As She Grows (36 page)

“You mean a lot to me, Snow,” she says before I go. “I want you to know I’m here for you.” She reaches out her arms to hug me. But it’s not the kind of hug Miss Lucy or Aunt Sharon gives me. When they hug their bodies fold, delicately absorbing my round stomach, fingers lightly touching my back. But Miranda presses me tight into her, her hipbone jabbing my belly. And it’s like she’s the first person who’s ever tried to stretch around this baby to reach me.

Now, when I sit in the TV room and stare at the screen, my mind isn’t always blank. I think about things. Like about Betty Corrigal, and how people still put flowers on her grave. And about all the other unwed girls of the past whose secrets grew in their bodies like death warrants. I wonder what happened to the ones we don’t hear about. The girls who were washed up on distant shores, their swollen bellies at the feet of puzzled fishermen. Or the ones who collected poison berries in skirt pockets and then hid behind woodpiles, dropping the sour red balls into their mouths.

I think about what Ms. Crawl didn’t say. What’s left out of Betty’s story. The dull parts of her life. The details that are either too insignificant or too dirty to be considered. About fetching water at a well or mending the hole in her father’s sock. Or about her lying spread-legged in the barn, leading her lover’s fingers to a place she and her mother don’t discuss.

And then I think of worse things. Things no one likes to talk about. Like, what happened before she strung that rope around her neck? What if it wasn’t her seafaring lover’s baby, anyway? What if it was her uncle’s or the priest’s or the married man’s down the road? What if that noose was something she longed for since she was young and the baby just gave her a legitimate reason to make it so?

My water breaks and I’m convinced I’ve pissed my pants. I had expected it would be like in the movies, fluid exploding out of me as if from a sudden broken pipe.

“It’s not gushing,” I explain to Karyn who is on the other side of the cubicle. We are on the main floor of the house, in the ladies’ washroom. It’s just before dinner. “It’s more like pee,” I explain.

“Let me in,” Karyn says, rattling the door. “Let me see.”

“No way!” I yell. I start to panic. The pee is sort of red, not clear. My head starts to wooze, the back of my neck gets hot and sweaty. I have this dull aching pain in my back. It’s two weeks before my due date. I’m not ready for this.

When I arrive at the hospital with Ms. Crawl and Karyn, I have to sit in the waiting area until a room is ready. I had pictured it differently, doctors running around, crowds parting to let the pregnant girl through. Instead, no one seems to care that I’m about to explode.

“What’s taking so long!” I yell, standing up from the uncomfortable plastic chair. I’m in total agony but I won’t admit it. I told myself I wouldn’t wimp out, that I’m above the pain. But I can’t imagine it getting any worse. I don’t think my body can take it.

“It won’t be long,” Ms. Crawl says calmly. “Just . . .” The contraction waves through my body, so painful I can’t hear the rest of Ms. Crawl’s useless sentence. She holds the stopwatch in her hand up to her face, squinting her eyes to read the small numbers. “That’s five minutes, eight seconds,” she says and records the number down on her pad of paper.

“Just try to relax,” Karyn consoles. “Do you want your crossword puzzle?” She’s about to reach into my bag before I grab her wrist and twist it away.

“I don’t want a fucking crossword! Jesus Christ!” I just want the pain to stop. I start to panic. My eyes scan the room for someone wearing a name tag who could possibly understand what I’m going through. “Where’s my room?”

“I’ll go call your aunt.” Karyn heads toward the payphone. Meanwhile, Ms. Crawl marches up to the lady holding the clipboard and I’m relieved someone is finally taking charge. But they start chatting and laughing, like they’re old friends, and I don’t think Ms. Crawl is even talking about me. After a few minutes she comes back to our seats.

“The nurse will come soon to assess you, Snow. Don’t worry. It’ll still be a while now. Your contractions are just about right.” She smiles and rubs my back, her bony fingers poking into my shoulder blade. For a split second, I’m glad she’s here. I’m glad someone knows what’s going on. Because although I hate the bitch, I know Ms. Crawl wouldn’t let anyone cut any corners with me.

When I finally get moved to my room, I can’t sit still. I get up and walk around, lean over on the chairs and then squat down. Each
new position seems to release the pressure in my back, but then I have a contraction and the middle of my body is squeezed like an accordion. This goes on for what seems like hours. Every once in a while, a useless nurse comes in to check me and then leaves.

“Open a window,” I command as I pace the room.

“I can’t,” Karyn answers. She is sitting on the side of the bed, watching me. “They’re sealed.”

I walk over to the window and angrily slam my open hand against the glass. “I can’t breathe!”

“Take off your sweatshirt,”’ Ms. Crawl suggests from her chair by the bed. She puts down her paperback novel and stares at me. Then she lifts her juice and takes a sip. It’s as if she’s at the beach. “You must be roasting,” she says.

“No, it stays on,” I warn.

“It’ll have to come off sooner or later,” she persists.

“I’m leaving it on,” I say, thinking about my scars. “I don’t want any perverted doctor getting a free peep show.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ms. Crawl laughs.

“I’m leaving it on,” I say, resolute. And Ms. Crawl just shrugs her shoulders.

I kick Karyn off my bed and prop some pillows up behind my back. A few minutes later, the nurse comes in the room and tells me she needs to take my blood pressure. “You’ll need to take this off,” she says, tugging at my sweatshirt. I dart a look at Ms. Crawl. It’s as if they had planned this.

Another contraction tears through me. The pain is so unbearable, I don’t care anymore. I rip the sweatshirt up over my head and reach to the table for the nightgown Aunt Sharon gave me.

“Oh my God,” the nurse exclaims. Her eyes dart between my body and Karyn.

