The Spanish Pot
By Julia Rajagopalan
Amanda thought about the baby they had wanted so badly and the gauntlet her body had endured to try and get it. The shots, the treatments, the crying, the anger. She had even gained weight when a doctor told her that she was too skinny to host a child. The toxic pottery, enthroned on the shelf like a runner-up trophy, felt like a kick to the uterus.
“After all we’ve gone through, how can you think about keeping something poisonous?” Though the Spanish pot sat high on their bookshelf, far from little fingers and licking tongues, it felt like a live wire draped over a puddle. She clutched the warning label that he had ripped off and hidden in their suitcase: “Contains Lead.”
“We aren’t pregnant. There’s no child to poison.” He looked out the window as he said it, through the sheer curtains to the sunny street where children played on the sidewalk below. Their second-floor apartment seemed high above, like they were on a different planet.
“You blame me,” she accused, not for the first time. The doctors had checked his sperm and had given the little invaders a clean bill of health. So, it was her fault, Unexplained Infertility, except that her body was the one who had to do the explaining. She was the one who had to take the hormones, and gain the weight, and somehow stay calm and relaxed, because her stress and anxiety could kill a baby before it was even made.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Stop putting words in my mouth.” He moved to the couch and flopped into its welcoming softness, and she wanted to snuggle next to him, but she couldn’t let it lie. Instead, she stomped over to the bookshelf and glared at the offending souvenir, a large blue and white ceramic pot. Even as she hated it, she had to admit that it looked nice next to her Jane Austen collector's editions.
“You are trying to sabotage me. You don’t want us to have a baby. You don’t want us to be a family.” Someone across the hallway slammed their door, and the mirror on their wall swung quietly in response.
“I don’t want a baby like this,” he admitted. “I just want to be happy. Who cares if we don’t have a baby? We’re still a family if it’s just the two of us.” He grabbed the remote control off the coffee table and played with it, and she stared at him, daring him to press the power button. He wasn’t foolish enough to try, though she could tell he desperately wanted to.
“No one believes that,” she dismissed him. “My parents will be heartbroken, and who will take care of us when we’re old?” Amanda threw the last bit in even though she didn’t believe it, even though she knew it was a selfish reason to have a child.
“Robots?” he said with a huff of a laugh. A flare of rage flashed through her chest, and her forehead throbbed like it was being squeezed by a blood pressure cuff.
“This is not a joke,” Amanda shrieked, hearing the piercing noise of her voice, wanting to press a button to lower the volume, but unable to do it.
“I’m not joking,” he said too calmly. “I just want to be with you. If we don’t have kids, we don’t have to worry about saving for someone else’s college tuition or paying for ballet lessons. We can travel the world. You loved Spain, didn’t you?” She had loved Spain. She adored walking down the ancient, sun-bleached streets, and sitting for hours in cafes, while she wrote in her journal. She remembered strolling in and out of the stone churches, looking at Mary holding her baby, and trying not to be jealous of a saint.
“It doesn’t matter to me if we don’t have kids,” he said. “You’re enough for me.”
She stared at his kind smile, his familiar face, and her stomach sank as she realized she couldn’t say the same thing. Amanda plucked a tissue from the box on the coffee table. Using the sheet, she grabbed the Spanish pot off the shelf and carried it to the kitchen, where she dumped it in the trash. With a hollow thunk, it clanked against the bottom of the empty bin, rolling to a stop next to the negative pregnancy test.
THE END
Author Bio: Julia Rajagopalan is a writer of speculative and literary fiction who lives just outside of Detroit, Michigan, with her husband and their grumpy dog. For a list of her publications, check out her website: www.JuliaRajagopalan.com. This year, she has several short stories coming out, including “The Drycleaner,” which appeared in the last issue of Worker’s Write!, and “Banquet of the Future,” in NUNUM’s annual anthology, Opolis.