The Rosie Effect

3

I struggled to process Rosie’s statement. Reviewing my response later, I realised that my brain had been assaulted with information that appeared to defy logic on three counts.

First, the formulation ‘we’re pregnant’ contradicted basic biology. It implied that my state had somehow changed as well as Rosie’s. Rosie would surely not have said, ‘Dave’s pregnant’. Yet, according to the definition implicit in her statement, he was.

Second, pregnancy was not scheduled. Rosie had mentioned it as a factor in her decision to cease smoking, but I assumed that she had simply used the eventual possibility of pregnancy as motivation. Furthermore, we had discussed the matter explicitly. We were having dinner at Jimmy Watson’s Restaurant in Lygon Street, Carlton, Victoria, Australia, on 2 August of the previous year, nine days before our wedding, and a couple had placed a baby container on the floor between our tables. Rosie mentioned the possibility of us reproducing.

We had by then decided to move to New York, and I argued that we should wait until she had finished her medical course and specialisation. Rosie disagreed—she thought that would be leaving it too late. She would be thirty-seven by the time she qualified as a psychiatrist. I suggested that, at a minimum, we wait until the completion of the MD program. The psychiatric qualification was not essential to her planned role as a clinical researcher in mental illness, so if the baby permanently derailed her studies, the impact would not be disastrous. My recollection is that she did not disagree. In any case, a major life decision requires:

1. Articulation of the options, e.g. have zero children; have a specific number of children; sponsor one or more children via a charity.

2. Enumeration of the advantages and disadvantages of each option, e.g. freedom to travel; ability to devote time to work; risk of disruption or grief due to actions of child. Each factor needs to be assigned an agreed weight.

3. Objective comparison of the options using the above.

4. An implementation plan, which may reveal new factors, requiring revision of (1), (2) and (3).

A spreadsheet is the obvious tool for (1) through to (3), and if (4) is complex, as it would be in preparing for the existence of a new human being and providing for its needs over many years, project-planning software is appropriate. I was unaware of any spreadsheet and Gantt chart for a baby project.

The third apparent violation of logic was that Rosie was using the combined oral contraceptive pill, which has a failure rate of less than 0.5 per cent per annum when used ‘perfectly’. In this context, ‘perfectly’ means ‘correct pill taken daily’. I could not see how even Rosie could be so disorganised as to make an error with such a simple routine.

I am aware that not everyone shares my view of the value of planning rather than allowing our lives to be tossed in unpredictable directions by random events. In Rosie’s world, which I had chosen to share, it was possible to use the language of popular psychology rather than biology, to welcome the unexpected, and to forget to take vital medication. All three of these events had occurred, culminating in a change of circumstances that made the Orange Juice Problem and even the Gene Sabbatical appear minor.

This analysis, of course, did not happen until much later. The situation as I stood in the bathroom could not have been worse in terms of mental stress. I had been taken to the edge of an unstable equilibrium, and then struck with the maximum conceivable force. The result was inevitable.

Meltdown.

It was the first occurrence since Rosie and I had met—in fact the first time since my sister Michelle’s death from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy.

Perhaps because I was now older and more stable, or because my unconscious mind wanted to protect my relationship with Rosie, I had a few seconds to respond rationally.

‘Are you okay, Don?’ said Rosie.

The answer was a definite no, but I did not attempt to voice it. All mental resources were diverted to implementing my emergency plan.

I made the timeout sign with my hands and ran. The elevator was at our floor, but the doors seemed to take forever to open and then to close again after I stepped inside. Finally I could release my emotions in a space that had no object to break or people to injure.

I doubtless appeared crazy, banging my fists against the elevator walls and shouting. I say doubtless, because I had forgotten to push the button for street level, and the elevator went all the way to the basement. Jerome was waiting with a washing basket when the doors opened. He was wearing a purple t-shirt.

Although my anger was not directed towards him, he did not appear to discern this subtlety. He pushed his hand against my chest, probably in an attempt at pre-emptive self-defence. I reacted automatically, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. He crashed against the elevator wall, then came at me again, this time throwing a punch. I was now responding according to my martial-arts training rather than my emotions. I avoided his punch, and opened him up so he was undefended. It was obvious he understood his situation and was expecting me to strike him. There was no reason to do so, and I released him. He ran up the stairs, leaving his washing basket behind. I needed to escape the confined space, and followed him. We both ran out onto the street.

I initially had no direction in mind, and locked in to following Jerome, who kept looking back. Eventually he ducked down a side street and my thoughts began to clear. I turned north towards Queens.

