Propagation

Lindsay Lynch

 Nora is becoming a master gardener. At 10 AM on Tuesdays, she drives over to the community college and sits in the front row of a classroom with a group of people who appear either twice or half her age.

The class was a gift from her husband, presented to her with a fresh notebook (written across the lines in his too-big scrawl on the first page: Here’s to making things grow) and a potted philodendron. An early birthday present, he said, but she knows that isn’t true. It was an It’s-Okay-That-We’re-Not-Pregnant-Yet gift. She lined the plant up on a shelf in her study so its tendrils could dangle freely over her desk. It’s joined by the Merry-Christmas-Nora gardenias, the Happy-Winter-Solstice cactus, and three different Sorry-About-the-Miscarriage succulents.

In the classroom, Nora dutifully takes notes on the different rodents and insects that can kill plants. There’s a bug with a round little tongue that sucks the nutrients out of leaves. It creates holes when it does this.

Nora makes a note to look up at the trees the next time she takes her dog for a walk so she can see where the light gets through.

Nora is meeting her twin sister Darcy for lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant (which, Darcy always reminds her, is run by real Mexicans, so you know it’s good). They are joined by Darcy’s three-year-old, Bonnie, who spends lunch gleefully throwing tortillas on the ground while Darcy picks them up—so-sorry-the-sitter-cancelled, she says in a single breath each time.

Darcy orders an iced tea and tells Nora that they’re having another one. Nora doesn’t have to ask another what, because she knows it’s not an iced tea.

As Nora goes through the routine congratulations, when are you due, Darcy stops her and takes her hand.

I know it’s going to work out for you, Darcy says. She gives Nora’s hand an affirming squeeze and adds: You just have to keep trying. She then recommends a book that will instruct Nora on how to take charge of her fertility.

Nora looks around the walls of the restaurant, all of which are covered with Mother Marys. She thinks they look smug.

The server brings their food: a bean salad for Darcy, a quesadilla for Bonnie, and a full burrito with a side of beans, rice, and a salad for Nora.

Nora and Darcy grew up clinically underweight—every year, their mother took them to the doctor’s office and they both fell under the growth charts in spite of their mother’s best efforts to to fill them with every combination of cheese and carbohydrates. The girls ate, and ate, and ate, but nothing would stick. In high school, they used to play a game to see who could eat the most without vomiting. They stopped only after Darcy dared Nora to eat a sheet of cookie dough and she spent the next two weeks with Salmonella poisoning.

Nora waits for Darcy to comment on her appetite when she runs her fork across her plate to get the last of the beans. Bonnie throws half her quesadilla on the ground by Nora’s feet, so Nora picks that up and eats it, too. She looks Bonnie in the eye as she does this, daring the toddler to stop her.

Darcy asks: How are things going for you, otherwise?

Nora orders churros for dessert.

Nora is back in her car. The pain in her stomach is so great that she has to loosen her belt while waiting at a red light. At a stop sign, she undoes the top button of her jeans. When she gets home, she locks the door to the bathroom and removes her clothing.

Nora observes herself in the full-length mirror. Nestled among the shelves of neatly folded towels and the lush leaves of a monstera plant, her reflection shows her chest, two pink little nipples. The only stretch marks she has are from gaining weight in her thighs during college.

She turns to her side, looks at her full belly and places a hand on her back, just above her butt, to create a curve. With her back arched and her feet turned out, she cups a hand under her stomach and smiles. She turns and looks at herself from every angle, sees how the light hits her belly, her breasts. She does this until she hears her dog pawing at the door and remembers that he has not been let outside in hours.

Nora is working from home. She writes books for children. Nora has found a decent amount of success with a series of absurdist picture books that use rhyming couplets to wish a happy birthday to unloved objects and animals. What’s that noise in the grass? / Was that the wailing of a lass? / Is someone ready for his cake? / Happy birthday to you, rattlesnake!

Her publisher nearly dropped the series after she made one about a grandpa who won’t wake up. She has since solemnly sworn that there will be no more deceased grandparents in her books.

Nora takes a sip of her water and then feeds the rest of the glass to her plants. She opens her notes from her gardening class and sees where she has underlined the words Corpse Flower. She spends the next hour watching videos of Corpse Flowers blooming while people run from the smell, which her teacher assured her class was distinctly human.

What’s that smell coming from outside? / Should we call the sheriff, or should we hide? / Does someone need to take a shower? / Happy birthday to you, Corpse Flower!

