So now and forever afterward it would be Malcolm and Jimmy Martin, my little boys. Malcolm and Jimmy this, Malcolm and Jimmy that. Don’t fight, stop fighting, stop yelling, stop tearing everything up, you’re driving me crazy. My sons, my glorious sons, whom I am doomed and blessed to love. What wild little boys, people would say. Those are the wildest little boys I have ever seen. Are they twins? No. How far apart are they? Ten and a half months, I would answer. We weren’t very good at birth control.

Strangely enough I was good-natured about the second pregnancy. Because of it Daddy sent us enough money to get a nurse for Little Malcolm so my life was easy and except for worrying about the coming operation I was peaceful for the next eight months. We had planned on going to Dunleith for the birth but again my body could not wait and began to push the baby out a month too soon. I began to have pains one morning right after Malcolm left for school. I called a taxi and went to the hospital and was rolled into surgery all alone. A wise doctor shot me full of drugged courage so I had the illusion I was brave. I was so drugged I thought it was hilarious. Hilarious when they gave me a spinal. Hilarious when they cut me open and pulled Jimmy out. I looked down beside the operating table at the huge pads soaked with my blood and all I thought about was how much weight it would make me lose. I won’t even be fat this time, I remember thinking. How great. I get the baby out of me and get my figure back at the same time. Sew me up tight, I kept muttering to the doctors. Make my stomach flat.

“Do you like him?” I asked Malcolm, when he appeared at my bedside that evening. “Do you think he’s beautiful?”

“He looks like a monkey. Where’d he get those ears?”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said, sitting up. “If I ever get pregnant again I will get an abortion. I mean it this time. I’ll never do that again as long as I live. You ought to see the blood. Sheets full of my blood were on the floor. My blood was everywhere.”

“Well, you’re all right, aren’t you? They said you were fine.”

“You didn’t even bring me flowers. Why didn’t you bring me flowers? When is my momma getting here?”

“She’s driving here now. I would have brought some flowers, Rhoda, but I barely got here. I was taking a test in calculus when they found me. I had to go home and shave. I hope to God I passed it. I guess they’ll let me take it again.”