Future Home of the Living God(85)

“Shall we go then?”

So now it comes. I get up and follow the attendant down the hall, nodding at the women I’ve spoken to before, catching the eyes of others. I remember the long sage green corridor I walked when you had your first ultrasound, the one where I saw the fire of life course through your body. I am not afraid—or I might be afraid, but I can’t feel the fear. I’m numb to everything but each instant that my footfall sounds. I brush my fingers along the smooth painted wallboard in the hallway, and although I’m clumsy, I can still climb up on the table when we get to the examining room. The dark-haired attendant sits by the door. The technician covers the end of the wand with clear gel and tells me that it will feel cold. I take deep breaths and block out Mother’s voice. The technician touches out the baby’s brain, clicking and moving the wand. But then she shakes the wand, frowning in irritation. The lights flicker, and the attendant leaves to investigate.

“Shit,” the technician says. “The equipment, the screens, the electrical, it sucks.”

“That’s okay. I’ve had a million of these.”

“I hate my job,” she says.

“Why don’t you quit?”

The lights are still dimmed out. The screen has gone entirely dark.

“I’m doing time too. I tried to bribe my way out, but nobody dares take money.”

“How did you get caught?”

“Expired tabs.”

“Maybe you’ll tell me the truth. Why is it so dangerous?”

“Giving birth?”

I nod, unable to speak.

“It has to do with your immune system. You know how the danger in getting a heart transplant or whatever is tissue rejection, well it’s like that. Even in your normal old-fashioned pregnancy your body dropped some immunity in order to accept the baby. For some reason—possibly because we’ve gone into the unknown here, biologically—your immune system mounts an attack against the baby during birth and that can become an autoimmune attack as well. We’ve tried putting women on medication with some success, for them. But it seems to limit the baby’s chances, so . . .”

We wait a few minutes longer, and then at last she calls the attendant back to bring me to my cell. The lights are flickering all through the corridors. Any small reprieve at this point seems like a miracle, so in spite of my disillusionment I relent and thank Kateri. Maybe God has some plan for me. I crawl back onto my cot, and at the very notion of God Has a Plan, I start laughing so hard I have to stuff the edge of my blanket in my mouth.

The lights are too bright in here. The saints step away from me in the brilliant white glare. I know they’re out there, but I can’t see the multitude of beings, voiceless, rippling, hushed in the giant space, their tiny coughs and moans distorted by the booming of empty air. One spirit shouts, then others, then sound rises up all around me in a vast white wall. I am so blind and small in the cataract, and yes, I am alone, except for you.



December 11

Hildegard of Bingen spent her youth locked in a stone hut. Hildegard’s parents decided that she should be an anchoress, and in a funereal ceremony she entered complete enclosure, probably at the age of seven. At least she had her mentor, Jutta. There was a window for food to be given. And an opening for a waste bucket to pass in and out. No wonder Hildegard was subject to shattering visions.

Everything is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.



My good spirit visits me nearly every night, settling at the foot of the bed. And this time, there is a song that I also hear, and it is not the women’s song. It is a baby’s song, maybe Eddy’s song, for it is high, repetitive, and comforting, like a lullaby. I hum it to you as we drift through the night, together now only for a short time.



There is the prison yard, an exercise area where we are allowed to walk in circles or aimlessly shift around. Estrella and I walk together, not speaking. Holding hands. Sometimes they try to stop us from holding hands with each other, or draping our arms over each other, or hugging, or touching each other’s hair. But they give up. Even to the guards it feels mean to stop us. I see it in their eyes. They look away. We are all frightened children.

It surprises me, though, how even though the women are passing through with only a slim chance of survival, they have tried to make beauty. Here and there inside the prison, pots are set out, filled with plants with arrow-shaped leaves, waxy purple blossoms, bulbous stalks I’ve never seen before, nameless plants, all numbered with fascinated attention, as though someone has kept track of how they grow. I see that other accidental plants are pushing into the prison as well. Mold against the reinforced window glass, tiny vines creeping from the cracks in the stairs. Motelike insects sometimes spring from the leaves I brush. They are only visible as motion.

Once, as I’m walking by the window, a vibrating shadow stops me. Behind the shatterproof glass a dragonfly hovers just at eye level. Not a normal dragonfly. This one is giant—a three-foot wingspan, golden green eyes the size of softballs.

Inside, the plants are spreading from the pots of soil. Some vines are thin as threads, others are green ropes that loop against the windows and up the stairways, always toward the light. The leaves proliferate and already in some places here you can walk in the shade of the understory. A fern tree has shot up, giant leaves curling out like feathers. And segmented bamboolike poles of purple and green are rising out of the stairwells. Every day there is an ever thicker green profusion. When I walk around the yard, I see that even in December vines burst from the stomped ground and catch hold of the slightest ridge or frame to travel, almost visibly upward, thrusting skeins of waving leaves across the fences, across the razor wire, even along the glass towers of the guards, rearing into the ferocious sunlight.