This work of adult
fiction, loosely based on characters portrayed by Russell Crowe,
includes adult language and experiences; you have been warned. No
copyright infringement on the original work is intended. Copyright Reagan Kavanagh 2006.
Some
say love it
is a river
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed Some
say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it's only seed It's
the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking That never takes
the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns
to live When
the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the
bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the Rose. Bette
Midler.The Rose.The Rose.(1979)
REAGAN The
Rose.Janis
Joplin personified by
Bette Midler.I
always cry when I hear
that song, and tonight was no exception.My mother had loved Janis’ music.She didn’t care a lot for Janis;
sex, drugs, rock and roll …that
was never Mum’s style, but she did appreciate the
woman’s talent.As
I moved past my 16th birthday,
I suspect I became a bit too much like Janis for Mum’s
comfort zone.I
think I was perhaps 17 when Mum realised I
wasn’t a virgin.Tack
that onto the
little ‘drinking at LakePalestine’
and the night
in the County lock-up that same year, plus the fact that I was a
rocker, and
well, you get the picture. The
only well-known habit Janis had that I didn’t was the drug
scene; Lord knows
I’d made the rounds of the good-looking boys at PalestineHigh School.We all know I’d
been busted for underage
drinking.In total
honesty, the only
reason I never tried drugs was because I was scared shitless
I’d like
them.I already had
one addiction at 17,
and that was nicotine; I’m still struggling with that one,
and probably always
will. Max
and I had stopped by the local Blockbuster that afternoon and wandered
the
aisles of DVDs.Every
time I picked up a
Russell Crowe film I didn’t have or hadn’t seen
he’d dragged me away. “Cassandra,
satis. You
have seen all
of his films that are truly relevant, and I am
weary of seeing men who
resemble me parade across our television screen.”Relevant?What does relevance have
to do with it?Men
just don’t get it, do they?Women LIKE watching Russell Crowe; he’s the
incarnation of many of our fantasies.That’s
when I saw it.It
was between Romper
Stomper and Rough Magic …The Rose.I grabbed it and shoved it under his nose. “Have
you seen this one?” “This
one is about roses?”I
was sure he
thought I’d completely lost it at that point.A film about flowers? “No!It’s a bio-pic
about a young woman form Port Arthur, Texas.Her name was Janis Joplin.She overdosed and died at
27, but Max, she
was probably the hottest singer ever to come out of Texas.”He shot me a look when I said
‘overdosed’.He
did know what that meant. “She
was a narcotics addict?” “Yes,
and an alcoholic, but my God, the woman could belt
them out!” “You
wish to watch a film about an alcoholic and drug-addicted woman who
died as the
result of her habits?” “YES!” MAXIMUS We
rented the film and settled in to watch it after dinner.Within 15 minutes of its
beginning, Cassandra
was weeping. “Shall
I turn it off, Cara?”She shook
her head; I sighed.Thus
far I had found
nothing in the film to hold my attention and said as much. “I
cry every time I see this movie.Perhaps
you just had to be there to understand it.”Be there? “What
does that mean?” “Perhaps
you just had to live that era to enjoy it.”I sighed. “Cara,
you were not more than four or five years of age when this woman died.You were not there
and did not live in
her time span.”The
look I received from
her was similar to those I recall having on occasion seen directed at
my
brother Publius.He
was simple of mind
and often said or did things that occasioned strange looks from those
who did
not recognise his affliction. “My
mother had all Janis’ records, and I’ve seen tapes
of most of her
concerts.She was
born and raised less
than 200 miles from where I lived until I left for university.Janis Joplin was
– is – a Texas
icon.” “Why
would the people of Texas
chose to make an icon of a woman addicted to alcohol and drugs?Further, from what I have
seen thus far in
this film – and if it is a true portrayal of her behaviour
– the woman was
little better than a whore.Why
