Born, Still

Sophie and I didn’t mind Jake as much as some of the other men who had passed through our door before him. He was nice to us and he made enough money from his motorcycle repair shop to support us and even upgraded our lifestyle by a few degrees. There was the house and the school; then Sophie and I got our first new bikes since we were little when our dad had gotten us each one for Christmas. The bikes Jake got for us were better, more expensive bikes then the ones our dad had given us, but they weren’t our favorite colors. Sophie’s was a pink Huffy with a banana seat, a shiny, chrome back bar, and silver and gold tassels off the handgrips. Mine was a Huffy, too, but it was a green 10-speed. I had always wanted a 10-speed and was grateful to get one, but our dad had known what our favorite colors were.

My mom was pregnant within the first few months of their marriage. She seemed so happy. She cut down on smoking, had only one cocktail per day, ate nutritional foods. Her condition seemed to have the opposite effect on Jake. He grew quiet and nervous, spent a lot of time smoking out in the back yard, drank coolers full of beer, even stayed out all night a couple of times without calling. Then they screamed at each other until Mom’s crippling rants would force him to succumb, pledging never to do it again.
When my mom found out she was going to have a boy, she started buying boy everything. At about the same time, Sophie came down with the measles and I soon followed. Our condition grew rather serious and lasted over two weeks. We had measles everywhere, even inside our mouths, and our eyes were too sensitive to be exposed to any light. We stayed locked inside our room and kept it very dark, our mom avoiding us for fear of contaminating the baby.
We needed water. I called through the door for ten minutes asking Mom or Jake to bring it to us. Sophie was burning up.

“OK. Just hold your horses; I’ll get Jake,” my mom called to me from down the hall. “Jake, get in here and get the girls some water!” she called from the window. He was in the back yard smoking. “Jake, you hear me?” she called again. “Jane, he can’t hear me. I’m getting my boots on; I’ll get him,” she yelled. I went to the window and saw him standing at the far end of the yard by the fence. I unlatched the lock and pushed open the window.
“Jake!” I yelled as loud as I could. My voice was too hoarse; he didn’t hear me. I leaned out the window as far as I could. I saw the back door open and my mom step out. The cold air bit my nose.

“Jake!” I shouted again, louder. He turned and looked at me. My mom slipped on a slick patch of ice just outside the back door and fell forward directly onto her stomach. She screamed. Jake ran. Her skirt had flipped up and she was curled on her side clutching her middle, the bottom of her oversized underpants facing me. A gush of liquid burst from between her legs, soaking the cotton and the ground beneath her. She moaned. I screamed. Jake lifted her off the ground and carried her into the house. I ran from my room to the kitchen.

“Get back to your room!” Jake shouted when he saw me. He laid my mother gently on the floor and dialed 911. I ran back into my room, slammed the door, collapsed against it and sobbed. Sophie began crying too, asking what happened. I heard the ambulance come, saw the red lights flash across the snow. I heard them carry my mom out and listened as they pulled away. The house fell silent.

When she gave birth to a soundless, motionless baby boy, the astonishing pain thwarted all zeal for living and wrapped her in a dense gloom. She named her lifeless baby Samuel. His small, flaccid body was cremated and presented to her in a small, bronze urn.

Jake did what he could to soothe her, but to no favorable end. She wept often, carried around Samuel’s ashes, and stayed permanently in bed for months to follow. When Sophie and I started in our new school, I discovered that my homeroom teacher, Sister Angela, had also been a teacher at the school my mom attended growing up. My mom’s reputation, particularly with Sister Angela, cast me in a less-than-flattering light to start out in. Apparently, my mother had gotten into a physical altercation with Sister Angela while in her charge; she said something inappropriate, to which the nun responded by slapping her across the face. My mom promptly slapped the nun back, landing a solid smack along the side of her head before being physically restrained and prevented from striking her again.

On my first day back to school after the death of my baby brother, Sister Angela set me in front of the class and asked me to tell the story of the tragedy that had befallen my family and further provide an explanation of how it related to the sermon we had all heard in mass on Sunday. My family never attended mass, and Sister Angela knew as much. Sitting in a chair in front of the entire class, I felt my bladder expand and bulge while my hands began to sweat and my mouth turned my tongue into a sticky kind of cotton. All the eyes fixed to my face were lasers penetrating my mind and incinerating all coherent thoughts.

“I was supposed to have a baby brother.” I said, almost too softly for even myself to hear. I don’t know how much time passed before my next barely audible utterance: “We had him cremated.”

A few gasps escaped some of the kids and I saw some mouths drop open and stay open before I realized I had said something very wrong. Hot embarrassment rose lava-like up my neck and face and my hands were damp against my lap.

“The Catholic Church is seriously considering cremation as an acceptable alternative to traditional burials now,” Sister Angela offered, addressing the class. I burst from my chair and flew out of the classroom into the hall. Sister Angela was right behind me, catching up to me and grabbing me by the elbow as I headed away. She whirled me around and thrust my head into her, my face smashed sideways against her bosom and her large hands tangled in my hair, holding me there in a confusing, perverse embrace.
During the weeks and months that followed, Jake had been fighting with my mom so much that he got himself an apartment away from us. He was there only about half the time, retreating to it only after a fight with my mom, which took place about once a week.

When I tried to give my mother the measles, it’s as if my life had been spent in a state of simmering. With my skin red and hot to the touch, I sought out vengeance. History is like water, how on the sandy bottom, black objects like holes, magnified four times their size, move and mash in slow shapes. A closer look, just shadows, quivering reflections. If there had ever been a plan for us, this was part of it. I will write what happened exactly as it happened.

A little over three months after Samuel was born and died, I confronted my mother. I came home from school and found the house a wreck, just like every other day. This time it made me angry.

“What if I wanted to bring a friend from school over?” I spoke out loud to the empty room. I found her in her usual place―lying in bed with the covers pulled over her head.

“Mom, I need to talk to you.”

No answer.

“MOM!”

The covers flew off and she bolted upright, hair wild, eyes bloodshot, glaring at me.


“What, goddammit?”

“Get up and help me clean this house!”

“Jane, I don’t need this right now.”

She lay down and started pulling the covers back over her. I walked in and ripped them off the bed.

“You can’t keep doing this! You have to move on!” I felt hotness spread across my neck and face. She stared at me.

“You can try again. You can still have a baby with Jake if that’s what you want. But you’re never going to have anything like this!” I gestured at the disaster area around me. “And I can’t keep doing everything for you! I have to concentrate on school now. It’s important!”

“Oh, Jane!” she shouted, and started crying, “If you and Sophie hadn’t gotten the measles while I was pregnant—”

“Don’t!” I cut her off. She stared at me accusingly, her wild eyes swimming in a red, streaked face framed by a tangled nest of hair.

I walked out, slamming the door behind me.