Zebras

Chapter 1
The Call

     How are we to know when yesterday was our last day worth living?
     Some mornings when we wake up, we see the sunrise and think what a great day. We love our family, our dog doesn't bark, and the plastic garbage cans rest neatly behind the garage. Except on special occasions, we no longer play loud music or stay up late, and we enjoy the lengthy days of summer to the last leaves of fall. We have no reason to worry that someday the world might stop turning.
     And then the world stops turning.
     In my ten years since college, I had finally learned to enjoy my job. When business travel took me to Toronto, I privately celebrated a recent raise and a promising future by dining with colleagues: subtle European cheeses countered pungent bites of abandoned sushi, Belgium waffles overflowed with Vermont's finest, and imported Budweiser cleansed our palates. I reveled in the dinner seasoned with French, Canadian, and American humor, amongst the dizzying smiles of friends.
     The evening ended and I returned to my solitary hotel room, where the blinking light on the phone reminded me someone loved me somewhere else. I listened to the recorded message anticipating an "I love you, when will you be home?" Instead I heard, "I found a lump, and they're going to operate Friday."

* * *
Chapter 2
The Lump
Reason #813 for Falling in Love:
Plastic Roses Never Die.

     With the horrible message seeping into all corners of my imagination, I tried to call my wife, Meri Beth. Getting an international phone line to the States from my hotel after midnight proved to be almost impossible, and I complicated the matter by pushing the wrong buttons on the phone. After a few frustrating attempts, I recognized the familiar dial tone and placed the call. Each ring echoed louder than the one before.
     "Hey," I said, expecting her to be asleep.
     "Hey."
     Not asleep, she sounded as if she had been crying. After two years of marriage, I recognized the worry in her voice. "What happened?" I asked.
     She took a breath to steady herself, but her voice wavered. "I found a lump in my breast and, and they think it's bad. They operate Friday."
     "Are you okay?"
     "No," she said, sobbing into the phone.
     "I'm on my way home. I'll be there as soon as I can."
     After a short silence, I heard her sigh, no louder than a falling snowflake.
     "Ter, I'm scared," she said.
     "Me too, baby. Me too."
     The flat sound of the dial tone jolted me from the distorted reality of the nightmare and returned me to the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel room. My temples throbbed, unlike the onset of a migraine, but as if a bullet had ripped through my head, leaving me to hallucinate and bleed to death. I didn't recognize my own hands or the things around me. In my confusion, had I entered the right room?
     My fingers tingled and I went numb. The phone fell to the floor. The oxygen in the air grew thin and time stopped. Meri Beth's words echoed: They operate Friday.
     I needed to see her and removed my favorite picture of my wife from my wallet. I had taken it on one of our first dates, on a picnic by the river, and I smiled at the familiar sight of her red tights and silly grin. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend to be sitting on a blanket in the tall grass, listening to the water, wondering about our possible future together.
     Neither the tall grass nor the flowing river of my memory could calm my anxiety, and I stood in the stark brightness of my hotel room, trying to organize my thoughts. After five days in Toronto, I had another day's worth of scheduled business, although I couldn't remember with whom or for what reason. I couldn't remember what airline I would be flying. I couldn't remember where I had left my shoes.
     Was it still Wednesday?
     I walked to the window, her picture in hand, to stare at the lake and the buildings of downtown Toronto and then began the search for the missing shoe. There. The left shoe sat on the table by the phone.
     How did it get there?
     I should call the airlines.
     Reaching for the phone, I saw the other shoe on the floor and changed direction mid stride. Then I saw my suitcase.
     I need to pack.
     The phone. My suitcase. The other shoe.
     Stop!
     I wandered through the room's narrow confines, unable to function at a level higher than checking items off a grocery list without concentrating. I couldn't remember how to pack, and fortunately, I didn't need to think about breathing-because I would have forgotten that, too. I felt like I had run a marathon or battled asthma and gulped for air. My lungs expanded, filling my chest like a balloon before bursting. Perhaps other people felt this way after receiving the middle of the night phone call telling them Grandpa Ed had suffered a heart attack or little Annie had choked to death on a button from her blouse. I attempted to concentrate and managed a couple of quick breaths.
     The throbbing in my temples subsided, and I abandoned the search for the matching shoes and returned my attention to her picture. Her red tights, her silly grin. Meri Beth and I hadn't been married long enough for anything to go wrong. I wanted to believe having the lump removed would be nothing-like going to the dentist to fill a cavity or having a broken finger set. I would fly home, see MB, as I sometimes called her, and the surgery would be nothing. We would laugh it off and comment on how scared we were. But, what if this wasn't something we could laugh off? I shuddered in a long uncontrollable roll that ran along my spine until my toes clenched the carpet. I knew this problem would not fade after a little Novocain.
     If I hurried through Customs, I could catch the 5:15 a.m. flight to Chicago.
     Somewhere in my hotel room, my shoes had vanished.

