The Pioneer Woman (28 page)

“I didn't want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said.

I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together.

“Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn't imagine a more perfect gift.

Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him.
Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he'd professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore.

“Are you crying?” he asked.

“No,” I said, my lip quivering.

“Yep, you're crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he'd gotten used to.

“I'm not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I'm not.”

We didn't watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears—a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia—would disappear completely.

T
HE FIRST
winter on the ranch was long and bitter cold, and I quickly discovered that on a working cattle ranch, heavy snow and ice does not mean cuddling close to a warm fire, wrapping in fuzzy blankets, and sipping hot chocolate. On the contrary. The more the ice and snow fell, the more grueling Marlboro Man's daily work became. The cattle on the ranch, I realized quickly, were completely dependent upon us for their survival; if they weren't provided with daily feed and hay, I learned, they'd have no source of food, no source of warmth, and wouldn't last three days before succumbing to the cold. Water was another concern; several days of below-freezing weather meant the ponds across the ranch were topped with an eight-inch crown of solid ice—too thick for the animals to break through themselves in order to drink. So Marlboro Man made his way around the ranch, stopping at each pond and using a heavy ax to break holes along the edge of the water so the livestock would remain adequately hydrated.

I went feeding with him a lot. I had no reason not to; our tiny house was so easy to keep clean and neat, there was nothing else to be done after 8:00
A.M
. Our television satellite was iced over and inoperable, anyway, and if I stretched out on the couch and tried to read a book, my gestating body would just fall asleep. So when my new husband awoke just after daylight
and began layering on his winter gear, I'd stretch, yawn, then roll out of bed and do the same.

My cold-weather gear left a lot to be desired: black maternity leggings under boot-cut maternity jeans, and a couple of Marlboro Man's white T-shirts under an extra-large ASU sweatshirt. I was so happy to have something warm to wear that I didn't even care that I was wearing the letters of my Pac-10 rival. Add Marlboro Man's old lumberjack cap and mud boots that were four sizes too big and I was on my way to being a complete beauty queen. I seriously didn't know how Marlboro Man would be able to keep his hands off of me. If I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the feed truck, I'd shiver violently.

But really, when it came right down to it, I didn't care. No matter what I looked like, it just didn't feel right sending Marlboro Man into the cold, lonely world day after day. Even though I was new at marriage, I still sensed that somehow—whether because of biology or societal conditioning or religious mandate or the position of the moon—it was I who was to be the cushion between Marlboro Man and the cruel, hard world. That it was I who'd needed to dust off his shoulders every day. And though he didn't say it, I could tell that he felt better when I was bouncing along, chubby and carrying his child, in his feed truck next to him.

Occasionally I'd hop out of the pickup and open gates. Other times he'd hop out and open them. Sometimes I'd drive while he threw hay off the back of the vehicles. Sometimes I'd get stuck and he'd say shit. Sometimes we'd just sit in silence, shivering as the vehicle doors opened and closed. Other times we'd engage in serious conversation or stop and make out in the snow.

All the while, our gestating baby rested in the warmth of my body, blissfully unaware of all the work that awaited him on this ranch where his dad had grown up. As I accompanied Marlboro Man on those long, frigid mornings of work, I wondered if our child would ever know the fun of sledding on a golf course hill…or any hill, for that matter. I'd lived on the
ranch for five months and didn't remember ever hearing about anyone sledding…or playing golf…or participating in any recreational activities at all. I was just beginning to wrap my mind around the way daily life unfolded here: wake up early, get your work done, eat, relax, and go to bed. Repeat daily. There wasn't a calendar of events or dinner dates with friends in town or really much room for recreation—because that just meant double the work when you got back to work. It was hard for me not to wonder when any of these people ever went out and had a good time, or built a snowman.

Or slept past 5:00
A.M
.

 

O
N THE
cusp of spring, the ice began to melt, the frigid cold passed, and my belly continued to expand. Calves began dropping to the ground, and the smell of burning grass filled the countryside.

As my girth increased, so did my vanity level, no doubt because I felt the need to overcompensate for the dreaded Frumpy-Barefoot-Pregnant stereotype that had somehow taken root in my mind. I spent more time primping, scrubbing, and polishing, all in an attempt to look sexy and vibrant at home. I tried with all my might to keep control of my weight gain, pushing away the Cheetos and sweets and walking a mile or two every evening. I needed to lighten up and embrace the miracle of the life growing inside of me. But whatever—I still wanted to look hot. And so I did what I had to do to survive.

For the few days preceding my monthly OB checkup, I was especially vigilant. I was keeping a pregnancy weight journal, and for my emotional well-being I grew to crave the nurse's
oooh
s and
aaah
s over my staying within the recommended weight range at each appointment. I needed to see my meticulous, weight-conscious doctor nod in approval as he reviewed the number. It was like lifeblood being pumped into my veins, and satisfied my ever-shallow ambition to be the Hot Pregnant Wife of the Century.
And frankly, it gave me a goal to strive for until the following month's appointment.

