Something To Be Brave For

by Priscilla Bennett

  “Okay, thanks, Mom, I know all that. I’m trying, but—”

  “Try harder. It’s always up to the woman, you know.”

  “What? This isn’t the nineteenth century! Shouldn’t he try, too?”

  “I’m sure he does in his own way, but he’s so important and busy – like your father. Listen: I’m only telling you for your own good. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” she said as she took my hand in hers. “Hard work wins the day, and you’ll see that everything will work out for the best in the end.”

  The trifecta of clichés didn’t do anything to improve my mood, but still I wondered if she wasn’t right. I’d get some new makeup and buy some new pretty things to drape myself in.

  But nothing I did improved Claude’s mood. As I grew bigger, he seemed somehow less able to see me. I began to play the piano more often: little Bach two-part pieces that made me feel warm, and Chopin waltzes for all the romance that was now missing from my life, and Mozart sonatas for fun, as I waited for the lovable Claude to return to me. I retreated into the music I had known since childhood and dived more deeply into thoughts about the life growing inside me. I made notes daily in a baby diary, listing all the organic food I ate, the music I listened to, the baby’s amazing first flutters. I gazed at my naked body in the full-length mirror and urged myself to see only beauty in my rounded shape – the soft curves of flesh, the sweeping belly, and pigmented lines and circles as the small being inside me grew. Nothing was more important to me than my baby and love and family, in spite of Claude’s moods, which I convinced myself were temporary.

  I saw Gillian from time to time, but didn’t share my thoughts and concerns with her, knowing how protective of me she could be; and I just didn’t want criticism. I didn’t want her overreacting to a situation that I knew would change in its own time.

  “I’m so impressed,” Gillian said when she came over at the very end of my pregnancy, and I took her to see the nursery. “You’re really good at this, Katie. It’s just beautiful.”

  “I think I’ve gone into overdrive, getting everything ready,” I said. “They say it’s an actual thing, the nesting impulse, and that’s how you know the baby’s about to come.”

  “So you’ve got, what, a month to go?”

  “Supposedly three weeks, but who knows? My bladder holds a tablespoonful, and Dr. Palmer said the head has dropped—”

  “George Palmer? I know him.”

  “Yes, so we’re set. I keep asking him if I’m going to be able to have the baby naturally, and he says yes, not to worry, but I still worry constantly.”

  “Well, anyone would. But I’m sure it will all go well. He’s great, everyone says so. You and Claude must be taking childbirth classes?”

  “Well, no, we went to the first one together, but Claude fell asleep, so I’ve been going by myself. He works too hard; it was just one thing too many.”

  “That’s not ideal.” Gillian’s tone was hard. “He should be with you. I bet everyone else had someone there, right?”

  “Well, yes. But he thinks Lamaze is overrated.”

  Gillian’s eyebrows rose, and I hurried on: “I reminded him that Dr. Lamaze was French – appealing to his snobbery – but even that didn’t sway him. He believes in drugs, but I want to go without them if I can, and I think I can,” I babbled. “They have surrogates who fill in during the class if you need them, and at this point, I just want to have the baby.”

  I felt the tears coming and forced them back. I did not need to cry.

  “Claude can’t wait until I get back in shape,” I said. “He thinks I’ve gained too much weight, and maybe I have, but I can’t seem to stop eating. I’ve had such a craving for ice cream, it’s obscene. I’m always running off to Herrell’s for a Rocky Road with hot fudge.”

  “You are pregnant,” said Gillian. “What does he think you’re supposed to do? I hope he’s been loving and attentive to you. He should be catering to your every whim.”

  “He’s had a lot on his mind,” I said, remembering the “joke” mooing. “The idea of the baby makes him nervous. New-father jitters, I guess. And other things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, this may be a little more personal than you want, but ever since I started showing, he hasn’t, you know, touched me. He says he’s afraid making love will hurt the baby.”

