Peel each piece of clothing off as if it was chainmail: heavy, protective. Look at yourself in the mirror and think about the person you were. Wonder who you are becoming.
Make the water hot, so you feel it, but not too hot. You are still trying to keep physical pain at bay. Step in and notice how the water’s spray feels on your skin. Feel a moment’s pleasure. Feel guilty.
Soap your hair with lavender shampoo. Hope it calms the column of despair between your womb and the hollow in your throat. Wash your swollen breasts gently. Wonder if they’ve realized they can stop making milk. Decide they have. Change your mind. Linger on the small curve of your stomach as you lather. Wonder why its stillness didn’t occur to you before.
Make a mental list of things to do: clip your six-year-old’s fingernails; clip your own; call your best friend. She doesn’t know yet. You are afraid to call her because the membrane is thin with her. But she will understand the mix of grief, anger, confusion, relief, and guilt. Feel grateful for your fortune in friends. Feel ashamed that you haven’t called yet.
Rub soap on your limbs. Hope you can rub away the film of fear, the dust of grief. Wash the shadowed spot between your legs. Soon someone will have to reach in and take death out. Consider the irony of being able to birth both life and death.
Remember, as a teenager, seeing the carved stone Sheela-na-Gig in the National Museum of Ireland. Recall your disgust at her ugliness, the rudeness of her gestures—open mouth to take in, open vagina to push out. Soak in the discomfort of unwanted understanding.
Flash back to yesterday, the 18-week ultrasound. Feel your husband and daughter huddled around the table, excitement and hope rising from your skin like steam. Six years since you were there before, giddy, with just your husband. Remember your living child saying, “I hope the baby doesn’t decide to die,” then your own twinge of intuition. Wonder whether telling her about the possibility was smart. Remember the screen, the absence of sound, movement. Remember the face of the technician, the doctor, the woman at the front desk. Let the moment of knowing wash over you. Lean your arm against the shower wall and allow yourself to weep.
Lather your face, while gravity pulls at you. Wash the tears away. Feel the words bubbling up in you, begging to be born. Wonder how it is that you can choose to pour words and not blood. Feel the burn of fear. Imagine the blood, red and hot, pouring into the water at your feet. Rinse the soap away and turn off the water.
Take a deep breath. Step out. Wrap yourself in numbness. Pump cocoa butter into your hands and spread it over your aching breasts and quiet belly. Wonder if your body will still bear the marks of pregnancy. Berate yourself for your vanity.
Pull on your clothes quickly, covering as much skin as you can. Know the sense of protection is a placebo. See yourself in the mirror and immediately look away. The reflection does not tell the story. Shake your head at the inadequacies of sight, of language.
Think about the dark and borderless space inside you. Absorb your lack of control. Feel the tears well again. This time, don’t let them spill. Instead, tell yourself you can replace sadness with anger. Tell yourself you are made of stone. Tell yourself you were made for this. Turn toward the world, taking in, pushing out.
Lauren Harr earned her M.F.A. from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and her writing has appeared in The Daily Lobo, 3Elements Review, and elsewhere. A former independent bookseller turned publishing professional, she lives in Western North Carolina with her husband and daughter.
Header photograph by Jen Ippensen
Header artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson
Vast 