The year after she died, I got a flip phone. My sister Mira bought a digital camera and sent out blurry, indulgent Christmas cards, her girlfriend’s arm around her waist, their ugly patterned sweaters pixelated and unfocused. And Tanya, the youngest, finally joined the rest of her friends on Facebook.
In those early years when text-messaging plans felt like too hefty a price for all of us, we would call each other on the weekends and wonder about what Mama would’ve said if she had lived to see the world stretch onto computer screens. We’d laugh at each other’s impressions, trying to channel her even-tempered energy. It would’ve been a remarkable skill, if it weren’t so necessary. Mama didn’t leave behind any pictures or home movies of herself. If we wanted to see her, we had to be her.
It wasn’t planned. You get pregnant at forty-two and everyone thinks it must’ve been planned, must’ve involved the help of a fertility specialist or the grace of God. Well, it wasn’t something I had devised or prayed for. It just happened, the way a lot of babies just happen.
Jay asked me if I wanted to get married, which was proof of his kindness and foolishness. I told him so, which was proof of our friendship and honesty. That’s what I wanted for our baby—parents who loved each other enough to know that love isn’t everything.
We lived down the hall from each other and in my first trimester, we baby-proofed both apartments and narrowed our choices down to three types of car seats. When my morning sickness was bad, Jay would run out to buy ginger ale and crackers. Once, after I had to get off the city bus and vomit in a trashcan, he asked me to slow down. I told him I didn’t want motherhood to change me.
I worked at the local rec center, so by the time a child signed up for beginner’s swimming or after-school homework help, I knew his whole family history: how his parents met, what kind of glasses his older sister wore, even the way their ugly dog died. Before I got pregnant, the other staff members, mostly women, would tell me I had found my calling: to mother an entire community. It wasn’t that I disagreed with the role, because I didn’t. I loved my job and I loved knowing that I could look at a child’s face and tell you exactly what contraband was in her backpack. No, I minded the heavy implication of pity, that my life of pastel window curtains and regular exercise and reasonably good sex wasn’t enough of a success story. That I was missing a baby.
I found out in a dream, which sounds strange, maybe even crazy. It wasn’t what happened in the dream so much as all the water imagery—the boardwalks, a running faucet, the clogged shower drain.
I woke up desperate to pee, but it was Jay who pointed out his sheets were dotted red. “So much for tracking your period, huh?”
And I knew, the way little kids know they’ve grown a quarter inch, that my body had changed.
After the home pregnancy test, I made an appointment with my doctor. She told me to count down the next ten Tuesdays before telling anyone, which was smart and cruel. Tuesday was my favorite day. I was born on a Tuesday. I moved into my first apartment on a Tuesday. I met Jay on a Wednesday a little after midnight, but it was a Tuesday Special that brought me to that dive bar in the first place. Tuesdays were guaranteed good days, so if I was worried, I would conjure forth all my great Tuesdays.
“Maybe we can name her Tuesday,” I told Jay, and he laughed. He knew what I meant: that if our baby lived through all these Tuesdays, I’d give her the best name, hell, I’d let her pick her own name. I’d say, “Honey, you’re never too young or too old to get what you want.”
On the tenth Tuesday, I told my sisters. Mira cried, which had more to do with her own miscarriage than anything else. Her partner promised to mail me the diaper-changing station I had originally gifted to them. Of course, I couldn’t accept it and Jay ended up donating it to the Salvation Army. Tanya, a budding nutritionist, emailed me weekly recipes. In one message, she wrote: I don’t care how much you hate spinach—it’s for the baby. Do it for the baby.
That was the beginning of thinking about my life, my body, as more than just mine. Once I started showing, people would touch my belly. When the baby kicked, I felt the opposite of alone. Jay wanted to know what it was like and I didn’t know how to explain, except to say it was the most intense and anonymous love, coming from me, back to me.