I had not travelled to Dave and Sonia’s apartment on foot before. Fortunately, navigation was straightforward as a result of the logical street numbering system, which should be mandatory in all cities. I ran hard for approximately twenty-five minutes and by the time I arrived at the building and pushed the buzzer I was hot and panting.

My anger had evaporated during the altercation with Jerome; I was relieved that it had not driven me to punch him. My emotions had felt out of control, but my martial-arts discipline had trumped them. This was reassuring, but now I was filled with a general feeling of hopelessness. How would I explain my behaviour to Rosie? I had never mentioned the meltdown problem, for two reasons:

1. After such a long time, and with my increased base level of happiness, I believed that it might not recur.

2. Rosie might have rejected me.

Rejection was now a rational choice for Rosie. She had reason to consider me violent and dangerous. And she was pregnant. To a violent and dangerous man. This would be terrible for her.

‘Hello?’ It was Sonia on the intercom.

‘It’s Don.’

‘Don? Are you okay?’ Sonia was apparently able to detect from my voice—and possibly the omission of my customary ‘greetings’ salutation—that there was a problem.

‘No. There’s been a disaster. Multiple disasters.’

Sonia buzzed me up.

Dave and Sonia’s apartment was larger than ours, but already cluttered with baby paraphernalia. It struck me that the term ‘ours’ might no longer be applicable.

I was conscious of extreme agitation. Dave went to fetch beer, and Sonia insisted that I sit down, even though I was more comfortable walking around.

‘What happened?’ said Sonia. It was an obvious thing to ask but I was unable to formulate an answer. ‘Is Rosie all right?’

Afterwards, I reflected on the brilliance of the question. It was not only the most logical place to begin, but it helped me gain some perspective. Rosie was all right, physically at least. I was feeling calmer. Rationality was returning to deal with the mess that emotions had created.

‘There is no problem with Rosie. The problem is with me.’

‘What happened?’ Sonia asked again.

‘I had a meltdown. I failed to control my emotions.’

‘You lost it?’

‘Lost what?’

‘You don’t say that in Australia? Did you lose your temper?’

‘Correct. I have some sort of psychiatric problem. I’ve never told Rosie.’

I had never told anyone. I had never conceded that I suffered from a mental illness, other than depression in my early twenties, which was a straightforward consequence of social isolation. I accepted that I was wired differently from most people, or, more precisely, that my wiring was towards one end of a spectrum of different human configurations. My innate logical skills were significantly greater than my interpersonal skills. Without people like me, we would not have penicillin or computers. But psychiatrists had been prepared to diagnose mental illness twenty years earlier. I had always considered them wrong, and no definitive diagnosis other than depression was ever recorded, but the meltdown problem was the weak point in my argument. It was a reaction to irrationality, but the reaction itself was irrational.

Dave returned and handed me a beer. He had also poured one for himself, and drank half of it rapidly. Dave is banned from drinking beer except on our joint nights out, due to a significant weight problem. Perhaps these were extenuating circumstances. I was still sweating despite the air conditioning, and the drink cooled me down. Sonia and Dave were excellent friends.

Dave had been listening and had heard my admission of the psychiatric problem. ‘You never told me either,’ he said. ‘What sort of—?’

Sonia interrupted. ‘Excuse us a minute, Don. I want to speak to Dave alone.’ She and Dave walked to the kitchen. I was aware that conventionally they would have needed to employ some form of subterfuge to disguise the fact that they wanted to talk about me without me hearing. Fortunately, I am not easily offended. Dave and Sonia know this.

Dave returned alone. His beer glass had been refilled.

‘How often has this happened? The meltdown?’

‘This is the first time with Rosie.’

‘Did you hit her?’

‘No.’ I wanted the answer to be ‘of course not’, but nothing is certain when logical reasoning is swamped by out-of-control emotions. I had prepared an emergency plan and it had worked. That was all I could claim credit for.

‘Did you shove her—anything?’

‘No, there was no violence. Zero physical contact.’

‘Don, I’m supposed to say something like, “Don’t fuck with me, buddy,” but you know I can’t talk like that. You’re my friend—just tell me the truth.’

‘You’re also my friend and therefore aware that I am incompetent at deception.’

Dave laughed. ‘True. But you should look me in the eye if you want to convince me.’

I stared into Dave’s eyes. They were blue. A surprisingly light blue. I had not noticed before, doubtless as a result of failure to look him in the eye. ‘There was no violence. I may have frightened a neighbour.’

‘Shit, it was better without the psycho impression.’

