Seattle

Seattle

11/01/20

written by Thomas Lowry

We had planned the trip to Seattle three months earlier. It would be our first vacation as a couple and we intended to pack in as much fun as we could over the course of a weekend. We would leave after work on Thursday and return on Monday morning. We chose Seattle because it was close to Vancouver; the dollar was good then, and there we things to see. Friends had ranted and raved about it so much that we decided that we should go too. There were so many sights they like the Space Needle, Pike Place mall, the Original Starbucks and so on. There was also a show on the Saturday night, an artist that neither Emma nor I had particularly strong feelings for, but a show is always a great thing to take in, especially in a foreign city, in a foreign country. I was excited for the coffee shops, the EMP and to explore the city that sparked one of the most influential music scenes of all time. Emma was happy just to take it all in. Emma is one of the rare people who are happy just about anywhere doing anything. Her zeal is rooted in her attitude, which is almost without bias. She doesn’t really ‘pick and choose,’ if that makes sense. While I’m definitive in what I like and don’t like, she doesn’t take part in such kind of prejudicial thinking. She refuses to put things into boxes to form an opinion. She isn’t a simpleton, not by a mile, she is just a special soul that doesn’t put much stock in what other people think, and in doing so she frees herself up to appreciate things on a much deeper level. Back when we were first dating I showed up for a dinner wearing a red sweater and purple socks. I can’t remember if I was trying to make her laugh or if I had just run out of clean socks but she looked over my ensemble without judgment. She smiled, and just seemed happy that I was there and that we could spend time together. Some girls might make a mental checklist of such a fashion blunder for future reference, but she really didn’t care. That kind of superficial shit just doesn’t bother her. At all.

Two weeks ago, Emma told me she was pregnant. She told me over the phone at four in the morning after she spent the night in the bathroom, peeing on plastic sticks and trying not to cry. As I wiped the cobwebs from my brain I asked her if she was sure and she said she was; she took a few different tests and they all came back positive. I asked her why she waited the night to tell me, that I would’ve come straight over to her place and we could have taken the tests together. Together? she said. I say ‘you know what I mean’ and she says she does. She didn’t call earlier because she wasn’t one hundred percent sure and knew I was working on my presentation for work and that she didn’t want to bother me. Bother me? I told her I’d be straight over after work so we could talk. I dressed and readied myself for work in a fog, barely tasting my coffee or eggs, not able to concentrate on anything else except Emma is pregnant. I walked from my place to the sky train in a haze, somehow managing to catch my regular stop.

I’d never got a girl pregnant, on purpose or otherwise but I’ve thought of the situation before. Most guys have whether they will admit to it or not. I’ve had friends who have got their girlfriends pregnant by accident, and when it happens they all say that in the moment all you can think about is yourself. Which is awful. It’s a situation where you shouldn’t be thinking about yourself at all, yet all you can do is think about is yourself. You know that exercise psychiatrists use sometimes…'If I tell you not to think about a pink bunny….that kind of thing. So I was expecting all these awful thoughts about whether or not I really loved Emma, whether or not I was ready to be a dad, if Emma really loved me, if she would even want my kid and so on. That kind of thing.