  Gillian frowned. “I don’t think you can hurt the baby that way,” she said, “unless you do something really unusual. A friend of mine told me the best sex she ever had was when she was pregnant. I hope Claude doesn’t have a Madonna–whore complex.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s where you’re looked at chastely as a pure, untouchable woman, or with desire, as a slut. It’s a confused-male thing, a conflict, when a man wants either an untouchable mother or a sex object, and conflates the two.”

  She must have noticed my expression because she laughed and said, “I’m not being serious. I mean, yeah, it’s a real thing, but I don’t imagine it’s Claude’s problem. I’m sure it isn’t.”

  “Oh, God, I hope not. The last thing I want to be is a mother figure to Claude,” I said. “But sex object – okay!”

  We both laughed. Then Gillian glanced toward the doorway and her eyes widened. Claude was standing there.

  “Good afternoon, ladies. I hope I’m not intruding.”

  I had no idea what he’d heard, and my face grew hot at the thought that he’d listened to what we’d just been talking about. Had he sneaked in?

  “You’re home early,” I said in a calm voice. “I’m just showing Gillian the nursery.”

  “Boy, do you have a talented wife,” Gillian said.

  Claude just stared at her.

  “Yeah,” she went on, “the Peter Rabbit pillow is my favorite. And that patchwork quilt and bassinet skirt. I didn’t know you could sew, Katie. You are a woman of many hidden talents.”

  “Indeed,” Claude said.

  “Oh – the baby just kicked!” I said. I looked at their surprised faces. “Here, give me your hands,” I said, and I raised my blouse and exposed my stomach.

  Gillian reached out and placed her hand on my stomach. “How incredible!” she said. “Wow! Claude, don’t you want to feel it?”

  Claude shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “I’ve got some work to finish.” He retreated quickly from the room, scowling.

  “What’s the matter with him? He’s acting like his hormones have gone bonkers,” Gillian said quietly as she turned the Pooh Bear mobile around.

  “Whatever it is, it will pass,” I said lightly.

  Later that evening, as I lay in bed with Claude, waiting for sleep to pull me under, as it did every night after a long and exhausting day of being full to bursting and uncomfortable in a dozen ways, he said, “Why were you so surprised that I came home early? You might have given that little bitch Gillian the wrong impression.”

  “Claude, what a thing to say! She is not a bitch. And I wasn’t really surprised, but you’ve been staying out later and later. Last night you didn’t come home until midnight.”

  I felt cross, I didn’t like his name-calling, and I didn’t want to talk.

  “You overreact to everything,” he said. “I told you it was business. What do you want me to do, cut off my hands?”

  “Of course not. But please, let’s not talk about this now. I’m so tired.” I closed my eyes and leaned my head against him.

  “The problem is, I don’t get any respect around here.”

  “Claude, that’s not true.”

  Instantly I regretted saying it. I was learning that sometimes Claude couldn’t take the truth unless it was of his own making.

  There was an icy silence. Then:

  “I’ve had enough of you and your inconsiderate ways. You better start thinking about how good you have it, because it could all change in an instant.”

  “What? Please, Claude, I don’t understand.”

  “Well, understan
d this,” he said. “It’s a little game called Roll the Log Over.” And with a single sharp thrust of his legs, he kicked me out of the bed.

  I landed on my side on the carpet, my head and hip smacking the sisal, but I scarcely registered the shock; all I thought about was the baby. I cried out as fearful thoughts flooded through me: He’s harmed my baby! What if I gave birth right here and now, I could hemorrhage, bleed to death, the baby could die!

  Somehow I pulled myself up and made my way down the hall into the baby’s room, where I collapsed into the white rocker. My hands cupped my belly, and I tried to take stock. Nothing felt different – and there: I just felt a little flutter. Maybe everything was okay.

  I desperately needed to talk to my mother, but what could I say? “When you were pregnant, did Dad get beastly around you, kicking you to the floor, for example?”

  And then I remembered my mother saying that she had had several miscarriages.

  Maybe there was a reason for that.

  Then I felt another one. It was stronger than the last one, and I relaxed, so relieved. And then came the anger and the shame. Anger at what he had done, and shame because I had said the wrong thing, I had misread him again, and if I had been smarter, this never would have happened. But I could hardly remember what, exactly, he had found so offensive. What had I said? That I didn’t want to talk? That I was tired?

