finished?
Untitled
Between my legs my body was falling apart on itself. It was as if my stomach had ghastly teeth, and it had chewed itself up and regurgitated itself onto the metal table, my legs propped up grotesquely. Red rivulets, thick like paint, dried to my swelled thighs, still plump with dedicated veins.
There’s beauty in destruction, usually. But the doctors came and they stitched me back together practically as good as before, and they wiped away my legs with a napkin that they threw in a blue biohazard container. My fingers fretted at my abdomen for the next three days.
I shouldn’t think about these things, but they come back from time to time; detached fragments, just like her, floating in my mind, slipping through my fingers. I grasp for a second longer, to know her, to love her correctly. But they never come.
Today it is October and had things gone differently she would have been here. I worry when I think about that. Instead I am driving alone down a one way street and all the trees have inverted branches that reach for the top of my car. I feel like they’re going to snatch me up, but the yellow leaves look so lovely.
I am driving to a lawyer but my husband doesn’t know it. I will not come home tonight. Everything I want is already packed up and in the backseat of the car. I try not to think about his face when I think of him receiving the papers. I try not to think about his face when the doctors told him that we lost it. I try not to think about anything.
The lawyer’s office is small but pleasant. My lawyer is direct and to the point. He tells me the papers will be sent out in two days and that the process shouldn’t be too difficult since I don’t want anything. I nod, thank him, and my heels click on the hardwood floors as I leave.
I decide to sit in the car for awhile before I will leave for the motel. My back has been hurting lately from all the stress in this decision, but I know that it is the right one. I never loved my husband; the marriage was an accident, just like the conception of our baby, and, I think, the miscarriage. Sometimes I think that I caused it, that my body rejected her because my mind was rejecting her. I wonder how things would have gone had I not lost her. I wonder if I would be sitting in this car in front of J.D. Bayzen’s office.
I should have told Mark that I was leaving him. He didn’t deserve random divorce papers. He did nothing wrong. He loved our baby. He loved me. I put the car in reverse and drive home.
On our side of town, the leaves are dying faster. Most of them are in piles on the road, brown and crunchy and more like November. He is already home when I pull into our driveway, and when I walk into the house he is making dinner.
“Hey,” he says, and he holds up a pepper to feed me. I try to reject it, but he is persistent, and he puts it in my mouth. “How was your day?”
“Mark, we need to talk,” I say after I swallow the pepper. It’s much too spicy, and it makes me a bit nauseous. Maybe it’s the nerves though. I’m not ready to watch what this does to him.
I have never known a person to think that good news is coming after those words, but Mark beams and says, “I know.”
“You know?”
“I figured it out,” he says, and he takes a pepper for himself. “I know the signs.”
I’m not too stupid to figure out that we are not on the same wavelength at all. I know he knows something else, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know why it is making him happy. I sit down at the kitchen table. I don’t feel too stable.
“What signs?”
“The signs,” he says. “The headaches and the back aches and you’ve been so tired lately. And you’ve been eating funny again…?”
I don’t know what to say, so I tell him, “I’m stressed.”
“Why?”
I have no answer for him. “Are you saying that I’m pregnant?”
“Aren’t you saying that you’re pregnant?”
“No.”
We decide to go to the grocery store and get a home pregnancy test. He drives and he reaches across the emergency break to hold my hand. I let him. I try to feel what is going on inside of my body, but I feel nothing.
The grocery clerk smiles at us and Mark smiles back. I carry the plastic bag back to the car. It’s getting dark out now. I can’t tell what color the leaves are when we drive home and so I let it distract me, trying to figure it out.
All the lights in our house were left on. Mark sits outside the bathroom door while I think about how it is ironic that you have to pee on something to get what is suppose to be the best news of your life. I don’t come out of the bathroom or say anything while I let it process on the countertop.
I pick it up after five minutes. The stripe is pink. Pink for positive. I feel wobbly.
I come out of the bathroom. Mark looks up at me. “I am.”
He hugs me and kisses me and I pretend that I’m at peace with all of this. I tell him that I’m tired and I would like to be left alone for a while. He looks hurt for a moment, and then he recovers. “Okay. I’m going to go call my parents.”
I nod, turn around and walk into our bedroom. It’s impossible to tell, but none of my clothes are in the dresser and all my shoes are taken out of the closet. But right now everything is closed up and I’ve dimmed the lights because of my headache. I’ll have to find a way to get them back into the house without Mark noticing, but right now I take my cell phone out and I call J.D. Bayzen. He is not in, of course, so I leave him a message. I tell him, “Please don’t send out those papers. It’s very important. I have changed my mind.” I have changed my mind but everything else remains the same. Briefly I had chased the thought of a new life for myself, but instead there was a new life being made entirely. I shut the phone and I get into bed and I cry.
Quietly, Mark comes into the bedroom and he gets on the bed with me and he wraps his arms around me from behind. He nuzzles my neck and says, “Shh, shh… don’t worry. It will be okay this time. It won’t happen again.” He rubs his thumb over the back of my hand. It is comforting in all the wrong ways. I fall asleep sobbing.
