Title: Proof
All that is left of my time with you is a pink line. Up and down. A raised, blushing bump divides my right heel.
It is my only physical memory of you.
You lived so briefly in my body. Am I allowed to call it lived? Did you float, did your heart beat? Was something living there? My doctor said, “Maybe the heart never started. We can never know.”
I felt you were alive. I was already sewing you into my life, planning your trip to the pumpkin farm next year, writing you a journal that now, what is it? Letters to a baby who never even lived? What purpose are those words of hope and longing which changed to words of sorrow and goodbye?
You were mine. For a few months, you were.
While you existed (or I thought you did), I injured my heel. I scraped all the skin off.
I waited, hoping it would heal but the infection led to a fever. Finally, I went to the doctor but reminded her, “Please, I’m pregnant. I don’t want anything that will hurt the baby.”
My heel healed and you left me, piece by piece.
I’ve never loved a scar so much. You left completely but there is a line upon my heel, a bump, a shadow of the past. It rubs against my shoes. I never clothe my foot without seeing your line, the only reminder of my time with you.
This line is an echo of that test so long ago. Pink line meant I was pregnant. I was. You can see it on my heel.