     Before meeting Meri Beth, I never believed in luck (good or bad) and thought the way to accomplish any goal came through hard work, humor, and persistence. Between these three things, nothing important existed outside of my control, and I assumed that finding the right woman would be no different. Obviously (and in retrospect only), this was a rather naïve approach, as I had a much better understanding of the laws of physics than why a woman changes her mind. It would take me years to learn life isn't a problem waiting to be solved, and besides, explaining the principle of gravity paled in comparison to finding the right woman.
     My next-door neighbor, Tammy, accidentally introduced me to my future wife. In the two years I had lived next door, she had been trying to pair me with an eligible friend, relative, or acquaintance and regularly facilitated our liaisons by hosting "impromptu porch parties." Her parties, while not especially impromptu, filled my social calendar and dispelled my intermittent, summer-dating blues. Tammy attempted to match me with everyone she had ever met, from sisters to aerobic instructors, and delicately inquired if I preferred men-to make the necessary referrals. Even if nothing became of the events, I found them to be an entertaining way to occupy an evening and met many interesting people. Calling late on a Friday afternoon, she said she'd "had an inspiration" and wanted to introduce her best friend's stepdaughter.
     My doubts were confirmed prior to popping the top off my first Amstel Light, as the stepdaughter and I weren't compatible. But as we chatted, she mentioned she was no longer a stepdaughter and pointed to her ex-stepmother standing at the other end of the room. From a glance, I could see Cinderella had given stepmothers a bad reputation. Having always sounded hideous and old, my presumptions regarding the fable were incorrect. This ex-stepmother, a blond, blue-eyed woman named Meri Beth, resembled nothing from the old fairy tale, except perhaps Cinderella herself. Her youthful smile caught my attention, and she looked too young to have an adult stepdaughter.
     As it turned out, the ex-stepmother, Meri Beth, had married and divorced a man 20 years her senior, and she and I were about the same age. Like the sun holding the earth in orbit, I felt attracted to her in way I had never known and started to feel giddy, even dizzy. This contradiction to physics couldn't be explained until I realized I had been holding my breath.
     I exhaled, wanting to say something, anything, to flirt and learn more about her. Unfortunately, after feeling lightheaded, I mustered a lame, "So, what do you do for a living?"
     "I'm a TV talk show host," she said.
     "Really?"
     It sounded like the setup to a joke. I could envision any one of my friends starting to tell the joke with, "A TV talk show host walks into a bar…" and I prepared for the punch line, readying a stock courtesy laugh in case it fell flat. After the hideous stepmother faux pas, I didn't intend to be caught off guard a second time, which would eventually prove to be impossible before the night ended. With her face glowing in the moonlight, she lit my world, and in that moment, I forgot about every woman I had ever met before her.
     Meri Beth filled the silence. "Have you ever seen those late-night shopping channels?"
     "Yes…"
     "Every night, well Monday through Saturday, I dress up in TV makeup and sparkly clothes and go to work at the studios."
     Hesitating, she waited for a reply and when I noticed I had been staring into her eyes and not completely listening. I immediately overcompensated by redirecting my attention, trying not to stare at my shoes or a plastic year-round-blooming geranium but back to Meri Beth. I couldn't remember if I had blinked. "Oh, really?" I said, forcing a blink like a frog.
     "I'm on from 2 a.m. to five, and I sell everything. From toasters to rock polishers or stereos to toenail clippers. Whatever they give me."
     By simply turning on the TV in the wee hours of the morning, I later verified her occupation. Inside the production studio, she sparkled beneath the lights, which accented the female characteristics I had desired since puberty: blond hair, blue eyes, pink lips. As she moved across my TV screen, I wanted to see her again, take in her perfume, and listen to her laugh. If this was how she sold toasters, I was in the market.

