Relax.Yeah, right. The next time I relax will be the first.
I hear the snap of latex gloves and the squirt of a bottle. Then something shockingly huge pokes between my legs.
“Again, sorry about the discomfort. Not fun, I know.” The wand presses inside me and I grit my teeth against the painful stretch. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
The machine hums to life beside us. I can hear it, electronic beeps and whirs, but the screen might as well be broadcasting from Mars for all I can see of it.
“And… Oh! There we go,” she says, moving the wand in slow circles. “There’s the gestational sac, looking lovely. Nice and round, just as sacs should be. And look—” The wand moves again. “There’s our little gummy bear!”
A little gummy bear in my tummy.I giggle like an insane woman, then bite the inside of my cheek until the laughter stops.
“Everything looks perfect for this point in your pregnancy,” Dr. Enriquez blathers on, cheery and nonchalant, like she’s yapping the day away over mimosas instead of cataloging the parts of a dead man’s baby. “Good positioning. All the measurements are right on track. Beautiful, beautiful stuff, Mama. And now, for the coup de grâce…”
And then the sound fills the room.
It’s a rapid, whooshing rhythm, impossibly fast, like a hummingbird’s wings or a train rushing past at full speed. It fills every corner of the exam room, drowning out the news anchor’s voice, the hum of the ultrasound machine, the roar of blood in my ears.
“There it is!” Dr. Enriquez announces. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. About a hundred and sixty beats per minute, which is absolutely perfect.”
Bastian’s heartbeat has stopped.
This one keeps going.
Mine wants to crack in two.
“Would you like a printout?” Dr. Enriquez asks. “Something to take home and treasure?”
Distantly, I hear myself say, “Yes.”
Because maybe someday, someone will describe it to me. Maybe someday, I’ll run my fingers over the glossy surface and imagine I can feel the curve of that round head, those moving arms.
Maybe someday, this will feel real instead of like another nightmare I can’t wake up from.
8
ELIANA
broken sauce /'brok?n sôs/: noun
1: an emulsion that has separated, with fat and liquid dividing into unusable parts.
2: when you can’t hold yourself together anymore.
The walk home is a blur of automatic motions. Sweep left, sweep right, walk, walk, walk. My mind is too full and too empty all at once to process anything beyond the basic mechanics of not getting hit by a car.
After the scan was over, I’d asked the doctor if she was sure about everything. She’d said yes, very gently. It was like she understood that sometimes, you need to hear the truth twice before it becomes real.
Then she handed me pamphlets and a prescription for prenatal vitamins and told me to make a follow-up appointment in four weeks. I don’t even know where I’ll be in four weeks, so I told her, “Absolutely, see you then,” and then hopped off the table and out of her life. Forever, most likely.
And in the meantime, I walk. I’d walk for four weeks if I could. Hell, I’d walk for nine months if I could, and give birth to this baby while still in motion, and then keep right on moving. Because no child deserves to be saddled with me. I’m the bad daughter of a neglectful mother and there’s no chance that the DNA that makes memewill ever let me be a good parent to this poor little angel. What kind of past sins would she have to have done to earn me as a mom? No, it’s best if I find a nice home for her once she’s born and keep on walking.
Justwalk. Sweep left, sweep right, and walk far the fuck away, before I ruin his or her life the way I’ve already ruined my own.
But no matter how fast I walk, there’s no outrunning thoughts.
Bastian has a child.
Bastian is dead.
