False Power

#

     The coffee machine hissed at the people standing around it, as though enjoying its power over us, making us wait for its dark trickle to fill the pot.
     "Hey, Bellamy!" A cheerful voice broke through our indolent mutterings.
     I looked around. Tall Scott, teacup perched on his palm, stood there smiling. "Rumor is that you've shut off Austen's biological clock. When's the baby due?"
     I couldn't help but grin. I nodded.
     Suddenly, everyone stirred. They touched me with congratulations, then overwhelmed me with anecdotes, typical stories about late-stage pregnancies and infants visiting innocent terror on forty-somethings like me.
     "Where's the child now?" asked Claire.
     I lowered my coffee cup and looked blankly at her. She was plain, hair clipped severely around her head, but she was the best financial analyst in our company. "Austen's not due for five months."
     Claire smirked. "Shows you where the power is, doesn't it?"
     "Huh?"
     "Fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolescent." She looked around. Everyone was listening. "We don't really escape Mama until we leave home." She hiked the corners of her mouth up in a cynical grin. "And some of us never do get away from her. Granted, Mama's physical dominance fades, but in our minds, she's always Number One." She pulled a look of innocence over her face. "Don't you think?" And with a sweep of her hand, she gave us our chance to talk.
     Instead, the coffee klatch broke up, leaving Claire smirking beside an exhausted brewing machine.
     I strolled toward my cubicle. Austen wouldn't be like that. We share our child just like we share everything else.

#

     I settled back on a bench, legs extended with ankles crossed, fingers interlaced and cradling the back of my head, and watched people troop through the mall. Austen and her mother were off somewhere shopping for maternity clothes, now that my wife could no longer fit in her DKNY suits and Carole Little dresses.
     Nestled against the high wall of a planter, I monitored swirls of shoppers. Lots of kids, or maybe I just never noticed them before. All sizes, nothing like adults in shape or behavior, they wove through our large world, assertive, but oh so vulnerable.
     A toddler worked her determined way along the edge of the crowd, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, making tracks, oblivious to all the big people detouring around her. And the parent? No parent trolled indulgently along behind!
     I jerked myself up, feet down and ready to run, arms loose and ready to grab. I looked further afield, no mean feat while tracking an ambling tot. Finally, I rose to my feet, meaning to rescue the kid — a man broke from the crowd. He slyly stalked the escapee despite an infant bound to his chest in a snug carrier.
     He was young, early twenties. At that age, I never thought about children. A career would be my legacy.
     The little girl squealed and churned her short arms and legs faster, but Dad was too quick. He captured her with a fake growl and a grin. Laughing, they mixed with the crowd and vanished. I sat back down, hard.
     He didn't think twice about his children. Families were natural. What was to think?
     Didn't he realize what a reprieve a child is? I did now, at 43.
     My child is me! Parts of me, in his body, in his mind, passing through him to his children, and on and on ... immortal, evading Death.
     Death is real — and inevitable, inexorable, definitive. No lawsuit, no apology, no long hours at a desk is going to undo Death. Bang! I'm gone! (Will it hurt?)
     Big corporations forget about you; they just replace you and go on about their profits. Small businesses are even less memorable; customers just find someone else and get on with their lives.
     Until Death is tangible, children aren't really important.

#

     I felt Henry move today. Austen and I cuddled in bed, like every morning, a moment's peace before rising to face the rat-race, her back spooned into my front, my left hand resting on the nude swelling of her belly. And Henry kicked. I shouted a laugh. Austen giggled. He did it again.
     Sonograms, amnios, all modern ways of imaging an unborn child, don't mean that much, compared to feeling my son kick, feeling him make a difference in the world outside his womb.
     The second alarm bleated at us. Austen and I groaned in unison, then rolled off different sides of our bed to get ready for work. It was nearly automatic; I didn't think about the process till I watched Austen drive away, independent Austen with our child inside her, going where she wanted, off doing lunch, taking meetings ... when she should be home, tending the hearth, staying put, barefoot and pregnant.
     Where'd that come from?
     Like practically any man living in the '90s, I know that such a patriarchal attitude sucks. Oppressive, chauvinistic, it deprives women of their natural rights, reduces the race to less-than-half its productive potential, stifles men and women alike.
     But it felt right! Austen carried my son. My most basic heritage — completely under her power. After my little spurt that brought Henry to life, I had done nothing. I could do nothing. Helpless! I entrusted the defeat of my personal Death to someone else — of course, I wanted to control and protect her.
     I couldn't even imagine talking to Austen about these feelings, much less trying to enact them. How the world has changed! Have I actually destroyed my importance by being sensitive?

#

     Austen was late. I sat at our regular table (every Thursday, at the Turkey Ranch, overlooking the duck pond) and watched her stomp through the dining room, the way a woman nine-months pregnant must stomp. She was tired and ripe.
     She plopped herself down, parked her elbows on the linen cloth, gulped her sparkling water, then fixed me with that glare. "Did you hear what the Grumpy Old Men in Congress have decided to debate about?"
     Actually, I had heard, but I didn't say anything. I gave the merest shake of my head.
     "They're trying to make performing late-term abortions a crime."
     Alarm slammed my stomach back against my spine. "Are you," I blurted, "thinking about an abortion?"
     That wiped the glare off Austen's face. Indignant, she said, "How could you ask such a question?" Then, abruptly concerned about me, she added, "Of course not."
     "Then why ...?" I waved a hand to convey what my voice couldn't.
     "Some women aren't as lucky as me. Henry's strong, healthy. But sometimes a woman has to choose between herself and her baby." Her brow creased with sympathy, then she shook her head to keep that fate away from her. "How can men dare to tell women what we can do with our bodies?" She focused on me. "Tell me why they try? Why would they even want to?"
     Once again, I had to interpret my gender. This time, I understood perfectly.
     "Survival instinct," I whispered.
     "What?" She sipped at her water, her resentment arrested by my misery.
     "Used to be," I said more strongly, "women needed men as hunters, as protectors. Back then, men were necessary to fight an uncaring world. After all, that's what we're built for. But, now that we've tamed Nature, you don't need us anymore. We, on the other hand, will always need you."
     "What?" Totally bewildered.
     I gestured at her swollen belly. "You women control our immortality, so we try to control you, especially that part of you."
     Austen's eyes softened, deepened. "We still need you guys. And any woman who forgets that is throwing away her own immortality."
     "A lot of them do."
     She captured my hand where I'd left it, lost, on the table. "It's still a rough world. We live, we die. What remains are our children, Bellamy, your child and mine.
     "We're wired differently, you and I," she went on. "We need both attitudes to survive, to make sure our children survive. Yin without yang is only a teardrop—" She winced. "With cramps, terrible cramps." Her fierce grip held me still.
     "I need you, Bellamy. Henry needs you. Especially right now." Her eyes, welling from the importance — and pain — of the moment, held mine. "Bellamy, I think it's time!"

#

     We sat quietly on our sofa. Henry, two days old, slept in his mother's arms. Austen looked weary, peaceful. At that moment, though we touched at knees, hips, and shoulders, she concentrated on our boy. Around us, the house was quiet, comfortable, benign.
     But beyond that, the world raged, as usual.
     I raised my arm and laid it across Austen's shoulder. She rested her head back against it. Her power was internal. My power was external. She controlled the future. I controlled the present. Together, we had a chance at immortality.