is going according to plan.”
“The plan being a beautiful young woman is pregnant with your husband’s child.”
“Yes,” I say through my teeth. “That plan.” “Mmm.”
My right hand squeezes into a fist. That always seems to happen when I’m speaking to my mother. “You told me you weren’t going to be judgmental.”
“I’m not! I just said ‘mmm.’ You’re the one who interpreted that as me being judgmental. It must be because you’re insecure that a beautiful young woman is pregnant with your husband’s child.”
The fist tightens. One day when I’m talking to my mother, I’m going to punch a wall and break my hand. “You know Sam and I can’t have a child on our own and the adoptions keep falling through. This is the only way.”
“Yes, so you say,” she murmurs. “And how is Sam doing, anyway?” “He’s fine.”
“Yes, I’ll bet he is.”
My mother’s dislike of Sam was almost instant when they met. Sam quickly agreed to drive up to Long Island to meet her and my father when we had been dating about three months, which I thought was a great sign of his commitment to me. He was adorably nervous about the whole thing—he wore a suit and tie, and he purchased both flowers and a box of chocolates. He spent ten minutes in the mirror, trying to get the knot on his tie perfect.
I would say the moment things went wrong was when my parents’ housekeeper Imelda opened the door, and Sam mistook her for my mother. I am still baffled at how he messed that one up, given Imelda is a dark- skinned Mexican and my complexion is about as pale as they come. When I asked him about it later, he muttered, Sorry, Abby, I don’t come from a house where we have servants opening the doors for people.
After that, it was all downhill. Sam called golf “boring” before being informed it was my father’s all-time favorite sport. He offered to carry the carrots to the dining table, then dropped them all over the floor. His finale was backing into the mailbox on the way out of the driveway and knocking it over. He’s lucky he’s good-looking, my mother told me on the phone the next day.
She eventually warmed up to him though. Well, sort of. Mostly, I try to keep them from getting together very often, a strategy that everyone seems happy with.
“Listen,” I say. “You know, Sam has been great through all of this. Not every guy would be so understanding about… everything.”
“So I’m supposed to be thrilled he didn’t dump you when he couldn’t get you pregnant?”
I let out a huff. “That’s not what I’m saying, Mother.”
“Listen to me, Abby,” my mother says, her voice suddenly very serious. “Life lesson—you can’t trust men. None of them.”
“I can trust Sam.” “Especially not Sam.” “Mother!”
“Fine,” she grumbles. “Sam is no less trustworthy than other men.
Happy?”
Not really. But I’m not going to belabor the point.
“All I’m saying,” she continues, “is you don’t want to leave him alone with that woman. He’s a man and he won’t be able to help himself.”
“Oh God.”
“That’s simply the way men are.”
“He’s not an animal,” I snap at her. “He’s a decent person. He’s not going to cheat on me because the opportunity arises. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
“No! He wouldn’t!”
And I believe that. I really do.
“Fine, Sam’s a saint,” my mother snorts. “But… all I’m saying is be careful, Abby. Don’t tempt fate.”
Maybe I won’t mention to my mother that we invited Monica to have dinner with us. I get the feeling she won’t approve.
