I.

I am awash in my mother’s blood, which first cradled me in its warmth but has grown cold. My mother held me tight, the cord connecting us, sweat, tears, and vernix slick on our bodies. Her love was feral, primal, distilled in its essence: life. This emotion was new; I’d spent the last nine months growing in her indifference.

“I didn’t know,” she said, repeatedly. She wet a finger to unseal my eyelids. My first sight was her luminous eyes and her hair matted on her forehead. She smelled both musky and sweet. Though separated from her body I was attached to her in a new way. She laughed, then kissed me all over, my cheeks, my nose, my chin. The salt from her tears lingers on my lips.

The knowledge that, despite her shock, she cherished me more than anything roots.

II.

Jagged, searing pain rips through my abdomen and pelvis. This isn’t premenstrual cramping. It can’t be my appendix—my friend whose appendix burst said the pain was on her side. This pain ratchets my whole core. Can one’s stomach or intestines burst? I pull down my pants in a desperate attempt to give my belly latitude. The band of my underwear binds; I manage to kick those off too.

I hope my mother is on her way. She said gas can cause terrible cramps and told me to take Tums. I wish I hadn’t left my phone downstairs.

Another wave of pain hits. Stars populate my vision. I fall to my hands and knees, keening. I’m going to die and never see my mom or sister again. Nonsensically I search my mind for the last person who saw me alive. Angela at work, with her unwashed hair and silent cups of tea.

The vise loosens and I sink back on my knees in a shallow Child’s pose. I breathe, my heart slows its knocking. Maybe this is over, maybe the Tums took effect. I almost laugh at my torrent of thought—an exploding stomach!

I must be losing my mind.

I’m punched in the gut and gripped by a giant’s hand. I find myself at the foot of the bed on my back. Someone’s jammed a knife in my lower spine and pressure pounds my pelvis. I’ll explode, my vagina will split to my rectum. I moan, deep and animal. The sound triggers a dawning beneath the scrim of pain. Carlos. The two furtive, lust-filled encounters. I’d gotten my period, once, but now I understand with blinding clarity why it didn’t come again.

The giant squeezes. I grip the back of my thighs, grunting. Pushing.

III.

My daughter lies in a sea of red, arms splayed in submission, one leg unnaturally bent. Beside her an infant, dark and wrinkled, paddles, a kitten making tiny mewling noises.

IV.

I heard that the girl I was with a couple of times is dead. Crazy, they say she had a baby in a pool of blood. I overheard Manny and Joe talking about her—”the big girl, the one with the massive tits and full ass”—and my breath hitched. They were at the other end of the room sorting through boxes, so I tilted my head just so, creating a sound funnel to capture their words. “The baby was born with lots of dark hair,” Joe said. Then he and Manny swiveled to look at me.

Sophia was pretty and soft and had a light about her. Have you ever noticed how some people have an energy you can’t tear your attention from? When she was around the air fizzed with electricity and made the hairs on my arms stand up.

She was big, heavier and curvier than other girls. For awhile I told myself it didn’t matter; I was going to ask her out, properly, but time eased away on a current until I no longer recognized the smudge way down-river as my intention.

But the baby. The baby and his lush dark hair. What do I do?

About the author:

Part of our Winter 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through February 2025.

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