     During the flight home from Toronto, an almost weekly and mindless event, my thoughts drifted away from work and play, and I imagined a world of endless negative possibilities surrounding Meri Beth's fate. In one world, we have never met and I am alone. Perhaps I am dating, perhaps relishing in selfishness with no obligations to anyone. In another world, Meri Beth and I have children of the generic sort, like the blue-eyed, blond-haired children who play silently in the out-of-focus background of a movie. Although nameless and genderless, I know I love them, whoever they are. Finally, I imagined a world where I am alone again after Meri Beth had died of cancer: the house is quiet, one car sits in the garage gathering dust, and weeds overrun the flower garden; a stack of her mail rests on the counter, and our dog waits endlessly by the door for her to return.
     Once the plane reached its cruising altitude, I ordered two double scotch-and-waters, easy on the water. Although before six in the morning, I thought, what the hell did it matter? A few other passengers with valid reasons of their own drank Bloody Marys with brownish-green pieces of airline celery. After thirty years of observing Murphy's Law (what can go wrong, will go wrong), I imagined his rules would continue to govern my life and needed to somehow prepare for the worst-case scenario: Meri Beth would get very sick and then die.
     I found a lump in my breast…they operate Friday, her voice echoed in my mind, making it impossible to read or work on the plane. With my eyes closed, I heard her crying. With them open, I could do nothing but stare out the window into a landscape of emptiness. Outlines of dark clouds thousands of feet beneath the plane would soon rest over our home.
     My first impulse in every situation is to act, to jump, to do something to reduce the impact or make the problem go away. I am a man. In my most favorite movies, the underdog hero (Rambo, Rocky, Bruce Willis etc.), confronts adversity, fights back, and kicks ass. For over thirty years, I have been conditioned by popular cinema to provide this response when the occasion demands it. While I never plan to leap off the Golden Gate Bridge onto a barge to capture an automatic-weapon toting desperado, I will always help and defend my family and friends.
     Two months before, my neighbor had been involved in an accident with a circular saw. The blade shattered and ran up his body from his legs to his face. Despite my general panic and his loss of blood, I plugged the holes with my fingers, tried to reduce the risk of shock, and then waited…and waited…and waited until the ambulance arrived. While certainly not a hero by any stretch of the imagination, one fear became very clear to me: within two minutes, I had exhausted everything I knew about emergency medical assistance. For the next nine minutes I repeated, "Hang in there-it's going to be okay" and "can you hear me?" and "we'll have a beer later." By the time the ambulance arrived, I had never felt so inadequate in my life-until receiving Meri Beth's phone message.
     "May I have another double, please?" I said, catching the flight attendant's gaze.
     In a sudden violent wave of turbulence, the plane dropped through a cloud, and a woman to my left gripped her seat until her knuckles turned white. Her colorless face reminded me of how I must have looked. She feared flying while I feared the unknown. With every little air pocket, she gripped the armrest tighter. With each passing moment, I anticipated the worst. I didn't know if Meri Beth's lump meant she had cancer, but in all of the stories I could recall, when a woman found a lump, her life ended in tragedy. I didn't know how to handle the situation; unlike the turbulence we encountered, if the lump was cancerous, we wouldn't be able to fly around it.
     I didn't know much about breast cancer. Actually, that's being generous; I didn't know anything about breast cancer. I didn't think diet or exercise caused it, believing the source to be mostly genetic or sometimes environmentally induced-like growing up in a family with a poor medical history or living beneath high-tension wires. Right? Perhaps inhaling asbestos from a long forgotten grade school or drinking expired milk from the carton. While I questioned the causes of cancer, I knew two things: sometimes the women had their breasts removed and sometimes they died.
     My toes began to twitch and I jiggled my empty glass of ice. Then I realized it had happened again: everything I knew about breast cancer I had reviewed in less than a drink. I didn't know enough about cancer to pose an opinion. I needed to do something, wanted to help Meri Beth, but the thought of her being diagnosed with cancer overwhelmed me. What could I do? I could battle my ignorance and learn the facts, but the depth of the disease was beyond my control. I searched the anonymous faces next to me for answers, wanting to tell them what had happened and ask them what I should do, but I could not speak to the strangers with my unsteady thoughts and incoherent questions.
     Blue carpet and red seats? How do airlines come up with these color schemes? Roses are red….
     A couple of years ago, I wanted to give Meri Beth roses. Instead of buying real flowers, I bought plastic ones, believing the gesture to be romantic: plastic roses never die. Everyone, including Meri Beth, from the woman who sold me the flowers to the man who sold me the boxed-wine for our picnic, suggested otherwise.
     I downed the scotch.
     If I couldn't affect the outcome of Meri Beth's surgery, logic insisted, I shouldn't let this worry me. But it did. Mad and helpless, I couldn't fight an invisible enemy, an enemy without a face. With a person, I would have a target, but this was like shooting arrows over a fence.
     The plane jumped to the left and the pilot spoke over the intercom; he wanted to make sure I had fastened my seatbelt for my safety, but I didn't care. Meri Beth would have no seatbelt. Out the window, a gray mass of clouds bubbled to a rolling boil, masking the landscape. Lightning flickered over a distant town, and I turned away, closing my eyes and hoping to regain my composure. In the past, whenever I felt out of control, I would take a deep breath and repeat: I'm a big man; I need to hang in there. I'm a smart man; I'll figure it out. Don't panic; that's when people get hurt. That's what Willis or Stallone would say.
     With an empty drink, I wondered what would happen to us.
     We wanted a family. We wanted Children. We wanted to grow old together.
     Why hadn't I seen this coming?
     After all our dates, I should have asked about her health or her family's medical history. Murphy hurt me good this time: after finding my perfect woman, she dies before we have a chance to realize our dreams.
     What if she had only one breast? Or none at all?
     With children ducking in and out of the aisles, I glanced to the women sitting next to me. Could I tell if they were missing their breasts? I stared until my contact lenses scratched my eyes. Under silken shirts and woolen jackets, beneath layers of cotton and dry-cleaned rayon, I could not be sure. As a man, I blindly and ignorantly assume all women, and men for that matter, are normal. Average. We are all the same until we see beneath the camouflage of our clothing or deep inside our gray matter. Only then do we become unique. I began to wonder: Is it the illusion of our personal image that we hide behind, unwilling to reveal our true selves, or are we incapable of distinguishing the difference?
     Would she need a will?
     What will happen if she dies?
     Like the reverberation of distant thunder echoing through the skies, the question echoed through the distant unused corners of my mind. Then, more thunder, more questions. I gasped for air and spilled my ice.
     Meri Beth could die.
     Would I be a widow or a widower?
     Stop! We know nothing!
     By the seat in front of me, I saw something nestled between the carpet and the wall of the plane. I leaned against the seatbelt to dislodge a penny of no apparent significance. Not too shiny yet not too old, it seemed to blend in with the cracker crumbs and fuzz off the floor. I remembered some wise aunt or wacky cousin from my childhood telling me whenever I found a penny, I was granted a wish.
      Usually, finding a penny meant wishing for money or wishing for Meri Beth to become pregnant. Sitting thirty-thousand-feet over Lake Michigan, I wished for her to live.

* * *
Chapter 3
Falling In Love
Reason #101 for Falling in Love:
Ignoring Prior Arrests and Convictions