would
anyone wish to make a film of her life?” “Fine.You don’t have
to watch it.”That
word had surfaced again and was
one I was beginning to dislike intensely.I had now come to understand those instances in which
‘fine’ did not mean
‘fine.’She
pulled away from me and
walked to the DVD player, ejected the disk, and stalked down the hall
to her
office and closed the door after entering.I looked at the ceiling, silently entreating the gods to
grant me both
patience and understanding of women. REAGAN Okay,
so he wasn’t interested in The Rose.I could watch it on the DVD player on my computer and did.It really wasn’t
so much that I was angry at
Max, but my hormones were all over the place, and I knew why.I’d done the
second pregnancy test two days
earlier, and I was definitely pregnant.I’d made an appointment with Sharon,
but she couldn’t see me until the first of the week.There was no way I was
telling Max until she
confirmed it medically. I
knew he suspected I’d finally caught –
he’s become very observant since we
married – but he hadn’t said anything thus far.I think he was holding his breath as much as I was.I watched the film, and
just as Rose/Janis
did her swan song and died on stage, I dissolved in tears.Max chose that precise
moment to open the
door and walk into the room. “Cara,
what is it?Why
are you weeping?”God
bless the man.He
was on his knees beside my chair with his
hands cupping my face.His
eyes were so
serious and rapidly moving to alarm. “It’s
the movie,” I wailed.“She
dies at the
end, and it’s so sad.”By that
time, the credits were running, and Bette Midler’s voiceover
singing The
Rose was playing.I
absolutely
wailed.Max reached
round me and ejected
the disk before picking me up and carrying me to our bed, laying me on
it and
sitting beside me.His
voice was grave
when he spoke. “I
do not think it wise for you to watch films that distress you this
much.” “This
one always makes me cry.I’ve
told you
that.” “You
did, but I do not think becoming so upset is good for you.Your heart is too tender
to watch things that
distress you so.”He
moved onto the bed
beside me and scooped me into his arms, nestling my head into his
shoulder.“Lie
with me for a time and
let me comfort you.”He
is the
most comforting person I’ve ever known, though most
wouldn’t believe that.I
was asleep in five minutes.I
really hope he didn’t have anything more in
mind than comforting me.
*
“You’re
definitely pregnant, and I’d estimate you at about six to
seven weeks.What
took you so long to come in and be
sure?”Sharon
had rolled away from the end of the
exam table and was stripping off her exam gloves as she spoke.I grinned as I sat up and
looked at her. “I
wanted to be pretty damned sure myself before seeing you.When two tests from
Wal-Mart showed positive
a week apart, I was about as sure as I could be.” “Have
you broken the news to the happy father-to-be?” “Not
yet.I wanted to
hear it from you
first.”She
laughed as she stood and
offered me her hand to hop off the table. “Break
out the champagne for him, and tell him I said not to pop all the
buttons off
his vest and coat.I’d
hate to see him
looking like a beggar in those three-piece suits of his.” MAXIMUS I
knew on walking through the door that something of significance had
transpired.She
came from the bedroom into the lounge;
her feet were bare, and she was dressed in a garment not dissimilar to
those
worn by women of my time.It
was of a
black silky fabric and draped across her breasts, fitting snugly
beneath
them.Her breasts
swelled at the top of
the bodice; I yearned to place my lips there. “Is
there a celebration of which I am ignorant?You do not routinely dress in this manner.”Her response was to loosen
my tie as I
removed my coat after placing my briefcase on the table by the door. “You
seem most joyous this night.Has
something special transpired today?”I
suspected the reason, but wished to hear it from her lips.She stood on her toes as
she leant up to kiss
me, and her voice was soft in my ear. “I’m
pregnant.”I
felt the tears gather in my
eyes and could not speak for a time.My
voice was rough with emotion when I was at last able to vocalise. “I
had hoped these past weeks but dared not voice the words …I
feared doing so
would tempt Fate.”
