Chapter 21
when bette had a month left in her second pregnancy, Sam began running, his skinny legs pumping every time he saw an expanse of sidewalk or grass in front of him.
He had only learned to walk three months earlier and now he could propel himself forward at top speed, make tight turns around trees or garden beds, duck under low branches that Bette had to sweep aside with her hand.
He was just fast enough to outrun her if she was caught off guard, if he had a half-second head start, and then she would be left scrambling, trying to shift her huge, bloated body from stasis to sprint.
So far, she had caught him only because she had lunged forward, because he had slowed down when a Canada goose honked loudly only six feet away, because he had stopped to watch an old lady walking with a cane.
This time, though, she had turned to look at a pile of sui choy at the produce market on Gore Avenue in Chinatown, and the park across the street was too much for Sam to resist. He took off, darting through a gap in traffic as Bette dropped the two heads of cabbage she was carrying on the sidewalk.
She pushed off with her right foot and tried to run, lumbering forward.
As Sam ran a circle around a wooden bench where two old men were placidly feeding the pigeons, Bette stumbled, her ankle twisting on the curb.
She put out her hands, tried to right her body so that she would fall on all fours, but she was already twisting to the left and her belly was so big and so distended that she knew, before it even happened, that she was going to land stomach first. Not just stomach first but baby first. Her baby, now so big that the protective layer of fluid around her was only millimetres thick.
Bette’s entire body was stretched so thin.
When she rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes, she saw the low grey clouds that she hated most, the ones that pushed down on her like a suffocation if she looked up too long or let her eyes relax until it was all just a heavy, oppressive blur.
Bette placed one hand on her belly and the other between her legs, checking for fluid, blood, wet tissue that should never be exposed to air.
She felt the cotton of her dress, the thinner cotton of her underwear, the warmth of her inner thighs. It was okay. Was it all okay?
She ran both hands over her belly one more time, downward from under her breasts to her belly button. There was a gap that hadn’t been there before, an inch-thick tear running vertically down the entire length of her stomach. A chasm. She was being split in half.
Panicking, Bette sat up and stared down at her body. She pressed two fingers into the gap and could feel the muscles underneath the skin, the fibres of flesh edging the newly opened space. Was her uterus pushing against the air? Was her baby poking her elbow, her heel toward the light?
No, she could feel that nothing was oozing out, that her baby was still suspended in her amniotic fluid, that she was still a whole baby waiting to be born. But Bette could feel something else instead.
All her life, Bette had never spoken a word about how Auntie and Uncle treated her, or about the way she imagined her dead mother walking beside her, or about that time William had burst into the bathroom when she was in the tub and pushed her head under the water, the sound of his laughter thankfully subdued by the inches of soapy water.
When he let her go, she sputtered and gasped and, without thinking, pushed him into the sharp edge of the sink.
William staggered back, then lunged forward again, hands reaching for her face.
If Sam hadn’t begun crying right then on the other side of the door, she was sure he would have drowned her.
These were the things she had never complained about, that she had kept hidden deep inside her body.
But now she was cracked open and she didn’t know what might emerge, hungry for oxygen, hungry for an audience.
She could be harbouring a demon inside for all she knew, a raging monster who wanted revenge.
Or sympathy. Except no one ever wants to listen to white-hot anger, to a woman with hatred in her eyes, to the tightly coiled bitterness released by a woman the world had never noticed before, a woman who may very well be her mother.
She felt a small hand on her shoulder and it was Sam, standing beside her, his face streaked with tears. One of the old men held his other hand. “I brought him across the street, miss, and he’s all right. Do you need an ambulance? I can phone from one of the stores.”
Bette nodded yes and then said, “But I don’t know if they can fix the evil I keep inside.” She clamped a hand over her mouth as the old man frowned in confusion. “Sorry, I’m just not myself. Thank you for your help.”
As he hurried away toward the curio shop on the corner, Sam crawled into her lap and placed his ear against her belly.
