Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

All mothers have one thing in common: pain.

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.

“Just trust the process, dear.”

The picture in your head feels like the truth, even if it’s

a lie.

The most important thing is that you’re desperate.

Some people couldn’t face the more intense parts of life.

“You know how, in old fairy tales, the women are always having to make some horrible exchange to get pregnant? I keep thinking about what I would exchange. Or I guess, what I wouldn’t exchange. And the answer is nothing. I would pay any price if it meant I got to be a mother.”

Always women, never the same one twice.