Breadcrumb #40
PETER SCHRANZ
In September Denise conceived twins with Roger, a dashing gentleman whose face-genes she hardly doubted would succeed so wildly that the men of the future would all look like him. Denise took no part in this project as the twins were girls (not that she knew anything but that she was pregnant with some number of some sex) but Roger's mother had acquired from his grandmother a face like a Cézanne apple and those genes were stored away all over the place in Roger and ended up building the girls' faces so it was a win either way.
In December Denise read the pleasing line from Syrus, "The loss which is unknown is no loss at all," and recognized the truth of it not only with her brain but with her heart and lungs and most relevantly her active uterus.
Roger began to do a lot of things because Denise could not. At the swing of her wrist he would rocket to the grocery store and gather all the usual unusual-food-combination-for-the-pregnant-woman components. Denise realized one day when Roger was out doing her bidding that she had married him largely because of his sundry masculinities. Now that he kept running off submissively to the grocery store whenever she wanted an egg cream and ketchup or something, running off without even noting what a strange request she had made as a result of his sitcom-induced overfamiliarity with the whole craving trope, she found him girlish, weak, and unattractive.
“Denise realized one day when Roger was out doing her bidding that she had married him largely because of his sundry masculinities.”
In March she read this displeasing line from Tudge, "The family Odontaspididae ... are among the groups whose offspring practice oophagy — eating their siblings in the womb," and recognized the truth of it with all her aforementioned body parts.
Denise was a hair away from asking Roger for some kind of a separation after some pregnancy thing gave her dandruff. She asked Roger whether he still found her attractive and he said yes. She believed that if he was lying, they should separate on account of she was married not only to a liar but also to someone so soulless as not to find the many-hued surprises of human reproduction a joy. She believed that if he was telling the truth, that they should separate on account of he was either a sexual deviant with some sort of repulsive and unspeakable dandruff thing or an apathetic slug with no interest in his wife's health in the shape of the dryness of her skin, or in his own child's health in the shape of the dryness of its mother's skin.
In June she gave birth to one single, beautiful, apple-red, nine-pound girl named Catherine. All it took was a look at Catherine for Denise to realize silently that Roger was just as much a man as ever since after all she, Denise, couldn't have made such a magnificent squealing ruby without any of his input. Denise and Roger remained married and nurtured that one single child to the very best of their fully sufficient abilities and nobody was the wiser about anything.