     Almost three years before that desperate plane ride home, Meri Beth and I had started dating, and like many first dates, they involved staring into each other's eyes and wondering if this would be the one. I dread thinking about how dates with other women had gone, as I had wondered the same thoughts, but I knew this woman was special. Over boxed-wine and deli sandwiches, Meri Beth and I began our romance with picnics in the park, sitting on a blanket by the Tennessee River. There, removed from the minor distractions of the real world, we listened to the water lapping against the shore and shared personal stories. When I felt shy and retreated to make a joke, she didn't seem to mind. After all, this early in our relationship, she had nothing to lose. We hadn't started kissing or holding hands and played it safe with conversation. These were the types of dates where thirty-somethings performed casual inquiries into the likes, dislikes, and prior convictions of their new special friend. During our tête-à-têtes, it didn't take long to discover she wanted children and her clock ticked louder than mine: She had divorced her previous two husbands for being either unable or unwilling to give her children.
     I had always wanted children-someday-and growing up the oldest and only boy of three, I had always wanted a brother. On occasion, I considered what it would be like to have as many brothers and sisters as my grandfather. Born into a poor family with seventeen children, if he wanted to eat, he had to learn to fight at the dinner table for his supper. (From what I can remember, my two younger sisters never put up much of a fight for the remaining Oreos.) With times being different than they were in the early 1900's, I wondered what it would be like to have a large family and found the concept attractive. With a good paying job and a little luck, my wife and I could afford to have enough children to staff a football or softball team. Having nine to eleven children seemed reasonable-to me.
     After further consideration, the odds of a man my age having all boys seemed unlikely, resulting in at least a few daughters. I didn't want to coach a coed football team. Certain I wouldn't be alone in this belief, I believed my ideal woman wouldn't want more than a handful of children, anyway. Besides, to quote a philosopher of old: Women should stop having children at thirty-five; thirty-five children should be enough for anyone. Four children seemed to be an acceptable compromise. In an ideal world, each child would have something I never had: a brother and a sister. If I were a kid again, this would have made me happy.
     Meeting Meri Beth made me smile, and on our first picnic, I felt unusually comfortable, wanting only to spend more time with my future best friend. Rarely, during the silent moments, did I worry if we would have things in common to discuss. While my intuition said we would be fine, the little voice of doubt questioned, "What if you don't?" I lit some candles, hoping not to knock them over, and set them next to our blanket. (Starting a forest fire on a first date is never well received.) I tried to ignore the little voice of doubt and poured more of the boxed-wine into our plastic cups. Believing it to be an efficient and portable solution to what to drink on a picnic, I hadn't yet learned that boxed-wine lacked romance.
     "So," Meri Beth whispered. She flashed one of those smiles that tickled my insides and made me feel like we were taking off in an airplane. "Your favorite color is purple, mine too, and you love lasagna."
      When we had met at the party, we had been unable to talk without someone eavesdropping. Finally alone, a foolish grin crossed my face.
     She continued. "And you have a dog and a roommate."
     So far so good….
     "Ever been arrested?" she asked.
     So much for the smile.
     "Do you ask this of all your dates?" I said. My mind raced to find an acceptable answer to her question. The longer I delayed, the deeper my hole, and I continued to shovel. "More wine?"
     "No thanks, you refilled it," she said. A timid yet tempered smile crossed her lips, and the little voice of doubt chuckled.
     While she might have asked the question because outlaws turned her on, it might have been to rule out picnicking with a serial killer. Both possibilities seemed unlikely-especially since she displayed no visible tattoos and the only body piercings she had were in her ears.
     "Well?" she repeated.
     "Well, there was this one time. A minor-very minor-traffic offense. No resulting damage…uh, nothing on a permanent record."
     "Oh."
     I could tell by the sound of her voice, she was unsatisfied, and if she believed she would be riding home with an escapee from the penitentiary, this would be an embarrassing way to end a date. I attempted to water down the circumstances surrounding the unmemorable event, one memory I had shared with no one.
     "It was in high school," I said.
     No reply. Boy, she's tough, I thought and then added, "Drinking and driving-it was very fashionable at the time."
     "Oh."
     And now I'm pushing boxed-wine? She must think I'm an alcoholic with poor taste. My stomach churned, this time not out of a pleasant nervousness, but because I did not want to lose her over my ancient stupidity. I thought it best to confess.
     "It was an accident. I don't do it any more. I promise."
     I almost sipped at my wine and then stopped mid gesture, thinking the action to be a poor example of my reformed ways. If I wanted to save the date, I had to do something. As a defense mechanism, when wild animals are cornered, they hiss or growl. For me, I make jokes or change the subject. This would be the first of many attempts to distract my future wife. "Hey, the circus is in town."
     "It's not a circus," she said, silently agreeing, I believed, to temporarily table the subject. "It's a carnival. They don't have any animals. They have rides."
     "We should go. Do you like the rides?"
     "Not the fast ones or the ones that go up high," she began. "Sometimes they make me woozy." Then her face lit up. "I like the carousel. It never goes very fast, and it's so peaceful-listening to the music, watching the lights go by…."
     "Me too," I said. I have always loved the carousel. It isn't a very masculine or testosterone-inducing rush, I must admit, but I find it contemplative and peaceful. "Which animal do you ride?"
     "The unicorn," she said. She took a sip of her wine and looked toward the river, probably remembering a distant childhood memory, I imagined incorrectly. "I like to pretend I'm being carried through the forest to my castle."