Nora is going to make love to her husband tonight. Her doctor told her it might help if she just relaxed. So here she is on her bed, relaxing. When her husband gets out of the bathroom, she relaxes right over a rounded cushion bought specifically for the purpose of going under her lower back to allow for optimal downward sperm flow. And her left and right legs are just relaxing their way around her husband’s hips. And she grabs his forearm in such a relaxed way that she leaves four little crescent moon indents on his skin. And the way she tells him to just come already is nothing if not relaxing.

Nora is on the phone with Darcy. They only live ten minutes away from one another, but they still like to call.

Darcy muses: At this rate, we might have to put the house on the market—there’s a point where two bedrooms won’t cut it. I mean, Bonnie can share, but what if I have twins or something?

Nora laughs to herself at the or something. What if I have twins or a litter of kittens? What if I have twins or a three-eyed ogre? What if I have twins or a series of Russian dolls?

Nora is googling nursery decor while she waits for her husband to get home from work. The best baby blanket you’ll ever find! Affordable art for all ages. Our favorite stroller hack! Nora keeps a list of links for later use.

She can see it now: The best baby blanket you’ll ever find! is draped over a $500 Carousel Crib (Blush) catty-corner to the window so Baby can get some light, but not too much light. She has been told to buy light-blocking curtains to regulate Baby’s sleep, and she has saved some options with different patterns to pick from. She is torn between the natural tweed or the white with grey pompoms. She thinks she’d like some character to the room, but she doesn’t want to impose on Baby’s taste. What if she buys the felt-knitted hippopotamus head to mount above Baby’s crib and it turns out Baby hates hippopotamuses?

What if she does it all wrong?

Nora is upset. She went to sleep thinking of the things that could be growing inside her. That her body could, at that very moment, create something like a spine, a head, a heart.

But when she flushes the toilet after relieving herself in the morning, she sees a streak of red staining the paper in the water.

She sits on her bathroom floor and cries because all she’s created is more waste.

Nora is drinking a glass of wine. She does this so her husband doesn’t have to ask about her ovulation cycle or the soreness of her breasts tonight. Those are the kinds of questions her husband used to ask because he wants to be a good husband. He is the kind of man who will announce: We are pregnant. There was a time when Nora liked to answer those questions—she thinks she saw a thermal shift, or her cervical fluid feels right.

Now, he can see the glass of wine, sit on the other end of the couch from her, and wordlessly pull her feet into his lap, hold them there until she feels like talking.

Nora is with Darcy and Bonnie, visiting open houses for the afternoon. Nora and Darcy eat freshly baked cookies, sip cool lemonade, and compare breakfast nooks. Bonnie tries to steal any knickknack within her little arm’s reach.

Cost is not a problem for Darcy.

Nora refers to Darcy’s husband as The Banker. It was her code when Darcy started dating him: Are you seeing The Banker tonight? Darcy was in law school at the time and they made jokes about her never having to actually become a lawyer if she just married The Banker.

The way things worked out, Darcy didn’t even make it to the bar exam.

Each realtor takes one look at Nora and Darcy before dramatically pausing and saying: Let me guess—twins? (Just once, Nora pleads, let’s pretend we’re a couple and see how they react. Darcy: That’s actually obscene.)

So much of Nora’s childhood and adolescence was defined by her quest to be not-Darcy. Darcy wants to go out for the lacrosse team? Great, Nora is going to audition for the school play. Darcy needs a $400 prom dress? Well, Nora is happy to settle for a cheap vintage dress with some alterations.

She had been doing so well until baby and not-baby.

While she watches Bonnie grab a glass paperweight with the clear intention of throwing it on the ground, Nora considers the docile child that she’d never have to stop in the first place. Nora’s baby would be well-behaved, with none of the boundless privilege of Bonnie’s upbringing. She will raise her child to respect other people’s things.

Darcy grabs the paperweight from Bonnie’s hand and puts it back on the table. She picks Bonnie up and continues to look around.

Darcy finds fault with every house—the ceilings aren’t high enough, it needs more east-facing windows, she can’t abide a split-level living room.

When Nora asks why the living room is a problem, Darcy looks at her and says: You realize what a hazard that is for a baby, right?

Nora is in class and her teacher is discussing plant habitats.

If you want your plant to thrive, she says, you have to give it a home to thrive in.

Nora writes this down.

Nora is lying on her couch, staring at the flatness of her stomach. She props her phone between her cheek and her shoulder.

Darcy asks over the phone: What if I started a blog?

If that’s what you want to do, go for it, Nora says. She places a hand on the valley between her ribs and hip bones. She feels her belly remain flat as her chest expands and retracts. Her Wednesday yoga teacher calls this diaphragmatic breathing.

Darcy says: Okay, but you have to come up with a name for it. You’re better at these things.

