They settled in Terra Vista, where Bill grew up. Mary came from a little town fifty miles inland, but she got to know Terra Vista in the three years she and Bill dated, and she liked it well enough. They could afford a house there, one of the pastel ranch homes close to the newer schools, and Bill’s family was around to help with the kids.
The twins came in 1974. Tiny things with full heads of dark hair. They were born thirty-three minutes apart but they had different birthdays. Emily emerged at 11:40 p.m. on January 11th, and Edward made his appearance shortly after midnight on January 12th.
Mary insisted that both names start with E. She liked the EE initials and pouted that twins should have some similarities. Bill went along with her then, and he didn’t argue when she told him she wanted to continue the EE tradition with all of their offspring. In fact, each name was okay with him, and the nicknames queered Mary’s idea anyway, for Edward was known as Ned, and his younger siblings Elizabeth, Elaine and Eric went by Liz, Laney, and Rick, respectively. Only firstborn Emily, also called Em, used the EE.
The twins were born early in 1974, but Bill connected them to events later that year. It was the summer of Nixon’s resignation, when Gerald Ford took the White House without winning an election. And on October 10th the word “Internet” was first used.
Liz came in 1977, blonde as sunlight. “Star Wars” was released that year. And Laney was born on May 31, 1979, which was the day Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe. Bill wanted to call the baby Rhoda but Mary wasn’t having any of it. 1979 already had the accident at Three Mile Island and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s ouster of the Shah, so Bill knew it would be memorable, but he was tickled to have a world event occur on the actual birthday of one of his kids.
Their family was completed on June 14, 1982, with the birth of little Eric. Argentina conceded to England in the Falkland Islands war.
That was the summer Bill first knew discontent. He had time to be introspective because he took the 2 a.m. feedings; when he didn’t doze off with little Eric in his arms (the nipple of the bottle often migrating to the ear of the sleeping boy), he found himself contemplating his life. He was thirty-five and the father of five. He made a decent living but he did it by selling cars, and he’d always known he was capable of more. He’d meant to get around to it; the car dealership was just something his father went into after retiring from the Navy – went into and then bought and somehow was in the process of passing on to Bill, and how was Bill, really, going to switch to something else? With kids aged eight, five, three and new, what could he find that would pay anything like his current job?
Mary didn’t work. That was the agreement they made when she got pregnant with the twins and the doctor advised her to quit her job: she’d mind the babies and the house while he earned the money. At first the arrangement was fine with Bill. Mary was beautifully rounded then, carrying her pregnancy proud-forward, her ankles still slim, her neck long, her hair sleek. Her face glowed with blushing fertility, and Bill felt virile, protective, attracted.
But that was the past, before Bill felt trapped. And Mary had put on weight with each baby. Her face was still lovely, but her neck hid beneath folds of fat, her belly was soft, her thighs were lumpy. Her ankles were still good, but they would have been better if they had been peasant-thick; the contrast between the race-horse elegance and the load of leg was to Bill’s mind ugly.
(to be concluded tomorrow)
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