“Almost there, sweetie,” the nurse said. “Just one more little push and we’ll be done.”
She said this the last time. And the time before that. Inside me, Freddie was twisting and turning and contorting into position.
It was hell.
And then it was over, the fiery torture behind me and forgotten. I was in the now, in a place where the only thing I knew was Freddie’s warm body on mine. I wondered at her size, how eight pounds of human could have grown in my belly, how there could possibly have been room for all this complicated biological material to thrive and live, how any part of me could possibly have opened a door wide enough to let her out into the world.
At the same time, she was tiny, miniature. I examined each long finger, yet to fatten with baby pudge, unable to fathom how anything could ever be so small and so helpless. So utterly dependent on me for survival.
An invisible hand reached out and tagged me while I lay in the delivery room. You’re it, El. And I was. I was the bringer of life and the protector of that life, the only thing an eight-pound newborn could depend on, the wielder of those thin marionette strings that had the power to lift my baby up or let her fall. I was everything, all-powerful and all-knowing. If my baby cried, I would soothe her. If she got sick, I would stay up all night and pour cough medicine into her. If she scraped a knee, I would kiss it and make it better. I’d done all of that with Anne, and I would do it all over again, helping her through colic and crushes on boys, making sure no one would ever do her harm.
To Malcolm, I was still me, still Elena Fischer Fairchild. There was no way to explain to him that I wasn’t, and that I hadn’t been since the day Anne was born. These babies of mine took something when they left me, thin slices of myself, leaving empty spots. Dead spots. I think I died a little when Anne was born, and I think I died a little more this time around.
With Freddie sleeping on my bare breast, I whispered to her.
“I’ll do anything for you, baby girl. That’s a promise.”
When she stirred and stared up at me with those big eyes, those eyes that would be the same size at three and at sixteen and at eighty, that would see all of her life through the same physical lens, I cried.
They say it’s postpartum depression. Or hormones. Or who knows what. But I knew then what the deal was—a simple matter of trading myself for my baby, should it ever come to that.
FIFTY-FOUR
When Martha Underwood marches toward me, I know I’m in trouble. Which means Freddie’s in trouble, and that can only mean I’ll die a little more. But Underwood’s voice surprises me this time.
“Dr. Fairchild, there’s a call for you. I’ve asked them to ring back so you can take it in my office.” She sighs. “And you can bring your daughter along.”
My first thought is that Malcolm has changed his mind, that he’s worked something out to keep his family together after all; my second is that Alex actually took some pity on me and made a call to Maryland. But then those two words on the state school letter from last weekend come back to me. Family emergency.
Oma.
We follow Underwood out of the dining hall and down the weedy path toward the administration building, Freddie’s hand small in my own.
“Are we going home?” she says. Her eyes are premeltdown wide.
I don’t think so, but all I say to her is, “Sh. Just hold on,” and I squeeze her hand in a steady rhythm to soothe her.
The rain has left a mosaic of puddles and muddy patches for us to dodge as we make our way through the grounds. Freddie trips on a ragged tree root, nearly falling flat on her face. A hand that isn’t mine reaches out and catches her by the upper arm. The ring I saw earlier