“Baby looks good,” the doctor said. She said it a lot, because high-risk pregnancies require more medical attention, more ultrasounds, more conversation about developmental abnormalities, more faith in God and medicine and the human body. So, I got used to the cold gel. I learned to read the tiny wavy lines on the ultrasound screen. I kept a notebook with questions that popped into my head between appointments and later, I wrote in the doctor’s patient answers. At twenty weeks, they printed out the ultrasound and I glued it into my notebook, right under my looping handwriting: Is she okay?
I wish I could say that I thought a lot about Mama in those days, about her strength and love and fear, but I didn’t. I didn’t think about her until later, which is how children are. I didn’t need Mama until I did, and by then, she wasn’t there. She was long gone and I had to do this alone.
I realized in the morning, on my way to work, that something was wrong. It happens sometimes; you do something, days go by, and then you realize you’ve been drinking two-percent milk, when your whole life you only ever had non-fat. Suddenly, you feel sick—a heavy, multiple-days’-worth-of-mistakes-sick. It was like that. I woke up, I got on the bus, and when I reached for my notebook in my bag, I knew.
It wasn’t there. I called Jay and he checked both apartments, under the beds, in the kitchens, even the shelf in my bathroom. I spent twenty minutes at work cleaning and reorganizing my desk. An elderly man wanted help looking up an old friend and I snapped at him. A junior counselor had to step in, which would’ve been embarrassing if I wasn’t so unbelievably afraid.
That night, Jay tried to calm me down. He made me butternut squash soup and rubbed my back. “Okay, so you lost your book. It’s fine. We’ll get another. We’ll take more notes. It’s fine, it’s okay.”
“But the ultrasound—”
“They’ll print another. We’ll ask them to print as many copies as we want. It doesn’t matter.”
“But the baby—”
“Babe, stop. It’s fine. You’re fine. The baby is fine.”
What do you call that moment, when everything turns inwards? When the lights flicker and no one else has noticed? That night, I thought of nothing but that piece of paper, the vague outline of the person my daughter was becoming, changing rapidly and without warning.
If I believed in legends or ghosts or God, it was because I believed in Mama, in the crazy power of the person who taught me how to fear and protect. So, when they’d asked if I wanted to print out the ultrasound, I should’ve said no. Part of me had wanted to say no. But most of me wanted to say yes, because I was going to be a mother and I thought that meant I could finally make my own rules.
I made a mistake. I lost the only photo of my baby. Some piece of her was gone, maybe forever.
Mira didn’t talk about the miscarriage. It had happened right after Obama won the presidency. One minute we were texting about his speech, the next I was driving across the state, straight to the hospital. By the time I got there, she was already trying to laugh with the nurses. Natasha had been with her for a few years and they knew how to put on a brave face. They took me out to dinner afterwards. We had pizza and drank cheap beer. I left in the morning, without asking any questions. Later on, when I was talking with Tanya, she said that me just being there must’ve been enough. I believed her.
I thought about Mira the next day, when I still couldn’t find the notebook. The baby wasn’t kicking, not like she used to. Jay said I was thinking too hard. “I bet she can tell you’re scared and she’s just taking it easy on you.”
He meant it in a good way, that my baby loved me and was already doing me favors, but I heard something else. I heard that I was a bad mother, that my baby was becoming quiet and disappea
ring. That it was my fault.
Without thinking, I texted Mira: i lost a copy of my ultrasound.
She wrote back within minutes: ok. let’s go visit tan.
Tanya lived in our old apartment. After Mira and I moved out, she redecorated and replaced all the old furniture. Mama was still alive then and she went along with all of Tanya’s ideas, except she absolutely refused to have the old wallpaper stripped. Mama liked the old pink roses, even if they were turning yellow. As a result, the place looked half museum, half trendy boutique.
Mira and I showed up within minutes of each other. She let me collapse on the sectional couch, while Tanya poured fresh lemonade. I emptied my bag for the umpteenth time, hoping maybe magic or sisterhood would bring that notebook back.
But it didn’t work like that. If something was gone, it would take more than luck to find it again.
