Loving myself without protection was my fault. A few weeks ago, while visiting New York, on the eve of a family celebration, my wife and I, who had had a violent argument over some of her permits which seemed excessive to me and triggered a fever in me, … jealousy, we reconciled as reconciliations usually are, suddenly and passionately, at dawn, and despite the fact that she warned me that she had her period and tried to hold me back, we made love without protection. The next night we attended my daughter’s wedding, while I thought that because I was excited, because I was stupid and sentimental, because I loved my wife recklessly, maybe she was already on her first day of pregnancy.
On Sunday, still in New York, my wife, having finished her period, gently slid the protective ring over her private parts and told me that we could now love each other without running the risk of becoming parents again. But I was sure I was pregnant. This is what I told him: I assure you that if you take off the ring in a few weeks, you will no longer have your period. She laughed, took it lightly and told me: I know my body well and I’m sure I’m not pregnant. A few days later, upon arriving on the island of Miami where we live, I went to the pharmacy and asked for the morning after pill, but the apothecary advised me not to take it because, a week after the audacity of love, it was no longer effective.
Since we had made love at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, I told my wife and our teenage daughter that the baby, whether female or male, would be named Carlyle, but the idea did not amuse them and it was rejected by them. Immediately my wife said she was not pregnant, my daughter said she didn’t want to have another sibling, and I said that the other night I dreamed that my wife would give birth to a girl in nine months.
Weeks later, when my wife removed the protective ring and waited for her period to come, I suspected that the fait accompli would prove me right and that when it came to me, so excited, so stupid and sentimental, the rule would be that she would not have her period, and the exception to the rule would be that she would have her period. I had a feeling that it would soon be confirmed that we would be parents again, and it was all thanks to me. My wife laughed, made fun of my nervous breakdowns, asked me to calm down, to relax. But I couldn’t relax. I was afraid of becoming a father again at the improbable age of sixty-one, already the father of three adult daughters.
The truth is that I didn’t want to be a father anymore. Instead of being excited, the idea was overwhelming. However, out of love for my wife, out of devotion to her body, out of respect for a new life, I was not going to ask her to have an abortion. My wife told me that she didn’t want to be a mother anymore, that being nine months pregnant seemed like a really bad idea, that giving birth again was making her too lazy, that having a baby at home restricting our freedoms was the last thing she would have wanted. However, she clarified, if she was pregnant, she could under no circumstances abort, out of love for the baby and out of love for me. Supporters of abortion always being a legal option in the early stages of pregnancy, my wife and I suddenly discovered a solid, non-negotiable truth: we loved each other so much that, for purely sentimental reasons, we would not abort and, with understandable fears, we would become parents again, already having a teenage daughter, nearing her fifteenth birthday.
The day my wife was due to have her period, a Tuesday in December, this relief, this relief, did not come, and then the tension rose in my head and in my heart. I tried to pretend everything was okay, that nothing was happening, but in reality I was terrified. The next day, Wednesday in the fall, and while I was praying for her period to arrive, my wife told me, at the end of the day, lying in bed, that she was still late for her period. I assure you that you are pregnant, I dreamed of it again, I said. Then I added: and he will not be my first male child, he will be my fourth daughter. Suddenly worried, my wife asked me: Would you prefer that I have an abortion? I replied: no, not at all. She asked again: And if we know she’s a woman, do you want her to abort? I replied: no, not at all. Then I added: In some cultures, a family’s fortune is defined by the youngest daughter, what if our daughter turns out to be a star and makes us immensely happy?
The next day, a Thursday of increasing anxiety, she also missed her period, her pregnancy, and it was already quite unusual for her period to be three days late. While I was going about the usual tasks of the day, I was thinking all the time, obsessively, sinking into pessimism: damn, I’m going to be a father, what a disaster, what a catastrophe, and now how can I get out of this alive. Interestingly, my wife was calm, relaxed, content and did not seem scared in any way. On the other hand, I, as cowardly as I was selfish, was terrified. I told myself: I love my wife, I’m healthy, I have money, I live in a big house, I shouldn’t be so afraid of being a father again at sixty-one. However, the news of the possible pregnancy made me feel uneasy, almost as if I had been told: you are sick and you are going to suffer.
That evening, when I came back from the television, I asked my wife if there was any news and she said no. In fact, he said: not yet. I told him: don’t hope, my love, you are pregnant. Then I told him about something that had just happened to me: while I was coming back from the television, while I was driving the truck at eleven o’clock in the evening, as I was going up the bridge to go home, I suddenly saw something that seemed unusual, beautiful, surreal to me: a little yellow duck crossing the highway, without knowing that it was risking its life. Then I made a sudden maneuver and avoided stepping on it, but I saw in the rearview mirror that the duck stopped in fright and was hit by a car. The death of this duck chick made me cry, and when I told my wife, who was still shocked, I told her: the gods put this duck in my path to remind me that our baby is like a duck that we cannot kill. Then, incredibly, my wife told me another story with a tragic ending: that same morning, when she was quickly going to the gym, around nine o’clock, suddenly a squirrel crossed the street, my wife braked, but it was already late and ran over him, leaving him lifeless on the sidewalk. We then came to the same conclusion: the gods had sent us the duckling and the squirrel to tell us that under no circumstances should we abort our daughter.
Resigned to the idea that we would be parents again, Friday arrived and the expected delay did not seem to spare us so much anxiety, worry and trouble. I had no doubt, I knew since that night in New York that my wife was pregnant. Friday at midnight, I told him some bad news, before going to sleep: the channel will pay me half next year, I think that in a few months I will resign. Then I added another misfortune: our income has dropped quite a bit. So I decided to tell her: when our daughter is born, who will be female, we will hire a nanny again to help us, and we will not travel anywhere for our daughter’s first five years, because we don’t want to be far from her or travel with her, and when she is old enough to go to school, she will go to public school, because private schools are too expensive. My wife agreed, except for not traveling. Our daughter can stay with the nanny and we can travel in peace, he suggests. No way, I told him. Then I said: it would be good for us not to travel for a few years, we would save a lot of money, and besides, I’m tired of traveling. And what is our daughter’s name? » asked my wife, suddenly excited. Carlyle, I replied. Carlyle Bayly. And if he is a man too.
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