We Rip the World Apart

Evelyn Toronto

Evelyn

Toronto

1997

Evelyn passed a hand over her rounded belly, then lowered herself onto the not-nearly-soft-enough subway seat. She’d accepted it. This baby was coming.

Yet fear still gripped her. For this child. For all the things that could go wrong. For Antony, when she’d be too tired to keep an eye on him while tending to the constant demands of a life whose existence relied solely on her, too tired to do what little she could to assure that, each night, he came back to her.

Evelyn raised her gaze to a woman pushing a stroller, shoulders drooped, eyes harried and vacant, but nodding thankfully at the passenger who rose from his seat to let her fall. That terrified her, too: the exhaustion that was to come. Last time, Violet had been there to help in the early months, neighbors and friends, as well.

Last time, she’d planned for it, wanted it, prepped their little brown house just outside of downtown Kingston as if she were a mother hen building her nest. Seeing that home in her mind’s eye—the chickens in the yard, the clothes on the line that dried nearly instantly any time of year—a wistful smile twitched her lips.

It hadn’t all been idyllic, but the good memories were the ones that surfaced. Casseroles showing up on the stoop in the last month of her pregnancy, and Violet, who came from her mountain village—speaking so fast and fluid Evelyn could barely understand her, despite her growing knowledge of patois—who’d been there, whether standing at the stove, wringing clothes before hanging them to dry, or washing all those cloth nappies.

In the hospital, too, she’d put a cool cloth to Evelyn’s brow, helped her through it.

Despite the sway of the subway, Evelyn was in that sterile room again, the fear so potent she felt frenzied, desperate, and kept forgetting to breathe as her body was torn in two.

Her labor had started calmly. Cramps that were more than mild, but bearable. In between them, she had time to go over her list of items to bring: extra clothes, sanitary napkins, laxatives—which made her wary—enough cloth diapers for a minimum of two days, cotton balls, and a mason bottle that she’d fill with boiled water to rinse off her nipple before each breastfeeding.

And then the contractions got stronger. Closer together. Not alarmingly so, but enough that it was clear she’d need to get moving long before Kingsley would be back from his exam. She considered calling the school, getting someone to find him—the exam hadn’t started yet—but labor took hours, days sometimes. He’d miss the test he’d been studying for for months, maybe have to do the whole class over. Most likely for nothing. Violet had come from the mountains a week early, in case the baby did, too, but she was off somewhere, visiting relatives, so Evelyn slung her hospital bag over her shoulder, slipped into her comfiest sandals, and made her way down the street to a neighbor who had three young ones of her own, but who she hoped would drive her to the hospital.

“It irie.” Cherry had smiled when they’d arrived at the hospital and the staff wouldn’t let her wheel Evelyn through the inner set of doors. “Trust, yuh hear? Everyt’ing going to be all right.”

Evelyn tried to smile, to trust as her friend walked away, leaving her on her own. A deep groan erupted as a porter wheeled her through doors and then more doors, the sound coming from a place within her she hadn’t known existed.

The sharp scent of bleach stung her nostrils as she was forced into a bed, pierced with a needle, connected to a drip. Nausea crushed upon her, weariness hazed her vision. The nurses told her it would be a long wait yet—six, maybe seven hours. That her husband’s exam would be done. That he’d be here, right by her side. That she should rest.

And then they were gone, too, and she wanted to tell them to stay but could barely speak. She rolled over, tried to sleep. Like firecrackers erupting through her pelvis and lower back, the contractions came harder and faster, the baby’s head pushing so that she felt certain she’d explode.

She screamed and a nurse’s head was between her legs, a yelp sounding from the end of the bed. Within moments, two more arrived, one of them turning Evelyn over, saying she’d rolled onto the drip and the medicine to induce contractions was flowing far faster than it should have, saying there was the baby’s head, and the doctor had left for dinner. Evelyn was screaming, the pain more than seemed possible. The nurses were yelling, trying not to, the sound of their voices like wind through a straw, telling her not to push, that “de doctor come soon.”

Then another voice shouting at the nurses. “Yuh be crazy, don’t yuh know a baby when yuh see it?” A hand gripping Evelyn’s, caressing her forehead, telling her, “Me here for yuh, girl. Me here, now. And it time to push.” Telling her she could do it. Violet’s eyes focused on hers. Violet’s voice calm. “Yuh can and yuh will.”

And afterward, Antony in Evelyn’s arms, Violet beside them—caring for the baby, caring for Evelyn, too, in the hours after she’d lost so much blood, she could hardly lift her head. In the weeks after, when they’d left the hospital and the days and nights blurred into one, Violet was there. Cooking food, cleaning house, walking or rocking the baby so Evelyn could steal precious moments to sleep or shower or relieve herself. Being the mother Evelyn had yearned for all these years. The mother she hadn’t realized how much she needed.

The subway slowed and Evelyn grabbed the railing at the announcement of her stop, hoisted herself to standing, glanced back at that wearied mother, then pressed through the doors.

She wished Violet were here now. When this baby came, Antony would be at school. Kingsley would be at work. Evelyn had no close friends, no family, and was a decade and a half older than she had been the first time. She felt her age in her muscles, her joints, her inability to bounce back from a restless night. How much worse it would all be with a baby in her arms. For over ten hours a day, every day, she would have to do it all on her own.