Page 21 - WTP Vol. IX #10

But every once in a while, it must happen like this, how when they announced it was time, the woman just looked up with enough terror in her eyes, shaking her head so slightly but firmly, that it was clear there was only one way the job was going to get done.
“So, she just, kind of, refused?” Her husband was an expert at distilling a situation into as few words as possible. The nurse looked at him like he was more or less right but that it wasn’t how she’d have put
it. As she pulled the surgical mask over her face and got ready to turn away, she looked at him like she’d never, ever have said it like that.
“Did what happened next really happen, or was it another thing she
made up?”
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In the hours during and after, she drifted in and out of sleep.
“Hey, are you there? I really need to talk to you.”
“I’m here. What’s up?”
“I always feel most alive in the fall.”
“You know it’s August and about a million fucking de- grees out, right?”
“I know it’s silly. But I keep picturing you in fall. Us, in fall. Together. I know it’s silly. But fall always re- minds me of new beginnings, you know?”
“I know.”
“When I was a kid, I used to stack the leaves up be- hind my house until the pile was taller than I was, and I’d crawl inside it and hide for what felt like hours, watching the light change colors as it filtered in, gold and red, through the cracks between the leaves. I felt safe in there. Like I’d always be at peace, in there.”
“I know.”
“I’m never going to get that feeling back, am I?” “No.”
“I really, really wish you were here.”
“I know.”
“I have a secret.”
“Tell me.”
“I made a mistake. I should not have done this.”
Through the leaves, she felt a hand, warm and soft, closing around hers.
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It was nearing time to go home when it occurred to her that she had no choice but to bring it with her. She was only now holding it for the first time. It
had wounded her husband that she hadn’t wanted to when it first came out, that she’d only wanted to bury herself in her makeshift cocoon in the hospital bed and sleep for hours, now that what was done was done. He’d tried not to show it, but she knew it killed him, how she wouldn’t touch or look at it for a full twenty-four hours.
When the nurse handed it to him, she’d watched him take his child from her without hesitating and press it right to his heart, this naked, gooey bundle still covered in wet chunks of her. And he’d held onto it ever since, feeding and rocking it in the uncomfortable chair beside the bed. He didn’t look afraid, sitting there, of the possibility that some- thing so fragile and tender could break apart in his hands at any moment.
The insurance company was only supposed to let them to stay for twenty-four hours, but they extend- ed the time so they could rest and heal from the pro- cedure. And now, twenty-four hours having passed, she felt it was finally safe to extend her hands and let her husband place it in them.
He stood by, watching over her like he was waiting for it to go wrong, like she might drop it, or it would slip between her fingers and onto the floor before he could catch it. She held it up to the light, looked it over. It was clean, so clean. There was nothing at all wrong with her, nothing but a secret.
Georges is a writer based in Boston, MA.
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