Can You Feel This?

by Julie Orringer

It’s five in the morning; you’re on the toilet. Thirty-six weeks pregnant. A week before your scheduled C-section. Blood is trouble, the doctor said. Any blood means an emergency. Call Labor and Delivery. If it keeps up, get to the nearest emergency room.

Woah ok

What are the chances that’ll happen? you asked her. One hundred percent, she said. We don’t know when.

WHAT

Ky pulls off the FDR toward that hospital, the one where your mother was taken after they fished her body from the river. A flashing darkness closes in on you and blocks all light.

Omg

The nurse who tries to start your IV blows the vein. How this feels: a viper’s bite, then a whirlpool swallowing you down. The next nurse blows a vein in the other arm.

Lmfao thats terrible

More pulling. Then a feeling like unzipping. A feeling of being pried apart. A feeling like someone trying to extract a melon from inside your lower ribs. None of this hurts.

Thats insane

The air splinters into a soprano cry. Ky half stands. Looks over the drape. Oh my God, he says. Oh my God. Daddy, come and get the baby. Oh, man, Ky says. Oh, man. Our baby!

Yay

No one’s treating him like a premature baby. You do not question this. Your first mistake.

Uh

Is there something wrong? you ask. Is he OK? He’s lost six ounces, the nurse says. Six ounces? Is that bad? He needs to start eating, the nurse says. The lactation consultant will be in.

Damn

The lactation consultant swiftly and roughly applies him to your nipple. The baby struggles, wails. She repeats the process. The baby struggles, wails. Do it again, the lactation consultant says. Do it yourself. You try. The baby wails, growing frantic.

Im getting stressed

That baby’s not eating, the nurse says. I know. Eeeee. Want me to bring some formula? No.

Girl

The baby’s eyes open. You pull him in, and he falls wide-mouthed onto your nipple. A muscle in his cheek leaps and leaps. A feeling commences in your breast. A sense of being gently and exquisitely pulled inside out. That’s it, the woman says. Now he’s doing it. Then she leaves, closing the door behind her.

Yay

You hold a pencil, stunned to think you could write anything on those lines. first name: Farquhar. Peregrine. Phatman. Spinkerton. Constantinople. Che.

What

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. He wipes sweat from his forehead with the towel you bled on four days ago.

Omg

It is, of course, rush hour. GPS directs you to that bridge. As you cross it, you fall straight back to that moment.

Omg of her mom

Other cars swerve around your car as your mother moves toward the railing. What are you doing, you say. I’m doing what I came to do, she says. Come down, you say. Come down.

Omg

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.

Omg