     More so than anything I had ever experienced in my life, I wanted the job. Butterflies returned to my stomach, and I had to ask, "Is there a prince in the castle waiting for you?"
     "Not yet," she said. "I'm sure he's on his way."
     With Meri Beth's long blond hair, she could have passed for a princess. I didn't own a castle, but maybe I could find a fixer-upper.
     We seemed to share a mutual curiosity about each other, and while I had dated other women before, I had never felt like a handful of chocolate chips melting inside a warm cookie (even after being grilled over failed past discretions). But for reasons I could not yet identify, I wanted this woman to ask the hard questions.
     And she did without knowing it. "Which animal do you ride?"
     On the surface, this might seem like an easy question, but I fidgeted on the blanket. "Actually," I hesitated, "I ride sitting on the bench. I fell off a wooden cow as a kid, and well, I'm afraid of the horses. Those painted teeth…." I faked a shiver.
     She laughed, and without realizing it, told me she enjoyed life and to hell with people who didn't. Her smile made me forget about time, willing me to sacrifice the hourglass for a future of endless sunsets together.
     "Kids?" she asked.
     "What do you mean?"
     After having heard the question, many people might have assumed she implied: "Do you want to have children?" But following the prison inquiry, I wasn't sure and considered the nuances to her question. Having had plenty of previous girlfriends (and having learned the hard way on many occasions), I knew how dangerous nuances could be to a new relationship. My palms began to sweat. The answer could be:
     A. How many children do you want?
     B. How many children do you have?
     C. You're not one of those guys who wants to start a football team? or
     D. You're not a serial killer, are you?
     "Do you have any children?" she asked, kindly rephrasing the question. I must have looked confused.
     I told her I didn't have any children-as the little voice of doubt questioned, "What if?" forcing me to ponder the softball team scenario in a different light. Concentrate, you moron, I thought, trying to quiet the voice.
     As a reminder, all men are morons. While only some (the sensitive morons) realize this, even fewer (the sensitively apathetic morons) are capable of showing restraint. After billions and billions of years of evolution, we (the actively, insensitive yet big-hearted morons) have evolved to the top of our game: we are still morons. When women ask us the simplest of questions, we look at them as if to say, "Haven't we talked about this before?"
     It isn't our fault.
     It's partly due to the first "discussion" we ever had with a girlfriend who asked if her butt looked big, which happens to every man at some point in his life. We actually believed she meant it. Because guys mean it. We're a very literal bunch. If we ask if our butt looks big, and I don't know why we ever would, we want to know if, in fact, our butt looks big. Should we pull our shirt out? Or unbutton the front of our pants so we can breathe? Don't be fooled: being a moron takes practice. Passed along to us by our fathers, it is a dedication unknown to the female gender.
     "No. I don't have any children," I repeated, trying to confirm my suspicion and camouflage my stupidity. I hoped.
     "Do you want children?" she continued.
     "Yes," I said. I delayed extemporizing on my softball team scenario for the moment. "Do you?"
     "Yes. Well, I come from a big family, and I believe the family is a good foundation to build a life. A child will love you unconditionally, and I want her to benefit from my experiences. Besides, having children will give my life a purpose."
      As she spoke of children, Meri Beth's eyes brightened. If having children gave her life meaning, this had to be very important. I had always wanted children but viewed them as eventual and not as my primary reason for living.
     "And you?" she said. "Why do you want children?"
     Recollecting my mandatory chores from childhood, mowing the grass, shoveling snow, and taking out the trash, I felt awkward and retreated toward a joke. I held up my plastic cup of wine to toast: "The free labor."
     Meri Beth smirked.
     "But really," I continued. "I love to watch children discover things for the first time. Having a child would mean molding a young heart around mine. I know that sounds pretty silly, but if I had children…" I recalled some of the many mistakes I had made over my life. From injuring myself to hurting others, those events had shaped the man I became-or was still becoming-and some were better off forgotten. Having a child meant a new beginning. "…I'd have a second chance at life," I said.
     As I spoke, the words sounded selfish. I didn't mean to be, but I had never shared the thought with anyone. Why had I told Meri Beth? Although I barely knew the woman, I wanted to know her better and decided to take a chance. Children were playing down by the shore, and I pointed to them. "Children are the result of something special. If you actually find the woman-or man-you want to spend your life with, what greater gift can you give each other than combining your love into a child? Wouldn't it be amazing to see how our, you know what I mean," I attempted to clarify the presumptuous our. "How our child would look with my hair and your eyes? Until that day arrives, I own a sheepdog."
     Meri Beth watched the children along the river.
     "How many would you want?" she asked.
     "Four children, hopefully. Two boys and two girls. That way each will have a brother and a sister." Someday, I hoped, I would be a father and would learn the real reasons for having children.
     The smile left her face. "I've always wanted a boy and a girl. But two of each…"
     With my confession, the little voice of doubt began to subside.
     "…would be nice," she said.
     We both wanted children, and for the first time in my life, I had shared this unmanly thought with someone, making me vulnerable. This stranger felt like the right woman for me, and I wanted to see her, spend more time with her, learn more about her-maybe try confessing my dreams. Or better, maybe we would share the secrets in our hearts. I didn't believe in love at first sight, but seeing Meri Beth, I wanted to believe. The longer we sat there, the longer I wanted to remain. The world could turn without us.
     Over a chilled box of chardonnay, we discussed the details of our invisible contract for falling in love.
     I quietly closed my little black book of phone numbers.

