Part 1: The Deer
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the trees leaning over me. They were tucking me in under a blanket of stars and whispering soft lullabies through their rustling leaves. There was a peace resting on me despite not knowing how I had come to lie in the dewy grass.
Just on the periphery of my hearing, there was a faint mewling only broken by staccato thumps and wet snorts. As I sat up to look over my stomach, I could see the source of the noise at the edge of the clearing. It was a doe lying on its side, writhing in pain, clouds of dust rising from its flailing limbs.
I saw what was interrupting its pained moans as she suddenly lifted her head, stretching her neck until I was certain she would strain the muscles. She slammed it down with earth-shaking force upon the rock just below her head. I could see the bulge in her eyes as the impact forced broken teeth from her bleating maw.
I tried to look away, but couldn’t get my eyes far enough away from the doe to avoid the source of her suffering. Her belly bulged as waves of flesh stretched, leaving lightning bolts of raw pink flesh that ripped through the soft white fur. The doe’s cries were back, its stomach distending with renewed fever.
I was peering through misty eyes at the suffering of this gentle creature. As she raised her head again, she looked up as if praying to a God she could never know. Her head reached as far as her neck would allow, the striations in the muscles apparent through the skin for just a second before she swung her head down. Her skull hit the rock with a sharp crack. A trickling of blood ran like a teardrop from the eye that faced heaven.
An oppressive silence sat in the air before her stomach began to move frantically again. The stretchmark lines that had formed before were now pressed outward until blood began to run out of the fissured skin. I tried to move, but my body betrayed me. I was rooted watching as the deer’s stomach finally ruptured, opening to a bloody hollow.
The noise that came from within was unmistakable. It was a desperate gulp of air followed by the tell-tale cry of new life. I cried then, or maybe I had been crying all along. I found my sobs were strangled as the instrument of the mother deer’s destruction reached out from the void. The chubby pale appendage found its way to the ground shakily, each of its five fingers splayed out and grouping for stability. As the crying got louder, the head finally crowned and pressed out of the unnatural birth canal.
The infant crawled towards me. My body shook, and I couldn’t breathe. Time stood still as it closed the gap between us. I closed my eyes as I felt the hem of my dress lift, and pressure began to take hold. Mercifully, I opened my eyes not to the voyeuristic stars but to the ceiling of my bedroom.
The dreams have gotten worse since Eric died. In our weekly sessions, Dr. Gattis assures me that vivid nightmares are common in grief and pregnancy. When she asks about them, I shade myself from her sun line gaze, only telling her about my daytime anxieties. That I am not fit to raise my boy alone. That something may happen to us. That when there’s no movement inside of me, it truly feels as though my baby has left me. The hollowed absence more palpable in my heart than my belly.
She tells me this, too, is normal. Reminding me of the generations of women who have endured the divinely gifted pain of this little miracle. I thank her for her time and care, holding my breath when she asks if I’m really okay. Only exhaling when the silence is filled with one-sided plans to talk again next week.
I do not leave our home anymore. The mountains have gathered around us like family providing all we could need in a sunrise baby shower. Sprinkling gifts of herbs and blessing the hens with health. They whisper encouragement on the wind with the dust from which all life was made, and the dust to which we will return.
Mom calls me every day. The maternal need to relate to me as she remembers the past privilege of motherhood. One she took for granted. A fact she ignores, along with the ashes of our rickety connection. Still, the olive branch must be offered even if no rainbow comes after.
She shares her horrors with me. Nightmares of her inadequacy, of death stealing my breath, she slept, of gravity’s truth proving stronger than her sleep-deprived arms. I give her solace by admitting that I have the same fears all the time, and that I’ve been having bad dreams lately.
I just don’t admit that in those dreams, the black maw of the well gazes up at me as I hold my child like a prayer. Its skin matches the pallor of the moon. The purple umbilical scarf shining wet in the night. The levy of my arms breaking, leaving the last feeling of the motherly connection, is the tug as my placenta is ripped from me. The only sound the child ever made being the distant crash as the darkness devours its meal.
Mom asks about Eric’s family the way the wind whistles, unable to carry the tune of compassion. The toxicity of my reply seeps through the phone line. Those relationships long rotted away in sunless corners of a ghost’s memories.
She asks me if I’m really okay, and I manage to lie without gritting my teeth. My mind taking pity on my heart as it focused on my current reason for existing rather than the one that had just left me. When she offers to visit the air bolsters my opposing poise. Our call ends, the goodbyes exchanged miles away, my attention stolen by a fox snooping around the hen house.
I talk to Eric all the time. The breeze carries my words like birdsong through the open nursery window so that the smell won’t be overpowering as I paint murals of thickets, trees, and thrushes. My arms tired as joy finds me inviting memories in like old friends.
My bed calls to me over the screaming of tired feet. I tell Eric just how badly they swell. Sharing also how my belly itches as zig-zag lines of pink raw flesh are pulled to give space to our child. Smiling, I leave the window open, letting the soft air blow tears off my face as I tell him that he will never need my forgiveness.
I find pleasure in how well I’ve prepared this room. The stars smile down on me with timeless wisdom, assuring me that this room has everything my baby will ever need. I pucker my lips and leave a wet kiss, a promised sigil of protection, on what the baby will need most. The warm feelings of love are much stronger than the cold my lips leech from Eric’s forehead.
submitted by /u/Educational_Try_9217
[link] [comments]