Only if I can make an awful pun out of your name, Nora says. Diapers and Dar-seats. Like car seats.

Dar, car, mar, tar, far, Nora thinks.

Or: If it were a blog about oceanic golf courses, it could be Under the Par-Sea with Darcy.

She can hear Darcy sigh over the phone: It’s not about oceanic golf courses.

Nora is having a birthday party with Darcy tonight. Her husband has invited all of their closest friends over to their house. The theme of the party is Article of Clothing You Don’t Wear But Refuse to Throw Away. Nora is wearing a lime green 1960s cocktail dress. Their dog has on a burger costume from Halloween two years ago. Her husband has a Hawaiian shirt paired with a pirate hat—Aloha-hoy! is his greeting for the night.

Darcy and The Banker show up early in matching chartreuse formalwear left over from a wedding. They got a sitter for the night. The Banker brought his own handle of bourbon.

Darcy perches herself on a chair and points to all the things in Nora’s house for The Banker to move. She says: The food table should be far away from the kitchen so people don’t just congregate in the kitchen and clog up the tiny doorways. There should be two separate drink tables, Darcy says, one for the alcohol and one for the mommies.

Nora is carrying a plate of cheese and crackers through a crowd of round bellies and wondering what it would be like to swell up to Violet Beauregard-sized proportions and burst every seam of her cocktail dress.

When she sets the plate down on a table, a woman begins telling her about a friend who recently adopted a baby.

You know, she says, it does a world of good. Those babies need homes, too. She grabs Nora’s arm tightly when she says this.

Nora nods and then pretends she must get another plate of food, immediately. On her way, someone asks if she meditates regularly.

It’s just a matter of calming the mind! she says.

Nora is staring into her fridge. There’s a cake for her and Darcy, a carton of milk, half a dozen eggs, orange juice, ground meat, fresh broccoli and mushrooms, condiments, beers of every variety, and a leftover pot of pasta Alfredo from two nights ago.

She grabs the pot and hops on the kitchen counter. While she eats the pasta out of the pot with a fork, The Banker comes stumbling into the kitchen.

Happy birthday to you, Nora! he yells with a fist pump.

She points at him with the fork—Right back atcha, she says.

The Banker leans against the counter and tells her very seriously that it is not his birthday. Wordlessly, she passes him the pot of pasta and the fork.

In the next room, Nora can hear Darcy—We don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy yet! We’re just excited.

Nora is full, but she keeps eating the pasta.

You’re really hounding that thing, aren’t you? The Banker asks.

Nora nods, her mouth full of cold, plasticky Alfredo sauce.

Nora is an adult, but when she was little, the other mothers referred to her and Darcy as the terrors. They were blacklisted from two different playgroups, one for convincing a girl to see if her baby brother could fit in the refrigerator and another for attempting to ride a large dog as a horse. Their reign of horror lasted all through high school—loud fights, hair pulling, stealing from one another.

They went their separate ways for college—Darcy at the big city university and Nora at the small liberal arts—and everyone assumed things settled down.

Nora is going to go meditate now. Yes, she calls out to whoever’s listening in the full kitchen, I will try meditation!

She goes into her office and shuts the door. When she hears a knock, she positions herself against the other side and slides down onto the floor.

From her vantage point, she can see her wall of plants, their rich green leaves. She thinks about how she once propagated her overgrown pothos plant into three new little pothos plants. How convenient it would be to cut off a limb, stick it in water, and have it grow a person.

Hon, she hears her husband’s voice cooing from the other side of the door. He tells her they want to serve the cake, if she would just come out.

Sorry, I’m busy, she says. I’m trying to get pregnant in here, okay?

Well, he murmurs, I’d hate to ask who with.

Shut up, she says.

He says: Immaculate conception it is, then.

Nora is opening the door so her husband can come in. His pirate hat has slid back so it now sits jauntily on his head, the way a child might wear it.

Darcy keeps telling people you’re vomiting, he says.

Nora sits back down on the floor. She burps and tastes a hint of bile—I might, she says.

He squats down and rubs her back. Let’s just serve the cake and then we can tell everyone to fuck off and go home, okay?

Okay.

Nora is smiling at the room of people who are now singing Happy Birthday to her. She and Darcy stand by the table and everyone cheers, but Nora gets the distinct feeling that they are not cheering for her. That they will go home and talk to their spouses about what is going on with Nora. As they sing, Nora’s husband reappears with a cake, all lit up.

For thirty-one years, Nora and Darcy have held hands and blown out the candles together.

Darcy quietly tells Nora she doesn’t have to eat her cake if it’ll make her feel more sick.

Nora takes her slice and she eats every bite. She asks for more, more.