* * *
Chapter 4
Family
Reason #239 for Falling in Love:
Having My Back Tickled and Falling Asleep.

     We became preoccupied with starting a family, moving one step closer to growing old together, and from the moment we decided to get married, we stopped using birth control to accelerate the chance of Meri Beth becoming pregnant. If our timing held right, a few months after the wedding, we would have our first child. Although some naysayers might accuse us of getting married because of the pregnancy, we would know better, and our secret plan warmed my heart. I no longer needed to question my life's schedule; I wanted to end my bachelor days to become a family man, but more importantly, I was in love. I could read the fine print regarding for better or for worse later because nothing else mattered.
     Each day Meri Beth came home from work, I expected to see a special smile, one that hinted to another hidden secret, and I held my breath, hoping she would reveal her due date. So far, we had shared all the significant details in our lives, and I felt like every lottery number called matched my ticket; I only needed one more number to win. Boy or girl? Getting ahead of myself, I wondered what our son or daughter would look like and if they would be destined to repeat the mistakes of my past (I had certainly reenacted my father's mistakes). Like moths to a flame, someday, somehow, I knew my children would be doomed with whatever the available technology.
     I recalled my first experiment with electricity.
     "Plug it in," my friend had said.
     "Okay."
     Without need of much encouragement from another eight-year-old, I plugged the electrical cord from the old record player into the wall socket, and it started to smoke before bursting into flame inside my father's garage. Staring at the black smoke coating the ceiling, I wondered (like only an eight-year-old can) after having meticulously wired one piece of junk to another, why we weren't transmitting signals into space. Or, were we? Once the fuse blew, I extinguished the fire, aired the garage, and painted the stain on the ceiling before my father came home from work and killed me.
     Through these early experiences and other science experiments, children establish a benchmark, which they will use to compare and contrast everything for the rest of their lives. To this day, I continue to ponder the possibility of exploding record player radio waves, like a miniature brown dwarf, traveling through the ether….
     Unlike children, parents know better. Not due to an omniscient wisdom that comes ostensibly with age, but because they have "been there, done that" and survived to regret it. In exchange for a safe upbringing, exhausted parents hope to teach their children about love and the difference between right and wrong-and then hurry up and close the door before they decide to stay at home. While parents' lives are filled with "he's touching me" and "get on your own side," they can't wait to say, "Some day, you'll have children of your own…."
     Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, my family resembled the Flintstones and life remained simple-as long as I followed the rules or lied about the truth. With two younger sisters, the most important things to us were summer breaks, playing outside until dark, and popcorn in front of the TV. If we were really good, we could split a bottle of Coke or Orange Crush. We could recite every regularly scheduled TV program for every day on all four channels-and sometimes the movie of the week. Our family led a comfortable and solitary existence, generally choosing not to commune with relatives and keeping to ourselves. Except for annual Christmas gatherings with grandparents and cousins and the occasional reunion with aunts and some uncles twice removed (whatever that meant), life appeared uncomplicated. If we couldn't remember which aunt had the hairy lip, it didn't matter. We would go home in a few hours and return to our private world of Tinker Toys, Legos, and HotWheels.
     Meri Beth hailed from a larger family more like the Waltons on espresso. With seven brothers and sisters (all married with at least a hundred children) and cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents, frenetic activity prevailed. Like a hive of bees, each member had a task that fit into the overall familial synchronicity, and of the many responsibilities, reproducing appeared to be their favorite. After one sibling had "found out she was pregnant," another would be "due any day."
Meri Beth and I had gone months without using birth control and continued trying to become pregnant. As newlyweds, we frequently heard, "Is Meri Beth pregnant yet?" With which we answered, "We're still practicing." No longer newlyweds, our witty response grew banal, and I was as pregnant as Meri Beth.
     Yet, we remained hopeful and rededicated ourselves to hard work, humor, and persistence; we wouldn't give up trying on our own….
     …Two years later, we faced the truth: hard work, humor, and persistence weren't working. We decided to let modern medicine get the job done and went to a fertility specialist, a kind of mechanic for the reproduction engine. Unfortunately, located in Indianapolis, every trip to the doctor meant a three-hour drive, which gave us plenty of opportunity to acknowledge failure in an action almost anyone could perform without thinking-and many did.
     Meri Beth put her feet up on the dash of the car. "If I were sixteen, I'd probably get pregnant while losing my virginity."
     "Promises, promises," I said. I imagined what Meri Beth would have looked like at sixteen: pretty smile, bright eyes, fewer cares.
     "Of course," she continued, "it wouldn't have been with you." She spoke the truth; when she was sixteen, I was eleven and hadn't thought anything more about girls than to chase them around the playground.
     Almost all of our married friends were having babies. One woman stopped taking birth control a week before getting married and wound up pregnant by her honeymoon. Pregnancy seemed easy-for everyone else. I asked myself what made it so hard to make a baby. As a boy, I had asked my great-aunt why she-who loved children-never had any of her own. She told me God hadn't intended it to be, which didn't make sense then or now. If we couldn't become pregnant, at least one of us had to be responsible for the problem. MB or me. I didn't want to talk about it, but Meri Beth did.
     "It may not be my fault," Meri Beth said, defensively. Out the car windows, cornhusks and mud stained the autumn landscape a dull brown.
     "True," I answered. Our regular baby debate made the lengthy car ride even longer, and I needed to avoid it. I knew it would all work out eventually and had faith.
     "Just because I'm in my thirties doesn't mean I can't get pregnant," the 37-year-old said.
     "It could be me," I said. It didn't matter who was at fault; neither of us appreciated any comments on the subject. With a 50-50 chance of being the guilty party (or worst-case scenario: both of us), we didn't discuss it much, but I wondered about it and voiced my concerns with my good friend Rich. He offered advice I had never heard before: "Stay out of the hot tub and wear boxers." Apparently, this had worked for him.
     That afternoon, I went to the mall and bought silk boxer shorts (there's an amazing variety) and a fan for under my desk at work. One way or another, I would see to it that "The Boys," as Rich had euphemized all testicles, remained cool and comfortable. Although wearing boxers made me walk funny, I could get used to it; me and The Boys were in training for The Sperm Test.
     The Sperm Test would occur in ten days. To prepare, I watched what I ate, stopped drinking alcohol, and drank plenty of water, combining daily exercise with at least eight hours of nightly sleep. On the evening before the test, I contemplated the ceiling fan from bed after having drank too much coffee, and Meri Beth started tickling my back. At first, it felt relaxing. Then, the pressure mounted; it had been a few days since we had been amorous, and my resistance faltered.
     No problem, I rationalized. As the wannabe poster child for fitness, certainly, I had plenty of ammo left for the test. Right?
