THE ROOM IS SMALLER than the one she had both her boys in. Both of her boys were delivered in the same room at the same beautiful maternity ward in Manhattan. But although the room is small, it has a nice view and it’s clean. Sonia is happy. The nurse comes and checks her contractions again. They’ve slowed down, they’re now five minutes apart, but they’re getting deeper. She can really feel them, they pull at her, and she stops thinking about other things — about her boys, about her husband, about Phil Rush, the man, her old professor, she’s just come from visting — and just feels the pain.
The nurse says, “Your contractions have slowed down. Probably because you’re more relaxed now. You’ve been lying down for a while. It’s OK. Don’t worry. This baby’s coming today.”
Today? Today? God, she’s going to have a baby, she’s going to give birth, a fucking baby is going to come out of her, a person. Another goddamn person. She shudders. The nice nurse may know the baby is coming, and may tell this to Sonia, but Sonia doesn’t believe it, exactly. She is suddenly struck with the enormity of it all. The panic it causes her to think of it! So she just stops thinking about it. That pain that she’s feeling? She’d rather be in her pain, right now—live for the moment! — than think about what’s ahead.
Sonia gets up from her bed. She puts on a robe from a bag of mall clothing she’s acquired on this trip. A huge, gray maternity robe. She shoves her feet into the hospital slippers, flimsy, paper things, and decides to walk around the building a bit, to fend off her thoughts. In the hallway, at the nurse’s station, she asks Beatrice if they sell good slippers, fluffy slippers, at the gift shop.
“I’m not sure. You could take a look, though.”
Sonia walks toward the elevator. A contraction comes and she stops for a moment, puts her hand on her belly. Her stomach gets hard as a rock, it’s like a smooth, rounded stone, and Sonia stands there and feels it. It hurts nicely, purposefully, rightly. And then it’s gone. And she’s in the elevator.
The gift shop isn’t so bad. Really. Some T-shirts, some cheap jewelry. Coffee mugs. No slippers though. Sonia thinks of talking to the woman behind the desk about how slippers would be a good thing to carry in the hospital seeing as how the slippers the hospital gives you aren’t very nice. They barely stay on your feet. But as she smilingly walks toward the saleswoman the woman glares at her and Sonia decides against giving her any advice. She decides against striking up a conversation with this woman. This woman doesn’t want to talk to her.
And who does, really? Is that why she keeps having kids, so someone will want to talk to her? Someone had said to her once, people have kids so they don’t have to deal with making friends. You have kids and they have to be your friends, or, at the very least, your company, your human interaction, as they live with you and off of you for years and years. God, how she misses her boys. And Dick. Yes, and Dick.
BACK ON THE MATERNITY ward, Beatrice comes and checks her out. The nurse’s skin is a very dark brown and there is something creamy about her skin, something smooth and perfect. Sonia can tell she’s young. In her twenties. She gives Sonia her attention. She doesn’t seem hurried or angry or burned out. This is good luck, thinks Sonia, this means that everything is going to be OK. This nice, energetic nurse is a premonition, is grace from God. Everything is going to be OK! My boys, my marriage. This creature inside me. Sonia could have just as easily gotten a bitter, nasty, exhausted woman who hates her job. But no, Sonia was given this woman, whose nametag says Beatrice, this young, fresh-faced beautiful woman smiling at her this very moment. Whose hands are gentle and cool and very soft and smell lightly of Jergen’s lotion. Beatrice times her contractions and says, “Let’s get the doctor in here again. Your contractions are longer now.”
Dr. Lumiere comes in, with Beatrice behind her. Sonia is standing at the window right now, looking down to the streets ten floors below. The pain, when it comes, and now it is always coming, makes her face go slack, her mouth open. A bit of drool drops to the floor. Walking around, walking down to the gift shop, must have helped things along. “Come lie down for a minute, so we can check you again.”
Sonia obeys. Dr. Lumiere puts her fist inside Sonia again and concentrates.