*
I
had never seen her happier than she was in those days following
learning of her
conception.In
truth, I do not
recall having ever been happier.Her
displeasure with me prior to our short trip to Baltimore
during which I made amends to Jack
now made perfect sense.Though
the
behaviour that precipitated the trip had been unforgivable, her
reaction had
been more strident than I would have anticipated.Jack had called it correctly when he referred
to her as breeding, and I am learning that breeding women tend to be
more
emotional than when they are not in so delicate a state.She opened a bottle of
champagne and poured a
glass for me, toasting with a glass of Perrier in her own hand.As we sat on the couch
with her in my lap, a
thought occurred to me. “Have
you told Diana?” “Of
course not.It’s
your child,
Maximus.I think
you had a right to know
before anyone else.” “Is
it important to you that she be the next to know?”She tilted her head as she
looked at me. “Yes,
it is.Why do you
ask?”I
related the conversation between Jack and
me as we stood on the seawall at Annapolis. “I
should like to tell him first.I
believe
he felt on that occasion that you were with child, and the advice he
offered me
was insightful.” “We
can’t …I promised Dee
that she’d be the first
to know after you.”A
promise made has
great value, and I would not ask her to go back on her word.“Then we will
tell her first.Will
you call her now?”She
seemed to think for a moment. “No
…let’s just keep it between us until I’m
past the first trimester.Then
we can make the announcement.Hell,
by that time, everyone will probably
have figured it out anyway.At
the rate
my boobs are already growing, I’ll have to buy all new shirts
by then!”I
smiled in delight at the thought.The bosom of the barmaid at the restaurant
where Jack and I had dined could not hope to match that of my Cara. REAGAN The
morning sickness hit with a vengeance a couple of days later.I’d blithely
assumed that since I’d had
virtually none with my first pregnancy and none thus far in this one
that I was
immune.Wrong
assumption.I felt
fine when I woke each morning but
within ten minutes had my head in the toilet and kept it there for what
seemed
like an eternity.Max
was late to the
office the first couple of mornings because he felt he had to sit there
in the
floor beside me and keep handing me a moist washcloth.I finally persuaded him to just get the Hell
out and go to work. “Max,
if you’re late one more time, Terry and Sooze and
Dino are going to
start putting two and two together and ask the obvious question.I’d really
rather they not know until
I’ve hit the three-month mark.You need
to get your butt to work on time.There’s nothing you can do to make it any
better, and your worrying
about me won’t solve it.It doesn’t last
that long, and I’m fine until the next morning.” My
logic didn’t do a great deal toward assuaging his concern. “I
fear leaving you when you are ill.” “I’m
not ill, I’m pregnant.” “What
if you should bang your head on the toilet?” “I
won’t.” “You
might arise from the floor too quickly and fall.” “I
won’t, I promise.” “What
if you should …” and so it went.I
finally pushed him out the door. “I’m
fine, I’m not going to injure myself or have an accident.You’re driving
me round the twist, so please,
just go to work!”He went to
work.He also
called half-a-dozen times
a day.Between his
calls and updating
lectures, I barely had time to teach my classes. “Cara?How are you
feeling?” “I’m
fine.How are you
feeling?Did you
manage to get to work on time so the
gang doesn’t start asking questions?” “I
seem to have caught something from someone.My stomach is unsettled.”Oh,
Jesus.He was
having empathic morning
sickness.I called Sharon. “Is
this normal?”She’d laughed so
hard I thought she’d slide under the desk. “No,
but it’s been known to happen.I had one
patient about ten years ago whose husband started having empathic
labour pains
about an hour after her real ones began.” “Oh,
Jesus, PLEASE don’t mention that to
Max!”The
bitch was still laughing when I hung up
the phone …well, Hell, so was I.The Gladiator
...with morning sickness and labour pains. MAXIMUS The
first occasion on which she suffered morning sickness left me stricken
with
fear.She knelt
beside the toilet,
retching and heaving as if she would bring up her very bowels.I had myself been sick
from too much drink or
a fever caught from those that swept the camps on occasion but had
never
witnessed such distress.It
went on far
too long in my estimation, and she was weak when it was done. When
at last she made to stand, she was so unbalanced as to sway and strike
the
wall.I assisted
her to the lavatory to
wash her face and clean her teeth – the brushing of her teeth
came near to
setting her off again – before helping her back to bed.She lay there panting and
sweating, much the
same as a mare in labour; I did not share that observation with her.She chastised me for
staying at her side and
leaving late for the office.I
called
her physician immediately on arriving at work. “This
is Sharon Fletcher.What
can I do for
you Max?” “I
call not for myself, Doctor, but with concern for my wife.” “The
morning sickness has kicked in, right?” “It
has.She was most
violently ill this
morning; I feared leaving her at home without someone to care for her,
but she
insisted.Is there
naught you can do to
ease her discomfort?” “Sorry,
Max, not a damned thing.Years
ago we
gave women medication to stop the nausea.That was before we discovered that the medication
wasn’t good for the
baby.Today, they
just have to tough it
out.It’ll
pass by the end of the first
trimester.Don’t
worry about it.”She
rang off.Cassandra must endure an additional six weeks
of this discomfort? Sharon’s
comments did nothing
to ease my concern.It
would do no good
to discuss it with Terry even had he known of Cassandra’s
condition, as he was
not home whilst his wife carried his son; the same applied to Jack
Aubrey.Dino had
never been married.Sooze
might have allayed my fears, but as I
had promised Cassandra I would honour her wish to say nothing to my
colleagues
until she has passed her third month, I could not ask.I turned to the internet as my resource.The comments I found were of no comfort.
