Winter Moon Rises

by Scott Blum

  “Oh, that’s probably my fibroid,” explained Madisyn. “I’ve had it for years.”

  “I’m sure that’s it. It looks like it has a friend now—we should probably keep an eye on them from here on out.”

  “Can they cause problems?” I asked.

  “The good news is, they’re on the outside of the uterine wall. So as long as they don’t move around and block the baby’s exit, they shouldn’t cause a problem …” Then, without warning, the technician gasped, and I felt my heart stop.

  “Oh my!” she squeaked. “Isn’t that the cutest thing ever!?”

  She flipped a switch, and the translucent black-and-white picture instantly transformed into a golden claylike image that looked surprisingly more … babylike. All the miniature details came in crisp focus, and it was much easier to discern what she was talking about.

  Our little baby was sucking its thumb.

  “Awwww,” the three of us chorused. It was almost painful how cute it was—it easily put the “Hang in there” kitty poster on the wall of the reception area to shame.

  “That’s a keeper!” the technician said as the thermal printer spat out a printout of the adorable pose. She continued to dig around Madisyn’s abdomen with the plastic cube until she found more glamour shots of the baby that she could print out. In less than a minute the ultrasound machine had produced a narrow scroll of baby pictures that reached the floor.

  Then the technician began to titter, and her smile widened. It was easy to see she was enjoying herself immensely—she obviously loved her job. When she could no longer contain herself, she finally asked, “Do you want to know?”

  “Know what?” Madisyn asked, clearly concerned there was something wrong.

  “The gender. Do you want to know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

  “Sure,” we both replied at the same time, shrugging. After all, we knew in our hearts that we were preparing to welcome Autumn into this world, and she had always made it known that she was a girl.

  “It’s a boy!” the technician shrieked.

  “A what?” I must have misunderstood her.

  “A boy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She laughed as she tapped the keyboard, enlarging the current image on the screen. She then used her mouse to draw a crude stick arrow pointing to what looked like a miniature church steeple between our baby’s tiny legs. To make it even more obvious, she typed three capital letters next to the accusatory pointer: boy.

  “Congratulations!” The technician was now the only one keeping the energy up in the room. “Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Uh-huh,” Madisyn muttered, looking nearly as shell-shocked as I felt.

  I stared at the image on the screen for what seemed like hours as the rest of the room faded out of focus. I’m sure I would have passed out if I wasn’t already sitting, but I just stared at the computer monitor until the technician shut off the ultrasound machine and flicked on the room lights. She smiled as she handed me the paperclipped roll of photos she had printed and gently ushered us into the waiting room.

  In the car, Madisyn and I didn’t say a word during the ride home.

  We both couldn’t believe it was true.

  At first it was easy to avoid the dreaded B word without too much effort. Dealing with Madisyn’s nausea was a constant struggle, and finding food she could keep down had become nearly impossible. But when I had time to myself, I began to get seriously depressed. I wondered if I had done anything wrong to permanently scare Autumn away, or if my entire experience with her had been made up. Did I imagine the whole thing?

  After nearly a week of silent self-torture, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “I can’t believe Autumn’s not coming,” I whispered to Madisyn, after removing yet another plate of uneaten food from the bedside table.

  “Humph.”

  “I was so sure she was going to be our daughter. She told me so in that dream …”

  Silence.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  More silence.

  “So you are mad at me!”

  “I’m not mad at you.” She rolled her eyes. “Everything isn’t about you. It’s just that I’ve always wanted a little girl. I was supposed to have a girl. Ever since I was younger, I imagined what it would be like. How I would dress her. How I would decorate her room. What I would teach her. What we would do together. We were supposed to dress up for tea. I was supposed to have a girl.”

  Madisyn started to cry.

  I felt terrible. Was I responsible for misleading her? By telling her about my dreams about Autumn? By being so sure of myself?

  “Maybe the technician was wrong,” I suggested hopefully. “Maybe it’s really a girl.”

  “Wrong? How could she be wrong? It wasn’t a blood test or a dream or something—she just looked! I saw it, you saw it, we all saw it!”

  “I’m just saying … maybe the umbilical cord was in the way or something.”

  “Whatever. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with a boy. It’s not like you know what to do with a boy either.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Silence.

  “What do you mean by that?” I repeated.

  “It’s just … you hate boys.” She started to cry again.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t hate boys.”

  “Yes, you do. You haven’t had a male friend since I’ve known you.”

  “I just relate better to women, that’s all.”

  “Exactly. And how are you going to relate to your son?” She emphasized the last word like it was an accusation.

  “I’m … just … it …”

  “That’s what I thought. All I know is, you better get over your childhood crap soon. You only have five months left.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Madisyn was right. I did have a lot of childhood crap to get over. And it scared me to death that I only had five months before I finally needed to let it go. Once again my anxiety dreams returned with a vengeance, and every night I began to dread what memories would be dredged up from my past.