Tanya was the youngest and the only one of us who had never been pregnant. “Mama believed the craziest shit,” she said. “Doesn’t mean any of it was true.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” Mira said. “No one is saying that the baby is literally disappearing—”
I coughed. For a moment all of us were quiet.
“God, okay, just—go to the doctor and they’ll check you out and we can go back to planning your baby shower like normal people.” Tanya sighed and it sounded like the way we all used to sigh when Mama told us something that seemed unlikely or strange. “Maya, look, this is not real, okay? We take pictures and post them on Instagram. Just yesterday, I sent you a selfie and I am right here. So, don’t worry about this. I promise, your baby is fine.”
“You can’t promise that.” It was Mira’s first reference to her own pregnancy, the smallest and heaviest. She was looking at the roses on the wall. “Do you remember when we traced over the vines with pencil?”
“What do you mean by ‘we’? I didn’t do that.”
Tanya snorted. “Um, not according to Mama. Don’t you remember? ‘If one of you does it, you all do it.’”
“Wait,” I said, looking at Mira, who seemed to understand. “Say that again.”
“In the beginning, I heard his voice. All the time, when I was driving or doing the dishes. Not words or anything, just his voice, babbling.” We were stretched across the couch, my feet in Mira’s lap. She was whispering, because Tanya had already gone to bed. “Then one night, I had a dream and he was there, except not really. And he spoke to me with words. He said, ‘I’m a million miles across your mind.’” Her hands stopped massaging my feet. I could hear her watch tick. “I told Natasha and she said it was a good omen, because the baby was talking, you know? It meant that he was strong and that he was connecting with me. But I knew it didn’t. I couldn’t hear him after that. His voice, it was gone.”
“My baby has no voice.” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I’ve never heard her.”
“But you feel her, right? I can feel her right now.”
“What if—” I couldn’t say it. Mira was my sister, Mama’s second daughter. It hurt to think about it. “What if I did it? I lost my ultrasound and you—your baby.”
She pinched my toe. “Don’t be an idiot. My baby had nothing to do with you. Don’t think that.”
I realized I was crying. My face was wet and Mira pulled me up and rubbed my shoulders. Sitting together, it almost felt like we were kids again, with Mama braiding Tanya’s hair in the other room. Any moment now she’d come out and tell us to go to bed before it got too late.
“Too late for what?” we always wanted to ask, but if we did, we knew Mama would launch into a lecture that ended with some lesson we were too young to understand. That’s what it felt like, anyway.
So, we’d grumble all the way into our bedroom and Mama would turn off the lights, wrap us in a blanket, and say, “Right here, where you can hold me, I’m most complete.” I didn’t get it then and even now, right next to Mira, I didn’t really understand what she’d meant, what the rules were, what the price was for breaking them.
“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m crying about this,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.
Mira laughed. “You’re pregnant, you’re allowed to cry whenever you want. Besides, soon you’ll be a mother and you won’t get to cry at all.”
“Yeah, Mama didn’t cry, did she?”
“No, she didn’t. She was tough and scary.” She squeezed my arm. “You were her favorite, you know.”
“I was not—”
“No, you were and it makes sense. You were her first. I get it. I—I think about my baby all the time and even if I had other kids, I would still think about him. I would. Forever.”
“Mira, you’d think about all of them.” I looked at her, her curly hair, her wild eyebrows. “I think about you and Tanya every day. I mean, I’m not Mama, you’re not my kids, but I think about you. I think about you and I think about your baby.”
“I think about your baby, too.”
“Do you think my baby knows your baby?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I think your baby knows you and Jay, but she doesn’t know every—she doesn’t know death or pain. What’s the rule? ‘No broken hearts’?”
I laughed loudly, without meaning to. “You mean, ‘no broken dishes.’”
“No, I mean, our babies—your baby. No broken hearts and no ghosts.”
Three days later, I was back at the doctor’s office, watching the ultrasound screen warm up and ignoring the cold probe on my belly. What did Mama say? That we were her babies. That she always remembered the first time. I’d thought she meant when she held us, but maybe she meant the first time she saw a glimpse of our bodies, wavy and out of focus. Maybe from when we looked most alien, from when she realized we were unbelievably human and vulnerable to even the slightest touch, the smallest change.
