by Bethany-Kris
“Oh, dolcezza,” she heard whispered.
Calisto.
“I have to check,” came a lighter, feminine voice.
Emma tried to blink away the tears and haziness. She found her body was draped with white, scratchy blankets. The thin hospital kind. The room had a sterile smell and appearance with its white walls, bright lights up above, and clean floors.
She took another look around.
“Sweetheart, can you open your legs for me?” the doctor asked.
Emma ignored her.
What hospital room was she in?
Why was there a heating bassinet for a baby and a scale?
Another woman in scrubs opened up the door, and stuck something right below the room number. It was a small, blue drop.
Like a teardrop.
Emma gasped sharply when her knees were pushed apart and suddenly, a hand was between her thighs. Fingers pressed too deep, searching and measuring.
“Seven,” she heard say. “She’s seven centimeters.”
“She’s only eighteen weeks,” Calisto growled. “That’s not even possible.”
Emma sobbed.
“There’s nothing we can do. Not at this stage. I’m sorry. Maybe if it was just a couple centimeters. Or maybe four or five, we could place a stitch and put her on bedrest. This is too far. She’s …”
“What?’ Emma croaked.
She knew her face was a mess of tears and matted hair. They had cut off her dress when she couldn’t even get her own arms to work in tandem with the nurses around her. She was so out of it.
She couldn’t do this.
“You’re going to have to deliver the baby, Emma,” the doctor said so quietly that it was barely a breath. “I’m sorry, but the baby is already pressing down, and your cervix has prematurely begun to open. The baby is small enough that it won’t wait for you to go the full ten centimeters.”
Emma cried harder.
The doctor couldn’t be saying what she thought she was.
“Are you fucking telling me that she has to deliver the baby knowing that … is that what you’re saying?” Calisto demanded.
“Yes.”
“I can’t,” Emma mumbled.
The sympathetic, watery eyes of the young female doctor didn’t help Emma. It only broke her heart a little more. There was nothing the woman could do to help, and she didn’t know how to say it.
“I can’t do that,” Emma repeated.
“You can,” the doctor whispered. “If you don’t push, your body will do it for you. It’s nature’s way of delivering a baby when a mother is weak. One way or another, the baby will come.”
Emma reached out for something to hold. She found Calisto’s arm and her fingers dug in. He didn’t tell her to stop, but he brushed more hair from her face, letting his thumb and fingers linger on her fevered skin.
The pain was intense, far worse than it had been. She had ignored the strange twinges that morning when she was trying to use the bathroom, and the ones from the day before when she talked them over with her doctor.
Normal, he’d said.
He said they were fucking normal.
“Please don’t make me do this,” Emma mumbled.
She didn’t want to deliver a baby that would only die.
She didn’t want to leave a hospital with empty arms.
“Please,” Emma breathed.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor jerked a hand at a nurse. “The gas, get it. It’ll help.”
Emma didn’t bother to fight when they put the mask on her. The disorientation was back, locking her into a bubble.
She didn’t have to feel there.
She didn’t have to see or think.
It was so much better than pain.
“I’m broken,” she said under the mask.
Something was wrong with her.
Emma turned to find Calisto watching her. Wetness reflected back in his eyes, and that killed her a little bit more. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but he was.
“Not broken,” he told her.
She didn’t believe him.
He’d been smaller than her palm. His limbs were thinner than her pinky. He never made a sound, although the doctor said that he probably couldn’t at his gestation. Red-pink skin all over, and almost translucent in spots. He had ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. He breathed for less than forty seconds before he stopped.
The doctor had handed over the baby in a white towel. At first, Emma hadn’t wanted to look at the child. What would it look like, after all?
It looked like a baby.
Her baby.
His little chest moved up and down. She was scared to touch him, he was so small.
But he was alive.
For a short moment, she felt his warm, slick skin, she watched his struggling breaths, and he lived.
And then he didn’t.
That was the hardest. It was worse than delivering a baby she knew wouldn’t survive. It was worse than feeling like she was alone on a kitchen floor all over again.
He died in her palm. All red-pink, with closed eyes, and never having made a sound.
But for a moment, he got to be loved. Emma got to touch him, apologize for having failed again, and she got to love him.
She had people all around her.
They watched and never said a thing.
She still felt alone.
“Where in the fuck were you?”
Emma blinked awake, and rubbed at her eyes to clear the sleepiness from her eyes. A soreness settled in her lower half as she shifted on the bed. That was to be expected, apparently. The baby might have been extremely premature, but she still delivered him. Her body had still expelled a baby, and the placenta. It needed time to heal.
The arguing voices outside of her hospital room became louder, confusing her further.
“I stayed to finish—”
“That was more important to you?”
Calisto.
“Why is that picture of the drop of water on the door?” Affonso asked.
“It’s meant to tell the other nurses and doctors who might enter the room, unaware of the outcome of the delivery, that a child was lost. It also tells them to be quiet as they pass, for Emma’s sake.”