  Old man Thatcher owned the largest pumpkin patch in Scott Valley. Every year before Halloween, he and his ranch hands would generously deliver a truckful of ripe pumpkins to the school for the children to bring home. Coming from the city, I was excited about this unique community outreach and looked forward to it for weeks.

  The pumpkin selection was a predictably chaotic affair, as each grade was given three minutes to browse the makeshift pumpkin patch that had taken over the school parking lot. The girls’ gym teacher armed herself with the same piercing whistle and blue plastic stopwatch that she used when officiating interschool track meets.

  “Each student is allotted one pumpkin only, so choose carefully,” she yelled in her husky voice. “You have exactly three minutes to select your pumpkin and bring it back to the steps. One. Pumpkin. Only.”

  The students in my class lined up at the opening of the roped-off parking lot and eagerly awaited the whistle.

  “On your mark. Get set. Go!”

  As soon as the whistle blew, I was nearly trampled by the crowd of eager pumpkin hunters behind me. I attempted to compete with the first string of gatherers, but every time I got near a pumpkin I liked, it was quickly snatched up by more experienced hands. After searching through dozens of misshapen pumpkins that looked more like deformed gourds than potential jack-o’-lanterns, I finally found the one I was looking for. It had a classic shape, was an unusually vibrant shade of reddish orange, and had the smoothest skin I had ever seen on a fruit or vegetable.

  It was perfect.

  I carefully carried it to my locker and patiently waited for the final school bell to ring so I could bring it home. My family had a tradition of carving pumpkins and roasting their seeds each Halloween, and I had convinced them to wait until this very evening so I would be able to carve one from Thatcher’s farm.

  Nearly everyone in school had sel
ected a pumpkin that day, and most ended up taking up an entire seat on the bus ride home. Friends who usually paired off were spread out among as many seats, and although there were plenty to be had, I ended up near the back of the bus for the first time since the puka-shell incident.

  The last student to get on the bus was Jim. He was carrying two large pumpkins, one under each arm, as he made his way toward me.

  “We’re going to have some fun!” he exclaimed as he sat down in the empty seat behind me. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it.

  Once the bus was out of town and moving at full speed on the open highway, Jim slid his window open and proclaimed, “It’s time!”

  I turned around as he shoved his first pumpkin out the open window, and I watched in astonishment as it plummeted onto the pavement behind us. It bounced three feet into the air before struggling to keep up with us. There was something compelling about the way the orange gourd rolled behind us at thirty-five miles per hour, chasing the bus with intense determination, its stem spinning around in a green blur. Without warning, the pumpkin split in half and continued to trail us, like two wheels held by an invisible axle. The pumpkin fragments succeeded for about a hundred yards before exploding into a thousand pieces all over the highway.

  It was amazing.

  Before the remains of the first pumpkin were out of sight, Jim tossed the second onto the road, after covertly checking that the bus driver wasn’t watching. It followed the same fate as the first, and within seconds, several kids had passed their pumpkins to the back of the bus so Jim could annihilate them in the same way he had his own.

  Bounce. Roll. Split. Explode.

  The Execution of the Exploding Pumpkins lasted for nearly the entire ride home, and Jim’s ebullient mood didn’t sour until he ran out of victims. Once his cache was empty, he eagerly slid next to me and held out his hands.

  “Uh … um,” I stammered. “I want to keep mine.”

  “Don’t be stupid!” he responded. “Give it here!”

  Jim grabbed the prickly green stem and yanked on it hard, until it came off in his calloused hand. He then tried to wrestle the pumpkin away from me, but I was able to retain my grip by using my entire upper body as a vise.

  Crunch.

  His fist connected with my nose in an explosion of pain and astonishment that temporarily stunned me. My ears rang like a hissing ocean, and my eyes saw nothing but a sea of inky blackness twinkling with reddish-yellow glitter.

  When my vision returned, I saw several streams of blood slowly trickling down the smooth orange skin of my pumpkin. And the divot left by the liberated stem was quickly filling up with a pool of bright red liquid dripping from my nose.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” Jim yelled as he grabbed the bloody pumpkin away from me and tossed it out the window.

  Perhaps Madisyn had a point—maybe I did hate boys. I certainly hated all the ugly things that boys did in the name of manliness. I hated the senseless macho behavior that led to fistfights and bloody noses. I hated the misogynistic excuses that justified treating women as second-class citizens. I hated the testosterone-fueled violent rampages that destroyed innocent lives. But most of all, I hated myself for being genetically sympathetic to the masculine plight.

  I hated myself for being a boy.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The next several weeks were filled with disquiet and anxiety over the gender of our baby. We both knew that we were being selfish, but we also felt it was important to work through our feelings completely before he was born instead of harboring lingering uncertainty after he arrived.

  “At least he’s healthy,” I offered. “You know how many kids are born with birth defects or incurable diseases?”

  Madisyn nodded. “And we’re lucky that we were able to conceive in the first place.”