But as I rode the Skytrain towards the city that morning for some reason all I could think about were Emma’s parents, Don and Noreen. Don and Noreen, the Christians. Don and Noreen the batshit crazy Christians who live just outside the city, in one of Vancouver’s bedroom communities. Don works on cars and Doreen is a music teacher, violin and piano. They are really sweet nice people, but they are also batshit crazy Christians, as I’ve mentioned. You know those folks who need to work ‘the lord,’ or as Noreen calls him “The big guy” into every conversation? The kind of people who wiggle him into their every thought and story, like talking about a Jew that died two thousand years ago is topical. Don has told me that the bible is the original best seller for a reason. I want to tell Don that the bible was a best seller because it was the only book available for like seven hundred straight years. I’ve been over to their place a few times for dinner and after grace, after Noreen’s beautiful cooking, after a quick round of charades, we usually say goodnight. Emma claims we are tired and need to be up early for work, at which point Don takes my hand into both of his, in one of those formal handshakes, and says “God loves you.” He says this while looking me dead in the eyes with a warm all-knowing smile. There’s not really much an atheist like myself can say to buffer that level of devotion. He truly fucking means it. A couple of times after charades when Don has grabbed my hand in his two-hand way I’ve thought about saying “are you sure?” as a joke, or at least as an attempt to wipe that smug smile off his mug, but I always chicken out and remind myself that besides their repetitive references to God they are very nice folks, and that I have fallen in love with their daughter. As we drive back to Emma’s place on one of those nights, my hand in hers, I baffle at how a truly wonderful girl escaped such sophisticated hypnotism, and that maybe God and Jesus are real after all, because Emma’s a goddamn miracle in my book.

When I finally get to work, the routine of it kicks in I don’t think about kids, pregnancies, mortgages, Christian grandparents, abortions, or any of it. At lunch I buy a tuna sandwich from the corner cafe and wash it down with coffee. My presentation goes well and before I leave for the night my boss commends me on my good work.

I show up to Emma’s around five. The sun is just setting, rays of pink and purple splash across the thin clouds, bringing the mirrored Vancouver towers into focus. I bring flowers, all flavour jellybeans (Emma’s favourite) and a bottle of wine. We embrace, then sit down on the couch. Emma rips the package of jellybeans open and starts eating them in the indiscriminate way that I love about her. We talk about options. We talk about the future. We talk about Emma’s career goals and how this would all fit together. We open the wine. It’s a pinot grigio from the interior of BC. From a winery called ‘Grey Monk.’ A place I visited as a kid years ago on summer vacation with my parents. Emma thanks me for buying a white wine as she might have thrown me out had it been red. Both of us laugh. We finish the bottle quickly. Neither of us are drinkers but tonight is not a regular night. We make love, and when we’re finished Emma falls asleep in my arms. She has made her decision. Her breath is soft and easy up against my chest. I remain awake as she sleeps. I trace the curve of her hip and her breasts, holding their familiarity in my mind. For a second I want to leap in her body, feel what she feels, feel the gravity of confirming or canceling a life. Feel the struggle that just doesn’t exist for the males of our species. The more I want to stay awake, the sleepier I become until I finally succumb to the heaviness, my eyes closing, giving in to oblivion.

We are all packed for Seattle. The car has a full tank. We have the clothes we will need, our toiletries and our American money. I’ve bought tickets to the show and our hotel is booked. The drive will take about three and a half hours. I asked Emma earlier in the week if she was sure she still wanted to take this trip, given the circumstances. We could go later I said, that there was no rush and Seattle wasn’t going anywhere. She said she still wanted to go and that getting out of Vancouver for the weekend would be good for both of us. Emma says before we leave she needs to stop by her folks to pick up a few items she forgot. It takes us half an hour to drive to her parents, and we arrive she hops out of the driver’s seat and tells me she’ll just be a couple of minutes. While I’m waiting I scroll through the radio stations trying to find a song I like. There are so many radio stations in the Vancouver area that finding a song is difficult, because of the myriad of selections. I settle on Nirvana’s “Come as you are,” which I find fitting as we are off to Seattle, the birthplace of alternative music, the melting pot for seminal bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. The song is only halfway through when Emma opens the car door and slips back into the driver’s seat. She looks over at me, hot tears streaming down her face, the black of her eyeliner smudging, dark rivers slowly forming on her cheeks. I take her hand in mine and rub her back. We stay this way for a minute. I kiss her cheek and tell her not to worry. She wipes the tears away with her shirtsleeve deliberately. ‘ God loves you,’ she announces, forcing a smile. I try to smile too as she presses down on the clutch and puts the car in drive.