Between my legs my body was falling apart on itself. It was as if my stomach had ghastly teeth, and it had chewed itself up and regurgitated itself onto the metal table, my legs propped up grotesquely. Red rivulets, thick like paint, dried to my swelled thighs, still plump with dedicated veins.
There’s beauty in destruction, usually. But the doctors came and they stitched me back together practically as good as before, and they wiped away my legs with a napkin that they threw in a blue biohazard container. My fingers fretted at my abdomen for the next three days.
I shouldn’t think about these things, but they come back from time to time; detached fragments, just like her, floating in my mind, slipping through my fingers. I grasp for a second longer, to know her, to love her correctly. But they never come.
Today it is October and had things gone differently she would have been here. I worry when I think about that. Instead I am driving alone down a one way street and all the trees have inverted branches that reach for the top of my car. I feel like they’re going to snatch me up, but the yellow leaves look so lovely.
I am driving to a lawyer but my husband doesn’t know it. I will not come home tonight. Everything I want is already packed up and in the backseat of the car. I try not to think about his face when I think of him receiving the papers. I try not to think about his face when the doctors told him that we lost it. I try not to think about anything.
The lawyer’s office is small but pleasant. My lawyer is direct and to the point. He tells me the papers will be sent out in two days and that the process shouldn’t be too difficult since I don’t want anything. I nod, thank him, and my heels click on the hardwood floors as I leave.
I decide to sit in the car for awhile before I will leave for the motel. My back has been hurting lately from all the stress in this decision, but I know that it is the right one. I never loved my husband; the marriage was an accident, just like the conception of our baby, and, I think, the miscarriage. Sometimes I think that I caused it, that my body rejected her because my mind was rejecting her. I wonder how things would have gone had I not lost her. I wonder if I would be sitting in this car in front of J.D. Bayzen’s office.
I should have told Mark that I was leaving him. He didn’t deserve random divorce papers. He did nothing wrong. He loved our baby. He loved me. I put the car in reverse and drive home.
On our side of town, the leaves are dying faster. Most of them are in piles on the road, brown and crunchy and more like November. He is already home when I pull into our driveway, and when I walk into the house he is making dinner.
“Hey,” he says, and he holds up a pepper to feed me. I try to reject it, but he is persistent, and he puts it in my mouth. “How was your day?”
“Mark, we need to talk,” I say after I swallow the pepper. It’s much too spicy, and it makes me a bit nauseous. Maybe it’s the nerves though. I’m not ready to watch what this does to him.
I have never known a person to think that good news is coming after those words, but Mark beams and says, “I know.”
“You know?”
“I figured it out,” he says, and he takes a pepper for himself. “I know the signs.”
I’m not too stupid to figure out that we are not on the same wavelength at all. I know he knows something else, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know why it is making him happy. I sit down at the kitchen table. I don’t feel too stable.
“What signs?”
“The signs,” he says. “The headaches and the back aches and you’ve been so tired lately. And you’ve been eating funny again…?”
I don’t know what to say, so I tell him, “I’m stressed.”
“Why?”
I have no answer for him. “Are you saying that I’m pregnant?”
“Aren’t you saying that you’re pregnant?”
“No.”
We decide to go to the grocery store and get a home pregnancy test. He drives and he reaches across the emergency break to hold my hand. I let him. I try to feel what is going on inside of my body, but I feel nothing.
The grocery clerk smiles at us and Mark smiles back. I carry the plastic bag back to the car. It’s getting dark out now. I can’t tell what color the leaves are when we drive home and so I let it distract me, trying to figure it out.
All the lights in our house were left on. Mark sits outside the bathroom door while I think about how it is ironic that you have to pee on something to get what is suppose to be the best news of your life. I don’t come out of the bathroom or say anything while I let it process on the countertop.
I pick it up after five minutes. The stripe is pink. Pink for positive. I feel wobbly.
I come out of the bathroom. Mark looks up at me. “I am.”
He hugs me and kisses me and I pretend that I’m at peace with all of this. I tell him that I’m tired and I would like to be left alone for a while. He looks hurt for a moment, and then he recovers. “Okay. I’m going to go call my parents.”
I nod, turn around and walk into our bedroom. It’s impossible to tell, but none of my clothes are in the dresser and all my shoes are taken out of the closet. But right now everything is closed up and I’ve dimmed the lights because of my headache. I’ll have to find a way to get them back into the house without Mark noticing, but right now I take my cell phone out and I call J.D. Bayzen. He is not in, of course, so I leave him a message. I tell him, “Please don’t send out those papers. It’s very important. I have changed my mind.” I have changed my mind but everything else remains the same. Briefly I had chased the thought of a new life for myself, but instead there was a new life being made entirely. I shut the phone and I get into bed and I cry.
Quietly, Mark comes into the bedroom and he gets on the bed with me and he wraps his arms around me from behind. He nuzzles my neck and says, “Shh, shh… don’t worry. It will be okay this time. It won’t happen again.” He rubs his thumb over the back of my hand. It is comforting in all the wrong ways. I fall asleep sobbing.