getting situated where there’s room and it’s probably likely that you’re the only one in active labor. The rest are pregnant but it would be a real strange thing if you all were pushing babies out on the same day, wouldn’t it?”
“He made us drink wine or something to make the babies come out.”
“When did you last drink it?” she said. Her face retained a cool calm which I was thankful for.
“A while ago. Hours.”
She asked if I’d vomited. Yes. If I’d resisted the drink. Yes, but was only partly successful. What did it taste like? My mother. Rotten grapes. Blood.
“I’m fifteen. The baby is mine and I’ll raise her. Write that down. No one can take her.”
“Well, you’re right. It’s your choice.”
“It is?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
Another contraction, tightening, flames down my thighs, wrapping around my back. I screamed long and loud in her ear but she didn’t pull away.
We finally arrived at the maternity ward and she typed something into a keypad and the door opened. That door and its safeness filled me with joy. I didn’t know I could love a place in this way. I wanted to melt into the walls.
Pam took me to a room and I remembered I didn’t have any of the little socks or the baby balm or the moon phases blanket. It was all at Cherry’s, my precious little things, the only things that made me a real mother.
There was a huge tub in the bathroom and long windows looking out on the town, palm trees in rows and little square houses, 7-Elevens and delis. The morning in Fresno was as still and hot as in Peaches and I could see the waves of heat rising off asphalt.
Pam helped me into the tub, guiding me so my IV didn’t get wet. “Can I cut this off?” she said. My gown. I let her.
Then the water. The sweet water. Nothing had ever been so luxurious. The bubbles surrounded me and I laughed. It surprised me even, to be laughing, but this tub—if nothing else, I would always remember this tub and find joy. A contraction took me over and I let out a moan, long and deep.
“That’s it,” Pam said, massaging my shoulders. She wiped my back with a washcloth. It only occurred to me later that she was cleaning me. I was filthy and had been for a long time. “You’re a strong one, I can tell.”
We stayed like that, the contractions coming a little faster then, about three minutes apart, I was told. In moments between them, she told me stories. First of her daughter and how she was almost five. How no one thought she would amount to anything when she got pregnant but her daughter made her want to be better. She wanted to inspire her. And her daughter had just got the highest grade in her class on her math test. So it was working.
I turned and held Pam’s forearms and braced. The pain was suddenly not like the pain before it. This new pain bucked from the deepest part of my insides, ragged and mean. I could feel that it would adhere to no law. I did not know why this design was so violent. Why each woman had to be ripped apart to bring forth another.
“I can’t do this,” I said.
“Let me tell you about Saint Agnes,” she said and looked out the window, beyond. “This hospital is named after the patron saint of girls just like you. Girls who have been through it. Survivors. Saint Agnes was desired by so many men, and she wouldn’t have them, so they turned her in as a follower of Christ. Her punishment was to be dragged naked through the streets to a brothel. But any man who tried to rape her was struck blind. She prayed and prayed and hair covered her body.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, in the end it’s no surprise that they finally found a way to put her out. But she fought. And now she lives on as a protector of young girls like you, Lacey. Her bones are still somewhere, I think. I’m not too religious myself but I do like to pray in the chapel here.”
“I didn’t fight like Saint Agnes,” I said as another contraction speared me, harder than the last. I bore into Pam’s shoulder and she held me, her pink smock wet in a map of my screams. I saw my mother then, cradling the Turquoise Cowboy’s head.