Chasing Cars

The next apartment Chris took me to look at was much better. It was fully carpeted except for the kitchen and bathroom. But the entry to the kitchen was small enough for a baby gate, and I couldn’t find any nails in the carpet. It had air conditioning and heating and was on a ground floor, so we would have to lug a baby carrier up and down a flight of stairs. When Chris drove me home afterward, he asked what I thought about it. I told him it was the one. So he signed the lease right away.

He didn’t get to move in until the first of the month, so when he finally got his stuff over there, I came by with pizza and the baby stuff. I let myself in and put my stuff down by the door.

“Chrissy? Chrissy poo?” I called.

“Really?” he replied from a back room.

“What, you don’t like when I call you that?”

“Please, never call me that again. I’ll pay you to never call me that again.”

“A hundred bucks or no deal.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Can I come back?”

“I wouldn’t. Unless you wanted to be bombarded by an onslaught of pink or blue.”

“I’ll stay out here then.”

“Make yourself at home.” I took the pizza to the kitchen and got a plate. I heard Chris close the door to the baby’s room so I wouldn’t see it. He’d already gotten a kitchen table, so that’s where I sat with the pizza as I waited for him to finish. I heard the door open back up a moment later.

“Hold on one second. I need to change,” he explained.

“I have pizza,” I told him.

“I’ll be right there.” He went into his room and returned a few minutes later with clean clothes on. He grabbed a piece of pizza and sat down across from me.

“Were you painting?”

“Just wanted to be ready in time. Manager said I could paint.”

“I’m not due for like another month.”

“Sometimes babies come early.” I shrugged, and he looked over at the bags I’d dumped by the front door. “What’s all that?”

“Housewarming gift.” He looked confused.

“That’s a lot of bags, Marley.”

“I went shopping, and then I sort of went overboard.”

“Can I look?”

“You might want to wipe your hands off first.” He grabbed a paper towel and went to go check the bags. He was silent as he rustled through them. I kept working on my pizza.

“Marley?” he said.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“These are baby clothes.”

“Not all of them are clothes.” He started pulling everything out. Clothes, clothes, more clothes, shampoo, receiving blankets, socks, an emergency kit, a super cool baby monitor, and a bathtub in the shape of a whale. The only thing I’d left out was the Disney bag with the onesie. I kept it at home for my own personal reasons. I wasn’t ready to share it with him.

“You don’t have any of that stuff yet, do you?” I asked. He looked over at me and took a moment to answer.

“No. Not yet,” he said. I shrugged.

“Now you do.” I could see him watching me, but I ignored it.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“Mm-hmm.” I heard him put everything back in the bags, and then he took them down the hall to the baby’s room. When he came back, I had collected myself. But he didn’t say anything as he sat down in front of me, and we ate in silence.

“You staying the night?” he asked quietly.

“Sure,” I replied. I didn’t need clothes or anything else. I had all that stuff in my car. I had both an emergency labor bag in case the baby did come early, and I also had a “sudden urge to sleep with Chris” emergency bag.

When we were done eating, we went to sit on the floor in the living room. Chris had gotten a TV but not a couch yet. Since pizza usually made the baby go crazy, it was doing a dance in my belly. Chris sat with his back against the wall, and I sat between his legs so he could hold onto my stomach while we watched TV. He kept his chin on my shoulder, and I got the feeling he wasn’t really paying much attention to the TV.

“I love you,” he told me. I smiled.

“I love you too, Chrissy Poo,” I replied. I heard him laugh.

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Please do?” He kissed my neck, and I closed my eyes and rested against him. “Baby’s active tonight.”

“It’s the pizza.” I felt him smile.

“You sound tired.”

“I’m always tired.”

“C’mon. Let’s get some sleep.” I got out of his way so he could stand. Then he had to help me up off the floor, and we went to bed. Except that he didn’t have a bedframe yet. So we had to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

I woke up in the morning to him sitting on the edge of the mattress. He was putting his shoes on.

“You leaving already?” I asked him. He turned to me and smiled.

“Yeah, I have to head out. I made you breakfast, though. It’s in the microwave. And I hid all the gender stuff in the closet, so if you want to check out the baby’s room, nothing will be given away.”

“What about the paint?”

“It’s green. It was everything else I was worried about.”

“Oh, okay.” He kissed my lips.

“I’ll call you later.”

“Alright.” He kissed me again.

“Love you.”

“You too.”

Since he was gone, I was wide awake. I pulled myself out of bed and got dressed. Then I went to the kitchen to find the food he’d made for me. There were pancakes in the microwave, and they were still warm.

When I was done, I got ready to leave, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk out the door. The baby’s room was calling to me. Maybe Chris knew I wouldn’t be able to resist it. So he hid the stuff. I took a moment to work up the courage to go in, then I opened the door and stepped inside. The walls were a light pastel green. It was the most common gender-neutral color on all the baby clothes. So it was no indication of gender. There was no crib in the room yet, but Chris said he ordered it, and it should be there any day. He already had a dresser, and there were a few picture frames on it.

A part of me wondered why he chose the pictures that he did. I wondered if he did it to get a reaction out of me. Or maybe he just loved me. There were three of them. One of the baby’s first ultrasound that I gave him, the other of me doing a stupid pose with my stomach half hanging out, and the last one was the two of us together before when we were still perfectly happy and oblivious. The day that we’d taken the ferry to Alcatraz and tried ghost hunting.

I stayed in the bedroom for a long time. I sat down on the carpet and cried. That’s how things usually went nowadays. I cried about everything. But the scent of paint was giving me a headache, so I had to pull myself up off the floor and go to work.