  “True.” I sighed. “I just feel so guilty that I’m having these feelings in light of everything that other people go through. Am I no different from the barbaric cultures that kill their babies when they turn out to be girls?”

  “You want to kill him?!”

  “Of course not!” I was horrified that she could even think I would suggest such a thing. “I’m just wondering if we should have tried at different times of your cycle or given you foods that would have helped prepare your uterus for a girl.”

  “What are you reading?” She laughed.

  “I should probably throw that book away.” I smiled. “I guess the universe always gives us exactly what we need.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “All I know is that you are going to teach him about sex.”

  “I figured.”

  “And how to pee standing up.”

  On an unusually crisp fall morning in early November, Madisyn woke up with a serene look on her face. For weeks she hadn’t had any relief from her constant nausea, and the anxiety about having a boy was starting to take its toll on both of us. But on that day she was in an uncharacteristically good mood and eager to share something important.

  “He told me his name,” she whispered quietly.

  “Who told you his name?” Her words took me by surprise, since our recent morning conversations had traditionally been limited to what foods she might be able to keep down that day.

  “Who do you think?” She gestured with her eyes to her growing belly.

  “Oh, really? What did he say?”

  “He said that everything was going to be all right. That he picked us to be his parents because he knew we would be perfect for him. That we would do a good job. And that he wanted his name to be Oliver.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Yes.”

  There was something about the name that bothered me. I struggled with what I was feeling, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. Even though I didn’t understand my antipathy, I finally shrugged and said, “That’s kind of old-fashioned, isn’t it?”

  My words visibly annoyed Madisyn, and her good mood quickly faded. I could tell she was disappointed that I wasn’t as excited about the name as she was. “Well, I like it.”

  Then it occurred to me what I was bothered by. It wasn’t about the name at all—it was about Autumn. I had spent the past few years waiting for my daughter to appear, and in her place was an impostor—a charlatan who called himself Oliver and who had the audacity to take my daughter’s place. It wasn’t about the name at all. It was about the name making it more real that she wasn’t coming.

  “I just had a thought,” I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Maybe it really is Autumn, but she decided to choose a male body instead.”

  “I already thought about that,” replied Madisyn. “But that doesn’t feel right to me—the energy of Oliver is much different. I feel like I recognize his soul, but he’s definitely not the same baby I was carrying before.”

  Then a familiar voice echoed in my head. For the first time since Madisyn had become pregnant again, Autumn spoke to me.

  She’s right. That’s not me.

  Although Madisyn’s nausea continued to worsen, her emotional health gradually recovered once she had talked with Oliver. I envied how at peace she was with his gender, while my own internal struggle was still afoot. What made it worse was that I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. In the past I had been able to confide in Madisyn, but she needed all the strength she had; and besides, she was the one carrying him. It was understood that he needed to be nurtured in every way through his fetal development, and getting mired in doubts about his gender couldn’t be good for him during this fragile process.

  I was embarrassed by the feelings I was having and couldn’t imagine anyone sympathizing with a father-to-be who was bringing a healthy baby boy into a stable and loving home. Why couldn’t I just be happy for the miracle that was unfolding in our lives?

  What was wrong with me?

  When I couldn’t handle going through it by myself any longer, I called Martika and told her the entire story. She already knew most of it, but I coul
d tell she was surprised that I was still having such a hard time dealing with the baby’s gender.

  She understood that I was disappointed that Autumn wasn’t coming; however, she also told me that she couldn’t imagine why I would want to dissociate myself from half the human race. At first I thought she was being overly dramatic, but after a while I realized she was probably right. Maybe I did think the world would be a better place if only females inhabited it.

  Over the next few weeks, I buried myself in research conducted by various radical philosophers and artists who were asking the same question. Evidently there was a very real debate going on as to whether males were currently being phased out of the human race because they were no longer needed from an evolutionary standpoint.

  Then one day, Martika phoned me unexpectedly and suggested that I come to her house immediately. She had someone staying with her I needed to meet.

  When I arrived, she excitedly told me more about her guest.

  “I’m hosting a retreat this weekend with the most amazing man. His name is Andrew Harvey, and he’s … oh, how would I describe him? I guess you would call him a mystic-scholar. He was born in India, educated at Oxford, studied with amazing Indian and Turkish gurus, and is now one of the most revered translators of Rumi in the world.”

  “Wow, he sounds amazing. Is that what your retreat is about … Rumi?” I hadn’t read much by the Persian poet but was definitely a fan of what I’d seen.

  “Not this time. He’s also a leading expert on the subject of the Divine Feminine. That’s what he’s talking about this weekend.”

  “That’s ironic,” I snorted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A man being an expert on femininity. Isn’t it a bit presumptuous that someone who isn’t female could be an expert on something that’s inherently not masculine?”

  “I never really thought of it that way.” She shrugged. “He’s gay, if that helps.”