Eight Cucumbers

A Story by Audrey Fi

A pregnant woman copes with the emotional change within her husband.

The game was on.

I could hear you cheering raucously, pumping your fists as those bright blue eyes followed all possible movement on the TV screen.

At that moment, I stepped back into the living room, one hand resting on my ballooning abdomen. My face was pale.

“Morning sickness, Laura?” you asked, not sparing me a glance.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I really, really need a cucumber.”

At this, you glanced over at me with a thinly-veiled glare. “You crave cucumbers now? Do you know how much money I spent buying you your ginger ale, your potato chips? Now you ditch all that junk food and you want cucumbers?”

My eyes crumpled, as they seemed to do so easily now that my second trimester was over. “I’m sorry, darling, but I must have a cucumber. Right now.”

You rolled your eyes. “Well then, you can go to the shop. Pick me up a sixer, will you? It’s just a few extra blocks.”

I snatched my purse off the kitchen counter, angry. You could be the only person in the world who referred to a six-pack of beer as a sixer. Plus, you knew perfectly well that the liquor store was more than a few blocks away from the grocery.

“Goodbye,” I called, in spite of myself, as I stepped out the door of the apartment. “See you later.”

“Yes,” you replied. “Well.”

When I left the apartment, for no reason at all I thought of the time I’d told you of my pregnancy.

We had been together for hardly three months, and you’d just moved in; when I found out, I got that odd sensation of having something leave your body. Ironic, really, since it was the exact opposite.

When I broke the news to you, we’d just had what you called a “soup supper”. Clear soup with ham and toasted garlic bread. I had stooped over the kitchen for hours making sure the garlic bread was evenly seasoned and toasted, checking that the ham was perfectly glazed and thoroughly cooked, praying your soup wouldn’t be too hot and that it would be consistent with no lumps.

I let you have a beer after dinner, although I personally detested the thought of alcohol now that I knew I was “with child.”

“Kurt,” I’d started, “darling, I have something to tell you.”

You’d thought I was cheating on you, or maybe that I was secretly some kind of druggie. Then, when I whispered, “I’m pregnant,” I braced myself for your volcanic enragement. As we’d been together for three months, I knew of your stunted temper, your frequent rage.

So you must understand how shocked I was when you said, “Wow. A baby,” in such a mystified, reverent tone. You looked at the ground, at your beer. Then you told me, “We must make it a nursery. Perhaps we should use that spare room we’ve been taking for storage?”

I was stunned. “You’re not angry?”

“No,” you’d said. “I’m delighted.” Then you’d repeated, “We must make it a nursery.”

Pleasantly startled, I looked deep into your eyes. I’d fallen in love with the color of your eyes; electric-blue, they were called. Indeed, I felt a kind of electricity when I looked deep into them. I suppose I tricked myself into thinking you were looking back at me, your eyes pooling with love and happiness. But to this day, deep in my core, I doubt that you were looking at me at all.

Still rather unhappy after yet another spat with you, I stumbled into several burly workmen on my way to the elevator. “Sorry,” I remarked; my hand instinctively clutched my purse.

“Not a problem, miss,” one man said, tipping his blue cap. Murphy’s Movers, it read. “Congratulations on the baby.”

I stifled a smile as I stepped into the elevator. To keep me from giggling, I simply waved.

The workmen waved back, and they continued down the hall.

Now, I don’t want to say you weren’t wholly supportive after my confession. We did make the baby a nursery; we cleared out our storage room, next door to our bedroom. The items formerly in our storage room were transferred to public storage. I felt wary at that; after all, most of the items in the storage room were yours, as you’d been the one to move in with me. You said it was of no matter to you, that once we had the baby, we might try to even move into a bigger place. I was so overjoyed at hearing all those words of fluff leave your mouth, I didn’t even worry about how we’d afford a house with our pathetic salaries. I’d been working at a Starbuck’s, and you’d been working at CVS.

No, I was simply and utterly pleased to have you in my near future. I thought that you becoming a father had made you less temperamental, gentler.

Then I started getting fat.

