Future Home of the Living God(37)
“There’s midwives, underground midwives, already. We’re going to get you one.”
“There are?”
“I just heard about them.”
“Yeah,” I say, after a while. “That explains things.”
“What things?”
“It explains what Sera’s doing and why there are fake people living in my family’s house.”
September 8
Phil comes back from the neighborhood picnic with a paper plate of cold cuts and a schedule of Uniter church services that the two of us are strongly urged to attend. He says that all the churches are going to be required for federal use.
“Federal? Like there’s a government?”
“A church government. The Church of the New Constitution.”
September 15
I haven’t written to you. It is getting harder to keep track of things. I sleep as though drugged, half the day, all night. I’m groggy. Phil says that you must be having a growth spurt. I have never been so sleepy. I have had to discipline myself. I said that I was good at living within limitations, and it is true, but that is only because I adhere to a rigid schedule. I have constructed a minute order in my day that I follow to the letter—not just as best I can, but no matter what. I do not allow myself to crumple or stay in bed, because I know that if I give in, I will curl up in a fetal ball around you for the next three months. I might sink into an undifferentiated state of dread or go catatonic. That is my secret. I keep it from myself and from Phil—how close I am to unraveling. How crucial it is that I adhere to my routine.
I get up each morning at seven a.m. That is the first act of will, the supreme one. But Phil helps. He holds me. I wake up and turn to him, and he just holds me. I do not tell him what I feel because sometimes, now, he gets impatient with us. He usually helps me out of the bed, though at times he doesn’t understand how exhausted I am and pushes a little. He even seems a bit rough, though he’s under such stress, he probably doesn’t even notice. My favorite are the moments when he admires you, us, strokes me, and says you’ve grown. That’s the temporary lift I need to rise. I go into the bathroom and wash my face with a washcloth. I bury my face in the wet weave and it is often here that fear overcomes me. I wring the washcloth out and look at myself. I see the influence of Sweetie in my face, and I wonder about my mysterious father. There is no chance that I will find him, now, but I do not think that I’ll ever get over not seeing him. Dark, she said he was a full-blood. Very brown. I didn’t get his skin tone, but I will always wonder if my hands, my eyes, my elbows, are just like his. I will always wonder if I speak like him, laugh like him, walk his walk, alive or dead in this world. And I have other things to wonder about: Will this be the day that I am discovered and taken away? And what then? What would they do to you? I use a cleansing cream to wash my face. I use it sparingly. I don’t know if it can ever be replaced. I have a pretty good supply of toothbrushes, though. And I floss carefully because I’ve heard that pregnant women are at risk for cavities and I don’t have a dental plan—who knows whether that will matter? Then I brush out my hair, which is growing fast, it seems. Is it from pregnancy hormones or just fear? Probably hormones. Stress makes your hair fall out. I put my hair up in a towel while I take a shower. I wash my hair every other day. That is also important. Having clean hair helps my outlook. There is water, note. And on most days electricity. But we use it sparingly, no air-conditioning, and I can hardly move for the heat. I dress as best I can—it’s not as though I kept a stash of maternity clothes on hand in case I got pregnant—Phil has let me wear some of his old shirts and I can still fit into my jeans, unzipped. I wear moccasins and cushy socks. We’re well into September and soon I hope will come a slight edge of coolness in the morning air, just a hint of the fall I remember from childhood. This used to be my favorite time. As for winter, that is gone, a ghost season.
Breakfast is important. I am careful about breakfast. We don’t see eggs anymore, but there is still bread and there is also jelly. In fact, we’ve got a lot of jelly. It’s left over from the church breakfasts: tubs of it, cans, little jelly packets, jars. We have jelly with toast and oatmeal and I stir jelly into my tea. After breakfast, I brush my teeth again to get rid of all that jelly. Then it is time for Phil to leave, which is the second hardest part of the day, partly because I sense how much he needs to leave.
It is not that things change all of a sudden after the rush of our first, heady, giddy, sweet, falling-in-love weeks. It is just that we’ve got big worries. Distractions and fears.
Once Phil is gone—that is the very hardest. Still, I don’t cling to him as he’s leaving, I just exist. I do not think ahead or think behind, even two minutes. I taste him and touch him and feel the life of him. I register as much of him as I possibly can absorb. I sponge him in. Then the door shuts and I take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. I want to stand rooted to the spot and let Phil find me exactly where I was when he left. I want to crumple to the floor like an empty suit of clothes. I want to cry, and sometimes I do cry, why not? Who will hear me, among the angelic orders? But mostly I say to myself that it is time for my daily routine of pregnancy exercises. One hour of stretches, weights, resistance bands, yoga from a book. If I do the hour the good endorphins will be released in my brain and I will be able to stick to the day’s redemptive routine. If I don’t do it, I don’t know. I don’t want to know.