can feel him smile.
I’ll spend the next nine months protecting her, never so acutely
aware of my body. I won’t let Ted sleep in my twin bed with me anymore
because he crowds me; instead I lay on my back every night and line
myself with pillows on both sides so I can’t roll onto my stomach. He
eventually stops asking if he can spend the night. We do our homework
together on the couch sometimes. I sleep lightly on good nights, but
on other nights, I hardly sleep at all. I don’t drink coffee, either, and I
relish the pounding headaches that come with this sacrifice. My skin is
gray, and purple bags bloom like dahlias under my eyes. I am quiet and
withdrawn. Sometimes, I admire myself in the mirror. “This is good,” I
think. “This is how I should look.”
The sickness passes after a few months and I feel myself getting
fatter, which I don’t mind. Some women only seem to gain weight in
their stomachs, but I’m gaining weight everywhere, my thighs and arms
and hips wrapped in blanket of fluff I’d never had before. I poke my skin
with my fingers and they sink in. I grow to appreciate the thickness of my
skin, because I feel protected with it. Less like a tall glass of juice at the
edge of the table, ready to spill.
Ted finishes his finals in May and moves home for the summer. I
have to stay. We kiss goodbye quickly, the way we always kiss now, and he
drives away without a glance in his rearview mirror. When he gets home,
he calls me to tell me he’s been cheating on me, and I hang up without
comment, vaguely aware that I should be more hurt, wondering if the
baby is growing too big, filling up all the space where the anger should
be. The next day, I go to the doctor’s and pee into two separate cups to
make sure I don’t have chlamydia or gonorrhea. I don’t, and I feel a little
better.
“If I actually did have it, though,” I said to Doctor Canter,
“would the baby have it too?”
“Your baby will be healthiest when you’re healthiest,” she said.
“Don’t have any unprotected sex, if you’re worried.”
I can’t decide if she’s trying to be funny or not. I force a laugh
anyway.
I’ve been so careful, but when Jamie is born on August 28, I make
a mistake. I deliver her after nineteen hours of labor and the umbilical
cord is wrapped around her small neck, and the doctors seem scared
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