What if it’s your lawn? I asked. It’s not my lawn, he said. One of the twins was hungrier than the other. I could feel them in the washbowl of my stomach, circling. There was a commotion larger than usual one day. I went into the hospital to have them look on the scanner, and they told me that there was only one twin left. He ate the other, I said to the nurse, remembering the churning, the fight I had sensed.
You like to lie down a lot, he said after the first time. I’ve seen you through the windows. Always on the couch, or on the bed. Maybe that’s what drew me in. Find a more compelling reason, I told him. Is it better than with him? the neighbour asked during the second time. He was hale and ruddy, like a steak magicked into a man. He didn’t put his fingers into my mouth, preferring instead to slap me on the rump, as if I, in fact, were the steak, and in need of tenderising. It’s different, I said. That’s all you can say. Would you describe your husband as a cruel man? he asked. Crueller than me? He pulled out and walked to the en-suite before I could answer. I could hear him finishing himself off above the sink, could see a little of the motion of his arm in the reflection of the mirror above it. He came with a juddering like a car starting, then washed up. What’s this poky fish head all about? he called through. It’s a memento from our honeymoon, I called back. You hate it, I can tell, he said, the water still running. Anyone would hate it. You should take more control over your life. If you just keep letting things happen to you, sooner or later something interesting will, I said to him as he came back in, wiping his hands dry. What if someone murdered you? he asked. He put his hands contemplatively around my neck. I suppose that would be interesting, at first, I said. You owe us dinner, he said, letting go of my neck, and he was right.
It’s not uncommon, she said to me. I was afraid of my son then. Every morning when I peed I looked up at the barracuda. I had a suspicion about everything inside me. I drank charcoal smoothies and underwent electromagnetic lightpulse therapies to rid me of toxins. You want to be clean for the baby, don’t you? said the quack doctor who treated me. I went into labour when everybody was over for a meal to celebrate our anniversary. My husband was carving many birds and many fish. There were glossy chickens with crackling skin, salmons wrapped in burnt paper and herbs, and five kinds of salad. There was his parents and my parents and all the children and the ruddy neighbour, his wife, and their children too. It was the children who sensed it first, before the first contraction even. They were surrounding me in the kitchen as I tried to make a dressing. They were nonplussed by the size of me. Something’s going to happen to you, they said. They put their small hands on my stomach. It disturbed my son. His fins brushed against my skin. Ouch, I said. The pain didn’t go away, but the children did, ran to the table. Don’t tell anyone, I said to them. They were good as gold. I would have gotten away with it were it not for my father-in-law almost slipping on the floor. Who spilt something? he shouted. We looked, and it was mirrored, slick, puddled around all our feet. It’s that woman, he said, which he had always called me. He pointed at me and everyone looked. Don’t make a scene, my husband said. Where do you want to go? Nowhere, I said. I wish to opt out. I feel very strongly about this. You don’t have a choice, he said. Keep eating, I told the table, and after a pause everybody did. I stepped across the wet floor and went into the garden. It was cold and quite fine. The air felt expensive, good for me, like mineral water. I tried to stay passive. I put my own fingers down my throat, knowing my husband would not come out. The neighbour was there suddenly, rubbing my back. I changed my mind, he said. I didn’t want him either. I walked instead to the ornamental pond in the centre of the garden. The light came from inside the house. I did not know if you could see me. Everything hurt. My son was so ravenous. That morning when I flexed my arm, I had seen the stringy tendons where the flesh had pared down inside my body. One of the children had pulled two goldfish from the pond earlier that day and left them on the marble of the side. They had died with their mouths open. How lovely it was to be alive in that moment – I could feel myself being eaten heart-first. I took my shoes off and wriggled my toes. I pulled my skirt up to my knees, waded in.
Would I have married my husband now, knowing what I know – how every day he went out looking for it, that sad sea-beast, that ugly thing belonging to shadowed water? If I had known about the sinister children and the big empty house and the rump-smacking neighbour and the heart that I refused to choke down? Maybe. Maybe. The doctor prescribed me drugs for my insides. I popped smooth white discs five days out of a month. Inside me my ovaries swelled up like blowfish. They released their own eggs, but too many of them. They rattled around and sought purchase. Soon I found myself pregnant with twins. Probably my husband’s, but who could really tell. Could each twin have a different father? I asked the doctor. Technically yes, but morally no, he said. It was a house call. He motioned at everything around us – the upholstered lounges, the sound of the visiting children performing malevolence out in the garden. This is the house of a virile man, he said. If I were you, I would bear that in mind. I decided it didn’t matter anyway. I let my stomach grow out and out. It was quite the novelty. I drew a face in lipstick around my bellybutton and made it talk to my husband in a high voice before we went to sleep. Too realistic, he said, pushing me away. He didn’t want to have sex any more now that the job was done – he wouldn’t even put his fingers down my throat. I missed it. But the neighbour liked it more now. I’m treading on somebody else’s lawn, he said. I’m pulling up the grass.
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