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: : : IT'S AFTER DINNER. Jakob's fulfilling his part of the arrangement by washing the dishes. Freya's smoking a cigarette. She holds the cigarette out at arm's length, scrutinizing it.
Then she looks at him.
—Can I ask you a question? she says.
—Sure, Jakob says. Plates are drying in the dishrack. He takes a towel up in his hands and gives it a few brisk clenches.
When he looks at her she looks away, down at the tabletop. Stray ashes, a fork. —How do you feel about having a baby? she says. She waits a moment and then her eyes flick to his face.
—Now? Jakob says.
—Not like right this second, she says, annoyed. Then, calmer: —But, I don't know, yeah. Soon.
This is different, Jakob thinks. They've discussed the Children Question before, and the conversations always go the same way: one of them says someday, maybe, when things are more settled down, and the other one agrees, and the discussion ends. This is different. Or it seems different. He decides to try a test—
—I thought—I mean, we'd talked about it maybe? When things are more settled down?
—I just— Freya says. She stamps out her cigarette on the rim of a saucer. —It's just—I think that if you really want to have kids you can't just wait until things settle down. Things are never going to just settle down all the way. There's always going to be things. I just think that if you want kids there just has to be a point where you're like fuck it, I can't keep waiting until I have my life in order.
—And you do, Jakob says. —Want kids.
—Yeah, Freya says. —I mean—yeah. I do. For a while I didn't think I did—I mean, my childhood was pretty fucked up, with my dad and all, and for a long time I just kept thinking that parents fuck kids up, that that's just the way that it is, and I kept thinking I don't want to put some kid through that. Through all that shit. But then I met you and your parents seem normal—(Jakob smiles)—and, I don't know, it just sort of gradually occurred to me that it doesn't have to be that way—that it doesn't have to be all shit. I started thinking that I could be a better parent than my parents were. That I'm more prepared to have a kid than my mom was when she had me. She was twenty-two. I mean just think about that for a second. You think she felt ready? Hell no.
—So— Jakob says.
—So—Freya says, —I don't know. I want to know what you think. That's what I want.
—What I think, Jakob says. —I—it's a big question.
—True, Freya says.
—And there's the money to think about—having a baby is expensive—
—We're doing OK with money, Freya says.
—I know, Jakob says. —It's just—
An interval.
—Just what?
—Just scary.
—It is scary, Freya says. —But, I don't know, I think you'd be good at it. And I'm starting to think that I'd be good at it, too.
He remembers the garden she had at her old place. He remembers how she took the broken surface of the city and coaxed mint forth from it.
—I think you might be right, he says.
: : :
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