The You I've Never Known(54)

Something to be grateful for, I guess.

“You have to come home right now,” I told him. “It’s time to go to the hospital.”

“Are you sure?”

Seriously? “Positive.”

“I’ll be right there,” he promised.

But he wasn’t. I hate to break this to you, but Daddy isn’t very reliable. It took me a while to figure that out. It’s what happens when you marry someone you barely know. It wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. Hopefully it won’t be the worst. At least I’m not in L.A.

I suppose I kind of used you, but I promise to make that up the only way I know how—by loving you more than anything in the whole universe. Half of me can’t wait to cuddle you, play dress-up with cute little outfits. Watch you grow. Mold your life.

The other half is scared shitless. What if I can’t do this? What if being an awful mother is genetic?

Yesterday I painted your room. Your daddy and I argued about color. He wanted “cornflower” because he was sure you’d be a boy. I knew better, not that it matters, but either way, I didn’t want to resort to stereotypes. Blue doesn’t have to represent maleness any more than pink is the only suitable hue for a girl.

So I chose a pretty golden yellow, almost the exact shade of the roses that bloomed outside my windows back home in Austin. Despite the ugliness inside our house, those flowers gifted me with snapshots of beauty I could carry anywhere. I brought their memory here, and call it up when the need arises. That happens often.

Like this morning.

I waited and waited for your daddy to get home, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, just like I learned in Lamaze. That part was easy, but trying to relax through the clench-build-release of contractions designed by some unearthly power to move a baby closer to viable life outside its mother’s body proved impossible.

They got stronger. Closer together. When they were maybe seven minutes apart, you shifted inside me and I knew your tumbling act was wrong. Suddenly, it felt like someone stuck me with a knife right below my belly button, only from the inside out. Luckily the phone was in my hand. I dialed 9-1-1.

The ambulance was there in less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours, and the whole time I prayed you’d be okay. A very nice EMT (that’s “emergency medical technician”) sat in back and talked to me on the drive to the hospital. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Every baby comes into the world in his or her own way.”

Your way was the hard way.

We got to the hospital and your vitals weren’t the best. The ER doc said you were in fetal distress and he needed to perform a C-section. Fast. I wanted so much to deliver you the way I’d practiced. But the pain was incredible, and once the epidural kicked in, I couldn’t feel a thing from my waist down. I did like that. In fact, since I could barely sleep last night, I dozed off. Next thing I knew, I heard you cry and the nurse said, “It’s a girl.”

Then you were in my arms, all seven pounds, eleven ounces of you, and I smiled at the titian waves of downy hair that promised you belonged to me. Jason arrived not long after that, still smelling of last night’s beer and pool-hall sweat. He didn’t want to hold you, said he was afraid of breaking you, but he did pet your pretty amber curls. “She looks like you,” he said, and that was the best compliment he could’ve ever given me.

But then, after they took you away to be cleaned and dressed and swaddled, he blew up. “They said you agreed to a Cesarean. Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Liar!” His voice was sharp and way too loud.

It was like being smacked upside the head. Again. Only, no lunatic mother involved. But I don’t guess you need to know any of that, at least not right now. One day, when you’re old enough to understand, I’ll tell you, because girls have to grow up smart.

I try not to argue with your daddy. If facts get in the way of his opinion, he won’t believe they’re true, so disagreeing with him is pointless. But I said, “I did it for our baby. She was in trouble.”

You know what he said?

“Don’t be ridiculous. She was fine. And now you’ll have a scar.”

I will have a scar, a flaw in his eyes, but to me it’s a forever reminder of my connection to you. Casey, my beautiful, perfect baby girl. Jason’s contempt for your birth journey is painful. And right now, everything hurts, but that doesn’t matter because you’re here. You’re safe. You’re perfect. And you’re mine.





Ariel



I’ve Got a Problem


Okay, I’ve got several problems, and this one might actually not be an issue at all, though I think it has to be.

I like sex.

I mean, maybe it can become a horrible habit, if that’s all I ever think about in the future.

Right now, there’s other stuff, too.

But I like sex.

I like it with Monica. I like it with Gabe, though the two experiences were not the same.

At the moment

I’m not interested in liking it with anyone else.

But if I like sex

as much as I do, what if I can’t turn off this person I’ve lately turned on— pun most definitely intended?





After Gabe Left