Expecting
“You’re gonna be okay,” Tristan said a few hours earlier, tracing the contours of her hand. “Believe me.”
Charlotte wished it would rain. Even though they lived in a floodplain, where every spring the mighty river would swell, dragging away the remains of creation, Charlotte yearned for a heavy downpour. She paced back and forth on the sidewalk between the maternity ward and the emergency room in a spaghetti-strap tank top, soccer shorts, and flip-flops. One hand held her phone in front of her face while the other rubbed her pregnant belly. The heat had her feeling nauseous. A gust of wind stirred the pollen that pooled at her feet.
She was due to give birth any day now. Her doctor recommended rest for her inflamed sciatica but a lifelong running habit made her feel like she needed to be on the go, even if she wasn’t going anywhere. She tapped a message to her mom, who was supposed to be flying in later that evening. The glare from the screen made her squint. She kept receiving phantom vibrations from the phone, distinct from the kicking baby inside her. Charlotte and Tristan didn’t want to know the sex of their child and so they stared together at the ultrasound monitor, trying to perceive how the fuzzy outline of a fetus could be something they had somehow made together.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Tristan said, rubbing the hairs along Charlotte’s forearm. He did this so imperceptibly that she could almost imagine his fingertips were magnets attracted to the keratin filaments that made them rise and fall with each pass. She took his hand in hers and squeezed, trying to ignore the bony flesh that had been rendered down to the texture of dried apricots. She started to softly cry, though whether out of joy or pain, she couldn’t say.
The waiting was the hardest part. There were so many checkups and visits to the hospital. They only increased in frequency as the months went by. Sleep arrived in short doses, punctuated by the side effect of strange dreams. She dreamt of fruit of all shapes, sizes, and colors growing, ripening, and rotting. A raven would arrive to devour the rest, then fly off into the moonless night.
Friends of hers talked about unusual food cravings and silly sex rituals they had had during their pregnancy. Charlotte sometimes complained about the bottom of her feet itching. She didn’t want to impose on her friends’ feelings of mirth and fraternity with her own problems.
“Just wait,” they all said, in one form or another. “You’ll see.”
Her phone buzzed for real this time. She unlocked it and saw that her mom had responded.
“Hang in there,” it said, followed by a string of emojis.
A guy in a man bun rode past on a bicycle. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance. The first signs of sunset were starting to show. Still, Charlotte felt like she was sweating from everywhere. She passed the back of her hand against her brow, then shook loose the rivulets from her skin. Taking a few steps onto the grass, a sudden earthquake of cramps passed through her body like the wringing of a washrag. With trembling knees, she braced herself against an elm. She thought of all sorts of potential complications: breeching, postpartum bleeding, eclampsia, not to mention all that could be wrong with their unborn baby.
“I’m not ready,” she said, mirroring what she’d said to Tristan a few hours before. He lay there supine, his scalp freshly shorn, tubes and monitors everywhere.
“Of course you are,” he smiled so wide. “You’re the bravest, strongest person that I know — and no matter what, you’ve got this.” He began to cough and wheeze. A blue-gloved nurse slipped the oxygen mask over his face. His eyes remained open, however, and he winked twice to let her know he loved her.
Charlotte straightened her posture and duck-walked in the direction of the maternity ward. This time the phone began to ring for real.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. O’Doyle?”
“Yes yes, that’s me.”
“This is Doctor Shaw. I came to look for you in the waiting room but you weren’t there.”
“I went for a walk,” Charlotte said, slowing down to a waddle. “Tell me. Is everything okay?” She could hear Dr. Shaw taking in her breath.
“Are you sitting down now?”
The next words the doctor said came out sounding like cotton. Charlotte dropped the phone, which bounced when it hit the ground. Her consciousness swirled like an emptying drain. Someone raced towards Charlotte splayed form with a wheelchair, but by then her entire world had gone black.
