Read Online Fade to Black by Wendy Corsi Staub - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub
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baby in one arm and goes back to the sink to turn off the water she’d left running into the bowl of chip dip she’d just polished off.
Maybe the reason Frank has left so much up to Pamela in the past is that he simply doesn’t know anything about girls.
How would he? After all, he’d been raised single-handedly by his father after his mother had died giving birth to him.
That happened to people, back in the fifties.
Of course, it happens now too, but hardly ever. You rarely hear of a woman going into the hospital to have a baby and not coming out.
Still, a few weeks before Pamela had Hannah, she had seen an episode of that television program, E.R ., where a woman had died having a baby because of something the doctor did or didn’t do—she can’t remember how it went now.
At the time, she hadn’t wanted to watch it; she had read somewhere earlier that week that pregnant women shouldn’t see that particular episode. But Frank loved the show; he had insisted on turning it on that night in bed, and she had been too tired to get up and go into the next room. So she had watched it. And it had been a nightmare.
That program—combined with the knowledge that her own mother-in-law hadn’t made it through childbirth—had made her a basket case over the next couple of weeks before giving birth to Hannah. She had been terrified that something would happen to her and the baby, or just to her, or just to the baby.
Frank had tried his best to calm her down, she supposed—by trying to shrug the whole thing off. He had told her that she was paranoid, that it was those crazy pregnancy hormones, that hundreds of women had babies every single day and there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
He made it sound so easy.
A flicker of anger darts through her even now, almost three years later, as she remembers his laid-back attitude.
The nurses had commented, as she went through labor with him as her coach, at how remarkably unruffled he was. And Pamela, huffing and writhing and wailing as eight-pound Hannah ripped into the strained, tender flesh of her perineum, had wanted to scream, “Of course he’s unruffled! I’m the one being tortured!”
In retrospect, she figures it’s probably a good quality, being unflappable, when you’re married to someone as high strung as she has always been.
Frank makes everything sound easy, shrugging off problems with a wave of his hand and a calm, “it’ll be okay.” He’s casual about the kids, the house, their marriage …
Especially their marriage.
Especially lately.
Her obstetrician gave her the green light to resume their sex life weeks ago, and the new birth control pills—prescribed at Frank’s insistence—had become effective immediately after she started them.
Still, Frank has shown absolutely no interest in sleeping with her.
It’s a wonder we managed to have you , Pamela tells Jason silently, planting a kiss on his still-tender head, feeling a tuft of downy baby hair tickle her lip.
It’s been nearly a year since they made love.
And it hadn’t been easy convincing Frank to make love to her back then—let alone, to have a second child. He had been adamant that he wanted only one.
“Let’s quit while we’re ahead” was how he put it every time she brought up the subject. He would remind her of how freaked out she had been before, during, and after giving birth to Hannah, and how he didn’t ever want to put her through that again.
“You said yourself that one was enough, Pam,” he would tell her over and over again.
It was true. She had said that … in the delivery room while she was in agony, pushing, and again when the doctor was stitching her episiotomy, and even days later, when she was home, attempting to go to the bathroom again, like a normal person, without crying from the acute, irrational fear that her insides were somehow going to drop out into the toilet bowl.
But the more time that passed after Hannah’s birth, the more she longed for
Maybe the reason Frank has left so much up to Pamela in the past is that he simply doesn’t know anything about girls.
How would he? After all, he’d been raised single-handedly by his father after his mother had died giving birth to him.
That happened to people, back in the fifties.
Of course, it happens now too, but hardly ever. You rarely hear of a woman going into the hospital to have a baby and not coming out.
Still, a few weeks before Pamela had Hannah, she had seen an episode of that television program, E.R ., where a woman had died having a baby because of something the doctor did or didn’t do—she can’t remember how it went now.
At the time, she hadn’t wanted to watch it; she had read somewhere earlier that week that pregnant women shouldn’t see that particular episode. But Frank loved the show; he had insisted on turning it on that night in bed, and she had been too tired to get up and go into the next room. So she had watched it. And it had been a nightmare.
That program—combined with the knowledge that her own mother-in-law hadn’t made it through childbirth—had made her a basket case over the next couple of weeks before giving birth to Hannah. She had been terrified that something would happen to her and the baby, or just to her, or just to the baby.
Frank had tried his best to calm her down, she supposed—by trying to shrug the whole thing off. He had told her that she was paranoid, that it was those crazy pregnancy hormones, that hundreds of women had babies every single day and there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
He made it sound so easy.
A flicker of anger darts through her even now, almost three years later, as she remembers his laid-back attitude.
The nurses had commented, as she went through labor with him as her coach, at how remarkably unruffled he was. And Pamela, huffing and writhing and wailing as eight-pound Hannah ripped into the strained, tender flesh of her perineum, had wanted to scream, “Of course he’s unruffled! I’m the one being tortured!”
In retrospect, she figures it’s probably a good quality, being unflappable, when you’re married to someone as high strung as she has always been.
Frank makes everything sound easy, shrugging off problems with a wave of his hand and a calm, “it’ll be okay.” He’s casual about the kids, the house, their marriage …
Especially their marriage.
Especially lately.
Her obstetrician gave her the green light to resume their sex life weeks ago, and the new birth control pills—prescribed at Frank’s insistence—had become effective immediately after she started them.
Still, Frank has shown absolutely no interest in sleeping with her.
It’s a wonder we managed to have you , Pamela tells Jason silently, planting a kiss on his still-tender head, feeling a tuft of downy baby hair tickle her lip.
It’s been nearly a year since they made love.
And it hadn’t been easy convincing Frank to make love to her back then—let alone, to have a second child. He had been adamant that he wanted only one.
“Let’s quit while we’re ahead” was how he put it every time she brought up the subject. He would remind her of how freaked out she had been before, during, and after giving birth to Hannah, and how he didn’t ever want to put her through that again.
“You said yourself that one was enough, Pam,” he would tell her over and over again.
It was true. She had said that … in the delivery room while she was in agony, pushing, and again when the doctor was stitching her episiotomy, and even days later, when she was home, attempting to go to the bathroom again, like a normal person, without crying from the acute, irrational fear that her insides were somehow going to drop out into the toilet bowl.
But the more time that passed after Hannah’s birth, the more she longed for
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