I was distressed that Dave and Sonia believed I might have assaulted Rosie, but there was some comfort in realising that things could have been worse, and that their primary concern was for her.

Sonia waved from the entrance to Dave’s office where she was talking on her phone. She gave Dave a thumbs-up signal, then jumped up and down with excitement like a child, waving her free hand in the air. Nothing was making sense.

‘Oh my God,’ she called out, ‘Rosie’s pregnant.’

It was as though there were twenty people in the room. Dave clinked his glass against mine, spilling beer, and even put his arm around my shoulder. He must have felt me stiffen, so he removed it, but Sonia then repeated the action and Dave slapped me on the back. It was like the subway at rush hour. They were treating my problem as a cause for celebration.

‘Rosie’s still on the phone,’ said Sonia, and handed it to me.

‘Don, are you all right?’ she said. She was concerned about me.

‘Of course. The state was temporary.’

‘Don, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have just sprung it on you like that. Are you coming home? I really want to talk to you. But, Don, I don’t want this to be temporary.’

Rosie must have thought that I was referring to her state—her pregnancy—but her answer gave me vital information. Riding home in Dave’s van, I concluded that Rosie had already decided that it was a feature rather than a fault. The orange juice provided further evidence. She did not want to harm the fertilised egg. There was an extraordinary amount to process, and my brain was now functioning normally, or at least in the manner that I was accustomed to. The meltdown was perhaps the psychological equivalent of a reboot following an overload.

Despite my growing expertise in identifying social cues, I nearly missed one from Dave.

‘Don, I was going to ask you a favour, but I guess with Rosie and everything…’

Excellent was my first thought. Then I realised that the second part of Dave’s sentence, and the tone in which it was delivered, indicated that he wanted me to overrule him, to enable him to avoid feeling guilty for asking for my assistance at a time when I was occupied with other problems.

‘No problem.’

Dave smiled. I was aware of a surge of pleasure. When I was ten, I had learned to catch a ball after an amount of practice far in excess of that required by my schoolmates. The satisfaction every time I completed what for others would have been a routine catch was similar to the feeling I now experienced as a result of my improved social skills.

‘It’s no big deal,’ Dave said. ‘I’ve finished the beer cellar for the British guy in Chelsea.’

‘Beer cellar?’

‘Like a wine cellar, except it’s for beer.’

‘It sounds like a conventional project. The contents should be irrelevant from a refrigeration perspective.’

‘Wait till you see it. It turned out pretty expensive.’

‘You think he may argue about the price?’

‘It’s a weird job and he’s a weird guy. I figure British and Australian—you guys might connect. I just want a bit of moral support. So he doesn’t walk over me.’

Dave was silent and I took the opportunity to reflect. I had been given a reprieve. Rosie had presumably thought that my timeout request had been to consider the consequences of her announcement. The actual meltdown had been invisible to her. She seemed extremely happy with the pregnancy.

There need be no immediate impact on me. I would jog to the Chelsea Market tomorrow, teach an aikido class at the martial-arts centre and listen to the previous week’s Scientific American podcasts. We would revisit the special exhibition of frogs at the Museum of Natural History, and I would make sushi, pumpkin gyoza, miso soup and tempura of whatever whitefish was recommended by the employees of the Lobster Place for dinner. I would use the ‘free time’ that Rosie insisted we schedule on the weekend—and which she was currently using for her thesis—to attend Dave’s client meeting. At the homewares shop, I would purchase a specialised stopper and vacuum pump to preserve the wine that Rosie would normally have consumed, and substitute juice for her share.

Other than the amendment to beverage management, life would be unchanged. Except for Gene, of course. I still needed to deal with that problem. Given the circumstances, it seemed wise to postpone the announcement.

It was 9.27 p.m. when I arrived home from Dave’s. Rosie flung her arms around me and began crying. I had learned that it was better not to attempt to interpret such behaviour at the time, or to seek clarification as to the specific emotion being expressed, even though such information would have been useful in formulating a response. Instead, I adopted the tactic recommended by Claudia and assumed the persona of Gregory Peck’s character in The Big Country. Strong and silent. It was not difficult for me.

Rosie recovered quickly.

‘I put the scallops and stuff in the oven after I got off the phone,’ she said. ‘They should be okay.’ This was an uninformed statement, but I concluded that the damage would probably not be increased significantly by leaving them for another hour.

I hugged Rosie again. I was feeling euphorically happy, a characteristic human reaction to the removal of a terrible threat.

We ate the scallops an hour and seven minutes later, in our pyjamas. All scheduled tasks had been completed. Except for the Gene announcement.