My husband, Ted, and I come from nice square families: two parents; two siblings; four places at the table; and, on those long road trips, one invisible line drawn smack down the center of the backseat. In creating the story of our new family, I guess we always assumed that we'd write what we knew. So we started with Finn, born 18 months ago, and told ourselves that once (if ever) we'd recovered from the shock of new parenthood, we'd gear up for another. But now that we were operating as a real family unit—instead of, as Ted once put it, "two zombies hosting one very small foreign exchange student"—I began to have doubts about wanting a second child. Finn deserved all the motherly love I had to give in the few nonworking hours I had to give it. How could I deny him the right to feel special and singled out? Or was it worse to deny him a sibling? Over the course of a week, I found myself agonizing about the decision....
Saturday
The cocktail party is in full swing when Ted and I arrive. The other guests, I immediately gather, are partiers—exuberant in that way childless people still are after 8 p.m.
We fall into conversation with a beautiful older woman. Her body, I notice enviously, is yoga-lithe, her cheekbones so high they practically protrude from her temples. Ted tells her we've just put our baby to bed, and she says, "Why didn't you bring him? My daughter is 23. We have traveled the world together since she was 3, opening dance studios."
"Wow," I say. "That sounds ... ideal."
Madame Glamorous leans close, covering my hand with hers. "The secret to a free life is one child," she says. "One is an accessory. Two is a lifestyle. Hahahaha!"
I look at Ted. He looks at me. Just this morning, I chucked a finished pack of birth-control pills in the bathroom garbage and said, "Guess I won't get a refill." He nodded. The decision had sounded so casual, but we both knew it wasn't. It was more like … inevitable. We were predestined to have this non-conversation, take this step, outgrow this transitory threesome.
Or were we?
Sunday
We are spending the afternoon driving aimlessly in the rain because Finn fell asleep in his car seat, and you only get one shot at a nap with this kid.
"What if we didn't have another one?" I suddenly say, not daring to look at Ted. "I mean, we're so happy, just the three of us." For good measure, I add, "And you and I are having sex again."
There is a long pause—about 140 windshield wipes long. I wait, as I've learned to do in this marriage. I'm an out-loud thinker; Ted contemplates so deeply and quietly even he can't hear himself sometimes. Finally, he says, "We are happy. And I like having sex."
"And?"
"I need to mull it over," he says. "It never occurred to me that we might be ... done."
I sigh. "Okay, but you don't get to think about this for two years, like with the sofa and the flat-screen TV and—"
"I know, Genny!" he snaps. "I know we're not talking about an appliance—or, what was it? An accessory."
"That's right," I say, "we're talking about a lifestyle now."
"That lady last night," Ted says, "I wouldn't want her for a mom."
