Chapter 2

I’m awake but not really.

I already hit the snooze button once and I’m counting the minutes until I can hit it again. I’m also counting the number of light bulbs needed for the 3rd floor lobby. Model numbers of fluorescent tubes are running through my mind.

I’m half-awake when I hear a noise that I don’t want to hear. It’s not my alarm clock — it’s my wife. She’s in our master bathroom, kneeling in front of our porcelain ivory toilet. She’s hacking and heaving and coughing up last night’s dinner. Her fingers, with closely cropped fingernails and no polish, tightly grip the side of the bowl.

There goes the lemon pepper chicken. The bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs grilled to perfection with a summery, citrus glaze. The spice rub that we kneaded into the meat is splashing into the water.

There goes the arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette. All my hard work of emulsifying the olive oil and the vinegar is now covering the walls of our toilet bowl.

I guess it was bound to end up there eventually — that’s just not the way you hope it gets there.

I think to myself: I should do something. But what is there to do?

And finally, there goes the homemade mashed potatoes. Thick and lumpy with white gravy and bits of the skin left on.

I wish I were just dreaming. But I’m not.

After Lara finishes retasting last night’s dinner, she starts talking to me from the bathroom, with a toothbrush in her mouth. “Are you feeling okay? Do you think the chicken was bad?” She pauses to spit out some toothpaste suds. “Salmonella, maybe?”

“I’m fine.” At this point, my alarm goes off. “Do you want to call in today? You don’t have to go. You have enough days saved up.”

“I know I have the days, I just have some appointments that I can’t afford to miss.”

It was true. She’s a Surgical Oncologist at Northwestern Memorial. That’s cancer. Specifically breast cancer. Treatment and therapy. Removal and reconstruction. It’s hard to reschedule someone’s chemotherapy just because you’ve had some bad chicken. It’s hard enough looking at people who are trying to accept death, without trying to squeeze in a weekend vacation.

“Yeah. I know. You can sleep in tomorrow. I can pick up some soup for you on my way home. Chicken wild rice or potato with white cheddar. Whatever you want.”

“Yeah, sure. But no chicken.”

I can’t help her when she’s throwing up, but I can bring her more food.

That night, Charlie comes over to watch a taped delay World Cup game. USA vs. Slovenia. It’s hard for us to get worked up against the Slovenians. We couldn’t even find them on a map. Why couldn’t they give us a traditional WWII matchup against Germany or Japan? You don’t think people would tune in to an Allies vs. Axis grudge match?

I’m not asking for Iraq or Iran, here. I’ll even take Russia or Cuba at this point. But no, we get Slovenia. Apparently their most popular food is a cheese and potato pastry. Can you feel my blood boiling?

The World Cup is being played in South Africa. The local kickoff time is 8:30 p.m., so it’s broadcast live at 12:30 p.m. in Chicago. I Tivoed the game and avoided any online articles or SportsCenter broadcasts so we could watch the game at night. At 8:30 p.m. our local time.

Since we can’t watch the game during the day because of work, we try to recreate the setting exactly. We don’t even fast-forward through the halftime show. We try to create the illusion that it is live. Because that’s why we like sports. We like the feeling that it’s not scripted. That anything can happen.

But once you tape a live event, those possibilities are destroyed. Once it’s recorded, there is only one outcome and if you want you could skip ahead to the end.

Of course, most of the time, what you’re watching isn’t live anyways. There’s generally a 10-second delay on all live broadcasts, so they can bleep the coach’s swearing or cut away from the streaker bouncing across the field.

The delay is so small that you’d never notice, unless you were talking to someone on a cell phone at the game. Think about that the next time you’re watching the World Series or the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl.

By the time you see the pitcher start to wind up — the batter’s already struck out.

By the time you see the point guard inbound the ball — the buzzer’s already sounded.

By the time you see the center snap the football through his legs — the field goal’s already hit the crossbar.

But you never know it. All those fans at home praying, for something that’s already over.

Of course, 10 seconds isn’t enough time to do anything. But it begs the question: how do we really know that anything is live? We take their word for it, when we see them live in front of a stadium full of 100,000 screaming, face-painted hooligans. But couldn’t it be an elaborate hoax with the whole audience in on it? Like David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.

What if one day they start filming sporting events in advance? Would we ever know? The perfect Cinderella story, brought to you by Gatorade. Dreams do come true, sponsored by Nike. We think that we’d never allow that to happen. But we’d never know.

