The Other Side (20 page)

Sometimes I dream we are having a civilized conversation. I am writing at my favorite coffee shop, or at an outdoor café, or I am turning the pages of a magazine under an umbrella on the beach. I hear a voice say,
I thought that was you
, and he sits down. In this dream he talks and talks, waving a hand in his usual way. He's moved on, he says. He's moved
far far away. It's such a reassuring thing to hear. I almost forget to feel afraid.

It's two in the morning and I'm shaking. My Husband is the only person in the hospital room and I have no words. I'm trying to communicate to him that I want to escape. I want him to help me crawl out of my skin.
Help me. Up. Out. Help. Out
.

The anesthesiologist is on his way. He's taking his sweet time. Maybe he is listening to headphones and nodding to the nurses in the hall.
How you doin'
. I want to tear my face off. I want to use My Husband as a footstool, to climb him and hang from the ceiling, which seems like a safer place to ride this out than in the bed.

Suddenly: a rupture. A little relief from the pressure. But just when I start panting and clawing and growling, the anesthesiologist comes sauntering in. He barks at me:
Sit up. Lean over. Hold still
. One gloved hand holds my shoulder—latex smell, condom smell—the other pushes a needle into my back.

The body goes thrashing. The father of my child, gray-faced and sweating, a deer caught in headlights. He smiles
a polite smile. The body breathes and bears down. Breathes and bears down. The body opens its mouth and a sound flies out. One of the nurses pushes the code-blue button on the wall—
click
—and while I am screaming and bearing down hard enough to leave myself with two black eyes, every nurse and doctor on the floor rushes the room. A nurse mounts the bed, climbs on top of me, and pushes downward on my belly with the heels of both hands until our daughter tears through me. One doctor cuts the cord without a word, and another carries her body away.

The mind listens for the cough, the wail, the first undrowning breath. But there is only silence. Only the stretch of time. Not even all these arms can hold it in.

I open my eyes. My Husband stands motionless, staring out the door. People I've never seen before tell me I've done a great job.

Where is my baby?

The doctor explains in a calm voice that the baby is fine. He says the words
shoulder dystocia
and
intensive care
. I don't understand him.
Where is my baby?
I'm trying to climb out of the bed to find the baby I am certain is dead. The nurses hold me down, tell me to stay put.
Where is my baby?
The doctor says they are checking her to make sure everything is fine.
She is fine
. I don't believe him.
Is she dead? Did she
die? The baby is fine
, he says. He is smiling and washing his hands. A nurse wipes between my legs, still in the stirrups, with a rough towel, swabs me with iodine, begins stitching me back together.
Where is my baby?
I am shaking—the pain and terror passing through me in waves. My Husband smoothes back my hair, runs his thumbs across my cheeks, wet with sweat and tears. He smiles a reassuring smile. The doctor says everything is fine.

I am allowed a drink of water. I close my eyes and rest my head on the pillow. While the nurse stitches the wound that is gaping and open, I am trying to stitch the mind back into the body. The door opens, and a nurse enters, carrying something in her arms. She places it beside me in the bed: the baby, bruised and breathing.

In the story I have told myself about how this would go, about how the baby will make everything better, I know this child instantly; I see her face and the past falls away. Life starts over at this moment, with this child I have always known.

But now that I am looking into her face, I don't feel anything at all.

It's morning, seven years after the kidnapping, and I'm closing the door to her room for the third time today, afraid to let it catch.
Sleep while the baby sleeps
, that's what everyone
tells me. As if I've never heard that before. As if it's that simple. My daughter has never been a good sleeper, and today she's at her worst. I need sleep more than I need to finish grading my students' writing assignments, more than I need to finish my dissertation, or eat breakfast, or shower, or get dressed. But if I move from where I am standing with this doorknob in my hand she might wake up and hours might pass before she sleeps again. Maybe I could sleep standing this way: frozen for a long, long time.

I let go of the knob—
click
—she coughs, stirs, howls. White-hot sparks shoot through each exhausted limb, my hands contract into fists. Maybe I could leave her here. Take the keys and trudge through the snow to sleep in the car at the end of the driveway, far from the reach of sound or care. I don't care. I could climb to the roof's edge and fall headfirst. No child has ever died of crying. The ladder hangs from the far wall of the garage.

I lift her shrieking body from the crib and lay her down on the terry-cloth changing pad. I watch myself from the safe distance: wrestling the naked child out of and back into her clothes, brushing a slice of greasy hair out of my face, the pajamas hanging dankly from my shoulders and hips. I observe her. I observe myself. I prop her body against my chest, her head lolling forward against my neck. Her breath like milk. She bawls into that nook as we shuffle toward the window.

Outside, snow blankets the full reach of each tree's branches, the minivan in my neighbors' driveway, the shut
mouth of their black iron mailbox, our gutterless street. A single brown bird shoots from the hedge. With my free hand, I open the window. The cold air blows in. Her cries multiply; I shut out the sound. Her face purples, ajar. I feel nothing as her velvet crown slides into the crook of my elbow, rooting for me. Always rooting. She bites once, hard, as we lean into the rocking chair's curve, wedged between this moment and another.

Dad tells only one story about me, his middle child, a toddler, found pecking the buttons on the television console with a fat, sticky finger. He scolds me, tells me to stop. I ignore him, keep pushing the buttons, switching the channel each time. He raises his voice, and I ignore that, too. He smacks my outstretched hand.
Hard
, he says.
But you don't cry or wince or turn away. You set your jaw, raise your hand, keep pushing that button
.

Mom reminds me how, when I was a teenager and arguing with her every day, she started putting this hex on me:
When you grow up and have children I hope one of them is exactly like you
.

I think now that maybe that hex came through: If I tell my daughter to stop jumping on the bed, she climbs onto the dresser. If I ask her to behave while I take an important call, she throws a tantrum before drawing a beard on her
face with a red permanent marker. If I tell her to pick up her toys in the kitchen, she empties a box of cereal on the floor. I might put her in time out, or yell until I'm blue in the face. She does not cry or wince or turn away.

It makes me furious. I want her to behave, even just a little. But she fights me about which shoes to wear, which bowl to use for cereal. She fights me about which clothes she'll wear and ruin. She fights me about the punishment she gets for fighting me. She can't win these arguments, because no matter how big and loud and strong she gets, I can always get bigger, louder, stronger. I want her to be a little afraid of me.
It's the only way to break her
, I think.
This defiant, fearless child
. And it's all I want right now: to break her. Just a little.