“Jesus,” Ms. Crawl exhales.

“Snow—what happened?” Karyn raises her hand up over her mouth as if she’s about to throw up. Her face is pale with red splotches.

At first I’m embarrassed, but then I just get angry. “What?” I snarl. I give up on trying to cover myself with the gown wrapped around my waist. “You wanted my shirt off. There!” I throw it on the chair in the corner and lie back down. “It’s off. Satisfied?” I rise from the pillows, inhale deeply, and thrust my bare chest out. “Take a better look, why don’t ya,” I challenge.

The letters on my skin are rough and messy. I follow Karyn’s eyes as she reads my body’s Braille. Her head slightly tilted and brow creased, I watch her decipher
M-O-T-H-E-R
etched on my left forearm. And then
S-L-U-T,
faint and red, arching along my bicep to my shoulder like a sagging rainbow. I see her eyes widen as she pulls back her horrified face and I turn to face the wall as I sense her tracing the thin messy lines across my chest. The
U
that runs along the side of my body, up to just under my armpit and back down again. Then the letters
G
and
L,
sharp and jagged across my breasts. And finally
Y,
on the right side of my torso, disappearing along the curve toward my back.

Everyone in the room remains silent as if time is frozen. Finally, a contraction clenches me, I fold and scream and people start moving again. Karyn helps me with my nightgown. Ms. Crawl leaves the room quickly and the nurse is suddenly exceptionally accommodating. And nothing more is said about my marks.

When Aunt Sharon arrives, Ms. Crawl talks to her outside my door for what seems like forever. Through the window, I see Aunt Sharon’s head nodding and shaking and her hand goes up to her forehead, as if she has another one of her migraines. I can’t stand thinking about what Ms. Crawl must be saying about me. About how crazy I am.

“I know you’re talking about me!” I yell angrily from my bed. “Stop talking about me!”

They finally enter my room, intense looks on their faces. Aunt Sharon greets me with a confused and concerned expression. “You okay?” she asks.

“Hurts like hell,” I mumble, pouting a little bit. I am just relieved that Aunt Sharon is in the room now and Ms. Crawl isn’t filling her head with her theories on me.

“No, I mean, are
you
okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” I respond, embarrassed that she now knows about my cuts.

Ms. Crawl and Karyn leave the room to go buy coffees and I realize that it’s already one o’clock in the morning. After they leave a nurse slathers my belly with slimy jelly and then straps a belt around me. The red numbers start blinking, numbers rising and falling like video game scores. She explains that one number is the baby’s heartbeat and the other is my contractions. A roll of paper starts coming out of the machine and curling onto the floor.

Just when I thought the pain couldn’t get any worse, it does. Aunt Sharon keeps pulling down my nightgown over my legs and then shutting the drapes after the nurses leave my bedside, the metal rings scraping like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Jesus Christ! Just fucking leave it! I don’t give a shit if someone sees,” I snarl. Without saying a word, she dramatically yanks the curtains open wide, drops down on a chair in the corner, and pulls out my crossword book. I feel guilty almost immediately. “You have know idea what the pain’s like,” I explain, without thinking how offended she might be by this comment. Her eyes rise from the page, she glares at me a moment. “I mean—”

“Just shut up,” she says flatly.

Finally, the doctor comes back in the room. “Busy night!” he says cheerily. “Everybody having babies.” He glances at the machine and then looks at me. “I’m Doctor Freeman, Snow. I’ll be delivering your baby. How are you feeling?”

“The contractions kill,” I complain.

He smiles, as if this were amusing him. “Hang in there. Let me see how far you’ve progressed.” He moves to the bottom of the bed and tells me to bring my ankles up together. “It’ll just take a second,” he says and then he shoves his fingers up inside me. “Three centimetres dilated. Looks just fine. Did you already discuss an epidural?” He looks to me and Aunt Sharon and we both nod our heads. “We’ll have the anesthetist come in a few minutes. You’ll feel better after that.” He gives me a supportive squeeze on the knee and then heads back out of the room.

Shortly, the anesthetist walks in and I like him because he’s wearing jeans under his white coat and he talks like a regular guy. “I’m every pregnant lady’s genie without a bottle,” he says. “Make a wish.” I lean forward like he tells me, roll my spine, and feel a prick as the needle slides between my bones.

“Make sure there’s enough,” I remind him because I’ve heard about the doctors who don’t give teen moms enough painkillers, so they aren’t tempted to make this mistake again any time soon.

Ms. Crawl and Karyn return from a very long coffee and we all sit and wait. Soon, my legs become heavy, then the pain is gone. Every few minutes the nurse enters the room, holds out the paper scrolls, and checks the flashing numbers on the monitor. But this time, I notice her forehead is creased as she is frantically recording things on her chart. She murmurs something I can’t quite make out and then she quickly darts out of the room.

“What’d she say?” I ask, leaning up on my arms. I turn to Ms. Crawl’s chair. “What’s she doing?” But Ms. Crawl is already following the nurse out of the room.

I turn to Aunt Sharon, who has a worried look on her face. “What the fuck’s going on?” I demand.

“She said something about the baby being in stress. I think they’re a little worried about the heart rate. It’s all right. They know what they’re doing. You’re in good hands.”

Right away the doctor and nurse come rushing in. They look at all the flashing numbers and printed scrolls, talking about contractions and heart rates and numbers as if we weren’t even there.

Then the doctor turns to me. “The cord is around the baby’s neck. Each time you have a contraction, the baby doesn’t get any oxygen. We’ll have to do a C-section. Now.” I can hear the urgency in his voice, and before I know it, I’m being wheeled quickly down the hall, Aunt Sharon and Karyn and Ms. Crawl following behind.