“The 2010 FIFA World Cup is brought to you, commercial free, by McDonald’s. Feed your inner child.™”

Back in my living room, my body’s autopilot has taken control and I just threw the remote across the room. The US just allowed another early goal and I wasn’t paying attention. Slovenia’s up 1–0.

“So how’s the novel coming along? The one about the eulogies?”

Charlie says, “I’m on to something better. Turns out it’s really hard to write that many eulogies. But I’ve been doing some research and I found out exactly what it takes to be a success nowadays.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve got to find a niche,” he says.

“A niche?”

“Yeah, it’s all niche marketing. The days of the blockbuster novel are over. People like to find their own thing. You need a hook. You need to speak directly to a specific audience.”

“So what’s your hook?”

“It’s an anti-diet book. Embrace your inner glutton. But it’s deeper than that. More niche. I’m appealing just to red states. The Bible Belt will eat this shit up. It’s called ‘People Making You Thin Are Making You Gay.’ It’s fantastic.”

Sometimes Charlie reminds me of a used car dealer. He’s got a good smirk and eyes that could put a young lady in a 1983 LeBaron. And every time I see him, he’s sporting different facial hair. Right now he’s got a semi-mustache under his pointy nose. He would most likely be cast as Sam Rockwell in the movie adaptation.

“Don’t you think that’s a little ridiculous?”

“It has to be far-fetched. It has to be over the top. Controversy sells.”

“I can see that. I guess. Sort of.”

While we are downstairs, chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” trying to inspire our team — who had finished playing the game we were watching a full 8 hours earlier — Lara is upstairs waking up from a nap. Her body is sore. Her neck, stiff. And her vagina, bleeding.

I only mention it because it’s important.

She comes down during the 87th minute, with the score at 2–2, no less, to tell me that it’s important. Of course, she can’t be as blunt as I just was, on account of Charlie sitting next to me. But I can see in her face that something is wrong.

So I have to suspend reality. I have to pause the game.

Upstairs, she tries to nervously explain the significance of a few red dots in her underwear.

“I’m spotting. It’s serious.”

“Isn’t that just your period?”

“No. You don’t get it. I’m a week early. I’m never early. It’s not my period.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

Her lips are curling, her forehead wrinkling. She wants to tell me something, but doesn’t want to actually say the words.

“I’m spotting. I think it might be implantation bleeding.”

“I don’t know what that means. Just tell me.”

I can’t tell if she is happy or upset. Scared or excited. Or all of the above.

“I think that I might be pregnant.”

At this point, I’m confused and stupid. “I don’t get it. I thought you were pregnant if your period was late. Not early.”

“This isn’t a period. It’s spotting — it’s more pink. It’s when the fertilized egg attaches to the uterus…I think I’m pregnant.” She continues, looking at the floor, with her hands on her stomach. “I feel something that I’ve never felt before. I feel like there’s something inside me.”

At this moment, I’m awake. But not really.

When you type anything into Google, their autocomplete feature tries to finish your thought. It tries to read your mind. The first autocomplete suggestion for “signs” is “signs of pregnancy.” Followed by “signs of depression.” Then of autism, diabetes and the zodiac. Followed by dehydration and heart attack. “Signs of heart attack.”

If you’re Googling signs of a heart attack, my guess is it’s a false alarm. But there it is.

So it’s late and I’m still awake and I’m searching online because I don’t trust my wife. My wife with the medical degree. I need to see it for myself.

So I’m reading and making a checklist in my head.

Fatigue. Check.

Implantation bleeding. Check.

Morning sickness. The love of your life, vomiting forcefully into a porcelain ivory toilet. Check.

Tender, swollen breasts. To be determined.

The only thing left to do is buy a pregnancy test. It’s amazing how the rest of your life is determined by a five-dollar piece of plastic that you pee on.

We can land a man on the moon.

We can make a car run on hydrogen.

And to find out if there’s a human life growing inside you, you pee on a stick.

At our local pharmacy, there are a variety of tests. There’s plus and minus signs, colored lines, and if you pay extra, it can actually display the entire words “pregnant” or “not pregnant.” They also have individual tests for sale, or a value pack with two tests.

I picture the teenager lacking the foresight to wear a condom, but having the foresight to buy the value pack knowing this will probably happen again. I decide to get the value pack.

At home, I hand a test to my wife and don’t say a word. After a few minutes, she opens the door and lets me in.

There on my bathroom counter, next to my wife’s moisturizer is a used pregnancy test. There in the little window, are two pink lines. One to let you know it’s working. The other to let you know there’s a 99.9% chance that you’re pregnant.