  The fearful thoughts began to cascade down. What had we become? We were no longer the perfect young couple, the eminent surgeon and his elegant young wife who were about to metamorphose into the perfect family. I shuddered, remembering his feet on my lower back, and the hate in his voice.

  I pushed the thought away. No. Tomorrow would be different. I’d be better and I’d make it all better. My focus needed to be on the health and safety of my baby. Our baby.

  *

  Later Claude came into the nursery, and in the dim glow of the room with its baby lamb night light he knelt down by the rocking chair, where I sat slumped and stunned and still unsure of what to do or even think.

  “Darling, I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Please forgive me.” He took my hands gently in his. “I would never hurt you. You’re my life! I can’t live without you. I love you so, my little Katie.”

  There were tears in his eyes, and he trembled as he spoke.

  “You did hurt me, Claude. And you could have hurt our baby.”

  “I’ve just been so pressured with work – it’s all too much.”

  “I’m sick of hearing about your work! This isn’t about your work, Claude. You’re a doctor. Didn’t you even think about what could have happened tonight?”

  “I’ll make it up to you, I will,” he said. “I want you, I want the baby, I want our family. Sometimes I just get afraid that something will happen to you, to us – that you’ll stop loving me, and things will never be the same. I go crazy at the thought.”

  His tears were so infrequent that whenever I saw them I was moved. The fresh memory of being kicked was superseded by an image of Claude alone and vulnerable. In spite of my anger and confusion I saw him as a boy, afraid, and as a young man, learning that his parents had been killed. “Oh,” I said, stroking his head, “Claude – sweetheart, I was just so afraid you didn’t love me anymore. I’m so fat and swollen.”

  “No, no, you’re as beautiful as always! I love you more than ever.” He kissed me and pulled me up out of the rocker. As soon as he did, I winced and grabbed my back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I glanced up at him. Was he kidding?

  “What do you think? – no, no, I can walk.” But as I headed toward the kitchen I felt a strong pressure in my back, a glaring pain, which then passed. Then it returned. I was once again frightened that my fall had injured the baby. The pain rhythmically ground through me, and though I knew it might only be more of the so-called Braxton-Hicks contractions, the benign spasms that I’d experienced earlier in the pregnancy, it could also be labor. Back labor – a particularly fierce and painful way to go.

  “Maybe we could try my mother’s remedy for false labor,” I said, gasping as I doubled over and clutched the kitchen table for support.

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “You drink a martini and eat some food, and if it’s false – oh, God, that really hurts – it will stop.”

  “All we have is rum.” Claude quickly got a glass, and I swallowed a slug of rum, wincing at the burn.

  “Anything change?” he asked anxiously.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay, food next,” he said, and he poured me a big bowl of granola. I ate as much of it as I could, but no luck. The pain tore through my back every five minutes, and once I bit down so hard on the spoon that I felt I might crack a tooth. I let the spoon drop into the bowl.

  “Claude, we have to go. Now.”

  I got on the phone to Dr. Palmer and Claude ran for my bag, and in minutes we were out the door with Claude driving fast to the hospital while I lay curled in the back seat, moaning, feeling every bump in the road and wondering how I would make it there without dying from the pain.

  We made it, and then things started to move faster.

  “You’re seven centimeters dilated, and nine is it.” Dr. Palmer quickly broke my waters, soaking my thighs in warm liquid. “You’re doing just fine,” he said in a calm voice. “It’ll be over soon. You’re in hard labor now.”

  “Dr. Palmer,” I gasped, “is there any reason to think – I mean, if a woman experienced a sharp blow—”

  “Katie slipped and took a little tumble getting out of bed, and she’s afraid that maybe that might have harmed the baby,” Claude said.

  “Oh? Everything seems fine,” said Dr. Palmer. “There’s no fetal distress.” He checked the monitor again. “Yes, a woman’s balance at the end of pregnancy can be a little bit off.”

