Fic: A Temporary Child
A Temporary Child
inspired by At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
421 words
His eyes are big and bright and blue like cornflowers, but in the depth of their irises there are shadows, dark and terrifying. She fears them more than the midwife’s grave expression and the faint heartbeat fluttering against the birdlike ribcage under her palm. She touches his cheek, his skin soft like petals. He is still warm from her womb, from the strength of her muscles squeezing his fragile body through the needle eye of her womanhood, and she wonders did she do this? Did she hurt him? Was she too eager, too impatient, too tired and pained and selfish to give him the time he needed? Forgive me, she prays. Forgive me and please, please be well.
He hardly cried when he arrived, just let out a weak hurt sound that was in ways worse than the silence before and after. Even now the breath in his lungs is too shallow to carry his mewling whimpers much further than the short distance from his lips to her ears. She kisses his forehead and he closes his eyes, falling asleep in her arms, as trusting as if he was still inside her and this is all he knows: her warmth, her smell, the steady beat of her heart under his small, soft, bended ear.
This is what we can do, the doctor says, his eyes kind but resigned. We keep him warm, we keep him comfortable and maybe -
Yes, she says quickly, not wanting to hear more. Where there is a maybe there is the possibility of ‘maybe not’ and some things you cannot unhear, cannot ever forget, even if they never come to pass.
Over the next two days she sleeps with her son on her chest, cradling his small body within the cup of her hands and watching his caved-in chest struggle with each breath. He suckles her breast, his mouth pink and wet, the milk running down his cheeks, his chin, into the folds of his neck. His tiny fingers are curled into fists, his feet rest soft and wrinkled on her stomach. Every now and then he opens his eyes, watching her with a look that seems to say he knows her thoughts, can feel her fear now as well as before when they were one soul split in two, connected by blood and sharing a space that since feels empty and hollow.
She strokes the soft wisps of hair on his tiny head, watching the shadows of his eyelashes tremble as he sleeps. Does he dream? Dream of the only place he knows as home? Is it crammed in his memory, knees touching his ears, elbows tucked tight into his stomach, or does he remember floating, twisting, turning, doing somersaults in the warm water of her womb? Does he dream of her singing to him the lullabies from times so old no one remembers when, of her hands stroking his head and rubbing his heels through the stretched skin of her belly? She tries to sing but the words that were meant to rock to sleep now sound like a requiem, like a whisper of goodbye and death and darkness that will not be broken by the dawn. She stops and instead listens to the soft sound of him breathing into her skin.
She sleeps. In her dream he is older. He has blond hair and blue eyes and he runs towards her with a laughter that sounds like spring water and rain. She catches him in her arms and twirls him around, laughing as he squeals and giggles and says faster, higher, I am flying, mummy, look! Her feet do not even touch the ground, she is dancing on clouds, spinning in pirouettes to the music of the north wind. She watches her son’s sunlit curls bounce around his head and in his eyes she can see the twinkle of the first star awaiting the coming night.
She wakes up with a cold weight on her chest and the trickle of dried milk crusting her exposed breast. She does not move, does not call out or cry, but stays still and silent, cradling him in her arms, knowing the minute they find out they will take him away. Even after they do, after she has been washed and dressed and given drugs to hide the grief in her eyes, she can still feel his heart beating; inside her belly, against her breast, and in the expanding room in her own heart where his future sleeps.
As she steps outside into the cruel pale light of autumn, with the small cotton gown still freshly washed and folded in her overnight bag, she welcomes the embrace of the cold north wind, keeping her heart frozen for just a little while longer.
fin