“Ah.”
“Is that all you have to say right now?”
“I assumed you would call, Cal,” Affonso muttered.
“I did. I told you what was happening!”
“She didn’t need me here for that. She could do it alone.”
The coldness of Affonso’s tone didn’t even shock Emma.
“You should have been here,” Calisto snarled.
“To what, see a dead child be born?” Affonso asked. “I did that once with my first wife. I wasn’t needed, Calisto.”
“You … You are—”
“What?”
“Fucking useless,” Calisto finished darkly. “A poor excuse for a man, never mind a father.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know, hmm?”
“Pardon?”
“You wouldn’t know. You and your mother never let me be one.”
“I had a father,” Calisto replied coldly. “And I have no doubt that he would have been far better than you, even though you never gave him the chance to be one.”
“I don’t want to go into all this again.”
“No, you only want to do it when it’s suitable for you.”
“Enough, Cal,” Affonso said dryly.
“She delivered your child. You should have been here for her.”
“It was dead.”
“It was alive,” Calisto hissed. “I watched the baby breathe in her hands.”
“She didn’t need me. She wouldn’t have wanted me.”
“What she doesn’t need is a man who doesn’t care. And you fit that bill perfectly, zio.”
Emma’s heart hurt, but she managed to keep quiet.
“I’ll leave her alone for a while and let her heal,” Affonso murmured.
; “You might want to take a trip downstairs, too.”
“What for?”
“The baby is waiting to be claimed in the morgue. Because he was born alive, he is considered a live birth. He was named and given a death certificate, like any other human being would be. There was only one person who felt like they didn’t have to treat the child like he wasn’t a fucking human, uncle. You. You felt like he was unworthy of your time for his only moments on earth. You did that.”
“It wasn’t going to survive, Cal.”
“He. Not ‘it.’ He.”
Emma wiped at the wetness streaking down her cheek.
“And what do you expect me to do down there at the morgue?” Affonso asked.
“Claim him. Sign your name to his fucking birth certificate like you should have done yesterday when he was born. Have him transferred to the funeral home we use. Jesus Christ, you don’t even have to look at him, Affonso. I will handle arrangements for the baby’s burial and for Father Day to go over and bless him. But you will go down there and put your name on his goddamn certificates as his father. It’s the least you can do after everything.”
“What did she name him?” Affonso asked.
“She named him after you.”
“Why?”
“Because you wanted your boy,” Calisto snapped. “And he’s the first, right? The only. She thought you would want him named for his father.”
“Calisto.”
“Don’t touch me, zio.”
“Tu sei il primo.”
“Mai.”
Emma understood their words when they turned to Italian, but she couldn’t compute what they meant. The men’s tones had turned so pained—agonized. One begging, the other refusing.
“Cal,” Affonso said.
“Just go.”
The doctor—a new one this time—pointed at the 3D diagram of a uterus with his index finger. He moved down where the cervix was labeled and pointed.
“Part of the problem that caused this late miscarriage was the placenta previa. It covered part of the neck of your cervix, Emma, which would explain the occasional spotting you reported to your doctor. He had it marked on your file for the ultrasound technician to check when that came about, but you didn’t make it that far. It should have been picked up, but the placenta might have grown larger, covering part of the cervix, after the amnio-ultrasound, and here we are.”
Emma stayed quiet in the chair across from the doctor, unsure of what to say. It felt better when she said nothing at all, frankly.
“And that was it?” Affonso asked beside her.
“No. We discovered something else that probably would have caused us some issues or concerns later on in the pregnancy.”
“Which was what?”
“Emma,” the doctor said quietly, directing his statement directly at her and not Affonso.
She didn’t look up from her lap. “Yes?”
“You have what we call a weak cervix. It’s often caused by a shortened neck of the uterus, making the cervix thinner than it should be. When the baby, or say a placenta, begins to put pressure down on the cervix, it starts to open prematurely.”
“What does that mean?” Affonso asked.
The doctor sighed. “It means that any future pregnancies Emma might have are considered high risk. There is something we can do, but like anything, it comes with risks, and—”
“So this will happen again?” Affonso interrupted.
“It’s possible that nearing the eighteen to twenty week mark in a future pregnancy, her cervix may start to open. But like I was trying to say, we can put a—”
Affonso stood fast from his chair, his expression a blank slate and his eyes cold. “Thank you. Emma, I’ll be in the car. Whenever you’re ready.”
Emma didn’t bother to say goodbye to her husband before he went. Once the door was closed, she felt better. The farther away Affonso was from her, the better it was. Alone with the fertility specialist, Emma finally felt like she could speak safely to ask her questions.
She just didn’t know where to start. A week after her delivering the baby boy, she was still walking around in a daze half of the time. She had been released from the hospital only two days after and sent home with instructions about blood clots, and other things she didn’t care to think about.
