Remember

by Patricia Shanae Smith

  “Portia, I really need you think back to when you had Pypes,” she said.

  “I remember a little. I remember my dad not being there. I remember Susan yelling at doctors. I just don’t remember her…I remember everything up to it,” I said. I thought back to that day. I was scared. I didn’t want it to hurt. I kept thinking that.

  Did it hurt? I didn’t remember if it hurt.

  “It’s okay. With your past anxieties, this is completely normal. Post-partum depression is something a lot of women deal with,” she said.

  “So, let me get this straight. I did something to Ethan but I don’t remember what and now he’s hurt. And just like how I don’t remember what happened with Ethan, I can’t remember that I had a baby…”

  “Exactly, and there’s more. About the night of the play when your family died,” she explained.

  “No. No. No. I remember everything about that night like it was yesterday. Running back to my house, the letters, waiting for them. I remember everything. That was the worst night of my life—I could never forget it,” I said.

  That knock on my door.

  I almost didn’t answer it because I knew Dad and Mom had a key and I was in the middle of eating pizza.

  I remembered everything from that day.

  “Close your eyes.”

  I looked at her and she nodded in assurance.

  Whatever. I closed my eyes.

  “Susan is yelling at the doctors. Can you picture it?”

  I nodded.

  “How did it smell?”

  “I was sweaty. I just feel sweaty. I don’t know how it smelled.”

  “Good job, keep your eyes closed…”

  Two Years Ago

  I’d never been in so much pain in my life.

  “Deep breaths, baby. You’re going to be okay.” Ethan was squeezing my hand so tight. It was like he was in more pain than I was.

  “No, I’m not. I’m going to die. I am dying,” I cried.

  He laughed.

  The doctor wasn’t the one Susan had chosen to deliver my baby. I didn’t really care. My body was going to be in this much pain regardless of who was staring at my vagina.

  “How come none of the books talked about how excruciating this was going to be?”

  “Imagine if you were doing it without the epidural,” the doctor mumbled.

  Don’t fucking talk to me, just get this baby out of me.

  “Babe, look at me,” Ethan said.

  I looked at his face. Sweat was dripping from his forehead and his face was bright red. Are you fucking kidding me? I was the one going through this. Why did he look a mess?

  “Now look over to the other side, and imagine your mom and Piper holding your other hand.”

  I looked to my other side and lifted my hand up. I felt Mom’s soft hands that I rarely felt when she was alive. I only remembered feeling them when she would pull me somewhere I didn’t want to go. I imagined Piper sitting on the edge of the bed, commenting on every little thing. She would be looking underneath the sheet and telling me exactly what it looked like. No, she probably would be recording it.

  All I knew was that they weren’t really there. My dad wasn’t here either. He didn’t want to ever set foot in a hospital again no matter the circumstances, and I completely understood. I did want him here, though, and I missed him, but Ethan was doing a better job than I expected.

  “Two more big pushes and Pyper is here,” the doctor told me.

  One long push. I didn’t know if I was supposed to do that or take a breath between two.

  “You got this. Keep going. Just like that.” The more I pushed, the harder Ethan squeezed my hand. I looked at him and his sweating got worse.

  He was drenched. I was drenched.

  “Here she is…” the doctor said, and that was when I heard it—the screaming, the crying. I blacked out. That was the last thing I remembered. I didn’t hold her. I didn’t see her. I didn’t do any of that.

  I woke up a couple hours later in a hospital room in a lot of pain and annoyed. There was no one around and it was dark. I wanted to get up and get out of here. I wanted to see my dad. I wanted to go home. I didn’t know why I was in the hospital. I pressed all the buttons and unhooked my IV.

  What the fuck was going on? Where was all my stuff?

  Ethan came rushing in. “Portia?”

  “What the hell? Why am I here?” I asked him, struggling to get out of the bed.

  “Because you blacked out. How do you feel?” He shoved my wet hair out of my face and sat next to me on the bed.

  “I feel fine. What happened?” I backed away from him. Some nurses came in with a wheelchair.

  “I bet you’ve been wanting to see your little one,” one of the nurses said.

  What the fuck? What was she talking about? I looked at Ethan in horror.

  “Come on…I’ll roll you over,” he said.

  “Over where? I can walk…I think.” I got up but I felt strange, so I sat down in the wheelchair.

  “She’s beautiful, babe,” Ethan said.

  “Who?” I looked up as Ethan rolled me out the door.

  The nurses looked at him.

  “Pyper,” Ethan bent over and whispered to me.

  I dropped my legs on the floor and stopped the chair. I needed an explanation before I rolled anywhere.

  “Babe. What the hell is going on? Why are you showing me Piper’s body? She’s not even here anymore.”

  The nurses looked concerned.

  “Do you want me to get the doctor?” One of the nurses said as she looked at Ethan.

  “No…” Ethan lifted up my feet and rolled me super-fast to the corner where no one else was around. He got down on his knees in front of me.

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “No. Tell me. Did I get too drunk or something?”

  “Portia, you haven’t had a drink in nine months. You’re here because you just had our baby that you named Pyper with a fucking Y. What the hell is wrong with you?” I’d never seen him so angry.

