Sugarland
Page 33
Kit’s fingers found the edge of the table, and she anchored herself, pulling forward to meet him, disbelieving, desperately grateful, for traveling her changed inner landscape, he’d found the exact place she couldn’t quite reach with her middle finger anymore, and every time he drew back with his thick, solid shaft, that rounded ridge part of him worked across the altered underside of her pelvis, drawing her closer and closer to a feeling she’d been fighting to remember.
“Oh, Kit,” he moaned, stirruping her feet with his hands. “Oh, God, Kit! I’m almost there...”
“Don’t lose me, Mel Prizer,” she threatened. “Don’t you go on and lose me!”
“never ... never ... never ...,” he rhythmed with the commitment, rocking and promising, promising, rocking.
She reached for the wall above her head. Her wrist tangled in something, and the toaster clanged onto the floor. She felt herself searching, finding, approaching, arriving.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhnnnnnnnng,” Kit luxuriated.
Her back surged up. Ivory droplets tickled back from her nipples. She breached like a whale, the ocean of release rolling over her, and then—
“Oh!”
She’d felt a distinct internal— ((pobb))
“Jesus Christ, Kit!” Mel stared in horror at the amniotic fluid gushing down the front of his legs. “I think your water broke!”
He choked on the words, not knowing if he should pull out of her or stand there like a pornographic version of the little Dutch boy. When that image came to Kit’s mind, her first impulse was to laugh, and Mel nervously joined her, but then he began to notice she couldn’t seem to pull any air back into her lungs.
“Kit?” Mel’s laughter dwindled. “Kit, what ... what are you doing...”
She tried to answer, but the contraction was on her, surrounding her, sudden and profound.
“Agh, geez!” Mel winced in reaction to the clench of her hands on his forearms. “No. No, you can’t do this right now, honey. Please, Kit, don’t do this! Kit! What should I do?”
“Don’t leave me!”
“Okay ... okay, I’m here.”
He stretched and groped for the phone on the wall, still holding her pelvis against his own. He tucked the receiver under his chin, punched in 911.
“Oh God ... oh my God ... come on come on come on! Yes! Yes, it is an emergency! Don’t put me on hold! I need—my wife—we need an ambulance. She’s having a baby, and she always has ‘em fast. Really fast!”
Kit groaned and gripped Mel with another contraction.
“Ah, God ... oh, geez ... No, it’s her third. Poplin. Dr. Jane Poplin. I’m not sure. I—I don’t know. Nine months, I guess. I think it was supposed to be next week, but her water broke and ... No, I can’t see anything, but—but I’m sort of—I’m not in—in position to—to... Well, yeah, she is laying down but... on the kitchen table and ... I AM CALM, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! Just tell me what I’m supposed to— Yeah? Okay. Right. Okay. Kit?”
“Oh, God!”
“Kit, honey? Whatever you do, don’t push, honey. Just relax. The paramedics will be here in just a few minutes.”
“Oh, God!”
“Just hang on, honey. You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be— Kit! Kit, don’t do that! Honey, she said not to push! Kit, stop it!”
She could have sooner stopped a freight train.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? She’s pushing! Yes, I told her! But she’s—”
“Mel...” Kit groaned and slapped her palms flat against the tabletop, “Don’t leave me, Mel. I need you.”
“I’m here. Kit. I’m right here.”
“Oh ... ooohhh! God ... God, help me. Ooooh Gaaaaaaaaaaahhhd!”
“Ma’am, please! For Christ’s sake, tell ‘em they have to hurry! She’s really—Oh ... oh, shit,” Mel’s urgent tone turned to cold horror. “I can feel it. I think it’s— Oh, Jesus God! IT’S COMING OUT!”
That was the last Kit heard.
The overwhelming force closed over her head and constricted around her body like a hungry boa, tensing, tightening, compressing. It swallowed her, squeezed her through a funneling rib cage of panic and pain, transporting her to a plane of agony inconceivable except to a woman in her time of travail. She strained her head back—screaming, expanding, spreading open to an impossible extent. On pure, biological instinct, she inhaled, clenched, and bore down with a power that companioned the overpowering contraction.
Kit ceased spinning on the axis of the earth. Mel, the house, and Houston all orbited out away from her, disappearing down into the blue surface of the distant planet. She transcended, alone, pedestaled on the towering kitchen table, splayed open on the Formica as the female forces of the universe gathered beneath her wings, benevolent, omnipotent, and raging with love.
She inhaled again and again bore down. Searing pain knifed through the astounding pressure, but Kit took hold of the energy that would have been her screaming and deflected it inward, downward, outward.
She surfaced for only a moment, struggling for enough breath to bear down once more. She held her knees to her chest and roared, sounding with orca, nova, Eve, and aboriginal woman. An indescribable rending tore into an even deeper agony, which transmuted to an eternity of unbearable bringing, then a slick, sliding moment of something almost akin to pleasure, followed by a rush of viscosity, and then, at last—by the grace of God our Mother who art in Heaven—relief. Respiration. Resolution.
Euphoria.
She fell back into the areola of the galaxy where nebulae swirled as blue as smoke over sky, past gold lamé clusters and sequin stars, through the silken underbelly of a thunderhead, and home.
Mel was there, whooping and crying, and there were sirens outside.
Kit opened her arms, and her daughter descended into them; slippery and singing and still tethered to her, graceful as the Gulf of Mexico, joyful as the day.
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Spinsters Ink publishes novels and nonfiction works that deal with significant issues in women’s lives from a feminist perspective: books that not only name these crucial issues, but—more important—encourage change and growth. We are committed to publishing works by women writing from the periphery: fat women, Jewish women, lesbians, old women, poor women, rural women, women examining classism, women of color, women with disabilities, women who are writing books that help make the best in our lives more possible.
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Joni Rodgers was born into a family of bluegrass/gospel music performers and grew up on stage, opening for Ernest Tubb, Grampa Jones, Patsy Montana, and other country legends. Her debut novel, Crazy for Trying, was a Fall 1996 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a finalist for the 1996 Discover Award. Ms. Rodgers lives in Houston, Texas.
Table of Contents
The First Trimester
The Second Trimester
The Third Trimester