“Do you have any kids, Dr. Lumiere?”
“Yes, one boy. He’s eleven now. It’s a lot of work.” She smiles, but it’s not Beatrice’s smile. “I was much older than you when I had him. I’d been a doctor for so long. It was a big change. I love him to pieces, but it’s a lot of work. It is. We have full-time help. Although he’s getting kind of old for that.”
“I wish I were a doctor. Or something. I wish I weren’t home as much as I am. I think I’d be happier.”
“You’ve gone another centimeter. Things are moving. I could really get things going by stripping your membranes.”
The thought of getting her membranes stripped, of getting her water broken, hurts. Her contractions hurt, but once the water’s gone, the pain hits directly on the pelvic bone, hard. Everything moves so fast then. It’ll all be over. “No, no, please don’t.” There’s fear in her voice. “It’ll hurt so much.”
“Why don’t you let me give you an epidural? There’s still time.”
“Just let it go naturally, if possible.” Sonia hears fear in her voice. Pleading. She doesn’t want a needle in her spine, even if it means she won’t feel a thing. She doesn’t want her water broken either, which is really silly, she knows, because it’s going to break any minute now anyway. She wants to be left alone, is what she wants.
“Well, you’re going to have this baby soon enough anyway,” the doctor says impatiently.
“I need to be alone for a minute.” Sonia asks quietly and they leave her and she goes to the window again. Oh, the pain. The contractions bear down on her now, the doctor’s fist having changed things again, having loosened things up down there, and her knees are weak with pain. Her mouth opens. Oh, Jesus, what is happening? Can this really be happening? And again, a big one, and Sonia falls to her knees now, holding on to the window sill. It’s going to happen. They’re right. And she’s alone, in fucking Philadelphia. But that’s OK. It’s how it should be. She doesn’t want him here anyway and she certainly doesn’t want her boys here. One friend of hers, Marisa, had her five-year-old daughter watch when she gave birth to her second child. She wanted to share the experience with her daughter. Sonia found that idea very confusing. Who would want to share this with a little girl? Or a little boy? Or with anyone, for that matter? Here, in a strange town, with complete strangers, this is the way Sonia always wanted to give birth. Yes, yes, it is a part of life. But it’s not a pretty part of life. She doesn’t take a shit in front of her kids or husband, either. And giving birth equals taking a shit, and then some. And then a lot more. And the pain, the transforming pain — who would want to show a little girl her own mother, mentally insane with pain? The blood, the pain, the shit. No, children may not be as innocent as the world wants them to be, but this, but birth, is for grown ups.
The first moan escapes. It’s a quiet one. She leans her head down on her belly, down between her knees. She’s squatting now and for some reason, this feels good for a moment. Squatting in a hospital room by herself, the sun barely visible through the window, the gray streets and sky of Philadelphia in February. And yet, it’s just this moment that she needs, a clear moment, a moment where the vise grip of her own body lets go, so she can think for a minute, everything is OK, everything is OK. I’m going to be OK. And then another contraction.
Sonia falls forward. She’s on her hands and knees now and she moans louder. She moans through the contraction. She gets up then, when it’s subsiding, not really over, but almost, and she throws herself on the hospital bed. She curls up in a fetal position for a moment. Then, it’s that time when she needs to be totally naked. She’s hot. Her body is like an oven. So the maternity robe lands on the ground. Her body is her enemy now. It’s hot, it’s huge, it’s doing weird things to itself. It’s not recognizable and it fucking hurts like hell. Now, now is when Sonia knows that there is a God and he doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love her because she, after all, is not a good person. Not a good mother, not a good wife, not a good daughter and not a good sister. And that is why the pain feels so right, because she deserves this pain. She deserves this message from God. And she feels blessed. She feels in communion with God, she feels he is letting her suffer, letting her burn in the hell that is her body, her burning body, and it all makes sense. Karma. What goes around, comes around. She deserves this pain. It is the pain she has caused to others, coming back to say hello.