1
Andrew
My wife is orange.
She is caked with orange dust, on her fingers, in her cuticles, and her lips are the color of a traffic cone. She's in the kitchen, standing in front of the blender, drinking something–
You guessed it.
Orange.
“Mmmmm,” she moans as she drinks straight from the blender itself. “Isss izz soooooo goooo.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Eeeto-eenie.”
“What?”
A swallow later and she says, “Cheeto-cini.” When my sister-in-law, Shannon, was pregnant with my niece, Amanda created a special orange smoothie for her out of Cheetos, marshmallow cream, and orange sherbet.
My wife has modified it to remove the sherbet and replace it with coconut milk, which does nothing to change the fact that it's vile to the core.
It's just slightly less gross now.
“Another one?”
“It's the only thing that stays down.”
“And the doctor really says this is okay?” I say, staying far away from the blender, knowing how territorial she is about her food. She's pregnant and still stuck deep in morning sickness.
For the last few weeks, all she's eaten is this.
Cheeto smoothie.
And nothing else.
“It's full-fat coconut milk. One big leaf of kale.” She makes a gagging sound. “Apple juice. One banana. And Cheetos. I freeze the fruit and it tastes like a milkshake.”
“Our babies are made up of that.” At least she added the kale, banana, and apple juice this time.
“I choke down a prenatal vitamin, too, Andrew.” Her eyes tear up and her chin quivers.
Damn.
“It's fine. Good. I'm so glad you can eat something. Really. Not judging you. I know you are doing everything possible for our babies.” I rub the spot between her shoulder blades, hoping I can calm her down before a full-blown meltdown kicks in.
“I am! Everything,” she says before gobbling down more of that candy corn-colored monstrosity. “I've lost two pounds. The doctor said the placenta looks fine and the babies are growing within range, but this morning sickness is horrible. If I drink water, I puke! If I drink this–” she points at the blender, “–I don't.”
“Then by all means, drink that.” I hold back a shudder. My trainer, Vince, would have an unexpected coronary if he saw Cheetos in a Vitamix.
“I–I know I'm not doing this the way another wife would. A better wife. A wife who is stronger and who...” Her lower lip begins to quiver.
Here we go again.
I come in for the hug before I wince, feeling like a jerk. Being supportive isn't hard. Not at all. Being pregnant with two babies–my babies–has to be impossibly hard. And poor Amanda has to shoulder that load. I can't do one bit of it for her.
But I could do without the drastic personality change. It's like someone swapped my wife out for the most insecure woman on the planet.
Ever.
The woman who could do anything, fix anything, mediate anything has become a sniffling puddle of overly apologetic goo, who makes insecure celebrities look like they invented arrogance.
And who has convinced herself that she's terrible at being pregnant.
“Amanda.” I kiss her, gently, tasting salt and cheese and sugar. “You're perfect.”
“I'm incompetent.”
“All you have to do is let cells divide inside your womb.”
“And grow a placenta. I'm terrible at this. I'm failing at basic biology!” Wide eyes, big and beautiful, tear up like someone's pumped her full of salt water.
“It's not a college course,” I joke. “It's just nature.”
She stiffens.
Uh oh.
“It's not 'just' anything.”
Declan warned me about this stage of pregnancy. The super-sensitive stage. The you-can't-say-anything-without-opening-the-portal-to-demonic-possession stage.
That's his phrase. Not mine. Don't pin that on me.
“Of course it's not 'just' anything,” I soothe. “I'm not trivializing it. I'm saying you're doing a great job.”
“If it's ‘just’ nature, how can I be doing a ‘great’ job at something I have no control over?”
She's got me there.
“You're the most loving woman I know,” I tell her. “Which means you'll be the most loving mother I know. Which makes me the luckiest man alive, because you're going through such a huge sacrifice to give me two children. Not just one. Two. At the same time.”
Uncertainty flickers across her face. Aha. Now I'm on firmer ground. We're just in the middle of a slippery negotiation. The other party is insecure and needs reassurance.
I’ve got this.
I've totally got this.
A few more sentences and she'll be eating out of my hand.
Not that Cheeto-smoothie crap, though.
I splay my hand over her belly. It's surprisingly flat, though her nice, curvy hips make it easy to cuddle. “Our babies are right here. You're growing them. Your body nurtures them.”
She gives me a shaky smile.
Score! I did it. I talked her down. Declan is such an amateur. He can't compete with my ability to–
Amanda's shaky smile turns into something... green.
My wife has gone from orange to turquoise. She's the Miami Dolphins in pregnant form.
Casually, like I've done this a thousand times before (hint: it's been seven, but I've perfected my move), I reach for a small bucket in the kitchen and hand it to her so she can do the inevitable.
Reject every calorie she's trying to consume.
“I hate this,” she moans as I rub her back and try to console her. Secretly, though, I'm relieved.
At least this time, she didn't get my shoes. Can't just hop on a plane to Italy today and get a replacement pair in Milan like I used to.
“I hate it for you,” I assure her. I do. I really, really do. You know how some men claim they'd get pregnant for their wives, to spare them the pain of everything they go through to bring a new life into this world?
Yeah. I'm not one of them.
But I'll hire people to help with that pain.
And I'll be there with her, in sickness and in health, 'til Cheeto smoothies do us part.
Because we're definitely parting ways on this. If I'm eating something orange out of a blender, it'll be something my trainer, Vince, made for me, and it won't come out of a foil bag.
Though it might come out of a former Soviet-bloc country's experimental performance enhancement lab.
“Andrew?” Amanda calls for me, the sound of the bathroom faucet stopping. I hear sniffling, then she emerges, red-rimmed eyes and wan smile breaking my heart a little.
Yes, I have one.
“Oh, honey. I'm so sorry.” Compassion doesn't come easily for me. It can't, when you run a big corporation. Compassion gets tucked away in a walled-off safe, deep inside a chamber of my heart, the path to reach it one my wife has to traverse everyday. It's like working in a maximum security prison, I imagine.
You're not a prisoner, but you have to go through all the layers of security to enter the facility.