  “Oh yeah…wait. I just had her.”

  I looked down at my stomach.

  I put my hand on my stomach.

  How did this happen? I instantly started to feel sore. I remembered being pregnant. But I didn’t remember delivering the baby at all. I didn’t even remember coming to the hospital.

  “Oh yeah?” he said sarcastically. I could understand why he would be so angry. This was supposed to be a special moment and I’d just completely blacked out.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Home? I want to see my dad.”

  “No, to see Pyper, our baby. And when we leave to go home, we’re taking this baby with us.”

  “Okay, stop it. Ethan, I’m not stupid, I’m just exhausted. I want to see her…” As Ethan was rolling me to the maternity ward, I looked around. I saw other mothers holding their babies in their wheelchairs. I couldn’t describe the feeling I felt, but it felt wrong. Pyper was not my first priority. I wasn’t upset that I couldn’t remember the delivery. I knew I should be. I knew I should be happier than I was. He stopped pushing me. I looked at him and he looked right. I turned and looked through the windows. I couldn’t really see. I struggled to stand up. Ethan grabbed my arm and my back to help.

  There were so many babies. Was I supposed to automatically know which one was ours? Ethan pointed and said, “Fourth row down…three babies in. That’s Pyper.”

  I counted.

  Holy shit, she was small.

  They were all small but Pyper looked like a doll.

  “Can we?” I looked up at Ethan. He glanced around the room.

  “I think so…I mean, why not? She’s our baby.” He walked into the room and spoke to a nurse. She walked us over. The nurse picked her up.

  I was scared. I didn’t want to drop her.

  I didn’t want to hold her too tightly or too lightly.

&n
bsp; Ethan grabbed her.

  “Be careful, babe,” I said.

  “She’s so soft,” Ethan said as he ran his finger down her cheek.

  I could have cried but I didn’t. I looked at Ethan. He was crying. It made me cry, too. My arms were shaking as I reached for her. Ethan never took his eyes off her as he placed her in my arms and I melted. I started bawling my eyes out. She had blue eyes just like Ethan. She had curly hair like mine and a really tiny face. I couldn’t stop looking at her. She was mine and Ethan’s—both of us put together. I saw more in her than I saw of my parents in me.

  She was so beautiful.

  “She looks just like us,” I sobbed.

  Ethan put his arm around my shoulder and rested his other hand on her head. “Make sure you hold her head up,” he said.

  “Okay…” I placed my hand under his hand.

  “Can you believe it?”

  “We have to. She’s here.” I heard someone knocking on the window. It was Grandma, Gary, and Susan. I waved for them to come in.

  “Only the parents are allowed,” the nurse who was watching the babies said.

  It was crazy. There were hundreds of babies in this room, but I could only look at little Pypes. We brought her up to the window. Susan was taking pictures of us through the glass. Grandma was crying. It was a beautiful moment, except we were missing my dad. I couldn’t wait for him to see Pyper.

  It took a couple days before we could bring her home. I could already tell Pypes loved car rides. I was in the passenger seat, but I couldn’t stop looking back at her. Her blinks were so slow. Her eyes wouldn’t fully open. She looked so comfortable. I didn’t want to move her.

  “Shh, try not to wake her…” I said as Ethan pulled into our driveway. He was just so excited to get Pyper home.

  Susan didn’t want to leave us. She was walking around the house making sure everything was baby-proofed.

  “There’s no beer and there’s no cigarettes. We’re good.” I was pretty sure those weren’t the only two things that meant a house was baby-proofed, but we wanted to be alone with Pypes.

  We took her to my room, where the crib was. We lay in bed with her in the middle. She didn’t really move much. The first thing I noticed was how much hair she had for being a few days old. I swear, as the minutes went by, her eyes got bigger and bigger. She had Ethan’s eyelashes. Long and full.

  “I’m going to get my dad real quick…okay?” I whispered.

  Ethan nodded while tickling her stomach.

  I knocked on my dad’s room door. “Daddy? Daddy?” Nothing. Strange. I was surprised he wasn’t at the door when we first came in. I opened it all the way and walked in. His room looked clean, well clean for him.

  “Dad?” I said as I stood there. He wasn’t there.

  Are you fucking kidding me? Where could he be? I looked everywhere.

  “Hey, babe? I have no idea where my dad is,” I called to Ethan as I ran down the stairs. There were no empty beer cans. I didn’t see a carton of cigarettes, so he could have easily gone to the store, but he would have told me if he’d gone out. Why would he leave the day I was going into labor? I called his cell phone. No answer, but he never answered his phone. Whatever. He’d be back. There just wasn’t anywhere he could have gone for long.

  I came back into the room to lie down on the bed next to them.

  “Hi, baby.” I said.

  “You find him?” Ethan asked.

  “No…I think he may have gone to the store. The house is cleared of booze and cigs, even in his room,” I said.

  “Weird,” he said, and stared at me. I was staring at Pypes but I could still feel his eyes on me. I looked up at him.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing, just watching you. I love this and I love you,” he said, smiling.

  “I love you too,” I said, and kissed him.

  She started crying.