When we had first met, you told me that you loved me for my “vibrant personality”, not my “gorgeous looks.” But even I, in my delusional state of mind, saw your repulsion when I downed a “sixer” of ginger ale soon after we’d moved your stuff to public storage. How you grimaced when I asked you to pass another bowl of potato chips, another sack of M&M’s! The pounds piled on, and some nights you took to sleeping on the faux-leather sofa. You blamed it on bad ventilation in our bedroom, the summer heat, but even then I was not fooled. I disgusted you.

Now, as I stood in the produce section of the grocery searching for ripe cucumbers, I thought of my lies. I did not crave cucumbers; my stomach was aching for more ginger ale. But I wanted to become thinner; I wanted you to smile at me again.

To keep my mind away from the soft drinks aisle, just a few yards away, I filled two thin plastic grocery bags with the tiny Kirby cucumbers. At the checkout, the cashier congratulated me on my incoming baby. How could strangers adore pregnancy, but the father of my baby hate it?

On the long trek to the liquor store I recalled a recent argument we’d had over your copious TV-watching.

“Kurt,” I’d complained to you one night while you watched a game on the leather sofa, “can’t you turn off the tube?”

You didn’t look at me. “There’s a game on, Laura.”

“I bought that television,” I’d protested. “I bought it with my own money, with my barista’s salary!”

As you sipped your beer angrily, I continued, “And that sofa you’re sitting on, yeah? I bought that too. I think you only contributed to half a payment. And get that beer away, you’ll spill it on the carpet.”

This time you managed to take a jab. How shallow you were, to take a jab at a justifiably upset pregnant woman! “Sweetheart, I’m living in your place now, and that makes it my place. That is my television. This is my sofa. You can go sit in that chair over there.” Here you gestured towards the rickety bamboo chair my aunt had given me, years ago. Would it even support my insurmountable weight? Perhaps that was your objective – to make me recognize my added fat.

Well, I wouldn’t give you that pleasure. I turned around and stomped out of the apartment, returning several hours later with a half-finished case of ginger ale.

Having recalled all this, guilt overtook me and I selected the best six-pack I could find. The cashier at the liquor store was of some non-Caucasian ethnicity. He gave me a large gap-toothed smile and commented on how “lucky you be with child.” The woman in line behind me, however, inquired if perhaps I couldn’t drink alcohol because I was pregnant?

“It’s for my husband,” I replied, before I could check myself. I managed to leave the store before the blush crept over my neckline. Had I really called you my husband? Did I really think of you that way? I confess I’d never considered marrying you, in light of recent events.

Truly, I meant to apologize when I got back to the apartment. I meant to hand you your precious sixer, tell you I was sorry, and leave you to your game. I meant to leave you sitting on my leather sofa, watching a game on my television.

I turned my key into the lock of the apartment. It seemed rather silent from the inside, and I wondered if perhaps you were taking a nap, as you seemed to do so often on these weekends. A deep sense of foreboding did find its way into the pits of my stomach. I brushed it away.

The door opened easily; a bad sign, as we’d stored some of your spare items behind it as a kind of impromptu doorjamb. I realized the moment this occurred that you were not home. And I was right.

The apartment had virtually been stripped of your belongings, as well as a sizable amount of mine. The television was gone, as was the long leather sofa. As far as I could see in the kitchen and living room, beyond large appliances and the carpet, only my aunt’s bamboo chair and the kitchen table remained, lonely with only one chair.

Shaking, I closed the door and managed to seat myself at the kitchen table. Murphy’s Movers had left their business card. I dropped the cucumbers and the six-pack on the floor. Desperately seeking a glass of ginger ale, I opened a kitchen cabinet and was confronted with several dishes, condiments. At least you had the decency to leave me with something to live on.

I looked at my bulging stomach, where a small being existed. Such a small person, and it had just ruined me.

The ginger ale would wait. I chopped up eight of the ten Kirby cucumbers I’d purchased. I stirred them in a bowl with minced garlic, liberal amounts of soy sauce, one effective dash of vinegar. No more potato chips for me; these cucumbers would be my comfort food now.

I sat in my aunt’s chair, eating the cucumbers by the handful, staring at the oddly blank space where the TV I’d painstakingly paid for used to occupy. Soy sauce dripped from my slimy hands onto the carpet. I didn’t look at it. I don’t think I even cared.