Although
morning sickness is more common in the morning, it can last all
day for some women.
Women have
been suffering from this condition for centuries, but we still do
not understand the exact mechanisms or causes of the disease.
By the
fourth month of pregnancy, you'll begin to feel much more like your old
self, presumably because your body has adjusted somewhat to these
dramatic changes.
Queasiness
may be most noticeable in the morning, but it can occur at
any time of the day or night.
Morning
sickness is not harmful to you or your baby, but if you experience excessive
vomiting and cannot keep your food down, you may have hyperemesis
gravidarum.
Hyperemesis
gravidarum
is a condition characterized
by severe nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and electrolyte
disturbance.
Mild cases are treated with dietary changes, rest and antacids. More severe
cases often require a stay in the hospital so that the
mother can receive
fluid and nutrition through an intravenous line (IV). DO NOT take any
medications to solve this problem without consulting your health care
provider
first.It is
characterised by the
following:
Nausea
accompanied by severe
vomiting
Nausea that
does not
subside
Vomiting
that causes severe dehydration
Vomiting
that does not
allow you to keep any food down
Other symptoms of
the disorder
included food aversions, weight loss of five
percent or more of
pre-pregnancy weight, decrease in urination, headaches, confusion,
fainting,
and jaundice.I
grew more alarmed with
each site I visited.I
called Sharon
Fletcher again and voiced my concerns.She was less sympathetic than I deemed appropriate for a
physician. “Max, get
off the fucking
internet.All
you’re going to accomplish
by prowling there is scare yourself shitless.Reagan knows her body, and if something seems truly hinky,
she’ll call
me.For the love of
God, Man, get a
grip!I’m
sorry but I have to go.I
have a patient in labor and have to get to
the hospital.” She was a woman.How could she be so
uncaring?Perhaps I
could find a more suitable and
sympathetic physician and persuade Cassandra to change her caregiver.I had been summarily
dismissed and did not
call Sharon Fletcher again for some time.
*
Cassandra is not
given to rapid
swings of mood, thus I was unprepared for the sudden onset of that
behaviour.One
moment she was happy and
joyful, the next I would find her dissolved in tears.I did not know if my own actions were the
cause of her tears or if some malevolent spirit gripped her in those
times.I searched
myself for things I
might have done that would distress her; I pondered anew how I might
cherish
her more deeply. She began to
experience food
cravings.Ignoring
Sharon Fletcher’s
dictum, I went online to see what I might learn regarding this
phenomenon.
Food
cravings are powerful urges to eat particular foods that you may not
have previously desired.
Eighty-five
percent of women experience some sort of food craving during pregnancy.
Cravings are
considered to be based in both the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy
as well as in the woman’s emotional response to her condition
and those around her.