  “And now it starts…”

  “We had a good five minutes,” Ethan joked while he picked her up.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “She’s either hungry, or we need to change her,” he said.

  “Or both…” I laughed, taking her from Ethan.

  “Maybe she just needs to be walked around,” I said. I put her on my chest and walked around the room.

  Pyper demanded our attention twenty-four seven. I had to breastfeed her every two hours, and when I wasn’t breastfeeding, I was pumping. There was always something to do. I was getting really overwhelmed. I wanted to walk outside. I wanted a break, but I’d only had her for a day—there was no break time.

  “Why won’t she go back to sleep?” I complained.

  “I don’t think babies know what sleep is at this age,” Ethan said. He put her in a rocking carriage someone got us at the baby shower. Thank God we’d had that shower. We were using each and every one of those gifts. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking of my father. I was getting stressed out that it was the middle of the night and he still hadn’t come home. I took advantage of not having Pyper in my hands to call him, but still no answer.

  “Babe, I really don’t know where he is. You think I should call my grandma or Susan?”

  “It’s three in the morning. Let’s wait until tomorrow,” he said.

  We kept passing Pyper back and forth.

  It was five in the morning when we were finally able to sleep. It was the best sleep of my life. I woke up and it was three the next day. I heard Pyper screaming her lungs out downstairs. I couldn’t believe I’d slept so long. I rushed downstairs. The kitchen was a mess. There were baby things everywhere.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up? I would have helped.” I grabbed Pyper from him.

  “You looked so pretty sleeping, and I know you really needed it. I mean, you just gave birth,” he said.

  “Come here, baby.” I cradled Pyper and looked into her beautiful blue eyes. I sat down on my dad’s chair, still thinking about him, but I had my own child in my hands. I couldn’t get my mind wrapped around that yet. I created this body that was in my hands. She was going to grow up into a person just like me—well, hopefully not just like me. I hoped she wouldn’t have to go through trauma like I had to. I hoped she just stayed this innocent and beautiful. I got teary-eyed looking at her.

  “I used the rest of the bottles you pumped.”

  I took off my shirt so she could breastfeed. I sighed, looking around the house.

  “What’s wrong?” Ethan sat next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder and kissing my forehead.

  “I just still can’t believe it,” I said. Ethan looked at her, too. “I really want my dad to see her. What if something happened to him?”

  “Why don’t you give your grandmother a call?”

  “Okay…pass me my phone.”

  Ethan went to go find it.

  “How’s my beautiful baby girl?” Grandma sounded so excited for me over the phone.

  “Me or Pyper?” I giggled.

  “Both, honey.”

  “Pyper is a beautiful mess. We’re tired but she’s worth every second of it.”

  “That’s so sweet. Well, you know, if you need any help or you need a break, I’m just a phone call away.”

  “Thanks, Grandma, but I was calling because I can’t find Dad. He never leaves the house, and the day he does leave the house is the same day I go into labor?”

  “Huh, interesting.”

  Huh, interesting?

  Really? Even Grandma should know this was fucking weird.

  “What did Ethan say?”

  “To call you.”

  “I don’t think you should worry about it. You have a newborn baby, Portia.”

  “Dad hasn’t even seen her yet. He was so excited for us and he’s just gone. I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  I was shocked. I knew Grandma and dad had their issues but this was sort of a big deal.r />
  “Grandma, we need to find Dad. Can you help?”

  “Sure.” She hung up.

  Okay. Well, that was weird.

  Then Pyper started crying again and I forgot about it.

  Present Day

  “How long was your dad missing?” Elizabeth asked.

  “A while. I don’t even think it was a full week. It was just a few days, but they were intense and scary,” I said.

  “What made it so scary?” she asked.

  “Just…I don’t know…I don’t want to talk about it. He came back and he’s fine. That’s the end of it.”

  “We do need to talk about it, though,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “What did they tell you?”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “What made you freak out?” she asked.

  “For some stupid reason, Grandma told me that he died. That he’d been dead.” I furrowed my brows and huffed. “But she never liked him. To her and a lot of people, he may as well have been dead. They think if someone isn’t going out and mowing the lawn every morning at eight a.m., they’re dead. He was just grieving. I was, too.”

  “Why would your grandmother tell you something like that if it wasn’t true?”

  “I lived with him for the past five years. He’s definitely not dead,” I said.

  “Did you live with him the last five years, Portia?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I rolled my eyes. This was getting ridiculous.

  “You’re almost there, Portia. I just need you to say it.”

  “I need to see my dad. Now.” She was now starting to scare me. I stood up and moved towards the door. Elizabeth stood in front of me.

  “Why do you need to see your dad so badly?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Please. Just let me see him. You let me see my daughter but you won’t let me see my father. Oh my God.” Something occurred to me. I hopped up and ran over to the window. “He’s in jail, isn’t he?”

  “Why would he be in jail, Portia? Sit back down.”

  “I don’t know, but I see what you’re doing, You’re trying to get me to say something that could be used in court against him. Whatever he did, he didn’t mean to. I know that sounds really childish, but I am not going to testify against my father no matter how fucked up my mind is right now.”