Can You Feel This?

by Julie Orringer

You’d never worn your trauma like a badge. It was something you carried alone.

he was, it seemed to you, honorable, a person who didn’t cheat and didn’t lie, came home when he said he would, took care of you when you were sick,

When you found out about placenta previa, when you understood that your baby could die, it felt like punishment for your years of untruth.

Everything, you understand, will threaten the baby’s life forever. Somehow you have to survive this. There ought to be a sign on top of this car, Ky says. DRIVING NEWBORN HOME. STAY THE FUCK AWAY.

You don’t say you hate her for all she’s done and hasn’t done. But for a moment you think it. And that’s when she goes.

A family at home. You, Ky, the baby. Everything else still unknown. Somehow you have to do it. Somehow you have to survive.