     At lunchtime the next day, I met MB at home, and she handed me the official plastic container, which didn't seem very glamorous. For some reason, I had imagined something larger than a two-ounce, salad dressing-sized take-out container. So had she.
     "It's kind of small," she said. "The cup, I mean."
     "Yeah, the cup." I knew her humor. "How long do I have?"
     "How long do you need? The lab needs to receive your sample within twenty minutes of, uh, making the deposit. I'll be waiting in the car. Engine's running…."
     Staring at The Cup, I found it to be rather intimidating. It hadn't taken me out for dinner or even bought me a drink first, and now it demanded my attention. I could hear the motor running in the garage beneath the bedroom and imagined Meri Beth staring at her watch and chanting: "Hurry up. We've only got twenty minutes…." I didn't feel sexy and pinched the flimsy plastic cup between my fingers. With no time for sexual aids or elaborate fantasies, I did my best, and the doctors were right; it only took a two-ounce, salad dressing-sized take-out container.
     In forty-eight hours, we would learn the results, and in forty-eight hours, Rich would know too, because he kept asking me to tell him.
     After forty-eight hours, Meri Beth and I met with the doctor, and he advised the average man produces a sample between twenty and forty million sperm. Although this may seem like a lot, he explained, many sperm die after ejaculation. While some sperm have two heads, some have two tails. Others "swim in circles in search of the finish line," his analogy for locating the egg. No wonder men are morons; our mutant sperm are swimming in circles. I envisioned sperm looking like Curly of the Three Stooges spinning on the floor and yelling: "Hey, Eggy, where are you? Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!"
     It didn't matter, I thought. My loose boxers and funny walk would pay off.
     "Well?" I asked.
     The doctor looked at me and delivered the bad news.
     Seventeen million sperm.
     "Seventeen million? That's below average." I said. And then it hit me; we knew the reason Meri Beth couldn't get pregnant. I must have been silent for only a moment, but it felt like I was standing alone onstage after having forgotten my lines. Then I remembered the night before the test, having my back tickled and feeling the pressure mount. I wanted an excuse for my deficiency.
     "Of the seventeen million," I asked, "were they…potent?"
     "Yes," he said.
     "Can I try it again?"
     The doctor agreed, and me and The Boys returned to our strict training regimen. I continued wearing the silk boxers and started feeling confident with my new walk. I turned my desk fan up and the office thermostat down, as my coworkers unknowingly complained about the sudden drop in temperature. They would have to suffer or resort to wearing sweaters. This time, I would take no chances: no high temperatures and no sex.
     I hoped.
     The following week, I met Meri Beth at home to repeat the lunchtime ritual and grabbed the elusive two-ounce, salad dressing-sized take-out container. Again, I marched up the steps to the bedroom, and again, she would wait in the car, perhaps revving the engine to offer her support. As an army of one, I went into combat, unsure of what may happen.
     Would this be enough?
     Compared to other events in history (the toppling of dictators, the fall of communism), two days is not a long time, but for two days, I closed myself down, like a fallen bridge or an endless detour down a dead-end road. I saw only my flaws, exaggerated and overwhelming, and my self-esteem migrated from my body. For over thirty years, I had been broken and had taken the ability to start a family, to make a baby, and to mold a young heart around mine for granted.
     Two days later, the verdict arrived. The Boys were back in town-all 122 million of them, and I forgot how upset I had been over something as silly as a low sperm count. I shared the good news with Rich. While I was Sperm Man, he was less than impressed (some guys are like that).
     I briefly celebrated my fertility before realizing what this would mean to Meri Beth: my fertility meant her infertility. Having felt inadequate due to low sperm count, which still allowed me the ability to reproduce, my fears were insignificant compared to the challenges MB would face. After all, she believed having a baby would give her life meaning, and if she couldn't become pregnant, she would feel like she had failed with no way to start over. I wanted to tell her I understood and that she was not defective, but I didn't know how.
     A few weeks later in October, Meri Beth began fertility treatments, and for five months, her doctors bombarded her body with hormones to increase her chances of becoming pregnant. We tracked her cycles and took her temperature multiple times a day. Making love became scheduled instead of spontaneous, and romance kowtowed to hard work, humor, and persistence. To have a baby and give her life meaning, we were willing to go through pain and emotional discomfort; fortunately for us, she is a strong woman and could endure more than me.
     A few days in to Meri Beth's fertility treatment, we were lying in bed awake and unable to sleep. With her increased hormone levels, having a softball team became possible-all at once. The McCaughey family remained in the news for having septuplets, and I tried to lighten the situation by confessing.
     "Mer, remember our picnic when we were talking about having children?"
     "Yeah. You wanted four."
     "There was something I never told you…."
     Before I had a chance to say anything, she started to cry. She would later claim the medicine made her "hyper-emotional."
     "Ter, I want a baby."
     We held hands and stared at the ceiling fan without saying a word.
     Another twenty-eight days later, the drugs hadn't worked, but we remained hopeful. The doctor increased the dosage and changed her medication from pills to serum, and for the next month, we began nightly injections of a thick syrup through a heavy-gauged needle the size of a bicycle spoke into Meri Beth's behind. She would lie on the bed, and I would search for a new location for the evening's application, trying to stick her as painlessly as I could, but every shot made her cry and left a bruise. Sometimes she complained the needle felt like it went in sideways-and really cried. As I watched her endure the pain necessary to make a baby, I would tear up, realizing that hard work, humor, and persistence couldn't solve all my problems-only the minor ones that didn't matter.
     When once I dreamed of falling in love and starting a family, in actuality, my married lifestyle revolved around a 28-day calendar. Painful nightly injections and timed intercourse aroused nothing but a deviant sense of determination. MB and I were struggling in the most significant challenge in our lives: creating a child. Be it a matter of faith or fate, I could do nothing more than hold her hand, remain supportive, and bandage her behind. We pretended it would happen and talked about the next step. I wanted a boy and had picked a name. She wanted a girl and hated the name Zelda Laurel. Boy or girl, success meant Meri Beth would realize the purpose of her life, and failure meant we were not destined to reproduce. We might be defective, but together, we remained obstinate. Apart, Meri Beth grew tired, and her dream for having a child flickered-as did her reason for living.
     Four weeks later over Valentine's Day, I bought MB real roses, and we drove the three hours to Indianapolis. With excessive amounts of hormones in her system, Meri Beth might have produced hundreds of fertile eggs. Instead, her body produced seven. After her eggs were removed and fertilized in a test tube, only four 16-cell embryos were viable or able to be implanted into her womb. The remaining three eggs went to research to help other couples like us. We spent the rest of the weekend in a hotel room watching her roses wilt and eating crackers with squirt cheese.
     One month later, nothing.
     Two months later, it wouldn't matter.

