One Day
September 11, 2004By Sarazann Greenwood
She stopped. Hands clenched on the guardrail, her brain swelled with fear, a cold sweat. Is it happening? She thought, looking for answers to the pain curling her insides. Her eyes boiled up with tears, teeth jammed shut, no, this couldn’t be happening. Everything was normal. They said everything was normal! Wet? Am I bleeding? I can’t, they said everything was going to be okay! A shaky palm slides from the guardrail down her stomach, between her thighs, blood. Blood, blood everywhere. It’s not happening. She looked pleadingly at him, hands soaked in her own blood. What do I do, she thought not able to speak. Shock rolled across his face, he didn’t have an answer. She ran holding tight to the railing for support, Ansel Addams photos blankly staring at her as she passed. She never knew how much she hated Ansel Addams. Where’s the bathroom? Where's a fucking bathroom! Left? Right? Downstairs? In the gift shop?, eyes searching for someplace to deal with this. Someplace to wash the blood, someplace not here, anything but here in her body right now. She slammed open the door, the plastic triangle woman laughing at her. On a toilet, walls painted in an institution yellow, pastel puke green tile lined the floors, her pasty white legs laid out before her. Dripping in smeared dark red blood, her baby’s blood tricking into the cold water. My baby, my only baby, no, this can’t be happening.
She met him three months ago, and fell in love three days later, though she told herself different. She thought love was something she could never have and there he was, one day at work, buying a coke from her and smiling his crooked smile. I forgot what I was going to say, he said. Could I have your number, he said. She smiled, he smiled and it was perfect. She never took her eyes off him. She’ll wake up one morning to his face and smile and never know why until today. He was her soul mate, while sitting in a museum bathroom, blood soaked jeans crumpled over her favorite sneakers, desperately scrubbing blood from her knee, that’s what she thought, her soul mate. The man I was made for, the man whose child grew inside me, the man that paces the hallway right now, has lost his baby. And this was a celebration?
“Put your feet in the stirrups, please.” She scooted her naked backside to the end of the table preparing for the seventh stranger to look at her vagina. The pudgy little nurse pulled a dildo from a sheath and put a condom on it. It looked like a dildo, but something about the massive machine it was attached to let her know this wasn’t a pleasure visit. “We have to take the vaginal ultrasound because you are not far enough along.” The nurse squirted lube all over the dildo instrument and smiled. “There will be some pressure.” She laid her head back tired and stressed out from the eleven-hour ER visit last night, and there it was. On a TV the size of a coffee table hanging above her was her baby. A tiny little circle set neatly in her womb, it was really there, she was going to have a wonderful precious baby, his baby. She looked at him, his bright blue eyes shining with pride, they squeezed their hands tight, fingers locked together in triumph. The large round doctor waddled into the room and plopped into the chair. “This pregnancy is perfectly normal, nothing to worry about, the light bleeding is normal for some women.” Normal? Bleeding was normal? Don’t worry yourself she thought, the doctor said it looks fine and it’s going to be fine. She convinced herself. They floated out on a cloud. Everything they had feared for the past twenty-four hours was wrong. He was elated and wanted to celebrate, so they made their way across the street to her favorite place. The museum.
Ten whole minutes of true unadulterated bouncing joy coursed through her veins. People rarely feel this way in life and she was going to make sure she remembered every last second of it. Everything she had ever wished for had come true. For a moment everything was perfect, one tiny moment. She splashed water on her face. Why didn’t these bathrooms ever have hot water? Was it too much to ask to have hot water in a damn bathroom? The fluorescent light buzzed and flashed above her. She knew she was having a miscarriage, she knew she would have to run to the emergency room once again, she knew that joy had passed. She lied to herself, standing there in front of the mirror, faced washed white from blood loss, staring into her own grey eyes she told herself this had to be normal. Everything was fine. Her fingernails gummed up with dried blood, her jeans stained and oozing more blood, tiny speckles of blood splattered on the floor, the blood trailed itself down her thigh soaking her socks and pooling inside her shoes. So much blood, her baby’s blood. She looked again into the mirror trying to find some miracle waiting for her there then she choked. She couldn’t breathe, she gasped, tears streamed down her face, eyes puffy and red, was she going to die? This is going to kill me she thought. And for that brief second she didn’t care, so what if it did. She wouldn’t mind at all getting to move on from this place, anything to not have to tell him. Anything to not have to face the fact that she was no longer a mother. She gathered her courage, she had forgotten any was left, and marched out of the door determined that the doctors would make everything better. She lied.
A short drive, a cell phone call and one long walk lay ahead of her. He dropped her off at the door, so she could get to the office as fast as possible. She stepped inside the huge revolving doors; the cool air hit her like a rock. Am I still standing she thought? Yes, I have to make it upstairs; the doctor is going to fix this. So many people passing left and right, no one noticed the blood pouring from her as she left tiny spots of it on the floor. She couldn’t believe anything could hurt this much and bleed this much and not kill her. She was still standing by sheer force of will, that this was going to be okay. Hallway, lounge, pharmacy, and elevators, more hallways, more people not noticing her gushing wound. She was self-conscious all of a sudden; please don’t ask what is wrong with me, her eyes averted from the kind old lady, curiosity creeping onto her wrinkled face. She heaved the door open, was it supposed to be this heavy, her head swam and her eyes burned. She no longer tried to control the tears; somehow it helped ease the pain. Finally she was here, the doctor will make it better. “What’s happening?” she said. “I’m sorry there is nothing we can do” the doctor said. The words seemed to pour out of his mouth like molasses. She cried. She frantically searched the room for an answer. Her blood smeared the floor, the table, the white sheet that covered her, her hands drenched in her dying baby’s blood, and still there was nothing to do but let this infant expel itself from her body.
Where is he? Does he know? Do I have to be the one to break his heart? She wanted to scream, she wanted to run away, she wanted to smash the doctor’s face in with his huge silver lamp, she wanted to rend flesh, she wanted someone to feel as bad as she felt right now, she wanted someone to understand. Where is he? The doctors and nurses filed out of the room, she was now alone. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t speak, she needed help and there he was. Tears already flooded his eyes as the door opened; the fat nurse blocked her from jumping into his arms. Why can’t we just leave? I just want to go home. Her heart sank into a deep pit. She no longer felt the pain, all she could think about was going home to his arms and kind smile. Just going home to try to understand this with the man she loved. She wanted to scream at the doctor to shut up.
His arms held her tight now, his heart beating fast in her ear. She was rescued from this crime scene. His strong hands pulled her away from the doctors, away from the hospital and then glided her home. She repeated those words in her head, nothing we can do, nothing. No one could save my baby. All her fears were true, the tiny life was gone. That grand purpose to her life floated away with her tears. She cried herself to sleep that night and woke up the next morning no longer a mother. As she turned to look into his sleeping face she realized everything was still, perfect.
