What’s Not In The Water
Toni really hated to do this to him…sorta. She was going to sit on Richie’s chest until he gave her an answer. The silence in the room was deafening.
It could be done, that’s what they told him, it could be reversed, simple matter. He’s always planned to do it when he and Toni married, but he hadn’t.
“Richie I’m not moving until you tell me yes or no. Are we going to get pregnant or not?”
He closed his eyes, he was going to have to tell her. “We need to talk.”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you all night Richie.”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her, “it’s not that simple honey. I had a vasectomy six years ago.”
“Why did you never tell me this, you let me take birth control pills, how could you do this to me.”
“I was going to have it reversed when we got married.”
“You didn’t do it did you…how long …oh Richie,” she got off his chest and fell up against the end of the sofa and sat down.
Richie struggled to get up and moved over beside her trying to put his arm around her.
“That was way before I met you honey, it’s reversible, hey I can go get it done this week.”
Toni turned to him and he knew he was in deep doo doo.
“You have essentially lied to me ever since I met you. I have faithfully taken my little pill everyday I’ll just bet you had a little giggle over that didn’t you. Just…get away from me.”
“No Toni…I never…I was going to tell you after I…”
“Bullshit! You weren’t going to ever tell me if I hadn’t brought this to a head. That was a low down dirty thing to do Richie. If you’d told me at the beginning when I first met you and fell into your bed it would be different. But this…this tells me something I don’t even want to think about.” She got up and left him in the den.
“What…what does it tell you?” he got up and followed her into the kitchen.
“That you can screw around if you want to …the more I think about this the madder I get Richie…how could you?”
“Hey now don’t make this something it’s not, I don’t screw around on you Toni. It just…never came up.”
“It did come up, I tried to talk to you once before about having a baby…do you remember that?”
“Yes, but its reversible.”
“Well you tell me Richie why hasn’t it been reversed since we had that conversation…eh…you weren’t going to do it.”
Toni took her pills out of the cabinet and threw them at him, “ I ought to make you eat the damn things. This is the worst thing you’ve done,” she began crying.
“I’ll do it this week Toni I promise I will, ah shit Toni don’t…don’t start crying now…that’s the worst.”
“Do you know those damn pills make me gain weight, that’s why I don’t eat .”
“Oh now I’m responsible for starvation?”
“Don’t you make this into something it’s not…you are responsible…so just go think about what it is you’re responsible for.”
Toni ran out of the kitchen and up to their bedroom and slammed the door.
Richie was never one to admit defeat, he paced back and forth in the kitchen, ran his hand through his hair, got a drink of water, walked back to the den, down the hall back to the kitchen and finally up the stairs and opened the bedroom door.
