Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

I think we all believe, somewhere deep in our bones, that darkness is fickle and easily placated with small gifts. My favorite superstition is the one that says more

women deliver during a full moon than at any other time of the month. Transforming into mothers instead of wolves. Howling like wild things.

I didn’t know this then, but the truth is there’s no such thing as an uncomplicated pregnancy. We all give something up in exchange for our babies. Nearly everyone on this planet was welcomed by the sounds of a woman screaming.

How much more was I going to be expected to sacrifice to make this happen? I’d already given my body, my hormones, my time. And now, it seemed, my mind. And I wasn’t even pregnant yet.

The things that made you lucky could also be the things

that made you suffer. Io wished people would stop telling women they should be grateful for their suffering instead of trying to help them with it.

People who I’d thought were close friends had stopped calling and texting, had found other, more fun people to get dinner with. Some people couldn’t face the more intense parts of life.

Sometimes it felt like the continuation of our species was an ongoing experiment being performed on the backs of women. Or on our wombs.

If you leave your trash outside overnight, you don’t blame the bear who comes by and rips it open, drawn by the smell. You blame yourself.

“I’ve always hated how people separate women who want kids from women who don’t, like we’re two separate species. It’s infuriating how people insist on defining cis women’s entire lives by this one choice.”

The beach, I realized a moment later. I’d never told Emily that Talia’s house was on a private beach.

I stumbled back into the bedroom, wondering if a woman has ever calmed down after a man told her to.