     MB sat in her recliner and tossed her nail file onto the table.
     "What's the matter?" I asked.
     She spoke mostly about the fertility failure, a little about work, and something about not having anything for dinner. I had an idea of how she felt, having gone through two days of feeling inadequate myself. But I couldn't understand the depths of her frustration.
     "Ter, I really want to start our family. Maybe we can try the in vitro another time and then, maybe, if that doesn't work, consider adoption? I know someone who-"
I interrupted without hesitation, wondering if she had accepted failure. Instead, I asked, "Is this one of those times when men are supposed to listen and not try to solve the problem?"
     "Yes," she said. "You're a goob."
     In the Banker household, the word goob is a multipurpose, catchall phrase regularly used to inject humor and lighten almost any situation. It is an abbreviated way of expressing:
     A. I love you, and/or
     B. You're full of shit.
     "No, you're a goob," I replied as expected.

     With the breast surgery scheduled for Friday morning, we abandoned any lingering hope for having a baby and spent the next two days exchanging one form of dread for another. Without knowing what questions to ask, it became difficult to remain positive, and we didn't know how bad it might be. Over coffee and Pop Tarts, we looked into our future as far as we could see: another two days.
     Meri Beth picked the crust off the Pop Tart and crushed it with her finger, one poke at a time. "I don't want to die."
     "You're not going to die," I said. I didn't know if she would, but it would do no good to think about. I pictured an old woman sitting next to me in a worn recliner, touching my leg and wearing her perfectly polished wedding ring that matched mine. I needed to listen and let her talk.
     She picked at the pastry and then took a small bite. A crumb hung on her puffy lip. Since my return home earlier that morning (with a dull double-scotch buzz only beginning to fade), I had noticed her swollen face and bloodshot eyes, an unfamiliar look for a woman who usually expressed confidence and optimism.
     "What did I do wrong?" she asked. Her eyes welled with tears. "Why me?"
     I reached for her hand before she pulled away. "You didn't do anything," I said, speaking too late to listen.
     "Then why? Why am I being punished?"
     Although I knew she wasn't being punished, I halfheartedly questioned if some unknown Karmic transgression-or any other reasonable explanation-might be seeking its revenge on us. As for how long an assault might last, I couldn't be sure and didn't know how to gauge my concern. How scared could Meri Beth and I be without knowing the outcome? Like watching a scary movie, we knew we were going to be frightened but didn't know how high we might jump. Meri Beth's questions had no answers.
     "I know I'm not really being punished," she said. "I need a good reason, any reason, why this is happening…."
     In her voice, wavering and hesitant, I heard the unasked question: Am I defective? I understood and remembered feeling the same way after the sperm test, which, at the time, had been the biggest obstacle in our marriage. In comparison, any fertility issue or other petty complaint paled to the possibility of cancer.
     I moved my chair closer to her. How could I answer? "We don't know the lump is cancerous. And if it is, you didn't do anything wrong; it's genetic."
     Which, apparently, did not make it acceptable, and she pulverized the remaining bit of Pop Tart.
     Genetics, an invisible adversary blamed for everything from cancer to Attention Deficit Disorder, became our new excuse. I hated the idea of pointing a finger at something other than personal responsibility: If I like to drink, it's because I'm predisposed to alcoholism; If I like to eat, it's because I have an eating disorder; If MB and I can't make a baby, it's because we're reproductively challenged. So, get off my back.
     What about cancer?
     Angry, I needed an answer, and this excuse became the best resolution I could muster. At best, fingering genetics as the culprit equated to accusing a Caucasian male (of average height and weight with brown eyes and hair), of hit-and-run. We knew nothing definite, and the more I thought about it, the more I could see the beginning of a pattern; I had no answers for many things.
     "Oh, Ter, what am I gonna do?"
     "I don't know, baby," I said. "We'll get through this. Somehow. Together. Until then-"
     "-let's not tell anyone," she added, finishing my thought. Over time, marriage encourages common thinking.
     "No harm in waiting two days," I added.
     "None."
     I could tell she didn't know what to believe, as indicated by the pummeled Pop Tart. But we agreed on one point, and we would approach the problem alone until we knew something more definite. This would allow us to speak openly and share our emotions as they boiled unexpectedly to the surface. We planned to spend the next thirty-six hours alone, not knowing how much time we would have left together.
     Hope….
     Then we waffled.
     We felt obligated to inform our family. Following a few phone calls, we heard from Meri Beth's father. He had called from his car, already en route to see us. It's odd, but during sickness, people bring food. After a funeral, they bring food. And when they believe someone might die, they become houseguests and make food. My father-in-law, Colin and his wife Sue, were the first of our family guests to arrive. If Meri Beth had to stay in the hospital, Sue promised to make lasagna.
     Fortunately, I like Meri Beth's family. And lasagna.

     Hospitals have always reminded me of death. As a child, I only journeyed to that sterile world to visit a dying aunt or see my grandmother one last time. There, in a shared room, the stench of stale roses as heavy as a hot summer night, taught me to remember the face of death: lips and arms painted a murky yellow, tubes protruding, eyes dim with memories weak. As a child, I thought only the elderly occupied the rooms of no return.
     Not any more. I watched as a thin nurse wearing a baggy blue smock prepped Meri Beth for surgery. The nurse swabbed MB's arm with iodine and stuck a needle in to start an IV. After a month of injecting my wife with fertility drugs, I thought I had become used to hearing her whimper when the needle went in crooked. Instead, as the nurse dug for the vein and then hid the trickle of blood with a bandage, I cringed. Blood had never bothered me, but with the color draining from MB's face, I felt nauseas for the unknown. Having since forgotten my childhood memories of roses and hospitals, I placed a bouquet of flowers next to her bed. The colorful red and yellow tulips would only brighten the room if the surgeon found nothing. I gave MB a kiss and told her I loved her, as she reached for my sleeve.
     "Ter, I love you, too."
     For the longest ninety minutes of my life, I attempted to read, while Toy Story accosted me from the waiting room television. In such an intimate space, despondent chatter became unavoidable, and Meri Beth's parents and I were not alone; several other people waited with reasons for tears of their own. As much as Colin and Sue wanted to talk, I needed to think.
     "So, Terry," Meri Beth's father began. Colin, a burley, redheaded man and one-time minister, had a practiced way of blending humor with real life to show the good in every situation-except when it came to his daughter. He attempted a joke about a golfer and a Chihuahua going into a bar but stuttered through the delivery, and I couldn't concentrate on the punch line.
     None of us knew how to deal with the unknown. Who does? While they chatted, I tried to close the world from inside my book, which could have been Great Expectations or Green Eggs and Ham. All the words ran together like the ink on a wet newspaper.
     I felt numb.
     I felt alone.
     I felt afraid for Meri Beth.
     It's only surgery, I kept repeating to myself, and we had no idea if the lump was cancerous. Either way, it would still have to be removed. Right? My logic faltered like an engine overheating along a lonely Texas highway, and my brain attempted to detach itself from my body and bring order to chaos. At the crossroads, every direction looked the same.
     Unable to move, my body struggled to filter the dissonance around me. Glancing up to the TV, I watched as Mr. Potato Head removed his lips and pressed them to his butt. As a hostage in a waiting room chair, I could neither act nor respond, as a man should, as Rambo would. I wanted to drift away, returning to the colorful and imaginary world of my childhood: of Tinker Toys, Legos, and HotWheels. Instead, I became the man in the center of the carousel, condemned to watch a black and white world swirl around me: Cancer or no cancer, life or death.
     A few minutes before noon, the surgeon called me into a private room with chairs. We stood.
He didn't make eye contact and stared at his clipboard. "The surgery went well," he said.
     Well? What does that mean?
     The surgeon described removing a lump, a little larger than a lemon, from her left breast and some lymph nodes from under her left armpit. He said he would call first thing Monday morning to tell us if they were cancerous.
     "Most of the time, when you hear hooves, you see horses," the surgeon said. "But, every once-and-a-while, you see a zebra."

* * *

…Horses…