Plus, it meant that immediately following my monthly checkups, I got to splurge at McDonald's. I'd always schedule my doctor visits right at 9:00
A.M
. and wouldn't allow myself to eat breakfast beforehand, lest the mere volume of the food skew the weigh-in result. So by the time I made the hour-long drive to the doctor's office in my hometown and endured the thirty-minute appointment, I was ravenous. Violently hungry. McDonald's was the only thing that could satisfy.

The second I exited the medical building, I'd sprint from the door to my car, breaking speed records to get to the Golden Arches because I knew that there, heaven awaited. It was there that I'd get to indulge in my Monthly Feast: two breakfast burritos, a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, hash browns, and—perfect for my growing baby—a large Dr Pepper. And I couldn't even wait till I exited the parking lot. Seconds after I'd pull away from the drive-thru, I'd rip into the first burrito and finish it off before even making it to the highway. I had one purpose and one purpose only:
I must ingest this breakfast burrito immediately or I will die of hunger.
So I'd insert the burrito as far into my mouth as it would go and bite off about half of it, then chew and swallow as quickly as I could so I could feel the immediate rush of satisfaction that comes from a gestating body finally getting the calories it deserves.

It was hunger like none I'd ever experienced.

This continued till Easter, when a good family friend invited my sister, Betsy, and me to attend a shower in honor of their daughter, who was getting married that summer. It was the first time I'd made an official appearance in my hometown since the wedding, and I made sure I was dressed and made up to the hilt. I'd likely be seeing many people from my premarriage life that I hadn't seen in a while, and I wanted everyone to see that I was happy and fulfilled and positively thriving in my new life as a rancher's pregnant wife.

When I arrived, I immediately saw the mother of an ex-boyfriend, the
kind of ex-boyfriend that would make you want to look as good as possible if you ran into his mother at a shower when you were several months pregnant. She saw me, smiled politely, and made her way across the room to visit with me. We hugged, exchanged pleasantries, and caught up on what we'd both been doing. As we talked, I fantasized about her reporting to her son, my ex, the next day.
Oh, you should have seen Ree. She was positively glowing! You should have seen how wonderful she looked! Don't you wish
you
had married her?

Deep into our small talk, I made mention of how long it had been since she and I had seen each other. “Well…I did see you recently,” she replied. “But I don't think you saw me.”

I couldn't imagine. “Oh really?” I asked. “Where?” I hardly ever came to my hometown.

“Well,” she continued. “I saw you pulling out of McDonald's on Highway Seventy-five one morning a few weeks ago. I waved to you…but you didn't see me.”

My insides suddenly shriveled, imagining myself violently shoving breakfast burritos into my mouth. “McDonald's? Really?” I said, trying my best to play dumb.

“Yes,” my ex's mother replied, smiling. “You looked a little…hungry!”

“Hmmm,” I said. “I don't think that was me.”

I skulked away to the bathroom, vowing to eat granola for the rest of my pregnancy.

S
PRING FLEW
by and summer quickly arrived; my belly grew right alongside the daylilies, zinnias, and tomatoes Marlboro Man's mom had helped me plant in a small garden outside the house. For Marlboro Man, the coming of the baby proved to be an effective diversion from the aftermath of the previous fall's market woes. More and more, it looked like Marlboro Man might have to sell some of his land in order to keep the rest of the ranch afloat. As someone who didn't grow up on a ranch, I failed to feel the gravity of the situation. You have a problem, you have an asset, you sell the asset, you solve the problem. But for Marlboro Man, it could never be that simple or sterile. For a ranching family, putting together a ranch takes time—sometimes years, even generations of patiently waiting for this pasture or that to become available. For a rancher, the words of Pa in
Gone With the Wind
ring beautifully and painfully true:
Land is the only thing worth working for…worth fighting for, worth dying for. Because it's the only thing that lasts….
The thought of parting with a part of the family's ranch was a painful prospect; Marlboro Man felt the sting daily. To me it seemed like an easy fix; to Marlboro Man, it was a personal failure. There was nothing I could do to make it better except to be there to catch him in my arms every night, which I willingly and eagerly did. I was a soft, lumpy pillow. With heartburn and swollen ankles.

“Your belly's getting
big,
” he said one night.

“I know,” I answered, looking down. It was kind of hard to deny.

“I love it,” he said, stroking it with the palm of his hand. I recoiled a little, remembering the black bikini I'd worn on our honeymoon and how comparatively concave my belly looked then, and hoping Marlboro Man had long since put the image out of his mind.