I used to think Mama worried about us because she was alone, because we had no one else and the world was scary. But, maybe it was something else. Maybe she worried because her body was endless, because her body was our body and she could worry for us. As we grew and became, she could store up all those anxieties and fears and concerns in some other place that only ever touched us when we needed to remember.
Jay, Mira, and Natasha were with me the day I gave birth. It was long and painful and amazing to finally hold my baby and know she was all here. Afterward, when she was sleeping, I called Tanya.
“She’s perfect,” I said immediately. “She has Mama’s eyes.”
Tanya snorted. “First of all, there’s no way to prove that. Second of all, send me a pic!”
“You’re fucking crazy. You wanna see your niece, you drive out here and see her yourself.”
“Oh, I’m crazy, but you’re the one who thinks people can disappear? Okay. I knew one day you’d go nuts and start quoting Mama at us.”
“You want me to quote Mama?” I asked, taking a deep breath and feeling all parts of me expand. My body changed. “Okay, ‘Tan baby, I love you. Here, where you can hold me, I’m most complete.’ Part of me will fade when you go.”
“Wait, hang on,” she interrupted, “Mama never said that last part.”
I looked at the hospital bracelet on my wrist. “No, she didn’t.”
Right then, the nurse brought my daughter in, beautiful, awake, and hungry. I ended the call and sat up straight. “Hi, baby, okay, okay, I’ve got you. Mama’s got you. Yes. Shush, shush. You ready? You wanna try again?” I held her to my breast and waited.
Things That Aren’t True
YENA SHARMA PURMASIR
My father was right-handed. My mother left.
My brother was not born in a hospital.
My father did not die in a hospital.
I grew up in a small town with one long road.
I love cars. I learned how to drive before my first period.
The first time a boy kissed me, my feet were on the ground.
The first time I kissed a boy, his feet were on the ground.
I was a child. It was not perfect
. He was not perfect.
The last time I saw him, I felt nothing. I didn’t love him,
which isn’t my fault. It’s the way of the forest.
It’s an old story. The women in my family leave first.
I’ve got my mother’s face and her mother’s hair.
They kept my baby hair. I was a bird until I was a girl.
Bless the animal who raised me.
Driving with Strangers
IAIN S. THOMAS
FIRSTLY, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT I AM too young to drive but I’m also too young to hitchhike. So when the man in the black hoodie asks me to drive because he’s tired, I consider it only briefly before saying yes. The parts of his face I can see are pale—the interior light didn’t come on when I opened the car door. The air smells like flowers and incense. It’s such a hot night; it makes no sense for him to have his hoodie up. Maybe he doesn’t like showing people his face. Maybe he just lives like this, behind a black curtain. We all have curtains up around us; maybe his is just more obvious. He pulls the car over to the side of the road and we change positions. Soon, his breathing becomes more regular and maybe he’s asleep, and the streetlights pass overhead like returning spaceships.
At this point, you should also know, my parents are dead. I don’t know you but I trust you, so I will tell you these things, and you can keep me company while he sleeps. You will be safe here, behind this curtain, next to the black planet—that’s what I call it—where they died. It’s a place inside me, this planet, pulled together by the gravity of knowing that they’re dead and not coming back. I can be having a completely normal, everyday experience, buying coffee, looking at my phone, talking to someone, and suddenly my brain will see something or smell something and be reminded, “Oh yeah, that happened. My parents are dead.” And that’s when I remember I have a black planet inside of me now, where terrible things have happened, and sometimes, the gravity pulls me in, disrupts my compass. Over time, the black planet seems to get smaller, becoming a distant twinkle, but it’s always there, and regardless of what I tell myself, it will always shine with a strange kind of light. My parents must have had black planets too, where their parents died, where their friends died. Inside all of us must be a galaxy that slowly gets filled as we grow older and more and more people we know and love, die, and another dark spark shines in the void inside us and the night grows one iota blacker.
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