The cars drove past, arcing around them, and Bette wondered if they were headed to their respective homes, the kind of homes where everything was soft and safe and flowers bloomed in the garden. And then she was angry yet again.
her water broke ten hours later in the middle of the night, as she was walking to Sam’s crib, his cries like a kitten’s in the silence.
It was a release, an exhalation, a gush of fluid that was also everything she had been harbouring for the last few years: her fear, her worries about money and the house and how they could afford the extra food another child would eventually eat.
What remained was a deep relief, because she knew that this baby, which she had been imagining as a little girl, would be her last. With two, and at least one a boy, there was nothing else she wanted.
A third wouldn’t be worth the beer-scented rage that William would fly into.
As the sun rose through the hospital room window, Bette began pushing, alone with a nurse who kept shouting, “Deep breath in! Five short breaths out!” As the nurse noisily blew air into Bette’s face, a fast heat spread through her swollen, shaking body, a burning that was eating at every layer of muscle, fat, skin.
With her right hand, she punched the nurse in the chest.
It was at that moment, as the nurse coughed wet, shuddering coughs, that Bette felt the baby burst through, a crowning so violent, she swore she was being pulled inside out or skinned like a rabbit in one long torturous motion. “The baby,” she gasped, “the baby is here.”
The nurse stumbled forward and stared between Bette’s legs. “Fuck, we need a doctor now.” She ran to the phone mounted on the wall. “Baby crowning in 207! Where is Dr. Farber?”
But it was too late. As the nurse came back to the bed, she could only hold out her hands and catch the baby as she slid into her arms, streaked with blood and white vernix.
When the doctor arrived, the baby, a girl of course, was already lying on Bette’s chest, eyes open, searching her mother’s face.
For what, Bette didn’t know, but she whispered, “I am here. You found me.”
Just then, Dr. Farber reached out to stroke the baby’s fine cap of black hair, and Bette slapped his hand away, his disgusting hand with its gnarled knuckles and thick gold wedding band, the same hand that had touched a hundred women in a hundred ways and then touched his wife at night.
“Get away from her,” Bette hissed, and the doctor yelped in surprise.
The nurse stepped forward with a cup of water and shook her head. “Labour and delivery made this one very angry.”
Oh, but she didn’t know that the anger had been building for years. It was just that Bette—broken open and now the mother of a little girl the world would try its best to destroy—could no longer keep the rage a secret.
when bette was younger , others (those who noticed her, that is) might have thought that she didn’t observe things, that she walked through life stolid and contained, and only saw the tasks ahead of her. Left foot, right foot. Wash, rinse, then dry. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But the truth was that Bette saw everything, dissecting every movement and every word for what she might have to do to fix a problem or maintain someone’s happiness.
This was essential with Wen, Mei, and Bo, even with Auntie and Uncle sometimes; Bette used to sense that they were overtired and on an edge and one seemingly inconsequential breath could topple them over.
But it was never more important than when she was married to William, when Sam and Judy were small, unpredictable tornadoes.
Bette had to be alert. She had to sleep lightly. She had to stay on guard.
She watched as William always dropped the fattest chicken drumstick onto Sam’s plate and then didn’t look at what he was giving to Judy.
She listened as William told Sam he could be anything he wanted, as long as he didn’t let white men grind him down.
“You have to stand up for yourself,” he said, pulling his son up from a cross-legged position and tapping his back so he would stand straighter.
“They will find every excuse to destroy you.” This afternoon, when Judy toddled over to see what game was being played, William said to her, “Be a good girl and get out of the way. Sam and I are going to practise jumping jacks to get strong.” And then he pushed her to the side so that she stood against the wall, feet together, heels digging into where a baseboard would be, if they’d had that kind of house.
Bette listened for a cry of protest, but Judy remained quiet and still.
She was being a good girl, and Bette felt the scream growing in her own belly, clawing at her throat.
She swallowed. Control, that was what was important.