Chapter Fourteen #7
Once it was dark again and night had fallen over Ilamanthe, Luana checked me one last time. When a host of doctors entered the room, one of them pushing in a clear incubator, I knew it was time to get this show on the road.
“The baby’s fully dropped. It’s time to push,” Mama said. “Let’s move you onto your side, Ava. It’ll be a better position for your spinal injury.”
So far, despite the frantic beginning, everything had seemed to progress smoothly. But this was the most complicated part, and the bit I was most worried about. Charlie helped my mom to turn me onto my left side, then she pulled my leg up before saying, “Charlie, come here.”
He moved closer, and she hooked his elbow underneath my right knee.
“Pull up gently on her leg. You need to widen that pelvis.” Mama smiled slightly, like what she’d said was an inside joke to herself.
She moved to place Charlie’s free hand at the right spot on my back, adjusting his arms so he could pull my leg up higher.
“Like this?” Charlie pushed down behind my hip, and though I couldn’t feel much, I sensed relieved pressure.
“Yes, just like that. You’re doing wonderful, Charlie.”
“Some praise for me would be nice,” I grunted.
Charlie didn’t respond to my joke, but remained focused as he continued to hold my leg and widen my hips. Throughout this whole labor, he’d moved to do whatever was needed, whenever he was asked without too many questions. Mama just showed him what to do, and he did it.
I hated that I was falling for him all over again. I wasn’t supposed to. I’d promised myself not to.
I did.
Luana was seated on a stool beside me. She ducked her head to prepare for delivery.
If her hands were on me, I didn’t feel it, but just witnessing the intensity of her features made this all too real.
I couldn’t watch. My eyes stung, worried that this was really happening and there was no turning back now.
I’d made so many terrible mistakes in my life. How was I going to be a decent mother?
Oberi saw my teary eyes and moved to the side of the bed beside Charlie. He pressed against the side of it. I grasped on to his fur, stroking his soft coat and trying to focus on the sensation of his hair instead of the all-encompassing demands of my body.
Oberi nosed at my arms, giving me a soft lick. Breathe. Charlie’s here.
My throat tightened. Had I just heard Oberi?
No. Couldn’t be. I was making it up. It was just the voices in my head that were messing with me.
Voices or not, they were right. If Charlie was here, I could get through it. I just had to look into his eyes and be reassured. He wouldn’t know I was gazing into them, so I could look all I wanted. Somehow, this would be okay.
“Go ahead and start pushing, Ava,” Mama encouraged. “It’s time.”
I tried, but I wasn’t sure if I was actually doing anything.
I didn’t feel any bodily sensations to start, just did what my mom said.
I could tell my body was starting to experience the blowback of labor, though.
I was growing exhausted, wanting to sleep more than anything else.
A part of me wished to give up and quit, though I knew that wasn’t an option.
I had to see this through, for myself and my child.
“Is the baby coming out?” I asked weakly. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up my feeble attempts at pushing.
“Yes. You’re doing very well,” Mama said. “It doesn’t look like we’ll have to use forceps. Keep going.”
Despite my body being so weary, I felt so strong.
The women of my tribe had gone through this ritual for thousands of years, and now I was joining them, becoming a part of something sacredly ancient.
I did my very best, falling into a trance as I pushed whenever my mother said to.
I had to— I couldn’t feel the contractions coming, so verbal commands were all I had.
I felt entirely grounded into my body, and was barely cognizant of the people rushing around me.
All I could focus on was the effort to keep pushing, the sensation of Oberi’s fur… and Charlie.
Though it was tough going. I’d been pushing for an hour, and yet, no baby.
“She’s getting tired, Charlie.” I heard my mom’s voice from somewhere far off. “You need to encourage her.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Charlie said, hugging my leg closer. “I’ve got you.”
“Do you?” I managed to breathe the words out. He’d let me down before, so who knew if he’d come through now, even after sticking with me through all of this?
“Of course I do. I’ll always catch you before you fall,” Charlie insisted. “We’re a team, right?”
We were. The best team that ever was, me and him. And the worst.
“The head’s out. You’re nearly there,” Mama coaxed. “Push one more time, Ava.”
I couldn’t. I was worn out and throwing in the towel. I didn’t care anymore if I died here, because I was so tired I felt like I would. I just wanted to close my eyes and rest. My mother slightly shook me, but I didn’t care.
“Come on, pidge,” I heard Charlie plead. “One more time.”
Pidge. I tried with everything I had left. Although I hadn’t registered any pain, my body instantly sagged into the mattress, as if it could sense the hardest part was done.
“He’s here,” Mama said.
He? I struggled to sit up from my laying position. Charlie noticed, and he carefully helped to maneuver me onto my back. Hoarsely, I asked, “It’s a boy?”
“Yes. A boy,” Mama said, but her voice wasn’t as joyful as I expected it to be. There was hesitation there.
Fear.
I expected the baby to be placed onto my chest, but nobody moved to do that. The room was too silent. I grew still. “Why… why isn’t he crying?”
Nobody answered. Charlie had gone stiller than the grave, stuck in a moment in time.
Luana was holding something, but it was so small I couldn’t see what it was. I knew it had to be my baby.
I reached out my arms for the child. I didn’t know why, until I realized that I was this child’s mother, and there was an instinctual reaction that if something was wrong with my baby, I could make it right, no matter what was wrong with them.
She didn’t put him into my arms, but instead, into the incubator. So many doctors and nurses were crowding around it, maneuvering tubes, calling for supplies. I saw the light of Luana’s healing magic and the crease between her eyes, trying to heal whatever was inside that glass dome.
He still didn’t cry.
The medical staff moved as a unit, whisking my baby out of the room before I even had a chance to see what he looked like.
My arms were still outstretched. They felt so… empty.
The rush of powerful feelings dampened and died, curling inward and curdling into sickness.
My child was yanked away from me, and I’d never get this moment back.
Whatever spring of new life that had arisen within my heart decayed into a cold and harsh wind.
I expected to experience a surge of love so strong, it made me feel like all other types of love were inadequate, that this was what I’d been waiting for my entire life.
I waited for the one thing that validated my existence and made living worthwhile.
After all, that’s what everyone had told me to expect from the experience of becoming a parent.
I felt nothing. People were poking and prodding at me, but I was dissociating so badly I couldn’t register what they were doing. I wished they would all leave me here to die.
“Get out of my way!” I heard Kallie yell as she entered the room, shouldering her way through doctors and nurses and refusing to let anyone stop her.
Charlie numbly stood in her way— Kallie pushed him aside, roughly shoving him into the wall like he was nothing more than an obstacle in her desperate path to get to me. “Ava! Are you okay?”
No. I wasn’t okay. This was my fault. I didn’t notice I was pregnant, and I didn’t get the right prenatal care.
This baby was born two months early because I’d been ignorant.
Now he might die, and his death would be on my hands.
I knew my whole life I’d be a terrible mother, and I was proving it on the first day of my child’s life.
The doctors knew it, too. They knew I was a monster that couldn’t be saved. That’s why they’d taken him from me as quickly as they could.
The truth was a poison, but one I eagerly drank all the same, because it was my penance. If this baby was going to stay alive, he had to be as safe as possible.
Which meant he needed to be kept far away from me.