“Hey, what are we naming this thing?” he asked, even as the “thing” fluttered and kicked in my womb.

“Oh, man…” I sighed. “I have no idea. Zachary?” I pulled it out of my wazoo.

“Eh,” he said, uninspired. “Shane?” Oh no. Here go the old movies.

“I went to my senior prom with a Shane,” I answered, remembering dark and mysterious Shane Ballard.

“Okay, scratch that,” he said. “How about…how about Ashley?” How far was he going to take this?

I remembered a movie we'd watched on our fifteenth date or so. “How about Rooster Cogburn?”

He chuckled. I loved it when he chuckled. It meant everything was okay and he wasn't worried or stressed or preoccupied. It meant we were dating and sitting on his old porch and my parents weren't divorcing. It meant my belly button wasn't bulbous and deformed. His chuckles were like a drug to me. I tried to elicit them daily.

“What if it's a girl?” I said.

“Oh, it's a boy,” he said with confidence. “I'm positive.”

I didn't respond. How could I argue with that?

 

M
ORE AND
more, I began helping around the homestead. I learned to operate my John Deere mower so I could keep the yard around our house—and our half-remodeled, boarded-up yellow
brick house—neatly trimmed. Marlboro Man was working like a dog in the Oklahoma summer, and I wanted to make our homestead a haven for him. The heat was so stifling, though, all I could stand to wear was a loose-fitting maternity tank top and a pair of Marlboro Man's white Jockey boxers, which I gracefully pulled down below my enormous belly. As I rode on the bouncy green mower in my heavily pregnant state, my mind couldn't help but travel back to the long country drive I'd taken when I was engaged to Marlboro Man, when we'd stumbled upon the old homestead and found the half-naked woman mowing her yard. And here I was:
I had become that woman.
And it had happened in less than a year. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of our bedroom window and couldn't believe what I was seeing. The Playtex bra was all I was missing.

I was nesting now, completely powerless to stop the urge to give our entire house, yard, and garage a daily scrubbing. Inexplicably, I began cleaning baseboards for the first time in my life. I wiped down the insides of cabinets and made lists of what to dust on what days of the week. Monday was the top of the fridge. Tuesday was the top of the cabinet in the bathroom. Every day I washed and dried Onesies, burp cloths, and tiny socks in an intoxicating potion of Dreft and Downy; our whole house smelled like a white, puffy cloud.

Marlboro Man was so excited for his son to be born. We'd elected not to have the gender-identifying sonogram, but he was convinced, as was I, that it was going to be a boy. Marlboro Man had grown up in a house with two brothers, on a ranch full of cowboys. A son would come first; it was simply predestined.

 

M
ARLBORO MAN
and I had built a life together. As different as I felt—and as distorted as I looked—it amazed me how similar it all felt again to the time before we were married, when we first met and
fell in love. We had been very much in our own little world then—spending 95 percent of our time together alone. Now, in our little house on the prairie, it was still just the two of us. In an effort to spin optimism out of the sorrow of my parents' split, I told myself that their separation, paradoxically, had actually brought Marlboro Man and me closer together. If I'd had a home to go to—one still thriving with a mother and a father and all of the warmth with which I'd been surrounded as a child—I might have been tempted to visit home more often. To fold laundry with my mom. To sit and visit and cook and bake and maybe spend slightly less time at home with my new husband who, it turned out, had needed me so much over the previous several months. So it was good, I told myself. In the long run, this whole divorce ordeal would all prove to be good.

But it really wasn't good at all. My dad was having a hard time, and in my growing concern, I'd taken to visiting him weekly to assess how he was doing. And seeing him still so despondent, I couldn't help but project my irritation onto my mother. Why was I having to bear the burden of worry over my father's emotional health when I should be spending all my time in anticipation over the birth of my baby?

And that really got me going. What was going to happen when I had the baby? Such a monumental event would surely warrant both my parents being present at the hospital, which was a scenario so horrifying to me that I began to lose sleep about it. My parents hadn't seen each other since the day my mother left our house; how would my sanity survive such a meeting occurring while I'm in labor or recovering? After stewing about it for several nights, I decided I had no choice but to call my mom and be honest about my dread.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, my voice as far away from warm as I could muster. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, Ree Ree,” she said, positive and chirpy.

I let it out, explaining that while I'd love for her to be present at the hospital, I just wasn't sure that was the best time for there to be a face-to-face
encounter with my dad. It wasn't that I didn't want her there, I explained—it was really more about me. The day would be stressful enough without my having to worry about everyone else's feelings.

She understood. Or, if she didn't, she wasn't about to argue with a nine-months-pregnant woman.

I checked this item of worry off my to-do list, right along with the sterilized refrigerator, sparkling baseboards, Q-tipped doorknobs, and Cloroxed floors.

Everything was in place.

I was ready.