  I didn’t say another word. The two medical men nodded to each other while I lay in agony: the stunning pain of the contraction, then the relief, then the dreadful wait for the next one.

  “Push harder,” Dr. Palmer said.

  I grabbed the stainless steel rails on either side of the bed and pushed, the smooth steel bar slipping under my sweating hands. The waves of pain kept coming; in time, the waves became assaults that I could no longer fight, and the excitement of finding out who was inside me had become a desperate, single-minded desire to end this whole thing. “Just do something!” I cried. Dr. Palmer went about his business calmly. “Give me something for the pain!” I yelled. “Please!”

  “If you hadn’t had that rum and cereal, I could put you under,” he said distractedly. He was looking at the monitor.

  “Baby is in distress,” he said in a sharper tone. “Nurse, prep her for a C-section. We’ve got very little time.”

  The nurses got me onto a gurney and raced down the hall as they shouted to clear the way. The breeze cooled my face and froze my matted hair onto the back of my neck. I heard the smooth swish of the rubber gurney wheels on the tiles, and people were sweeping through my peripheral vision as if nothing were happening and maybe it’s already too late, maybe your baby’s dead inside you, like that dead sparrow that fell into your lap. It was an omen, and now nothing is okay. First the sparrow, and then being knocked out of bed, or did you slip? Or perhaps you had a little tumble…

  I felt myself being lifted into the air under glaring white lights, and then laid out on a table. Two nurses turned me on my side, and the masked anesthesiologist crouched down and said, “Katie, because you had food, we need you awake during the procedure. I’m going to give you a spinal anesthetic. You will feel it – it is not pleasant, but it will not be as bad as you think, and the anesthetic will take effect very quickly. You’ll be awake during your baby’s delivery.”

  A nurse gave me her hand, and I gripped it as the needle sank in. After a moment I was rolled on my back, and a nurse rapidly painted my belly brown with antiseptic. Another nurse arranged a kind of tent of sheets on my chest – I would
n’t be able to see them slice me open like a melon. I felt nothing below my waist, but I was aware that the operation had begun as I felt the ghost movements of my body being arranged. “Scalpel, please,” I heard the doctor say. I heard the instrument slap into his gloved hand. The nurse whose hand I’d held stayed beside me, and once again I gripped her hand; on the other side, the anesthesiologist hovered, watching me and watching the operation. I scanned the room from my limited vantage point, looking for Claude, but there was no sign of him. I was on my own here.

  And then, unbelievably, it was over. I heard the baby cry – an astonishing sound that cut through the measured voices and the hum of machines and, then, the doctor was holding the baby up for me to see and saying, “Here is your baby girl, Mrs. Giraud,” and I couldn’t believe it. And to my astonishment it seemed as if no one else could either – everyone in the room began to talk excitedly even as they went about their jobs. They must have done this a thousand times, and yet all our hearts were crying out, greeting this new life, this tiny, red crying life. I reached out my arms, and he brought the baby around and laid her on my chest, and I held her to me and began to laugh and cry, and my hand-holding nurse wiped my forehead and said, “We’ll need to clean her up and weigh her now. I’ll have her back in just a minute,” and took the baby away. And then she brought her back.

  *

  I opened my eyes and a nurse with a bland, pie-face said, “Would you like me to bring in your daughter?”

  “Yes, yes,” I murmured, and drifted away.

  When I opened my eyes again, this nice lady handed me my very own baby and I could’ve kissed them both. I cradled her against me – so tiny! – feeling her warmth, our warmth together. I pulled open the tightly-wrapped blanket that swaddled her to see if there were any signs of my fall. Her head was large and round and covered with a mass of dark hair. No damage. I examined her perfect face, her arms, legs, and solid little trunk. No marks. The moons of her tiny fingernails were perfectly formed. Fingers like mine (I imagined) that suddenly locked onto my finger. “Strong grip. You’re a real little fighter,” I said. The baby sucked in air through tiny rosebud lips, as if she agreed. “You look like a rose to me – beautiful and strong – my rosy baby, my Christmas baby,” I said to her.