“There’s no one else here,” says Malia, her voice calm.
“Thenyougo get him!” I scream, grabbing at her tunic and wrenching at it. It rips just at the collarbone. But if Malia is at all fazed, she doesn’t show it.
“Please—something’s wrong!” I cry.
She shakes her head, kneeling before me so that we’re eye level.
“We need to get you into a better position,” she says, then loops her arms underneath my armpits in an attempt to lead me off the rock. But as soon as she tries to move me more upright, the pressure between my legs becomes unbearable. It feels as if I have a rod stuck up inside of me, making it impossible to move.
“Don’t touch me!” I growl.
Malia holds her palms up. She leaves my side, and vaguely I’m aware of her crossing the cave. Something drags against the cave floor behind me.
It takes me a moment to realize she’s arranging the blanket beneath me. She helped me remove my trousers hours ago, so it’s just Nolan’s oversized shirt hanging around me now.
“Will you let me check you?” she asks. “To see if you’re ready to push?”
I grunt something incoherent. Even I am not sure whether it’s a yes or a no, but it doesn’t end up mattering, anyway.
Before Malia can check my progress, the strangest urge overcomes me. A need to relieve myself but stronger.
And before I know it, I’m pushing, as if my body itself has taken over, my subconscious mind taking the reins from me.
And suddenly, my wayward mind comes back into focus. I’m no longer screaming. I can’t quite tell if I’m in less pain than I was moments ago or if I’m simply too intent on the task at hand to notice it.
As yet another contraction ripples through me, I feel the urge to push. The next is the same, and soon I find myself in rhythm, able to anticipate them.
Malia is saying something to me, but I can barely hear her. It’s as if my body itself has broken away from my mind and is speaking to me separately, telling me exactly what I need to do.
All of a sudden, as I push, a fire breaks out between my legs.
“He’s crowning,” she says. “I can see your child’s hair.”
A single tear escapes my eyelid and slips down my cheek. It’s so hard. I can’t imagine pushing any harder than I am now.
“He’s not going to come out,” I say.
“You’re so close,” says Malia.
Close to what?the voice in my head says.
In just a few moments, my child will be taken away from me. My husband too.
As the next contraction sweeps through me, my muscles seem to go limp.
I slump, and Malia grabs at my back, sounding alarmed. “You can’t stop,” she says. “You don’t have the option to stop. You have to keep going.”
But I don’t want to keep going.
My mind splits, and the hidden, primal part of it is screaming to make the pain stop. But I’m just so tired. So tired of losing. So tired of losing myself. Losing Nolan. Losing John. Losing my son.
I’m so tired of losing that I can’t find within me the energy to go on.
Perhaps I will die like this. Perhaps the pain will kill me. I’ll be like one of so many women who succumb to the tragedy of childbirth.
Perhaps this is my end. Or perhaps not.
Perhaps I’ll be trapped in this wretched purgatory forever—stuck in this cycle of excruciating pain, no energy to rid myself of it. So close to the end but unable to reach out and grasp it.