I became aware that
Cassandra was
experiencing these cravings on walking into the kitchen one morning to
find her
eating salsa straight from the jar.She
had a spoon in her hand and a look of almost sexual rapture on her face.She had bought the jar
when we were at the
market the preceding night; it was now almost empty.I sighed and added salsa to the shopping list
on the whiteboard on the pantry.Prior
to that moment I was in ignorance of ‘cravings’ and
asked why she was eating a
condiment straight from the jar. “Because
I want to.” “Let me
get you a bowl.” “What for?I’m almost done
with it, and there’s no need
to get a bowl dirty.” “But why
are you eating a
condiment so early in the day?” “Pregnant
women have
cravings.It
isn’t rocket science.” It was for me.I sighed.It was on that morning I made my internet search on that
aspect of
childbearing.As
the days passed, she
ceased eating foods she had previously enjoyed.I took her out to dine one evening and when our meal
arrived, the
vegetable was broccoli.She
looked at
it, clapt her hand over her mouth, and rushed toward the
ladies’ room.She
did return to finish her meal but only
after having the server take the plate away, dispose of the broccoli,
and
return the remainder of her meal on a clean plate.Until she became pregnant, she served
broccoli with our evening meal at least once weekly. We dined out again
two nights
later.She did not
sicken at anything on
her dinner plate, but when the cheesecake for dessert arrived, she
asked if
black olives were available.They
were.She requested
a cup of them
to place on her dessert.It
was I who
almost had to leave the table on that occasion.The following day she called me at the office and asked
that I pick up
chocolate bars on my way home; she has never cared for chocolate.When I arrived with a bag
containing the
chocolates, she kissed me quickly, then took one of the bars from the
bag,
opened it and devoured it within moments.On finishing, she smiled and said one word. “Ambrosial!” I do not know this
woman. REAGAN The look on his
face when he
caught me eating salsa straight from the jar at 0547 was one of near
horror.I was lucky
he’d not walked in
ten minutes earlier …I was into the peanut butter jar at
that point.The
peanut butter wasn’t doing it for me, and
then I saw the jar of Pace Picante Sauce.Yes! I tossed the peanut
butter spoon
into the sink, put the jar back in the pantry, and grabbed the Pace and
a clean
spoon.Heavenly!Max walked in about five
minutes later, and
by that time, I was scraping the bottom of the jar trying to get the
last bits
of onion and jalapeño peppers.If only
the food cravings were the entire story. My moods were on a
roller
coaster.American
Express started a new
series of ads a few months ago, and two of them feature snips of songs
by James
Blunt.I love his
music.Max and I
were watching TV when one of the
ads aired on that particular night.The
background music was “You’re Beautiful,”
and I was sobbing at the end of the
commercial.Max was
horrified.I tried
to explain the fact that there’s no
logic to what does or doesn’t impact a pregnant
woman’s moods and got nowhere. We went to the mall
that weekend
to find a birthday present for Dolores and stopped to look in the
window at a
pet shop.There was
one particularly
adorable puppy in an enclosure by himself.When I knelt to look more closely at him, he put one
little paw on the
window.I burst
into tears. “What is
it, Cara?Are
you ill?”I’ll swear to God, if he asks me that one more
time, I’m going to hurt him. “No,”
and bear in mind I’m trying
talk whilst sobbing.“He’s
just so
pitiful.They
shouldn’t have taken him
away from his mum and his litter mates this early.He’s just a baby!”That last bit came out as
a wail, and now
people around us were looking at Max as though he was a wife abuser.He hustled me out of the
mall and into the
car.He said
he’d find something for
Dolores the next day. I really felt sorry
for Max at
that point.He was
trying so hard to be
sympathetic and to cater to all my wants or needs.He thought he was failing miserably.I told him he wasn’t and that pregnant women
are just moody.It’s
that hormone
thing.The next
night he was smiling
when he came home and handed me a small package.I was leaving for Houston
in a few days for a seminar I was giving at the University of Houston,
and he’d brought me a present to take with me.My mouth fell open in shock when I opened it, and then the
tears came
again. Three CDs
…Janis Joplin. Janis
Joplin’s Greatest Hits.Pearl.Janis Joplin:Super Hits.The kicker was a DVD of The
Rose.My
laptop has a DVD player in it. “I
thought you might listen to
the CDs in the car as you travel and watch the DVD one night whilst you
are
away.” Dear God, but I
love this man.