“This miscarriage is unrelated to the first,” the doctor said quietly. “I looked over the bloodwork and tissue samples that were taken from the first.”
“And?” Emma asked.
“There was definitely some hormonal issues that were a cause for concern. It’s never a definite at that early of a stage. That’s the problem with early terminations. We can never quite say for sure what the problem likely was. This time, however, we know.”
“And it will happen again.”
“It’s likely.”
“So I am broken,” she mumbled.
“No, not broken. There’s a procedure we can do—a stitch we can put in your cervix, and add in bedrest to that, and it’s probable that you can carry to term, or very close to it.”
“But it’s not a guarantee.”
“Nothing is,” the doctor said softly.
Wasn’t that the truth?
She had a baby to bury.
Her body was useless.
She didn’t even want to get out of bed.
Affonso wouldn’t look at her, not that she gave a fuck.
“You can have a child, but it may take some planning and close monitoring, Emma,” the doctor told her.
She didn’t really hear him.
“Thank you,” Emma said.
She stood from her chair, feeling exhausted with the day. She didn’t want to be here with the doctors, their tests, never mind having this very conversation. It was like reliving the week before all over again. She could still feel her boy in her palm, tiny, fragile, and helpless because she couldn’t carry him like she was supposed to.
“Emma, wait,” the doctor said.
“What now?”
“A couple of things.”
“I would like to get out of here,” Emma said, sighing.
“I can see that. First, I wanted to say that it helps after a loss like this for women to seek therapy. Often times, women find themselves in the midst of a depression, blaming themselves, and not knowing how to climb their way out of it. It might help to find someone to talk to so that you can deal with how you feel about all of this. Not just the birth and losing the baby, but your future, deciding to have more children, and handling what that means.”
Emma waved it all off. She wasn’t in the mood to discuss therapy. She was heartbroken, but she wasn’t crazy or depressed.
Her heart simply hurt.
“And the second thing?” she asked, grabbing her bag off the floor.
The doctor frowned. “Should you find yourself pregnant again, by choice or accident, it’s very important that your doctor know as soon as possible, to begin monitoring the thickness of your cervix. This can be prevented from happening to you a second time. Do you understand?”
She understood.
She just didn’t see how it mattered, now.
There would be no more children. Not if she had any say.
Calisto
“Well?” Affonso demanded, unaffected as ever. “What of it, Father?”
Calisto bristled, hearing his uncle’s rudeness toward the priest. It wasn’t like Affonso to be so short with a man of God, but he hadn’t exactly wanted to do this at all. Not this day, the small, private service, or the burial that would follow for his dead son.
This entire thing had been done by Calisto’s hand and only for Emma’s benefit.
It wasn’t about Affonso’s wants.
“I promise to make it short, Affonso. I have a call to make. Can you entertain yourself for a few minutes until I’m ready to come out?” the priest asked.
Affonso nodded, turned on his heel, and left the small office without a backward glance. It took all the patience that Calis
to had inside not to glare at his uncle’s back.
Father Day didn’t miss Calisto’s irritation for a second.
“He’s not up for this, I take it?”
“No,” Calisto said.
“That’s fine. His wife needs it more, I suspect.”
Calisto frowned. “She doesn’t talk a lot.”
“I know. I tried to speak with her earlier. It’s like she’s somewhere else entirely.”
“It was … difficult.”
“Difficult” didn’t begin to encompass the emotional impact of watching a woman birth a child so small that it fit in the palm of her hand. The word couldn’t possibly explain how heart-wrenching it was to see that same woman beg doctors not to make her birth the child, only to take him away from her because he wouldn’t be able to live outside her body.
But it was the best fucking word Calisto had.
For the moment.
“You were with her,” Father Day said. “That’s what you told me when you called.”
“Yeah.”
“Eighteen weeks is not enough time for a child. Most are born dead.”
“I’m aware. He breathed. He was not stillborn. He breathed for nearly a minute.”
Father Day pursed his lips. “I’ll give him the blessing with the holy water. The same as I would any stillborn child. I can’t do much else, Calisto.”
“It’ll be enough.”
“For the young woman, I certainly hope so. Perhaps if her husband would act like the child’s life had some substance, like he was real, she might allow herself to feel the same way.”
Calisto wondered if that was part of Emma’s problem in grieving for her child. Was her husband’s lack of empathy the reason why she had shut the rest of the world out? Did she feel like she wasn’t allowed to be sad over a child that her husband didn’t consider worthy?
“I still have to make that call,” the priest said.
“Sure.”
Calisto stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him. He walked out to the main floor of the church, over the altar and down the steps. Emma sat quietly in the front row in a black ensemble that fit the day. She was alone, unsurprisingly.
Affonso was nowhere to be seen.
Passing the small white casket at the bottom of the altar, Calisto took a seat beside Emma. She barely reacted to his presence, and her gaze never left the spot on the floor.