The Rosie Effect

26

Gene confirmed my analysis the following evening. Rosie had been planning to end our marriage.

‘It was only because last night at the restaurant reminded her why you two got together in the first place that she stopped short. But that’s not the problem.’

‘Agreed. The problem is not my suitability as a partner. It’s my suitability as a father.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right. Claudia would say they’re inseparable, but Rosie seems to have made the separation.’

Rosie was in bed. Rosie, who had encouraged me to look beyond my limitations, who was the reason for my life being more than I had ever envisioned. I was sitting with my best friend on a balcony in Manhattan, looking over the Hudson River to the lights of New Jersey, with the world’s most beautiful woman and my potential child asleep inside. And I had almost lost it. I was still at risk of losing it.

‘The trouble,’ said Gene, ‘is that the things that Rosie loves you for are exactly the things that make her think you’re too…different…to be a father. She may be a risk-taker with relationships, but no woman’s a risk-taker with her kids. In the end it’ll come down to persuading her you’re…average enough to be a father.’

It seemed like a sound analysis. But the solution remained the same. Work hard on fatherhood skills.

Although I had made enormous progress, thanks to my obstetric studies, supplemented by delivering Dave the Calf and the work with the Lesbian Mothers Project, my new skills had not been visible to Rosie due to the absence of a baby to apply them to. Other initiatives, such as the pram, had had an unexpectedly negative impact.

I anticipated that things would improve after the birth, but was now faced with a challenge to survive the final fourteen weeks of the pregnancy without Rosie rejecting me. One inadvertent error could make the difference: given my propensity to make such errors, it was vital that I create a buffer zone.

I needed expert input to create the optimum survival plan.

Dave was shocked.

‘You and Rosie? You’re kidding me. I mean, I knew you were having some problems, but no worse than Sonia and me.’

‘She’s prioritised the baby over our relationship. Which is leading to marriage failure.’

George laughed.

‘Sorry, not laughing at you. But welcome to the real world. I wouldn’t say your marriage is over just because she’s behaving like every other woman. It’s in their genes, isn’t it, Gene Genie?’

‘I’m not going to win a Nobel Prize for telling you that women are programmed to focus on the baby. But I think Don does have a problem.’ Gene looked at me. ‘It started when he didn’t go to the sonogram.’

‘Shit,’ said Dave. ‘I took time off for that and I never take time off. You missed something, Don.’

‘I saw the hardcopy of the image.’ I was feeling defensive. I had screwed up.

‘It’s different. We could see the baby moving around and—I mean—after all the effort, there it was.’ Dave was showing signs of emotion.

George pulled a bottle from under the table, and I applied my corkscrew. The baseball season was long over and we were at Arturo’s Pizza in Greenwich Village. George’s extreme tipping allowed us to violate the rules and bring his ludicrously expensive Tuscan wines, which he now claimed to prefer to English ale. The break in conversation allowed some time for thinking.

Gene tasted the wine.

‘What do you think?’ asked George.

‘About the wine? Only one of the ten best bottles I’ve ever tasted. And I’m with three blokes in a pizza parlour. I shouldn’t have ordered the diavolo. But about Don and Rosie…’

Gene swirled his wine around in the glass, which was too small for fine-wine appreciation.

‘There’s no point sugar-coating the pill with Don. Rosie doesn’t think he can cut it as a father. Think about repeating patterns. Rosie was brought up by a single parent, so maybe she sees that as her destiny as well.’

Gene’s insight was of no practical use to me. I could not change the past.

Dave had been silent, finishing the first shared pizza.

‘I’m trying to make this refrigeration business work. It’s like playing baseball,’ he said. ‘All I can do is try to execute right every day and hope the results come. And that Sonia doesn’t give up on me in the meantime. All Don can do is try to be the best he can and hope that Rosie comes around.’

Dave was right. I needed to do everything I could to be the best father I was capable of being. I had made a start. Unknown to Rosie, I had interacted so successfully with a baby that I had raised its oxytocin levels. But I needed to do more.

I had obtained input on the crisis from 42.8 per cent of my friends, including my new friend George. I had distilled their messages into: There is a problem and Don’t give up.

I decided not to call the Eslers. I did not want them to join Rosie, Gene, George, Dave, Sonia and Stefan—Stefan!—in knowing there was a problem.

That left Claudia. World’s best psychologist.

This time she decided to use voice rather than text when I connected with her on Skype. I had not yet worked out what determined her preference, but the speed of voice communication allowed me to explain the problem in less than an hour.

Claudia delivered her analysis almost as soon as I had finished. ‘She’s looking for perfect love. She’s idealised something that she lost before she could understand that love is never perfect.’

‘Too abstract.’

‘Her mother died when she was ten. Even if her mother—her mother’s love—wasn’t perfect, Rosie had no chance to find out. So she went off looking for a perfect father, who didn’t exist, of course, and then she found a perfect husband.’

‘I’m not perfect,’ I said.

‘In your own way, you are. You believe in love more than any of us. There’s no grey with you.’

‘You’re suggesting I’m incapable of dealing with continuous concepts; that my mind is somehow Boolean?’

‘You’re never going to cheat on Rosie, are you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s not right.’ I realised what I was saying. ‘Unless you have an open marriage, of course.’

‘Let’s not go there, Don. This is about you and Rosie. But at some point Rosie will have discovered that you’re human. You forget an anniversary, you don’t read her mind.’

