The Four Temperaments by Yona Zeldis McDonough

in an attempt to rekindle her enthusiasm for something, for anything.
    â€œMore furniture?” she said, sounding tired. “Don't we have enough?” It was early evening when they were having this conversation, but she was already undressed and in her bathrobe. It occurred to Gabriel that she might never have taken it off. He wanted to ask her what she did today, but felt it would sound as if he were interrogating her. Which he was. So he tried something else.
    â€œLet's go out to dinner. We haven't been out in a long time.” And he realized this was true. Penelope loved to cook and spent a great deal of time and energy on their meals, so they hadn't really wanted to. But now he wondered when she last went out. Or got dressed. It seemed as if she had been in that robe for days. And the apartment had become so dirty. Thick, velvety layers of dust on the windowsills, crumbs on the kitchen counters, newspapers littering the sofa, the table and the floor.
    â€œCan't we order in?” Her eyes looked so big and sad that Gabriel was truly frightened for her.
    â€œNel,” he said, sitting beside her on the whiter-than-white couch. “What's wrong? Can I help?” All at once she was sobbing, wetting the front of his shirt with her tears. Gabriel was mystified, but sat stroking her hair and back, hoping to calm her. Eventually, her crying subsided.
    â€œI want a baby,” she declared suddenly, raising her still-wet face from his shirt and staring directly into his eyes. “Let's have a baby. Please, Gabriel.” He was a bit surprised, but not totally. They had talked about it before, and laughed together at Ruth's not-so-subtle hints on the subject. But they had been waiting: for Gabriel to finish school, for his career to take off, for the move to be completed. And, secretly, Gabriel knew he had been waiting too for some indefinable thing in Penelope to take shape, take root, take anchor. But maybe she was right, maybe they should have a baby. She seemed to think so.
    â€œIf that's what you want . . .” he said hesitantly.
    â€œI do.” She stood up, and untied her robe. It fell away easily, and there she was, white, white, white and as desirable as ever.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” he said with a smile, as he caught her hand and pressed it to his face.
    â€œGetting started, of course.”
    Pregnancy seemed
to give Penelope a sense of purpose again; it had a galvanizing effect, and as Gabriel watched her make lists, buy and read books, attend prenatal exercise and labor and delivery classes, he remembered, as if in a bad dream, the stupefied languor of only weeks before. Now, she was up early and had herself on a strict schedule. She started cooking again, but with a new and sterner eye toward nutrition, and, of course, she shopped both for the baby and the room it would inhabit. Gabriel decided not to worry that everything she bought was white or cream or ivory; so what if she didn't like colors—“They jar my senses” was what she said—as long as she was happy.
    And she seemed happy with him again too, happy that he had given her this unborn baby that stretched and distended the formerly slender outlines of her stomach, thighs and hips. She reveled in her new shape, preening naked before the mirror, rubbing her hands over her swollen belly like Aladdin with the magic lamp. “You did this,” she said, fairly purring with contentment. “And this too,” she added, offering him her breasts, now full and swollen. Everything, thought Gabriel as he reached for her, was going to be just fine.
    There was one night, though, when the other part of Penelope, the dark side, as he privately thought of it, emerged again. They were sitting in bed, each propped up by several pillows. Gabriel was reading a magazine; Penelope pored over a book of baby names. They had had all the tests and although they told no one else in the family, they knew that she was