‘It’s unlikely I would forget a date. But mind-reading is not my strongest attribute.’

‘So now she’s on another quest for perfect love.’

‘Repeating patterns,’ I said.

‘Where did you get that from? Don’t bother answering. But it’s valid in this case. And from what you’re saying, she’s not seeing you as part of that perfect love. Being yourself probably works beautifully with just the two of you, but not so well with a baby. In her mind.’

‘Because I’m not an average father.’

‘Perhaps. But average may not be enough. Her picture of a father is problematic. She had a lot of issues with her own father, didn’t she?’

‘The problems with Phil have been resolved. They’re friends.’ Even as I said it, I remembered Gene’s observation about childhood problems.

‘It doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t change her subconscious.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘That’s always the hard part.’ I was reaching the conclusion that psychology researchers needed to give more attention to problem-solving. ‘Keep working on being a father. Maybe try to discuss the issue with Rosie. But not in the terms I’ve used.’

‘How can I discuss it without using the terms you’ve used to explain it?’ It would be like trying to explain genetics without mentioning DNA.

‘You’ve got a point. Maybe just keep trying and let her know you’re committed.’

There’s a problem. Don’t give up.

‘And Don.’

I waited for Claudia to finish the sentence.

‘I’d rather you didn’t say anything to Gene, but I’m seeing someone. I’m in a relationship with a new man. So I think the time has passed for you to worry about getting Gene and me back together.’

The conversation appeared over, so I terminated the call. Claudia obviously had not finished. She sent me two text messages.

Good luck, Don. You’ve surprised us all so far.

Then: I think you know the new man in my life. Simon Lefebvre—Head of the Medical Research Institute.

The data-gathering stage of the Lesbian Mothers Project was complete, and I had reviewed the initial draft paper. At my request, B3, the helpful nurse, had sent me the raw data, and I had undertaken my own analysis. The results were fascinating and definitely a useful contribution to the field. There were numerous ways to improve the paper, and I sent my notes to B2. She did not respond, but B1 demanded a meeting with the Dean who invited me to join them.

‘Don’s demanding that we include data that was gathered before the protocols were properly in place. It’s misleading.’

‘It’s the most interesting data,’ I said. ‘It establishes that neither mother raises the baby’s oxytocin levels through play rituals.’

‘That’s because the original play rituals were male-biased. The female carers weren’t comfortable with them. The babies sensed this. We had to make them more appropriate to women.’

‘They would be classified as cuddling,’ I said.

‘You didn’t see them. You weren’t there.’

The second part was true. Emails advising me of the schedule had failed to arrive, and the technicians I had contacted had not located the problem despite multiple followups and escalation. Fortunately B3 had found a more efficient solution.

‘I was provided with video.’

‘Who—’

‘Does it matter?’ asked David. ‘Don’s surely entitled to see the video.’

‘He’s not qualified to determine the difference between play and cuddling.’

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘I sent the videos to experts for analysis.’

‘Who? Who did you send the videos to?’

‘The original researchers in Israel, obviously. They confirmed that the second protocol should be classified as cuddling. Hence your research establishes that the secondary carer, if female, stimulates the production of oxytocin in the child by cuddling rather than play. Which is a clear difference from the results with male secondary carers. Hence interesting.’

It seemed that B1 had not understood my point, as she stood up with an expression that I provisionally diagnosed as angry. I clarified. ‘Hence highly publishable. The researcher I spoke to on Skype was extremely interested.’

‘What Don’s done is totally unethical,’ said B1. ‘Showing our results to other researchers.’

‘Naive, perhaps. Not unethical. This is the Columbia medical school, open and cooperative with researchers around the world. Don has our support.’

After B1 had left, the Dean congratulated me on my persistence. ‘They tried to cut you out, Don. I think most researchers would have walked away. Refusing to take no for an answer has given us a good result.’

The weather had turned cold, as was usual for early December. Bud’s diagram was now taking up four tiles. At twenty-nine weeks, with the medical services available in New York, he could possibly survive in the external world.

Our marriage was surviving in shared-house mode.

Rosie had invited her study group to our apartment to celebrate the end of classes prior to exams and also her deferral from the course.

‘It’ll probably be the last time I see these guys,’ she said. ‘We’ve got nothing much in common—most of them are younger than me.’

‘Only by a few years. They’re adults.’

‘Just. And they’re not into babies and stuff. Anyway, if you and Gene want to go out with Dave—’

‘We had a boys’ night out last night. Dave is being criticised for insufficient attention to Sonia and also has to perform paperwork. Gene has a date with Inge.’

‘A date.’

‘Correct.’ It was pointless to use a less accurate term. Gene had confessed that he was in love with Inge. George had argued that the age difference was irrelevant, and Dave had no opinion. Gene’s visa allowed him to remain in the US for a month’s vacation on completion of his sabbatical, and he planned to spend the time looking for a permanent position in New York.

‘How about George?’ Rosie had not met George.

The persistent suggestion of alternatives led to an inevitable conclusion. I had learned something from the Lesbian Mothers Project.

‘You don’t want me here?’

‘It’s my study group.’

‘This is also my apartment. The study-group meeting is a social occasion. I’m your partner. Are other people bringing partners?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Excellent. I am RSVPing in the affirmative.’

The Dean would have been impressed.